Breathe
Title: Breathe
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Werewolf!Eliot, Eliot/OMC, pre-Nate/Eliot/Sophie
Verse: Phases of the Moon
Summary: He's standing at the door, wondering how he got here, and just telling himself to breathe.
Notes: For the Domestic Abuse: Physical square on my H/c bingo card.
Warnings: Deals with and contains mildly graphic scenes of domestic abuse.\
Breathe.
He took a breath, quieting the noise inside his head, quieting the wolf’s whimpers, quieting the part of him that wanted to whimper with it.
He glanced backwards, listening out of habit, hand resting on the door knob.
Another breath in and he forced his eyes back front and he opened the door, stepping through, hearing it shut behind him.
Breathe.
He wasn’t sure how he got here.
It had started… how had it started?
Was it the night after they got back from the county fair when Jacob was waiting for him outside his apartment building with a grin and confidence that Eliot wouldn’t say no when he asked to come inside?
Was it when they first met jogging or when Eliot had first smelled him on the roof of Nate’s building?
Or was it in Nowhere Land Middle America when he made a gambit to save Parker’s life and nearly lost his own in the process?
Had that one event really meant he’d end up here or had he taken a wrong turn somewhere?
Since when did he believe in fate?
Breathe.
It had seemed like fate when he first met Jacob. Every fiber of his changing body had sung with a sensation he had no name for when Jacob had shown up, running next to him with the same easy grace and power only werewolves could muster.
He’d touched Eliot’s shoulder and the wolf in him had nearly taken hold with just the sheer force of needpackalphahome.
Jacob had been a lone wolf, but one ready to settle down. Boston had no pack, it was why he’d come there in the first place, and with Eliot as his Beta Jacob had been sure they could build a pack that would be a force to be reckoned with.
Eliot told him he couldn’t leave his team, his family, that they worked to help people and depended on him for safety and his Wolf was just as protective of him as he was.
Jacob had told him that was alright, that he could respect, even admire, that Eliot had taken on such a noble cause and wouldn’t want to get in the way of that. Eliot could do whatever he needed to do to protect his team and, if he did become Jacob’s beta, when they built a pack the pack would adopt his family. Even if something were to happen to him they would protect his family for him.
He hadn’t agreed then, hadn’t been willing to be claimed, hadn’t been willing to bond with an alpha, to submit.
But time had worn him down, time spent walking through the world never knowing fully what was going on in his head or body and what would trigger his instincts next.
Time spent feeling alone no matter how close the team was.
And then the fair had happened.
He’d come back and Jacob had been waiting for him at his apartment.
He’d let Jacob inside and they’d talked. They’d laughed.
And it had felt so fucking right.
Late that night, when they’d drunk a bottle of Jack between them and it was late enough Jacob either had to leave or crash on his sofa, Jacob had put his hand on Eliot’s shoulder.
They had gone silent and the air shifted and Jacob had asked him if he’d thought about the offer. He’d let his hand move to cup Eliot’s cheek, gentle in a way that caught Eliot off guard.
He was used to it being rough and tumble, especially the times he’d been with guys. When you lived like he did and played the character he did and slept with the people he did you expected it rough. He liked it that way.
But Jacob had been so careful, so gentle, offering a single chaste kiss that promised so much more.
Eliot hadn’t known how to respond at first.
“I promise to guide you on our path, to protect you from the storm, and keep you close to my heart, no matter where we may run.” The words were old, echoing of tradition, of languages that died long before the two of them had been born, and a magic of a kind that flowed through their veins.
The wolf inside of him howled in response, pushing him to respond, driving him closer to Jacob.
And he was so tired of fighting this.
He had lowered his eyes and cocked his head to the side, showing his neck.
He knew the bite that followed should have hurt, but it didn’t.
It had felt too right, too much like fate, too much like everything would be okay, for the pain to even register.
Breathe.
That was how it had started.
Sex had followed. The kind he was used to, though the improved stamina of werewolves
apparently applied to much more than just being able to run longer distances.
He’d woken up in the morning, worn out, loose limbed, tired in the best ways.
And in Jacob’s arms.
That was new.
And the feeling like he was safe…
That was something he didn’t know what to do with.
So he’d gotten up and made breakfast.
Breathe, turn on the car, drive.
At first it had it had seemed so natural, so easy.
He’d get up and make breakfast for two, chat with Jacob, and they’d leave. Jacob would head off to his job and Eliot would head into Nate’s. They’d do their usual in between business, doing recon or working on aliases or whatever. He’d stay his usual time and head home. If they were doing a job he’d do whatever part he had to and hang around if he might be needed.
Sometimes he’d call Jacob when he got home and he’d make dinner for two. Sometimes Jacob would call and Eliot would eat dinner alone before heading out to meet him somewhere.
Sometimes they’d end the night together at one of their apartments. Sometimes they’d go their separate ways.
But it always felt *right*, always settled the wolf in his mind, settled his nerves.
They never went a day without seeing each other, Nate hadn’t taken any jobs outside of Boston since Eliot had been turned.
Find a place to park.
Things had been so easy. So natural.
Two weeks after he and Jacob got together the team finished a second job pretty late in the evening. Added to that Eliot had taken a couple more knocks than usual and their post job celebration turning into a movie night while Hardison tried to correct the ‘utter tragedy’ that was Parker having never seen The Princess Bride and by the time Eliot got home he went straight to bed.
The next night Jacob was waiting for him when he got back to his apartment.
The anger from the normally mellow werewolf caught him off guard.
How much it scared his wolf knocked him off balance.
He let them inside the apartment, already getting chewed out by Jacob for not calling, for worrying him, for not thinking of how Jacob felt, wondering if Eliot had made it through the job alive.
Eliot had smirked, trying to settle his upset Alpha, getting halfway through a jokeing remark about being hard to kill when Jacob smacked him across the face.
The force of the blow sent him stumbling back, a werewolf not holding back could put more force into a slap than any thug could put into a roundhouse kick, half crashing into the kitchen counter.
The wolf whimpered, pulling for him to back down, tuck his tail between his legs, show his throat, submit to his alpha and hope it would placate him. The force of the bond they’d established, the force of an alpha’s will over their beta, all but forced him to his knees, pain radiating out from his chest like the fact his alpha was angry at him was enough to cause pain.
What they hell had he gotten himself into?
Then as suddenly as the blow had come Jacob was there, in front of him, remorse written across his face, apologizing. He half babbled words about worrying, about being upset, about being sorry.
Jacob helped him stand and find a seat, got him an ice pack despite Eliot’s protests that he didn’t need one (he was a werewolf too, the blow may have been enough to crack a human’s cheekbone but he wasn’t human anymore), and a cold beer. Jacob buzzed about, putting on a football game, insisting on trying to make dinner for once, still spluttering apologies.
Eliot recognized a pattern he’d seen before. The anger, the blow, the quick and flustered apology.
He wasn’t stupid.
But it was just once. Just one smack that wasn’t even enough to leave a bruise. They were both physical people and Jacob couldn’t possibly have had the training Eliot had to keep his temper under control.
And Eliot didn’t want to give this up if this was just a fluke. He’d had worse from partners than just a slap, it was always rough, and he wasn’t ready to go back to the way he’d been living before.
If he was honest with himself he knew his wolf had been breaking under the strain of being a lone wolf so long and probably wouldn’t survive going back to that this soon.
And if he was really honest with himself he knew he wouldn’t survive it much better.
He had stayed.
Turn off the car, get out, lock it. Ignore the stares.
It was that night that Jacob had suggested they go hunting over the full moon.
It was the next day he’d told the team he’d found an alpha. He knew they already knew but he couldn’t pretend otherwise forever.
And maybe it was him trying to convince himself he was making the right choice.
The trip into the wild had been…
Looking back he couldn’t quite put into words what it had been like. Driving for hours into the middle of nowhere, leaving the truck and all their stuff at the end of some one lane dirt road and leaving the path, running through the forest at a speed no human could match until they were so deep into the woods they couldn’t even smell the road, so deep they couldn’t smell even a trace of humans.
Then waiting for night to come.
Jacob had held him as the sun went down, telling him that changes would get easier the longer he was a wolf. Never easy. But easier. They were harder for Eliot than most because he’d been turned so late in life unlike Jacob who’d been turned as a teen or those born into a pack.
They ran together through the night, hunting and playing and running just for the sake of feeling the wind in their fur and miles disappearing underfoot and having that whole world to explore.
They woke up in a heap after dawn.
And despite the pain of the change Eliot couldn’t wait for night to fall.
Breathe. Let yourself in with your key.
It had been hard coming back to the city, leaving behind the forest, but Jacob promised to take him back there every full moon.
The wolf was quiet in Eliot’s head then. Not quiet just… faded. Somewhere in the wild he felt like he’d finally started to connect with the wolf, to recognize it not as a separate entity, but a part of himself. It made his instincts stronger, but it made him feel stronger as well. Like he was a werewolf, and not a human mind trapped in a werewolf’s body.
He’d finally started to accept the change on a different level.
Two days later he got the stuffing knocked out of him on the job, proving guys with baseball bats could in fact get enough force to bruise a werewolf.
Even if the bruises would heal quickly he was still sore and tired.
When Jacob called, telling Eliot to meet him for dinner and to bring an overnight bag Eliot told him no.
He was tired. He was hurting. He knew his body needed rest. He’d explained that to Jacob.
Jacob had shown up at his apartment four hours later, pounding on the door, waking Eliot up from much needed sleep.
Eliot let him in, surprised and somewhat horrified to discover it wasn’t the wolf in his head cowering before a pissed off alpha.
It was him trying his best not to give into the desire to do just that.
He made the mistake of telling Jacob to calm down.
The blow to the face was only a little surprising.
The kick to the ribs knocked him off his feet.
Adrinalin and instincts shot through him, the wolf and the wolf part of his mind overriding him. He pulled away, didn’t fight back, curling around himself to try to protect himself from serious damage as blows kept coming.
He had heard Jacob speaking, but not processed the words. Heard him rant about privileges, about giving him freedom, about letting him live his own life and Eliot just taking more and more.
When darkness started to edge around his vision he let himself go still, faking unconsciousness while trying to get his body back under his own control, trying to process what the hell had happened and ignore the part of his mind screaming ‘told you so’ and mocking him for letting himself become a victim.
The blows stopped but hands dragged him upright and teeth bit into the crook of his neck, Jacob reclaiming him.
He knew it shouldn’t have hurt much compared to the rest of his injuries.
But it did.
Climb the stairs.
Jacob had trashed the kitchen before leaving, before Eliot could force himself to move to try to…
He didn’t even know what.
The last time hadn’t been a fluke. Hadn’t been an accident.
Jacob had just shown he was capable of beating him until he passed out and leaving and Eliot knew with the bond between an Alpha and Beta like this he was literally unable to fight back. He knew this pattern, he knew it would only get worse, and he knew better than to live in denial that none of that was true.
If he stayed with Jacob now he wouldn’t be a victim.
And as much as he hated the word he’d rather leave a victim than stay and be a knowing volunteer.
He got up and left the apartment, unwilling to face the ruin that had been made of his kitchen and life in general. Nate’s place had stuff he could clean himself up with.
And maybe if the others saw him like this they’d know to stop him from doing something stupid. They always tried to but into his life after all.
Why not for his own good for once?
If it weren’t for his bruised ribs he would have laughed at that thought. He was already mentally mocking himself for getting into this mess.
He went to the empty apartment he’d turned into a training studio, patching himself up, only mildly surprised when Parker showed up.
She’d promised not to tell Sophie and Nate, no doubt ever showing on her face that he would take care of this himself if he hadn’t already.
He told himself in the morning he’d call Jacob and tell him they were done.
But even as he felt Parker checking him for broken ribs Eliot could hear his inner wolf telling him to wait a few days, try to find someplace safe to go, someone safe to go to, and then leave Jacob.
He had a few days, even a few weeks if he was careful, to figure out what to do next.
Stop. Don’t keep going up the stairs. Go down this hallway.
In the morning Jacob called his cell, apologizing again.
Eliot came back home to find his apartment had been cleaned, the broken bits from his kitchen replaced or at least gone, and Jacob there cooking his favorite breakfast.
He explained he’d been upset, that Eliot had been abusing the free reign that Jacob had been giving him, that he was sorry for losing it but it was time Eliot started to learn what it meant to be a beta.
Eliot had nodded along, smiling and mouthing the right words, planning in his head how to get away, how to get out, but leaning into the gentle touches Jacob gave him unconsciously.
Jacob moved the conversation on and somehow it was suddenly like nothing had happened.
They were talking again and laughing again and the wolf felt safe and Eliot told himself he had to leave.
He wouldn’t be a volunteer.
That day he got Hardison to give him the number for his hacker friend.
It was three days before he forced himself to call her and ask her how to break the bond between him and Jacob.
She had told him about The Beta’s Choice.
She had told him it was as simple and difficult as walking away.
The next day he’d met Jacob for dinner and told him they were through, that he was leaving, that he wasn’t going to voluntarily be Jacob’s victim.
As he’d walked away Jacob had followed him, calling after him.
Eliot hadn’t let himself hear, hadn’t let himself heed it, forced down the bile in his throat and the way the wolf and his own mind were screaming, feeling like he was cutting off a part of himself with a blunt blade.
“So you’re willing to go back to the way you were when I met you? A stray dog? Lonely? Lost? No one you care about understanding what you’re going through? You’re a beta Eliot, you won’t last alone.” He stopped, almost against his will. Jacob catching up, putting a hand on his shoulder, thumb pressing against the mark on his neck. “And don’t think you’ll find someone else who’ll be more understanding. A beta’s place is by his alpha. I was being nice letting you go off with that team of yours. I thought it was cute you were trying to do good, make up for all the lives you’ve taken.” His breath left in a hiss of surprise. He’d been telling Jacob more and more but he’d never talked about his past that much. “I know. I can smell the blood on you still. You stink of human deaths. But you’re trying to change and I was willing to allow it. But you keep abusing the privileges I give you. You’re never around to help me build a pack.” The thumb pressed harder. “If you find any other alphas I promise you they won’t be as understanding as I’ve been.”
Eliot forced a breath to enter and leave his body and he took a step forward, making himself break away from Jacob.
As simple and as difficult as just walking away.
“Go home.” Jacob told him. “Think about just what you’re willing to give up.”
Breathe. Knock. Louder. They can’t hear like you can.
He’d gone home.
He’d promised himself he’d walk away and fucking keep walking next time.
At three in the morning Jacob let himself into the apartment.
Eliot had told him to leave.
Jacob had told him to be quiet, that he had just come to be with Eliot, to show him it didn’t have to be painful.
Later Eliot wouldn’t even know if he’d given consent to the sex they’d had willingly or because the wolf in his head was running scared and Jacob was hitting him and Eliot’s goal had been to get them to a point he could walk away.
He just knew it was something he wasn’t going to think about later, shove it into the back of his mind with all the other times he’d been under duress and had done things he wasn’t proud of.
He did know that after Jacob’s breath slowed and he dropped into deep sleep Eliot had slid out from the hold that no longer made him feel absurdly, ridiculously, safe, pulled on a pair of jeans, grabbed a shirt and his keys, and forced himself to walk out the door.
Someone was coming.
The door opened and Nate was there, looking like he’d been sleeping.
It was late, probably past four. Eliot could smell dawn in the air.
Nate looked at him, probably seeing the ragged expression, the mismatched clothing not even quite reaching basic necessities, the complete lack of shoes that hadn’t even registered to Eliot until now, the bruises peaking out over the collar and around his wrist.
“Come in.” Nate said. “Just tell me that you’re not going back this time.”
Eliot could have laughed. Nate knew. Of course Nate knew.
But no sound came out of his mouth.
A hand settled on his shoulder, guiding him in, leading him to the kitchen, to sit down on a stool.
Nate moved somewhere behind him, making tea from the smells and sounds but Eliot couldn’t make himself care.
Minutes passed and a warm mug of tea was placed into his hands and Nate entered his line of vision. “Did you take the Choice?”
Eliot took a drink from the tea, grounding himself in the present, pushing away the chaos of his human mind rejecting this scenario and the noise of the wolf part of his brain. “Don’t know.” He mumbled. “I waited for him ta be sleeping before walking away.”
Nate nodded, glancing back over his clothes before shaking his head. “Parker stole some of your clothes after you went back to him last time. I’ve got them in a bag upstairs if you want to change.”
It was a sign that he’d been working with Parker too long that he hadn’t even noticed a set of clothes going missing. She regularly stole stuff from them, giving it back when asked or putting it back when she stole something else.
Eliot nodded mutely, heading up the stairs and following Nate’s direction to his closet.
He could hear Nate on his cell downstairs, probably calling the others, probably saying ‘lets go steal us an Eliot’ or something disgusting like that.
He took a shower before changing, feeling the need to wash Jacob off him before letting the others see him.
And maybe he took the chance to stand there under the water and just let it beat down on him until it drowned out everything else he was feeling.
When he got back downstairs Hardison and Parker were already there.
Neither said anything. Hardison kept working on something on his laptop, Parker picking her locks.
Somehow the normalness made him feel a little better despite the tension in the room.
Like they were waiting for something to explode.
He half wondered if Parker had a Taser hidden in her box of locks and plans to use it on him if he made a move to leave.
The fact he wouldn’t put it past her shouldn’t have put a smile on his face.
Nate handed him the mug of tea back (reheated from the feel of it) and told him to sit on a stool and take it easy, gently questioning him about his injuries and what had happened in the past few hours.
Gently like he was questioning a client.
Eliot answered some of his questions, mostly about his injuries, ignoring the ones he didn’t want to answer. The ones he wouldn’t think about to answer.
For once Nate didn’t pressure him.
Hardison broke his silence to bring up the alarm. “He’s here. Nate. Jacob just let himself in the back door. He’s heading up.”
Fuck.
Nate’s hand settled on his shoulder. “Easy. We’ve got you. We’re not letting you go back with him.”
Tense seconds passed and then the door was opening and Jacob was walking in, anger and ire and wild, his eyes bright gold, taking in the space and focusing on Eliot. “It’s not nice to sneak off like that.” The wolf cringed back and Eliot winced. “I’m here to take you home.”
“He is home.” Nate stated firmly. “He’s not going anywhere with you.”
Jacob gave a barking laugh. “A beta’s home is wherever his alpha is. That’s me. You’re just his team, his co workers, the friends I let him have out of sufferance. You have no claim over him.”
“We knew him first.” Parker said almost growling like she was trying to make herself wolflike. She stood, moving to place herself between Jacob and Eliot. “You tried to steal him. And that’s my job. Not yours.”
“And we’re more than a team.” Hardison said as he moved to stand beside Parker. “We’re a family.”
“We’re pack.” Sophie said, slipping into the room from behind Jacob, her voice ice cold defensive. She walked in between Parker and Hardison, standing next to Nate behind Eliot, putting a hand on his other shoulder. “We” She paused a beat for emphasis. “Are Eliot’s pack.”
Eliot felt his breath leave in a rush, the wolf, and his brain, and everywhere they had mixed stopping, focusing, entire world narrowing to the hands on his shoulders and the man standing at the door.
“Eliot is my beta.” Nate said, the words bouncing around his skull, the feel of old magic hissing through his blood.
“Eliot is our beta.” Sophie said in turn, the hand not on his shoulder moving to take Nate’s, signaling they were the pack’s Alpha pair.
Jacob laughed but there was a note of hysterics in it. “You… you’re human. You can’t be his pack or his alphas. Besides. He’s still mine. Unless you want to challenge me for him th-“
Eliot stood, walking forward, passing Parker and Hardison as they parted to let him through.
He stood, just inches from Jacob, looking up to meet those blue and gold eyes with his own. “This is my pack Jacob, my home. You are not welcome here.”
He turned around and took a step back to Nate and Sophie and something inside him snapped.
He dropped forward to his knees, gasping for breath at the resurgence of the lostcoldalone feeling, as every bruise on his body shouted for his attention, as his wolf shrieked in sudden pain of severing the connection.
Then hands were on his shoulders again, helping him to his feet, Nate quietly, calmly speaking the old pact. “I promise to guide you on our path, to protect you from the storm, and keep you close to my heart, no matter where we may run.”
He locked eyes with Nate, nodding, letting out a shaky breath, almost turning when he felt breath against his neck but keeping still, letting Sophie place a single, gentle, kiss over the mark Jacob had left just days ago before moving to make a claim of her own.
It hurt a little, but in a way he needed that, needed it to be different. Needed it to feel like something.
His body felt like it was humming, his senses exploding outward and falling inward, hyperaware of the others, of his pack, but at the same time no more than before. There was a moment of brutal clarity when he realized they had always been his pack, even before he’d been a werewolf. That they were safe around him when he changed because they had been there during that first change and his wolf had learned their smells, introduced to them as pack. Sophie and Nate had been protecting him however they could like alphas even as he protected the team.
They had always been his pack, his wolf had just been waiting for them to stake their claim.
Sophie stepped away and back, smiling at him before sliding an arm around his waist, closing the distance between them. Nate stood on his other side, arm settling around his shoulders, fingers brushing the mark Sophie had just made sending a jolt down Eliot’s spine.
With Parker and Hardison moving to stand with them they turned to where Jacob was just beginning to push himself back to his feet, the aftershock of losing a beta just beginning to wear off.
“Go away Jacob.” Nate said in that voice that held no doubt it would be obeyed. “You have three days to leave Boston and never return. This is our city, home of our pack. If you stay you’ll find we can be… territorial.”
“If Eliot so much as sees you…” Sophie added, her voice trailing off but the threat implicit on her voice.
Jacob’s expression was a mix of shock, disbelief, and growing horror as he looked between them. It seemed to be starting to sink in that his now ex beta had a pack that had him outnumbered and looked quite ready to take revenge to the injury done to their beta.
Eliot wondered if the stories he’d heard as a human about the beta being the member of the pack for whom all the others had the strongest protective instinct for were true and if Jacob didn’t quite realize his pack was made of humans with different instincts. Then again the air in the room told him perhaps not too different.
Disentangling himself from Nate and Sophie, a feat he’d never really thought he’d have to attempt before today, Eliot took a step forward. He took a breath, letting the wolf guide him, gathering the strength of everything that had been, everything that had driven him from Jacob back to the team, through the choice.
“Jacob.” He said, his voice humming with the same old magic that formed and broke their bonds. “Leave this place. Never come back.”
Wordlessly Jacob turned, walking out of the apartment in an almost daze as the power that had been used and abused on Eliot was turned back around, giving him the ability to send his former alpha away.
He let out a breath, the apartment still and silent, his insides twisted into some painful sort of knot that it would take time to acknowledge and process and deal with.
But a hand settled on each of his shoulders and Parker and Hardison stood together somewhere behind him and it felt like everything. The abuse, the love that came before it, the fair where things hurt, the changes he’d been through, the night everything changed, that job in nowherevill America where they’d gone to save a bunch of orphans and runaways with a pack mentality, and another job long before that in Chicago that should have been a walkaway but wasn’t…
It felt like it had all led him here, to this apartment, to this moment, to these hands on his shoulders, to this feeling that even though everything had changed he would always have this pack, this family.
And, for a moment, he closed his eyes and just breathed.
Author: Magpie
Rating: pg-13
Genre: Werewolf!Eliot, Eliot/OMC, pre-Nate/Eliot/Sophie
Verse: Phases of the Moon
Summary: He's standing at the door, wondering how he got here, and just telling himself to breathe.
Notes: For the Domestic Abuse: Physical square on my H/c bingo card.
Warnings: Deals with and contains mildly graphic scenes of domestic abuse.\
Breathe.
He took a breath, quieting the noise inside his head, quieting the wolf’s whimpers, quieting the part of him that wanted to whimper with it.
He glanced backwards, listening out of habit, hand resting on the door knob.
Another breath in and he forced his eyes back front and he opened the door, stepping through, hearing it shut behind him.
Breathe.
He wasn’t sure how he got here.
It had started… how had it started?
Was it the night after they got back from the county fair when Jacob was waiting for him outside his apartment building with a grin and confidence that Eliot wouldn’t say no when he asked to come inside?
Was it when they first met jogging or when Eliot had first smelled him on the roof of Nate’s building?
Or was it in Nowhere Land Middle America when he made a gambit to save Parker’s life and nearly lost his own in the process?
Had that one event really meant he’d end up here or had he taken a wrong turn somewhere?
Since when did he believe in fate?
Breathe.
It had seemed like fate when he first met Jacob. Every fiber of his changing body had sung with a sensation he had no name for when Jacob had shown up, running next to him with the same easy grace and power only werewolves could muster.
He’d touched Eliot’s shoulder and the wolf in him had nearly taken hold with just the sheer force of needpackalphahome.
Jacob had been a lone wolf, but one ready to settle down. Boston had no pack, it was why he’d come there in the first place, and with Eliot as his Beta Jacob had been sure they could build a pack that would be a force to be reckoned with.
Eliot told him he couldn’t leave his team, his family, that they worked to help people and depended on him for safety and his Wolf was just as protective of him as he was.
Jacob had told him that was alright, that he could respect, even admire, that Eliot had taken on such a noble cause and wouldn’t want to get in the way of that. Eliot could do whatever he needed to do to protect his team and, if he did become Jacob’s beta, when they built a pack the pack would adopt his family. Even if something were to happen to him they would protect his family for him.
He hadn’t agreed then, hadn’t been willing to be claimed, hadn’t been willing to bond with an alpha, to submit.
But time had worn him down, time spent walking through the world never knowing fully what was going on in his head or body and what would trigger his instincts next.
Time spent feeling alone no matter how close the team was.
And then the fair had happened.
He’d come back and Jacob had been waiting for him at his apartment.
He’d let Jacob inside and they’d talked. They’d laughed.
And it had felt so fucking right.
Late that night, when they’d drunk a bottle of Jack between them and it was late enough Jacob either had to leave or crash on his sofa, Jacob had put his hand on Eliot’s shoulder.
They had gone silent and the air shifted and Jacob had asked him if he’d thought about the offer. He’d let his hand move to cup Eliot’s cheek, gentle in a way that caught Eliot off guard.
He was used to it being rough and tumble, especially the times he’d been with guys. When you lived like he did and played the character he did and slept with the people he did you expected it rough. He liked it that way.
But Jacob had been so careful, so gentle, offering a single chaste kiss that promised so much more.
Eliot hadn’t known how to respond at first.
“I promise to guide you on our path, to protect you from the storm, and keep you close to my heart, no matter where we may run.” The words were old, echoing of tradition, of languages that died long before the two of them had been born, and a magic of a kind that flowed through their veins.
The wolf inside of him howled in response, pushing him to respond, driving him closer to Jacob.
And he was so tired of fighting this.
He had lowered his eyes and cocked his head to the side, showing his neck.
He knew the bite that followed should have hurt, but it didn’t.
It had felt too right, too much like fate, too much like everything would be okay, for the pain to even register.
Breathe.
That was how it had started.
Sex had followed. The kind he was used to, though the improved stamina of werewolves
apparently applied to much more than just being able to run longer distances.
He’d woken up in the morning, worn out, loose limbed, tired in the best ways.
And in Jacob’s arms.
That was new.
And the feeling like he was safe…
That was something he didn’t know what to do with.
So he’d gotten up and made breakfast.
Breathe, turn on the car, drive.
At first it had it had seemed so natural, so easy.
He’d get up and make breakfast for two, chat with Jacob, and they’d leave. Jacob would head off to his job and Eliot would head into Nate’s. They’d do their usual in between business, doing recon or working on aliases or whatever. He’d stay his usual time and head home. If they were doing a job he’d do whatever part he had to and hang around if he might be needed.
Sometimes he’d call Jacob when he got home and he’d make dinner for two. Sometimes Jacob would call and Eliot would eat dinner alone before heading out to meet him somewhere.
Sometimes they’d end the night together at one of their apartments. Sometimes they’d go their separate ways.
But it always felt *right*, always settled the wolf in his mind, settled his nerves.
They never went a day without seeing each other, Nate hadn’t taken any jobs outside of Boston since Eliot had been turned.
Find a place to park.
Things had been so easy. So natural.
Two weeks after he and Jacob got together the team finished a second job pretty late in the evening. Added to that Eliot had taken a couple more knocks than usual and their post job celebration turning into a movie night while Hardison tried to correct the ‘utter tragedy’ that was Parker having never seen The Princess Bride and by the time Eliot got home he went straight to bed.
The next night Jacob was waiting for him when he got back to his apartment.
The anger from the normally mellow werewolf caught him off guard.
How much it scared his wolf knocked him off balance.
He let them inside the apartment, already getting chewed out by Jacob for not calling, for worrying him, for not thinking of how Jacob felt, wondering if Eliot had made it through the job alive.
Eliot had smirked, trying to settle his upset Alpha, getting halfway through a jokeing remark about being hard to kill when Jacob smacked him across the face.
The force of the blow sent him stumbling back, a werewolf not holding back could put more force into a slap than any thug could put into a roundhouse kick, half crashing into the kitchen counter.
The wolf whimpered, pulling for him to back down, tuck his tail between his legs, show his throat, submit to his alpha and hope it would placate him. The force of the bond they’d established, the force of an alpha’s will over their beta, all but forced him to his knees, pain radiating out from his chest like the fact his alpha was angry at him was enough to cause pain.
What they hell had he gotten himself into?
Then as suddenly as the blow had come Jacob was there, in front of him, remorse written across his face, apologizing. He half babbled words about worrying, about being upset, about being sorry.
Jacob helped him stand and find a seat, got him an ice pack despite Eliot’s protests that he didn’t need one (he was a werewolf too, the blow may have been enough to crack a human’s cheekbone but he wasn’t human anymore), and a cold beer. Jacob buzzed about, putting on a football game, insisting on trying to make dinner for once, still spluttering apologies.
Eliot recognized a pattern he’d seen before. The anger, the blow, the quick and flustered apology.
He wasn’t stupid.
But it was just once. Just one smack that wasn’t even enough to leave a bruise. They were both physical people and Jacob couldn’t possibly have had the training Eliot had to keep his temper under control.
And Eliot didn’t want to give this up if this was just a fluke. He’d had worse from partners than just a slap, it was always rough, and he wasn’t ready to go back to the way he’d been living before.
If he was honest with himself he knew his wolf had been breaking under the strain of being a lone wolf so long and probably wouldn’t survive going back to that this soon.
And if he was really honest with himself he knew he wouldn’t survive it much better.
He had stayed.
Turn off the car, get out, lock it. Ignore the stares.
It was that night that Jacob had suggested they go hunting over the full moon.
It was the next day he’d told the team he’d found an alpha. He knew they already knew but he couldn’t pretend otherwise forever.
And maybe it was him trying to convince himself he was making the right choice.
The trip into the wild had been…
Looking back he couldn’t quite put into words what it had been like. Driving for hours into the middle of nowhere, leaving the truck and all their stuff at the end of some one lane dirt road and leaving the path, running through the forest at a speed no human could match until they were so deep into the woods they couldn’t even smell the road, so deep they couldn’t smell even a trace of humans.
Then waiting for night to come.
Jacob had held him as the sun went down, telling him that changes would get easier the longer he was a wolf. Never easy. But easier. They were harder for Eliot than most because he’d been turned so late in life unlike Jacob who’d been turned as a teen or those born into a pack.
They ran together through the night, hunting and playing and running just for the sake of feeling the wind in their fur and miles disappearing underfoot and having that whole world to explore.
They woke up in a heap after dawn.
And despite the pain of the change Eliot couldn’t wait for night to fall.
Breathe. Let yourself in with your key.
It had been hard coming back to the city, leaving behind the forest, but Jacob promised to take him back there every full moon.
The wolf was quiet in Eliot’s head then. Not quiet just… faded. Somewhere in the wild he felt like he’d finally started to connect with the wolf, to recognize it not as a separate entity, but a part of himself. It made his instincts stronger, but it made him feel stronger as well. Like he was a werewolf, and not a human mind trapped in a werewolf’s body.
He’d finally started to accept the change on a different level.
Two days later he got the stuffing knocked out of him on the job, proving guys with baseball bats could in fact get enough force to bruise a werewolf.
Even if the bruises would heal quickly he was still sore and tired.
When Jacob called, telling Eliot to meet him for dinner and to bring an overnight bag Eliot told him no.
He was tired. He was hurting. He knew his body needed rest. He’d explained that to Jacob.
Jacob had shown up at his apartment four hours later, pounding on the door, waking Eliot up from much needed sleep.
Eliot let him in, surprised and somewhat horrified to discover it wasn’t the wolf in his head cowering before a pissed off alpha.
It was him trying his best not to give into the desire to do just that.
He made the mistake of telling Jacob to calm down.
The blow to the face was only a little surprising.
The kick to the ribs knocked him off his feet.
Adrinalin and instincts shot through him, the wolf and the wolf part of his mind overriding him. He pulled away, didn’t fight back, curling around himself to try to protect himself from serious damage as blows kept coming.
He had heard Jacob speaking, but not processed the words. Heard him rant about privileges, about giving him freedom, about letting him live his own life and Eliot just taking more and more.
When darkness started to edge around his vision he let himself go still, faking unconsciousness while trying to get his body back under his own control, trying to process what the hell had happened and ignore the part of his mind screaming ‘told you so’ and mocking him for letting himself become a victim.
The blows stopped but hands dragged him upright and teeth bit into the crook of his neck, Jacob reclaiming him.
He knew it shouldn’t have hurt much compared to the rest of his injuries.
But it did.
Climb the stairs.
Jacob had trashed the kitchen before leaving, before Eliot could force himself to move to try to…
He didn’t even know what.
The last time hadn’t been a fluke. Hadn’t been an accident.
Jacob had just shown he was capable of beating him until he passed out and leaving and Eliot knew with the bond between an Alpha and Beta like this he was literally unable to fight back. He knew this pattern, he knew it would only get worse, and he knew better than to live in denial that none of that was true.
If he stayed with Jacob now he wouldn’t be a victim.
And as much as he hated the word he’d rather leave a victim than stay and be a knowing volunteer.
He got up and left the apartment, unwilling to face the ruin that had been made of his kitchen and life in general. Nate’s place had stuff he could clean himself up with.
And maybe if the others saw him like this they’d know to stop him from doing something stupid. They always tried to but into his life after all.
Why not for his own good for once?
If it weren’t for his bruised ribs he would have laughed at that thought. He was already mentally mocking himself for getting into this mess.
He went to the empty apartment he’d turned into a training studio, patching himself up, only mildly surprised when Parker showed up.
She’d promised not to tell Sophie and Nate, no doubt ever showing on her face that he would take care of this himself if he hadn’t already.
He told himself in the morning he’d call Jacob and tell him they were done.
But even as he felt Parker checking him for broken ribs Eliot could hear his inner wolf telling him to wait a few days, try to find someplace safe to go, someone safe to go to, and then leave Jacob.
He had a few days, even a few weeks if he was careful, to figure out what to do next.
Stop. Don’t keep going up the stairs. Go down this hallway.
In the morning Jacob called his cell, apologizing again.
Eliot came back home to find his apartment had been cleaned, the broken bits from his kitchen replaced or at least gone, and Jacob there cooking his favorite breakfast.
He explained he’d been upset, that Eliot had been abusing the free reign that Jacob had been giving him, that he was sorry for losing it but it was time Eliot started to learn what it meant to be a beta.
Eliot had nodded along, smiling and mouthing the right words, planning in his head how to get away, how to get out, but leaning into the gentle touches Jacob gave him unconsciously.
Jacob moved the conversation on and somehow it was suddenly like nothing had happened.
They were talking again and laughing again and the wolf felt safe and Eliot told himself he had to leave.
He wouldn’t be a volunteer.
That day he got Hardison to give him the number for his hacker friend.
It was three days before he forced himself to call her and ask her how to break the bond between him and Jacob.
She had told him about The Beta’s Choice.
She had told him it was as simple and difficult as walking away.
The next day he’d met Jacob for dinner and told him they were through, that he was leaving, that he wasn’t going to voluntarily be Jacob’s victim.
As he’d walked away Jacob had followed him, calling after him.
Eliot hadn’t let himself hear, hadn’t let himself heed it, forced down the bile in his throat and the way the wolf and his own mind were screaming, feeling like he was cutting off a part of himself with a blunt blade.
“So you’re willing to go back to the way you were when I met you? A stray dog? Lonely? Lost? No one you care about understanding what you’re going through? You’re a beta Eliot, you won’t last alone.” He stopped, almost against his will. Jacob catching up, putting a hand on his shoulder, thumb pressing against the mark on his neck. “And don’t think you’ll find someone else who’ll be more understanding. A beta’s place is by his alpha. I was being nice letting you go off with that team of yours. I thought it was cute you were trying to do good, make up for all the lives you’ve taken.” His breath left in a hiss of surprise. He’d been telling Jacob more and more but he’d never talked about his past that much. “I know. I can smell the blood on you still. You stink of human deaths. But you’re trying to change and I was willing to allow it. But you keep abusing the privileges I give you. You’re never around to help me build a pack.” The thumb pressed harder. “If you find any other alphas I promise you they won’t be as understanding as I’ve been.”
Eliot forced a breath to enter and leave his body and he took a step forward, making himself break away from Jacob.
As simple and as difficult as just walking away.
“Go home.” Jacob told him. “Think about just what you’re willing to give up.”
Breathe. Knock. Louder. They can’t hear like you can.
He’d gone home.
He’d promised himself he’d walk away and fucking keep walking next time.
At three in the morning Jacob let himself into the apartment.
Eliot had told him to leave.
Jacob had told him to be quiet, that he had just come to be with Eliot, to show him it didn’t have to be painful.
Later Eliot wouldn’t even know if he’d given consent to the sex they’d had willingly or because the wolf in his head was running scared and Jacob was hitting him and Eliot’s goal had been to get them to a point he could walk away.
He just knew it was something he wasn’t going to think about later, shove it into the back of his mind with all the other times he’d been under duress and had done things he wasn’t proud of.
He did know that after Jacob’s breath slowed and he dropped into deep sleep Eliot had slid out from the hold that no longer made him feel absurdly, ridiculously, safe, pulled on a pair of jeans, grabbed a shirt and his keys, and forced himself to walk out the door.
Someone was coming.
The door opened and Nate was there, looking like he’d been sleeping.
It was late, probably past four. Eliot could smell dawn in the air.
Nate looked at him, probably seeing the ragged expression, the mismatched clothing not even quite reaching basic necessities, the complete lack of shoes that hadn’t even registered to Eliot until now, the bruises peaking out over the collar and around his wrist.
“Come in.” Nate said. “Just tell me that you’re not going back this time.”
Eliot could have laughed. Nate knew. Of course Nate knew.
But no sound came out of his mouth.
A hand settled on his shoulder, guiding him in, leading him to the kitchen, to sit down on a stool.
Nate moved somewhere behind him, making tea from the smells and sounds but Eliot couldn’t make himself care.
Minutes passed and a warm mug of tea was placed into his hands and Nate entered his line of vision. “Did you take the Choice?”
Eliot took a drink from the tea, grounding himself in the present, pushing away the chaos of his human mind rejecting this scenario and the noise of the wolf part of his brain. “Don’t know.” He mumbled. “I waited for him ta be sleeping before walking away.”
Nate nodded, glancing back over his clothes before shaking his head. “Parker stole some of your clothes after you went back to him last time. I’ve got them in a bag upstairs if you want to change.”
It was a sign that he’d been working with Parker too long that he hadn’t even noticed a set of clothes going missing. She regularly stole stuff from them, giving it back when asked or putting it back when she stole something else.
Eliot nodded mutely, heading up the stairs and following Nate’s direction to his closet.
He could hear Nate on his cell downstairs, probably calling the others, probably saying ‘lets go steal us an Eliot’ or something disgusting like that.
He took a shower before changing, feeling the need to wash Jacob off him before letting the others see him.
And maybe he took the chance to stand there under the water and just let it beat down on him until it drowned out everything else he was feeling.
When he got back downstairs Hardison and Parker were already there.
Neither said anything. Hardison kept working on something on his laptop, Parker picking her locks.
Somehow the normalness made him feel a little better despite the tension in the room.
Like they were waiting for something to explode.
He half wondered if Parker had a Taser hidden in her box of locks and plans to use it on him if he made a move to leave.
The fact he wouldn’t put it past her shouldn’t have put a smile on his face.
Nate handed him the mug of tea back (reheated from the feel of it) and told him to sit on a stool and take it easy, gently questioning him about his injuries and what had happened in the past few hours.
Gently like he was questioning a client.
Eliot answered some of his questions, mostly about his injuries, ignoring the ones he didn’t want to answer. The ones he wouldn’t think about to answer.
For once Nate didn’t pressure him.
Hardison broke his silence to bring up the alarm. “He’s here. Nate. Jacob just let himself in the back door. He’s heading up.”
Fuck.
Nate’s hand settled on his shoulder. “Easy. We’ve got you. We’re not letting you go back with him.”
Tense seconds passed and then the door was opening and Jacob was walking in, anger and ire and wild, his eyes bright gold, taking in the space and focusing on Eliot. “It’s not nice to sneak off like that.” The wolf cringed back and Eliot winced. “I’m here to take you home.”
“He is home.” Nate stated firmly. “He’s not going anywhere with you.”
Jacob gave a barking laugh. “A beta’s home is wherever his alpha is. That’s me. You’re just his team, his co workers, the friends I let him have out of sufferance. You have no claim over him.”
“We knew him first.” Parker said almost growling like she was trying to make herself wolflike. She stood, moving to place herself between Jacob and Eliot. “You tried to steal him. And that’s my job. Not yours.”
“And we’re more than a team.” Hardison said as he moved to stand beside Parker. “We’re a family.”
“We’re pack.” Sophie said, slipping into the room from behind Jacob, her voice ice cold defensive. She walked in between Parker and Hardison, standing next to Nate behind Eliot, putting a hand on his other shoulder. “We” She paused a beat for emphasis. “Are Eliot’s pack.”
Eliot felt his breath leave in a rush, the wolf, and his brain, and everywhere they had mixed stopping, focusing, entire world narrowing to the hands on his shoulders and the man standing at the door.
“Eliot is my beta.” Nate said, the words bouncing around his skull, the feel of old magic hissing through his blood.
“Eliot is our beta.” Sophie said in turn, the hand not on his shoulder moving to take Nate’s, signaling they were the pack’s Alpha pair.
Jacob laughed but there was a note of hysterics in it. “You… you’re human. You can’t be his pack or his alphas. Besides. He’s still mine. Unless you want to challenge me for him th-“
Eliot stood, walking forward, passing Parker and Hardison as they parted to let him through.
He stood, just inches from Jacob, looking up to meet those blue and gold eyes with his own. “This is my pack Jacob, my home. You are not welcome here.”
He turned around and took a step back to Nate and Sophie and something inside him snapped.
He dropped forward to his knees, gasping for breath at the resurgence of the lostcoldalone feeling, as every bruise on his body shouted for his attention, as his wolf shrieked in sudden pain of severing the connection.
Then hands were on his shoulders again, helping him to his feet, Nate quietly, calmly speaking the old pact. “I promise to guide you on our path, to protect you from the storm, and keep you close to my heart, no matter where we may run.”
He locked eyes with Nate, nodding, letting out a shaky breath, almost turning when he felt breath against his neck but keeping still, letting Sophie place a single, gentle, kiss over the mark Jacob had left just days ago before moving to make a claim of her own.
It hurt a little, but in a way he needed that, needed it to be different. Needed it to feel like something.
His body felt like it was humming, his senses exploding outward and falling inward, hyperaware of the others, of his pack, but at the same time no more than before. There was a moment of brutal clarity when he realized they had always been his pack, even before he’d been a werewolf. That they were safe around him when he changed because they had been there during that first change and his wolf had learned their smells, introduced to them as pack. Sophie and Nate had been protecting him however they could like alphas even as he protected the team.
They had always been his pack, his wolf had just been waiting for them to stake their claim.
Sophie stepped away and back, smiling at him before sliding an arm around his waist, closing the distance between them. Nate stood on his other side, arm settling around his shoulders, fingers brushing the mark Sophie had just made sending a jolt down Eliot’s spine.
With Parker and Hardison moving to stand with them they turned to where Jacob was just beginning to push himself back to his feet, the aftershock of losing a beta just beginning to wear off.
“Go away Jacob.” Nate said in that voice that held no doubt it would be obeyed. “You have three days to leave Boston and never return. This is our city, home of our pack. If you stay you’ll find we can be… territorial.”
“If Eliot so much as sees you…” Sophie added, her voice trailing off but the threat implicit on her voice.
Jacob’s expression was a mix of shock, disbelief, and growing horror as he looked between them. It seemed to be starting to sink in that his now ex beta had a pack that had him outnumbered and looked quite ready to take revenge to the injury done to their beta.
Eliot wondered if the stories he’d heard as a human about the beta being the member of the pack for whom all the others had the strongest protective instinct for were true and if Jacob didn’t quite realize his pack was made of humans with different instincts. Then again the air in the room told him perhaps not too different.
Disentangling himself from Nate and Sophie, a feat he’d never really thought he’d have to attempt before today, Eliot took a step forward. He took a breath, letting the wolf guide him, gathering the strength of everything that had been, everything that had driven him from Jacob back to the team, through the choice.
“Jacob.” He said, his voice humming with the same old magic that formed and broke their bonds. “Leave this place. Never come back.”
Wordlessly Jacob turned, walking out of the apartment in an almost daze as the power that had been used and abused on Eliot was turned back around, giving him the ability to send his former alpha away.
He let out a breath, the apartment still and silent, his insides twisted into some painful sort of knot that it would take time to acknowledge and process and deal with.
But a hand settled on each of his shoulders and Parker and Hardison stood together somewhere behind him and it felt like everything. The abuse, the love that came before it, the fair where things hurt, the changes he’d been through, the night everything changed, that job in nowherevill America where they’d gone to save a bunch of orphans and runaways with a pack mentality, and another job long before that in Chicago that should have been a walkaway but wasn’t…
It felt like it had all led him here, to this apartment, to this moment, to these hands on his shoulders, to this feeling that even though everything had changed he would always have this pack, this family.
And, for a moment, he closed his eyes and just breathed.