Chains . The Losers . One-Shot . Shifter!Verse
Author: Faithunbreakable/ pprfaith
Title: Chains
Series: Shifter!Verse. Prequel to Here Be Dragons, set after There Are Wolves, White Noise and Bultungin. Use the tag, svp.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Wolves are not made for cages.
Warning: Language. Thanks, Roque.
Disclaimer: I do not own.
A/N: Written for tigriswolf, who asked for the Losers coming together and an outsider's PoV on Jensen being himself. Sorry it took so long. No beta, sorry. Tell me if I missed anything glaring?
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Chains
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Wolves are not made for cages.
Wolves are not made for prison cells.
Wolves are not made for being trapped.
Roque has been all of the above for the past five days.
He stopped thinking in the singular at the end of day one. The wolf tried to take over, to muscle in and howl his rage into the world, throw himself bodily against the bars. To rend something until it’s nothing but meat.
Pooch has been shifting in and out, slipping from one shape to the other like water, the fucker. They don’t like him showing off, don’t like being shown up by one ranking below them in the pack. It makes their skin itch.
Clay has been talking to them in a low murmur for days, calming them down, keeping them grounded. Keeping them in skin, not fur.
Slowly, that, too, is losing its effect. Soon, wolf will rip through. Soon, wolf will be free. Soon, none will be safe.
“Roque,” Clay snaps, a flash of teeth and dominance, “Keep it the fuck together, soldier. Shifting now is not going to help. Think of the pain,” he orders, alpha in the timbre of his voice. “Think of the toll.”
The toll. Pain. Agony. Crippling exhaustion. Roque’s shift is not smooth like water, it’s a breaking, a tearing, a destroying. Roque changing is like mountains moving. It exhausts them both, man and monster, leaves them empty.
They won’t be able to fight if their captors come back.
The wolf whimpers in remembered pain, pulls back an inch, two, three. Roque exhales, even as he hates himself for his weakness. Being wolf is supposed to make you strong, not weak.
Outside, the sound of large wings flapping echoes through the empty night. They’re on the fifth floor. Nothing but birds visits them here.
Roque would prefer torture to this room, at this point in time. Roque would prefer anything to this room, at this point. Wolf claws at his own prison of skin and bone, agreeing.
Yes.
The bird alights on the narrow ledge beyond the bars of their one, tiny, high-set window, wings spread for balance. It’s some sort of eagle, reddish brown. It looks tasty. It looks like something native to the desert, not the motherfucking Brazilian wilderness, full of damn trees and druglords.
The eagle shuffles to one side, then the other, caws once, low and mournful.
“That is not a bird,” Pooch observes, naked and human where, a second ago, he was anything but. Roque is not above glowering at the born.
The eagle caws again, raises one of its clawed feet, presents them with… a cell phone?
It sticks its foot through the bars, releases its burden and hobbles a bit backwards on the ledge. Pooch dives for the phone before Clay can tell him not to. Roque snarls at the bird, feels his alpha’s arm wrap around his neck from behind, like a steel band, just in time to keep him from losing his shit and attacking. Not that he’d get very far, what with them being locked up like puppies in a pound. The bird eyes him, gaze yellow and remote.
Challenging.
They will bite its head off and eat it!
“Uhm, boss?”
“What?”
“There’s a number programmed into that phone. I think someone wants us to call them.”
The eagle makes a sound that somehow conveys scorn, amusement and annoyance at the exact same time. The human side of Roque takes a moment to be impressed. The wolf uses his distraction to seize their mouth and snap their teeth.
“Do it,” Clay orders, arm tightening around Roque’s neck, forcing him to his knees.
Pooch is already dialing. He holds the phone out in front of him as soon as it starts ringing, knowing everyone will hear. On the second ring, a chipper, male voice answers, its sound grating on Roque’s nerve from the first, fucking syllable.
“Hello and a good day to you, my captured friends. You have reached Jensen’s Escape Hotline, how can I help you?”
“Who the fuck are you?” Clay snarls, releasing Roque to snatch the phone and growl into it.
“Ah, that would be the dulcet tones of Colonel Frank Clay, yes? Corporal Jake Jensen, reporting for mission Get Them Out, sir.”
“Give me your CO,” Clay orders, sharp, no-nonsense. They have been in here for five fucking days.
“Uhm,” the kid says, then pauses. “Yeah. See, it’s a bit like this, officially, you were declared dead when your transpo blew a week ago. But me and my buddy, we were in the area and we, erm, caught your scent, so to speak.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s just me and Cougar.”
“Who the fuck is Cougar, soldier?”
There’s another pregnant pause. Roque digs his claws - nails, nails - into his thighs to keep himself from rattling apart even as his blood pressure rises until he can hear the blood rushing in his ears.
“You’ve met my amazing pet bird, right? That’s Cougs. That’s totally Cougs, who is a bird, who happens to be, uhm, trained for this kind of mission and, uhm,…”
As far as crappy excuses for inexplicable appearances of animals go, this one is so damn bad, even Roque, three days past sanity, winces.
“He’s a fucking shifter,” Clay barks, just to get it over with.
Silence. Then. “Whew, that’s like, an enormous relief right there, because I had no idea how to explain the naked Mexican that’s sort of integral to this plan and, ah, I’m assuming you guys, actually, you know, aren’t? Guys, that is, as in human. As in, not shifters. You are, right? Shifters? Because, wow, totally talking out of school here if you weren’t, but you’re the Losers, right, and we’ve heard stories, you wouldn’t believe it, and I’ve been saying, Cougs, my friend, that sounds almost as amazing as you and me, I need to meet those guys, I bet you fifty bucks they shift and…”
The eagle - Cougar, apparently, and isn’t that some class A irony right there - caws indignantly. Jensen makes a sound over the phone.
“Okay. So maybe he bet me fifty bucks, but I’m the one that had the theory first, just ask him, not that he’s going to tell you and…”
If that kid doesn’t stop talking this instant, Roque is going to explode, quite literally.
“SOLDIER!!!”
“…Yes?”
“What. Is. The. Plan?”
Cougar makes another annoyed sound, at Clay, and then takes flight, disappearing into the darkness.
“Yeah, alright. Plan. Cougs is going to bring you some binary in just a moment, which, can any of you guys handle that shit? Because I kind of tweaked it a bit, and it packs a teensy-weensy more of a punch that is usual… in dynamite. So.”
“I can do it,” Pooch volunteers. He’s still naked. Roque bites his lip until it bleeds and counts his heartbeat by the throbbing in his head.
“Gr-eat. Binary. On the outside wall. I’ll plant some nice, little bombs on the other side of the complex in a moment, you use the binary as soon as they go off. Fifth floor is a bit of a drop, I know, but this is a rescue mission, so suck it up, okay, and then straight ahead and you better shift the fuck out of your skin into whatever you guys turn into because we’ve got a long trip ahead of us and a narrow window to make it in. Cougs is gonna show you a way out of the compound and, uhm, I’ll be the MFC at the treeline. Questions? Sir?”
Clay looks like yes, he has a whole damn lot of questions, starting with how can you be this annoying and still be alive and ending with have you ever heard of the chain of fucking command, boy?
What he does ask is, “MFC?”
Roque can hear the kid smirk. “That’d be Mother Fucking Cat, Colonel.”
Cheeky little shit hangs up before Clay can ask anything else. A moment later, as promised, the eagle drops a few bottles of chemical boom through the bars and then disappears for parts unknown. Probably getting his feathery ass out of the line of fire.
Pooch picks up the bottles, turns them over in his hand and finds handwritten labels on them. He reads them through quickly, not caring that it’s pitch black night, and then looks at Clay. “Boss? Whoever this maniac is, this is pretty damn impressive.”
Clay get s a speculative look on his face and it takes all of Roque’s self control to raise his hand, point at his alpha and growl, “Don’t even think about it, Clay.”
Because he knows Clay, and he knows that look, the one that says, shifters, think on their feet, do what needs doing, are good at their job, no respect for anything, yes, want.
He was all over Pooch like a kid with a new toy and Roque didn’t want Pooch either, but he didn’t get a say. The kid turned out okay, yes, but this guy? He’s insane, Roque doesn’t need to meet him face to face to know that. They are not keeping him. And neither are they keeping the other guy that’s named after a cat and actually turns into a bird and apparently puts up with the mouthy fucker in the forest. That’s its own brand of insanity, right there.
Five minutes later, the promised distraction goes off. But instead of the bang, bang, bang they expect, it’s more of a doom, doom, doom.
Roque’s teeth rattle in his skull, for fuck’s sake, and he slips again. Clay looks at him, narrow-eyed, while Pooch plays with his chemistry set. “Can you change?”
A bearing of teeth is all the answer they give.
“Can you move afterwards?”
They’ll have to, won’t they?
“Ten seconds, boys,” Pooch announces, steps back from the wall and shifts down into a hundred and sixty pounds of frustrated hyena. Clay strips out of his clothes fast enough to rip most of them and then he, too, is on all fours.
Roque doesn’t have time to shift now, to break and rearrange bones, shift muscle and tear sinew. Later, later, not now. Won’t be any use if they do it now.
They all crowd against the wall opposite of their soon-to-be exit route and then there’s a flash and a bit of a bang and Roque kicks out the remaining wall, looks down. Five floors, straight drop onto packed soil.
Well, shit.
He sets his jaw and leaps.
Two sets of paws hit the ground of either side of him and split second after he lands and then the eagle’s back, calling for them to follow. So they do. They take off at the fast, loping run so typical for canines, the eagle circling above their heads.
The five hundred yards or so to the tree line don’t take more than a handful of seconds. Not when there’s no-one to hide from and nothing to lose. They hit the trees at a dead run, only to brake hard enough to send dirt flying, when a shadow detaches from a low branch and lands silently in front of them with a toothy, distinctly human grin on its face.
The motormouth turns into a panther. Well, shit.
The bird lands on the cat’s back and from the way the cat absolutely doesn’t react, that happens a lot and how the hell does that work out without feathers and fur flying?
Clay takes a step forward, measured, posing. The cat inclines its head, bends in the legs a little. It’s not the belly-up-neck-bared the wolf wants, but it’ll do. The eagle just flings itself up into the trees, taking itself out of the equation entirely.
Clay gives a short growl and a throw of his head. It’s the go sign. He and Pooch take off and Roque makes to follow, still on two legs. There’s still not enough time and he’s more useful like this than shifted and dead on his feet.
The panther gives a slow, measured look from improbably blue eyes and then puts itself in his way.
They snarls, the cat snarls back. It sounds more impressive from an animal throat. They shifts to one side, the cat follows. The wolf howls. To the other side, the cat follows. They growl, clench their fists. Wherever they go, the cat’s already there, snarling and shoving at them, blocking them, pissing them off. But they’re human and that means they have neither teeth now claws to fight. The wolf flings himself against the walls and rages. They feint left, move right, get past the panther at last. Or at least they think they do, until it snaps at their fucking heels, teeth catching their pant leg, shredding it. They feel blood run down their calf, spin around and into a crouch, eyes bleeding to yellow, to animal, to rage.
They don’t notice their nails harden into claws, don’t notice the rest of the pack watching from a short distance. All they know is the enemy in front of them, the burn of an injury and the fury of being locked up like a fucking dog for the past five days and they want to rip and tear and break and kill and then the cat shifts its weight backwards and lunges and they move, claws aimed at the neck and -
- Roque lands on four paws, skidding in the dirt, and has no idea what just happened. He spins to face the cat again, only to find it trotting away, toward alpha, throwing a kitty grin over its shoulder like this was all a game.
Pooch makes a huffing sound that’s far too close to laughter and Roque finally realizes that he just shifted.
That little shit of a motormouth cat just made him do something not even Clay has managed in all the years he’s tried. He pissed and already insane Roque off enough to get him to stop thinking and just do.
Roque shakes off the confusion and surprise and rage as well as he can and starts following the others, away from the acrid smell of fire and humans.
He just shifted.
And it didn’t hurt. Clay noses at his side, Pooch whuffs and the cat mewls smugly when he reaches them.
He’s going to kill the kid.
+
Clay, of course, decides to keep them and Roque never actually does kill Jensen, even though he talks too fucking much, has no concept of tact or decency or privacy or even sanity and drives everyone up the fucking wall.
Thing is, from that day in the jungle on, Jensen’s always sort of there when Roque needs to explode at someone, prodding and poking until the wolf cuts loose and gets it out of his system.
He’s the one that pulls Roque aside when that Aisha bitch struts past him like she owns them all because she fucks the alpha. He’s the one that gets Roque to scream until he’s hoarse after Miami and then helps him drink his way back to sanity.
He’s the one that keeps Roque together and Cougar from going too quiet and Pooch from getting too lonely and Clay from getting too big a head.
And all the while he never stops fucking talking.
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So Clay keeps him and Roque doesn’t kill him.
That’s pretty much all there is to it.
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+
So?
Title: Chains
Series: Shifter!Verse. Prequel to Here Be Dragons, set after There Are Wolves, White Noise and Bultungin. Use the tag, svp.
Rating: PG-13.
Summary: Wolves are not made for cages.
Warning: Language. Thanks, Roque.
Disclaimer: I do not own.
A/N: Written for tigriswolf, who asked for the Losers coming together and an outsider's PoV on Jensen being himself. Sorry it took so long. No beta, sorry. Tell me if I missed anything glaring?
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Chains
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Wolves are not made for cages.
Wolves are not made for prison cells.
Wolves are not made for being trapped.
Roque has been all of the above for the past five days.
He stopped thinking in the singular at the end of day one. The wolf tried to take over, to muscle in and howl his rage into the world, throw himself bodily against the bars. To rend something until it’s nothing but meat.
Pooch has been shifting in and out, slipping from one shape to the other like water, the fucker. They don’t like him showing off, don’t like being shown up by one ranking below them in the pack. It makes their skin itch.
Clay has been talking to them in a low murmur for days, calming them down, keeping them grounded. Keeping them in skin, not fur.
Slowly, that, too, is losing its effect. Soon, wolf will rip through. Soon, wolf will be free. Soon, none will be safe.
“Roque,” Clay snaps, a flash of teeth and dominance, “Keep it the fuck together, soldier. Shifting now is not going to help. Think of the pain,” he orders, alpha in the timbre of his voice. “Think of the toll.”
The toll. Pain. Agony. Crippling exhaustion. Roque’s shift is not smooth like water, it’s a breaking, a tearing, a destroying. Roque changing is like mountains moving. It exhausts them both, man and monster, leaves them empty.
They won’t be able to fight if their captors come back.
The wolf whimpers in remembered pain, pulls back an inch, two, three. Roque exhales, even as he hates himself for his weakness. Being wolf is supposed to make you strong, not weak.
Outside, the sound of large wings flapping echoes through the empty night. They’re on the fifth floor. Nothing but birds visits them here.
Roque would prefer torture to this room, at this point in time. Roque would prefer anything to this room, at this point. Wolf claws at his own prison of skin and bone, agreeing.
Yes.
The bird alights on the narrow ledge beyond the bars of their one, tiny, high-set window, wings spread for balance. It’s some sort of eagle, reddish brown. It looks tasty. It looks like something native to the desert, not the motherfucking Brazilian wilderness, full of damn trees and druglords.
The eagle shuffles to one side, then the other, caws once, low and mournful.
“That is not a bird,” Pooch observes, naked and human where, a second ago, he was anything but. Roque is not above glowering at the born.
The eagle caws again, raises one of its clawed feet, presents them with… a cell phone?
It sticks its foot through the bars, releases its burden and hobbles a bit backwards on the ledge. Pooch dives for the phone before Clay can tell him not to. Roque snarls at the bird, feels his alpha’s arm wrap around his neck from behind, like a steel band, just in time to keep him from losing his shit and attacking. Not that he’d get very far, what with them being locked up like puppies in a pound. The bird eyes him, gaze yellow and remote.
Challenging.
They will bite its head off and eat it!
“Uhm, boss?”
“What?”
“There’s a number programmed into that phone. I think someone wants us to call them.”
The eagle makes a sound that somehow conveys scorn, amusement and annoyance at the exact same time. The human side of Roque takes a moment to be impressed. The wolf uses his distraction to seize their mouth and snap their teeth.
“Do it,” Clay orders, arm tightening around Roque’s neck, forcing him to his knees.
Pooch is already dialing. He holds the phone out in front of him as soon as it starts ringing, knowing everyone will hear. On the second ring, a chipper, male voice answers, its sound grating on Roque’s nerve from the first, fucking syllable.
“Hello and a good day to you, my captured friends. You have reached Jensen’s Escape Hotline, how can I help you?”
“Who the fuck are you?” Clay snarls, releasing Roque to snatch the phone and growl into it.
“Ah, that would be the dulcet tones of Colonel Frank Clay, yes? Corporal Jake Jensen, reporting for mission Get Them Out, sir.”
“Give me your CO,” Clay orders, sharp, no-nonsense. They have been in here for five fucking days.
“Uhm,” the kid says, then pauses. “Yeah. See, it’s a bit like this, officially, you were declared dead when your transpo blew a week ago. But me and my buddy, we were in the area and we, erm, caught your scent, so to speak.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s just me and Cougar.”
“Who the fuck is Cougar, soldier?”
There’s another pregnant pause. Roque digs his claws - nails, nails - into his thighs to keep himself from rattling apart even as his blood pressure rises until he can hear the blood rushing in his ears.
“You’ve met my amazing pet bird, right? That’s Cougs. That’s totally Cougs, who is a bird, who happens to be, uhm, trained for this kind of mission and, uhm,…”
As far as crappy excuses for inexplicable appearances of animals go, this one is so damn bad, even Roque, three days past sanity, winces.
“He’s a fucking shifter,” Clay barks, just to get it over with.
Silence. Then. “Whew, that’s like, an enormous relief right there, because I had no idea how to explain the naked Mexican that’s sort of integral to this plan and, ah, I’m assuming you guys, actually, you know, aren’t? Guys, that is, as in human. As in, not shifters. You are, right? Shifters? Because, wow, totally talking out of school here if you weren’t, but you’re the Losers, right, and we’ve heard stories, you wouldn’t believe it, and I’ve been saying, Cougs, my friend, that sounds almost as amazing as you and me, I need to meet those guys, I bet you fifty bucks they shift and…”
The eagle - Cougar, apparently, and isn’t that some class A irony right there - caws indignantly. Jensen makes a sound over the phone.
“Okay. So maybe he bet me fifty bucks, but I’m the one that had the theory first, just ask him, not that he’s going to tell you and…”
If that kid doesn’t stop talking this instant, Roque is going to explode, quite literally.
“SOLDIER!!!”
“…Yes?”
“What. Is. The. Plan?”
Cougar makes another annoyed sound, at Clay, and then takes flight, disappearing into the darkness.
“Yeah, alright. Plan. Cougs is going to bring you some binary in just a moment, which, can any of you guys handle that shit? Because I kind of tweaked it a bit, and it packs a teensy-weensy more of a punch that is usual… in dynamite. So.”
“I can do it,” Pooch volunteers. He’s still naked. Roque bites his lip until it bleeds and counts his heartbeat by the throbbing in his head.
“Gr-eat. Binary. On the outside wall. I’ll plant some nice, little bombs on the other side of the complex in a moment, you use the binary as soon as they go off. Fifth floor is a bit of a drop, I know, but this is a rescue mission, so suck it up, okay, and then straight ahead and you better shift the fuck out of your skin into whatever you guys turn into because we’ve got a long trip ahead of us and a narrow window to make it in. Cougs is gonna show you a way out of the compound and, uhm, I’ll be the MFC at the treeline. Questions? Sir?”
Clay looks like yes, he has a whole damn lot of questions, starting with how can you be this annoying and still be alive and ending with have you ever heard of the chain of fucking command, boy?
What he does ask is, “MFC?”
Roque can hear the kid smirk. “That’d be Mother Fucking Cat, Colonel.”
Cheeky little shit hangs up before Clay can ask anything else. A moment later, as promised, the eagle drops a few bottles of chemical boom through the bars and then disappears for parts unknown. Probably getting his feathery ass out of the line of fire.
Pooch picks up the bottles, turns them over in his hand and finds handwritten labels on them. He reads them through quickly, not caring that it’s pitch black night, and then looks at Clay. “Boss? Whoever this maniac is, this is pretty damn impressive.”
Clay get s a speculative look on his face and it takes all of Roque’s self control to raise his hand, point at his alpha and growl, “Don’t even think about it, Clay.”
Because he knows Clay, and he knows that look, the one that says, shifters, think on their feet, do what needs doing, are good at their job, no respect for anything, yes, want.
He was all over Pooch like a kid with a new toy and Roque didn’t want Pooch either, but he didn’t get a say. The kid turned out okay, yes, but this guy? He’s insane, Roque doesn’t need to meet him face to face to know that. They are not keeping him. And neither are they keeping the other guy that’s named after a cat and actually turns into a bird and apparently puts up with the mouthy fucker in the forest. That’s its own brand of insanity, right there.
Five minutes later, the promised distraction goes off. But instead of the bang, bang, bang they expect, it’s more of a doom, doom, doom.
Roque’s teeth rattle in his skull, for fuck’s sake, and he slips again. Clay looks at him, narrow-eyed, while Pooch plays with his chemistry set. “Can you change?”
A bearing of teeth is all the answer they give.
“Can you move afterwards?”
They’ll have to, won’t they?
“Ten seconds, boys,” Pooch announces, steps back from the wall and shifts down into a hundred and sixty pounds of frustrated hyena. Clay strips out of his clothes fast enough to rip most of them and then he, too, is on all fours.
Roque doesn’t have time to shift now, to break and rearrange bones, shift muscle and tear sinew. Later, later, not now. Won’t be any use if they do it now.
They all crowd against the wall opposite of their soon-to-be exit route and then there’s a flash and a bit of a bang and Roque kicks out the remaining wall, looks down. Five floors, straight drop onto packed soil.
Well, shit.
He sets his jaw and leaps.
Two sets of paws hit the ground of either side of him and split second after he lands and then the eagle’s back, calling for them to follow. So they do. They take off at the fast, loping run so typical for canines, the eagle circling above their heads.
The five hundred yards or so to the tree line don’t take more than a handful of seconds. Not when there’s no-one to hide from and nothing to lose. They hit the trees at a dead run, only to brake hard enough to send dirt flying, when a shadow detaches from a low branch and lands silently in front of them with a toothy, distinctly human grin on its face.
The motormouth turns into a panther. Well, shit.
The bird lands on the cat’s back and from the way the cat absolutely doesn’t react, that happens a lot and how the hell does that work out without feathers and fur flying?
Clay takes a step forward, measured, posing. The cat inclines its head, bends in the legs a little. It’s not the belly-up-neck-bared the wolf wants, but it’ll do. The eagle just flings itself up into the trees, taking itself out of the equation entirely.
Clay gives a short growl and a throw of his head. It’s the go sign. He and Pooch take off and Roque makes to follow, still on two legs. There’s still not enough time and he’s more useful like this than shifted and dead on his feet.
The panther gives a slow, measured look from improbably blue eyes and then puts itself in his way.
They snarls, the cat snarls back. It sounds more impressive from an animal throat. They shifts to one side, the cat follows. The wolf howls. To the other side, the cat follows. They growl, clench their fists. Wherever they go, the cat’s already there, snarling and shoving at them, blocking them, pissing them off. But they’re human and that means they have neither teeth now claws to fight. The wolf flings himself against the walls and rages. They feint left, move right, get past the panther at last. Or at least they think they do, until it snaps at their fucking heels, teeth catching their pant leg, shredding it. They feel blood run down their calf, spin around and into a crouch, eyes bleeding to yellow, to animal, to rage.
They don’t notice their nails harden into claws, don’t notice the rest of the pack watching from a short distance. All they know is the enemy in front of them, the burn of an injury and the fury of being locked up like a fucking dog for the past five days and they want to rip and tear and break and kill and then the cat shifts its weight backwards and lunges and they move, claws aimed at the neck and -
- Roque lands on four paws, skidding in the dirt, and has no idea what just happened. He spins to face the cat again, only to find it trotting away, toward alpha, throwing a kitty grin over its shoulder like this was all a game.
Pooch makes a huffing sound that’s far too close to laughter and Roque finally realizes that he just shifted.
That little shit of a motormouth cat just made him do something not even Clay has managed in all the years he’s tried. He pissed and already insane Roque off enough to get him to stop thinking and just do.
Roque shakes off the confusion and surprise and rage as well as he can and starts following the others, away from the acrid smell of fire and humans.
He just shifted.
And it didn’t hurt. Clay noses at his side, Pooch whuffs and the cat mewls smugly when he reaches them.
He’s going to kill the kid.
+
Clay, of course, decides to keep them and Roque never actually does kill Jensen, even though he talks too fucking much, has no concept of tact or decency or privacy or even sanity and drives everyone up the fucking wall.
Thing is, from that day in the jungle on, Jensen’s always sort of there when Roque needs to explode at someone, prodding and poking until the wolf cuts loose and gets it out of his system.
He’s the one that pulls Roque aside when that Aisha bitch struts past him like she owns them all because she fucks the alpha. He’s the one that gets Roque to scream until he’s hoarse after Miami and then helps him drink his way back to sanity.
He’s the one that keeps Roque together and Cougar from going too quiet and Pooch from getting too lonely and Clay from getting too big a head.
And all the while he never stops fucking talking.
+
So Clay keeps him and Roque doesn’t kill him.
That’s pretty much all there is to it.
+
+
So?