Chapter Text
“You’re trouble, you know that?”
The first time the wolf - Asher - had said it, the words had been critical. A comment on how they’d found themself in a situation so far over their head, they couldn’t see the start of it.
Since then, however, it’s become a greeting. Their call sign. Trouble. They don’t mind it. Afterall, it wasn’t untrue. They’ve been a lot of things lately, but trouble always seemed to turn up at the top of the list.
And after everything they’ve been through since joining up with his pack, they’d say he’s earned the right to call them out on it. There was a career to be made breaking into Departmental offices, after all; and they were the one with an inside lead.
(Steal the papers. Save the world. As much as they loathe quoting Imperium propaganda, they have to admit - the slogan was catchy.)
Besides, he liked trouble. Liked it enough to keep them around, at least.
They’re in his - den, for lack of a better word. It’s the place where he sleeps, and holds pack meetings - Asher has an apartment in the city, they've learned, but he doesn’t go there. From the whispers of his pack, murmured in undertones that they shouldn't have been able to hear (they haven’t figured them out yet as a lip reader), he hasn’t been back there in over a year.
Not since the death of his friend. The previous alpha.
(The pack don’t talk about him much, especially not when Asher is around, but they’ve heard enough to put the pieces together. To see the shape of him in the hole that was left in the rest of their lives; see the impact his death has had on all of them.)
For their stay here, they’ve been given a room - little more than a cupboard, really. It’s not much, windowless and fitting barely more than a futon - but it’s private, and it’s a lot more than they had been expecting. And, if they’re being honest, it’s better than an interrogation cell, and the pack knows it.
It’s adjacent to Asher’s own room, by design, all the better for him to ‘keep an eye on them’. It was as much for their own protection as for the pack’s security, they’d learned early on - the wolf named Chrissy had already made a move to turn them into the department.
Turns out that some of the pack did not take as kindly to trouble.
Asher hadn’t taken kindly to the insubordination.
(His hand squeezes tight around the other wolf’s neck, Asher had snarled the words into his face. “Go behind my back like that again, and I will tear your fucking throat out.”)
After what happened with Chrissy, he doesn’t trust them alone with the rest of the pack. They’ve learned that he doesn’t trust much in the way of anything, except for his second.
But they could care less for pack politics. They don’t have the time for it.
They don’t think they have much time left at all.
At first, their role is to just provide the intel, the connection. The freelancer - their inside lead - had proven to be just as loyal and trustworthy as they’d hoped they’d be. Someone with a similar drive, a similar goal.
But that’s not all they can bring to the table. Years of working in Department bureaucracy means that they’re adept with paperwork, especially paperwork connected with the Imperium. And after the first few drops, there’s more than enough of it to work with.
In the end, they come to an agreement. Their assistance, in return for their freedom.
It’s a fair deal.
–
Over the next few weeks, they find themselves spending a lot of time with the pack leader.
It makes sense. With the sensitivity of the information coming in, and with his pack beta coordinating patrols, there’s no one else he can trust enough with the task. He’s smart, a quick study, and it doesn’t take long until he can match them, an impressive feat in and of itself.
And the longer they spend time with him, the more questions they have.
Asher is an enigma.
He should be intimidating. Unapproachable. But they’ve spent most of their life learning how to read people, and they just don’t see that with him. It’s in the way the members of the pack act around him, the care there. The beta and his mate, especially.
He isn’t as hardened as he first appears.
There’s a softness there. In the curve of his eyes, the curl of his cropped hair, the way he acts with those of the pack he is close too. The touches he can’t seem to hold back, despite himself.
And as they get to know him, they can’t help noticing other things too.
They’d walked in on him in the communal showers in the early hours of the morning.
He has a leanness to him, almost a hunger. A strength that lies just below the surface, evident in every movement. He’s a predator, and he’s marked like one, scars littering his skin, his chest, his back.
But the one they can’t stop staring at is the one that bisects his chest, from the jut of his collarbone to his hip.
“You’re staring.”
They’re not going to deny it.
“I was trying to figure out how someone could survive something like that.”
The water turns off, and he twists to grab a towel from the rack next to the shower head, running it through his hair once before fixing it around his waist. Then, and only then, does he turn and meet their gaze.
They don’t expect an answer, and they’re surprised when they get one.
“Stealth.” His lips twist downwards in a grimace. “It wasn’t pretty.”
Now that he’s facing them, they can see it fully. It’s a wicked scar, long and jagged, cutting across the lean lines of his torso, its raised edges catching the water that drips from his hair onto his skin.
“It was a parting gift. Quinn. A lucky hit, just before we ripped the bastard apart.”
Quinn. The name is only ever whispered, and not in general company. The vampire that killed his best friend. They can understand the loss. It took them over a decade to get over their own.
He takes a step towards them, and then another. Their grip tightens on their handful of shower supplies - the same brand that the rest of the pack uses, odourless, efficient. His eyes are dark: unreadable, intent.
A shiver passes through them, but it’s not an unpleasant one.
His shoulder brushes against theirs as he passes. “You should wash quickly. The next patrol will be back soon.”
They take his advice, scrubbing themselves down in half the time they’d usually spend, before retreating back to the relative safety of their own room.
Then, and only then, do they admit to themselves what they’d just realised.
They’re attracted to him. The alpha of the wolf pack.
Fuck.