Chapter Text
Caesar rolls back into the town, cheers and smiles from townsfolk come to greet her as her bike slows.
“It’s good to be back!” She calls out, dismounting with a wide smile.
“Caesar!” Burnice bounds up and rubs her cheek against Caesar’s in greeting. She has to strain, stretching up to reach Caesar, who meets her in the middle, “Where’s Piper?”
“She’s parkin’ Steeltusk. Won’t be long!”
Burnice cheers and turns to where Lighter and Wise are standing, quiet and still like ghosts.
“You’ll like Piper!” she tells Wise, chatting as if they are friends and not strangers turned reluctant acquaintances.
This seems to surprise Wise more than her incessant chatting.
“Uh, sure.”
“Hey! A new face!” Caesar strides over, voice jovial, “Welcome to Blazewood! We don’t get many visitors. What brings you out here?”
Lighter stiffens. Not just at the impending comeuppance of this shit-show, but at the strange way Caesar is holding herself when addressing Wise. She is too keen, too focused in on someone who could very well have just been a tourist.
“Uh, Caesar,” Lucy tries to intervene.
“I’m here because Lighter owns me.” The words bring a chill to the desert. “Therefore, you own me.”
Caesar goes still and quiet. Her eyes narrow. Looking from the newcomer to Lighter, then sweeping across Lucy, Burnice and Kasa.
“… What does that mean?” she says slowly, her hand held out in front of her. She looks around, “Actually, let’s talk somewhere private.”
There aren’t many private places large enough for all of them, so Caesar guides them to the singular operations room for Leaps and Bounds. On the way, her stomach growls and Burnice dutifully shoots up, saying she’ll grab something from Cheesetopia.
The operations room isn’t anything fancy, but it does hold a number of landlines and a couple of chunky computers that are typically manned by some of the townsfolk they hire. There’s also a map of New Eridu and the Outer Rings. Lighter’s eyes focus in on a red pin that marks the Hollow he had fallen through.
“This is our business,” Caesar tells Wise as she guides him to a seat, “we transport goods to New Eridu.”
“I see,” he glances at Lighter, “so you do have a job.”
Lighter stumbles into his seat.
“Wait, did you just think I was a bum?”
Wise quickly looks away.
“Hey!”
Burnice clambers in on her ridiculous heels, trays of food takeout balanced precariously in large stacks. Piper is following, carrying an assortment of drinks. Burnice serves it out, the largest portions in front of Caesar. Caesar looks at the food but then is looking at Wise.
“Here,” everyone freezes as she reaches out to take one of the boxes from Burnice, sniffs, nods, and then slides it to Wise, “we’ll eat first.”
Caesar nods, and it’s like a spell is broken. Motion resumes, Burnice falling back into it as if someone had merely hit the pause button on a movie, but Lighter and Lucy are slower, eyes meeting. Sweat gathers at Kasa’s brow, the only human in the room, bowing under the presence of the supernatural. She smiles as she is handed her food
“Well!” Caesar tilts her head back, jovial. “Tuck in, everyone!”
So, they do. Werewolf appetites can’t be helped, so even someone as dignified as Lucy is devouring her food. Kasa, having grown up around wolves, is also quick to eat.
Wise picks at his food, taking slow bites when trying a piece and tilting his head curiously with each taste.
In the end, Sons of Calydon have plates licked clean, and Wise is pushing a barely half-eaten takeout box to the side.
Lighter frowns, tallying up everything he’s seen Wise eat so far since Lighter had delivered him here on his bike.
“You need to eat more,” he says, pushing the plate back in front of him.
Wise returns it.
“I’m not going to have the same appetite as you,” he chides.
Wise crosses his arms in a defiant motion, but Lighter can only see the delicate boniness of his wrists.
“So,” Caesar claps her hands together, bringing everyone in the room to attention and ending Lighter and Wise’s bickering, “no one’s told me your name.”
It goes quiet.
“It’s Wise,” he introduces himself as easily as if he is talking about the weather.
Lighter shudders to see that playful smile of Wise’s. The one, Lighter has learned, Wise wears when he knows he’s about to drop the verbal equivalent of a bomb. Something about it is intoxicating. So much of it is fae.
Lighter watches him kill it, Wise’s face falling into a demure mask instead.
Lighter dislikes how it reminds him of Wise that first night, when Wise had offered everything like it had been a given that Lighter could have just done whatever he had wanted to Wise.
“… Wise Lorenz,” Wise adds on, cheekily and with a gentle smile.
Caesar blinks.
“So… You a long-lost brother or somethin’?”
Wise blinks owlishly. The tension in the room immediately unravels. Burnice bursts out laughing, Lucy stands with an indignant cry of “Caesar!” and Piper blinks in thought as if she’s considering it. Lighter sinks at the joke this has become and Kasa sighs in what Lighter assumes to be in commiseration.
Wise, though, just chuckles awkwardly.
“That would have been something, huh?”
Caesar grins sheepishly and chuckles.
“Guess I was wrong, huh?” She scratches the back of her head and then looks to the side with a flush. “So is this… L—love at first sight?” She gasps, “Childhood friends? Secret relationship?!”
Caesar’s are practically sparkling.
Wise smiles, looking amused.
Endeared, Lighter thinks, something ugly twining in his gut.
“Those are quite some romantic genres,” Wise’s smile turns bitter, “I think selkies fall under tragedy, though.”
Caesar freezes.
Her mouth presses together.
“Lighter,” her eyes snap to him, “explain.”
“It was a Hollow,” Lighter practically vomits his explanation at Caesar’s order, “didn’t know when I…”
Caesar sighs and waves her hand dismissively at Lighter.
“Well, we’re not going to make you stay if you don’t want,” she says with conviction, arms crossed as if it’s a done deal that they are going to toss Wise back into the sea with Lighter’s new jacket wrapped around him.
“Oh, I know,” Wise says, cocking his head to the side, “Lighter already offered it back.”
“Ugh!” Lucy stands, slamming her hands on the table. “Well, why didn’t you take it?!”
Wise looks longingly at Lighter’s jacket.
“It’s not going to turn back,” he tells her, “I can’t go back.”
“We can support you,” Caesar says, “as much as we can. There are channels in New Eridu for people displaced by fae stuff. They could get you an identity and set you up with housing.”
Lighter’s heart pangs, feelings whirlpool in him, making it hard to think.
“No,” he gasps breathlessly, spine going stiff, “don’t—”
He bites his lip to stop himself, so hard that he can feel it bleed. He knows eyes are on him, which makes him feel exposed and raw, burning under a metaphorical spotlight.
Wait, blood?
His eyes snap to Wise, afraid to see the other man hurt because Lighter couldn’t control himself but—
Wise’s lip is fine.
Lighter’s thoughts swim, pulling him under a deep, dark ocean.
Wise can’t injure him without injuring himself, but Wise had told Lucy that she could kill Lighter.
Oh.
Lighter thinks of romantic movies, back before his Sons of Calydon days. Back when his mercenary group turned pack had been like family. He had always laughed at romantic movies and the seemingly pointless deaths compared to the more exciting action films. Then he had faced reality and wished he had died for love instead of surviving the more ‘exciting’ action death that had taken the lives of anyone cursed enough to have been around him.
He brings a hand to his neck.
Dying for love… He loves Wise, and dying for love is what Lighter wants… Does he? He does, no wait—
“Hey, look at me.”
Lighter blinks, mind syrupy. The voice is low and quiet but stern, and although it takes him a moment, he looks and sees Wise above him. The weight of him on his lap is grounding, and the hands cupping his face have Lighter sighing into the coolness. He obeys his husband and stares at his beautiful face.
“I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t want that,” Wise says, firmly, “if… if you do that, I’ll die.”
Lighter frowns.
Wise will die if he kills himself?
Lighter brings a hand up to the cut on his lip.
“But…”
Wise sighs.
“Injuries and a life are different.” With his left thumb, he gently strokes the apple of Lighter’s cheek, “Do you understand?”
“… No.”
“Do you… believe me?”
“Yes.”
Wise slumps and sighs, looking relieved. His hands drop, and he slides off Lighter’s lap, and that’s when Lighter remembers where they are and realizes that Wise had just been perched in his lap, hands intimately on his face.
Lighter feels his face heat up, and he tucks his chin into his scarf.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
“What was that?” Lucy shrieks.
Wise tilts his head back, eyes closed.
“Fae magic,” Wise says, opening his eyes to look up at the ceiling, “honestly, I can’t tell whether you werewolves are vulnerable or resistant to it.”
“What was it doing?” Kasa asks. “Can you… read his mind?”
“What? No,” Wise scoffs, “I just understood where his train of thought was going. But… Hm, how should I explain it…” Wise sat up and brought a fist to his chin in thought, “Well, to put it plainly, Lighter was thinking about killing himself.”
“Wha—?!” Lucy shrieks. “I thought you couldn’t hurt him!?”
Caesar frowns.
Wise sighs and shakes his head.
“It’s not me. I don’t want that. It was a logical process.” Wise taps his lip. “I wasn’t bleeding. The magic makes Lighter thinks he loves me. It’s not surprising, given his disposition, not many people who manage to get a selkie skin are willing to part with it. But he can’t leave it with me, and I can’t leave it. But if he dies without my participation, then the contract is void.”
“Why didn’t you let him, then?” Caesar asks, her gaze piercing.
Wise meets her head on, tilting his head.
“I—” he looks away, “this isn’t how it usually goes.”
“Hm?”
“Lighter asked me what I wanted… he hasn’t done anything to me... That’s not how it usually goes.”
Lighter feels cold.
“Usually?” He asks, voice brittle to his own ears.
Wise brings up his index fingers and crosses them in front of his mouth, shaking his head slowly.
“Wait,” Caesar sighs and scratches at her head, “What did you mean when you said you’re mine?”
Lighter frowns at the sudden topic change. Why is that important when Wise had just… Lighter dug his teeth back into the cut. Wise met his eyes, but the gaze sloughed away, back to Caesar.
“You’re the pack leader, right? I know you felt it when Lighter picked it up,” Wise tells her, chilling Lighter to the bone, “I didn’t know what it was until Lighter told me that he was a wolf, but I joined your pack.”
Caesar’s silence speaks volumes.
“You aren’t surprised,” Wise states.
Caesar crosses her arms.
“You’re not wolf, though?” She asks, tilting her head.
“I’m already cursed,” Wise tells her, shaking his head, “I can’t be wolf.”
“It’s more than a human packmate, though,” Caesar argues.
“It is.”
“And the hierarchy…”
“At your command, Alpha. Anything you want.”
Caesar stiffens. Awkwardly, she stands in front of Wise. A lick of jealousy curls in Lighter’s chest. He has led a pack before, can remember the heady feeling of being referred to as shit like ‘alpha’ and ‘pack leader’.
Caesar has never asked them, has never wanted that of them before.
“I want—” she jerks out mechanically, “my pack to be happy.”
She lays a hand down on his shoulder.
“Think about what would make you happy here.”
She leans down to rub her cheek against the crown of Wise’s head and then glides out, the coat sleeve of her missing arm billowing out.
Wise is quiet and pensive the rest of the day, and when they lie down to sleep, Lighter can still smell Caesar on Wise.