Author's Note

I've been thinking to myself for a few days if I should make this violent or soft or particularly plotty, and then I remembered you can't relate to characters who are perfect. 

The house is, at best, odd. Tucked into the middle of an uneven and close-to-abandoned forest, Elijah thought its existence was simply amazing. All around, it's two stories high. Different portions of the house are painted in mismatched shades, yellows and blues and reds faded enough to be pink all threaten to blend together. 

The white fence which borders the home is practically useless, considering that there are gaping holes every other three feet. Around ten cars, all well-used and clearly loved, park beneath the shade of a paired magnolia and oak tree, and a group of children run around the abandoned vehicles as they play tag, every other minute one of them shifts accidentally out of excitement. 

"This is the pack house," Raul smiles at the boy as the two of them step over the threshold of the uselessly closed gate. At their entrance, the children who ran themselves dizzy around the cars paused, faces cracking with even wider grins, before they noticed the unknown Omega standing in their Alpha's shadow. 

"Some of the younger wolves like to call it Crumbledown," he moves his huge hands towards the general face of the house for emphasis, gesturing to -everything that seemed nearly rot with age. "I just like calling it home." 

"Crumbledown," Elijah whispers to himself, and he likes the name very much. Although the house looks like one particularly strong gust of wind away from completely collapsing, it's also lined with thick wood that was meant to last, and repairs that were made in the heat of summer by hands that obviously loved it. 

A home for wolves.

*

They enter through the front door of Crumbledown; the screen behind Elijah claps back into his naked legs, causing enough of a startle to spook a scream out of him. He falls forward until he's caught by Raul's hand, but his entrance has attracted unwanted attention. 

The first is a boy who looks a year older than Elijah, his interest obvious although he tried to seem aloof by forcing his eyes off of the teenager. The next comes in the from of a twenty-something woman who doesn't bother to hang back. The brunette runs up to him with hands full of a blanket. 

"Raul!" She scolds the man beside her-- and for a moment, Elijah has to take a moment to realize she's still there to continue to scold the Alpha. "You go on and get some clothes-- what were you thinkin'? There's been poachers lately, what are they gonna think when they see a naked man roamin' around?" Her voice is all southern.

"They'll realize they shouldn't've ignored the private property signs," Raul shoots back before he helps the woman wrap the blanket around Elijah's sharp shoulders. 

"Please," she rolls her eyes before she focuses completely on Elijah with green eyes wide with concern. "I'm Milli, pack doctor and, well, town doctor. You're lucky it's my day off or you would be stuck with little ol' Campbell over yonder," Milli moves her head into the direction behind her, where the boy Elijah supposes is Campbell furrows his eyebrows at the woman. 

"Whaddya go by?" Milli asks, the softest smile spread across her face, waiting patiently for his answer. 

"Elijah," he whispers, and as he does so, she brings him towards a room that eventually thins into a hallway. Mismatched frames litter the wall, some in black and white, others in color, a few rotting with age or fading from ancient Polaroids. It's all evidence of the Liaison pack. 

"What a nice name," she smiles as the four of them enter a mauve room that smells like lemon spray and antibacterial soap. The only piece of furniture to sit on are one of the two hospital beds that set beside equipment that could only be manned by someone who knew what they were doing. 

"I almost named my son Elijah," Milli tells him. "But someone-- goes by the name of Raul, you might've met him-- suggested Victor, and I looked at this little dude-- who, at this time looked like a squirmy worm instead of a child, and thought,-- sit down honey, I need to take a look at you-- thought with my drug riddled mind, Victor was a nice name, although back home-- I'm gonna have a useless blanket-- now, I'll leave it in your lap, all right-- back home, he already had a blankie stitched with Elijah. Cost my husband a pretty penny, I didn't hear the end of it until Raul bought a replacement," she laughs at the memory and flicks up her finger. 

Campbell seems to understand this wordless gesture and runs off of to the other side of the room to pull open a drawer, where he continues to dig through for whatever it was that Milli wanted. 

He realizes he's sitting on the mattress with hardly any barrier against the world. In this artificial light, he can clearly see the dark bruises and the shallow wounds of his skin. 

"Mind if I touch, darlin'?" She asks him, and he nods wordlessly as he glances around the room. 

Raul stands with his arms crossed as he stares at the teenager's bare chest and his nostrils flare, as if he's personally offended for what he sees painted on his pale skin. 

"He's glarin', ain't he?" Milli grins as she rolls her hooded eyes. "This'll sting a bit, it's just some sterilizing antibiotics for your nicks and things," she continues, her fingers, which he suddenly realizes are gloved, dance across his torso and arms. They begin to go over his wounded skin, and even in the few crevices he isn't hurt. 

"Raul doesn't like it when pups are hurt," Milli explains to him in a light tone. "It's gotten worse ever since his two daughters were born a few summers back. Don't be surprised if he follows you like a lost puppy and orders some of the other members to be extra sweet."

"I can hear you," Raul's deep voice announces from across the room, unimpressed but still staring at Elijah with growing concern. 

"I'm not a pup," Elijah admits, almost silently. "I'm eighteen."

"You're six foot, but hardly a hundred and thirty pounds. You should be at minimum one-seventy, ninety with wolf blood," Raul tells him. "Excuse me if I'm worried about a clearly malnourished wolf, and an Omega at that." 

And he doesn't throw the word around like a slur, if anything it's like he's backing up his statement with the title, trying to further his argument with status. 

"S-sorry--" Elijah begins. 

"Don't be sorry, Elijah," Raul shakes his head. "We are wolves, but we aren't animals. I'm sorry you had to witness the cruelty of man." 

"Oh," the Omega stares wearily at the man, waiting for the other words-- the ones that told him the exact opposite and would bend him in a way that would make Elijah feel useless and in debt to this pack-- to come. They didn't. After a long moment, he replied with a thoughtful: "Okay." 

"Elijah," Milli pulls him tenderly out of his own world with her voice. "Campbell here's gonna prick you just a little bit, take just enough blood so we can figure out what we need to give--" 

"I-- I don't like them," Elijah yanks away his arm, and although Milli could've immediately stopped it, she allows it to leave her soft grasp. 

"Honey, I don't like them much either," she tells him soothingly, and the brand new needle and syringe which Campbell held in his gloved hands thankfully disappeared out of Elijah's sight. "But, we have to take some tests so I can help you get better." 

Elijah zeroed in on those words, his dark eyes becoming wide with fear. "What's wrong with me?" He echoed in fear.

Milli opened her mouth and stopped, before she schooled her face into a strictly-doctor expression. "Elijah, you're not in great health right now. You know that. We're trying to help you. This blood test is going to help solve a lot of your problems a lot quicker, trust me." 

"But--" his voice died at the reappearance of the needle, this time in her own gloved right hand. "Needles," he whispers, and it makes him feel so stupid, just another way to prove to himself that he's weak. Elijah went through hell, but he still stutters at the sight of a thin, hollow tube. 

"Hey," Milli comes beside him, gloved hand separating skin-to-skin contact when it rests on his arm, absently searching for a vein. "In a few minutes, all of this pain is going to be past. It isn't going to be nothing but a little sting in the long run." 

Elijah stares at her with wide eyes, before nodding his head quickly. 

"Go on," he tells her with a jaw clenched with tension from the prick of the needle. "Do it." 

Author's Note

Would you believe me that I've been busy with school and my social life? Because I have been. RIP to June Valentine's free time. Taking a Cherokee language class and it's kicking my ass. 

Love you all, sorry for this sucky update. :-( Thanks for sticking around, my lil June bugs, I appreciate it.