Werewolf

-

His armband was everything that made him who he was. It was as old as Njáll, with iron that had held up under careful care for hundreds of years. Giving it to Erik meant more than the wedding vows he had taken as a Viking centuries prior, and he knew the werewolf understood that. “I feel like I’ve been away too long, that when I get home, I won’t be sure what to even do. Maybe I’ll take up weapon making again. Or – maybe I’ll build us a long boat.” He’d built plenty throughout the years, his hands still calloused the same way they had been when he was human. He framed the other’s face with his hands, a smile tugging at his lips, “Then our home is in Lofoten. And we will answer the call of the old ways, and nothing shall ever wrest me from your side again.” For when Erik’s time on earth was finished, so would Njáll’s. He’d spoken to Alecto at his rebirth, and a promise was a promise. She would find another, and he would rest in Valhalla with the other half of his heart.

-

“And when you’re finished after a long day’s work I’ll have a feast waiting for you.” Erik promised, there was an obvious euphemism there that the wolf didn’t think he needed to explain. He thought of Tessa, Kit, Remzi, and the others. He suspected that this farm was not something he’d ever return to again, perhaps he’d leave it to one of them to watch over or make use of. “I’ve been waiting for this for some time,” Erik sighed, his forehead rolled across the creased plains of the other. “I love you, lets leave this place and the quarrels of these Greeks behind us.” 

-

Njáll put his hand on the other’s chin, tilting it so their gazes could meet, “I only asked because I would do it if that’s what you wanted,” he answered truthfully, though he wasn’t one to be swayed either way. “I was married once, yes, thanks for reminding me,” he teased, his skin burning with each press of Erik’s lips. Pulling the werewolf into an embrace, he kept their gazes locked, “I would do anything for you. And you asked me once if I would go back home, and I think we should. My time here is finished – there’s nothing I can do. And I want to live my life as I once did, with you by my side.” He had been fighting for twelve hundred years – the fury would hang his axe, but never stop fighting. “What do you say?”

-

“I have your armband, that is enough for me.” Erik replied, he didn’t have the need for any ceremony to tell him that Njáll was his as the werewolf was the fury’s. There was much to the city that still felt unfinished, but Erik was old, and thinking he would live to see two-hundred and fifty was pushing it. Whatever days he had left he wished to spend with Njáll at his side, whether that was here, or in Norway, Erik already knew which he preferred. “The island has been calling you home for some time, I would be remiss not to join you.” Erik admitted, his fingers traced Njáll’s profile, he’d never had a hard time knowing what the man was thinking. “I say we answer her.”

Njáll forgot about his stint in the Underworld, thanks to Erik’s touch, at least. The fury gave a wry smile, his hands coming up to thread through Erik’s hair. Gripping it tightly, he smirked, “I think you should keep checking. Might miss somethin’ if you don’t do a thorough look.” He was already behind, considering Erik was still basically naked. He wished he could find the right words to say, but he also knew that Erik had never expected them from someone like Njáll. He’d already given him his arm band, the one he’d had since he had been gifted it by his own father. “Is marriage something you want?”

-

The wolf had no intention of stopping, his lips brushed the tender skin between Njáll’s hips where the flesh was thinnest and most sensitive, and calloused fingertips grazed their way along the hem of the fury’s shirt before Erik lifted it off and over him. Blue eyes made quick work of Njáll’s form, his hands touched at the fury’s collarbone lightly. “Or here.” He said playfully, punctuating this remark by brushing his lips against the spot where he’d just inspected. “Marriage?” Erik thought for a moment, “No, not really. I was married before. We both were. Is that something you want?” 

-

“The Underworld, drengr, is Hades’ domain.” Njáll gave a small smile, though he made his way back to the werewolf sooner than he thought he would. It was hard to think straight when Erik was sitting there like that. “Perhaps, I’m not really sure. But I vaguely remember hearing about Odin and Freya – they don’t get along and everyone is fucked for days.” He leaned down and over the sitting werewolf now, hands on either side of the chair he sat in, “It is dangerous, but you know nothing scares me. Besides, I was beat to hell a little bit, decided it would be a good chance to catch up on some rest. Hang with Alecto, gossip…” Now he was just being dramatic, and leaned forward to capture Erik’s lips in a kiss. “I think you came back just in time.”

-

“And now Hades and Persephone are at odds?” No great surprise if the story of their marriage was to be believed, though Erik knew that these Greeks with their great tale of telephone had a habit of twisting the truth to fit whatever narrative suited the era. By the time it reached modern ears there was a hundred different variations, likely each with only a kernel of truth. Njáll made his way towards the wolf and thoughtlessly his arms wound around the other as he pressed his face into the fury’s stomach. He groaned and breathed in the rich scent of the other, Erik was old, and now weathered from a night running amuck under the full moon. “If it is not one thing, it is another, no?” Erik mused as he looked up from his position to match blue eyes with blue, “I should check you for injuries, make sure you are recovered.” The wolf said simply as he thumbed at the hem of the other’s shirt and pressed his lips to the soft expanse of skin stretched over the other’s hip. “No wound here.”

.

Estelle’s hand rubbed at her face, smoothing over the ridge of her cheek and biting into her jaw. She didn’t wish for his pity— and she was glad that he didn’t offer it. Instead, it was a solemn understanding that he bore on his features: he was an old wolf, as was she and she knew that life had not been kind to him at times. They understood grief intimately, they didn’t need to speak of it to know the pain that it brought. She took the next drink, feeling the burn of alcohol as she swallowed, eyes wincing closed before the feeling faded and her belly was hot again. “Nothing,” she said easily, finding his gaze— cerulean and unwavering. “It is enough that you are here, just to see you.” Estelle reached for his hand, and it was weathered from years of hard work, and slipped her own in it with a squeeze. “You are family, we needed to be with family again.”

-

It is not enough to force a smile, but he knows something of necessity when it comes to grief. “Then it is good that you two came back.” Erik said instead as he tipped his glass to his lips and finished off the glass, the Argos had swelled to a great number over the past year - that was something in all of this. Whatever enemies they had could be devoured by wolves, torn to shreds and strewn from one end of the city to the other. The old wolf squeezed back as she reached for his hand, he wished he had some sage advice in this moment so he could peddle the words that Estelle no doubt desperately needed to hear. But there was no coping with the loss of a child, no finish line where grief was finally sated. No parent should ever have to bury their kids, and yet now they both had. “I’m sorry, Estelle.”

+

“Look,” Tessa turns on her heels, leveling Erik with a look that’s not unkind, but serious all the same. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me a lot, I really do.” She would be a lot worse off right now without him, perhaps even dead. The out of control werewolf was on a downward spiral when he found her, with no clear chance to escape it without some interference. She knows that. “But I don’t need you to hold my hand through every single moment. This is something I know, something I can handle for myself. Quite honestly, standing behind a bar again makes me feel a bit normal.” Certainly more than a bakery ever could. There aren’t many fond memories to go through of her human life, Tessa isn’t even sure this really qualifies, but it is familiar. And there is a certain comfort to be found in that. “I’ll be fine, I swear it. And if I’m wrong, you get to say I told you so. That sounds like a fair trade to me.”

-

“Okay, okay-” Erik said as he held his hands up in defeat, he’d gotten too familiar with her presence in his life and he knew how these things went. She’d needed him then, and Erik had been happy to help. But she was better now, in control, powerful, and stood there on her own two feet. He’d see her less and less, but everyone had to leave the nest eventually. “I’ll stop.” The old wolf looked around the place, not liking the smell of this bar one bit- nor did he much care for the name. This was her choice though and for him it wasn’t about being right so much as it was about letting go. “I should be getting to work myself though,” Erik said simply as he scratched at his chin, “the bakery will not open itself.” He smiled before he turned away from Tessa and tossed a hand over his head as he waved himself off. 

-

Njáll grinned as he looked over his shoulder, “So it wasn’t eventful?” He’d tried to keep his distance, since he knew that if he’d stayed close, they’d have just stopped talking altogether. That was going to happen in a few moments anyway, but the fury wanted to push the wolf anyway. He waited for a few more seconds, “I was in the Underworld a few days ago. I made my way towards Hades, but most of his shades were…gone.”

-

“The place or the person?” Erik mused lightly, though he always got a bit confused with the Greeks and all their legends, media didn’t help. He wasn’t sure if their Underworld was called Hades or if Hades was the king of the place. Definitely had blue fire for hair. “Why would you do that - ? Isn’t that, I don’t know,” Erik shrugged, “dangerous?” Njáll just needed to go to the Underworld to recover, why he’d wanna go poking around down there was beyond him. Still, he’d bite. “his shades. You mean spirits? Souls in the Underworld are disappearing?”

-

Njáll slipped the arm ring back onto Erik’s arm, something he held onto every time the werewolf left their home to be with the pack. He grinned into the kiss, biting back until he had Erik pressed against the beam that held up the porch. “I did. And I figured you’d be home soon enough.” He released the werewolf, taking a step away before he grinned, “Looks like I just woke someone else up, too.” The fury made his way down the steps now, out into the sunlight, “Did you have a nice time?”

-

Erik fell back onto the porch swing as he watched Njáll saunter down the steps, blue eyes tracing the smooth rippling lines of the fury’s body as they strained through the fabric of his clothes. The wolf tried to keep his attention focused on the present, what Njáll was saying to him and asking about but he was having a hard time. Literally and figuratively. “Nobody died,” Erik mused, “for some of these pups that’s progress.”

The morning after a full moon was always rough, sore, tired, and somewhere on the grounds of his property, Erik awoke to the harsh light of morning as it streamed through the trees overhead. He remembered the night vividly, running with the other wolves - and watching over the latest members of the pack. It was just one night, but it was one that he’d spent staring at the full moon and waiting for it to pass so he could return home to the fury that was waiting for him. “Morning.” Erik mused as he sauntered from the woods to the back porch, bits of nature were the only things that on his skin, but the wolf was never much for shame. He pressed his lips to the other, hard and firm as the beast still ebbed its way from his system. “Someone woke up before I did.”

“I know. Sounds too much like Katerina for my liking.” Not that she was a bad influence on him. If anything, Alarick should have been making decisions like the former Alpha long ago. That was how the Argos had stayed alive for so long. “I guess I pulled my head out of my ass and thought about it.” Or maybe it also had to do with the conversation he’d had with Fenrir. That certainly helped change his perspective on some things. He had intended on talking to Anastasia before then, but now he had an even fresher mind going into it than he did before.

-

“You’re thinking now?” Erik joked, “How unlike you.” The jest was made in good nature. There were rumors running around the city though that Hektor had shacked up now with Anastasia, that the cult and the Delphi were somehow aligned. Katerina and the events of last year aside, Erik had his own history with the cult. He knew how dangerous he could be and his only affiliation with them would be how his teeth affiliated themselves with their necks. “You plan on going to speak with her alone?”

     “Sounds like a wonderful woman.” Freya loved women who were wild, who were unforgiving and unpredictable — those who showed the world and especially men just how capable they were of everything. “So many werewolves sneaking into the town — the pull of the veil hasn’t stopped it seems.” And it was good for all these young werewolves to have someone like Erik take care of them. She offered him a smile, playfully pinching his cheek. “Maybe, but being old suits you. And all these kids need someone to show them the way. Especially newly turned wolves.”

-

“You’ll like her.” Erik offered, he figured it was only a matter of time before Freya and Tessa met. They were both women that took up some residency within his heart. “I never saw this for myself.” He admitted, “Growing old I mean, but I think it is my fate to die a very ordinary death.” Erik shrugged, as long as he went with an axe in hand the all-father would greet him in the end. “It’s not so bad, maybe it even suits me.”

.

There was a table between them, and Estelle wished instead that she could have curved into Erik’s arms for an embrace, something to keep the ground from swaying below her or her stomach from flipping. She needed an anchor and without Hana she felt like something unmoored, slowly casting out to sea in the heart of a dark storm. They had tried to prepare themselves for this, knowing that telling each person in their life what had happened would feel like that day all over again, on repeat until everyone knew. Then, it would be the next cycle of sympathetic gazes and low whispers; nothing would be real until the wound closed and for now: it would not be so easily stitched. She reached for the glass gladly, sniffing to ward away the tears, to keep her dark eyes from growing too glassy in the company of an old friend. Before she spoke, she drank, perhaps too deep and enough to make her cough. “Yes.” The police report had told them that much, a double murder— the room had been a sea of shattered glass and broken furniture and all of it was covered in so much red: a blood letting that was caused by someone with intent. “Zoey tried, they said.” She was just a girl, a baby witch who had barely managed to get a grasp on her magic, it looked as though a tornado had torn through the room and it wasn’t enough. “I don’t know who it was, what it was. They took the television, and the computer.” A few electronics was all that their daughters lives had been worth, Estelle tipped the glass back. “We couldn’t be in that house anymore.”

-

The description sounded gruesome. Though why someone would go to such lengths over a few possessions were beyond him. This sounded almost... Personal, a vendetta maybe. The electronics that had been stolen probably just a cover, unless the thieves were a pair of psychopaths as well. It didn’t matter now though, they were gone. More young lives that were cruelly snatched away for reasons that would never make him feel any better. His shot was gone quickly and too quickly Erik was refilling their glasses. The old wolf knew grief well and nothing about this needed to be about him, he had loved them as if they were his own, but they were not his own. They were hers and Hana’s. Infringing upon their feelings wasn’t his place, nor was it their responsibility to make him feel any better about it. “What can I do?” Erik asked instead, because there truly was nothing else to be said. 

“And what a talented wolf you are.” The cheesecake was truly delicious. What a delightful concept, cheese into a cake and it’d been a gift. And for it, she would answer what she was, for it was only fair. Fork still in her mouth, Eurydice does contemplate how she wishes to go about it though, it’s not about her safety as much as it is about her fellow dryads. And yet, the wolves spent time in the forests, she’d heard them herself and simply kept out of sight. “I am of the forest.” Is what she settles on, brows raising just a little as if to sort of give herself away. Corinth has many eyes and ears, she never quite knows who is listening.

-

It was a simple explanation but if it was all that she was willing to provide then Erik wasn’t going to press the woman any further. “Explains the smell then.” He said instead, the scent was of the trees, of the forest just as she said. “It’s rich,” Erik furthered. “like the earth itself.” The old wolf carried the cloth back and forth across the counter a few times and vanished any crumbs that had appeared from serving the woman. “You are welcome here anytime, you and... Any friends of yours who might also be of the forest, as you said.” 

“No. She wasn’t exactly happy with it at all. That’s kind of why things are pretty shitty right now. However, I’m hoping things are more in control with Anastasia being awake now.” Just her children being in charge was enough for him to want to pull his hair out. But that was something that would be taken care of sooner rather than later. Alarick had to watch out for his pack first and foremost. Anything past that meant nothing to him. No matter how much he felt like he needed to form some sort of alliance with the head witch in charge. “I was wrong in thinking she would not be a fitting ally to the Argos and myself. I wish to tell her that. In not so many words.”

-

Alarick’s words struck him as surprising, clearly a great deal had changed since the last time they had spoken of the resident head witch in charge. “I’m surprised to hear you say that,” Erik commented, this was a good thing. It sounded mature, Katerina would have been proud. Perhaps this was what she saw in him all along. “and I’m glad.” The old wolf added, though he couldn’t help but scrutinize the alpha a bit closer, idly wondering if he had an ulterior motive. “What changed your mind?”

    Freya missed home so much, but she knew that she was needed here. It was a gut feeling, and something dark looming over them. But she had gotten sort of used to Corinth, and hopefully some day she could go back too. “A stray wolf?” The thought put a smile on her lips, as it suited Erik to do something like that. “What’s she like?”

-

“Wild, unpredictable, a free spirit.” Erik commented simply as he listed off some of Tessa’s best traits. He was very fond of her, though he was fond of most of the wolves he’d inherently taken under his wing over the years. Remzi, Tessa, and now Kit. “I found another sniffing around my property not too long ago, I think he was living in the woods and bathing in the river. Smelled like it, anyways. He’s working for me now, helping out around the farm.” He smiled. “Apparently I am getting old.”

-

“Not my fault you’ve turned this into a charity home,” he gave a wry smile, his hand idly tracing patterns into the other’s bicep. “I’m never grumpy,” Njáll rose an eyebrow, though he couldn’t exactly say that with a straight face. It felt nice to speak the language of his people, the Old Norse flowing easily from his lips. Hearing it in Erik’s voice only solidified how much he needed his partner with him at all times. He’d already given him his arm ring, and to Njáll, that was the largest form of commitment he could ever offer outside of marriage. “Hmm. Well, I guess your loud mouth is incentive enough. I’ll meet this Tessa, too, and see what exactly I’m getting myself into with all of your adoptions.”

-

“One of us has to have a heart.” Erik breezed, his lips made their way to the tender crook of Njáll‘s collarbone. He felt alive again for the first time in months, coming back from the grave was a hard adjustment for anyone, but being back in Corinth again had renewed his sense of purpose. The Argos was where he belonged, it was obvious that they were lost without him. “Oh no - ?” Erik questioned, “Then you must have been swapped out while I was gone. Who are you and what have you done to the man I love. Hm?” The wolf pressed low words against surprisingly tender skin, whispering lowly and nipping at the fury as he did. 

.

Warmth slipped from her expression, like rain down a window pane and she tucked in a breath. Despite the preparation that Estelle had attempted, the speeches that she had given herself in the mirror for when this exact question would be asked— it bodied her every time, making her feel as though she was slipping beneath the earth. Of course he wanted to know what was happening with them, the last time he had seen Lily she had been accustomed to clinging to his arm, and he had a bad habit of sending Zoey off with enough treats to ruin whatever dinner she had prepared at home. The wolf found a seat, settling into it before drawing her hands to her lap and letting out a breath that emptied her entire chest. “No one told you, did they?” Sorrow curved around the words, and she looked up at him, trying to find a way to put it together without dissolving into something incoherent. “Someone came to the house, when Hana and I were out. They’re—“ Estelle shook her head, and dark lashes fringed heavily with the threat of tears spilling over. “They’re gone.”

-

The new was not good and very shortly after Estelle’s expression fell, Erik’s too followed suit. He knew loss, he knew what it looked like - felt like. The way the color in Estelle’s eye clouded over, the manner in which the air between them turned rigid and hard, it felt like that. She took a seat and Erik followed after, mirroring her own movement as the old wolf sat down opposite the other wolf. Oaths of vengeance and blood would come later, he would find the people responsible and he would grind their bones into dust. Break them limb from limb and beat the remains into there was nothing left but puss and viscera. Rage flashed across Erik’s features as his lip twitched, a scowl formed over normally jovial eyes, but he stilled himself and the wolf that clawed for release within. They were children. Children. And now they were gone. “I’m sorry for your loss.” Erik said as he tipped his head towards her, deciding all at once that the bakery was closed for the day he flipped the sign and locked the door. “We’re drinking.” He said instead because he needed to be on his feet and occupy his hands that idly itched to rip apart flesh. Erik filled a pair of glasses of liquor he kept below the counter and slid one over to Estelle before he managed to sit back down. The baker was quiet for a moment before he asked at last and broke the silence that had etched its way into his features. “Did they suffer?”