#colm greer

Summary: As an unempowered person, Angel’s life goal is supposed to be straightforward: match with any empowered person who would take them and secure a real future. But when the infamous Quinn Fox invades Dahlia and citizens are asked to defend their home, Angel makes an impossible choice. To prevent their ailing foster-alpha from having to serve, Angel impersonates an empowered person and lands right in the middle of a whirlwind adventure. With a helpful empathy-daemon by their side, a rag-tag crew led by one grumpy (but handsome) alpha, and the smarts that come along with living in a magical world as an unempowered person, Angel sets out to save their home and bring honor to their pack.

Rated: T ; Word Count: ~34K over 26 chapters

Characters: Angel, David Shaw, Caelum, Quinn, Gregory Keaton, Milo Greer, Sweetheart, Asher, Colm Greer, Marie Greer, Gabe Shaw, Avior, Morgan Kyne, Damien, Huxley, Freelancer, Geordi, Treasure, Porter Solaire, Cutie, Alexis Getty, Felix, Corvus, Vega, Gavin, Warden, Brachium, Scorpius, Darling, Sam Collins, Lasko, Xavier

It took twelve hours to cover all of the properties that Ben had given up, and each one of them came back bare. Sure, they were full of people and drugs and assholes with records and victims covered in Q’s who were unwilling to talk, but no sign of Mr. Fox himself. The sun was rising by the time the crew of uniformed officers cleared out the last dingy basement apartment on your list. You stepped out into the late-spring heat and breathed in so deep you felt it in the pit of your stomach. 

“Everything checks out.” Ansel rounded the corner of the shoebox apartment complex and clapped you on the shoulder as he settled on the wall next to you. “We think this is where Quinn gets most of his supply.” 

“Uppers or downers?”

“Depends.” Ansel shrugged. “The dealer isn’t entangled, he’s more than happy to give up details on Quinn to protect himself.” Ansel’s accent twirled prettily around his words, and your shoulders bumped together as he dug into his suit pockets for his notepad. Having started in the homicide unit, Ansel had made an eventual name for himself, with Colm’s tutelage, of course, in organized crime. You’d worked with him once before on a disappearance that he suspected was part of a human trafficking case. You had cracked it, but the girl you were looking for was long gone, lost overseas. “He’s a frequent user, but the dealer hasn’t seen any symptoms of withdrawal on him. He purchases in small amounts and always pays in cash.” 

“Daddy’s money,” you grumbled, scrubbing a hand over your face. You needed a shower. Milo’s voice was still eating at the back of your mind and you couldn’t shake the nausea that you’d developed in the hospital parking lot. “This mother fucker is gonna disapear.” you sighed. 

“It would be the smart move.” Ansel shrugged. You liked almost no cops and you liked almost nothing about the ones you knew. Ansel wasn’t exactly the exception. He had the department air about him at times, the straight laced, hunker down instinct when their authority was questioned. But one thing you could appreciate about the guy was that he didn’t bullshit you. 

“And he’s a smart guy.” You said. “I can at least give him that.”

“I don’t know,” Ansel replied, flipping his notepad open and closed, open and closed in a nice, steady rhythm. “It hasn’t exactly been smart to go after you and the people you love. We might not see eye to eye on many things,” a wicked, wolfish grin overtook Ansel’s face, “but you are not someone I would choose to cross.” 

You scoffed, scuffed your boot against the broken-glass, cigarette-butt asphalt. 

“Gee,” you replied, “you’ll make me blush.” 

On the drive back to the hospital, you tried desperately to swallow your pride. Milo had begged you not to go and you were driving back untouched, but without the proof that it had been worth it. It hadn’t been worth it. You’d turned up nothing but the evidence that Quinn was doing coke in his free time. And what had you given up for that information? Milo’s trust? His confidence in you?

Christ, had you traded Milo for this stupid case? Given him up like he was nothing to be an inch closer to a monster you were never going to catch. 

That was clear to you now. Quinn was going down eventually, but it wasn’t going to be you. It couldn’t be. You couldn’t keep this case and keep Milo. He was wrong. You knew what you would choose if it came down to it, always had. So you did. 

Milo was where you had left him twelve hours before, his elbows on his knees and his back to the wall of the now busy hallway. He was still in his ashy, smoky clothes from the night before. You could smell him as soon as you stepped inside. You shouldered past a rushing nerve and side stepped a shuffling patient so you could stand in front of him. He didn’t look up, even though you knew he knew you were there. He always did. 

“It wasn’t bullshit.” You huffed, chest suddenly tight. “I meant it. When I told you… forever… I meant it.” You were always bad at this. You could charm your way out of a lot, but when it came down to it, words always failed. 

Milo looked up. Those eyes, those big, deep, dark eyes. Red rimmed and tired. You melted. You knelt in front of him, hands on his shoulders. 

“I can’t keep doing this.” Milo said. His voice was raw. 

“I know.” You nodded frantically. “I know. This… this isn’t how I want to be. This isn't how I want to do this.” 

“You’ve gotta…” Milo shook his head and scrubbed his hands over his face. “You have got to let me in. Even if you do dangerous things, because… well, let’s be honest here, Sweetheart, you are always going to do dangerous things.” He huffed out a laugh. “I just… I am scared, baby. And I know that you must be scared too. But you get so… fixated on your case and push through it. And it’s like you don’t have time to tell me you’ll be safe. Like you don’t have time to feel that fear.” 

You took a deep breath, squeezing his hands in yours. Usually, you would have shrunk away from having a conversation like this in a populated hallway, where anybody might hear, but you swallowed down your own discomfort. Milo needed this, so you would give it to him. 

“You’re right.” It was a hard sentence for you to force out, but you did it anyway. “You’re right. You… you see right through me, don’t you?” 

Milo managed a small smile. 

“I feel like…” you screwed your lips up as you tried to find the words. “I feel like if I stop and feel the fear it’ll just… paralyze me. That I’ll get totally lost in it.” You closed your eyes to memories of teenaged panic attacks, months spent frozen in terror at the idea of going to school or changing for gym class or speaking to someone new. Fear had a way of sneaking in through the cracks of you and taking hold, wrapping its stone fingers around you and squeezing. You had thought that you had mastered it. Filled in the cracks. 

As it turned out, all you had done was block out any route for Milo to reach you. 

“You gotta know that’s not healthy, baby,” Milo said softly, “it doesn’t have to be either or. Afraid or unfeeling.”

“I’m terrified that once I let it start, it’ll never stop.” The words tumbled out of you all at once. Milo’s eyes searched yours. Apparently, there was nothing else to say. He surged forward and pulled you close. 

You sighed into his chest, reaching for a crack to open it up. 

__

Colm was right where you expected him to be; his back to the wall outside the ambulance loading bay, cigarette dangling from his lips, eyes closed. He plucked the dart from his mouth after a long drag, the white smoke curling around his face, obscuring his features. 

You hated cigarettes and Colm knew that, so when his eyes caught you through the screen of smoke, he dropped his and snuffed it with the toe of his boot even though there was a still a good half of it left before he hit the filter. 

“Hey, kid.” he coughed around his lung-ful and stared up at the late morning sky, squinting in the sun. “Anything?”

You pressed your back against the wall next to him, the rough surface pressing into you through the thin fabric of your work shirt. It was getting hotter every day, and the sweat that spread across you made the ball of tension in your chest squeeze ever tighter. You hated the heat. You always joked that as soon as you started to sweat you became a bad person. 

“I can’t handle the Fox case anymore.” You admitted it quietly, breathed the truth of it into the air. Colm sighed as though he already knew. 

“You’ve done a fine job.” He muttered. “A damn fine job.” He scrubbed a hand over his face the same way that Milo always did. You couldn’t help but smile. 

“This is above my pay grade.” You replied. “Ansel is handling the organized crime side of things. Fox is involved in some pretty serious drug usage. I don’t know if he’s pushing or if he’s just a user, but it’s playing a part in the money and the people he has access to. You might be able to squeeze out some more witnesses and testimonies by cutting deals. That’s the angle I would take.” 

Colm nodded, scratching at the stubble on his cheek. 

“I’ll take care of it.” Something about him had gone cold, closed off. You squirmed with the need to alleviate his disappointment. 

“It’s for Milo.” You tumbled out. “Or… it’s because of Milo. I… I’m not what he deserves when I’m on cases like this. I get… twisted up until nothing matters but figuring it out.”

“It’s compulsive.” Colm said, closing his eyes again, leaning back. “It’s good you’re breaking the habit now, though, instead of leaning in. Trust me, it’ll get harder as you get older, more set in your ways.” You looked over at him. In the beating sun, you could almost picture him as a much younger man. Almost. 

“I don’t know how to… how to be the way I am and be good enough for him.” It was painful to admit. 

“Well, that’s the great thing about people,” Colm said, “we have the capacity to change.”

“How do I do it?” You breathed. You closed your eyes too, let the heat of the sun press into you. 

“Pick two days a week that you work late. Monday and Wednesday, Tuesday and Friday, whatever works for you. Every other day that you can help it, you come home as soon as your office hours are up. We both know you’re not gonna be able to work a forty hour week, so you might as well put some parameters up around your overtime.” Colm’s voice washed over you, so close to Milo’s but rasped and withered. “Try and plan dinners you like for the nights you leave on time, that way you rush to get home. Ask about his day before you start talking about yours. Bring him flowers or coffee or whatever he likes randomly, no occasion. Assert to him as often as he needs to hear it that he is more important than your work is. Even if that’s not necessarily true.” 

You looked over again at that last part. You wondered if he had told that lie before. To Marie. To Milo. You could picture it falling off of his tongue, tired and liquor-drenched through a screen of smoke. You wondered if Milo had ever believed it. You wondered if he would smell like lie on you when you eventually told it. 

“And know,” Colm looked over, his brown eyes meeting yours, lit up like amber in the morning sun, “that you will never be good enough for him. Nobody could be. That kid is solid gold. So try not to beat yourself up.” 

You nodded. You knew in your chest that it was true. It was nice, in a way, to hear it. You liked it when the truth finally found it’s way out. 

“Please put a protective detail on Trouble.” You said. “He’ll come eventually. I’m sorry that I can’t be there to stop him.”

“You’re doing more important work right now.” Colm shrugged. He pulled out another cigarette, which was your cue to leave.