[For Sam] Urban Fantasy AU

[lonered]

Keith can't get the image out of his mind -- the tall, striking man with the strangely two-colored hair and the eyes the clear and endless gray of the sky after a storm, caught in the light of the full moon, like the entire world is about to glow with it. It's almost a memory, he thinks, and that's why he can't let it go. He's never had a memory of his lost time before.

It doesn't make any sense. Why this man? He's seen him before, of course, around town. He's rather hard to forget. But this is something more than that, something more than a strange and inconsequential dream cobbled together from pieces of his subconscious and an attractive stranger. It has to be more. Whenever he dreams, after all, he only dreams of running, of the night air and the scent of the woods and the moonlight spilling over the world.

It's the first lead that he's had, and it's in this strange town that he can't seem to make himself leave. Keith doesn't know exactly how he's going to find this man, and the only plan he has is to keep an eye out. But life and luck are kind today, and in the coffee shop, just as he turns from paying for his caffeine, he finds himself staring at the man walking through the front door.

Violet eyes snap wide, and for a long moment Keith can't do much else but stare. He's still staring when the barista is calling his name with his drink. He turns to gather up his coffee, holding the cup and going back to staring at this man, as if he's trying to decide how to best approach him that won't immediately chase him off. 'I had a dream about you and the moon.' would probably make him sound crazy.

But he has to say something. He needs to put answers to this. The fugues, the lost time with no memories, waking up in places he doesn't expect, or waking in his bed somehow more exhausted than when he went to sleep, it's been growing worse lately. He needs answers before it drives him crazy.

So for now he just stares.

Comments

[spaceforged]

"I was going to space again. I've been up there three times." There were reasons this time was meant to be the last but, becoming a werewolf fixed him. He puts that out of his mind as he nods. "When we're cooking, I'll teach you about the pack bonds and your place in them."

Shiro heads for the door, locking it behind them when they exit the cabin. They have a little ways to go before they get back to the cave but that hardly matters.

[lonered]

Keith looks at him with a smile. Remarkable, really. This man, everything he learns about him makes him want to know him more, closer to him. "Okay. I'll be a good student. Promise."

Which is a good promise for him to make because his history has not always been studious. But for this, for the Pack, for Shiro, he'll do his best. He wants to learn. He wants to do this right.

Following Shiro out, he looks up at the moonlit sky, shutting his eyes and just basking in the light for a moment. "Let's go?"

[spaceforged]

The trek back is quiet. Shiro is content to let the moon’s light and their path keep them occupied. When they reach the cave something in him eases. This is his private space to relax and just be.

Bringing Keith here has been a good choice. “I’ll start the fire. It will be a good way to demonstrate pack bonds.” He checks the firewood and stacks it together in the center of a stone lined pit. “Each of us is a strand in the wide net of bonds. We have our toes to each other but we are all tied together through our Alpha or the closest thing to it. Before,” he takes flint and steel, striking it twice and the sparks land in the center.

“I was the spark for them all. Coran and I talked about this when I decided we needed an Alpha. I’m a spark. An alpha is a flame.” He blows on the sparks, coaxing a flame to life. The wood is dry and catches fast. He fans the flames as he says,

“A pack is held together and given what they need by an alpha. Close your eyes, let whatever perception of a bunch of ties spread out from you happen. Look for me.” He adds more wood to the fire then closes his own eyes.

His own vision of the bonds spreads out before him. When he was a space pilot an oxygen line or a tether to the ship was vital. He can feel the tethers and as he looks the tether to Keith is small and doesn’t connect yet but it feels like touching a flame. Warm to the touch. If he grasps it too tightly it could burn.

But it doesn’t feel like the tie between an alpha and a pack member. He searches for that instead and finds it. It still feels like fire in his veins but not the kind that stir his blood. He sends an impression of a bonfire fire racing down it aimed at the other end.

[lonered]

Keith settles in to watch Shiro, listening closely. The other man's voice is soothing, and Keith would happily listen to him talk at length, but the words he's saying are important. It makes sense, the way that he's explaining it.

And in meeting the others, he's felt the beginnings of these ties, the thrum of connection between them. But he needs to understand it all if he's going to be the Alpha that this pack deserves.

A quick nod and he shuts his eyes. Look for Shiro. But what he finds is similar to Shiro, a connection that burns brightly even if it hasn't fully formed yet. It wants to, and for a moment Keith reaches for that, only for his wolf to silently howl inside him its approval of mate. Ah. That's... his heart aches and his mind races, and he refocuses quickly.

He instead reaches for the other tie, gasping quietly as he finds it, feels that connection and realizes that there are a handful of others just like it. "I found you. And the others. Hunk and Coran and Allura..." The ones he's met feel the most strong and certain. "And Lance." And oh he can feel where that's unsettled. He really is going to have to deal with that, and soon.

[spaceforged]

“And Lance.” Shiro agrees, keeping his voice carefully neutral. That is between them. “How you deal with him is up to you.” He adds, to let Keith know he isn’t alone. Lance has been irritating about this.

He needs to sit down and accept that he isn’t the center of the universe. “And when.” But his eyes say soon is important. He just can’t dictate how Keith does this. “It’s in your favor his wolf already accepts you even he chafes at an alpha he hasn’t met being an alpha.”

Lance’s wolf is concerned for the sake of the pack’s stability.

[lonered]

"I don't want to put it off. It'll be worse if I put it off." Keith fully intends to handle it and sort things out with Lance. They're pack now, and this tension isn't good for either of them or any of the others.

Besides, Keith is more than a little annoyed at how his interactions with Lance had gone before he even knew anything about him, so there's some air to be cleared.

"I want to meet the others I haven't met yet too." There are only a couple left.

[spaceforged]

“You will tomorrow.”
Shiro says as he takes out the rations and sets about preparing their meal. He isn’t the greatest cook but, he isn’t terrible either. “As for Lance, if you want to deal with it now there are ways.”

The question is which one he wants. “Do you want to deal with him face to face? Across the ties between alpha and pack?” He had heard about the ways Alphas could deal with the pack. He can feel everyone else in the pack annoyed at Lance’s tension and irritation.

They were overjoyed but he isn’t. Not even close. Shiro closes his eyes for a moment and feels Allura’s disappointment in Lance. Curious. Again he can feel the faint tie that isn’t yet connected to Keith. As he touches it again his Wolf gently steers him away.

Not yet. It seems to say. You know what this is and you’re not ready to face it. That isn’t wrong. He is a damaged man that needs to find peace with himself first. Peace he is only beginning to understand.

[lonered]

Keith looks interested in that. "Are there? Do you think I can manage that?" Because if he can put this to bed now, he is all for it. That irritation is a buzz he can feel too, now that Shiro has taught him to reach for the pack bonds. It's faint still, but oh is it there.

He draws his knees up to his chest as he watches Shiro set about cooking. "Anything I can help with? I got pretty good at cooking over a fire." He's been a drifter for so long now, he's picked up the skills he needs to survive.

It strikes him again that he's not a drifter anymore, that he's found himself a home now. A family. A family that he is going to take care of as best he can, evne if this is new and a little terrifying.

[spaceforged]

“You’re his Alpha. If you call he has to obey it. That alone will tell him who is in charge and who isn’t .” Shiro says as he urges Keith to come closer. “This pot needs filled up with water.” He can chop things to put it in while Keith gathers lake water from outside the cave.

“Ask your wolf. He’ll know how to make put out the call.” The Pack couldn’t help in this dominance fight but he knows they don’t need to.

Even when Lance bitched about Keith in the past it was clear who won those encounters.

[lonered]

A quick nod as he grabs up the pot and stands. Gathering water he can definitely do. He slips off out of the cave and makes his way down to the lake. While he does he considers what Shiro ha told him, he reaches out to his wolf and feels the beast answer him like an old friend. Strange how quickly that's happened, how little time it's taken for it to become natural.

He fills the pot and stands and reaches for the ties to the pack that Shiro has shown him, finding the one that is pulled too taut, too uneasy. He reaches out to Lance with a plain and clear call.

We end this now.

It's an easy fight to take because it isn't about him. This is about the pack, about what's good for the others, what it will take to make this right. He makes his way back into the cave, setting the pot by Shiro and the fire.

"Water," he announces with a smile, his entire expression softening from that hard determination now that he's looking at Shiro.