Howdy y'all, hope you enjoyed your holidays and welcome to 2024! got this one done pretty quick! and i've gotta say, i'm quite happy with how it turned out. I've been binge-reading the locked tomb series and i feel like i might have absorbed some of the prose accidentally, so if this chapter feels a little different, that's probably why. 

I just could not keep control of my characters in this one, they kept ripping the reigns out of my hands and saying "no, actually, we're gonna do it this way." Roxy and Sam have been doing this to me since the beginning, when they kissed way way way earlier than I ever intended, and i was forced to rethink most of act one's romance plot. Those gays just cannot stay away from each other.

anyway, enjoy your fortnightly dose of muscly women being gay and sad, tormented men probably also being a little gay. 

 

---

Apart from all the drama with Brooke, living in Perth was going pretty well. Roxy was enjoying living with her pack full time, and the services that the Council building offered were great. The gym meant that they could all continue their training, and that Roxy could still work out in her own time as well. They also spent a lot of time in the werewolf enrichment area, though Roxy was mostly just watching the other werewolves play around. Personally, she didn’t see the appeal in viciously ripping apart a chew toy by using it to play tug-of-war with your friends, but clearly Sam and Drew were enjoying it a lot. Pedro and Clarissa also spent a lot of time down there, but it was less explicit playing and more just running around and napping together, which Sam and Drew also did a lot of. Roxy would have felt a little jealous, but there were also plenty of wolf naptimes to be had in the apartment, so she wasn’t missing out on anything.

Her dad was really making the most of his holiday, when he wasn’t essentially acting as the group’s house-husband, cooking most of the meals and all that. He would spend time in the library, going on tours of the city, and generally just living his best life. Obviously he wasn’t alone in doing the house-work, they had a rotating chore schedule and Roxy or Pedro would cook dinner instead some nights when they weren’t just eating takeout. He just really seemed to enjoy cooking for the group most of the time.

When they weren’t making use of the various facilities in the Council building, Roxy and her friends took to exploring the city. If she was being honest, there wasn’t really all that much to see. Perth wasn’t exactly a tourist hotspot. That being said, it was still fun to look for little underground shops and use their practically infinite income to support small businesses on shopping trips. Roxy had already impulsively gotten herself a bunch of new ear piercings and a small tattoo of a pair of wolves running around her forearm as the start of what would hopefully become a sleeve someday. She wanted something to draw attention away from all the scars and, well, Emmerich did call her body a canvas.

As the weeks rolled on and Winter turned to Spring, Roxy, Sam, and Leif started attending a weekly queer youth group, just for something to do as the encroaching boredom became worse and worse. Roxy was sceptical at first, but Leif was excited to get to meet some more queer people that were around their age, so she and Sam followed along. It was surprisingly enjoyable, and although it took a bit for her to let her walls down, by the end of the first night she found herself happily conversing with the strangers around her. No one asked intrusive questions, and they generally had a good time. There was a little bit of discussion about werewolves, mostly in a positive light, but Sam and Roxy didn’t out themselves just yet. They wanted to get a better feel for the general consensus on werewolves first before they potentially burned any bridges by coming out. Things seemed hopeful, though. It was unsurprising that queer people would be supportive of them, considering the similarities in the systemic oppression they faced. 

Eventually, as with all things, Leif accidentally let it slip that they were werewolves. There was a little bit of an uproar as people got excited about it, but thankfully no hate was thrown their way. They even convinced Sam to shift for them, on the grounds that no photos or anything were taken, considering they were still technically in hiding. Sam was more than happy to do so, and had a good time playing with everyone. It was nice to live in a world where they could be open about who they were like that.

The whole time, there had been no word of hunter sightings in the city, or anywhere else for that matter. It put Roxy on edge. She knew they were still looking for them. Did they already know where they were and were just biding their time, or were they still searching the country? There was no way to know, and it was frustrating. Chris was still out there, still tracking them, and they wouldn’t be truly safe until all of this was finished.

Right now, though, there was nothing she could do, so Roxy just sucked it up and tried to make the most of every day. Key word being tried. It became a little difficult to do when she suddenly came down with the worst flu she’d ever had in her life, but at least her pack was there to support her. Mostly.

—

“How’s she doing?” Leif asked as she and Sam walked down the street, bags of groceries in hand. Damien was usually the one to take care of the shopping, but since he was busy wrangling Roxy and trying to keep her in bed, the two of them were more than happy to help out. Sam used the opportunity to throw about twenty packs of spicy ramen in the cart as a get-well present. Nothing made sickness easier to deal with like comfort food and lots of physical affection, and if there were two things Sam could do well, it was cook instant ramen and give hugs. And provide the occasional touch of gentle loving coitus, not that Roxy’s dad needed to be aware of that. It was good for morale, and good morale made for a good recovery!

Sam frowned, focusing on the feelings from her mark. There was a lot less explicit discomfort than there had been when they’d left, but that wasn’t too surprising. She watched Roxy down half a bottle of cough syrup on the way out the door, so that had to have had some effect. Given that Sam was beginning to feel a little dizzy just from the floatiness coming through the bond, she could only hope to guess at what condition Roxy was going to be in.

“Let’s just say, I’ll be surprised if she can form coherent sentences by the time we get back.”

Leif laughed. “Y’know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this sick before. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her sick, period.” She paused, and then snorted. “Well, aside from her period. She was not happy when hers first came around, let me tell you. And when she learned it would be every month for the next forty odd years? Poor girl was inconsolable.”

Sam winced. “Yeah, I’ve been there. Mine came pretty late, so I at least had a bit of warning of what to expect from sex-ed, but that did not make the experience any more pleasant. What about you? Late bloomer too?”

Leif blinked at her. “Sam, I don’t have a uterus.”

Sam stared back for a few seconds. “I don’t know how I keep forgetting that.”

They shared a laugh at the awkwardness of the exchange before Sam gave a little thought to the original point Leif had been trying to bring up before she’d been sidetracked. “I think the only time I’ve really seen her sick, aside from a little cough here and there, was when she was recovering from the kidnapping. I’m not really sure you’d call that sick, though. It was more injury than illness.”

“Yeah, none of her wounds even got infected. It was a little surprising, honestly, after seeing the state of that cell she stayed in.”

“Mm,” Sam replied, remembering the tiny locked room they’d come across during their rescue, covered in Roxy’s scent. It hurt her heart to know that her girlfriend had been stuck in such a dark and dingy place for so long.

“I guess she’s just got a good immune system. Probably just not used to the diseases in Australia,” Leif said, thankfully putting an end to the dark turn the conversation had taken.

“So,” Sam started after a reasonable period of silence. “I heard you talked with Brooke. How’d that go?”

Leif sighed. “It was… awkward. I was hesitant to even go, to be honest. If Roxy hadn’t vouched for her I wouldn’t have even considered it. It ended up just being a whole bunch of well-deserved apologies from her end while I just sorta sat there and listened. I expected to not really care what she had to say. If it had been last year I probably wouldn’t have even given her the chance to open her mouth, but now, after I’ve had all this time to think and to process, I… I don’t think I have it in me to hate her anymore. Obviously, what she did can never be forgiven, or undone, but… She’s not that person anymore. I don’t think I would hate hanging out with her again. It might even be nice. I-if I’m being honest, I did miss her a bit, deep down.”

Sam hummed. “You and Roxy were the ones she wronged, so if you both are cool with her now, I guess I am too. It just… I can never forget what she did to Roxy. I know she didn’t mean to, but it was ultimately the sum of her actions that left Roxy so… so broken. I can’t just forgive that. I won’t antagonise her if you guys wanna hang out with her, but… I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to like her again.”

Leif patted her arm. “No one would blame you for that.”

They made it back to the building and took the elevator up to their apartment. Sam could already hear Roxy babbling incoherently before they even opened the door, and the situation inside didn’t betray her expectations. Her mate was bundled up on the couch in layers of blankets, very seriously attempting to communicate with her father, who seemed to be doing his best not to laugh at her delirium. 

“Her single brain cell is hard at work, I see,” Leif said as she set her bag of groceries on the bench.

Damien chuckled. “I think she thinks she’s speaking Burmese. She’s getting a word or two right every now and then, but the rest is just… gibberish. She’s never really been able to speak it, so I don’t really know where this attempt is coming from, but it’s… certainly charming.”

Roxy made an affronted noise, switching back to English with a wobble in her rough voice and tears in her eyes. “Dad, how could you say that? I thought we were having a… having a… talking!”

The sheer betrayal and sadness in her voice tugged heavily on Sam’s heartstrings, despite the fact that she knew it was entirely a product of her drugged-up state. She walked over and sat on the couch next to her, running a hand through her mostly-black hair, trying to see if she could spot any more grey strands that might have popped up over the last few weeks. She’d been neglecting her usual haircut routine, so it had grown a little longer than she usually kept it, but Sam wasn’t complaining. Roxy was beautiful to her no matter what, and she relished the rare opportunity to bury her hands in the black bird’s nest on her mate’s head. The feverish heat radiating from her skin was worrying, but Sam knew that with enough rest, she would be alright. It was just a little disconcerting to see her so out-of-sorts.

“How’re you feeling, hun?”

The question distracted Roxy enough for her to forget her outrage at her dad. “Mm-bad. Eyes feel too big for m’head. Throat hurts. S-scars throbbing.”

Sam trailed her hand down to cup Roxy’s cheek, running her thumb along the lines carved into her face. The other girl seemed to appreciate the action, leaning heavily into Sam’s hand with a needy groan. Then, with a sudden strength that belied her small frame or sickly state, she grabbed Sam’s wrist and pulled her down on top of her, before squirming around until her face was firmly tucked into the crook of Sam’s neck, the rest of her body wrapped around Sam like a koala hugging a tree. Before she could even register what was going on, Sam was completely trapped under her girlfriend, already beginning to sweat from the heat rolling off of Roxy in waves.

“Welp,” Leif said. “Looks like Sam’s out of commission for the rest of the day.”

“That’s a shame,” Damien replied. “I was hoping she could help me with dinner.”

“I’m still here, y’know. You don’t have to talk around me,” Sam complained. “I still wanna help!”

Sam had been attempting - with limited success - to learn how to cook. Roxy and Damien were providing tutelage, but so far she was still relegated to the role of ‘assistant.’ She wasn’t complaining, though. The idea of having to manage more than one thing on the stove at the same time without any help was frankly terrifying.

“If she gets off of you by her own accord by the time I start dinner, you can help. Otherwise, you’re on your own,” Damien said with a wry grin.

Roxy nuzzled against her cheek. “Go fluffy, please,” she mumbled.

Sam acquiesced with a sigh, half-shifting to the point where fur grew from her cheeks. Roxy made a noise of satisfaction, burying her face in it.

“You know you can make your own fur now, right?” Sam grumbled, while secretly loving all of the affection.

“Don’t care, yours is nicer. Smells like you.”

Sam’s heart did a little flip at that, and she couldn’t keep the grin off of her face. God, she loved this girl so much. She was definitely going to be stuck here for the rest of the day, trapped under her furnace of a girlfriend, and she couldn’t even find it inside herself to care. “I guess I can’t argue with that.”

—

Chris opened his one eye to a featureless grey ceiling. The other eye did not follow suit, forever sealed shut by the healing scars from a young werewolf’s claws. He sat up with a grunt, rubbing the ache out of his bad shoulder, permanently weakened from when his ex shot him in defence of his daughter. He was grateful that, despite his debilitating injuries, despite his inability to ever meaningfully participate in a hunt again, his employers had still deemed him useful enough to not strip away his rank of captain, where he had been sitting comfortably for the last fifteen years of his service. It meant he still had a room all to himself, instead of bunking in the barracks with all of the rank-and-file soldiers. 

Watson, as the first lieutenant of his team, also had a room to herself, though she likely would have had one even as a low-ranking soldier, given that she was a woman. There weren’t enough women in the Son’s ranks to justify splitting the barracks by gender, and Chris had heard stories of what went on when the women weren’t given their own space to sleep. Thankfully, the perpetrators of such crimes were harshly reprimanded in most outposts - if the women they wronged didn’t get to them first - and these days, most outposts provided their few female soldiers with their own sleeping quarters to prevent such happenings anyway. The knowledge of how things should be run just made the memory of Emmerich and Harrison’s conduct that much more sickening. Yes, given that she was still being conditioned, albeit far more gruesomely than was warranted, Roxy wouldn’t have earned the right to her own sleeping quarters yet. That didn’t change the nature of the threats Emmerich often teased her with. Distasteful and disgusting, Chris thought. 

He hated himself for how he mocked Damien with Roxy’s treatment at the hands of that worm while they were having their disagreement. Emotions were running high, and Chris was filled with self-righteous anger at the time from having been caught and subsequently dumped. He had been so mad at Damien for stumbling across his phone call, as if it was his fault. He was just saying whatever came into his head, and if it hit Damien where it hurt? All the better. Now, after having had months to think about what he’d done and all he’d thrown away, he could only look back on the memory with shame. That wasn’t how a captain of the Son’s forces should act under stress. That wasn’t how an innocent man should’ve been treated for the crime of loving his daughter.

He sighed and shook off the thought. It was one that plagued him often, but what was done was done, and there was nothing he could do now except move on. With silent weariness, he lifted himself from his cot and stumbled over to his bathroom, relieving himself before stepping into the shower and turning on the water. He wasn’t high-ranking enough to earn hot water, but he appreciated having access to a private shower all the same. He cleaned himself with finely-honed efficiency, built from his early years as a newly recruited rank-and-file, eager to get in and out of the showers before he could attract too much attention to himself. Having been recruited into the organisation through a family connection, he thankfully wasn’t subjected to conditioning and thus rose through the ranks quickly as he proved himself on hunts and scouting missions.

Once he was finished with his shower, he quickly brushed his teeth and shaved away his morning stubble in front of the mirror, before throwing on a fresh eyepatch to cover the ugly remains of his left eye. He had always considered himself to be fairly attractive, but after the mess he’d made of hunting the direwolf pack, he couldn’t look at his reflection with anything more than mild disgust. He wore his failure on his face for all to see, but none of them would understand how deep the failure truly went. None of them knew how much he’d thrown away only to fuck up the one job he’d been given. He couldn’t decide which was worse; failing the organisation that he’d devoted his life to, or giving up the man he was pretty sure he’d been falling in love with for the sake of said organisation. It sounded like one of those impossible choices you’d get on a personality quiz, but Chris, with his incredible incompetence, had managed to do both at the same time. What utter horseshit.

He sighed and made to exit the bathroom, only to open the door and almost walk right into Watson, who was standing there with her fist raised ready to knock. Her eyes widened and quickly took in his undressed form before her whole face went bright red. She spun on a dime, resolutely facing the opposite wall. “A-apologies, sir! I didn’t mean to, um… i-intrude.”

He raised his one working eyebrow, stepping past her and into his room proper so he could get dressed. She rotated to compensate for his movements, keeping him firmly at her back. 

“Do you need something?”

“I have news about the search for the direwolves.”

“And that required you to enter my private quarters because…?”

“I’m very sorry, sir! I knocked on your door, and when you didn’t respond, I got worried and decided to check on you.”

He hummed in appreciation as he pulled on a pair of pants. The Sons could be cut-throat at times, but at least Watson was looking out for him. It wasn’t like she meant to catch an eyeful like that.  “Thank you for your concern, Watson. Don’t worry about the intrusion, all is forgiven.”

She muttered a quick ‘thank you’ as Chris finished getting dressed, throwing on a random button-up. He addressed her again as he sat on his cot to put his shoes and socks on. “So, what’s this news? Something good, I hope.”

There hadn’t been so much as a peep in the search for the direwolves for the last two months, as his team tirelessly searched Australia in the potentially false belief that they were even still there. They had people watching their homes back in America and there hadn’t been any news there, so at the very least they hadn’t gone home yet. Still, that didn’t mean they remained in Australia after their flight changed over in Sydney. The only positive of this whole wild goose chase was that it had given Chris a chance to rest and recover from his injuries. He had to take the good where he could find it.

Watson cleared her throat. “As you know, we’ve been tracking the direwolf pack’s social media accounts. Recently, we made note that Leif Townsend started following someone from Perth on Instagram, and this person followed Townsend back. A few days later, this person posted a photograph of themself at a park in Perth, and Reed, Kindley, and Townsend are all visible in the background. We now know for a fact that the direwolves are in Perth, and we believe we can use this person as a link to track them down further. I’ve done a little bit of research, and it seems this person attends a weekly youth group for young people that align themselves with identities in the LGBT community. It’s my belief that, at the very least, Kindley, Reed, and Townsend are also attending this group.”

“A weekly youth group,” Chris muttered to himself, before speaking up so Watson could hear. “Yes, it should be easy to track down where they’re staying from there. If they attend consistently, it will be a cinch to follow them and locate their hideout.” He stood up and gave his subordinate a firm look. “Watson, I’m placing this mission in your hands. The wolves will recognise me, whether it be via sight or scent, so I can’t risk getting anywhere near them. Figure out where they’re staying and get as much info on them as you can. In the meantime, I will start planning. We’ll come up with a way to draw them out into the open.”

The woman saluted, a slight smile curling her lips. She was always so intense. “Yes, sir, Captain Langley!”

Watson left the room and Chris immediately began thinking. Step one, he needed to get to Perth and into the outpost, as he was currently still in Sydney. Step two, he needed a plan that wouldn’t fail as spectacularly as his first one did. Charging in guns blazing definitely wasn’t the solution. This would require a far more… delicate touch.

—

Roxy woke up, much as she did every day, surrounded by the warmth of her girlfriend. Sam was gently trailing a hand through her hair and over her bare back, stroking up and down through the coarse bristles of her freshly shaven head and over the bumps and lines marring her skin. After a particularly rowdy full moon celebration recently, Roxy had woken up to find her hair had grown at least half an inch overnight, no doubt from all the half-shifting she’d been doing while playing around with her packmates. The new hair didn’t stand up long to her razor, though, and she made quick work of the back and sides until they were cropped down close to her scalp. She left the top a little longer this time, enjoying the way Sam would constantly brush her hands through it in casual gestures of intimacy. 

Roxy shifted a little in Sam’s hold, nuzzling her nose against her mate’s neck and gently kissing it. Sam let out a quiet chuckle.

“Good morning, beautiful,” she murmured, her voice heavy with sleep.

Roxy sighed happily, deflating against Sam’s body. “I don’t think this’ll ever get old.”

“What?”

Roxy lifted her head to see her girlfriend’s face, brushing away the bits of her fringe that fell in front of her eyes. “Waking up with you. Getting to spend every day with you. Going to sleep with you only to wake up with you the next morning. I’m never gonna get sick of it.”

Sam grinned, wide and mirthful. Her blue eyes lit up like the midday sky. She ran her hands up and down Roxy’s sides lovingly. “Someone’s feeling romantic this morning,” she observed. “I feel the same way.”

Roxy leaned down and kissed her, softly and slowly. Sam let out a very pleased sounding hum in response, wrapping Roxy in her arms and holding her tightly against her body. Roxy smiled against her lips before pulling back, tucking her head under Sam’s chin and pressing her ear up to the other girl’s chest to hear her steady heartbeat. They laid there for a while in silence, listening to the sounds of their packmates waking up in the rooms adjacent and going about their morning routines. Roxy and Sam had nowhere to be, so they were in no rush to remove themselves from each other.

“I wanna marry you,” Sam said all of a sudden.

The thought made Roxy’s heart do somersaults in her chest. “What, like right now?”

“Well, whenever works. After all this stuff is finished, maybe.”

“Aren’t we a little young?”

“Are we? We’re adults now. I know people who have gotten married straight out of highschool. I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure my parents did. I-if you don’t want to that’s fine-”

“No, I do!” Roxy interrupted before Sam could get the wrong idea. She smiled comfortingly. “I really do. I guess it’s always just seemed like… something that’s gonna happen in the future, y’know? If it even happened at all. But… Yeah. I wanna marry you, Sam.”

“I love you,” Sam whispered, with an assuredness that offered no room for doubt, and kissed her again. It was deep and filled with such intensity that Roxy felt her head start to spin, and a sparkling warmth travelled up her body from the tips of her toes to the crown of her head.

Sam pulled back only to shower her face in more kisses, on her cheeks and forehead and brows and chin. A bubbly giggle forced its way up from Roxy’s chest as she tried hopelessly to fend off the affectionate onslaught. By the time Sam stopped, they were both rolling with laughter, clinging to each other with desperate neediness.

“I love you too, Sammie,” Roxy finally managed to say once she’d caught her breath.

The werewolf let out a happy sigh, her blue eyes soaking up every detail of Roxy’s face. “So, does this mean we’re engaged now? Am I your fiancée?” She said the word with a mocking posh accent.

Roxy grinned. “I guess so. Unless you want to buy some matching fancy rings to make it official?”

Sam scoffed. “Screw rings, that’s a human tradition. We’re werewolves! Let’s do this the werewolf way!”

Roxy raised an eyebrow. “And that is?”

Sam’s smile turned mischievous. “I’ll show you.”

Her eyes turned red and she darted forward before Roxy could react, sinking her fangs into her collarbone. A sharp pain shot through her that was quickly muted by a flow of ecstasy, coursing throughout Roxy’s body from the wound. It was Sam’s love and affection made physical, the entirety of her soul laid bare for Roxy to see and experience and feel. It was all of her hardships and all of her happiness, every inch of her being pouring into Roxy as their souls combined into one. It was a brand new mark, a brand new symbol of their bond not just as girlfriends or mates, but as soulmates. In truth, it didn’t harbour any more significance than their original mark, but that didn’t change how it felt to Roxy. It felt like a promise, like a contract signed in blood that they would always be there for each other, always connected through the magical bonds of their species. Yeah, it did feel a lot like a marriage, now that she thought about it. Sam definitely had the right idea.

Sam released the bite and Roxy gasped as she came back to herself, panting from the sheer transcendence of the experience. She felt a gentle tongue lapping at the wound, cleaning off the blood that had leaked out. A tiny part of Roxy felt like she should be mad at getting another new scar, but with the knowledge of what it represented, she could feel nothing but elation.

“I forgot how amazing that feels,” she muttered once Sam crawled back up into her line of sight.

Sam hummed. “I know it isn’t really anything more than the mark we already had, but… I felt like it meant more than some piece of metal ever would, y’know?”

Roxy smiled. “Yeah.” She focused, bringing her own wolf to the surface until her eyes glowed and her fangs grew. “You ready for yours?”

Sam grinned. “Hell yeah.”

Roxy flew at her without a second of hesitation, biting down on her mate’s collarbone in much the same way Sam had just done to her. She had to admit, the experience was much less magical on the other side of it, but hearing Sam’s gasps and sighs of ecstasy made it more than worth it, as much as those noises put her in the mood for something else at the same time. Roxy pulled her teeth out and returned Sam’s favour of cleaning the wound, surprising herself at how little the act of licking up her partner’s blood bothered her. It just felt like a natural extension of their intimacy, and, well, they were technically wolves, weren’t they? It’s not like it would be weird in that context, either.

Roxy pulled back, leaning on her haunches as she straddled Sam’s hips. The girl was in a similar state to what Roxy’d been in earlier, panting and staring up at the ceiling with wide blue eyes. She swallowed, and Roxy watched the movement of her throat with hunger burning just below her skin. She wanted to sink her teeth in more.

“Wow, yeah…” Sam said breathlessly. “That was incredible.”

“Do you wanna fuck?” Roxy asked bluntly, tired of waiting. Her whole body was burning with primal restlessness, eager to just move and do something. Whether it be to work out or play around with her pack or screw her mate into the mattress, she didn’t care. 

Sam’s eyes found hers and she watched as her pupils dilated in real time. She didn’t even respond, just reaching up with scrabbling hands to pull Roxy down into her. It was a good thing they didn’t have any plans for the day, she decided. She just got engaged, where better to celebrate than between her lover’s legs?

She wasn’t sure how much later it was that they were disturbed. Roxy had vaguely heard the sounds of something happening out in the apartment in the back of her awareness, but she’d been far too preoccupied to pay it any mind. That luck could only last so long, however, when a sharp knock on the door interrupted the two of them, limbs tangled together in a sweaty pile of mutual pleasure as they competed to stay on top and bring the other to release first. Well, first wasn’t really an accurate descriptor by that point. They had been going for a while. Roxy was winning, though. Not that anyone was keeping score or anything.

“Guys, quit your banging and hurry up and get dressed!” Leif yelled through the door. If it hadn’t already been thoroughly reddened from exertion, Roxy’s face would’ve warmed at the realisation that, if Leif, with her weak human senses, knew what they were doing, everyone else probably did as well. Maybe she’d been too harsh on Pedro after that first night. The walls here were too damn thin. Leif continued. “The vaccine’s ready, we’ve been called down to watch the test!”

That got Roxy’s attention. She and Sam quickly untangled from each other and started rifling through their drawers, throwing on clothes as quickly as they could. They were dressed in less than two minutes flat, bursting out of their bedroom door and into the living room, where everyone was waiting for them.

Roxy awkwardly coughed into her fist. “Morning, everybody.”

Thankfully, nobody seemed keen on teasing them for what may or may not have been overheard, most likely due to the anticipation of finding out that the vaccine was ready after all this time. 

“Ready to go?” Pedro asked.

Roxy nodded. They all made to exit, but the man suddenly paused, sniffing at the air. The action made Roxy’s stomach churn with embarrassment. Even if he hadn’t heard what she and Sam had been doing, there was no doubt that the scent of their activities was still covering both of them. The only question was as to whether or not Pedro would tease them for it.

Instead of any teasing, however, Pedro frowned in confusion and looked at her carefully, his eyes trailing down to where she knew her new mark was peeking out from the collar of her tank top. He glanced at Sam and his gaze honed in on the same spot.

“You two gave each other new marks,” he stated plainly, the maybe-too-personal question of ‘why?’ remaining unasked. Surprisingly, Damien remained silent, even as the confusion of not knowing what a mark was displayed on his face.

Roxy swallowed thickly and shared a quick glance with Sam, silently questioning how much they wanted to share so soon. It wasn’t difficult to come to a decision. After all, if they couldn’t share it with their pack, who could they share it with?

“Well…” Sam began, with more than a little redness on her cheeks. “This morning, Roxy and I… We, um…”

“We decided to get engaged,” Roxy finished for her. “Since we obviously don’t have any rings, the marks are our substitute.”

The living room was completely silent, each of their packmates staring at the two of them with wide eyes and dropped jaws. It was Leif, of course, who finally broke the silence.

“What, like ‘we’re getting married’ engaged?!”

“Yep.”

“Holy shit, congrats!”

Shock quickly turned to elation as everyone congratulated them in turn, slapping them on the back or wrapping them in warm hugs. Roxy realised her dad was crying as she hugged him and then she started crying too. “You’ve grown up so fast,” he said to her once they separated. “I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become, Roxy.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you, dad,” she responded, her heart about ready to burst from all the giddy, happy emotion flowing through it.

Damien turned to Sam and pulled her into a hug as well. “You too, Sam. I can’t think of anyone better suited to my daughter. You have my blessing as a father. I would welcome you to the family, but… Well, I think the lines of friend and family have already been blurred for a long time around here.”

Great, now Sam was crying too. Not that Roxy wasn’t appreciative of all the support from her loved ones, but they had somewhere to be! And now they were all gonna look like they’d been crying in front of the big politician man and all of his science guys! Yeah, no, try as she might, Roxy couldn’t find it in herself to care what he thought anymore. They already stunk of sex anyway, how much worse could cry-face be?

Eventually, everyone calmed down from the shock of the announcement and they finally set off to the underground labs, though not before Clarissa spritzed perfume all over Roxy and Sam to make them just a little bit more presentable. The trip down was short and uneventful, and they met up with Matthew after stepping out of the elevator in the basement. He led them through the halls to the lab testing room, where Vincent and Brooke were waiting, along with several other people in lab coats. Roxy hung off of Sam’s arm the whole way, partially to help fend off the heebie-jeebies that being underground gave her, but mostly because she was just feeling very territorial about her new fiancée with the endorphins from the marking bite still flowing through her system.

The testing room wasn’t what Roxy had been expecting. It reminded her a little bit of an interrogation room you would see on police shows, the ones with the two-way glass that people would watch the interrogation take place through. On this side of the glass, the room was fairly nondescript, a few tables with computers set up no doubt so that the scientists could record the results of the test right away. On the other side of the glass, the room was just blank concrete, a thick metal door in the dividing wall providing access. It reminded Roxy far too much of her old cell. In the centre of the concrete room, there was an assortment of chains and shackles, bolted to the floor. Roxy had seen chains in that arrangement before. Hell, she was locked up in them when Emmerich tested DX-47 on her.

“Ah, good morning, everyone,” Vincent greeted them, shaking Pedro’s hand. Pedro himself was frowning, looking at the chains in the other room, clearly having come to a similar conclusion as Roxy.

“Exactly what kind of test will this be, Councilman?” His voice was tinged with worry.

Vincent’s smile dropped, leaving a much more serious expression in its wake. “Straight to business, I see. Very well then. We need to test if the vaccine works, and the only way to do that is to inject someone with DX-47 beforehand, to make sure it cancels out all of the drug’s effects. Obviously, given the drug’s nature, we can’t do that safely without taking certain… precautions.”

“This is the same setup that the hunters used,” Roxy said matter-of-factly, staring through the glass.

Vincent nodded. “Yes. They may be genocidal maniacs, but when it comes to restraining dangerous, superpowered individuals, they know what they’re doing.”

“Who’s going to be the test subject, then?” Pedro asked.

“That’s where you all come in. Given the effect that DX-47 has on werewolves, we believe it would be much safer to do the test on a human. Aside from the few in your pack, there are no other humans living here. It’s up to you to decide.”

Brooke’s eyes widened. “Wait, what about me? I thought it was always the plan for you to test it on me?”

Vincent shook his head. “No, it can’t be you. If something were to go wrong with the test, we would need your help to troubleshoot and try to fix the problem in the vaccine.”

“I’m not as useful as you think I am!”

“My decision is final, Brooke. It will be one of the humans in the direwolf pack.”

“I’ll do it.”

Everyone turned to Leif in shock as her words sunk in. Drew placed a hand on her shoulder. 

“Are you sure?” he asked.

Leif nodded resolutely. “It has to be me, there isn’t any other choice. Roxy’s dad and I are the only two viable humans here, and Damien’s old. We don’t know what kind of problems it could cause for him. No offence, Damien.”

“None taken,” the man responded

“I’m young and fit, and really, there isn’t any other option, is there? Personally, I think it’s a little stupid that there wasn’t already a test subject lined up and ready to go, but here we are. I’ll do it.”

Vincent nodded sagely, as if he hadn’t just been unsubtly criticised. “Very well.” He turned to his scientists. “Get her set up.”

The scientists moved to lead Leif away, but she quickly turned to Roxy, a little bit of fear hidden behind her eyes. “Anything I should know to expect?”

Roxy pulled her into a hug. “Sorry, I don’t really remember. Just… Hold on, okay? It won’t last forever.”

Leif chuckled in her ear. “How reassuring.” She pulled away and shot her a confident smirk, even as Roxy could hear her heart pounding and see the subtle shaking in her hands. “Guess I’ll see you on the other side!”

Her anxiety was infectious, and soon Roxy found herself biting her lip and tightly clutching Sam’s hand as she watched Leif be shackled up through the glass. The girl was being remarkably brave about the whole thing, even when the metal collar was locked shut around her neck and the chains around her wrists were pulled taut, forcing her to kneel. The whole time, Roxy’s mind was racing with things that could go wrong. What if the vaccine didn’t work and she was stuck as a raging monster? What if the chains broke and she hurt someone? Roxy almost couldn’t bear to watch.

“I’ve gotta say, this whole setup is pretty kinky,” Leif said, in a misguided attempt to kill the unbearable tension. It seemed to work a little, with Brooke snorting and Drew letting out a long-suffering sigh, but the brief reprieve the joke offered quickly dried up when the scientist who was locking her up pulled a syringe out of her pocket, filled with a dark liquid.

“Are you ready?” the woman asked.

Leif visibly swallowed and, with a shaking voice, replied. “As I’ll ever be.”

“There’s going to be a slight sting.”

With that, the drug was injected into Leif’s neck, and the woman quickly retreated to safety. For the first few seconds, nothing seemed to be happening, but then Leif’s body jerked, and she gasped in pain, and it began.

It was awful.

The room watched in horrified silence as Leif’s body spasmed, pink bubbles of spit frothing from her mouth as her gums bled. More blood poured from her nose and from under her fingernails as her muscles twitched and bulged freakishly. The whites of her eyes turned pure red as her capillaries burst from the strain her body was under, both trying to break free of her bindings and trying to fight the horrible transformation as it progressed. She let out an inhuman scream of rage and pain that ripped Roxy’s heart to shreds, and her wild eyes locked on to the scientist that was still in the room. She started thrashing in her direction, snarling and flinging bloody spit across the room as she pulled against the chains restraining her, straining so hard Roxy was worried she was going to break her wrists.

The transformation seemed to be finished. Leif, her best friend for twelve years, the sister she never had, was reduced to nothing more than a mindless zombie, drooling and growling and doing her very best to kill everyone in the room with her terrifyingly empty stare. There wasn’t anyone behind her eyes anymore. It wouldn’t even be accurate to call her an animal at that point. What a perfectly horrible creation the hunters had come up with. A hiccupy sob rocked up from her chest out of nowhere, and Roxy didn’t bother to stop the tears as they came. Her best friend was gone, and in her place there stood only a monster.

“Stop it,” Drew whispered, the horror and pain clear in his voice. “That’s enough, make it stop! For god’s sake, give her the cure already, you heartless fucking asshole! She’s suffering!”

“You heard the man,” Vincent said coldly. “Give her the vaccine.”

The scientist carefully stepped towards Leif, taking care not to get too close to her gnashing jaws. She went around behind her, where the chained collar prevented her from turning, and injected another syringe into her neck. The effect was mercifully quick. One second Leif was violently thrashing, trying to turn around to attack the scientist, and the next, her eyes were rolling back into her head and her body flopped to the ground like a sack of bricks.

Roxy couldn’t even remember moving. At one moment she was standing at the window, staring through at the limp and lifeless body of her sister, and the next she was kneeling beside her, surrounded by her pack, desperately gripping her hand like that might make her come back quicker. Leif’s head was resting on Drew’s lap, his hands cradling the sides of her bloody face. Her chains had been removed, and her chest was rising and falling steadily, which was a relief. Realistically, Roxy knew that Leif wouldn’t die. She’d gone through the transformation herself, and came back relatively unharmed, minus some bad muscle pain. It was just the shock of seeing her like that, seeing her thrash around mindlessly before dropping limp. It scared her down to her core.

“Is she alright?” asked Vincent, who was peering over their shoulders.

“I think so,” Drew responded. “No thanks to you.”

“Ms. Townsend volunteered to be the test subject, Mr. Basterfield. I understand that you are in distress, but please do not direct your pain towards me unjustly.”

“She only volunteered because there was no other choice!” Pedro suddenly yelled. “You should have had a test subject lined up! The only reason Leif agreed to do this was because you didn’t prepare properly! You should be ashamed of yourself!”

Vincent looked well and truly taken aback. Pedro was growling at him, claws bared, ready to defend his pack. Roxy would have been right there with him were it not for her obligation to stay by Leif’s side. What an asshole, leaving them with such an impossible choice and then acting like it wasn’t his fault that they were in that position in the first place.

Vincent grunted. “Perhaps you are right. I apologise. I simply assumed it wouldn’t be an issue, given your pack’s human members. I had not expected the process to be so… disturbing.”

“Then you’re naive and an idiot,” Pedro said tersely. 

“Pedro, please. Today has been a success! The vaccine works, and now all that’s left to do is wait until the eclipse to give the vaccine to one of the direwolves. In the meantime, we will have more doses synthesised for the rest of you as a contingency. Should the hunters somehow succeed in their plan despite our efforts, the last thing we want is for all of us to be turned into beasts as we try to reverse it.”

“Succeed? How could they succeed now?” Roxy asked.

“As Mr. Basterfield’s sudden appearance proved, there may be more direwolves we aren’t aware of. If the hunters have gotten their hands on them, or god forbid, they manage to get the two of you here, there will be nothing we can do to stop them from activating the ritual themselves. Having our crew vaccinated means that we will be able to fight back to the bitter end. Whether that means wrangling a monstrous direwolf into the ritual to apply the antidote, or fighting through an outpost to find them after having been captured, the vaccine will give us our last fighting chance, instead of reducing us to animals the second the ritual starts.”

“Why don’t you just vaccinate us now? Save the trouble and the worry?” Sam asked.

“As we know so little about the eclipse ritual, we have no way of knowing that the vaccine will be transferred to the rest of the population if it has already been administered. Waiting until the eclipse to administer it is the most surefire way to ensure that it transfers. If we vaccinated you now, it would remove the threat of you being used by the hunters in the future, but it will not remove the threat of other direwolves being used. We want to completely cut off this avenue for the hunters, and waiting till the eclipse is the best way to do that.”

“Um,” Roxy’s dad muttered. “If you’re making more vaccines for the rest of us as a contingency in case things go wrong, do you think you could send some to my family back in the US? I-if worse comes to worst and the hunters do succeed, I don’t want my family to turn and accidentally hurt each other while we try to fix it.”

“It will be done, Mr. Thura. You have my word.”

Damien nodded and returned his eyes to Leif’s unconscious form. Roxy was just trying to hold on to whatever was left of her psyche after this absolute rollercoaster of a morning. First she was ecstatic, getting engaged to Sam, so filled with love and happiness that it felt like she could take on the world, and then came the horror of having to watch Leif suffer like that, and now the subtle burning dread and fear that, despite everything they’d done to prevent it, the hunters still might activate the ritual without their knowledge. It wasn’t a high probability, but it wasn’t a 0% chance, either, and that tiny sliver of possibility was no doubt going to keep Roxy up every night from now until they finally shot Sam and Drew up with the vaccine during the eclipse.

Leif’s breathing shifted subtly, and her eyelids started twitching, fluttering open until she was staring up at all of them, gaze heavy with exhaustion. Back on the rollercoaster, Roxy’s heart soared at seeing that her friend was okay.

“Did it work?” Leif asked from between bloody lips, her voice thin and reedy.

Drew laughed his relief in bittersweet chuckles. “Of course it worked, you dolt. You wouldn’t be talking to us if it didn’t.”

“Fuck yes,” Leif said, and then tried, with great effort, to sit up. She grunted and groaned in agony, but with Drew supporting her, she was eventually able to meet everyone at eye level. “Jesus Christ, it feels like I just did fifty workouts at once. You all owe me a drink.”

“Cheers to that,” Roxy replied. “You did amazing, Leif.”

“I think she has the right idea. We gotta celebrate tonight!” Clarissa said. “I know the perfect place, it’s just down the street. If you feel like you’re up for it, Leif?”

“Hell yeah, I am. The vaccine works, and Roxy and Sam are getting engaged? There’s no way we aren’t having a party tonight. Just…” She ran out of breath, and had to take a second to catch it before continuing. “Give me a few hours to recuperate. And to wash the blood out of my… everything. I feel really sticky. And sick. Oh, I’m salivating. I think I’m gonna throw up now.”

And then she threw up. Everywhere. It was thoroughly unpleasant for everyone involved.

—

Tracking down where the direwolves were staying was a cinch with the information they’d gathered. Watson simply waited around outside that youth group when she knew they were meeting, and once she spotted her targets, it was all too easy to follow them back to their hideout, blending in with the crowds of civilians around her. They seemed to be staying in an apartment building, but when Watson tried to look up the records surrounding the building, she found nothing. It was likely that the building was owned by the werewolf Council, in that case. Regardless, now that she knew their location, all she had to do was gather more information to hand over to Captain Langley so he could formulate a plan of attack. Should be easy enough, for a trained soldier like her.

She watched the building day in and day out, taking note of who entered and who left. Members of the direwolf pack would periodically leave to buy groceries from a nearby store, usually in twos or threes. The two direwolves themselves were commonly sighted leaving with Townsend and Kindley, going on runs and shopping trips. It was all good intel, but nothing solid that was going to give them an opening. They never left the building alone. They may have been lulled into feeling safe after these past few months of hiding, but they were still cautious enough to never leave themselves completely vulnerable. Watson needed something else. 

Then, an opportunity arose. One unremarkable day, late enough in the afternoon to argue that it was the evening instead, the entire pack left the building together. Watson followed on from a distance as they all piled into a bar, and an idea came to her. She retreated back to her stakeout van, undid her hair from it’s usual bun, made a very cursory attempt at makeup, quickly regretted it and wiped it off, threw on a jacket that Captain Langley had given her because he didn’t want it and she thought it was nice (it had sequins on the elbows that she found quite pretty, and it was far too girly for Captain Langley anyway. She didn’t even know why he had it in the first place. Perhaps he had an affinity for fashion before he joined the Sons?) and followed them inside.

The pack had taken up residence in one of the booths, and were sharing a round of drinks over some cheerful chatter that she couldn’t quite make out through the din of the populated venue. Watson sat at the bar, ordered something light, and waited for her targets to get well and truly wasted. She watched with fascinated revulsion as the group of werewolves tore apart a party-sized plate of nachos in frankly ridiculous time, made idle conversation with the bartender as they ordered round after round of drinks, and finally listened in to the conversation as their inebriation rose their speaking volume to discernable levels.

Townsend was laughing so hard it seemed like she was struggling to breathe, while Kindley was pouting at her. Or was that a scowl? It was hard to tell the difference with those scars distorting her face. Watson could relate to that, at least. Her messed up cheek twinged in sympathy for the wolf, until she remembered what her claws had done to Captain Langley’s face, and then all that sympathy dried up. 

“You should have seen your face!” Townsend yelled in elation. “You were all ‘eeEEIIUuugh!’” She pulled a face that Watson could only assume was a mimicry of Kindley’s at the moment they were talking about. “Like, I’m sorry! I know it was gross, but that face!” The young woman broke into another wave of cackling laughter.

“You had just puked on me! Of course I was grossed out! Jesus, Leif, you puked on everyone! It was disgusting!”

Okay, gross. What on earth did these wolves get up to in their spare time?

“It was gross, babe,” said the male direwolf, with an arm around Townsend’s shoulders. Curious. She would have to make sure to remember that.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to! You try taking that fuckin’ drug without spilling your guts! It’s not my fault you were all crowding around me!”

“Can we please talk about anything else?” asked a middle-aged Asian man, who shared a striking resemblance to Kindley. Watson assumed he was Damien Thura, the one Captain Langley had spied on to gather information before everything went tits-up. She never really did hear much about how that operation went. Her Captain was quite sparse on the details, no doubt ashamed of his unfortunate failure. Watson never thought it was his fault; those wolves were resourceful, after all.

Their conversation continued on mostly the same; pointless banter interspersed with the occasional tiny nugget of barely-useful information. She learned about the hispanic wolf’s love life in teasing jabs, heard colourful stories about the other wolf’s previous competitive MMA career - told in a drunken drawl by the woman herself - and zoned out through the male direwolf’s recounting of his school days before he met the rest of them. She thought it was all dreadfully boring, but apparently they were all drunk and jolly enough to find humour in even the most asinine jokes being thrown around the table.

It was a strange experience, actually getting to know her targets in this small way. In most cases, the extent of interaction she would have with a werewolf would be when she was impaling it on the end of her sword or shooting it full of holes with silvered bullets. She had never had to stop and listen to them casually chat before, completely unaware of the threat that sat barely fifteen feet away from them. She’d never had to think about how these werewolves had lives beyond being murderous monsters. They didn’t just spend all of their time prowling around the woods looking for the next innocent lost fool to slaughter. Thinking about that sort of thing meant another trip to the training room, and those were never pleasant, so she did her best to shut her mind to it. She had her orders, and she wouldn’t betray Captain Langley’s trust in her just because she listened to one drunken conversation.

Eventually, nature called, and she got up off the bar to head to the bathroom, grateful to be away from the confusing situation for any length of time. As she did her business, she contemplated what she could possibly have gained from all she learned tonight. There was no useful intel, no convenient schedules or drunkenly leaked loopholes for them to take advantage of. What was she going to give back to Captain Langley? She knew he wouldn’t be mad at her (the failure was no fault of her own, and Captain Langley would understand that. He was good like that.) but he might still be disappointed. It was him who the blame would fall on if they failed to capture the direwolves again, and Watson suspected he wouldn’t be let off with a warning like last time. The only reason Father Superior hadn’t ripped him a new one was because he was already sufficiently punished by his injuries, and he was the only one with a lead as to where the direwolves had run off to. There wouldn’t be such leniency if they failed again, and she refused to be the cause of it. 

Watson walked out of the stall and began washing her hands, staring at her reflection determinedly. She decided she would bury her mixed feelings and dive in again, perhaps even attempt to ingratiate herself, gain their trust to make luring them into a trap that much easier. It would be dangerous, surrounding herself with those beasts in an attempt to befriend them, but she could do it. It might even hurt, learning more about them while knowing the end result would be their deaths. But she wouldn’t be swayed in her mission. The Sons of the Black Sun saved her from a life of sin and granted her a beautiful purpose; to cleanse the world of the unholy beasts that infested it. She was the first lieutenant to Captain Langley, who had already spent five months surrounded by wolves on his undercover mission in Dewsbury, and she would not fail him. She-

The door opened. A werewolf and a direwolf walked into the bathroom. It almost sounded like the start of a bad joke.

Watson quickly calmed herself and examined them through the mirror, pretending to not be paying attention. It wasn’t too hard to hide her observation, considering they were both drunk. It was the female direwolf - Reed - and the werewolf with the old MMA career. Apparently they even went to the bathroom in protective pairs. Reed went into a stall while the other one waited near the sinks, leaning heavily on the counter and observing herself in the mirror, baring her fangs at her reflection so she could pick something out from between her teeth. Watson tried not to shudder at the casual brandishing of her deadly weapons.

This was it. She needed to say something, needed to spark up a conversation somehow. It shouldn’t be hard, drunk people were more conversational, and this werewolf already seemed like a bit of a social butterfly from her observations. But, despite the ease with which the act should’ve been carried out, Watson couldn’t think of anything to say. She was paralyzed by fear, knowing that if the wrong thing slipped out, she would be a pile of messy guts on the floor before she could even say ‘oh fuck.’ Thankfully, the situation was resolved for her.

“Hey, can I just say, I absolutely love your jacket. I’ve been glancing at it all night, the sequins are just adorable.”

Watson turned to the werewolf in surprise. She was smiling at her confidently, eyes sparkling with drunken glee. A slight blush formed on her cheeks at the compliment.

“O-oh, uh, thank you. It was a gift from-” Not Captain Langley. That would give the game away. “A-a friend.”

The wolf nodded, her shortly cropped coppery hair bouncing slightly with the over-eager movement of her head. “They have good taste.”

At that point, Reed exited the stall and came to wash her hands. She gave the other wolf a curious look. “Clarissa, are you trying to make a friend?” She smirked.

The wolf - Clarissa - turned to her companion with a sway that came dangerously close to toppling her. “No,” she said, before turning back to Watson. “Unless you wanna hang out with us? You’ve looked pretty lonely, sitting up there at the bar all night. Did you get stood up or something?” She leaned in close enough that Watson could smell the booze on her breath. “Just between you and me, I think romance is for chumps anyway.”

Watson blinked. “You… you want me to join you?” she asked, avoiding the rest of what Clarissa said entirely. She was doing her best to avoid outright lying. She really didn’t think she was any good at it, so it was better to just not risk it.

“Yeah!” Clarissa yelled. She threw her arm around Reed’s shoulders, dragging her down to her considerably shorter level. “Little Sammie here just got engaged! We’re celebrating!”

Watson didn’t think ‘little’ was a descriptor that could ever be applied to the hulking titan of muscle that was the direwolf, even as a small, soft part of her heart stung with the announcement of the good news. Should their plans succeed, ‘Little Sammie’ was never going to live to see her wedding day. All of their excitement tonight would be for naught, one last hurrah before the end.  It was all horribly tragic, and that tiny bit of Watson’s heart that had somehow avoided being hardened by her years of training and hunting suddenly wished she had taken up any other profession. She closed that part of her heart off. It was far too late to back out now, and Reed was still a murderous beast that needed to be purged, regardless of any recent marriage proposals.

“Okay, sure, I’ll share some drinks with you guys,” she said.

“Great!” Clarissa cheered. “Wait, what’s your name?”

Watson almost faltered, but she said, “Anne.” It wasn’t a name that anyone had referred to her by for many years, but it was still hers, in some lingering, sentimental way. Maybe it would be nice to return to her old life for a few hours, to return to the innocent and naive woman she was, before her back was scarred with purifying lashes and her hands were stained with werewolf blood.

Clarissa clapped her hands. “Ooh, we have an Anne in our group, too!”

“What? No we don’t,” Reed said.

“Yes we do, silly. Rox-Anne? I think she still counts as an Anne!”

Reed laughed. “Okay, but if she punches you in the nose for calling her that, don’t come crying to me.”

“No promises.”

—

Surprisingly, Watson was able to have a great time, and by the end of the night, when the pack dragged themselves out of the bar, one half of the group practically carrying the other, she was able to bid them farewell with a genuine smile on her face, excitement still thrumming through her body. Clarissa was great at keeping her involved in the conversation, despite her not knowing anyone in any real sense, and even managed to get her up and dancing along to the music from the jukebox, once she’d had a few more drinks to loosen up her inhibitions.

She retreated to the bed of her stakeout van happier than she’d been in months, after having the best night she’d had in years, and remembered that in the not-too-distant future, she was going to have to kill most of the people she just laughed the night away with.

And just like that, the excitement of the night turned to ash in her mouth. She couldn’t afford to be emotional, though, so she steeled herself, throwing the memories she’d made into a fire. She locked Anne back away in a little box and buried her deep inside her heart, hardening that soft sliver of her soul that panged with grief at what she knew she had to do, becoming First Lieutenant Watson once more. The board had been set, the dice had been rigged, and now all that was left to do was to pay the price of victory.

At least Captain Langley would be happy with her, right?

It was a cold comfort, but a comfort nonetheless.

---

woooooh boy, can you smell the incoming pain? cuz I can :)

Soooo yep, Roxy and Sam got engaged. Believe me when i tell you i did not intend for that to happen, all i wanted was to write a fluffy waking-up-together scene to milk some happiness out of these queers, but then Sam did what Sam does and just blurted out a proposal out of nowhere. Regardless, I'm actually quite happy with it. These guys needed a win to compensate for what's coming. It's not gonna be sunshine and rainbows, let me tell you. 

Join me next time as we kick off the final arc of Direwolf! We're in the endgame now, folks, and it's only downhill from here!

Oh my god how is it the final arc already that's terrifying

Leave a comment if you enjoyed!