Archive of Our Own

 

The world ended and John was forced to listen to it pass by on his small radio, while he was locked away under medical quarantine. Gifted with immunity by his wolf to the plague that had more than decimated mankind, he had hoped that the doctors could isolate the chemical source of his immunity and find a cure. Instead he was the last one left standing at the end of it all. John had never really learned to live with his wolf but after the end of the world, giving over to the wolf was the only way to protect his sanity.

The world ended and there was nothing left for Rodney to do except hope that he wasn’t entirely alone. A mystery beacon in Colorado seemed like the best chance to find survivors and maybe reclaim a little of what had been lost. So Rodney left Toronto and travelled across the continent in search of answers. Along the way, he saved a wolf from a sinkhole in Ohio and gained a travelling companion – a shapeshifter that turned out to be a man.

The end of the world came quickly for most of mankind. For those lucky few who survived, it was learning that they were not alone that made the loss bearable. Learning to live with the end of the world was the hard part - especially now that wolves were once again kings and the Pack laid claim to it all.

 

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Colorado Springs was burning, consumed not in a blaze of glory but rather in the slow collapse of embers into fragile ash memorials. From the airport tower, the black of the destroyed neighborhoods dwarfed the surrounding patches of dead brown where the fires had yet to spread. The end of the world had not come quietly to Colorado Springs.

“Oh,” Rodney whispered. His tone was part awe and part sorrow and part something that was too big to be named. It was the sound of the loss of a civilization – a tone unique to the end of the world, John had decided.

Rodney stood by his right shoulder and together they looked north out of the dirty windowpanes that ringed the tower cab – the glass-walled room at the top of the tower from which controllers had once directed airport traffic. Rodney's brow and short brown hair were slicked with sweat from the dark, hot climb up the tower, and the slump of his broad shoulders telegraphed his disappointment at the state of the city laid out to the north. John’s chest ached with the same disappointment. Rodney had told him that every major city he had passed since leaving Toronto had been destroyed but John had still hoped that Colorado Springs might prove to be one of the rare exceptions. Clearly, it was not.

John shifted his weight towards Rodney, not quite brushing shoulders but enough of a trespass on Rodney’s space to bring his attention back around to John.

“What do you think…” Rodney’s voice trailed off to silence without finishing the question. He didn’t need to finish; John was thinking the same thing.

The fire that was consuming Colorado Springs could have been an accident – a result of failing infrastructure or a lucky lightning strike on dry soccer fields and un-watered lawns. It was equally possible that the fire had been more deliberate. Directly north of the airport, Peterson Air Force Base was a wasted battleground. The shells of hollowed out barracks and blackened and pockmarked training fields bore testament to the last days of human occupation. John deliberately cut off further thought on what might have happened to the servicemen there. It was just another loss in a never-ending list and John had always been good at compartmentalization.

He glanced over at Rodney and cocked his head in silent encouragement. John had discovered very quickly that as long as he could keep Rodney talking everything was fine. In the five weeks they’d been travelling together, the only time Rodney had been truly quiet had been when they’d been forced to detour around a town called Burlington. There, the whole town had committed ritual suicide. The bodies had been laid out along the main road in front of the church, shoulder to shoulder down the length of the block. The youngest had been fanned out in the parking lot, row upon row, dressed in what must have been their Sunday best. Neither he nor Rodney had felt much like talking for a few days after that discovery.

Rodney swallowed against an obviously dry throat and offered, “We could go back to the last town. They probably won’t have much of a selection but we could make do?” The last was both question and statement.

John gave a short shake of his head. If the last town had had what they needed, they would have stopped there rather than pushing on to Colorado Springs. It was less a case of being picky than a case of needing what you needed.

Rodney’s frown reflected back at them in the dusty glass. “We could check out the south side there.” He pointed one dirty finger towards a large patch of green and grey at the edge of the airport where it met the south corner of the Air Force base. John could just make out the arch of hangers through the drifting smoke.

Rodney dragged the inside of his wrist across his forehead displacing sweat and grime in a smeared swath of brownish grey. “It looks like those hangers are clear. Perhaps there are stores there that hadn’t been distributed before...” here he rolled his hand in a vague gesture.

Before the world went to hell in a hand basket, he meant to say. Not that John was inclined to say it out loud either.

Rodney turned towards him and gave him an expectant look. John turned back to the window, uncomfortable under Rodney’s scrutiny.

“John?” Rodney asked. It was a question but not the real question. The real question, the question Rodney had been asking some variation of since Kansas, was what the wolf thought.

Rodney tended to treat the wolf like some canine version of a magic eight ball or maybe the time lady, as if all John needed to do was make a phone call and the wolf would rattle off any relevant situational facts about the area. The truth was, as always, more complicated.

John was finding lately that there wasn’t much of a choice, regardless of how complicated it might be.

“Sure.” He paused and then added, “We’ll check the hangers.” He was still trying to find the balance between his own natural reticence and Rodney’s incessant commentary. The weak smile he got from Rodney in turn was worth the effort.

“Well. Okay then.” Rodney turned away from the window and brought his hands together in a sharp clap making John jump. Rodney offered him a contrite grimace before stomping down the short steps into the bowl of the cab to the equipment ringing the inside of the tower.

“Let’s, uh, see what we have here.” Rodney pulled out his all-purpose tool and began to dismantle one of the equipment banks.

A few weeks earlier, the sophisticated equipment of the cab, synced to the integrated terminal weather system, would have told John anything he wanted to know about the environment around the airport. Now its only worth was in repurposed parts. John turned back to the windows and eyed the local weather patterns. He tried to gauge wind speed and direction based on the smoke and broken landmarks. He would have to check when they got back to the ground floor but it looked feasible from here provided the wind didn’t get any stronger or change direction in the next twenty minutes.

Behind him Rodney was muttering to himself as he pried apart casings.

“I don’t know when this tower was built, but it certainly hasn’t been updated in the last fifteen years.”

John absently nodded in Rodney’s direction. He hadn’t spent much time in towers and really couldn’t say otherwise. As part of flight school he'd learned the basic systems-mechanics but the specifics of the equipment were beyond him. Regardless of the system, it all boiled down to computers and monitors. Thankfully, Rodney had demonstrated that he was more than competent in that regard.

In the weeks they’d been travelling together, Rodney had offered his expertise on everything from power sources, to equipment, to mechanical tinkering. He had apparently been a power engineer by trade but somewhere along the way he’d picked up a multitude of practical skills. He was still shit at building a fire though, John thought, smiling to himself; so there was some fairness left in the world.

“Considering the funding issues you Americans always seemed to have with your government, I’m not particularly surprised.” Rodney grunted as a circuit board gave way beneath his carefully tugging. “Thankfully, it’s just the pieces I need and not the entire system. This is junk,” he groused tossing the board off to the side. The words were harsh but didn’t carry the weight of any real frustration. He was already reaching for another piece and didn’t expect John to weigh in with a comment anyhow.

If Rodney couldn’t find what he needed from these systems, then they could consider cannibalizing the base building below, John thought. The airport had been sufficiently centrally located to merit both a tower and a terminal radar approach control facility, but John hadn’t particularly wanted to wander through the closed off computer rooms of that building unless it was absolutely necessary.

He still didn’t fully understand what it was that Rodney was following or how all this equipment was going to help. Really, he only cared about Rodney’s mystery beacon in so far as Rodney cared. And Rodney cared a lot.

John glanced back at Rodney before turning to keep his eyes on the surrounding airport. “We can’t all be Canadians.” John offered with insincere remorse.

“Thankfully,” Rodney snorted in reply.

Before the apocalypse, Rodney had lived his whole life in Toronto and according to him, he’d still be there, setting up a nice lake house with all the post apocalyptic necessities if it weren’t for the beacon. The power signature that bloomed after all of the North American power grids had failed had pulled Rodney across the border in search of the mystery’s source. He’d travelled on foot from Ontario through New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio and on across Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas, into Colorado. He’d gotten lost in the back woods of Ohio, saved a starving wolf, passed through ruined cities, and navigated the overrun highways of America.

If he wanted to know that badly, then the least John could do was go along. It wasn’t as if John’s social calendar was particularly full right now.

“We have enough crazies out in the Northwest Territories without adding in your crazies.” The rejoinder came back muffled and almost unintelligible. Rodney had laid himself out on the floor and jimmied himself under a console while rooting around. For a moment, John’s eyes caught on the spread, denim-clad legs before he forced himself to look away. He was supposed to be standing watch not indulging in idle fantasies.

A sharp thump came from under the console. Rodney did an inching scoot out from under the equipment, emerging with another circuit board in hand. His face was flushed with exertion. “Ha! Here’s a good one.” He flipped the board about and set it beside his bag before starting in on another console. “Now if I can just find the right electrolytic capacitor…” His voice trailed off in a mumble.

John wasn’t sure what Rodney expected to happen after they found the beacon. Rodney seemed convinced that it was a power source of some kind and if nothing else they could make life post apocalypse a bit easier for themselves. But it was more than that to him. John’s best guess was that although Rodney hadn’t mentioned it, he secretly hoped they might find more people wherever the beacon was.

And John wasn’t sure how to take that. On the one hand, he couldn’t imagine not being happy to find someone else alive. Even one more person would feel like a miracle at this point – surviving the apocalypse made you one of a very select club. But by the same token, surviving didn’t mean you’d come out of the experience unscathed. Or that you had been a decent human being to begin with.

“Can you hold this?” Rodney called, holding out a pile of wires blindly in John’s direction.

“Keeping watch, Rodney.” John replied although he wasn’t doing a very conscientious job of it. Between the boring nothing view of the empty airport and Rodney’s commentary, it was hard to keep focused on their surroundings.

Rodney huffed in irritation but didn’t call him on it. Instead he set the wires out on the desk top and carefully weighted them down with his tool pack. When he was satisfied they wouldn’t fall back into the open computer cabinet, he went back to working his way through the dissected computer innards.

John crossed his arms and turned his back on Rodney entirely. He let his eyes run the length of the west runway looking for irregularities in the landscape as he thought through the question of more people.

The last living person John had seen, barring Rodney of course, had been Dr. Penn back in the medical lock-up in Rockville. Almost everything between that and Kansas was gone. He had vague memories of his escape from the facility and the trip to his family home but he didn’t remember much of either. For instance, he knew his brother and his family were dead, along with various other armed looters who had obviously attacked the house but there weren’t any images associated with the knowledge. It was as if his mind had blanked out the visuals and as far as John was concerned, that was for the best.

Rodney hadn’t been so lucky. John had known he’d been missing something important when Rodney had flat out refused to call him by his first name for the first few weeks of their acquaintance. When John had finally worked up to asking about it, Rodney had only said that he’d met another survivor with the same name and it had ended up a cluster fuck but the wolf had saved him.

John had no memory of the event but he hadn’t really expected to either. He’d fully transformed only a handful of times and he had no memories from any of those transformations. One day he expected to get the full story about the other survivor from Rodney but until then, all he had was a nagging sense of unease anytime he imagined them meeting other people.

A jaw-cracking yawn caught John by surprise and he covered his mouth quickly with his fist to muffle the sharp, unexpected sound. He glanced at Rodney but the other man hadn’t seemed to notice John’s lapse. They were both tired but now, out of the chilly fall wind and with bright morning sunlight filtering through the polarized glass, it was harder to ignore the ache of over-tired muscle and the pinch of a stress headache.

John snorted to himself in black amusement. One would have thought that the end of world would have meant the end to the stress-induced headache that was the hallmark of modern life.

Rodney paused in his efforts to shoot John a quizzical look. It figured that that was what caught his attention. John just shook his head and Rodney went back to his work with an off-tone harrumph of irritation. Somewhere in the mutterings there might have been an imprecation about stupid canines.

John gave his face a rough scrub with his hands to wake himself up – up and down a few times hard. A flicker of movement below caught his eye as he lowered his hands. Instantly alert, John tracked the half-seen movement back towards an equipment building. He squinted sharply at a corner of the remote building trying to find what had drawn his eye.

The small cinder block building stood at an odd angle to the tower, creating a deep shadow around one side but leaving the door in clear view. Nothing on the flat grey sides caught the sun or wind. The ground surrounding the building was tamped-smooth dirt with no trash or grass to move. Even the low roof was off-white and muted in the afternoon sun. Nothing about it at all should have called to him.

John felt his muscles string tight in preparation for a response. His heart remained steady but he was already calculating the way down the tower and off the field along the most expedient but protected path. He waited, intently focused, for the threat to reveal itself.

A high plume of smoke from the burning city drifted across the runway, throwing the building into shadow for a brief few seconds before the wind caught it and pushed it north. Nothing else moved.

“I think I’m done here,” Rodney called over to him.

John canted his head towards Rodney but didn’t take his eyes off of the building. From behind him came the sound of nylon and zips and Rodney packing up. John continued to stare hard at the building until Rodney came up to stand at his shoulder again.

“Sheppard?” He asked more softly now. Rodney had obviously twigged to John’s own anxiousness if he was reverting to last names.

Another cloud cast shadow flickered across the small patch of ground at the foot of the building, drawing John’s attention. It was possible that had been what caught his eye the first time. Or maybe the shadow of Rodney in the glass had momentarily tricked his tired mind. It could be nothing.

John let out the breath he’d been holding and turned to look at Rodney. Rodney stared at him a long moment, searching, but when John didn’t volunteer anything, Rodney blinked first.

“I’m done here. I think I have the pieces I need now to refine the sensitivity on the tracker. Ready to go shopping?” The words were forcibly cheerful. If John let the wolf free, he was sure there would be the sharp smell of adrenaline and sour anxiousness.

“Yeah,” he offered in what he hoped was a casual tone. Suddenly he was more than ready to get out of this dead building and into the open where he had options if they needed to run. He turned towards the stairwell door and headed out with Rodney following behind.

The jog down the cramped tower emergency stairs was easier than climbing up had been, but the darkness was unnerving. John had to push down the urge to pull on the wolf and improve his eyesight. The flashlights were sufficient, but the sound of Rodney closely dogging his feet and the tight whoosh of their breath in the dark stairwell spurred him down quickly.

John checked their progress at the ground floor with one hand on the emergency door they’d left propped open and one hand outstretched to keep Rodney within the stairwell. Rodney side-stepped his outstretched palm and crowded close. They had never discussed it, but Rodney had his own dislike of enclosed spaces.

“Wait,” he growled. He felt Rodney nod minutely by the shift of air on his neck and shoulder.

John nudged the exit door open with his foot just far enough to get an unencumbered view of the surrounding area. The grounds looked clear but John wasn’t willing to take the risk. He braced himself with a deep indrawn breath and then reached for the wolf.

On deciding to join the military, John had trained himself to partially merge with the wolf, making the transition between human and wolf-enhanced human almost instinctual through practice. Tapping into the wolf had been like pulling on his aviators against the sun – the wolf sliding seamlessly over his own senses to augment the world around him. The wolf had brought his sense of sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste into sharp focus and then added something more. It had been effortless. But as Rodney had said, that was before.

Now he had to reach for the wolf. Or, to be honest, it was less reaching and more like leaning, as one might do in response to a strong wind or dangerous undertow. John planted his feet and legs and body and leaned into the rush that was the wolf. It was like standing in the downdraft of a helicopter trying not to be swept from his feet.

The wolf rushed up to embrace him, bowling into and rolling through him in a mad spike of senses. John felt his body seize as he fought to stay upright and hold onto his physical self under the onslaught. Grimly, he fought against the pull and push of wolf circling around him. There were no words between the two of them. There never had been, though the wolf was as sentient as he. He could feel the intelligence and self-awareness behind the presence – even more so now after he’d given over and spent weeks as a wolf. But it was alien in a way that made it difficult to communicate with beyond emotional bludgeoning.

He must have physically faltered, because Rodney reached out with a hand and grabbed his shoulder to steady him. The rough, steady grip provided the focus he needed to push the wolf back. He kept his thoughts on his body, whole and human except for the shadow of the wolf overlaying his mundane senses, trying to convey his desires to the wolf within. In return, he got a jumbled impression of the rush of grass under his paws and the warm stretch of muscles propelling a sleek furred body through the trees from the wolf. It was the call of a full transformation and it was more tempting in its own way.

The wolf pushed hard but John held fast and after a long minute the wolf settled, leaving behind a wash of disappointment and frustration coating the back of John’s throat. John’s senses stabilized into the sharp sensory net of the wolf. Suddenly, Rodney was that much closer, the smell of him foremost in John’s heightened senses.

“John?” Rodney prodded. He sounded anxious and his smell confirmed John’s impressions a thousand times over.

“Yeah,” he replied with a rough cough. “Just a minute.”

People primarily recognized other people by sight. To the wolf, people were much more than just the sum of their physical characteristics. People had a distinct sound when moving and when still. Their smell was a complex mix of chemicals and emotions, the places they had been, the people they had seen, the environments they inhabited, and the feelings each had elicited. This was how the wolf saw individuals, not by name but by this unique calling card of scent and emotion and memory.

To the wolf, Rodney was a combination of sights and sounds that brought to mind a young wolf, clumsy and forgetful of his body’s limitations – prickly and unapproachable at times. He was the crackle of a building storm and the hurt of the lonely piled on to the dry rasp of wit. All of which was overlaid with the wolf’s own sense of warm possession.

John had travelled across half the battlegrounds of the world with a small brotherhood of airmen and soldiers that he had known better than anyone else alive, thanks to the wolf. The information and impressions that the wolf had of those men were indelibly stamped into John’s brain. Each and every one of them would remain with John until the day he died. And yet none of that could compare to the sheer overload provided by the wolf's sense of Rodney.

Each time, it was a fight to sort through the information and file it away so that he could concentrate on other things. This time was no exception. John floundered for a moment before he could corral it into its designated corner in his mind and focus on the surrounding environment.

Gently he pulled away from Rodney and stepped out into the afternoon sun. Rodney crowded forward into the doorway behind him.

“Not yet,” John warned. The command was given gruffly but Rodney didn’t protest. He just gave John another nod.

John turned his face to the sky and scented the air. Smoke was the dominant scent. John and Rodney had both smelled the smoke for days before reaching the city. To the wolf, though, it was more than just smoke. It was a many-layered thing made up of the acrid smell of burned metals and plastics, dusty concrete and the carbon ash of burned organic things. John cataloged it all and then pushed it aside.

The air was sluggish and slow. It was difficult to be sure with the heavy tones of ash in his nose but nothing else seemed out of place. There was the smell of dry grass and rats in the weeds. There was the oily smell of hot asphalt and the brilliant bite of the corrugated steel roof on the base building, just going to rust along an unprotected edge.

Opening his eyes, John gave the empty tarmac the same scrutiny. The increased spectrum of the wolf’s sight gave the sunlit airfield a hazy glow. The concrete and asphalt of the runway system gave off waves of heat under the sun. John glanced straight down the runways in both directions, looking for anything out of place.

A fidget of movement to his right brought his gaze back to Rodney. He was staring at John expectantly. John chuffed a short breath and nodded. Rodney pushed past out into the afternoon light and headed off across the open tarmac. John jogged quickly after him.

“It’s too hot, still,” Rodney complained, pulling a pair of sunglasses from his pack. “All this asphalt. Cooking like an egg.”

Rodney was right. The dark runways had raised the temperature of the surrounding area considerably, although part of it, John was sure, was the nearby fire. It had been far too short a time for the runways to show any wear but the equipment lining the pathways was beginning to show neglect. Weeds grew up between the runway markers, obscuring the codes. Tall grass had over grown the glide slope, hiding the approach lighting beneath brown-tipped blades.

John had a sharp image of approaching the runway in an aircraft as he’d done thousands of times on hundreds of different tarmacs. By day it would simply be challenging. By night it would be like dropping into an abyss, hoping that he’d calculated the approach correctly and didn’t smash into the ground instead.

Beside him, Rodney had gotten onto the topic of breakfast for dinner and John felt his stomach rumble in agreement. Rather than get pulled into a discussion on the merits of strip bacon versus Canadian bacon, he ranged off to the side. As they approached and passed the equipment shed, John detoured closer, placing himself between the shed and Rodney.

With the wolf’s eyes the shadowed lee of the structure resolved itself into sharp contrasting grey and white. A curl of infrared warmth showed where something had crouched along the scrub line but the impression was already fading. John zeroed in on the trace, abandoning Rodney fully. He crouched down to drag his fingers along the dust. Bringing them to his nose, John gave them a cursory sniff before touching them lightly to his tongue.

Wolf.

A heavy growl pushed up into his throat. A sharp image John didn’t recognize of the dead skins of wolves stacked high in a moonlit yard flashed briefly in his memory. But this smell was alive, though gone now. The wolf within surged forward in response and, for a moment, John’s consciousness was pushed under as the wolf pressed to give chase. John felt the change begin to wash over him. Then the scuff of a boot in the dirt yanked John back from the precipice and back into himself.

“What’s wrong?” Rodney drew up beside him curiously.

John severed the connection with the wolf completely in one vicious cut, his heart pounding wildly at the close call. Embarrassed at being caught out and frustrated with the wolf, John had to bite his tongue to keep from lashing out unfairly at Rodney.

He debated for a brief moment what to tell Rodney but in the end it didn’t seem worth the effort of putting together the words. Whatever the other wolf had been doing here, it was gone now and John wasn’t interested in going after it. Moreover, knowing Rodney, if John mentioned the animal, Rodney would have a million questions about the wolf and John’s abilities and shifters in general. It was easier all around to skip the explanation. He and Rodney were getting what they needed and leaving.

“Nothing,” he stated curtly, looking up at Rodney. He stood to bring them back on to more equal footing.

Rodney glared at him obviously noting John’s evasion. John could see him gearing up to argue – a diatribe that John could probably recite by memory given the number of times Rodney had pushed him about his tendency to keep things to himself.

John had always been a bit reserved but he knew that it had been worse lately as result of apocalypse induced PTSD. He was working on the later but he wasn’t interested in addressing the former. What he still hadn’t been able to make Rodney understand was that every thought didn’t need to be announced to the world at large. Sometimes, things were private and sometimes, things were so minor as to not matter. And in this case, the other wolf was unimportant, whereas John’s abilities were private.

Ignoring the impending rant, John reached out and turned Rodney back towards the hangers – although he was still careful to keep himself between the open fields and the other man. “Let’s get our supplies and get out of here.”

Rodney frowned fiercely him but allowed himself to be corralled back towards the hangers. John knew Rodney was going to make him pay for this the next time Rodney decided to play twenty questions but he would deal with that when it came up. The sooner they finished shopping, the sooner they could be back on the road. And that suited John just fine.

 

Rodney tripped on another imaginary crack in the road, sending him stumbling a few feet forward. A badly smothered laugh came from behind him.

“Shut up.” Rodney grumbled. “I know. 'If I paid more attention',” he forestalled. “A bit busy here. We need to stop for a minute.”

Not waiting for an answer, Rodney detoured to the side of the road. The morning sun was out in full force but there was a chill to the air now that they were headed back into the mountains. Rodney chose a sunny spot and collapsed onto the pleasantly warm guard rail. John came to stand by his shoulder, inadvertently blocking the sun.

“You’re in my light,” Rodney barked, turning his attention to the small tracker in his hand. Rodney still had barely half of the parts he needed even with the stop in Colorado Springs. He’d had to jury-rig the rest from bits and bobs. The resulting Frankenstein tracker wasn't cutting it; he should have just sucked it up and stopped by the company equipment office before leaving Toronto. But he’d been so sure he could find what he needed on the road that he’d allowed his desire to get out of the city override his better judgment.

John shifted off to the side, but still hovered.

“This is going to take a few minutes.” Rodney gestured at the local shrubbery in an invitation for John to sit. John didn’t take the hint but he did fetch up against a tree, down the road a few feet. Better than prowling about, Rodney supposed. John had been crowding him all morning; metaphorically nipping at his heels in an effort to keep them moving.

“Something’s off. I’m just getting a constant, low level signature instead of a directional pulse.” It was the same reading he’d been getting from the tablet; the tracker had been meant to be a work-around for that. Not that this was news to John. Rodney had been griping about the signal since Kansas, in some form or another. He wasn’t sure if John cared or even really listened anymore when he explained things, but it was better than working with John staring at him in silence.

“I need to check this. Five minutes. Fifteen tops.” He pulled off his pack and unzipped it to reach in for his tool kit. He could see John tensing up, prepared to argue.

Rodney talked right over him. “Since we’re stopped, you can answer some questions.” John owed him after the airport incident two days ago. Something had happened there that had put John on edge but he refused to discuss it.

“What bit of cherished werewolf folklore would you like to disabuse me of this morning?” Rodney asked. John was smart; Rodney knew he would understand the choice he was being given. Talk about the airport or talk about the wolf.

John scowled. Rodney smirked at him then flipped open the tool-kit and set to work checking wires and tightening connections. John really didn’t like to be called a werewolf. According to him, there was John and then there was the wolf. There was no intermediary man-wolf-beast creation. It sounded like semantics to Rodney, but he did try to keep the werewolf talk to a minimum. Unless, of course, Sheppard deserved it.

“I think we should keep moving,” John grumbled. He paced away from the tree and back again before choosing a stump further from Rodney to sit back down on.

“And I think I should try again to calibrate this so we don’t wander in circles.” Not that Rodney really thought that John would lead them in circles but a little exaggeration never hurt. “We’ve covered that the moon is just a moon and that you prefer stainless steel to silver but not for allergy reasons.”

John sighed and settled further into his slump, arms crossed. He obviously wasn’t going to make this easy but that was okay by Rodney.

“Changing is voluntary and you don’t lose your clothes every time you change,” Rodney continued as he worked.

John snorted in reply.

Rodney looked up briefly and frowned at John’s pointed derision. “Yes, well, if you hadn’t shown up naked both times after I know you’ve changed we could have skipped that one. It was a valid hypothesis given the evidence!” Rodney had honestly been a little disappointed to find out that John wouldn’t be randomly showing up naked, but the intriguing puzzle of where John’s clothes went had been some minor consolation. John, of course, had no clue.

The other man had turned away in order to keep an eye on the surrounding forest but Rodney could see a faint smile curling his lip. Rather than call him on it, Rodney went back to fiddling.

“I don’t suppose you'd be willing to demonstrate …” Rodney asked only half in jest.

John ignored him.

The last time Rodney had seen the wolf had been one night by the campfire when he’d woken from a nightmare to find John sitting on his legs rather than the black wolf who’d been his companion since he’d freed him from a sinkhole in Ohio. Understandably, Rodney had been a bit unnerved by the whole thing. He’d threatened John with a mauling when his wolf returned, then John had taken the wind right out of the threat when he transformed into Rodney’s wolf right there in the middle of the camp. The wolf that was John had then run off and a non-wolf Sheppard had shown up about a week later, naked again, leaning against a fence post on the side of the road.

Rodney hadn’t seen the wolf since, and he kind of missed the furry beast. John hadn’t discussed it with him but Rodney rather thought the whole thing had been some sort of instinctual change on John’s part. His working theory was that somehow John had gotten stuck and just as unexpectedly become unstuck, which might explain the noted lack of wolf these days. Again, not that John had discussed it with him.

Rather than push, Rodney switched focus; there were plenty of other topics for discussion. “Well, if not that, then how about the other wolves?”

Unexpectedly, the tracker in his hand let off an arc of electricity, shocking him. He hissed in pain and stuck his thumb into his mouth to try to soothe the irritated skin. He therefore missed John’s initial reaction to the question but John’s sharp tone caused him to jerk his head up to meet John’s eyes.

“What other wolves?” John all but growled.

Rodney didn’t like to acknowledge it but sometimes the weight of John’s full attention was intimidating. When he got that hard look in his eyes, it reminded Rodney too much of how deadly the wolf could be. Rodney wasn’t prone to flights of fancy or prose but if he were, he might have commented on how the air suddenly felt a lot cooler under John’s hard stare. As it was, he blamed the sudden chill and resultant goose bumps on a stray cloud.

Rodney threw his hands up and almost lost the tracker in his show of blustering innocence. “That’s my question! You can’t be the only one, can you? I mean, what are the chances that there's only one of you in the whole world?”

Rodney felt his face flush at the unfortunate choice of words but John didn’t seem to be bothered. Instead, he relaxed back again and looked away. He seemed a bit embarrassed perhaps by his initial reaction.

Rodney focused on his tracker. He really did need to figure out how to configure the thing better if they were ever going to find the beacon. And if the tinkering gave John, and him, a moment to regroup from whatever nerve Rodney had tweaked, all the better.

Rodney gave him a moment before he continued. “If someone had asked me a few months ago what the chances were that a man could change into a wolf, I would have said astronomically low.” Rodney frowned to himself in thought. “Well. No, that’s not true. Actually I would have laughed myself sick, but you get the picture. Your existence, while logically possible, I suppose, should really have been physically impossible. But since you do exist then obviously you can’t be the only one. So. Where are the rest of you?” This time he concentrated on his hands rather than looking back at John.

John was silent for such a long time that Rodney almost gave up. Obviously, he’d bungled the whole conversation and would need to retreat and try again later. He fought down a stab of frustration at John’s on-going uncommunicativeness.

John surprised him though. When John finally spoke, it was in a low, almost lost-sounding tone. “I don’t know.”

Rodney glanced over at John from the corner of his eye, gauging his response. John was watching the road ahead, hands tight on his crossed arms. Rodney floated a soft hum of encouragement while keeping his hands busy and his focus obviously not on John. John didn’t take his eyes off the road, but continued.

“There were other wolves. Are other wolves?” John skipped the question of survival with a sharp shake of his head. “Once when I was serving... I could kind of feel them but they weren’t on our side and…” John stumbled over the words, obviously frustrated. “I’ve never met anyone else,” he settled on.

There was another story there that Rodney filed away for later.

“It ran in my father’s family.” John’s posture slumped a bit. He looked more pensive than upset. “His brother, I think, although he’d died before I was born. Not my brother, but they both understood what I was.”

Rodney concentrated hard on the electronics in his hand. He knew he couldn’t be fooling John – that John had to know he had Rodney’s undivided attention – but that was the way these things went.

“My father – he’s the one that taught me, insisted that I learn how to…” John’s voice petered out. Neither one of them had worked up to sharing family stories yet.

Rodney stepped in to redirect the conversation. He gestured with his screwdriver without looking up. “So how do you tell it’s a wolf and not, well, a wolf?” Or a man, but Rodney didn’t think it would be wise to suggest, even obliquely, that John wasn’t a man.

John frowned. “There’s a – it’s as if…” He stumbled on the words and Rodney could see the frustration in the tense line of his shoulders. “When you get close enough, there’s a sense of connection – of Pack.”

“Pack?” Rodney asked, in what he really hoped was an off-hand manner. Sometimes, when John didn’t feel like talking he’d resort to generalizations or rehash statements that they’d long since covered. This, though, this was the first time he’d heard that particular emphasis placed on the word Pack.

Of course, that was the moment John decided to retreat. His jaw worked for a moment then he shook his head again in frustration. He rose and walked back to Rodney.

“What’s wrong with that?”

Rodney bit down on his own frustration. Sometimes working on John was worse than working on the nightmare that was Edison’s legacy power grid; he’d been paid stupid amounts of money to try and sort that mess out. But in this case, considering how he’d started off on the wrong foot, it was a miracle he’d gotten what he had out of John. He’d file it away and start next time with something a bit less charged. John had even volunteered some new information, so, it hadn’t been a total waste of effort.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Rodney huffed. “I just need to calibrate it. The beacon is here but it’s just giving me the same useless reading.”

John came to a stop in front of him with his feet spread and arms akimbo. “Are we even going in the right direction?” Even with the three-day stubble and grime of the road, he looked as if he’d be perfectly at home in a military recruitment poster. The military fatigue pants and boots had made an appearance after Colorado Springs, although Rodney was damned if he could remember John picking up anything of the sort. John had kept the henley Rodney had originally given him that day back in Kansas, though. Rodney wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Realizing his time was up, Rodney began sorting everything back into its case. He wasn’t really making progress anyhow.

“Of course we are,” he snapped. “I mean, heading south out of Colorado Springs because of the fire didn’t do us any favors, but we’re definitely headed in the right direction now.” North – back into the mountain range.

“Unfortunately, now that we’re so close all I’m getting is a steady source reading. And since I doubt the clouds over Colorado have turned into a power source, something is wrong.”

John didn’t comment on Rodney’s obvious frustration. Rodney chose to think that meant that John had faith in his ability to resolve the issue.

“Then we’re here,” John stated with a strangely satisfied look on his face.

Rodney paused in the act of closing up the tracker and squinted at John trying to figure out what he was really asking.

“If by ‘here’ you mean somewhere in this mountain range, then yes, I suppose you could say that we’re ‘here’.” He offered.

John nodded, seemingly satisfied. “We need to make camp.” He turned and started back up the road.

Rodney scrambled to pack away his tool kit and jogged after him. John wasn’t trying to leave him, just get him moving. That didn’t stop Rodney’s heart rate from spiking. “Already? It’s barely even time for lunch!” he argued trying to hide his rapid breathing. He winced and colored at the high-pitched tone to his querulous remarks.

John glanced at him in confusion. Rodney was sure John couldn’t miss the flush; he could probably hear Rodney’s pounding heart as well. Rodney’s insides did a weird flutter at the thought. The wolf senses should obviously be the next avenue of questioning.

John slowed his pace abruptly, allowing Rodney to catch up. “We’re in the Rockies,” he said with a jerk of his head towards the scenery. “It’ll be winter before you realize it. I don’t want to be sleeping outside in tents in the snow. Do you? We need a base camp – somewhere with actual housing and hopefully a fuel tank or at least a wood stove. We can make shorter treks while the weather holds and then day trips once the snows come. If we can find a snowmobile, we can cover a lot of ground.”

Rodney blinked at John’s sudden verbosity. It wasn’t as if John didn’t speak to him; thankfully, those days were miles behind them. He didn’t usually volunteer that much information at once though.

John flushed and ducked his head at Rodney’s surprised look.

Rodney nodded once both in acceptance of the plan and acceptance of the tacit apology John was offering for his previous shortness. “We should see if we can find a lake or large river. A ready water supply and fish.” It would be nice change of pace from MREs.

John smiled and rather than ranging ahead as he often did, he moderated his steps to match Rodney’s as they trudged up the mountain road.

“We’re not going rustic though. There needs to be power.” The plans spooled out in Rodney’s mind. John gave him an odd look.

“Not power, power,” he amended. “Just lines. Hook-ups. I can get something independent set up from that.” He snapped his fingers quickly. “If we do set up on a lake, I can probably rig running water, given enough time before the freeze.” Maybe a buried water screw. It would be a little Swiss Family Robinson but it could work.

“Can you ski?” John asked out of the blue, derailing his thoughts.

Rodney frowned. “Ski? What does that have to do with anything?” John opened his mouth to reply but Rodney cut him off. “You know what, I don’t care how your mind got there.” John looked mulish at that. “No I can’t ski. Can you?”

John nodded, kicking a small pebble out from under foot. “Skiing trips when I was younger. I was more interested in surfing, though.”

Rodney snorted. Skiing and surfing. “Could you pick more dangerous pastimes?”

“Flying?” John asked with a small smile.

Rodney just shook his head – being a pilot was one of the few things John was willing to talk about without reserve. “Sports were really not my thing. I can ice skate but it’s been years.” Actually, the last time he’d been ice skating had been when he’d been teaching his sister to skate in high school. It was a good memory.

“I suppose you want to find some skis to get around on this winter.”

John just shrugged in response. He walked next to Rodney with a loose, easy stride but his attention was on canvassing the surrounding area. It was almost as if he was looking for something in particular, but Rodney couldn’t imagine what it was.

“I would think a pair of snow shoes might be more appropriate,” Rodney offered. “I do know how to use those.” His parents had spent the summers at a house on the lake while he and his sister, Jeannie, had gone to camp. But for the winter holidays they’d usually gone to the lake house as a family. The lake had never fully frozen but there had always been plenty of snow.

“That’ll work,” John agreed. He caught Rodney’s eyes with a nod of approval before looking back at the road.

“Okay then. Next town we hit, we can check out the sports shops.” Rodney knew he was going to regret it this winter but there was no reason not to be prepared.

It was another hour or so before they hit a town.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Rodney muttered under his breath as they made their way around a curve in the road. A sign welcomed them to Cripple Creek in bright gold lettering strung between two small wooden scaffolds. Beneath the sign a small monument of a man, obviously a miner, and a pack mule, topped a stone pedestal. A more standard green highway sign next to the monument cum welcome sign marked the city limit and noted an elevation of 9,494 feet.

John let loose with a honking laugh. Rodney couldn’t help but smile as well. It was awesomely over the top.

“Like the song?” John asked as the passed the city sign. Rodney didn’t know what he was talking about and his face must have conveyed that fact because John started humming under his breath. It didn’t spark a memory but John seemed amused enough.

It only got better once they entered the town. Two blocks in they hit what had to be the main East-West thoroughfare through town. The whole street was done up like a mining town from the 1900s with a gambling hall and salon, a tavern, and a historic hotel named the Imperial down a large side street. Facing off against each other in a Mexican standoff across the wide paved street were three casinos. On the corner, an old railway depot proudly proclaimed itself the Cripple Creek District Museum.

“Oh, god,” Rodney moaned. “It’s mining town Las Vegas.”

“Cool.” John smiled. “Let’s check out the museum.”

Rodney shook his head in exasperation. At least it wasn’t the slots.

Together they walked down the very middle of the street keeping their distance from the three casinos. Those establishments had obviously been very popular at the end of the world and the debris and corpses left behind had spilled out into the street. John kept a palm on Rodney’s shoulder as they navigated the obstacles. His eyes were constantly roving and he had that look that Rodney had come to associate with the wolf on high alert.

Rodney wanted to feel irritated by the attention. It wasn’t like he hadn’t crossed half of the northern seaboard without John’s protection; he was perfectly capable of watching himself. But all he really felt was thankful.

The museum was a three-story brick building fronted by iron railings and big globe-topped street lamps reminiscent of Victorian gas street lamps, Rodney supposed. The door was locked but Rodney made quick work of it. John looked appropriately impressed. He clapped Rodney on the back before slipping in ahead of him.

Rodney huffed and bustled after. “You know, I’m more than capable of – ” The rest of the statement was cut off by an inarticulate yell. John reacted immediately. He grabbed Rodney by the arms and propelled him away from the door and against the closest solid wall. He placed himself between Rodney and the rest of the room without hesitation. His eyes darted left and right, looking for the threat.

“What?” he whispered harshly.

Rodney pointed towards the stairs but even as he was making the gesture, his mind registered the inconsistencies in what he was seeing. A man stood at the end of the stairs behind an information booth. His figure had been what caught Rodney’s eye as he came through the door. What had thrown Rodney off, though, was his attentive posture. Unlike, well, everyone else in the world who wasn’t John or Rodney, this man stood smiling and fresh faced, facing the door as if waiting to welcome them in.

John hung his head and took a deep breath to steady himself. “It’s a mannequin. A display, Rodney.”

Rodney took his own steadying breath and tried to calm his racing heart. Of course it was. That would explain why John hadn’t reacted to the man when he walked in. It also explained the pristine skin and apple-cheeked appearance. Two months after the apocalypse, the corpses had shriveled to dark husks of the people they had been. And now that Rodney really looked, he noticed the Victorian garb and prop-filled ‘office’ behind the booth.

Nothing like a real person, after all.

“Sorry,” Rodney gasped. “Sorry.” He brought his hand up to his chest and pressed hard as if that could slow his pounding heart.

John turned towards Rodney and opened his mouth either to berate or tease him. Rodney wasn’t sure which because once John got a good look at Rodney, he abruptly bit off whatever comment he had been about to make. Instead, he took two careful steps forward into Rodney’s space physically crowding Rodney into the wall. The sudden heat and solid nearness of John’s body was oddly reassuring. Rodney’s world shrunk down to the immediate mass of John and the small sliver of the room he could see over John’s shoulder. Even that disappeared as John bowed his head to within inches of Rodney’s shoulder.

 “We’re okay,” John breathed out softly. He was so close they had to be breathing the same air. All Rodney would need to do to make contact would be to lean forward with the smallest shift of his weight.

Suddenly, Rodney’s heart spun into overdrive for an entirely different reason. The smell of dirt and sweat and something uniquely John flooded through Rodney. His body flushed and Rodney suddenly wanted that contact very badly. Travelling across Ohio and Missouri, the wolf had shared his camp and towards the end had even slept at the foot of his pallet. Since Kansas, though, Rodney had been sleeping alone. Whether because he was conscious of Rodney’s space or protective of his own, John usually made up his own pallet several feet away.

Rodney had known the physical distance was wearing on him. He hadn’t realized how often people had touched him just in the course of daily life – for no particular reason other than sharing the same space – until all those people had been gone. Now that John was spending his time as a human, that need for physical connection was even more pronounced.

The need for contact wasn’t even sexual. Except when it was. Like now.

“Okay,” John said at last. He abruptly pulled away, putting a few feet of space between them. He looked a little flushed himself.

It was some big cosmic joke. John was literally one of the last men on Earth but irrationally, that made things harder rather than easier. Had they met in some bar prior to the plague, Rodney probably would have made an awkward pass and John would have either taken him up on it or Rodney would have made an equally awkward retreat. But now the stakes were far higher. There was nowhere else to go if John shot him down and they would both have to live with any consequences.

Rodney frowned unhappily, caught in the stupid of the moment, unable to reach out and unable to step back.

John broke the stalemate by taking several more steps backward. He swung his pack off and started rummaging for something. He came up with a flashlight. “Come on then. Let’s see if there’s a map around here.” He flicked it on and started off for the stairs.

Rodney hurried after, unsure if he was happy that John was ignoring the moment or even more frustrated at the lack of response. If that was even possible.

It turned out that there were several maps in the museum, including a topographical representation of Pike’s Peak, maps of the gold mining camps in the area, and maps of the local dining establishments. They did finally locate a map of the local hiking and park trails that had several camping sites, local cabins for rent, and local landmarks, including several lakes. They pocketed what they needed and made their way back outside.

They ate lunch sitting on the front steps to the museum and then scouted down a couple side streets for good supply caches. Thankfully, Cripple Creek had been a tourist town and as such had several outdoors shops and other supply stores. By late afternoon, it looked like they were set to head back out of town.

Rodney had settled on a bench and was repacking his pack with the new supplies in anticipation of getting back on the road. John was investigating the garage the bench was parked in front of, looking for potential supplies. He wasn’t in sight, but Rodney could hear the sound of tools and who knew what else being sorted through from where he sat. Every now and then John would drop something and mutter a curse.

He was just about ready to wrap up and go round up John when John called out to him instead. “Hey, Rodney. Come here.”

John was standing in the bay doors, rocking back and forth on his heels. A big smile split his face. He motioned to Rodney and disappeared back into the garage as if impatient to get back to his discovery. Bemused, Rodney shouldered his pack and followed.

John led him to the back of the shop past empty car ports and dusty equipment. At the back, another rolling door opened to the back yard of the shop. There, against one wall, was parked a monstrosity of a vehicle.

“What the hell is that?” Rodney asked, aghast. John was standing by a vehicle that looked like the mutant offspring of a small snubbed-nose school bus and an old WWII tank. It was flat faced, army green, and boxy, and sat on two long rows of wheels strung round with continuous track.

“Awesome, isn’t it?” John’s voice was full of excitement. “It’s a Bv 206. They’re used by military for all-terrain transport.” John walked around the perimeter of the vehicle and poked and prodded at the treads and the doors. “It’ll do snow and mud and shale and just about anything you can throw at it.” He swung the door open on the dark interior.

“Better yet, it’s empty and the tank’s full. We can use this to cut cross-country to check out the potential sites.”

John seemed nothing if not pleased with himself but Rodney’s stomach had sunk to his feet at the first creak of the door.

He shook his head and backed up several steps. John frowned in confusion.

“No. Absolutely not.”

Rodney turned on his heel and marched back out to the street. At that moment, he didn’t care if John followed him or not.

One of the ubiquitous aspects of the apocalypse was the abandoned car. For some reason everyone in the whole world, or at least Southern Ontario and the Eastern United States, had thought it was a good idea to try to leave wherever they were when the plague hit. The fact that both Canada and the US had closed their borders and instituted strict travel restrictions had meant nothing at the very end. People had still gotten into their cars. And then they had died, turning every abandoned car into a potential casket.

Rodney had learned that lesson the hard way.

Even now, when he dreamed, he didn’t dream of his old co-workers or his old job in the engineering group. He didn’t dream of his sister who he’d buried in Toronto with her husband and Rodney’s niece. He didn’t even dream of the riots and martial law that had transformed his city into something he associated more with American comic book movies then with his staid Canadian heritage. Those sorts of dreams he could understand, if not enjoy.

No. When Rodney dreamed, it was of closed dark places with rotting dead bodies. Or undead rotting bodies, if he was particularly unlucky.

Rodney wasn’t paying much attention to where he was going and John appeared in front of him suddenly. He put himself directly in front of Rodney and crossed his arms, blocking further movement. “Explain,” he commanded. He was obviously trying and just as obviously failing to remain calm and sound understanding.

Rodney’s mouth opened and closed but no words came out. He didn’t know how to explain the sick twisted fear the thought of getting into a car elicited. There just wasn’t any way he could wrap up all the fear and helplessness and rage into something John would understand.

He was physically at a loss for words.

And that made Rodney suddenly, intensely angry. Angry at the world, yes. But also blindingly angry at John. Angry at John for making him try after Rodney let him get away with all sorts of shit. Not talking for weeks. Giving one word answers and monosyllabic grunts that Rodney was forced to extrapolate into whole conversations. Cutting off conversations at an arbitrary point when he felt he’d had enough.

It wasn’t fair. Rodney balled his fists and knew if John came one step closer he would lay him out in the middle of the road.

Something in his anger and fear must have gotten through to John whose face abruptly lost the set, angry look. Compassion and an unexpected level of understanding took its place.

In a strange reversal of earlier, John stepped back, giving Rodney space. “Okay,” he said gently.

Rodney took a deep breath. And then another. And another. He breathed in and out until he had his rioting emotions in check. Finally, his shoulders slumped and he felt his hands unclench.

John looked at him for a long moment. Rodney wasn’t sure what he was looking for but Rodney must have passed the test because he nodded. Then he turned around and started walking slowly out of town, giving Rodney plenty of time to collect himself and follow John out of Cripple Creek on foot.

They walked another five miles that afternoon then made camp in a grove of trees surrounding a clear bowl of earth. When Rodney turned in for the night, John banked the fire and dragged his pallet close to Rodney’s. The wolf didn’t sleep with him that night but at some point in the night Rodney half awoke to the sound of far off howls.

He slept soundly.

 

John came in through the door of the cabin they’d appropriated and found Rodney sitting at the small kitchen table off to the side of the main room. A few cabinet doors were hanging open to display their contents. A blue canister of coffee sat without its lid, on the counter top. They’d only been there a handful of days, but the place was already taking on a lived-in feeling. The supplies they had culled from the surrounding cabins had all been carefully tucked away and the kitchen shelves, while still far from full, were losing their empty, dusty feeling.

John walked over, reached into the cupboard and pulled out a mug for himself. “I need to go get the SUSV,” he stated, helping himself to a cup of coffee from the pot Rodney had left on the butane stove.

Rodney blinked up at him uncomprehendingly – the usual lack of alertness after only one cup of coffee. John had been up for almost two hours. He’d decided last night that he would make a trip for supplies today. In preparation, he’d gotten up early and done a sweep of the surrounding area as a final check before going in search of Rodney.

John took a long sip to hide his amusement at Rodney’s morning lassitude. “The all-terrain vehicle,” he clarified. “In Cripple Creek.” He leaned up against the counter across from Rodney’s bleary line of sight. The sooner John left, the sooner he could be back. “If I head out this morning, I can get to town by early evening. With the vehicle, I’ll be back before full dark.”

Rodney frowned, his mind beginning to turn over. As John had expected, Rodney didn’t look in the least bit happy with John’s proposal. Which was why John had left the discussion to this morning rather then last night.

Rodney put his coffee down and focused fully on John. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to split up?” he asked in a low voice. He seemed to be both testing John’s answer and thinking through his own feelings on the issue.

John understood the knee jerk opposition to being separated. He didn’t like the idea of being that far from Rodney either. But they needed the support vehicle and its ability to carry large amounts of cargo. Those supplies would be what got them through the winter.

John ran a rough hand through his hair. Either choice held risks, but he was also going a bit stir crazy from the sudden lack of travel. They’d been walking continuously for the past two months but the last week had been devoted to cleaning out and organizing their base camp – a group of cabins set on a lake as a mountain retreat. In a stroke of luck, there hadn’t been any bodies but there had been a lot of dust and a lot of consolidating boxes in one location. It had had all the hard work and tedium of an extended move, what with the packing up of supplies, carting them over to their chosen cabin then unpacking everything again.

He was feeling a bit overwhelmed, John thought with a grimace. Not that he wanted to articulate that to Rodney. Instead, he went with the simplest answer that still had the benefit of being true. “We need the supplies.”

Rodney still looked profoundly unhappy but rather then launch into the argument John had expected, he got up and retreated. “Just a minute,” he said. He went over to the corner of the great room he’d commandeered as his work area and began to sort through a couple bags. John could hear the unhappy muttering from his perch in the kitchen, but the words were indistinct.

While he waited, John downed the rest of his coffee and dropped the cup in the sink. If he was going to be heading out, he should probably snag something for lunch. A packet of jerky, one of dried fruit, and a bottle of water went into a small pack.

“Here,” Rodney offered when John finished packing, holding out a compact hand-held receiver. “I modified them, so that they should hold a signal for at least as far as the town.” The radio’s matching handset created a clear outline in Rodney’s side pants pocket.

John breathed a bit easier at the gesture. It wouldn’t help if there was an immediate danger but it greatly reduced the risk of a stupid accident becoming fatal for one of them.

John tried a smile but the impending separation drove him to something more. He reached out to grasp Rodney’s forearm tightly for a brief moment. “Check in every two hours?” he asked.

Rodney nodded. “Don’t die,” he commanded, without a hint of humor. His mouth was drawn into a thin line and his eyes looked bruised. John wanted to offer some sort of reassurance or at the very least ask that Rodney not die either but his tongue caught on the words.

Rather then fight his way through an awkward discussion, John let go of Rodney’s arm and swiped the radio from his outstretched palm. He clicked it twice and was rewarded with an echoed electronic beep from Rodney’s radio. “Stay in camp?” he stated neutrally. He wanted to make it an order but figured a question would go over better.

Rodney nodded without complaint.

“Okay then. Two hours.” He flicked Rodney his best cocky smile and headed out into the morning.

John pushed himself to get away from camp as quickly as possible wanting both to put distance between himself and Rodney before he could think better of it and get the trip started and done as quickly as possible. He broke into a ground-eating lope as he wove through the trees. For a change, the wolf settled easy over his senses when he called on it. Perhaps it was the prospect of a nice long run, which the wolf enjoyed, even on two legs.

The road around the cabins headed out to the lake before swinging back south towards the town. John wasn’t sure if the lake was a man-made reservoir or a natural mountain lake but what mattered was the abundant wildlife. Fishing in the lake had proved pathetically easy. The damn things almost splashed into nets when they were jumping over themselves to reach late-season insects skimming across the water. The end of the world had been good for wildlife and as a result, hunting would be good this winter.

John was strangely excited by the prospect of hunting in a way he’d never been before; he certainly hadn’t been a sports hunter in his previous life. Maybe it was a sign that the wolf was bleeding through his mental walls. Maybe he was just looking forward to the opportunity to do more than play trail guide or camp counselor.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” he muttered to the wolf as he stirred at the thought of hunting. “Guns work just fine instead of fangs.”

As he came to the cleared hillside between their camp and the town, he pushed himself harder. He settled into what would otherwise have been a punishing pace without the wolf. At the two and four hour marks, he clicked the radio twice and Rodney immediately replied with a signal of his own. Just after the third check-in he rounded the small rise that led into Cripple Creek, with plenty of daylight to spare.

John slowed from a run to a jog and then a slow walk as he crossed the town limits. Without Rodney, he needed to be doubly cautious in the enclosed spaces of the town. John wasn’t particularly worried about human or animal company; the wolf would give him sufficient notice of any intruder. Rather, he was more likely to take a fall or otherwise accidently injure or trap himself if he wasn’t paying attention. Provided he survived, he’d never live it down if Rodney had to come out and save his ass from a fall or a locked door or, heaven forbid, another hole. Better all around to just be careful.

Coming as he was from the west side of the town, he didn’t get to pass the welcome sign but he did get to see Main Street again. Rodney called the town Mining Las Vegas but John kind of thought it looked a bit more like Disneyland than Sin City. Sure, the casinos were a bit over the top but it was really the old-time, commercial nostalgia feel to the town that amused John. There was something kitschy-cool about the fake store fronts and the promise of a mining site on the museum map had John planning a day trip that had nothing to do with Rodney’s beacon.

“Want to go mining Rodney?” he asked rather than signaling for the next check in.

“Did you hit your head?” John could hear reluctant amusement buried under the querulous tone.

John turned the corner onto the side street where they’d found the garage. Off the main road the buildings switched from red brick to vinyl-sided houses and small neat yards – everything was more spread out and open. Even though his enhanced senses weren’t catching anything off, John couldn’t help but feel exposed and vulnerable walking down the street alone.

“Aw, come on, Rodney. We could strike it rich. Build a McMansion. Buy the biggest TV ever made.”

The sound of his voice startled a nearby bird from a pine tree. It exploded into the air with a raucous cry that had other nearby birds calling back. John gripped the hand-held a bit more tightly and kept his eyes on where he was going.

“Oh, sure. We can call up Robin Leach and have him over for lunch.”

John snorted at the thought of the very British Robin Leach narrating a tour of Cripple Creek. “Lifestyles of the Rich and Post-Apocalyptic.”

“Idiot,” Rodney responded fondly. “Are you there?”

“Yeah,” John responded. The garage was half a block further down on the left.

“Copy that. McKay out.”

John laughed at the awkward sign off. Rodney had obviously seen too many movies but hey, whatever worked for him. He stowed the radio and headed through the unlocked side door. The Bv 206 was right where he’d left it, not surprisingly, and it started with barely a cough. It was still the ugly monster Rodney had dubbed it but it ran like a dream. John decided to call it Frank – short for Frankenstein’s monster. He smiled in anticipation of Rodney’s reaction.

Although he’d mentioned supplies to Rodney, the priority for today was fuel. The map he and Rodney had taken from the museum showed a gas station on the west side of town. John carefully maneuvered the vehicle out into the street and headed out of town.

Frank could do almost 35 miles an hour maxed out but John kept it to a more sedate pace as he passed through the west side of Cripple Creek. According to the signs, the town had only had a population of just over a thousand before the end of the world. Even with the casino madness, it seemed that not many of them were left in town. That didn’t mean that he didn’t come across the occasional vehicle blocking the road. He also encountered a fair number of bodies. In both cases, his choices were either to move the obstacle or turn around. He detoured around the first and moved the second. He could certainly have just gone over them but that just seemed wrong on so many levels. He used a tarp and a pair of gloves he’d taken from the garage and carefully moved them to the side of the road.

With the detours and body moving, it was another hour before he made it out to the station. The bright green shamrock was still crisp and bright but the light was out. In a stroke of luck, there was a hardware store right next to it with drums and a hand pump still sitting on the shelves inside. The store was small but still mostly intact. It would be a good place to scavenge in the future.

The next stroke of good luck was finding the underground tanks mostly full. Crossing middle America on foot, there hadn’t been much call for gas but the majority of the stations they’d passed had displayed "Out of Fuel" signs.

The radio cracked twice in the middle of loading the second drum of fuel into the utility vehicle. The sound startled him so badly he nearly crushed his foot under the edge of the drum.

“Son of a bitch,” he swore, as he shied away from the drum. John glanced at his watch. Rodney was twenty minutes early. He sprinted around the back corner of the vehicle and all but dove into the front cab after the radio.

“John?” Rodney’s voice came through overlaid with static but still clear.

John fumbled the transmitter, nearly dropping it to the floor. “Yeah, I’m here. What’s wrong?”

Rodney’s reply came back immediately. “Wrong? Nothing. I just thought I saw – but no, you’re still in town, obviously. Even with a car it’ll be another hour at least.”

John blinked, unsure what to parse out of that mess of a statement. Before he could come to a suitable reply, Rodney continued over him. “Just lost track of time. Right. Sorry I’m early.”

John snorted. More likely he hadn’t been able to wait as he'd worked himself into a state imagining a scenario where John was dead in a ditch. Extolling the many and varied ways they could die on the road was a favored pastime of Rodney's.

“I’m fine, Rodney.” He made sure to draw out his words in the whining drawl Rodney always harangued him about. He couldn’t help but smile.

“What? Of course you are!” Rodney radioed back. “I didn’t say you weren’t. Although, it’s probably best if you left soon. I realize that monstrosity of yours was built for off-road travel but you really shouldn’t tempt fate by travelling in the dark. Or speeding.”

John snorted at the last. Was it speeding if there were no cops to enforce the speed limit? He also couldn’t help but be a little pleased at Rodney’s fumbled attempt at nonchalance. He glanced up at the sky to gauge the remaining sunlight. Rodney was right. It would probably be best if he left before it got too close to dark

“Yeah, Rodney. I’m heading out in twenty,” he radioed back.

He had meant to investigate the hardware store further, see what else he could scavenge, but maybe that was something better done with two people. He’d have to reacclimatize Rodney to riding in a car again, but there wasn’t anything in the store that was time critical.

“Well. Okay then, good.” Rodney’s huff of vindication came through loud and clear. “Rodney out.”

John shook his head in exasperated amusement and got back to filling drums. True to his word, he was back on the road by the time the actual scheduled check-in rolled around. He radioed in his ETA, rolled down the windows, and enjoyed the drive. Frank would certainly never pass for a sports car but just the sound of the wind and the sensation of moving faster than he could run was a welcome call back to pre-apocalypse days.

The wolf seemed less happy to be confined in the cab of a vehicle for the return trip. Rather than fight with it, John let it go entirely; he was safe enough where he was for now. The wolf retreated with a grudging clinginess that reminded John of his earliest days learning to live with it.

The first time the wolf had shown up, John had been twelve and scared out of his mind. It wasn’t as if anyone had sat John down and warned him that one day he might wake up with this other consciousness suddenly crowding his head. Before he’d really known what was happening he had been pushed down and out of himself, leaving only the barest memory of the change. The rest of the night was an empty slate until he’d woken up again to his father standing over his restored human form with a pained look in his eyes. It was his father who had had to explain what had happened, explain the wolf at least as well as he could, and how to control himself. So had begun the lessons in learning to repress what he was.

“For your own protection, John,” he unconsciously mimicked his father’s well-worn phrase. The breeze from the window caught it and pushed it away. The sound of the engine was almost obscenely loud in the otherwise quiet afternoon.

Rodney had asked John a few weeks ago about how he’d made it through school without anyone finding out. He’d said he’d been careful, but the truth was he’d been lucky. He’d chafed at his father’s restrictions during his teenage years but he’d learned to live with them after a few too many close calls.

The closest he’d come to being discovered had been during his junior year when Dave had left for college. John had been alone at school for the first time since he’d started grade school two years after his brother. He’d been lucky that the woods had hidden him from the friends he’d been out fucking around with. They’d thought John had just gotten lost in their mad dash to get away from the wolf they’d stumbled across; when really, John had lost control at the sight and smell of a wild dog pack so close to the private school campus – his territory – and changed in a wash of red rage. He didn’t remember anything of that afternoon until waking up, himself again, with a very satisfied feeling of accomplishment. The wild dogs hadn’t been seen again after that. John liked to think he’d just driven them off but he wasn’t naïve enough to believe that fully.

After that it was all about suppression. He’d shut the wolf out completely.

When he’d decided to join the Armed Forces in his last year of college, John’s focus had shifted from burying the wolf to building walls that let him make use of those aspects of the wolf that would help him keep himself and his men alive while still staying one hundred percent in control. While serving in a war zone, John had pulled on the wolf almost daily and it had saved his ass multiple times. But his control had been ruthless and as a result, he hadn’t lost any more time to the wolf. Instead, he’d locked away everything of the wolf that wasn’t what he’d needed. He’d reduced the wolf down to being just another tool – a weapon to be used against the enemy and a way to keep himself and his men safe.

Since choosing to travel with Rodney as John and not the wolf, John had tried to reestablish that same military level of control. But the wolf was fighting him – clearly resentful about being forced away again. For his part, John resented the hell out of the fact that he'd lost almost a month to the wolf, even as his rational side argued that he’d voluntarily given up that control. A night lost, a day, a week, a month. John worried about what the next transformation would bring.

It also didn’t help that every time he called on the wolf these days, John ended up fighting on multiple fronts. Beside his desire to be free again, he was fascinated with Rodney and preoccupied with the wolf that was trailing them.

The interest in the other wolf was at least understandable. Wolves were, by their very nature, territorial pack animals. To have another predator in the region, even if he was just a traditional wolf, didn’t sit well with either of them. And although they still hadn’t seen the other animal, there’d been plenty of evidence that he was around. John had tracked his smell in a wide arc around both the lake and the mountain ridge and heard him singing to the moon on several nights. So far the other wolf had kept a carefully calculated distance from the camp. That was the only thing keeping John – and his wolf – in check.

In a number of ways, their new camp was ideal for them but if John could have gotten away with it, he would have kept Rodney moving west until they had left the other animal completely behind. Unfortunately, Rodney was sure the beacon was here, somewhere on this mountain and he wasn’t going to be moved again until he located it. And since John still hadn’t gotten around to telling Rodney about the other wolf, John really didn’t have a good argument for why they should leave.

It wasn’t that John couldn’t tell Rodney about the wolf. He could. He could tell Rodney about the wolf and just imply that he had stumbled upon their camp recently. The problem was that it was the stubborn interest that the wolf was showing in them that was making John edgy and in order to explain that the wolf was stalking them, John would have to explain that he’d known the wolf had been trailing them since Colorado Springs.

At the time, it had seemed like an easy decision to keep the wolf to himself. Now, of course, it had become something too big to easily broach. “Damned if I do. Damned if I don’t.” John muttered.

John's wolf stirred again at the thought of Rodney and the mystery wolf. John wasn’t surprised that his wolf was fascinated with Rodney. That had been established clearly when the damn thing had trailed Rodney across half the eastern United States with no input from John. Part of it, John thought, was that the wolf saw Rodney as part of his pack, much like John. But recently that sense of Pack had become overlaid with something more. The wolf had become possessive in a way that went beyond Pack.

That possessiveness was bleeding over onto John. He found himself following too closely, touching too often, and saying – or pushing for – too much. Like how he'd chosen their cabin with its great room and single bedroom over larger ones with multiple places to sleep. If Rodney had asked, John had been prepared to explain that the cabin was more defensible with fewer doorways and that it would be easier and more efficient to heat. Rodney hadn’t asked though, had just given John a long look before dragging his things into the bedroom. Without further fanfare, he’d staked out his side of the mattress and told John not to steal his pillows.

John snorted. As if he was the one who routinely stole the bedding.

Between that and the herding behavior, John had found himself in more and more situations where he’d suddenly be too closely – intimately close – and half an inch from turning this thing they had into something sexual. It was frustrating, and not because he didn’t find Rodney attractive. He did. More importantly, he’d like to think that if he’d met Rodney before this had all happened, he would have found him attractive then as well. But when you were the last two survivors of the apocalypse (so far), there wasn’t any such thing as a one-night stand. John had fucked up enough relationships in his life without fucking up the last possible relationship he might ever have.

It was becoming more and more of an issue every day. Especially now that they had settled into a permanent winter camp. Unfortunately, brooding on it during the ride back didn’t yield any further solutions.

The sun was just going down when John got back to the lake. Trees closely shadowed the access road to the cabin, so John parked the utility vehicle along the side of the main road closest to the intersection with the cabin’s road. He decided to leave the fuel for now and just took himself and his bag off towards the cabin. The cool evening air raised goose bumps on his arms where his rolled sleeves bared his skin.

Coming up on the structure from the east side, John saw Rodney sitting under the front awning fiddling with something in the fading light. As he drew closer Rodney looked up and a tension that he hadn't been consciously aware of eased in John.

Rodney folded a bit of oilcloth over the odds and ends he’d been working on and rolled the whole lot into a tight bundle. He seemed much more frustrated then he should have been after spending the afternoon tinkering uninterrupted. “About time,” he complained. “I’m starving.” Without any further words of welcome, he turned and disappeared back into the cabin.

John had caught his obvious look of relief, though. Whistling under his breath, he left the last of the trees behind and took the front steps in two large bounds. Just as he reached the front door, something odd caught his nose and John stumbled to a halt.

His wolf barreled to the front of his consciousness without warning. His sense of smell bloomed hard and fast and he was hit immediately by the musky smell of another wolf. The scent trail was fresh.

John let out a low growl that was just as much the wolf as it was him. Their stalker had been here, been so close as to rub against the cabin porch, their porch, and it had deliberately waited until John had set out on an extended trip before making its move.

“Coming?” Rodney called from inside.

“No,” John grit out. “I need to check something.”

Before Rodney could chase him down, John turned away from the door and headed around the side of the cabin at a quick jog. He waited just long enough to be shielded by the trees before reaching for the wolf. This time, when the wolf answered, John gave it everything. Between one step and the next, John felt the wolf rise up and wrap itself around him. The change didn’t hurt; it never did. Rather it was like suddenly being rolled in a blanket and coming out the other side, a passenger in a wolf’s body rather than the owner of his own.

A spike of anxiety-fueled adrenaline drove John up through the animal consciousness to try to wrest control before he could be totally subsumed again. The wolf recoiled in surprise leaving John momentarily in control of four paws, mid stride. It was an entirely foreign experience and John faltered. One paw got caught under the pull of another and John and the wolf went ass over teakettle into the underbrush.

John let out pained yip – more in surprise than true pain. The wolf took the opportunity to metaphorically grab John by the scruff and toss him back. John relinquished control of the body to the wolf as he fought instead to hold onto his consciousness. But then the wolf did something unexpected. Rather than let him slide away, the wolf seemed to open a space beside him, welcoming him.

John’s mind froze in surprise. The world shutter-stepped as John evaluated the choice before him. The wolf waited patiently until, with an awkward maneuver of self that felt totally alien, John settled into the offered space. The world snapped into focus with an almost physical sense of alignment unlike any John had felt before. Together, John stood with the wolf, solid on four feet.

The wolf laughed at him and sent a warm wave of regard that was sharp and clear in a way that the wolf never felt from the other side. It felt like Pack and Brother and had heavy overtones of exasperation and amusement. John got the distinct impression of an older wolf rolling a gangly teenage pup across the forest floor with an easy cuff from an oversized paw. John pushed back, instinctually resentful of the comparison. He wanted to argue that their issues weren’t entirely of his making but he didn’t quite know how to communicate something complex like that.

And the chase was on. They righted themselves and took off up the forest trail.

John had spent years calling on the wolf’s senses to augment his own but that was a shadow of what they had now. The forest sang around them in colors and smells and tastes carried on the wind. To their eyes the trail of the interloper ran clear before them in scent and lingering heat-signature. John and the wolf gave chase with a full-throated howl.

To John it felt like they could run forever – stretch their legs across the breadth of the continent and know the length of the world. It was so much more than he’d ever known from the wolf and a small part of him flinched away from the seductive pull of it even as the larger part wanted to run until there was no more land beneath his feet.

The wolf offered in response the bite of charged air on a late summer afternoon before a storm breaks. It was a jumbled mass of charged emotion and the taste of ozone in the air, and it meant so much more than just that. It was Rodney in the wolf's language. And it was enough to remind John of what they were trying to accomplish. John bent to their task.

Racing through a break in the trees, the scent of their prey was suddenly sharp and immediate. John's wolf planted his feet and dug claws into the turf to roll them across the forest floor in a controlled tumble. A furred shape cut the air above as it sailed past where John's wolf should have been. John lashed out with a snap of jaws at the tail that passed inches from his muzzle. He missed, but the wolf approved.

John's wolf got them to their feet and twisted them around to face the threat of the intruder. The other wolf was mottled dark brown and grey and easily bigger than John and his wolf were. But where John was sleek and toned, the other wolf’s coat was ragged and uncared for. His teeth, though, were sharp and on display. He righted himself from his own dive and growled low at John, in warning.

The two wolves faced off across the leaf strewn forest floor. John and his wolf circled right with teeth bared in a snarl. The other wolf circled as well, keeping a set distance between. John pulled the sharp night air in through his mouth and caught the metal taste-scent of guns and machinery. The smell was decidedly out of place but John found himself distracted from the odd scents by the sharp feeling of anger coming not from his own wolf but from the intruder. Astonished, John realized he could sense the other wolf’s consciousness and beneath that was a familiar sense of Pack.

John and the wolf stumbled to a stiff legged halt in joint surprise. Pack, alive and real and right here aiming for John’s throat.

The intruder took the opportunity provided by their surprise to lunge in and close his teeth on John’s foreleg. John cried out in pain as his wolf sent a concentrated flash of emotion along the tentative connection between them and the intruder. John didn’t catch more than the edge of it but what he did sense was layers of wolf and man and Pack. It was a demand for recognition of a brotherhood.

The alien consciousness sparked against John and his wolf in muted response but then slipped away immediately. The other wolf loosened his jaws from John’s leg and John sprang aside. The intruder growled low and tossed his head before leaping back into the fray. This time, John turned the blow with his shoulder. His skin split in a red line of pain but the intruder tumbled to the side, doing only minimal harm.

The intruder didn’t slow this time, leaping back in with claws outstretched. John turned his shoulder again to take the blow. This time though, he retaliated with a snap of his jaws that caught the intruder’s ruff and ear. John yanked his head down hard and the other wolf tumbled onto his side with a cry of pain. John went in for his throat but the brindle wolf turned the fall into a roll and scrambled out of reach just inches ahead of John.

The mingled scent of blood grew heavy in the air and both wolves snarled at the odor. The intruder feinted to the right but John kept them out of reach while his wolf pushed again at the Pack sense. John took another blow to his chest but as before, the intruder seemed to falter in his attack under the mental push of John’s wolf. John charged him in a rush of muscle and fur, hoping to drive the wolf to the forest floor and hold him long enough to establish the connection his wolf kept reaching for.

The other wolf eluded him again. He seemed confused by John and suddenly unwilling to engage. John barked and snapped in anger as, rather then fight, the brindle wolf began to dodge away from John, looking for an open path away.

Pressing the advantage, John drove the other wolf across the forest floor and between the tree trunks, trying to corner him. Just as John drove the wolf physically back, John’s wolf drove the intruder mentally. With each snap and snarl, John’s wolf pushed on the Pack sense, trying to get the other wolf to acknowledge them. But just as the intruder fell back from John, his consciousness drifted beyond reach.

Eventually, John brought him to bay against a steep jut of rock. Together John and the wolf reached out one last time to try to connect with the other wolf but it was as if he couldn’t fully respond. He just shook his fur out again with a growl, and rushed John. He hit John squarely on his injured shoulder, tumbling them backward.

John and the wolf dug in but the ground disappeared beneath them. The wolf was just as surprised as John as they tumbled down the steep side of the slope against which they’d been trying to pin the brindle wolf. They rolled over and slid down in a confused spiral of night sky, trees, and dark ground punctuated by sharp flashes of pain from John’s injured shoulder and leg.

They came to a stop in a crash of brush at the bottom of the slope. The smell of pine sap and dust exploded around them causing John to sneeze violently several times to clear his nose. Righting himself, he turned to look back up the slope, catching the flash of the intruder’s tail as he streaked away the along the ridge.

John growled long and low and sprinted off after the other wolf. The brindle wolf didn’t pause in his flight but made flat out for the other side of the mountain. He led them around the mountain to the east, back towards Colorado Springs. John was slowed by his injuries but he refused to be shaken. He harried the wolf all the way to the far edge of the ridge, to the very far edge of the territory John had staked out for himself and Rodney.

Panting, John pulled up to a sudden halt at the stream that marked the furthest boundary of his claimed territory. The brindle wolf had splashed through and disappeared into the brush on the other side. John’s wolf wanted to follow. John could feel the angry burning need to corner the other wolf and force the connection of Pack, force the other wolf to recognize them; John held them back by the slimmest of margins. This time it was he who reminded the wolf of their camp and the man they had left behind, unprotected. The wolf raged for a long moment before grudgingly conceding the chase.

Together they raised their nose to the sky and cried out their frustration. The long call echoed back at them from every corner but no answering howl came. Snapping with discontent, John’s wolf drove them back and forth along the river's edge clawing at the bark of several trees to mark their boundary solidly. Only when he was satisfied did they turn back towards the reservoir and their home.

They stopped several times on the run back to mark the trail with claws and scent. Each time, John felt the righteous anger of his wolf settle a bit more. Unfortunately, the run back wasn’t long enough to fully cool their blood.

The moon was high in the sky and the night more than half over when they finally got back to the cabin. John slipped into his skin at the cabin door as easy as shedding a fur coat. His blood was still singing with the thrill of the fight and the chase and although human now, the wolf still seethed beneath his skin. Together they stalked through the great room and into the back bedroom.

Here there was less light but it was still enough to see Rodney rolled into his blankets, dead to the world. He was curled to the side, one arm beneath his head and the other wrapped up in the covers. He was spread across the mattress so that barely any space remained for John in the bed. The room smelled strongly of anxiety and fear; Rodney had obviously gone to sleep upset. The mingled smells only served to further incite the wolf beneath John’s skin.

The sting of instinct drove John forward. He crossed the length of the floor in two large strides, folding down to his knees beside Rodney’s slumbering form. John roughly pushed the quilt aside, baring Rodney’s back more fully. With clumsy fingers, John found the lower hem of the multiple shirts Rodney was sleeping in and drove his hands beneath them.

Rodney shivered violently and flinched away from the touch. “John?” he grumbled, still more than half asleep, eyes barely open enough to glare at John over his shoulder. John ignored him and pushed the shirts further up.

Rodney’s sleep-lax arms followed the upwards pull of the fabric, leaving the entirety of Rodney’s back exposed to John. The wolf whined and John took immediate advantage. He climbed up onto the bed, taking all the space that was left. With his hands on Rodney’s shoulder and the middle of his back, John pushed, turning him more fully onto his stomach.

“Sheppard!” Rodney was definitely more awake now. His squawk of indignation was lost in the bedding and the fabric now threatening to engulf his head. He twisted beneath John, trying to extricate himself.

With a growl, John leaned forward and bit sharply at the nearest exposed shoulder blade. His hands roamed freely up and down the pale plane of skin over freckles and muscles.

“Where the hell have you been?” Rodney demanded as he squirmed again more sharply. John’s teeth bore down on the thick muscle of his shoulder. He leaned fully into Rodney, his weight smothering further attempts to move.

“Christ!” Rodney moaned through a mouthful of fabric. “Okay, wolf, right, but biting isn’t necessary. I get it, I get it.” He babbled.

Loosening his jaw a bit but not letting go, John grumbled in response. He swept his hands up Rodney’s side and back under the edges of the crumpled shirt. In one smooth movement, he pushed the fabric up and over Rodney’s head and down to his forearms. The layers tangled again between the elbows and hands, snaring Rodney. John let out a satisfied chuff around Rodney’s flesh and resumed his explorations. John could smell the sudden pricking of sweat and blood from the flushed skin. Eager for more, he pushed his nose into the hollow where Rodney’s neck met his shoulder. His smell was intoxicating – the old, sour scent of fear was quickly being replaced by the heat of arousal and beneath both there was the many layered scent of their shared space.

Rodney turned his head sharply, clearing his face so he could breath. “This doesn’t count as an answer, you know,” he moaned. John stuck his tongue out and licked a broad stripe of skin. Rodney shivered beneath him. His voice was hoarse with need, “Fine! Sex. Sex is good. Talking later.”

The vibrations transmitted through air and skin and across John’s tongue. Rodney undulated beneath John, pressing up with his ass then his back and shoulders. “Yes,” John ground out. This was what he needed. What they needed.

Rodney pushed with his knees again and John pulled at his hip, getting some space and leverage to push down Rodney’s loose cotton pants. He flattened himself against Rodney’s back, one arm wrapped about his chest and the other cupping Rodney’s groin, forearm solid against the lines of Rodney’s hips and the flat of his pelvis. Skin to skin to skin. Rodney let out a high-pitched moan that caused John to squeeze all the tighter.

“Not that a mauling in the middle of the night isn’t fun, but you better be planning more,” Rodney grumbled.

What John wanted needed lube and time and fuck if he thought he was going to last that long. But nothing short of fucking Rodney was going to satisfy his instincts tonight so he forced himself to slow down. Thankfully, Rodney had anticipated the need and was already fumbling through the mess of items that had taken over the bedside table. John had thought it was all electronics and the bric-a-brac that seemed to be Rodney’s hallmark, but Rodney came up with a squeeze bottle that he unloaded on John.

John forced himself to prepare Rodney as thoroughly as possible. But that didn’t mean that he couldn’t multitask. He pushed and rocked in time with the invasion of his fingers, cock sliding tantalizingly close to his hand on every thrust. Rodney cursed and bucked and tried twice to roll out from under John, to open himself further. Both times John left off his kissing and licking to maul Rodney’s shoulder and neck.

“Yes, fine, I get it!” Rodney snapped back on the second try, “but I swear if you don’t get a move on with fucking me –”

The rest of the threat died in Rodney’s throat as John rocked forward again, this time pulling his fingers completely away. In their absence, his cock head slipped and caught on Rodney’s asshole. One of them moaned. John stopped completely for an instant. Every hair stood on end as a tremor shook him from inside to out. The wolf swept forward and growled his ownership. John pushed it down and away but the heightened senses clung on, turning the whole night hyper-real.

He could feel Rodney beneath him both through his skin and through the air and even through his cock, trapped as it was against warm flesh and Rodney’s welcoming body. Rodney deliberately tightened his hole, dragging puckered skin against the head of John’s cock. Then he relaxed into it and John was slipping in.

“Fuck, yes.”

The stroke in was perfect. The stroke out was somehow better.

Rodney whined his name, dragging the syllables out into a keening cry. John lost the last of his meager control at the sound. He pushed in again and then it didn’t even matter any more against the rhythm of fucking. The rest was disjointed images and sounds – Rodney's cries and the roll of his body beneath John. The taste of his skin and the straining of his cock in John’s hand.

Rodney came first, yelling and cursing into the heated space of the small room. Snarling, John yanked himself from Rodney’s tight ass. He planted one hand firmly between Rodney’s shoulder blades, pinning him completely flat, while his other hand roughly stripped his own cock. Just as he approached his limit, he snugged his cock up against the back of Rodney’s balls and gave himself several rough tugs.

He fell into release just as suddenly as Rodney had. Thick semen pulsed against Rodney’s balls and the smooth skin below his hole. The smell of it overwhelmed John. Rodney and this cabin and this settlement and this lake. This was his.

With a snarl, he dragged the head of his cock through the semen clinging to Rodney’s skin and drove it back into Rodney’s ass. He shoved deep and hard and held there as the last weak contractions pushed his claim deep into Rodney.

The wolf slipped completely away from John with a deep rumble of satisfaction. John tumbled into sleep snugged tight against Rodney's back.

 

---

 

Rodney awoke sore and overheated. Half asleep, he took careful stock of himself, trying to determine if getting up was worth the effort or if he should just go back to sleep. His bladder was voting for getting up but John made a convincing, if unconscious, argument of his own for Rodney staying in bed.

Sometime in the night John had wrapped himself around Rodney with one arm and a heavy leg pinning him to the bed. The blankets had become twisted and wrapped around them, as well. When Rodney tentatively shifted to get at the fold under his hips, a sleeping John wordlessly protested the movement by tightening his arms around Rodney painfully. Rodney froze and John eased off. Rodney’s bladder was insistent, though. With careful, small movements, he shifted John’s hold until he had enough leverage to push him to the side and roll awkwardly off the edge of the bed.

His bare feet recoiled when they hit the cold floor and his back seized, pulling his muscles tight from his shoulder down his back to the back of his thighs. Rodney quickly shuffled forward a few steps to lean against the wall, where he planted his hands and rolled his shoulders to stretch them. The hot stretch of muscle pulled a ragged moan from his throat.

A muffled sound came from behind him. Dropping one hand, Rodney pivoted carefully to look back at the bed.

“Hurt?” John slurred. He was obviously still more asleep than awake

“No.” Rodney’s voice was cracked and dry. He swallowed and tried again. “Not really. Just, um, tight.”

Rodney fought the urge to cringe at his unfortunate choice of adjectives. He shifted about and lowered his arms to his sides. He was much too old to be embarrassed at being caught out in the nude but it was still awkward. Especially with his skin pulling and catching on the dried evidence of last night.

John stretched sybaritically then buried his face in a pillow. His hair was getting long again, his bangs flirting with the eye not obscured by the bedding. He cracked an eyelid open to look at Rodney, a predatory glint in his eye.

John's gaze brought to mind every half remembered moment from last night. Rodney had fallen asleep waiting for John. He’d been dead to the world when John’s hot hands and wet mouth had awoken him. He hadn’t been able to offer more than a token protest before his own reactions had overridden everything. At the thought of last night, Rodney’s sleep heavy body flushed in reawakened interest and he had to remind himself sternly that that he was both sore and in desperate need of coffee.

John offered a sleepy smirk. One long arm, bared to the shoulder, stretched out across the open space vacated by Rodney. In the morning light, Rodney could clearly see that the skin was bruised red and purple along the forearm and an angry, raised scratch bisected his shoulder blade from collar bone down to somewhere beneath the folds of the blanket. Rodney frowned, trying to make his tired mind think back to yesterday evening. John certainly hadn’t had the bruising when he’d left for Cripple Creek.

“What the hell happened to you?” The question came out sharp and a bit more panicked than Rodney would have liked. John stared blankly, although how he could possibly be unaware of the bruising, Rodney couldn’t fathom. It had to hurt like a bitch, if the vivid coloring was any indication.

Rodney pointed at John’s arm impatiently. John looked down and his arm twitched as if he were going to pull it back under the covers. In the end, he left it there and looked up at Rodney with a newly shuttered expression.

“Nothing.” His voice was sleep-rough but otherwise carefully neutral in tone.

Rodney gaped at the obvious stupidity of the statement. His eyes flickered between the bruise and John’s face in obvious disbelief. John held his silence.

Rodney could almost feel his blood pressure beginning to rise with each breath he took waiting for a reply, washing away any interest his dick might have had in morning sex. Finally, he could no longer ignore the fact that John wasn’t going to respond further. It was obviously going to be one of those discussions where Rodney had to pry every other word out of John.

“I need coffee for this,” Rodney griped. He snatched up the first clothes at hand and retreated to the bathroom.

The bathroom wasn’t fully functional but it was better than nothing. Peeing in the woods was all well and good while the weather held, but Rodney suspected peeing in the snow would quickly lose its juvenile appeal in the face of sub-zero weather. Running water was at the top of Rodney’s to-do list right after finding his mystery power source.

“God, I miss showers,” he grumbled to himself.

For right now, all they had was a lidded bucket of water for washing and another for the toilet. Rodney made use of the toilet first and then popped the second open. He fished out a small bowl of water and using a cloth, set about giving himself a quick wash down. He would need to head to the lake soon to do a more thorough wash. John had set up some rain barrels to catch wash water from the roof, but so far the weather wasn’t cooperating.

Rodney hissed in discomfort as he reached back to swipe the washcloth over the top of his shoulder. He angled himself to get a better look in the mirror. The skin had obviously been enthusiastically worked over but there weren’t any true abrasions.

“Definitely need to talk about the biting,” he mentally added to his list of topics for discussion this morning. Biting had never been one of his kinks but it had been impossible not to respond to John’s obvious possessive streak. And if it got him regular sex, Rodney could forgive the biting as long as no blood was involved. Assuming whatever the hell this new thing was with John didn’t derail everything.

Finishing up, Rodney gave the washcloth a quick inspection; it was too dirty for another use. He gave it a quick rinse, tossed it in the wash pile and dumped the water. He pulled on his jeans and long sleeved tee shirt as he stumbled out of the bathroom in search of coffee.

The kitchen was set up with their scavenged food supplies and another water barrel. This one had been carefully treated to make it suitable for drinking. There was also a butane camping stove. The gas supply wasn’t going to last forever but it was okay for right now. Besides, it was still too warm out to run the wood stove that would provide most of their heating needs this winter.

Behind him he heard John getting out of bed. A small but vocal part of him wanted to turn around and look – take in the full measure of John that he’d been denied last night. He quashed the rebellion with promises to look his fill later and instead kept his eyes on the coffee he was carefully measuring out. They weren’t at any immediate risk of running out of coffee – the freeze-dried stuff had an obnoxiously long shelf life – but that didn’t mean he should be careless with their supply.

“Coffee!” he yelled back at John. A muffled response came from the bathroom.

While he was waiting for the coffee to percolate, he broke out two packets of pop-tarts and held them carefully to toast over the second burner. The gas gave a weird after taste to the sugared pastry but toasting them hid the stale taste. When everything was ready, he took his coffee and breakfast and sat down at the kitchen table facing the back room to wait for John.

John emerged half dressed from the bathroom looking decidedly more awake. His stride faltered a moment when he saw Rodney waiting but walked over and poured his own cup of coffee. Rodney broke the silence before John could decide to take his coffee outside on one of his perimeter checks.

“I take it you made it back with your truck.” He stated mildly. He hated small talk but if he’d learned nothing from traveling with John, it was that John was very Newtonian in his responses; for every pointed question there was an equal and opposite laconic response by John. The more pointed the question, the more stubbornly terse John became. Ergo – small talk.

John gave him a narrow look, obviously recognizing the gambit but responding nonetheless. “Yeah. I also picked up enough fuel to keep it running for a while.”

Rodney nodded. John had said as much when he’d called in when leaving Cripple Creek.

“I looked at the power lines yesterday.” Rodney offered. “Everything here looks in good repair. I’d like to check the main power board before I try anything though.”

John nodded and warily took a sip of coffee.

In actuality, it had only taken Rodney two hours yesterday to check the lines into the cabin. The building wasn’t very big and there were a minimal number of switch boxes and outlets. He could have gone out to the main lodge yesterday as well but he’d found himself oddly reluctant to wander far with John gone. It had been as if John’s distance had inversely affected his own ability to leave the cabin. He’d tried to work on a few minor projects inside but his mind had kept drifting to John and he’d found himself staring at his watch, waiting for time to pass between check-ins. When he’d gotten the last check in from John, his restlessness had finally driven him out onto the porch to work in the late afternoon sun.

Dark was falling when John finally showed up and Rodney had been feeling irritated and hungry and entirely out of sorts. Then he’d turned around to go in for dinner and John had disappeared on him with barely a mumbled word about checking something. Rodney had broken out two freeze dried meals and set everything out but it had all gone uneaten when John hadn’t immediately returned.

The remembered sick roll of fear and anger that had followed Rodney into sleep last night caused Rodney added a sharp edge to his next question. “What happened last night?”

John blinked and then offered a slow, dirty smile. “I didn’t think that required explanation, Rodney.”

Rodney grimaced. “Don’t be an ass,” he bit out. “What happened to your arm? Why did you run off again?”

John’s face shut down completely. Rodney knew even before John started that he wasn’t going to like the next words that came out of John’s mouth.

“I ran the perimeter like I do every night,” John stated. “The scratch is nothing.”

Rodney growled in frustration. It was an obvious lie or at the very least a prevarication and if the mulish set of John’s jaw was any indication, he knew how weak it sounded.

“Bullshit,” Rodney snapped, letting his frustration drive his tongue. It was entirely the wrong thing to say.

John’s eyes went cold and hard. “I don’t know what else you want me to say, Rodney.” John’s voice was flat.

“Of course not,” Rodney sighed, frustrated beyond measure with John and this conversation. He pushed his chair back, abandoning his empty coffee cup and cutting off whatever else John might have tried to say. “I’m heading over to the lodge. I need to check the power room. I’ll be back for dinner.” He stomped into his boots and headed out the door without a look back.

 “Rodney,” John called, catching him on the porch.

Reluctantly Rodney turned around. John was standing bare foot and bare-chested just inside the doorway. He looked rumpled and oddly vulnerable, half undressed.

“I just…” He ran a hand awkwardly through his hair making it stick up in odd directions. He looked conflicted and defiant at the same time.

Rodney quirked a bitter smile and just waited.

John stood a long moment unspeaking then finally huffed out a breath. “Later,” he said simply.

Rodney wasn’t sure if that was a promise to talk or just a valediction. Either way, he didn’t dignify it with a response. He turned and headed off; the door closed behind him. Rodney forced himself to breathe deeply in and out several times as he walked away.

Away from the cabin, it was cold and the ground was limned with frost. His boots crunched as he made his way down the wooded path. It might warm up this afternoon but the morning chill would hold for a few hours yet and the evening would come on quickly. He’d need to stay inside today or head back to the cabin for a few more layers.

Perhaps today was a good day to concentrate on some of his side projects, he thought moodily. It wasn’t like he was getting anywhere with the beacon and he didn’t need the added frustration today. It felt like he’d walked the whole west side of the mountain with John at this point and he’d gotten nothing new for his effort. It was always the same steady glow of the signal looking back at him. It was beginning to frustrate the hell out of him.

Rodney let out an involuntary laugh and felt the tension in his shoulders ease a bit now that he had some space. “I can’t believe I actually miss the meter monkeys,” he muttered to himself. His breath plumed in the morning air.

As a systems engineer, Rodney hadn’t spent a lot of time in the field. That was the job of the meter monkeys. Or ‘power technicians’ as their regional manager had often reminded him. It had been their responsibility to verify that the blueprints he and his team had worked with were translated correctly into mechanical systems in the field. And if there was anything anomalous in the readings, it had been their job to track down the physical source of the problem.

From Rodney’s perspective they had always been inexcusably slow about responding to his requests. He’d ranted more than once about their collective incompetence and obvious lack of work ethic. In light of his own issues tracking the beacon, perhaps he’d been a bit unreasonable. Then again, there had definitely been some idiots in that office, so maybe that was just nostalgia talking. Either way, he wasn’t making progress and tramping around in the woods had gotten old back in Pennsylvania. Maybe he should just concentrate on the camp for a while.

The path between the cabins widened as Rodney turned on to the main road. Someone had laid down gravel and cut back the trees to allow for the passage of vehicles, but that was about all. John had parked the behemoth off to the side of the road and Rodney gave it a wide berth on his way past.

There were certainly enough projects that needed to be completed before it got cold to keep Rodney busy. There was the grey water system to set up and John had mentioned investigating the septic system before the ground froze. If Rodney could get the power set up with a wind or water turbine or something before the snows came on, it would make riding out winter in the cabin easier. Perhaps he could turn the next cabin over into a workshop and spend the coldest months refining his equipment rather than tramping through the snow with nothing to show for it. Between the new possibility of sex and the work he could do inside, he could keep busy for a couple of months.

Rodney mulled it over as he approached the main lodge. The building dominated a small semicircle of cleared space. Like the cabins, it was made of split logs and had a shingled roof. Unlike the cabins, it awkwardly grew up into multiple levels with touches of stone and wrought iron. It had the commercial look of a property built more to meet the Hollywood expectations of their guests than any authentic sort of construction. A faux wood sign welcomed arrivals to "Penrose Lodge and Resort".

Rodney pushed through the unlocked front door and snagged the flashlight they’d left on the reception desk. There was plenty of light coming from the multiple oversized windows but it was always better to be prepared. If he remembered correctly, the power box was in one of the back rooms.

The power room was more of an incident command center than the equipment room the small sign declared it to be. Obviously the previous owners had either been part of the local rescue force or the campers who rented out the cabins were an accident-prone bunch – yuppies and weekend warriors maybe. Rodney felt a smug sense of pride at the thought that he no longer qualified as such. He might never be a true Grizzly Adams but he liked to think he was at least a passable woodsman these days.

The power box was right where he’d remembered it to be – tucked into a back corner by a desk with a large radio bank and a wall map of the mountain. Rodney popped the box open and began reviewing the connections. He wasn’t sure if it would be more efficient to splice his planned alternative power source directly into the two cabins or here.

He hummed to himself in thought. If he worked from the main lodge, the connections would be more secure but he’d have to walk out here to address any issues – not a long walk now but a significant enough distance in cold weather. The cables here were also probably better able to handle the variable power, but then again, he’d lose something in transmission across the entire complex.

A heavily outlined red border on the map caught his eye as he was thinking. Leaning closer he absently traced the line with one finger. It was out of place amid the greens and browns of a topographical map of the area. Looking closer, the legend marking the spot jumped out at him.

“Son of a bitch.” he swore vehemently.

So instead of following Rodney, John forced himself to stay in the cabin and take care of some of the camp tasks that always needed doing. He hauled up water for the bathroom and cleared out the few dishes and the trash they’d accumulated since the last pass at chores. He debated working on building up the woodpile but decided on doing an inventory of their food instead. It was necessary but monotonous work, allowing his mind to work through the issue of Rodney and the wolf in peace.

It was clear that he needed to talk to Rodney about the wolf, he thought. He should have done it that morning but Rodney had caught him entirely off guard. He’d honestly forgotten about the injuries he’d sustained in last night’s fight until Rodney had mentioned them. He’d been half asleep and too busy indulging in a sense of smug satisfaction at last night’s turn of events. And then Rodney had freaked out about the bruising and John’s first reaction had been to shrug it off.

Not surprisingly, Rodney hadn’t reacted well to that.

Compounding matters, Rodney had been sitting, waiting for him at breakfast like a disapproving senior officer sitting in judgment. It had immediately put his back up. So it had been no surprise to John when they’d both made the conversation harder than it had to be and neither had been happy with the result.

“What a fucking mess,” John sighed to himself. He carefully made note of the number of MREs stashed in the right hand cupboard and moved on to the next one. He pulled down all of the cans stacked there and began counting and sorting. They really needed to do a better job of keeping track of their inventory now that they were building up their winter stores.

When Rodney stormed back into the cabin less than an hour after heading out, he again caught John entirely by surprise. He slammed through the front door and marched up to the kitchen right into John’s space.

“Did you know that there’s another military installation here?” he growled. He slapped a folded up piece of paper on the counter between the precarious tower of canned corn and equally tall stack of canned chili. John looked between him and the paper in confusion. Rodney was obviously trying for to appear calm but the wolf could smell the adrenaline and sour sweat of anger.

Holding on to his patience tightly, John forced himself to honestly think through the question. “Besides Peterson?” he asked.

Rodney nodded with exaggerated patience.

John had to think for a minute before the answer came to him. “NORAD,” he offered warily.

Rodney agreed, seemingly unsurprised. “The North American Aerospace Defense Command.” If anything, Rodney’s stare became sharper. “And did you know,” he asked, “that they had a whole mountain to themselves? Hollowed out with an underground installation?”

“Yes,” John drawled. He still wasn’t sure where this was going but Rodney’s attitude was grating on him. “There’s also an Air Force Station there at Cheyenne Mountain. Never had the privilege of flying in there but it’s not a secret, Rodney. Google probably had it mapped.”

The snide remark ignited Rodney’s anger like dry tinder. “And you didn’t think to mention this to me, oh I don’t know, any one of the million times I commented on the lack of a point source to our beacon?” Rodney balled his fists in an obvious effort to restrain himself.

John glanced at the fists and then back up at Rodney. The raised eyebrow was a reflexive response to the anger. Rodney snarled wordlessly in response and stomped away a few feet. “You didn’t think that maybe a mountain might be fucking with my readings?”

It hadn’t actually occurred to John before this moment that Rodney’s beacon might be buried in NORAD. It made sense, though. An independent power grid would be part of any contingency planning for such an important installation. The problem was, of course, that if the beacon was in NORAD then there was no way they were going to be able to get to it.

John crossed his arms and turned to face Rodney fully with his feet set wide. It was a stance he’d assumed with every junior staff member or airman he’d ever been forced to pull rank on. “We’re not going into NORAD,” he stated flatly.

Rodney narrowed his eyes at John and snarled back: “We most certainly are.” He began to pace back and forth, mouth going a mile a minute. “Do you understand what this means? Not only is the beacon most likely buried in NORAD but they probably have an entirely contained power grid!” Rodney’s eyes got a little greedy at the mention of a power grid. John kind of understood. Most of what made modern life convenient was dependent on stable, standard power.

Rodney reached the end of some imagined track and swung back towards John, still talking. “And back-ups! Information caches of… well, everything!” Rodney leveled a glare at John.

“Your government was always hoarding information on everyone in case they turned out to be communists or Nazis or terrorists or something.” The distain fairly dripped from his lips, which was all the more ironic since it was that very information that was giving Rodney a hard on at this moment. “We could find out what really happened with the plague and whether there are any secure enclaves!”

“If nothing else,” Rodney continued, “it will be a treasure trove of supplies. Food. Electronics. Weapons!” He swung around again and pointed accusingly at John. “You can’t tell me you wouldn’t give your furry tail to get a hold of a weapons cache!”

John snorted. As if weapons hadn’t been plentiful on the road out to Colorado. John could have readily outfitted his own personal army with the number of firearms just laying about in the open. A full armory would be nice, but it certainly wasn’t necessary at this point.

Not that there was anyone to fight or that that was the point. John shook his head. “No.”

Rodney wheeled on John. He pushed up close and threw his arms wide in an explosion of frustration. “Why the hell not?” he yelled.

John’s patience snapped; the wolf bared John’s teeth and growled. John didn’t bother pushing him back.

“Because” John ground out, “If anywhere in the United States was locked down during the plague, it was NORAD. They probably sealed the base the moment the first epidemic centers were declared.” Military contingency plans were exhaustive and isolationism was definitely a top tier response to unknown, wide spread attacks like the plague had first been thought to be.

Rodney’s eyes widened at the tone but the stubborn set of his mouth didn’t waver. John took a step forward, forcing Rodney back a few steps in response.

“Even if they left the fucking door open,” John continued, “you can’t just walk into NORAD as if you were looking for the basement of the Alamo. There are hostile incursion measures in place that are either still live or have already closed down access.”

His held Rodney’s eyes in a hard stare. “The whole place is probably dead. If the circulation systems are even still pushing air down to the lowest floors, you can bet that any people left down there aren’t breathing it.” He deliberately dropped his voice and went in for the kill. “It’s dark in that mountain, Rodney. Dark and closed off and dead. You can’t even get in a fucking car! How the hell do you imagine you’re going to climb down twenty stories into a mountain through pitch black emergency stairwells locked down under zero power?”

Rodney paled at this harsh description but his chin was firm. They were both breathing hard. Rodney stepped back another half pace and drew his shoulders straight.

“I may have let you fuck me last night, John,” he stated in an overly calm tone of voice, “but that doesn’t mean you own me. We’re leaving in the morning.” He turned on his heel and left.

John grabbed the first thing on hand and hurled it at the wall. The can of corn left a nice-sized dent.

John stayed in the cabin just long enough to put away the supplies before he made for the lakefront. He didn’t see Rodney on the way out and he didn’t head back in even after it got dark. Instead he spent the night prowling the perimeter of the cabins evaluating his options.

Rodney was right; John couldn’t dictate his choices. And honestly, he didn’t want to. They were the last two people at the end of the world. He neither wanted nor needed that responsibility.

Rodney had also been right in his assumption that he wouldn’t be going alone in the morning. There was no way that John would let him wander off alone. He didn’t think Rodney wanted to go alone but calling his bluff would certainly damage the trust they’d built between them. Again, that was something John couldn’t stomach.

Unfortunately, none of that changed the fact that it was dangerous for them to head into NORAD. Not only because of what John had told Rodney about the base, although all of it was most likely true, but because the base was almost directly east of where they’d settled – straight into the territory the other wolf had fled to. Rodney didn’t understand what it would mean to trespass like that.

“And whose fault is that, John?” He snarled derisively to himself. He’d had the chance to tell Rodney and he’d decided against it – multiple times. And if he brought it up now, John wasn’t sure that Rodney would believe him, let alone agree with John’s assessment of the risk. Even if he did believe John and did agree that it was too dangerous, John was sure that a kernel of doubt would always remain between them about the choices made.

No. They would be going in the morning and now the question was how much to tell Rodney before they left. Was there even any point to it any more when he’d see for himself soon enough? A small perverse part of John thought, maybe they’d get lucky and the other wolf will have moved off after their unresolved fight making the whole point moot.

John just groaned and let his head rest on the side of the dock where he’d finally taken refuge. The dark lake was soothing but it didn’t offer any other options and morning dawned without John making any further progress.

When Rodney stepped out of the cabin geared for a long hike, John just fell in step beside him. Rodney started at him hard for a long moment before handing over the folded paper from yesterday. It was topological map. The base was outlined in bold marker with notations about the military and heavy restrictions.

By John’s calculation, the base was a half day's walk as the crow flew but it would probably be late afternoon before they got there, considering the terrain. John silently folded the map and handed it back. Together they headed out of the valley to the east, John slightly in the lead.

John had pulled on the wolf the moment they’d left the ring of cabins. He hadn’t bothered to try and explain what they were doing in any detail but the wolf had seemed to understand. At the least, he hadn’t pushed to take over, even though they were headed into the territory of the other wolf. Today, the wolf seemed content to fall back into their previous status quo with only the new change in their communication to indicate that anything was different.

Pack, the wolf shared with the heavy sensory load and emotions that entailed. This time John also got the image of the brindle wolf with the emotional overtones of someone who was lost. John sent back the pain of his shoulder laid open by the intruder and Rodney alone in the cabin. The wolf didn’t have a response to that.

By lunch they'd arrived at the stream John and the wolf had stopped at the last time they’d followed the intruder. Once they crossed over, they would be fair game. John paused a moment, debating one last time the wisdom of this course. Before he could change his mind, though, Rodney splashed through the stream without a backwards glance at John.

John sighed and strode after.

At first the smell of the other wolf ranged back and forth across the path at odd intervals. He'd come this way, claimed this area, but it was the outer reaches of his territory. By mid-afternoon however, the scent marking was constant and heavy. Unfortunately, that was also the point that other wolf smells began to layer over the brindle wolf John had met.

When he realized what he was smelling, John halted in the middle of the path. He dropped open his mouth and pulled air in to both taste and smell, double checking himself. Wolves. At least four separate wolves if John was counting correctly.

Rodney almost plowed straight into him, sidestepping at the last moment with an odd two-step.

“What?” Rodney asked in confusion. He gave the surrounding forest a quick look, checking for danger. It was the first word he’d said all day.

John made a grab for Rodney. “We need to go back. Right now,” he ordered. Rodney stepped back instinctually, placing himself out of range. Before John could make a second grab, the weight of multiple wolves descended on his mind. John staggered under what could only be considered an attack.

“Sheppard?” Rodney reached out to steady him. Concern was written clear on his face.

John was too busy navigating the sudden turbulence in his mind to respond. The wolf pushed forward trying to protect John. The connection between them opened more fully, taking them up to the edge of the change. With the increase in the wolf’s presence, the weight in John’s mind resolved itself into a thread of communication familiar from his own wolf but decidedly lacking in clarity and finesse. The efforts to communicate were blunt hammer blows of emotions and sensory inputs John couldn’t parse even with the help of his own wolf. Worse, the connection felt tainted and sick in a way that made John’s stomach heave and roll.

John could feel his own grasp on sanity shuddering under the weight of the other wolves – felt himself reaching blindly for the change in both self defense and capitulation. Rather than take advantage of the situation, his own wolf stepped in and seemed to push John to the side rather than out. The action created a much-needed buffer between John and the other wolves. From his wolf, John got the impression of feral sickness but now it was thankfully separate from him.

John opened his eyes. He was hunched over, crouched low against the ground as if getting ready to lose his lunch. Rodney hovered close with one arm protectively draped over John’s shoulder and sharp eyes combing the surroundings for threats.

“John?” His voice was heavy with worry. “John? Are you sick?” The arm withdrew and Rodney began rummaging his pack. “Where the fuck is the first aid kit?” His voice sounded high and strained.

“I’m fine.” The words came out rough and barely audible. Rodney threw him a disbelieving look.

“Yes, obviously.” The snark was welcome even as the fear in Rodney’s eyes was not.

John grabbed Rodney’s arm. He made to stand and Rodney quickly stood and offered himself to counterbalance the maneuver. John was far less steady on his feet than he wanted to admit. In the forest off to the west behind them, he could just make out the glint of multiple eyes. In the back of his mind he could feel his wolf standing firm between them and John. The other wolves seemed to have drawn back but he could feel them stalking the edges of his consciousness trying to out maneuver John’s wolf.

“John?” Rodney asked again.

John made a split second decision. It was really too late to leave at this point and even if they did make it away, the wolves could easily follow them back into his own territory. He wasn’t sure why but he got the impression that the brindled wolf hadn’t shared his and Rodney’s position with the pack as a whole. Their minds felt too greedy for it to have been common knowledge among them.

“There are other wolves here,” he finally answered Rodney. “We need to keep moving.”

Rodney obviously had questions, but John just shook his head sharply and took off in a fast jog in the direction they’d been travelling. The only way this was going to end was with a fight and John would prefer open ground for that; it would give Rodney a better chance if things went south. From the wolf, John got an image of them standing snarling between Rodney and an undefined pack. At least they were on the same page. He only hoped that when this all fell apart, Rodney had the sense to get the hell out of the way.

 

It was neat, for one thing. As if the military had just packed up one day, carefully turned off the lights and moved out with expected military efficiency. Rodney suspected that if he were to look into one of the cinderblock buildings they kept passing, he’d find everything packed away all neat and tidy. It made the place feel empty in a way that was entirely separate from the fact that there were no people. Rodney was getting used to entering towns that had no people. He was even kind of expecting it at this point. This was something else again.

Not that Rodney had time to dwell on it; he was much too preoccupied with their strange new company. Rodney cast a surreptitious glance back at the animals following them. True to John’s word, there were wolves here.

The first wolf had been trailing them since they’d passed through the open front gate. He was brindled brown, grey where John was dark and bigger than Rodney remembered John being, the top of his head the same height as Rodney’s elbow. He’d stepped out of the shadows of the guard station as they passed and Rodney had nearly jumped out of his skin. He had turned to John expecting some sort of explanation now that the wolves had manifested but John had just carried on without a backward glance. His eyes fixed straight ahead. When Rodney had opened his mouth to ask, John had cut him off with another shake of his head.

They picked up a second and third wolf walking down a wide road marked with cryptic signs with acronyms and buildings labeled A through M. Their new companions had tried to insert themselves between John and Rodney and their escort but the big wolf had growled and snapped at them, sending them skidding off a few feet. They whimpered and snarled but fell in behind the brindled wolf. Rodney caught John eyeing the wolves with a calculating expression, but they didn’t stop and John still didn’t volunteer an explanation.

By the time they made it to what appeared to be a parade ground, their escort had grown to over half a dozen animals. They were strung out behind John and Rodney like furry pearls on a string. All except a pale, tawny wolf who had fallen in step with the brindle with no complaint from the larger animal. As they emerged from between the last two buildings, the wolves fanned out behind them in a rough arc. Ahead of them, a single wolf stood in the middle of the field.

Rodney felt a little like a sacrificial lamb being herded to the slaughter.

John slowed his steps. Together, they came to a halt with roughly ten meters separating them from the waiting wolf. “Sheppard? What’s happening here?” Rodney asked in a low voice as they drew to a halt. The wolf entourage circled out and around them. “Did you know…?”

John’s attention was on the large wolf before them but he cut a quick look at Rodney at the sound of the question. He grimaced briefly and shrugged one shoulder, not taking his attention from the wolf. He was big, as all the wolves were, but not unduly so. His fur was a flat grey that washed out to white at his paws. He wasn’t vocalizing but his teeth were bared and the fur rose along his back.

What the hell had they gotten themselves into? Rodney shook his head in frustration. “Of course you knew,” he hissed in a loud whisper. “This is why you didn’t want to come here.” He wasn’t sure why he was whispering. Something about the pack made him nervous.

“One reason,” John confirmed in a low voice. “Although I only thought there was one wolf. The pack is a surprise for me, too.” He was casting about them, taking in the wolves encircling them. A snarl rose from one of the pack. John bared his teeth in return.

Something clicked in Rodney’s brain. “The bruises,” he accused. John just nodded again.

Two wolves bumped into each other and fell to snapping and snarling. Rodney crowded closer to John. “You could have just said!” he retorted, although there was no heat to his words. “This is why communication is important John. So we don’t find ourselves eaten by a pack of wolves!”

“Would it have changed your mind, Rodney? Would you have left NORAD alone?” John countered in an exhausted tone. He looked cornered and unhappy. Rodney was sure that if he had been standing there as the wolf, every inch of his fur would have been standing on end.

Rodney opened his mouth and then just closed it again without a reply.

“Exactly.” John’s mouth was thin and tight. “Look. I don’t really have time to explain, but this is going to get bloody, fast.”

A shiver crawled up Rodney’s spine, making the hairs on his arms stand up. “Bloody? What do you mean ‘bloody’?” He hadn’t expected to be offered coffee and a hot shower the way things were going but Sheppard seemed to have jumped right to the worst option. “These are wolves, right?” He put a heavy emphasis on the word rather than call them werewolves. “They certainly look as big as you and…” Rodney’s voice tapered off as the grey wolf – the leader, he supposed – growled long and low.

“I don’t think that’s the way this works, Rodney.” John grabbed him by both shoulders and turned Rodney to face him squarely. Rodney’s eyes stared over John’s shoulder, his attention pulled away by the milling wolves. Were they closing in?

“How would you know?” Rodney’s tongue tripped over the words, his rising anxiety obviously getting the better of him. “I thought you said that you’d barely met a handful of wolves in your whole life. There’s no Handbook, Rodney,” he mimicked John’s favorite response to Rodney’s prodding about the wolves. His voice had gotten embarrassingly high.

“Rodney! Look at me.” John commanded. Rodney focused on John’s face. He was pale and his eyes and mouth showed the strain of something more going on than Rodney could see.

“What do you mean, it’s not the way this works?” Rodney was babbling but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “What doesn’t work? Saying hello and trying to talk to them like real people?”

A snarl came from off to his right. The tawny wolf lashed out at another that had apparently gotten too close to him. They were all too close, though. The pack had closed in.

“Rodney!” John barked. Rodney jerked his attention back. “I can’t explain right now. Hell, I’m not sure I could if we even had time. They’re too fucking crazy for me to understand. You need to stay the out of the way.” He began pushing Rodney backwards.

Rodney threw a glance behind him. In an eerily coordinated move, the pack flowed aside, opening a small passage. John shoved him towards it. “If this goes to shit, I want you to head out immediately. The brown and grey wolf there,” John pointed at the big wolf that had met them at the gate, “will help if you need it.” John sounded like he was trying to convince himself as well as Rodney – not very confidence inspiring.

John pushed again and Rodney stumbled back another foot. He brought his arms up to grab at John’s biceps in a mirror of John’s own hold on him. “John -- ” he protested.

This was all levels of wrong but John wasn’t giving him a chance to think of anything else. John shoved him hard and Rodney wind-milled backward, right out of the closing circle. John was left standing alone in the center. The entire pack was focused on John.

John looked hard at Rodney and for a moment Rodney thought he might add something else. Rodney set his chin and glared back daring John to make some stupid declaration or say goodbye. Thankfully, John did neither. He just gave Rodney a lopsided smile then closed his eyes and changed.

The first and only time Rodney had seen John change had been at night under the weak light of the moon. In the intervening weeks, Rodney had sometimes wondered if he’d really seen it at all. Not that he didn’t believe John was a wolf, just that perhaps he had romanticized the change – made it more fantastic than it had really been. Seeing John change in the full light of day was even more of a wonder.

One moment John stood silhouetted against the afternoon sun, a man ringed by huge wolves. The next moment the sunlight seemed to pass through and consume him, leaving a black wolf in his place. The wolf himself was just as Rodney remembered him – lean and the black brown of coffee running to true black at the tips of his fur. He held his tail straight and low and bared his considerable teeth at the circle of wolves.

The wolves around the circle set up a long unearthly howl at the appearance of the black wolf. The wolf – John – responded with a grating snarl of his own. He stood in the center of the pack, hackles raised and stiff legged. They faced off against each other for a long moment.

One brave pack member broke the stalemate with a lunge forward trying to snag John’s right back leg. John whirled about and laid his nose open with a vicious bite. The wolf caterwauled and stumbled back. Another wolf made a play for John and there was a spray of blood as John ripped into his flank with a heavy swipe of his paw. John pivoted once in a full circle, snarling, with his ears laid back. The pack bayed in fury and surged forward as one.

For a heart stopping moment, it looked as if John was going to be pulled under by the entire pack. Rodney’s heart shuddered in his chest. If John went down that he would not be getting back up.

“No!” he bellowed.

John was ahead of him though. He leapt over the closest wolves and raced flat out away from the pack towards the far end of the field. The half dozen members of the pack immediately gave chase. Rodney took a step to follow but a warning growl brought him up short. The brindle wolf and his tawny friend had remained with Rodney. Neither was truly blocking Rodney’s path but he got the distinct impression that he was being told to stay.

Uncertain, Rodney looked back towards the pack and his own wolf, but John was already turning the pack at the edge of the field and circling back body stretched out low to the ground. He was literally no more than half a leap ahead of the pack and Rodney didn’t see how he could possibly outrun them all for any length of time.

It turned out not to be necessary.

As John came barreling across the field back towards Rodney, the alpha wolf emerged from the sidelines heading straight for John on a course right for John’s throat.

“John!” Rodney roared in warning.

John’s ears flicked forward and back in quick succession as if catching Rodney’s warning. He skewed to the right, trying to avoid the charge, and ended up taking the hit to his hindquarters. The two wolves, flat iron grey and dark black, went tumbling in a mad roll of fur. The rest of the pack closed on the pair with a spine shivering single-minded intensity.

Rodney lost all sight of John for a split second then the pack drew back again. John and the grey wolf were left facing off in the center of the pack. The field went dead silent.

The grey made the first move. He rushed John in a blur of fur and muscle, not giving John any time to recover from his run or the tumble. John backpedaled furiously, trying to keep from being rolled under the other wolf. Unfortunately, he backed right into the encircled pack, which took the opportunity to lay into him. One wolf latched onto John’s rear, right leg and wrenched it out from under him, rolling them both. John caroled in agonized pain.

“Hey!” Rodney yelled. Stupid as Rodney realized it sounded, the fucker wasn’t fighting fair. The golden wolf standing guard over Rodney with the brindle rumbled low in his throat. Rodney did a double take at the sound. It sounded strangely like disapproval.

Back in the circle, John executed an eel-like dodge toward the center of the circle, making it look like he had no backbone for a moment but resulting in him getting clear of both the alpha and the opportunistic pack member. He was standing, but obviously favoring his hind leg.

The circle reset itself and the wolves faced off again. This time John went on the offensive. Rather than go in straight on like the alpha wolf had, John darted in from the side with a quick snap of jaws. He darted back out just as quickly. The only sign that he’d moved at all was the tangled red streamers he’d made of the leader’s left ear.

The alpha let loose a furious barrage of barks and shook his head sharply in pain. John jumped in again, and this time his teeth closed on the grey’s shoulder before he sprang back. The alpha howled and rushed John. John wasn’t quick enough to get out of the way and he went down beneath the other wolf. John’s pained yelp had Rodney clenching his hands in futile fury.

“Get him, John!” he yelled in futile feeling encouragement.

The grey backed away from something Rodney couldn’t see but John appeared, standing again in the middle of the circle. His coat was covered in dust and dirt. One side of his chest looked dark and wet. For all that, he still seemed to be moving fairly freely.

John and the alpha set to lunging at each other again though neither made contact. They did end up pushing the circle back towards Rodney, leaving a swath of torn up earth behind. They were both beginning to look ragged and tired. The wolves maintaining the circle were closing in again as if scenting imminent blood.

Rodney began running the odds and options for stepping in to help John. There was fuck all he could do but he wouldn’t let John go down, either.

Suddenly, John seemed to stumble. It was a small thing but the grey bared his teeth and lunged for John’s open throat. Rodney cried out in warning but John didn’t need it. He recovered from what was obviously a feint startlingly fast, turned his head at the last moment and closed his teeth on the rear leg of the grey wolf. The crack of bone split the air. The big grey let out a high-pitched wail of shock. As one, the wolves of the circle threw back their heads and bayed.

The unearthly sound from the pack drove Rodney back an involuntary step. Neither of the wolves standing with him joined in but they were both on their feet and focused on the scene before them.

One final time, the grey wolf and John faced off against each other. The grey was limping. John was almost as badly off but he stood solidly on all fours. This has got to be the end of it, Rodney thought. The grey wolf couldn’t possibly still think he had a chance of taking John. But neither wolf was backing down. The alpha could no longer rush John but that didn’t stop him from laying into John with front claws and teeth. John continued to dance away every time the grey lunged. The grey wolf was visibly incensed by John’s constant retreat and his own inability to make contact. Then he let his anger drive him to reach slightly too far. John circled back, quick as a snake, and went for the other wolf’s exposed throat. The grey tried to retreat at the last instant, turning John’s teeth from his jugular. John caught the thick fur ruff along his throat. It wasn’t a death strike but it gave John leverage and opportunity for the kill.

John shook his head violently left and right trying to throw the grey wolf down beneath him. They almost went down together but the other wolf planted his feet and held firm. Choked snarls of rage and pain spilled from the grey as he tried to pull loose.

John stubbornly held on.

The wolves with Rodney both edged forward, intent on the fight. The other pack members closed in, tightening the circle down to just enough space for the two wolves still standing in the center.

When the grey subsided, John slammed his shoulder into the alpha’s side. Unbalanced by his bad leg and the weight of John pulling at his throat, the other animal stumbled and lost his footing. John took advantage of the change in height to get one of his forepaws over the shoulder of the grey wolf and bear down with his full weight. The alpha collapsed fully to the ground between John’s paws. John used the advantage to tighten his teeth at the other wolf’s jugular. The grey’s snarls abruptly cut off with his air.

The dead air carried the sound of John growl clearly across the field. Muzzle red with blood and fur swept in all directions, he was a terrifying sight to behold. In that moment, he stood poised to kill.

The barest whisper of air made it through the grey’s throat, coming out as a high-pitched keening that signaled his surrender. John growled in response but didn’t let go. Through the press of the pack Rodney clearly saw John standing firm, forefeet braced on the ground, jaws clamped tight around the alpha’s throat. The grey squirmed between John’s paws, turning himself from his side to his back to expose his belly. Again he whined against the pressure on his throat.

John slowly let go and began to back away stiff legged. A continuous string of growls issued from his throat. The grey rolled back on to his belly but didn’t rise. For the first time since the whole thing began, Rodney felt as if they might make it out of this intact. Then, before John could get completely clear a small, dark tailed wolf sprang at him. Perhaps he thought he could take advantage of John’s exhaustion. Perhaps he thought to avenge the alpha's defeat. Whatever his motivation, he was sadly mistaken in his choice of target. John’s teeth flashed and the wolf went down with his throat torn out.

Dark blood spilled out across the dirt and torn grass as the dark-tailed wolf's legs went stiff and kicked at the air. Rodney brought his fist to his mouth and fought the urge to gag. Suddenly, all he could smell was the sour iron tang of blood flooding the parade ground.

The stricken wolf’s legs jerked a few more times and then went still. The world seemed to teeter on a precipice and then all hell broke lose.

The wolves of the circle fell on John and the two downed wolves, alpha and dead wolf. Rodney lost track of John under the mass of fur and claws. The brindled wolf and the tan wolf both abandoned Rodney to rush into the fray. Rodney cast about frantically for a club or something to throw. The snarls and barks and growls rolled into a cacophonous muddle of sound.

Just as suddenly as it started, the melee broke up. Wolves streaked off into the dark in ones and twos. John emerged from the mess standing and snarling at their retreating forms. Two additional wolves and the grey John had fought didn’t rise at all. All three were dead – killed by the pack. The only other wolves left standing that hadn’t run were the brindle and his light colored companion.

As quickly as it had begun, it was over and they were alone on the field. The torn ground and dead wolves lay there in mute testament to the insanity of the past half hour.

John stood with his head hanging low, obviously exhausted. Raising it, he found the energy somewhere to growl viciously at the two remaining wolves. The tawny colored wolf stretched himself out low, hindquarters high but front legs and neck in the dirt. He rolled his head to the side and bared his neck for a moment. John cautiously stretched forth his nose and sniffed at the wolf. The wolf rolled his feet under him and looked up at John without any sign of aggression.

John turned his attention on the other wolf. The brindle didn’t offer his throat like the lighter wolf had but he did park his ass in the dirt and lower his head to his forepaws as if bored with the entire scene. John chuffed a sharp breath out his nose and turned to Rodney.

Slowly and with obvious pain, John trotted over to Rodney. “Oh god, John,” Rodney whispered. “Are you hurt?” Rodney reached out and buried his hands in the dark fur of John’s neck. His palms slid across dry fur but the edges of his fingers caught in tacky blood.

John whined low in his throat in distress. He nipped at Rodney’s nose and pulled away. Rodney flinched in disgust. “John!” The wolf lolled his tongue out in a laugh. “Yes, well, if you’re quite done. I need to see how badly you’re hurt.” Rodney reached for him again but John sidestepped his hands.

John put a few paces of space between them and then shook his whole body, dislodging dust and grass. He let out a small pained yelp halfway through and stopped to lick at his ribs. Rodney turned about in a small circle looking for his backpack. “I know I have a roll of bandages in the pack, if you want to switch back, I can at least wrap that up.”

He took two steps before a blood-curdling howl went up from the hills surrounding the base. Rodney froze in place. John tipped his head back and answered with an ululating call of his own. The two other wolves joined in. The sound was something akin to what Rodney imagined the wailing of the dead might be like. He was suddenly very much aware of the lowering sun.

The calls died off in a ragged stream. John immediately got to his feet and began herding Rodney off the field. The other two wolves rose and made for the buildings as well.

Rodney was very much in agreement with that plan. “Yeah. It’s definitely time that we left.” He could see to John’s wounds once they got off base.

He let himself be herded away as John and his new pack led the way out of Cheyenne Air Force Station into the dark trees.

 

---

 

John had been asleep for long enough. It was past lunch and if he wasn’t going to wake up on his own, Rodney would wake him up himself. Personally, Rodney had been awake for hours. He’d gotten up and partaken of a late breakfast with Lorne and the brindled wolf. Then they’d all trouped outside and opened up the cabin down the road to air it out for the new arrivals. After that, he’d sent Lorne off with directions to the main lodge where he was going to scrounge up some new clothes and supplies from the excess stores John and Rodney had accumulated in the great move out they’d done the first week in camp. The brindle wolf had gone with him.

There wasn’t going to be a better time to talk to John and get an explanation than now while they had some modicum of privacy. It was a decidedly bizarre feeling to suddenly be concerned with privacy. After weeks of sharing space with only John, it was almost surreal to have another man in the camp – another two men if the other wolf was also like John and Lorne. Which brought Rodney firmly back to his desire to speak with John.

Rodney crossed the cabin floor and pushed open the door to the back room with a more force than was strictly necessary. It banged against the far wall. John sat up in the bed, looking around frantically. A wave of guilt washed over Rodney.

The other man looked like he’d been run over by a truck. He was bruised from his shoulder to his hip, where the blankets pooled, and probably lower down as well. The white of the bandage wrapped around his ribs only served to highlight how drawn John looked. His face was a patchwork of raw skin from, Rodney supposed, one of the many tumbles he’d taken yesterday. Even his hair was looking decidedly limp, plastered to his skull with night sweat.

He looked pathetic.

“Rodney?” he asked heavily.

“Yeah,” Rodney responded a bit more softly then he’d planned. “It’s after lunch. I could let you sleep some more if you needed it?” Rodney’s tone crawled up in question and apology.

John roughly rubbed his eyes free of gunk. “No.” He winced in pain as his movement aggravated something. “No. I’m up.”

“I’ll find something for you to eat. Wash up. You look like a wolf chewed on you.” His attempt at humor brought a tired smile to John’s mouth.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

Rodney went out into the main room and left him to it. For lack of something better to do while he waited, Rodney rounded up the trash from this morning and dumped it in the can by the sink. He would need to sort out what could go into the compost pile as opposed to the trash, later on. A bark came from outside and Rodney reflexively looked up and out the window. He supposed he would have to get used to the additional noise of another pair of wolves, as well as more people.

John emerged from the back a full half hour later. He looked much better scrubbed clean. He’d probably had to use up the entire barrel to take care of the blood and dirt and sweat but he'd needed it. The wound on his chest looked both better and worse for the attention.

Rodney waved him towards an empty seat. “Sit.” He dropped a plate with a deconstructed MRE in front of John and then moved to look at the wound more closely. John twisted sideways in his seat to give Rodney access to his ribs while he ate.

Rodney pulled another chair close and leaned in to examine the wound. He trailed light fingertips down the exposed skin around the deep cut. John huffed out a choked laugh and shied away from the touch. He glared at Rodney but didn’t comment. There didn’t seem to be an abnormal amount of swelling around the wound and the skin felt warm but not hot. John had obviously taken care to clean it thoroughly and it gleamed with a thin sheen of antibiotic cream. The butterfly closures he’d applied last night to a sleeping John still seemed to be holding. John probably could have used real stitches but Rodney would have done more harm than good had he tried.

“We should probably leave this unwrapped for an hour or two. Let it breathe.”

It sounded like something his mother would have said but John didn’t call him on it. He grunted an incomprehensible reply and kept eating. Taking the opportunity of John’s distraction, Rodney cataloged the rest of the damage to his torso. There was dark purple bruising coming up at the left shoulder. It trailed down his arm in lighter splotches of red until it faded into the bruised impression of teeth on his forearm that Rodney had seen yesterday morning. Bruises on top of bruises.

“Let me see your leg.”

John seemed like he wanted to protest but Rodney just gave him a mulish look. John gave a heavy sigh and kicked his leg up on the new chair Lorne had brought in that morning to round out the table set.

John was barefoot. His foot and ankle looked oddly delicate outside of his customary military boots. Rodney controlled the urge to touch. Odds were good that John wouldn’t protest but Rodney had an agenda. He turned up the pant cuff to the knee, exposing John’s lower leg.

“Damn,” Rodney murmured at the sight that greeted him. He looked up quickly to gauge John’s reaction. John just grimaced, and shrugged again.

“You know, you’re going to have to talk to me,” Rodney groused. His hands were gentle on John’s calf, though. His calf looked exactly as you would expect after being mauled by a wolf. Thankfully none of the skin was broken but garish striations from where teeth had tried to grab hold, raked around the curve of the calf over to the front of the shin. The whole of the limb looked slightly pulverized and was probably very tender.

Rodney left off to go rummage through the large first aid kit for some ibuprofen. “Maybe we should put a warm compress on that.” He offered. There were probably some rags in the back that they could use. He tossed John the bottle.

Rodney passed by the table on his way to the back and John reached out to snag his arm. He pulled Rodney clumsily into a chair; Rodney landed off center. “I can sit on my own, thank you,” Rodney huffed but settled himself in the chair. John gave him a lopsided smile in return.

Rodney folded his arms and then unfolded them. He was at a loss as to how to start now that they were here. “Lorne went off to get some clothes and he mentioned walking down to the lake to scope out dinner. I think he’s avoiding you,” he blurted out.

John raised an eyebrow but went gamely along with the odd turn in conversation. His eyes seemed to go unfocused for a moment like they did when he was conferring with his wolf before he blinked and looked back at Rodney.

“He’s not,” he replied. “He’s giving you space because you’re uncomfortable.”

Rodney frowned fiercely. He wasn’t uncomfortable with Lorne; he was thrilled to have another person here and alive. He just didn’t know what to do about it. It was as if he’d lost all the social graces he’d never had in the first place.

John heaved an exasperated sigh. “Rodney. Ask,” he commanded.

Rodney wanted to balk at the tone but it seemed to loosen his tongue nonetheless. He fell into the half question, half statement mode he’d become accustomed to with John. “They were wolves. Like you. What was wrong with them?”

John hunched one shoulder before he thought better of it and straightened up. “They were…” and here he paused searching for the right word. “Feral.” His eyes looked away for a moment before focusing intently on Rodney’s face. “There wasn’t a man left inside them.”

Rodney mulled this over silently for a moment. “The men died? Or the wolf killed them?”

John gave a careful, minute shrug of his shoulders.

That was far from reassuring. “And the other wolf that’s off with Lorne?” John had clearly tried to force the other wolf to change last night as he had forced Lorne but something had stopped him.

“That’s different.” John dragged a hand through his hair. His obvious discomfort with the conversation was perversely reassuring to Rodney. “He’s just not there right now. Not conscious. More like I was.” Which sadly was more than John had ever said before on the subject of their meeting.

“Okay,” Rodney offered. He needed to get up and move. He gathered John’s plate and took it over to the wash bin. Instead of returning he paced off into the great room.

“What happened yesterday, John?” It was a broad, undefined question but Rodney needed to understand.

John seemed to weigh his words carefully before speaking. “I didn’t know there were that many of them. I had just seen the one before.” Rodney glared at him; he hadn’t forgotten that little revelation.

“I expected that we would cross his path on the way to Cheyenne, but I didn’t know that there were so many wolves in the area or that they were on the base.”

“But you knew he was here and you didn’t think that was information I might want to know?” Rodney tried to modulate his tone but the anger came through loud and clear.

John clenched his open fist and gave the table a thump. “I told you,” he grit out. “He’s not there right now. It wasn’t until I finally got close two nights ago that I even knew he was like me.”

“Oh, that is so not the point,” Rodney argued back. “It was something I should have known!” He really couldn’t articulate his anger better than that. The fact that there had been another wolf, another man, in the vicinity was important information, even if all it did was bring false hope. The fact that John had kept it from him made him question John and that hurt in a way Rodney didn’t want to investigate.

John’s anger seemed to gutter out in the face of Rodney’s own. He awkwardly looked away. “I just thought it was a regular wolf. A little bolder and more curious but nothing important. I was going to tell you after the fight but then – ”

John shook his head. Rodney supposed it was as close to an apology as he was going to get. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Tell me what happened with the pack.”

John spread his fingers wide and braced his hand on the table. He looked hunted – like he wanted to be pacing or better yet out of the room entirely. Rodney stopped his own pacing and backed up against the far wall, to give John more space. John would just have to forgive the folded arms and the glare Rodney leveled on him.

“I told you. They were feral.” John placed an emphasis on the last as if Rodney should understand what that meant. His confusion must have been plain because John continued without prompting. “You’re either part of the pack or you’re prey.” John gave a twisted smile. “You weren’t part of the invitation.” The word invitation was twisted and wrong on his tongue.

Rodney knew there was a lot he didn’t understand about what John was. Part of that was due to John’s refusal to discuss it in anything but the broadest terms. But part of it was due to John’s own ignorance. In a lot of ways, Rodney got the impression that John was learning on the fly, and yesterday had been a hard lesson.

Rodney suddenly felt very tired. Life hadn’t been fair to either of them and these days it was even harder to play the game without a full deck. He dropped his arms and went again to sit with John. John eyed him warily.

“So we had the wolf version of the Thunderdome,” Rodney offered.

John snorted a laugh. “Two wolves enter; one wolf leaves,” he agreed with a small but genuine smile.

“And Lorne and the other wolf?”

John threw a look over his shoulder towards the front of the cabin. “We’ll have to ask him that.” He got up from his chair and turned to face the door, bending down hastily to unfold his rolled-up pant cuff before straightening again.

Rodney turned to the door in confusion. It opened as if timed to their conversation, and Lorne paused in the doorway, uncertain. He had changed into BDUs and a long-sleeved shirt much like John.

Rodney threw John a disbelieving look. John had had to have somehow known the other man was on his way for Lorne to have appeared like that on cue. It was a small demonstration of John’s enhanced senses but it was a shared moment that caused a blossom of warmth to unfurl in Rodney’s chest.

John smirked. Rodney rolled his eyes but couldn’t quite suppress a small smile.

“Oh come on!” John wheedled. “That’s cool, right?”

Rodney didn’t have it in him to argue the point. Besides – it was kind of cool. He wondered if John had called Lorne somehow or if he’d just known Lorne was approaching through some secret sort of pack wolf sense.

“Let’s sit outside,” he replied instead. John generally liked to spend at least some portion of each day outside and he must be chafing under the combined weight of the extra sleep and the painful conversation. Lorne stepped away from the door and John gamely followed Rodney outside.

Rodney commandeered one of the plank chairs set under the awning. John dragged the second chair out into the sun and sat down himself. He sprawled out across the surface of the chair and turned his head up towards the strong afternoon sun, smiling again. Rodney congratulated himself on the astute choice of venue.

“Soldier boy.” Rodney pointed at Lorne and motioned towards the cabin across the way. “Pull up a chair.” Lorne gave him the hairy eye but went. Rodney would have to do something about that later. He snapped his fingers at the brindle wolf who had been watching them all from the edge of the tree line surrounding the cabin.

“Lassie. Sit.” He indicated the yard with a pointed finger.

John snickered but gave a soft warning. “Rodney.”

Rodney chose to ignore him. The wolf, like Lorne, would just have to get used to him. John had adapted; he was fairly sure they could as well.

Lorne came back around the side of the yard with another chair, which he placed next to John’s in the sun. The wolf deliberately took three measured paces into the yard and then flopped over on his side. He was obviously set to ignore them all. Rodney focused his attention on Lorne.

The man certainly looked more comfortable in his skin this morning. He was the sort of non-descript, ruggedly good-looking man that the military seemed to attract. He had square, even features and rough-cut dark hair. He had obviously taken something sharp to his hair sometime this morning as it no longer fell into his face, but he’d still need someone to even up the ends. Also, there went Rodney’s hypothesis that the wolves’ fur colors somehow mapped to the man. Lorne's hair wasn’t as dark as John’s but it certainly wasn’t the light, tawny color of his wolf’s coat.

The man was solidly built. His arms, where they rested on his knees, hands clasped together and hanging, stretched the fabric of his shirt. He had opted for a pair of camo pants but they obviously didn’t fit him well. Rodney added it to the list of things to scavenge for on their next trip back to Cripple Creek.

John coughed and Rodney jumped. He glanced over quickly. John raised an eyebrow at him. Rodney had obviously been staring.

Lorne looked torn between humor and unease.

“Air Force?” John asked, breaking the moment.

Rodney’s head whipped around to catch Lorne’s response.

“Yeah,” Lorne replied, looking at John. “Major.”

John nodded. “Colonel.”

Rodney’s gaze bounced back to John. He’d known John was in the military but this was the first he’d heard of his rank. The fact that he’d volunteered the information so quickly irritated Rodney. He pinned John with a narrow-eyed glare. John ignored him but his neck flushed a little. Good.

“Stationed at Cheyenne?” John asked.

Lorne shook his head. “No. Or at least not yet. I had orders to report for duty but by the time I flew into Peterson they were already pulling us for civilian control and emergency logistics.” He frowned fiercely; the memory was obviously unpleasant. Having been on the other side of martial law, Rodney could relate.

“After…” he paused to swallow heavily. “I ended up running a little wild. The wolf found me and I kind of followed him back to Cheyenne.” The wolf in question blew out a heavy breath making the dust of the yard plume up into the afternoon air.

“That pack was...” John shook his head without finishing. Lorne just nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, but it was a pack. We were all screwed up. They were just a bit more screwed than me.”

Rodney somehow doubted that assessment of their relative sanity, based on what John had said. But maybe John was better at reading other wolves than Lorne was. Or maybe Lorne had been just as lost as John had been when he first met Rodney. John was certainly awfully comfortable with the man, for having just met him. Perhaps that too was a wolf thing.

“It was only after he started coming back with the smell of something else on him that I really started to pay attention.” Lorne jerked his chin towards the wolf again.

“And then we showed up,” Rodney jumped in.

“Yeah,” Lorne agreed, looking at them. “After yesterday, it was either head out on my own or follow you guys. The big guy there had already made up his mind and my wolf didn’t seem inclined to disagree.”

Rodney mulled that over for a moment. Obviously they all were taking a leap of faith here. It was a strangely satisfying conclusion.

“So, you don’t know anything about getting into NORAD then, do you?” Rodney circled back to the salient point.

Lorne looked at him, confused. “Is that why you were there?” He looked between Rodney and John.

“Rodney’s following a beacon,” John offered in his best Midwestern American drawl. The word beacon sounded absurdly dirty in that tone.

Rodney glared at him. “It’s got to have a power source. I’m looking for the power source so that we can all go back to hot showers!”

“Um,” Lorne interjected before Rodney could really get started. He turned his glare on him instead. Lorne flinched away and held up his hands in mock surrender. “Not taking sides. But NORAD’s gone.”

 

---

 

After Lorne’s bombshell of a declaration, John had been worried Rodney was going to march off into the mountains on his own that very minute to confirm with his own eyes that NORAD had been destroyed.

It had taken some fast talking and a few growled threats to get Rodney to wait a few days. John wasn’t above using his injuries to keep them in camp and Rodney hadn’t argued. He had threatened to head out by himself if John wasn’t ready to go first thing next week. John was really going to have to talk with him about this tendency to threaten to wander off on his own when he didn’t get his own way.

So while John had spent the week recuperating and planning, Rodney had spent the week packing, unpacking, and repacking his backpack with the electronic gizmos he was sure he would need. When he wasn’t resting, John had spent his time with Lorne strategizing. They’d laid out the trip more like an incursion into enemy territory than a hike in the woods. Lorne had felt, and John’s wolf had agreed, that whatever remained of the pack had dispersed by now; the fight at Cheyenne Air Station had been just as much about territory as it had been about survival. That didn’t mean that they shouldn’t be vigilant though.

The brindled wolf would be accompanying them as well and he also didn’t seem to be concerned about an attack. From what John got from his Pack sense, it seemed like the other wolf hadn’t really felt any loyalty to the feral pack and didn’t particularly have a strong opinion about John either, as yet. John kind of felt he was being humored in this regard, but he let it go.

Each night, Lorne and the wolf ended up sleeping on the couch and the floor, respectively, of John and Rodney’s cabin. Rodney gave them an odd look the first night but didn’t say anything after that. John was glad to have them near. His wolf took it as a matter of course that the new pack would stay together, at least for now. At times, John found himself wondering if Lorne’s wolf was pushing the same sense of Pack on him. He wouldn’t be surprised. At some point, John was going to have to bite the bullet and sit down with Lorne to discuss the wolves. In his previous life he had been content to ignore his heritage except where it benefited him. He didn’t have that luxury any longer.

The night before they had decided to head out to NORAD, John and Lorne stayed up later than they’d planned going over the final details one last time. Rodney had already bedded down for the night by the time John made it to their room. He grumbled at John as he slipped under the covers but rolled over easily enough at John’s push. John snugged up close behind and half on top of him and buried his nose in the crook between Rodney’s shoulder and neck. Rodney wasn’t fully asleep yet; he hummed in interest.

Things had been easier between them this week but this was the first time John had come to bed with plans for something more than just sleeping. There was something about Rodney’s smell that settled John. He dragged his teeth lightly across the skin there, tasting salt and sweat. Tonight there was none of the compelling need to possess that had driven their first sexual encounter. John didn’t need to take; he just wanted to taste.

And okay, maybe to claim Rodney again, now that the pack had grown.

Holding Rodney down almost flat with his weight, he wedged his free hand under Rodney’s hip. Rodney drew his outside knee up and pushed down with it into the mattress. The small bit of leverage afforded John the space he needed to slip his hands into Rodney’s pants and palm his dick. Rodney moaned long and low.

John went slow, taking time to build the tension. He traced Rodney’s dick with light fingers from root to tip, detouring occasionally to drag across Rodney’s balls. He caged the head of his cock with the tips of his fingers then drew them in and up to gather the pre-ejaculate on the pads of his fingers. Rodney’s neck exploded in goose bumps and he let out a pillow-muffled groan.

John smiled smugly. Taking his wet fingers, he traced them around the circumference of Rodney’s shaft, leaving a slick trail. His fingers caught on the skin at the base of Rodney's cock as the meager lubrication gave out. Fresh beads of sweat popped up along Rodney’s spine. Even without the wolf, John could smell the rich musk that was Rodney, deepen.

“Please,” Rodney whispered again. “Please.”

John licked a wide swath across the skin of his neck and shoulder before settling back to mouth at his neck. His fingers returned to Rodney's glans again and again to gather fluid to slick his way up and down the shaft. It wasn’t enough to provide for a smooth jacking motion, but the catch of skin on sticky skin made it that much better.

Rodney moaned and twisted beneath him, trying to get more. John held firm, enjoying the unpredictable pressure on his heavy cock. Every time Rodney bucked beneath him a spike of pleasure crashed through the warm haze surrounding John. The crush of his cock against Rodney’s ass was tempting, but this was going to happen on his terms, not Rodney’s.

He drew it out as long as he could stand, alternating between licking and lightly biting Rodney’s back. Rodney’s knee was shaking with the strain of holding himself up and open beneath John. His back, neck and shoulders were flushed red from John’s teeth. A broken sob from Rodney finally ended John’s patience.

John tucked his forehead down into Rodney’s shoulder to resist marking him more deeply as he tightened his fist around Rodney's cock. Rodney’s breath sawed in and out of his lungs in time to John’s frantic pulls, cresting in a long drawn-out keen that might have been John’s name. Come spilled over John’s fingers.

Ripping his hand from Rodney’s pants, John was just in time to catch his own ejaculate in the palm of his hand. The release was exquisite.

John floated through the afterglow in a sweaty heap on top of Rodney. Rodney protested the weight muzzily, and John shifted to give him more room. He rolled over and sprawled on his back, arms taking up the width of the bed above John’s head. He looked down at John with a fond expression.

John pulled his hand in and without taking his eyes from Rodney, gave it a long swipe of his tongue. Rodney smiled lazily at John and then mumbled, “Sleep.”

John did as he was told.

Morning came far too quickly in John’s estimation. It seemed that he’d barely closed his eyes before Rodney was prodding him out of bed and into the washroom. John emerged into the great room to see Lorne in much the same sleepy state. John hadn’t heard any snarling so he supposed Rodney had wisely left the wolf to his own devices. All he got when he reached for his own wolf was soft white noise.

They were geared up and on the trail before the sun had risen above the tree line. Exact time was less important these days but John guessed it couldn’t be any later than six in the morning, meaning they would make it to NORAD just after noon.

The brindle wolf scouted the way while Lorne in his wolf skin again protected their rear. Rodney trudged along at John’s side silently. He pretended to be preoccupied with his equipment but John figured that he was just anxious over what they were going to find. He hoped, for Rodney’s sake, that it wasn’t quite as bad as Lorne had seemed to believe. Rodney wasn’t ready to give up on the beacon and John wasn’t sure how he would react if they’d come this close only to run into a dead end.

For his part, John had decided not to completely change but the wolf was very much in evidence. Through the Pack sense, John could feel both the wolves with them. It was still strange to have his sense of self suddenly expanded to include two new consciousnesses. They always seemed to be in the back of his mind, even when he had pulled away from his own wolf. He barely had to reach to clearly feel Lorne’s rock solid presence only slightly weathered by his own past. He could tell how far away Lorne was and what he was feeling, in general terms. And from what he’d observed of Lorne, the man was getting the same information from him.

The brown and grey wolf remained less clear. Whether that was the wolf's choice or the fact that the man there was unavailable, John didn’t know. From ahead of them all he really got was a sense of alertness. If anything showed up on the trail, John would know, but the wolf wouldn’t be able to tell him what it was like Lorne could have. It was something they were going to need to work on for when they hunted together.

John was brought out of his thoughts by the approach of Lorne. John reached out and got a brief glimpse of a signpost. They must almost be there. He snagged Rodney’s arm and brought them to a halt. Rodney opened his mouth to ask a question or argue, but was cut off by the appearance of the tawny wolf.

The wolf twisted and warped and then Lorne was standing there instead. He still looked uncomfortable in his change, but the awkwardness seemed to be fading.

“No sign of anyone following,” he reported to John then turned to Rodney. “We’re just about there.”

Rodney fiddled with his tracker for a moment before gesturing impatiently. “Lead on then.” Lorne rolled his eyes but took point He led them up a rise and through some more trees. The brindle wolf was waiting for them at a rise in the path and then they were looking out over a paved road at the entrance to NORAD.

Lorne had been right. They were there.

He had also been right in his assessment of the installation. John felt his heart sink at the sight. Rodney moaned low in his throat.

John wasn’t sure what the original entrance had looked like but it was nothing but rubble now. A fenced section of road led up to and right into a sunken tumble of rocks. It looked as though something inside the mountainside had collapsed, bringing the surrounding rock and trees down into the gap. The result looked like a sinkhole in the side of a mountain.

Debris was scattered among the rocks. There were bits of concrete and fencing John assumed were from the guard shack, but there were also burnt out wires and corrugated steel sheeting. The devastation extended up the mountain side for what had to be a half acre at least. This was more than a collapsed entrance or a rockslide. Something larger had happened here.

John looked left at Rodney. His devastation was written clear on his face.

“Rodney,” he spoke softly.

At the sound of his name, Rodney seemed to snap back to himself. He gave John one broken look before he straightened his shoulders and marched down the remaining bit of road. He had his tracker out and was scanning in large sweeps back and forth.

John shot a look at the brindled wolf, who trotted off after Rodney.

“I don’t have any clue what happened,” Lorne said from John’s right. “I was supposed to report up here but I’d never been here before. I’m not even sure what I was reporting for, honestly.”

John kept his eyes on Rodney’s wandering form. He wasn’t sure what, if anything, he could say. The beacon had been Rodney’s quest but John still felt the failure keenly. How could he not after months of listening to Rodney speculate on it.

“This was within the pack's territory," Lorne continued on. "I sometimes got the feeling that maybe they knew something about it. They certainly didn’t like coming out this way. We were always taking this side of the mountain, when we ran the borders.” The we in this case being Lorne and the brindle wolf, apparently.

“I’m sure there was nothing you could have done,” John offered. It was hard to imagine that one man could make a difference against whatever had happened here.

“John!” The call from Rodney had him and Lorne moving immediately. In one of his sweeps, Rodney had made it off onto a cleared rock ledge out to the right. Approaching the edge, John could see straight down into a deep ravine. Rodney was kicking at the ground with purpose.

“What’s up?” he asked. John looked down at the patch of ground Rodney was clearing with his foot but couldn’t see anything of interest. It looked like just another patch of dirt, albeit one dangerously close to a steep fall.

Dark images of a clay pit sprang to mind as John warily eyed the edge of the ravine. John’s wolf was suddenly pacing back and forth in his head, pushing at him. He couldn’t understand what it was that the wolf wanted, though, and it was making his head spike with pain.

Rodney looked up and began motioning at the ground around the edge. “Something’s buried here. It was getting washed out by the signal from the mountain but this close it pinged on the tracker.”

John looked at Lorne who didn’t seem to be any happier than John right now. The brindle wolf had stopped several paces off. John rubbed at his temple, trying to get the wolf to back off for a moment.

“Something like what?” he asked Rodney.

Rodney threw him an exasperated look. “I don’t know what – that’s the point. It’s not deep though, so help me dig.

Rodney began industriously pushing dirt off the side of the ledge down into the ravine with his hands and feet.

John growled at his wolf and crouched down to help Rodney. The minute he placed his hands on the ground his head exploded in a rush of sensation. It was like flying and fucking and running all at once. John’s heart sped up and the blood rushed out of his head leaving him dizzy. He toppled sideways into Rodney, who in turn sat down hard on his ass with a startled yelp.

From the ground below them there was the distinct sound of an air lock releasing.

John’s head immediately got a bit quieter. He blinked his eyes open and stared at Rodney. Rodney stared straight back, just as dumbfounded.

“What the fuck was that?” Lorne asked in a ragged whisper.

The wolf trotted over and stuck his nose over the side of the ravine. John exchanged a wordless glance with Rodney. Rodney shrugged.

Carefully scooting up to the edge of the ravine, John looked down. Ten feet below them a ramp had extended into the open air of the ravine. The wolf jumped down lightly and disappeared into the side of the rock wall.

“Dammit!” John cursed. “Stay put!” he growled at Rodney. “Lorne.” The command brought a nod from Lorne.

“Don’t you dare,” Rodney snapped. “I’m sure there’s rope at the Base, if you’d just wait we can both–”

Whatever else he might have said was lost in a shout as John rolled off the edge of the ravine, snagging the edge with his fingers to let his feet dangle. He dropped lightly the last couple of feet, to land on the ramp.

Rodney’s head appeared moments later from over the edge of the rock wall above him. “What the fuck, Sheppard!?” he shouted.

John smiled up at him then really looked at where he was standing. It appeared as if the ramp led into a room, rather than as a passageway into the mountain itself. The space inside was no larger than a small conference room. The walls were the green gold of weathered bronze and when John reached out a hand to test the material, blue lines of power lit and raced through the spaces between the panels.

He could hear Rodney ranting above about abnormal power readings and telling John, for fucks sake, not to move unless he wanted to be fried.

John poked his wolf none too gently. The wolf responded with a low level hum of excitement and oddly enough, the sensory image of John’s pack. From within the small room, the brindled wolf gave a rough chuff and nosed at the far wall. John cautiously took a few steps further into the room. As if sensing his presence, the far wall opened in a doorway into another small room. This one held a control panel and a wall of glass. John stared at it in confusion for a moment before his brain reconciled the image before him. It was a windshield. John could see the earth pressing up against the glass in the glow of the panels.

Suddenly the screen lit up like something out of Star Trek.

John gave a shout and stumbled backwards. From behind him came the sound of a mini rockslide and Rodney appeared on the ramp. Lorne dropped down next to him looking a little the worse for wear.

John glared at them both. Before he could ream them out, Rodney had pushed him aside and stormed into the interior of the vehicle. Both Lorne and the wolf wisely cleared off to the side, giving Rodney a wide berth.

“What the hell is this?” he asked in awe. As if John had any better clue then he did.

Rodney was running his hands along the power lines and poking at the control panel. John reached out to stop him, saying, “Rodney, I don’t think you should be doing that.”

Rodney gave him a ball-shriveling glare. “What the hell was your military doing, Sheppard?”

John spluttered at the implication. “First of all, Rodney, I am not responsible for the whole of the American Military Complex and second, I have no fucking clue. In case you hadn’t noticed, I just got here as well.”

Rodney jabbed a finger at John’s chest while poking at the screen with his other hand. John really wished he would stop touching things before something blew up in their faces. What they really needed was an owner’s manual.

The screen suddenly went black and then resolved itself into the face of an older officer sitting in a grey, nondescript room.

Lorne and the wolf came forward into the cabin at Rodney’s exclamation of joy and they all crowded forward to look. John cut Lorne a quick look: the other man just shrugged. Rodney was staring fixedly at the screen. No one, it seemed, had any clearer idea what was going on than John.

The officer started talking, his voice easily filling the room.

“My name is General Jack O’Neill and this serves as the last record of the SGC. On August 15, 2012, an alien plague was introduced to the planet by undetermined means. The SGC immediately instituted lock down protocols and suspended all travel in order to ensure that the plague did not spread to other human populations in the system.”

“Did he just say alien?” Rodney whispered harshly. Both John and Lorne growled at him to be quiet.

“For all our efforts, we have not been able to locate a cure or develop a treatment for the illness. Our scientists tell me that roughly one tenth of one percent of the human population on Earth has a dominant gene expression that will provide them immunity to this disease. Another one percent has a latent gene marker that may or may not allow them to survive as well – at this point we can't be sure. May whatever god they believed in have mercy on the souls of the rest.”

John’s stomach did a sickening somersault. Back in his white room with Dr. Penn talking about the plague they had discussed the kill rate, but it had always been with the underlying hope that a cure would be found. This man had no such grace. He had known what was coming and understood the inevitable outcome from the very start.

“Fucking hell.” Lorne cursed softly. John silently agreed.

“In order to protect the remaining population, we will be launching a planetary shield. The power sources for the shield should last for the next couple thousand years or so. It is the best chance at rebuilding we can offer you. Once we have powered the shield we will be closing off all access to the base to protect the system and the Stargate. Whoever may have launched the attack, there is no way in hell they’re getting Earth.”

Here the man paused and for the first time looked away from the camera. He swallowed thickly and continued.

“It’s not much, but it is all we can give you. I wish we could offer you more.”

John had to close his eyes at the anguish in the man’s face. He wasn’t sure he had a heart left to break after the apocalypse but if he did, this man would be the catalyst. He felt Rodney’s hand grip his arm. He didn’t shake him off.

“For those of you that remain, the same gene, latent or not, that gives you immunity to the plague should give you access to this ship’s systems and records. We have placed all the information we could in the data crystals, for what help it my eventually offer you. Mourn the dead and learn from them. Don’t repeat our mistakes.”

John reopened his eyes to catch the man’s bitter smile.

“Good luck.”

With that, the screen went blank.

After that, the rest seemed a bit unimportant. Rather than hang around and dissect the message or the strange vehicle, by wordless agreement the four of them trooped back out into the sun. John boosted Lorne up to the ledge and the wolf made it up with a graceful leap that John wasn’t sure he could emulate. Rodney stepped forward to take his turn at scrambling up the slope but John snagged his elbow and drew him half inside the vehicle again – out of direct view from above but not fully out of sight.

Bracketing Rodney's shoulders with his hands, John took a moment to look hard at Rodney, cataloging his expression. Rodney looked miserable in a way that John had rarely seen. It was like the look he got when their conversations strayed too close to sensitive topics or something John said reminded him of pre-plague days. There was horror there but also a level of despair that was new. He flinched under John's gaze, eyes traveling left and right and not meeting John's.

"Rodney?" he asked carefully.

Rodney met his eyes for a brief moment before looking away again. He shrugged his shoulders once, jostling John's loose grip, but didn’t speak.

John understood though. He took a step closer, carefully crowding into Rodney's space. This was still new to them – still untested. But it felt right; it felt like something Rodney needed that he could easily give.

He leaned in slowly, bringing his cheek level with Rodney’s, all the while giving Rodney time to back away if chose to. Rodney didn’t move; he held his ground. John inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of Rodney and the bite of his dark emotions. Holding his breath, John turned his face in toward Rodney, ghosting his cheek and nose along the line of Rodney's jaw. He bestowed the briefest of touches, not even a kiss really, just a brush of lips against the chapped corner of Rodney's mouth.

John closed his eyes and held himself there for a long moment waiting and breathing. Finally, Rodney's breathed out for what seemed the first time and relaxed under John. His hands came up and brushed softly up and down the nape of John’s neck, across his shoulders and down the back of his arms before falling away.

John smiled and took a step back. When he opened his eyes, Rodney was looking straight at him. He wasn't suddenly better but the oppressive weight that had seemed to be crushing him moments before was no longer there.

"Sheppard?" Lorne called from above, breaking the moment.

"Yeah," he replied stepping back into the open air. He pulled Rodney around after him, placing his back to the open hatch and creating a basket with his hands so that he could boost Rodney up. Rodney set his foot in the cradle of John's hands and using one hand on John's shoulder for balance, lunged upwards. Lorne caught his outstretched hand and pulled him the rest of the way up easily.

John leapt up after him, grabbing Lorne's hand to get the leverage he needed to make it up to the lip. Beneath his feet the hatch closed.

Without discussing it further, they all turned and headed back to the camp. To John, the trip back seemed twice as long as the trip out. A good thing as he needed to figure out what the hell they were going to do now.

They arrived after dark for the second time in as many nights, and all piled into John and Rodney’s cabin. No one was particularly hungry so John just tore open a bag of jerky and handed it around. Rodney lit every camping lamp they had, flooding the room in warm light.

John looked around at the men and wolf in front of him. Rodney still looked shocked. Lorne looked lost. The brindle wolf had curled up on the rug in a tight ball tucked nose to tail. Lorne’s hand was buried in his ruff as if offering solace. John could feel the weight of loss and despair through the Pack sense. His own wolf was quiet. John felt very alone in his own head.

He’d been thinking about this moment the entire walk home. He hoped that he could do this right because otherwise they were going to be fucked.

He gathered his sense memories of Rodney, charged air and summer storms; Lorne, deep roots and the bright flash of tawny fur; and the brindle wolf, lonely and sleeping. He packed them tight and added his own dark fur and deep need to survive. He wrapped it all into a single, all-important word. Pack. And he pushed it out through the Pack sense with all the determination and grit he could muster.

“We are not alone,” he growled.

Lorne and the wolf looked up, startled.

John concentrated on Lorne, willing him to understand. “There are others out there who need to know that they aren’t alone.”

Other men and women and wolves like John and Lorne. One tenth of one percent plus the others with only half the gene who also might have survived. It was both a staggeringly small and epically large number of people. Living. Lorne slowly nodded.

John turned to Rodney. “We have the information you wanted on the plague. There has to be additional answers there.” Answers on how and records on the quarantines with clues to where else people might still be alive. Rodney didn’t look convinced but he did look a tiny bit interested.

“We’re Pack but we’re also human,” John addressed them. “And someone, somewhere decided to run the human race down like prey.” The wolves growled and John found himself baring his teeth. Rodney echoed the gesture.

“I think its time we got a little of our own back.” John growled.

Men and wolves have always shared a uniquely codependent relationship. Wolves scavenged from men while men relied on their domesticated brothers the dogs. But for all that men and wolves orbited each other, they each existed fundamentally separate from the other. But within the Pack, men and wolves literally existed as one. When the old world was dark and borders were unknown, the Pack roamed the continents unchallenged. But then the world grew smaller and the Pack lost their place to men and machines. In the modern age, the Pack had grown thin and ragged as a winter wolf. That was how it might have remained, but then the world of men ended.

The first meeting of what would become the Greater Pack of North America convened in November of 2012, Apocalypse plus three months. At the time they were just three wolves and four men. That evening they set the course for everything that was to come.