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Alcohol didn’t work on werewolves.
Carter found it slightly annoying but at the end of the day it didn't really change much about his life. He liked the taste of booze enough that he could pretend with his buddies and that was good enough for him. He didn’t need anything else.
And then his friend Skylar lit up a joint and Carter thought to himself,
it must be the same with weed.
Carter loved being wrong.
It felt like his knees were
missing
.
“Man, I really would’ve thought you had a higher tolerance than this.” Eddie, Carter's roommate said as he and Skylar helped Carter up the stairs back to his dorm room. “I've seen you down like, seven shots of Fireball before you even make a face. You only smoked like, half the joint.”
“Life is so complicated when you’re a werewolf.” Carter muttered to himself. “Smellin shit.”
“Yeah you’re in another stratosphere aren't you bud.” Skylar said as she propped him up while Eddie unlocked the door.
Carter blinked at her. “I'm in Eugene.”
Skylar sighed. “Let's just get him inside.”
Being high felt like when he was a little boy, before Joe was born and it was just him and Kelly. They would sleep in the same bed, curled together like commas, under a quilt that their mom had made when she first found out she was pregnant with Carter. It felt like sleeping under a cloud. It had always smelled like his parents from when they used to keep it at the foot of their bed. It was safe, just him and Kelly under the protection of their parents, their family, their pack, each other. When they were young they didn’t need anything else, just them against the world.
He had left the blanket at home when he moved, folded and safe on Kelly’s bed but Carter
ached
.
“Okay man, there we go.” Eddie dropped him onto his bed unceremoniously and Carter whined.
Skylar patted his cheek. “You’re gonna be okay, Cart. Just try and go to bed.”
The world was spinning in and out of focus and for a moment, Carter swore the overhead light above him was the full moon. His dad had told him a story once, when they still lived in Maine, of the moon and the sun, lovers destined to never be together. He didn’t understand it the way he knew he was supposed to. He didn’t understand so many things he thought he was supposed to. No one held that over his head, but Carter knew it. He held it over his own head.
There was a reason Joe was going to be Alpha and he wasn’t.
Joe…Joe was precious. Always always. Sometimes, in his darkest moments, Carter hated him. Hated how it seemed like the entire world revolved around him, that even Carter himself revolved around him. But then he remembered the silence. The silence that followed their family around for months after he was taken, even when all of them were trying to ignore it. The silence tore Carter to shreds even more than the guilt did. The guilt at hating his younger brother, the guilt at it all. He would carry Joe around for hours and hours, never letting go, growling whenever anyone but Kelly came close. He was angry, angry at his parents, at his pack, at the world, but never at his brothers. He hated Joe sometimes, in the way jealousy makes you, but he was never, never angry at them. Not for this.
Joe wasn’t with him. Kelly wasn’t with him.
Carter
ached
.
Eddie and Skylar had left, Carter didn’t remember when. He only knew that he was alone, far, far away from his pack.
His phone rang.
Ox.
Ox was strange. At first, Carter didn’t like him, didn’t like the way this stranger made Joe heal in a way that none of them were able to. Why would Ox, this strange boy that none of them knew, make Joe talk again? Why him?
But then Carter got to know him and he understood why. Ox Ox Ox was his best friend, the same way Kelly was. Not the same, but the same.
He picked up the phone.
“Carter?” Ox said and oh, his voice, used so sparingly, used so well, so thoughtful. He would make a good Alpha, if that were possible. He was so careful and so lovely.
“Are you okay?” Ox asked and Carter realized he had said all of that aloud.
“Yeah Ox.” Carter said. The weed was fading, slowly and quickly and all at once. “College is strange.”
Ox snorted. “Yeah?”
“So many new smells. Everywhere. Everyone smells bad.”
“That’s what happens when you’re locked in a building with 300 other 18 year olds.” Ox said and Carter could hear the smile in his voice. God, how he wanted to see it.
He took a breath to steady himself. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” Ox said. “I just wanted to hear your voice.”
“Gay.”
Ox snorted. “Whatever dude.”
“Tell me about your day.” Carter asked and it felt like his throat was closing up. There was a weight on his chest that he didn’t know how to fix. “Please?”
Ox, growing more into the steady man Carter always knew he would be everyday, didn’t question it. “At the shop today…”
Carter let himself fade in and out as Ox described his day in light detail, the stupid things Tanner and Chris and Rico did at the shop, what his mom had made for dinner, whatever Joe and Kelly were bickering about in the evening, the long walk through the territory that Ox took with his dad. It was perfect and it hurt.
Carter’s breath caught in his throat and he let out a choked out sob before he realized it.
Ox broke off in the middle of a sentence. “Carter?”
“Sorry.” Carter blubbered. “I just. Really fucking miss you guys.”
“Then come home.” Ox said simply, as if it was all that easy. And maybe it was, but Carter didn’t know how to make it so.
“I’m high.” was the only response Carter knew how to give.
“Really?”
“Not anymore.” Carter conceded. “It lasted for like, ten minutes.”
Ox chuckled. “ Werewolf metabolism.”
“I have class tomorrow.” Carter added. “Another reason I can’t.”
“Hold on.” Ox said and then hung up.
Carter pulled the phone away from his ear. “What the fuck, Oxnard.”
He didn’t have time to wonder what was happening before it rang again. He picked up quickly. “Hello?”
“I’ll be driving up tomorrow.” Ox said simply. “I just had to call Gordo to make sure I can still have the day off.”
It felt like Carter’s heart was in his throat. There were so many things he could say, he should say, like telling Ox not to worry about him, to focus on his work and the pack and all the things Oxnard Matheson should be worrying about, not him, never him, but all that came out was a choked “Really?”
“Really.” Ox was smiling, Carter could feel it in the stretching pack bonds
brotherbrotherOx i'm here i'm here i'm HERE
and it made his eyes water.
“Thank you.” He said.
“It’s easy.” Ox laughed. “Now go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Goodnight, Ox.”
“Goodnight, Carter.”
They stayed on the line together for a moment, neither one of them going to be the first to hang up and when Carter fell asleep, it was to the sound of his best friend's soft breaths.