TITLE: Two Worlds, part 1
AUTHOR: Macx
RATING: NC-17
PAIRING: Henry/Will
SPOILERS: 1.7 and onward, quotes are all from 'Edward'
DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, sadly. They are owned by people with a lot more money
Author's Voice of Warning (aka Author's Standard Note):
English is not my first language; it's German. I've been writing for fandom for fifteen years in that language, longer in my native language. Any mistakes you find in here, collect them and you might win a prize The spell-checker said everything's okay, but you know how trustworthy those thingies are....
FEEDBACK: Loved
SUMMARY: "He had to talk to Magnus. She needed to help him. More pills. Stronger ones. Maybe injections. Maybe just knock him out and put him into a cage. Maybe a more permanent, radical solution." Yes, Henry has a problem...

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"…catching up on some research that's long overdo on my bad self. I never wanted to know any of this. I thought if I ignored it, it would just go away."

Werewolves, by nature, were loners until they found a mate. The young males in particular roamed around, looking, seeking, testing their strengths and weaknesses. Finding a mate wasn't a primal instinct. Finding a pack wasn't a necessity either. Packs provided safety, but they were also a danger to those unmated. The unmated were seen as dangerous to the young and their power struggles against other unmated males was dangerous for everyone. So they stayed away. Wolves, like other Were, were perfectly able to live normal lives even without a partner or a mate.

Henry's life had been far from normal.

Taken in by Helen Magnus who he had come to accept as a strong alpha he would follow, he had been given a deeper insight into his abnormality than most of his kind. He understood his nature. At least he had thought so until the flu symptoms and fever had started, until the changes had begun.

Earlier than that, right throughout his childhood and teenage years, Magnus had helped him understand what he was, how he was different from others – Abnormals and humans alike – and that to control his other nature, he had to get help. Since he couldn't control himself, pills did it for him. It had been his choice back then as a pubescent teenager.

He had hit puberty unlike other boys his age. Pimples and acne and changing voices, weird morning experiences in bed and wet dreams were one thing – suddenly changing into a raving creature that was all instinct and no control was another. He had woken in one of the holding cells, frightened and out of his mind, and begging Magnus to not let it happen again.

Medication had suppressed the involuntary changes and while Helen had theorized that it should be possible for him to be conscious and in control, Henry had never taken her up on the offer to run trials. The monster in him had surfaced only once and it had been a terrifying experience as his awake mind was pushed back by a powerful creature, by the wolf, by the fierce instinct. Everything had been different, sight, sound and smell, even the sensory perception of what he touched. He had been scared shitless of what he had become and while nothing had happened, he had sworn never to let it come out again.

Never.

But as things went, never say never was rather fitting.

Sitting in his room, staring at nothing, Henry wondered why now. Why had his abilities changed? Why had the wolf overcome the medication? Why had he entered this new metamorphic change? Protein chains and all the medical talk aside, why now?

The books had been as helpful as one of those stupid horror novels. Well, most of them. He wondered why Magnus kept the more fantastic recollections and didn't just throw them out. Then again, maybe a kernel of truth was in all of them. You never knew when nature dealt you an Abnormal that was stranger than its peers.

The really old tombs had provided him with fragments that made sense when applied to the situation, but he really didn't want to give them a lot of thought because… they frightened him. Many so-called experts had observed and written about lycanthropes, or lycans for short. There were huge sections in many books about them and it made Henry glad that Helen had taken him in. Just reading about their wild nature, about their unpredictable behavior, had him feel sick.

Lycans weren't primitive. Some just chose to be, going back to their roots, so to speak. They lived out in the moors and swamps, or in the mountains and even deserts, running wild even as humans. Clad in bare necessities, feeding off their kills, no more than animals in human guise. Their changes weren't influenced by the full moon. That was a human legend. The changes were voluntary and started with puberty. After that it was up to the young to decide: be human or be wolf on the outside.

Henry had always preferred to be human. He preferred to be learned, to know stuff, to be of value. He loved computers and technology. He loved the internet. The wolf side was just a bother and he didn't need it. Magnus had tried to teach him that he should be proud of his heritage, that even those in the moors weren't primitives. They were a proud race. They were a culture. They were people like anyone else.

Henry only saw the uncontrollable creature that lurked inside him. He didn't need it. He wasn't proud of it. He lived just fine without it, within his pack made up of so many different creatures.

Werewolves joined packs out of two reasons: protection against a stronger enemy or to raise their young. He had been born into a pack and raised among his kind. He had known pack rules and like all young, he remembered them clearly. The moor pack had been vicious, wild and running on their primal needs. All were wolves, even the females nursing young. All young were human and grew up knowing lycans as they were right from the start.

Until another pack had claimed their hunting ground.

Henry remembered little, but what he did recall was blood and screams and bodies. He had run away with his equally young pack mates, hiding in the moors, waiting for his mother to find him. She had never come. Instead the rival pack had looked for survivors, especially young, and killed them off to claim their territory. Henry had run and run, hiding deeper and deeper in the moors, hungry and alone.

It was how Magnus had found him.

Helen had told him his mother had died for him. She had seen the bodies of his pack, and there had been this incredible sadness in her eyes. She had offered to take him with her. Henry, the frightened child he had been, had accepted.

Helen was now his alpha. The alpha was the leader. The alpha's mate and her young were to be protected. The pack was family and never to be betrayed or abandoned unless the young male reached the age of maturity. Then instinct and pack rules had them leave.

So when a young Henry met Ashley, a baby of four months, he adopted her as a pack sister. While he learned about human family structures, he couldn't shake off what his pack had taught him. It became a mixture in his head. Ashley grew up to be just as strong and independent as Helen. She didn't need his protection, but Henry helped in his own way, the geeky way. Everything had fallen into place, perfect and safe. He had a place.

Until…

Until recently.

His fingers ran over the cracked leather cover of a book he had taken with him to his room. It was the book that had made the most sense and had frightened him twice as much as anything he had ever seen in his time at the Sanctuary.

It was about him.

About wolves. Lycanthropes.

About the evolution of the young male when…

Henry screwed his eyes shut and let air hiss out of his lungs between his teeth.

Despite the medication, he had changed. Despite the fact that he was mature and settled in his abilities.

Yeah, right. Settled. Mature. What a joke! He laughed brokenly and looked at the old book again.

He had gone about events chronologically and each connection between what had happened to him and their new team mate had frightened him more and more. Will's closeness had brought on the flu-like symptoms. Will's insistence to know what was wrong with Henry had kept him near the suffering man. And when Henry had lain in bed, feverish, cursing the bug that had made him sick, he had sat there asking questions. If Henry had had at least two functional braincells left at the time he would have made the obvious connection himself.

Right now he hated and cursed himself for it. The whole matter might have been avoided. Might… just might… Hell, one could wish.

Wolves were monogamous. Most Were-creatures were, which made it so easy to decimate the populations. They didn't breed like bunnies. Their young didn't grow as fast as normal wolves. It was the human factor involved. And when they found their mate, the last growth cycle set in.
Henry felt something inside of him constrict, while another part rumbled at the fact that this had now happened to him.

His mate.

His to protect.

"Gawd," he groaned and shook his head, book clutched to his chest.

Nothing had ever mentioned wolves being bisexual or even homosexual. It ran against the species' need to survive. Then again, humans were all kinds of sexual and the wolves were abnormal humans. So that made Henry… an abnormal Abnormal.

Great. Fucking great!

All his instincts screamed to go and confront Will Zimmerman. The very same instincts that had overpowered the medication, had taken control, had pushed the giant snake – danger, hunt, kill, protect, protect! -- out of the window and saved the one he had chosen.

He had exposed his secret to Will at that very moment, but it had never been so liberating, so fulfilling, to show what he was. Naked, barely conscious, in pain, slashed open from the snake… he had still been subconsciously aware of Will at that very moment. Freshly transformed, his senses overloading with the scent, he had taken an incredible measure of comfort from Will's presence.

The other man had been shocked, but more by the revelation than by what Henry truly was. He didn't look scared shitless or reeked of fear. He was just… amazed.

"I'm screwed, I'm screwed, I'm screwed," Foss whispered.

The wolf in him begged to differ. It wanted to seek out Will, wanted to be near, wanted to… court and prowl and prove it was worthy of the young male. There was no hesitation on its part, no doubt. It didn't see the same gender, a male, it saw the mate and partner. Henry knew he was about to make a fool out of himself in the days to come. Instincts were hard to control and these had broken through the chemical haze that had served him so well in the past years.

He had to talk to Magnus. She needed to help him. More pills. Stronger ones. Maybe injections. Maybe just knock him out and put him into a cage. Maybe a more permanent, radical solution.

Henry groaned softly.

How could he work with Will when the very thought had him want to…? He shut down on that immediately.

He could do this. He could. He had survived so far and he would survive this – one way or another.

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"It's not a disease, Henry."

Helen didn't have to ask if Henry was sure. There was no doubt about it. Instincts never lied and what had happened was proof enough. The fact that the young man had decided against the surgery was another small fact that only strengthened his fears.

"You need to tell him, Henry," she said calmly.

"And then what? Watch him run screaming? No way! You need him here. If he leaves…"

"He won't leave."

"Having a love-sick monster drooling all over you would make me run," Henry muttered.

Helen smiled. "He won't. You're not a monster, Henry. You don't even know if he might return the feelings."

Henry stared at his alpha in shock. "No way! Will? He's not the kind. And I would have seen it, smelled it…"

"Your abilities changed abruptly and before the medication took care of the abnormality," Magnus reminded him. "Since the attack you were in your room. You don't know what he might feel, Henry."

"And you do?" he challenged. "Sorry, Magnus, but you're not a wolf."

"You don't need to be one to see subtle signs. Talk with him. Let him know."

"And watch the disgust?"

Subtle signs? What subtle signs?!

"You think Will would be disgusted?"

He sighed. He didn't think a lot of good stuff lately. All the horrors came back and with the experience of the years here, seeing how Abnormals were treated and viewed, he had erected that wall and was hiding behind it.

"Dunno," Henry muttered.

"Will has seen a lot and he has helped many, whatever they looked like. Look at how much time he spends with the patients, Henry. Watch him work. Witness what he does. He doesn't see them differently. He won't push you away, even if he doesn't return your feelings."

"The wolf's," Henry corrected automatically.

"You are the wolf," Helen pointed out in turn. "You're not two separate entities. What you feel, it feels, and vice versa."

"If he doesn't have those feelings…"

"You will deal with it when you know," she finished.

Another sigh. Henry fidgeted. He didn't want to deal with it, especially a rejection. Henry Foss was really bad with rejections. Childhood trauma, he told himself. Whatever worked. He wanted this to be forgotten, to be buried, and if medication helped, he would take it. It was just that Helen didn't look like she would dose him up and leave him with deadened senses.
Damn.

"Talk to him, Henry," she said again, compassion in her voice.

He hated the compassion. It made him feel good and right now he didn't want that. He wanted it over, dealt with, and shoved into a handy drawer in his mind, in his screwed up, abnormal mind.

The problem was, in the Sanctuary it wouldn't happen. He was Magnus' patient in that regard. She would help him, even if he didn't want the confrontation and the emotional rejection.

Helen's eyes pinned him down, ancient and filled with the things she had already seen. "Talk and listen, Henry. Will isn't all that he shows to the outside."

He almost snorted. Who was anyway? And Magnus knew about her new protégé. She had watched him ever since his abduction by a creature. She knew his favorite food, his preferred color, his shoe size, probably when he had had his first kiss, about his grades in school, about his taste in books and music. So why not his sexual preferences?

"'Kay," he heard himself agree.

Just to get her to leave it alone, leave him alone.

Helen nodded and did just that; she left. Henry remained behind, plagued by the knowledge of what had happened, what he had to do, and the fear of what could come of it.

tbc...