Chapter Text
They say healing is a slow process and like plants growing, it’s something you can’t watch, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
Well, that’s what Dr. March says when it’s been a year since Joe has last spoken. And anyway, it’s stupid because they can watch plants grow, they can even hear plants grow, but that’s the kind of stuff you’re not supposed to tell humans.
Way back when he was that different kid, the one who didn’t know what it sounds like when your finger is smashed with a hammer, the one who didn’t know how small Dad's voice will become when he begs for something… Well, way back then, it used to be difficult to remember which kid was human and which kid was a pup like him.
He once tackled a little girl into the sand on a playground because he saw her play tag with a friend and it looked so fun and he wanted to say hello right now - and then she had started to cry and it all turned awful and his mother explained that this was how it was with humans, you needed to be gentle.
“And that’s why we’re homeschooled,” Carter had commented dryly back home and it wasn’t fair because that year Carter wasn’t homeschooled anymore and Joe could faintly smell his whole day on him, the kids, the classes, the chalk. And when he told him all about p.e., how you got to run and jump and play, Joe felt like he would die of envy.
But thinking about the girl in the sand made him feel a bit wary about school as well, because a class wasn’t pack , humans could never be pack like that. And how was school supposed to be all about learning anyway, when you had to keep half the things you knew a secret?
But that was before.
After the man it’s different, because they all know he won’t go to school when he turns twelve like Carter and Kelly did. He’s not speaking anymore. He knows that once he tries, he’ll just scream and scream and never stop. He wishes he could turn into a wolf already. It would be easier, right? It’s what Mark always does on those days when it’s nothing but blue oozing out of him, so dark it’s almost black with despair and other colors - flecks of anger and things Joe doesn’t have a name for. Mark flies into the woods, sometimes shifting mid-run like he can’t hold it in anymore and it’s a relief for all of them when his wolf takes over and the other colors melt away and the blue is just honest blueblueblue.
He realizes now that one of those other colors in Mark’s sadness is loneliness. It’s one of the things the bad wolf has taught him over those weeks. He doesn’t think he’ll ever come back from the lesson. It’s an odd thing to feel in a pack. It should be impossible. Because they always have each other. You shouldn’t be able to feel lonely when you’re pack. And why is Mark running from them, when he’s lonely. Aren’t they the solution? What else could be?
He’s not sure about the wolf. His own wolf. If he’ll ever really get to shift or if it’s yet another thing the bad wolf has taken from him. Where in the human body is the wolf stored? Is it possible that it has escaped through one of the cracks in his bones, one of the wounds all over his body? Through his mouth when he screamed? Did his wolf get to flee that cabin when he didn’t? Did it abandon him just like the rest of the pack?
His parents would know the answers, he’s sure. But he can’t ask. The words aren’t there. And if the wolf really isn’t there anymore, they can never know, because how could he belong to them then? What would they do? And the bad wolf, the Man, smiles and tells him what he already knows deep down, and he feels so far away from them.
They move to Green Creek. Finally.
It’s new, but it’s good, it’s real good, although he’s never been there before. Maybe because he’s never been here before. Carter and Kelly have, but they don’t know that much about it, even though they pretend. They were much younger than Joe is now. Mom laughs quietly as they all press their noses to the window of the SUV, greedily watching the miles and miles of forest fly by. They’re so eager to get out there and run - there’s a whimper in Kelly’s throat and Carter bumps his head against his brother’s.
“We used to complain that there was nothing to do around here,” Mom says and that’s so stupid, because there’s everything to do.
As they leave the car, he raises his nose into the air and for the first time in months he thinks he can feel the wolf. It’s there and it says explore.
There’s a spark in the air and every noise of the forest calls to him. He wants to learn the shape of every tree, find all the paths - the ones for humans, the ones for deer, the ones for them .
Mom makes them have a sandwich before they start unloading all their things. The house smells like his family, but not quite. He finds a baby smell that is somehow also Kelly’s. He finds faint traces of people - wolves - he’s never met. A strange scent that is all tangled up in Mark’s.
Nothing smells like Joe.
They each get their own room. Carter and Kelly have already claimed the ones facing the forest and Joe gets stuck with the one facing the road. But it’s his and he traces his hands along the walls.
Dad catches him staring out the open door to the porch and the forest, his hand warm on Joe’s shoulder.
“This is our place.”
Joe looks up at him, an unsaid question heavy between them.
“It’s yours, Joe. Do you want to go see?”
And it’s different because Dad is letting him go out on his own, in this strange new place. He doesn’t make him take Carter or Kelly or Mark or Mom, because this is just for Joe. And he knows that what happened to him is part of the reason they packed up their lives in Maine. And he knows what his pack doesn’t - that it’s hopeless. That he will never be the same and that there’s a darkness in him now, something that the bad wolf has put there and that no one can ever get it out. He has tried. He has clawed open his own skin, trying to tear the bad out, hiding the cuts from Mom and Dad. He has puked into the woods and torn out parts of his hair and scratched at all the places where the Man broke his body- but you can’t pull out the darkness. He loves them and hates them for trying anyway.
He can feel the truth of Dad’s words reverberating in every bone of his body - this is their place. And he leans into his father’s side, closes his eyes for a minute and allows himself to pretend that he’s the boy from before, the one with a voice and dreams that aren’t nightmares. He takes in a deep breath of his father’s scent - the scent of pack and family and leader - and takes off into the woods.
Few people go into this part of the woods. Lots of rabbits, though. He can’t catch them yet, but he will, he will, he will. Soon! He thinks. Hares still outrun him, but not for long. He tries to catch a scent and sees if he can track it back to its hideout and then it’s suddenly there.
A funny smell. A good smell. A weird smell for a forest, yet somehow not weird at all? It should smell like that.
Everything should smell like that.
It reminds him of the fair in Maine, something awesome and delicious that even the humans could smell from half a mile away. It’s sweet like candy but also all woodsy and earthy and it promises all the thrills of a roller coaster and what is that? He has never smelled anything like it before, it’s- it’s-
Candy canes. Pine cones. It’s the smell of adventure and home all wrapped up into one awesome, epic thing and- And he’s tracking it before he even knows what he’s doing, tracking it with an urgency and certainty he’s never felt before and there’s a noise and he realizes it’s him, Joe, he’s growling and he feels more like a wolf than ever before and somehow also like something warm is exploding in his chest and find it find it find it-
And then he sees him, some tall guy - boy? - standing in the middle of the road to their house, staring down at a set of keys. And somehow his face is sad and happy at the same time and that smell of home and adventure is all around him and he must know something about it and before Joe even realizes it’s going to happen he’s out on the dirt road and-
Speaking .
He’s already halfway to the boy when he realizes: it’s him , it’s him who smells like that and he runs and he crashes into him, every warning about humans and gentleness forgotten, but it doesn’t matter because he’s big and Joe is already climbing him like a tree and squeezing his face and I need you to smell like me. I need you to smell like me so everyone knows I am the one who found you.
And he says his name is Ox and of course it is, it’s Ox! OxOxOx. And it’s so easy and familiar to climb onto his back, yet nothing at all like when a family member carries him. He drapes himself all over him, breathing in the scent of his neck, and tells him everything.
Because suddenly words are important again. And suddenly he knows his voice isn’t just for screaming and dark secrets, it’s for finding out everything there is to know about Ox and telling him every thought that comes to mind because he wants his voice in Ox’s head, like how it is with pack, but Ox is human, so he has to make do with words.
When Ox points out where he lives, Joe feels something sugary and thrilling rising up within him. It’s like the opposite of throwing up. It’s like he can already taste all the adventures they will have together, all the cool stuff they will do and suddenly that room facing the road they share is the best room and Carter and Kelly are idiots .
When he leads Ox to his parents he feels like he’s drowning in pride because didn’t he just find the best thing ever and bring it home to them? And he can tell Mom and Dad like Ox, Carter already wants him as his own friend (that is not happening) and Mark knows him?!
And it’s all too much and too good and he feels like he needs to gather up every cool thing he has ever seen, heard or owned and show it to Ox, give it to Ox so he can enjoy it, too.
And Ox smiles at him and says that he’s glad to have met him and it’s his birthday. Joe has found Ox and he smells like that and he lives next door and it’s his birthday and Joe knows what he’ll give him and he has never been so sure.
It’s bad when Ox leaves to walk the road back to his own house because Joe has only just found him. But Ox’s smell is still on him, which means his smell is still on Ox and that’s good, that’s good, that’s right. Mom and Dad ask him questions but he can’t find any answers. ( They’re supposed to have the answers because what the hell is happening? Something amazing.) All that leaves his mouth is Ox’s name, the name of something wonderful that he didn’t even know was out there in the world, for him. (He would have tracked it down all the way from Maine if he’d known. He would have walked. He would have crawled.) He’s looking at them helplessly, repeating that name over and over and it isn’t until dinner, when Mom asks him if Ox was wearing work clothes earlier, that Joe manages to string together whole sentences again and then he can’t seem to stop his mouth from moving and moving and telling them all. about. Ox.
He sneaks out after dinner because he has to catch that scent again. He has to make sure that it’s still there, that he hasn’t imagined it.
Yes. It’s there on the porch, where he said hello to all of them. He’s following it before he knows what he’s doing, jogging down the dirt road. There are lights on at Ox’s house. If he strains his ears, he can hear the clinking sounds of someone putting away dishes. And the thought that just a few paces down that road Ox and his mother are doing the same things Joe and his family do - having dinner, talking, washing dishes - makes his heart ache in a strangely comforting way.
He needs to be near him. He’s not going to knock on their door, he’s not stupid, he knows he wasn’t invited. But if he could just circle the house a bit, see if he can hear Ox moving inside, talking inside (about the Bennett family? about him?), maybe figure out which room belongs to Ox…
Out of nowhere there’s a hand on his chest, gentle but firm. He was so caught up in tracking Ox that he didn’t even hear Mark following him.
“Joe.”
He says it like Joe has done something stupid. It’s not fair.
“I’m just making sure he got home okay.”
“He got home okay for the last sixteen years.”
And yeah, that’s true, he supposes. And okay, maybe it’s not all about checking up on Ox’s safety and more like checking up on Ox himself. But what is Mark doing trying to keep him from seeing Ox, anyway? Joe doesn’t want to do anything to Ox, he just wants to smell and listen and watch and Mark won’t let him, Mark is acting like it’s somehow weird and- There’s a growl in his chest before he knows it. Mark raises an eyebrow and Joe feels a bit silly. It just came out like that.
“You’ll see him tomorrow.”
It’s both a promise and a terrible, terrible sentencing.
“And Joe? Make sure he sees you, too.” Joe’s shoulders slump and his face burns with shame because, well, yes, he was just sneaking around Ox’s house, he was hoping to watch him and sniff out his secrets without being noticed. And it’s just the thing Dad keeps telling them not to do: Don’t mess with humans. Don’t use your strength against them. Always respect their boundaries. But he just had to make sure the scent was still there and then he had to see Ox and ugh, even at ten years old, he can see how that might be just a little bit lame.
Mark kneels down and puts a hand on Joe’s shoulder, much like Dad did earlier.
“Because I think he’d like that. To see you. Okay?”
His eyes shoot up to Mark’s.
“You think so?”
Mark’s nod is so warm and certain and reassuring that Joe lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding. Lots of things he doesn’t even feel himself doing today. Suddenly exhaustion is coming down on him like a heavy blanket and he lets himself sag against Mark’s chest.
“Okay.”
Mark picks him up and carries him home.
Home.
Right before sleep claims him he realizes that that’s what he smelled today, that overwhelming mix of candy and forest and awesomeness. Ox smelled like his home. And for the first time in forever he doesn’t dream of the bad wolf. He dreams of a scent he catches in the woods and the sound of footsteps on a dirt road and a boy sleeping in a house he only knows from the outside.
And all of a sudden the future stretches out before him like the forest and it’s an endless ocean of greengreengreen.