MetaDeprivation - 32. MetaPrompts 680: Gift (MW9)

“Don’t bother trying, kid. I’ve been trapped here a week, I think. – With fucking numbers that don’t make sense!”

“Alpha, everything okay?” a young man asked with a tray in his hands.

“Fucking Wittgenstein is easier to understand,” he screamed again through the office, childishly throwing a book against the wall. He rubbed his temples in the desperate hope for enlightenment. But those numbers gave him a headache. And why the hell did those Europeans use ‘,’ as ‘.’ and sometimes ‘.’ instead of ‘,’? Did they want to screw with his sanity?

“I have food …”

“Thanks, Tadeiusz, but I don’t think a steak will help today …,” Seb complained, feeling nearly guilty at disappointing his newly appointed Beta – steak always helped in his world.

The young wolf from the Cracow Pack shrugged. “I think I told you, you should have chosen an MBA graduate as Beta …”

Seb swatted his hands as if dealing with a mosquito. “Fate has her ways to screw that up – Dad shouldn’t have …” He stopped himself.

“’Her?’” Alexander interrupted.

“What is this, an impromptu pack IC meeting?” Seb asked.

“Just some sugar to kickstart your brain again.” His IC, who was nearly too big even for Seb’s sizable office, put a plate with a generously sized piece of his favorite cake on the table. Anyone who wasn’t a wolf would have gained several pounds just by looking at that cream-filled monstrosity.

“Won’t help. These numbers don’t make sense!” he pointed at the computer screen. “How the fuck did my dad do this, or my granddad?”

Alexander chuckled, the vibrations quaking the floor. “Well, our granddads got it up the ass as payment for a Meta dealing with that companies shit.”

“Thanks!” Seb smiled at the irony, he didn’t get that for his ‘sacrifices.’ His heart reached out to the man sleeping upstairs after some months of deployment far away, as he remembered the day he first had figured out what terrible things that strange ‘Meta’ had done to his granddad and uncles. He remembered taking all of his courage and walking into Colt’s office to tell him off, as small as he was – after all Colt was also small even if a grown-up.

The library was oddly dark, as if a vampire resided in this tomb to prepare for his next hunt. Colt sat, old, wrinkly and huffing, behind a big computer screen. He looked up when little Seb entered, visibly annoyed. “What’s up?”

“I know what you do to granddad.”

“What do I do to him?”

“You do bad things …”

“’Bad things?’”

“Yes.”

Colt got up, and Seb wanted to make a step back. But he was a courageous wolf and wouldn’t be intimidated. Not by a weak old human. “So, smart Seb, how would such a small frail creature like me be able to do anything your big strong granddad wouldn’t want?”

Seb frowned. He hadn’t thought about that. Prime was so strong, despite not being Alpha anymore. And uncle Burt and Sam were even bigger. No way could Colt hurt them. How could he have thought that?

“See,” Colt said as if reading Seb’s thoughts.

“I …”

“Anyway, I need to continue my work here, why don’t we bring you back to your parents?”

Seb couldn’t resist taking Colt’s outstretched hand to be guided out of this intimidating library back into the house and out into the sun-filled garden. For a moment he expected Colt to disintegrate into dust like a vampire exposed to the daylight of a Californian summer, but it didn’t happen. He saw his dad at the grill, arguing with Prime who was the better steak cook. His brothers and sisters played catch with Sam, which always ended up with all of them trying to tie the big wolf down like Gulliver. His mother enjoyed her cocktail and not having to do anything kitchen-related for a change. Some of his other uncles sat in the pool splashing water at Sam, to make it easier for the kids to catch him …

And in that very moment, a lemon-colored butterfly zoomed in to make love to some of the sunflowers separating their garden from the neighbors …

He didn’t know back then, but today he understood this must have been one of those fleeting days in paradise, a hard-fought paradise paid by blood and suffering, but a well-deserved one. It was what a soldier wished for when looking for motivation deep inside during battle. He didn’t know back then, but today he knew.

And at this moment cotton wool fell.

The screams of his brother broke off. The splashes of water ceased. And Prime and Forest fell silent like in those old movies.

The water stopped mid-air. The smoke from the grill froze. The kids were caught in standstill.

What the hell?

The world had stopped moving.

Even the butterfly hung dead in the air like in the display of a nature collector.

“What’s going …” he whispered. He could still move.

And so could Colt. The old man let go of the boy’s hand to smile with a hint of coldness Seb had never felt. “Seb, nothing. I’m only showing you that I love this family. I would do everything to protect all of you. And I have done many things you would never believe to protect those I love. So never forget: Whoever will try to hurt your granduncles will regret it!”

Seb didn’t understand back then. He only felt a freezing cold traveling through his body, all emanating from these lifeless gray eyes of Colt. He didn’t understand, but he knew that had been warning to him, what else could it have been?

And with this the ossifying cotton was gone.

His sister screamed when she caught Sam, who tried to ‘rescue’ himself by jumping into the pool creating the biggest deluge ever, making his mother complain about the water diluting her drink. His granddad put big steaks on even bigger plates, and the butterfly made love to the next sunflower as if nothing had happened.

The cold was gone.

And a small smile crept onto Colt’s face while he said: “I think the future Alpha of the White Wolf Pack is really hungry!”

Docilely Seb went to his father to receive a generously-sized steak, while he tried to forget what had just happened. Colt had already disappeared to his crypt.

“You okay?” the most loving voice asked.

Seb jerked out of his childhood memories; his husband Casper in white boxer shorts and a T-shirt that said: ‘Air Force: Like the Marines, But for Smart People,’ rubbed the sleep out of his hazel eyes.

“Yes, seems half of the pack wants to help me with my bookkeeping this afternoon …”

And with this, three very grown men lifted their hands in surrender, several ‘no’s, ‘well’s and ‘actually’s being uttered.

“Aren’t the Betas supposed to be the smart ones?” Casper asked naughtily, putting a hand above the ‘smart’ on his T-shirt, pretending nobody had noticed.

“Absolutely,” Alexander agreed, when they were all interrupted by their watches peeping, indicating they had received a high-priority message.

“What is this?” Tadeiusz asked puzzled.

“Sender unknown. How did they break our firewall?” Alexander added.

“And more numbers!” Seb sighed falling back into his chair.

“Well, I can answer the last: Coordinates.”

Casper pushed the wolves aside to get to Seb’s keyboard typing the numbers with a rarely seen before agility. He turned the screen around to show to everyone. “Seems to be up in the mountains, on your pack land.”

“Our,” Alexander corrected.

“Our,” Casper repeated with a gentle smile.

“I guess we should find out who sent it before we …,” Tadeiusz cautioned.

“No,” Seb decided. “I need to get out of here – for a run. We check it out. It’s pack land, we need to clear this anyway. Guys, get ready. Casper, please, coordinate from here.”

“No,” Casper responded with the same decisiveness.

“You won’t get there by car or by foot, we can run … and it’s safer …”

“Fucking hell, I’m not a girl. I’ll take one of our exo-skeletons, I might be faster than you puppies …”

Alexander huffed at the notion of ‘puppies,’ but grinned at the same time.

“Fine. Then you take some clothes for us as well, and some water …”

“Yes. Let’s see who gets there first. Winner gets fucked!” And before any of the wolves could comment, he was already out of the office.

Tadeiusz giggled, joining Alexander’s amusement. “It seems he’s done with putting in all the work under sheets …”

Seb growled but realized he wouldn’t be successful in pretending indignity at all. “Let’s find out what’s there.”

It was 60 minutes to sunset when his wolf had reached the coordinates. High up in the mountains, a small creek ran down into the valley to deliver the crystal clear water to the lake that made Shadowlands so special. But while the lake was much too cold and soon to be frozen in early December, the water up here seemed to be hot, steam covering a little pond as if designed as natural hot tub.

His Beta and his CE started to shift back in the moment a loud noise approached them.

Three wolves, now in their naked human forms, smiled pitifully at the man undoing the snap locks from his skeletons.

“I guess you will have to pleasure your Alpha all night,” Tadeiusz stated with glee.

“There was a log blocking the road – can’t you guys maintain your infrastructure better?” Casper answered barely dismayed. “What’s that? Your wolf spa?”

Seb shrugged. “I was here once with Burt – long time ago. Must have forgotten it.”

“Nice. Hot water would be nice …” And with this Casper stepped out of his clothes.

“So why are we here?” Alexander reminded everyone of the message while he stepped into the hot water, with the others uttering soft sounds of pleasure.

“I guess it has something to do with that.” Casper pointed at three objects that clearly weren’t natural despite their brown paper wrapping.

“Gifts!” Alexander screamed like a little boy – normally he was the guy bringing gifts to the kids, but he didn’t mind the other way round.

“Careful, it could be …,” Tadeiusz warned.

“I don’t smell danger,” Seb said. “No explosives, or poison …”

And with this snow started to fall. Little flakes resting on the dead leaves on the forest ground. Only those around them melted in the hot steam before they could reach the earth. And while the valley slowly turned white like their innocent dreams, the little creek around them stayed brown thanks to the heat from the water.

“My name is on it,” Alexander stated nearly screeching like a little boy – making it a disconcerting experience given the size of his hulk.

“What is it?” Casper asked getting contaminated by the excitement.

Alexander removed the brown paper to reveal a dark chestnut wooden box. He carefully opened it to reveal a colt.

“Wow,” Casper whistled.

His CE unwrapped the weapon to find something else under the velvet: handcuffs.

“Yuck,” Alexander reacted instinctively.

“What’s up?” Casper asked in confusion.

Seb grinned. “Silver handcuffs, our big bear ain’t no virgin no more …”

“Oh!”

Alexander wrapped the velvet around his hand to lift the harmful implement. “It says: ‘CP.’”

“What does that mean?” Tadeiusz asked.

“’Colt Parker,’” Seb explained, not realizing what he really said.

“But they were lost in the Big One?” Alexander asked puzzled.

“Obviously not,” Casper stated matter-of-factly. “What about the other gifts there,” pointing at the two other objects.

Alexander wrapped the handcuffs and put them with the colt back into the box before the closed the elegant box carefully to put it safely away from the water.

“It says: ‘For Tadeiusz.’”

“Me?” the young blond Beta from Poland asked puzzled. “I’ve heard about that so-called White Wolf, but …”

Alexander handed the flat brown parcel to the cute Beta who carefully unwrapped it to find a thick folder filled with yellowed paper.

“More reading,” Seb moaned.

“These are notes.”

“From whom?”

“Colt. On the book of werevolves and vampires. All the theories he had, and he didn’t put into the book, things he felt he couldn’t publish … it’s …”

“A lot,” Alexander stated.

“It seems you guys were all wrong about the Big One,” Casper stated with a smirk amused about the gullibility of wolves.

“And that’s for you, …” Alexander shut the air force major up by handing him a small parcel that bent in the air.

“What is …” revealing a leather band.

“Fuck ‘em,” Seb uttered ignoring Alexander’s smirk.

“Is this?” Casper began.

“Yes,” Seb answered.

“So now I will know wherever you are, my big red wolf?” Casper asked with fake innocence.

“Yes …”

And with this cotton filled the air.

The water stopped running.

Alexander’s grin froze.

And the steam hung as if paint on a screen.

He looked around. Nothing moved. Everything was eerily silent.

And he knew he had felt that before, a long time ago.

And then he smiled.

Warmth filled his heart.

He closed his eyes and whispered with understanding: “Thank you, Fate.”

“Are you okay?” Casper asked, again. “I was just joking!” His concerned hand was on his shoulder.

“I’m fine, handsome.”

“I promise, I didn’t want to suggest …”

“It’s okay, Casper. Really.”

“No present for you,” Alexander interrupted with disappointment.

“I’ve gotten mine already …”

Tadeiusz tilted his head. “All of this is from somebody more than the White Wolf …”

Seb nodded. “Yes. Some hours ago I thought I was in despair because of some stupid and in the end unimportant numbers not working out – I think they’re cooked anyway. But this spot has reminded me I’m the luckiest wolf on this earth. Honorable ancestors before me, a capable pack with me, beautiful land around me, a strong wolf in me, and the best husband I could find next to me … Those are my gifts.”

Casper hugged him, while both Alexander and Tadeusz fist-bumped.

And with that he whispered again, for all of them to hear: “Thank you, Fate – I guess above me!”