The summer heat was sweltering, making the air feel thick as she padded barefoot through the woods, sticks and stones battering skin, but she barely noticed. She should have been in bed, curled up with her husband and sound asleep, but he was away on business and she never slept well without him. It wasn't just a wolf thing, no, Ari just didn't do well on her own.
The clearing wasn't much further, the trees thinning gradually, allowing more silver moonlight to filter through their thick leaves. She could already hear the soft sound of water lapping against the shore of the small pond that the pack had dug out decades ago.
Jax had been up at the pond for the last few hours, the noise in his head too loud. It had been like this off and on in the years he had been home, every part of him wanting to run again, but he always found a reason not to. At first it had been Ari, then Sunny and the kids, then Shiloh had shown up. There were people that counted on him, that loved and wanted him around, but being there was still too much most days. The ghosts of his childhood clawing at him, reminding him of why he had left in the first place.
He was so caught up in his own thoughts that he didn't realize he wasn't alone until Ari dropped down beside him and leaned her head against his shoulder.
"You look like you're ready to run away again," she murmured, unable to hide the way the thought alone made her heart ache. She had watched him leave once before and it had nearly destroyed her. She didn't think she could go through it all over again.
"I'm not gonna, don't you worry," he sighed, resting his head against hers. "Just...bein' back here brings up a lot o' shit I tried real hard to bury."
He had done his best to hide it, but he had never been great at lying to his baby sister. Even now, he knew she was the one person in the pack that would understand what he was going through. After all, she had lived through their father's abuse the same as him.
"It's easier to carry if you talk about it. Bottling it all up...it doesn't go away, Jax." It had taken her years to learn that, to trust in Adam enough to tell him everything. She had been terrified that he would leave her or think maybe she had deserved it, but he had gently guided her through it and reminded her that she had been a child and at no fault for what had been done to her. If she could do the same for her brother, she would gladly take the weight. Or if she could coax him into opening up to Sunny, that could be just as helpful.
"I know ya got a point, Ari, I do, but I just ain't ready to go diggin' into it that deep yet. I was still a kid when that old bastard ran me off. I had no idea how to survive out in the world away from here and I had to do a lot of thing I ain't proud to admit." Not to mention the close calls with hunters and the scars he still carried from silver blades and bullets from those encounters. "Dunno if I'll ever really be ready to get into it."
She nodded, knowing it wasn't easy and not knowing the extent of what he had gone through. Quietly, she stood and rested a hand on his shoulder, giving him a small squeeze. "When you do feel ready, my door is always open," she promised before moving from him, intent on giving him his space. She didn't get more than a step away when she felt his hand on her wrist, gentle and seeking.
"Stay for a bit? I don't...I don't wanna talk but I don't wanna be alone much either."
With a soft smile, Ari dropped back down beside him and leaned against him, willing to stay as long as he needed.
"I know it's hard, but I'm still glad you came home."
He smiled a bit at that before pressing a kiss to the top of her head. He'd never fully feel at ease here, they both probably knew it, but knowing he had healed some of the damage he had dealt to his baby sister helped more than she would ever know.
It had been a quiet night and yet, the girl just couldn’t sleep. She had been having nightmares for the last few nights and they had only been getting worse. With a soft sigh, Ari slid from the bed, recoiling slightly at the coolness of the floor beneath her bare toes. Something was off, she could smell it.
Creeping outside, she frowned as she heard the sound of footsteps around the back. “Jax? What are you doing out here this late?” She tugged at her shorts, the long sleeves of her shirt mostly covering her hands. “Why do you have a bag?”
The elder boy stopped, swearing under his breath at the sound of his baby sister’s voice. Of all the people to catch him sneaking out, why did it have to be her?
“Ari...I just have to go, okay? You’ll understand when you’re older.” There was a soft pleading in his voice, dark eyes haunted as they met her pale blues.
“What do you mean you’re going? Going where? You’ll be coming home soon though, right?”
He stepped forward, placing gentle hands on her shoulders and shaking his head. “I’m sorry, kiddo. But I can’t stay. I don’t belong here.” Seeing the pain coloring her features was killing him.
Lower lip trembling, Ariella pushed him away, trying to keep the tears from spilling over. “But you do! We’re your family! Please... Jax, please don’t go!”
His heart was breaking, but his resolve never faltered. “Ella, I’m sorry. I know this place is home to you, but I don’t fit in here.” He stepped back, adjusting the bag and giving her a sad smile. “I just hope you’ll forgive me someday.”
Watching him step away had her legs giving out, spilling her to the cold, hard ground as she began to weep, begging for him to stay. Her body ached at the thought of it, but watching him turn and walk away broke her. It wasn’t until dawn that Jericka found her, passed out and shivering in the dirt.
The leaf had gone shiny from where he’d been absently rubbing it between his index finger and thumb for the better part of the past half hour. With his mind playing leapfrog from here to there, it never settled on a single thought long enough to let it gather the hot air it needed to really capture his full attention, leaving bloodshot eyes dull and unfocused as they stared unseeing through the mouth of the forest. He wouldn't cry. They’d wonder where he was – Sekani would anyway. And Atum. Maybe Charles? Boys with magic dripping from their fingers and tongues, who could charm bewitch and entrance with just the slightest of glances. Something rustled the leaves to his left and the boy just licked his lips slowly, tongue smoothing over the cracked canyons before he exhaled every ounce of restless exhaustion and worry, leaning further into the rough back at his spine. They could wait a little longer.
Crumpled at his feet was a letter from home. Though it was written on the same deliciously creamy stationary as the ones he kept saved under his mattress in the tower, though it was embossed with his fathers initials and gleaming with his mothers elegant handwriting, he never wanted to read this letter again.
Jax,
Miss you already. Sadie says hi and you smell like a toad, dad sends you and Sekani lots of hugs. He finally stopped sniffling around here. We just wanted to tell you how proud we are of you, and how excited. I remember how it was when I went away and started school, that rush of magic as I learned how to really use my wand. I wish I could be there to see your face and watch you thrive as you always do. I know you started school last year, but that never really counts does it? Simple spells you could do in your sleep! Now the real magic starts, babe. Get ready, have fun! Kick everyone's butt. We'll send another letter soon.
Love you more than a million M&M's
-Mom
Swallowing roughly, his eyes watered when the lozenge of bile plastered to the base of his throat wouldn't budge, Jax trying to loosen it with a forced cough that did nothing more than startle a few ravens a couple branches over. He was barely a blimp on the forbidden forest floor, twelve year old body not even large enough to truly disturb a clear path in his impromptu escape, his books still scattered behind him along with him robes. He just -- couldn't stand to be in that transfiguration room. With Shaw and every other Slytherin and Ravenclaws eyes boring into him while he failed yet again to turn his damn matchstick into a shiny new needle.
Think he's a squib and they don't know?
I didn't know they were letting just anyone into Ravenclaw these days.
It wasn't like he couldn't hear them. Whispered with every intention of being quiet as a space shuttle launch and punctuated with sneers and snickers that felt like sticky wet tongues against his ears. It wasn't as if those same words hadn't been repeating in his own head a dozen time in the past year and a half either.
First years could make feathers fly and sparks dance by Christmas. Jaxson had just barely caused a ripple of a breeze through the soft plumes at Easter, the first sparks shooting of his Unicorn and Birch-wood a week before classes ended. He could see the concern etched in his professors faces, the worry in their eyes as they watched him fall further and further behind and loose interest in understanding it all. There was nothing to understand.
There was no book to checkout from the library, no magic incredible tome Madame Pince could offer him with answers as to why his magic ebbed instead of flowed. So he checked out others instead. Gorged himself on the magic of the ancients and foreigners, filled himself with the magic that wasn't Magical Herbs and Fungi or Standard Book of Spells versions One through Seven. But it wasn't enough, and how could it? When his mother could charm the kitchen sink into washing her pots and pans with merely a blink and his best friend hand a wand that seemed to read his thoughts before they could be thought.
Think he's a squib?
Jax slammed his head back against the tree in a sudden fit of white hot anger, the frustrated yell turning into a sharp cry of pain half way through as a firework show of stars blossomed behind clenched lids. Only making it worse by digging his knees into his sockets, his inhale was molasses into his lungs, broken up by the smallest hitches that wouldn't allow themselves to be sobs, that he wouldn't allow to be sobs, just quiets hiccups of breath that tasted like moist dirt and made his chest ache.
The soft tickle a bead of sweat crawling down his skin should have made him get up but he couldn't move just yet, the rhythmic throb in the back of his head syncing up in time with his not-sob hitches in breath. He knew it wasn't sweat. Knew before he reached up and the paleness of his fingers had returned stained scarlet, the same scarlet his sisters had spilled after a wayward elbow had accidentally collided with her nose. But he still didn't move. It could wait.
It could wait until the not-sobs stopped, his cheeks still bone dry though the flesh on his neck had become slick as ice with his own blood, staining the shirt across his shoulders a cape of twisted victory. He was not weak, he did not cry.
With his wand gripped like a knife in still child sized hands, he bypassed the hospital wing entirely, ignoring every look that was chanced to him by his peers. Magic had failed him, he understood that, but his intelligence wouldn't. His inherent ability to excel. Jax's mother hadn't lied, he always had, and he would. Maybe he was a squib. Maybe. But he was a Ravenclaw, the silver and navy of his tie speckled with crimson spots of sanguine hanging proudly on his chest. He could not be weak, he could not cry. He would thrive. Show them there was more to wizardry and Hogwarts than spells and potions, more than flying feathers and transfiguration with teachers who terrorized more than taught, there was more to him. There had to be.
