Archive of Our Own

Thunder rumbled ominously from the rich blue storm clouds rolling in from the west.  The familiar sight of darkness had been a constant for weeks, nearly long enough to question the sun’s health.  If it weren’t for the sight of such thick clouds, the steady stream of God’s tears from the skies would still prompt the same question.  Everything had been soggy for months.

The waters of the mighty Mississippi lapped at the expanding banks, levels creeping up past the flood stage at a steady pace.  The swelling waters had been surging down from up north, already overwhelming the waterways without the aid of the storms that continued to hang over head and dump even more liquid, adding to the already pregnant banks.  The current was already heavy with debris, remnants of lives destroyed and swept swiftly downstream, fated to make their graves in the Gulf of Mexico.

The pure strength of the river and volume of the looming storm paid no mind to the soft footfalls of the small red fox along the water’s edge as she assessed her family’s position.  It wouldn’t be long before the flood waters would be at their doorstep. It would force the small family of three to seek higher ground knowing that, if they left, they’d be sacrificing what little they had to the force of nature.  With a small toddler at home, they’d be forced to make that decision without hesitation if it came to that point.

Making use of the last light before it was snuffed out, she scouted the water’s movement to assess the threat, ready to make a judgement call about their safety for another night before tucking the little one into bed.  The damp grass had soaked her fur up to her knees and the puff of her tail clumped with moisture even as it was held high. Late spring had brought warmer temperatures, but her body still shivered as the wind swirled around her.  It was an evening that called for building a fire in the fireplace once she had returned, an extra layer of comfort to mask the tremor of anxiety that seemed to buzz constantly in the air.

Deciding they were safe for another night, she still trotted down to the edge of their property to the point their fence disappeared into the water at an angle where it followed the slope of the land to the river bank.  Tree branches, weeds, and splintered wood had started to collect against the makeshift net creating a blockage, the pressure surely causing damage to the already flimsy structure. It would surely be a costly repair.

Caught up against the fence, grounded on land though the corner still bobbed in the waves,  a red plastic toy chest stood out against the dull backdrop of destruction. Lovingly painted circus animals decorated the exterior, the name HARRY spelled out in an arch with thick wooden letters that stood out from the rest.  It broke her heart to see such a reminder of her own baby at home and the possibility that their own lives could be left to the mercy of the floods just as easily.

She slipped through a gap in the fence, its purpose to mark their land over keeping anything out, to rescue the bin.  She’d no doubt have to toss it with the rest of rubble after the water had receded, but she didn’t have the heart to let something that had surely been so lovingly crafted just drift out to sea.  

It had some unexpected weight to it as she gripped the edge with her teeth and it toppled over onto its side.  She jumped back, expecting a rush of water to empty from where it had collected inside, but that was not what happened.  Instead, she was met with a balled up mess of white fur, wet and matted with dirt. A gasp sucked the air from her lungs and spiked her heart rate at her discovery.  Her eyes immediately began to tear at the fate of the small creature inside, another victim of the flood tide.

Then a movement caught her eye, a shiver to draw her attention to quivering ball of fur.  It was still alive.

It was more difficult to pick up the scent through the grime caked to the animal, but as she stuck her nose in closer, it would have been difficult to miss the hint of shifter, of human.  It was someone’s baby wet, cold, and far from safe. With her motherly instincts kicking in, she wasted no time shifting out of her fox, easily ignoring the chill of her skin to scoop up the little ball.  Cradled in her arms, she looked down at the face of a tiny white pup, eyes shut and outlined with black that matched the dark of his nose. The little thing’s breathing was shallow and she hurried back towards the house, praying that she had found him in time.  

————

The slamming of the rickety old screen door leading from the back yard to the kitchen of the aging Victorian farmhouse was barely heard over the chaos of another normal morning in the Tomlinson household.  The young twins were screaming over each other as the fought for the last of the strawberry syrup, Fizzy was complaining about someone using her towel and Lottie was already gossiping on her phone despite the early hour.  The family had outgrown the house years ago, even before the girls were born, but there was also something comforting about having a full home. It was nice to hear movement from the next room, voices from down the hall, always having someone there to take care of or to be taken care of.  It was like having a hug always waiting. The sound of shrill voices in the morning, however, was not as comforting.

That was one reason the boys, Louis and Harry, woke up at the crack of dawn to go fishing each morning when the weather was decent.  There wasn’t always a lot of actual fishing being done, usually none at all, but the excuse did get them out of having to sort out their siblings before school.  It seemed that being away from the house was the only way to avoid being called upon to play the role of extra parents to the girls since they were so much older.  There was a good ten years between the boys and the youngest and with that came a brotherly responsibility that normally they didn’t mind– as long as it wasn’t constant.  It was their senior year of high school and, with only a few months left, thought they deserved to be a little selfish about the dwindling time before their impending adulthood.  They always attempted to return to the house with only enough time to sort themselves out before everyone was out the door.

“Harry, love!” Jay expertly caught Harry’s arm as he tried to make a beeline through the kitchen undetected in the chaos.  It rarely worked. “Can you grab a new box of oatmeal out of the pantry for me? I don’t have time to drag out the step ladder.”  

Harry made a show of sighing but still smiled and stooped to kiss his adoptive mother on the cheek before dutifully heading towards the pantry.  He was by far the tallest Tomlinson by at least six inches and was frequently used for retrieving things in high places like the family giant. He didn’t mind being called on to help out, sometimes feeling like he had to earn his keep.  Of course he knew he didn’t have to, had never been loved or treated any differently than the other children, but even small contributions to the family had always made him feel a little better since he had been old enough to understand how he had come to be a Tomlinson in the first place.  

There were two boxes of instant oatmeal packets high on the shelf in the pantry and he debated between them before grabbing the a box of assorted flavours.  He’d keep the maple brown sugar box hidden for him and Louis to sneak out later. It was their favourite and it would be gone before they had a chance if he brought it out now.  

“There you go Momma!” He tossed the box to her once he had her attention, hurrying out of the room so he could take a quick shower before they needed to be off to school.  

The stairs leading to the basement were narrow and worn smooth, slats of wood that had been painted over so many times during their life that they would probably disintegrate if anyone tried to remove even a layer.  They were sturdy enough as they were, though, minus the one that needed a new nail, tilting backwards if you stepped on it the wrong way which he unfortunately often did. The ever-present bruise on his shin should have been enough to remind him to pound a new nail in, it would only take a few seconds after all, but it always seemed low on his list of priorities.  Harry was happy enough to deal with their worn out state since it meant that he and Louis had the whole basement to themselves.

The concrete floor under the thin carpet was always freezing and the corner of the room seemed to flood every time there was a storm, but it was theirs and they weren’t about to give it up.  It also meant that all four girls didn’t have to share a single bedroom upstairs since there were only three in the house. The downside was that the washer and dryer were also located in the basement which meant Momma invading their quiet Saturday morning sleep-ins more often than not, but a curtain across the space under the stairs where they were located at least gave them some sense of privacy which the rest of the family generally respected.  They also had their own bathroom, even though it was also little more than a curtained off space in one of the corners. Having grown up in each other’s pockets anyway, the boys didn’t really mind the set up that much and it kept them from having to fight the girls for shower time every morning.

“You almost done?  Leave the water on.” Harry asked as he pulled back the curtain to their bathroom space, Louis having run ahead of him to start when he was delayed by the oatmeal.  

“Yeah.  Just a sec.” Louis answered from behind the waterproof shower curtain with cartoon frogs printed across the clear vinyl.

Harry stepped up to the mirror cabinet above the sink and squeezed a glob of toothpaste onto his brush to start the routine the boys had of getting ready around each other.

“We got that special speaker in bio today.” Harry tried to say around his toothbrush.  He spit the foam out into the sink, quickly running the water over his brush so he didn’t scald Louis in the shower having it on too long.  Their plumbing was very touchy. “So our two periods are blocked together.”

Their high school was small and made up of all the rural areas in the county that weren’t close enough to one of the Baton Rouge school districts.  For their senior class not even reaching a count of fifty, that meant just enough students to make up an A and B section for each of the basic subjects offered.  Growing up known as the Tomlinson twins, at least in age though not biologically, the school had tried to keep the boys separated in school as much as possible. They thought it would be for the best to give them each a chance to grown into themselves without the shadow of the other, but they still copied each other’s assignments and made it through school as a collective unit whenever possible much to the exasperation of their teachers.

“Towel?” Water dripped off Louis’ body as he stepped out of the shower, water still running behind him.  Harry tossed him one of the bath towels from the hook before he stripped off the loose sweats he had thrown on before coming back into the house.  Nudity was never an issue between them since they shifted together so frequently, but he still had at least some decency to cover up while he was in the house in front of everyone else.  

He slipped past Louis as he toweled off and stepped under the warm spray from the showerhead, the musty scents from running through the dew along the riverbank melting off his body.  The lingering scent of Louis’ run still hung in the humid air and he breathed it in, closing his eyes for a brief moment to stew in the bitter edge. It was calming and familiar and everything Harry needed to settle himself at the beginning of the day.  

“D’ya think we’ll have to actually pay attention to this guy?” Louis sounded muffled around his own toothbrush, the two having swapped places.  

Harry opened his eyes and tilted his head back into the water to wet his hair, grabbing the shampoo out of the rack hanging behind him.

“I dunno but I think it will kind of interesting.  It’s supposed to be about DNA and genetics or something.  Like mixing species and stuff.”

“Maybe we’ll finally learn why you’re not a wolf or a dog, ya mutt.” Louis chuckled.  Harry threw his bar of soap at him.  

It wasn’t Harry’s fault he didn’t know what he was.  Louis and his family had the luxury of not only knowing their heritage but also having the very distinct characteristics of the red fox.  Harry was only able to guess he was from some form of wolf though his light colouring and size ruled out any of the few wolves he knew to live around the area.      

“At least you can see me in tall grass,” Harry muttered back, his default insult always directed at Louis’ height, a feature that translated from his animal form to his human stature.  

“You boys better get a move on!  Bus just picked up the girls!” Jay hollered down the stairs and made them both groan.  

“Fuck, I didn’t think it was that late.” Louis grumbled, a faint “Language!” scold following from above.  Their mother had the sharpest hearing, impressive even for a fox.

The girls’ school was closer to their home by a good ten minutes– located one town closer than the high school– but, with the multiple school bus stops, it still made for a longer journey.  It was a thirty minute drive for the boys to get to the high school on a good day and it usually timed out about right if they left around the same time.

Harry deemed himself clean enough and toweled himself off as he made his way across the room, leaving a trail of damp footprints behind.  

“Lou, did you steal my clean polo again?” Harry accused, hopping on one foot to get into his underwear that he’d somehow gotten tangled up in his feet.

“I just picked up the closest one,” Louis shrugged but it was obvious the polo he was wearing was, in fact, Harry’s by the way it hung loosely over his shoulders.  

They were required to wear West Feliciana High School polos for their school uniform, which was fine on days that Harry didn’t want to throw together an outfit, but annoying on days when Louis stole his clean one and Harry was stuck wearing one a size too small or slightly rank from the day before.  

“Bullshit,” Harry grumbled knowing he had folded the shirt and placed it on top of his dresser the night before.  “You could just do your own laundry.”

Harry started to search through the clothes basket in hopes that he’d thrown his others in with the wash as well.  To his luck, there was a second polo but, since it had been shifted to the bottom of the basket, it sported more wrinkles than their gram’s face.  It was too late to be picky, though, and starting a fight with Louis so early in the morning was not something to take lightly. He already knew far too well from experience to pick and choose his battles wisely when it came to Louis before noon.  It was just the way he was, but Harry would definitely make sure he paid for his thievery later that afternoon.

Their 1985 navy blue Mecury Topaz filled with tinny music from the shitty and outdated sound system as they vibrated down the two lane highway towards school as it did every morning.  There was a rusted circle in the middle of the driver’s side door and the smell of old lady perfume had never quite left the fabric of the cloth seats, but it had never left them stranded and that was really all they could ask for.  A majority of the students didn’t have the luxury of their own car, forced to ride the bus, so they didn’t feel they could be picky.

It had been an exciting day when they learned they would be inheriting the vehicle from their great aunt that had just passed away.  Harry had mixed feelings about the celebration of their new found freedom, still trying to assure himself it was just the acquisition of the car and not the passing of a relative whenever he thought about that day.  It had been a couple years already and they hadn’t yet been smited, so he figured God knew that was the case. Living so far from even the closest convenience store, having access to a car opened a whole new world to the teenagers.  He figured they’d be forgiven.

It was a long drive but one the boys were used to and, when they pulled into the school parking lot, it was just like any other day.  The brick building rose in front of them, buses lined the designated loading line between the parking lot and the school, the students broke off into their groups chatting and laughing as they made their way into the building.  

Like the pair they always were, Louis and Harry walked in together.  They were both well known throughout the student body and were met with many greetings as they headed towards their lockers.  Unlike any other day, instead of breaking off in different directions after stopping at their lockers, they both headed down to the small auditorium where all the seniors were to assemble for their special speaker.  Their classrooms were small, large enough for one section but not for both classes combined together.

“If they keep the lights down like this, I’m going to fall asleep.” Louis mumbled as they settled into seats about halfway back.  The house lights were dimmed and the stage lights raised to highlight a podium that had been brought to the center. It seemed too formal for a science class even if it was a special speaker.  

“You better not.  I’m not taking notes for you if we have to do an assignment about this,” Harry muttered, shifting his weight to find a position in the uncomfortable seats that wouldn’t make his back ache the whole time.  

They had been some of the last students to file in and soon their teacher was tapping the mic to draw their attention to the front.  

“Good morning students.  I am very excited to introduce our special guest today.  He is one of the leading researchers in genetics and DNA mapping in the world and the co-founder of Map Your Breed , the genetics testing that I’m sure all of you have seen advertised on TV over the past few months.  It is an honor and privilege to have him take time out of his busy schedule to speak with us. I urge you to pay attention and learn something on this very interesting topic.  So without wasting any more of our time with him, please welcome Professor Wesley James.”

There was a weak attempt at applause from the students scattered around the seats and then hushed whispers as the man that stepped up to the podium was not the stuffy old stereotype dressed up in an outdated tweed suit they had been expecting.  The man was younger than Harry would have expected, perhaps the around their father’s age, and dressed in dark jeans and a blue checkered shirt.

“I’ve never really been one for formal speaking so if you don’t mind–” Professor James switched off the mic and jumped down off the stage and took a seat on the edge.  “That’s better. Can you all hear me?”

It was a small enough space and group for his voice to easily carry over them, everyone relaxing a bit with his relatable demeanor.  

“So yes.  I am Professor Wesley James, but please call me Wesley.  I’ve never been fond of many of the formalities that come with being an expert in something.  My interest in genetics started when I was about your age in high school in my science and history classes.  Why does my friend look like a fox? Why are my neighbors jackels? Why do I look like a mutt? Why does any of it matter when we all shift into the same human form?

These were always questions that no one could adequately answer for me.  ‘Because we’re from different parts of the world’ someone would say. ‘Because thousands of years ago we had to adapt to our environment’ someone else would say.  ‘Because wolves once pushed everyone else down the food chain’ was a popular opinion of the wolf pack at my school.”

Audible scoffs were heard around the room, most of the shifters in their area being smaller canids, especially when compared to the larger breeds towards the north.  Harry was one of the only larger breeds in the district, but instead of carrying the cocky attitude of the stereotypical wolves portrayed on tv and in movies, it had the opposite effect on him.  It singled him out and he’d always felt self-conscious about it. Especially with the rest of his family being such compact animals. He sank a little lower in his seat, feeling called out by the comments he could hear being whispered around him.

“There were times when your breed defined who you were in society.  There are still places in this world and people who still believe your pedigree matters.  That your pure-blooded line entitles you to more opportunities or your lack thereof limits your potential.  But we are all descendants from one species. We are all members of the canidae family. We are all able to breed with one another and mix our traits until our differences are unidentifiable.  Pure-blooded breeds had to descend from the same DNA which automatically negates the claim that a pure-blood line of anything exists.

“But where did we all come from?  How did we all start? That is the question that kept me pushing for answers.  I wanted to know where and why our different traits evolved to the wide array of canids in the world today.  I wanted to know why omegas became so rare, why alpha presentation didn’t curb as drastically as well, why betas became the common gender.  All of those things can be answered by mapping our genetics. The more DNA we began to gather for our research database, the clearer the picture became.  We have come so far over the past decade and we still have only been able to fit a few pieces of the gigantic puzzle together. You, the students in this room, will be vital pieces to this puzzle in the future whether one of you decides to dedicate yourself to genetic research or any of you decide to contribute to our database.  All of those roles are equally important in this massive quest.

“I co-founded Map Your Breed with a few of my colleagues for several reasons.  For scientific research, we have to recruit volunteers to submit their DNA samples to us.  Occasionally we had grant money we could offer in exchange for participation, but with the scope of this massive project, we would never have enough money for the data we need.  We were also asking for these samples without being able to offer any benefits to those who participated and were interested in learning results.

“After years of planning, we finally found a way for this research and our findings to be mutually beneficial.  We created an online platform, a form of interactive social media, where the samples we received could be analyzed for individuals to see the results and connect with others sharing DNA sections.  This way individuals could map their own heritage that would become increasingly more detailed as we were able to learn more. This idea became more popular than we ever could have imagined and our pool of DNA samples went from thousands to millions within just a few months.  And, with the money we’ve earned from fees to access this information, we have been able to fund our research on exciting new levels.

“We have recently added a social media type platform to our website that has been connecting people across the world.  Families have been able to locate long lost relatives and some have even been able to find children that were given up for adoption or the other way around.  This journey has tied science to everyday lives.”

The professor continued into his main speech with graphs and diagrams and pictures and examples, but all of it was lost to Harry.  His mind kept turning over the same few things again and again, his thoughts creating a haze that tuned out everything else around him.  

Adopted children.  Finding families. DNA connections.

It was probably a longshot.  Out of all the people in the world, the odds were slim that anyone connected to Harry would have submitted samples or joined the site.  He probably didn’t even have anyone looking for him. No one had over the past 17 years of his life, anyway. There was a good chance his family didn’t want to be found.  For all he knew, his parents had set him adrift on purpose.

Deep in his soul he knew that wasn’t true, though.  He had been too small to remember anything about his parents or his life before Jay had rescued him from the river, but it felt disrespectful to think poorly of them when he really didn’t know.  Whole communities had been washed away that year, hundreds of people had lost their lives. There was no reason to believe his circumstances had been anything short of a miracle, that he was a victim of an unfortunate event that came close to claiming his own life as well.  

Sometimes, though, he still wondered.  

His adoptive family had never hidden anything from him.  He was well aware of the searches they had conducted to find his parents or at least where he may have drifted in from.  Apart from a handful of dead end articles mentioning infants being swept away in rising waters, his origin had remained a mystery.  It was such a chaotic time that a lost little boy failed to make many headlines or lasting impressions with no target audience to focus on.  Most of the time, Harry was okay with that.

Fortunate to have loving arms to take him in, he had lived out a great childhood full of joy and opportunities.  He’d also been given siblings, not only Louis– who had turned out to be his best friend– but also sisters that he may never have had.  

But those missing pieces, the longing to know where he came from…

There was always a part of him that felt he didn’t quite fit in, the times where he wished to know someone else who looked like him.  Louis liked to poke fun of him for their difference in size when they shifted– Harry a thigh high beast while Louis was a dainty mid-calf– but sometimes when Harry had had a bad day, it was hard to see it as just a joke and not the glaringly obvious detail that reminded him he wasn’t really part of their family.  

He sometimes would daydream of being able to run with a pack, not having to look over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t too far ahead, being able to follow closely in family games without being stopped short when the gap in the fence was too narrow or the brush was too low for his height.  Harry adored his fox family yet he still wondered what it would feel like to see a mirror of himself when he was on four paws, to not feel like such a bulky creature.

Somewhere in his thoughts the lecture had ended, started back into reality by the echoes of sloppy, unenthusiastic applause.  Adjusting his position to look around to see if anyone had noticed him drift off into his own world, he realized he had no need to worry.  Complete with head tilted back in what must be an uncomfortable position with mouth open, Louis was asleep next to him which was assurance that he wasn’t the only one to miss class.  Harry elbowed him in the ribs, stifling his laughter as Louis woke with a jolt and an embarrassing noise that rose above the clapping hands.

“Asshole,” Louis muttered at his side but Harry didn’t respond as he normally would.  Instead, his mind was back to the DNA test, to the website that seemed to be the steel to his flint, lighting a new spark of hope within him.  

“Earth to Harry,” Louis startled Harry again with a light flick to the middle of his forehead, “You coming?”

With a look around, Harry realized the rest of the auditorium was clearing, most of the students already funneling out the door into the hallway.  

“Yeah, I’ll catch up.  I just had a question about something.”  Harry vaguely gestured towards the stage and hoped Louis wouldn’t question him.  Louis seemed to hesitate for a moment before giving a shrug and following the last of the students filing out.  

Harry paused before awkwardly approaching the professor who was casually chatting with their biology teacher.  He bit his lip, waiting for a break in their conversation or for one of them to notice his presence. Luckily it was only a few moments before he was acknowledged and he blushed slightly as he took a step forward.  

“Hi,” he greeted them awkwardly, “I just um– sorry, I just had a question?”

He cleared his throat and shifted his weight as he suddenly felt out of place in his own shoes.  

“Sure!  That’s what I’m here for,” the professor answered cheerfully and Harry was thankful he seemed like such an approachable person.  

“I was just wondering–” he paused to swallow hard and wondered why it was suddenly so difficult to talk about his life.  Maybe it was the fact that after years of it just being a pipe dream, he might actually be speaking with the last link that could connect him with his family.  He wasn’t sure he was ready. He hadn’t had time to prepare.

“I was just wondering how your site worked?”  His voice held a slight nervous tremor but he kept going.  “I was adopted after I was found along the river and I’ve never been able to find my real parents.  Do you think– I mean, have people really found their biological families through your site?”

Harry watched the professor’s eyes soften, a gentle yet sad smile appearing on his face.  

“I never want to give anyone false hope, but yes, we have had cases where adopted children were able to connect with their biological parents or siblings– even half siblings.  We do have a series on our YouTube channel following a few of their stories if you’d like some more insight.”

“I guess what I’m asking is–” Harry paused to take in a breath of air for courage, “Do you think it would be a waste of money to try for that purpose?”

He watched as the professor studied his face and his nerves began to buzz, ready to cushion the blow of disappointment he could feel coming in the silence.  

“Tell you what,” the professor started as he lifted his large laptop bag onto the table and began to rifle through it, random papers and office supplies spilling out in the process.  Eventually, he stood again with a small thin box in his hands and offered it to Harry. “How about you take this kit and then we’ll never have to know whether it was a waste of money.”  

Harry’s fingers gently take the box as if he were being offered something more precious than cardboard and plastic.  The corners were smashed in and the sides a little rumpled, but the plastic wrap was still intact and the bright words left no question to what he was holding.  It was a DNA kit.

“I can’t accept this,” Harry tried to hand it back but was met with a hand that wrapped around his and pushed it back towards his chest.  

“Of course you can,” the professor smiled, “I always carry a few around with me and if it might help you in some way, I’m more than happy to give you that opportunity.”  

Harry felt like he might cry, clutching the small box against his chest.  It was a strange rush of emotions that something so small and material might open up a world he’d always dreamed of knowing.  There wasn’t a way he could think of to repay something so personal.

The professor handed him a business card, smiling in a way that told Harry all of his emotions were clearly painted on his face.  “Just let me know if you find anything. Deal?”

All Harry could do was nod, white knuckling his grip on both like they might disappear if he wasn’t not careful.  The loud sound of the bell startled him out of his bubble and his biology teacher chuckled.

“Better get going, Tomlinson.  I’m not going to give you a tardy slip.”  

But he was smiling and Harry knew he wasn’t serious.  With another mumbled thank you, he turned and hurried his way out of the auditorium knowing he wouldn’t be able to concentrate for the rest of the day.  

—————

Harry kept the kit tucked into his backpack, hidden even from Louis.  The reaction from his adopted family was something that he was uncertain about and upsetting them was one of the last things he wanted to do.  Part of him felt that searching for his family could be seen as a betrayal to the people who had raised him and he loved them too much to cause any pain.  He appreciated everything they had done for him, everything they had given him. None of that would ever change. He would always see them as his parents and siblings.  He was just searching for the blind spots he yearned for a chance to see.

It stayed at the bottom of his bag even through the family’s chaotic dinner, through the nightly struggle of whose turn it was to do the dishes, through the battle over the tv remote.  Distracted by his thoughts, Harry found himself on dish duty, but he honestly didn’t mind.

It wasn’t until he was drying the dishes in the rack and placing them one by one back into the cupboard that his momma approached.  She gave him a quick squeeze and smooch on the cheek before settling in one of the chairs at the table.

“What’s going on, pup?  You’ve seemed miles away all evening.”  

Harry couldn’t stop the small smile at the use of his nickname, something that she used to single him out from the rest of his siblings and didn’t use as often as she had when he was a kid.  

“What do you think happened before you found me?” Harry asked after a moment.  It was something they had talked about before though it had been quite a while since it was last brought up.  

“I can only guess, Harry,” she said with a small sad shrug of her shoulders, “You were so small and weak and shivering that I can only imagine how long you’d been floating along.  You hadn’t been there even that morning when I had been down there.”

“I know.  But what do you think happened?”

Harry chanced a glance over his shoulder and found his momma’s sympathetic gaze that he quickly looked away from.  

“I know you don’t really want to hear it, but I think something traumatic brought you to us.  We couldn’t get you to shift for weeks or eat much either. You worried us so much and I was scared we were going to lose you before we could find out where you belonged.  It just turned out that you ended up belonging to us in the end.”

Harry nodded, his motions slowed as he dried the plate in his hand.  There were new details every time he heard the story or maybe he just remembered different parts each time.  He wondered if it was okay to feel sad over his own story. If he were reading it in a book or watching it in a movie, he knew he would probably cry.  As his own life, it almost felt a bit self-absorbed to do so but then again, he had every right to be so invested.

“There was a report of a missing family that had been swept away in their car just off 425 up the way a bit– but their son turned out to be a little older than you were.  We tried to follow up with every car that got caught up in rising waters, even drove up to Greenville hoping to get you home. Nothing ever matched. Your real name might not even be Harry, you could have just found your way into some other little boy’s toy box because it was floating by.  I wish I could give you better answers and you know we have never tried to keep any of it from you in case we were ever able to find the people who lost you.”

“I know, momma,” Harry replied softly as he placed the last plate into the cupboard and turned to reassure her.  “I’m not upset with you for not being able to find them. I know you could have just turned me over to the state or something and I’m glad you kept me.”

Jay was getting teary and there was no hesitation before he was crossing the short distance to hug her close.  Upsetting her was exactly what he had been trying to avoid.

Once she had calmed down, Harry took advantage of the empty basement.  After digging through his bag and emptying half the contents onto his bed, he found the little box that had been holding his mind throughout the afternoon.  The shrink wrap came off easily and inside he found a small instruction booklet, a plastic vile and a small plastic bag.

With an ear out for any sound that could signal Louis approaching, he swiftly read the instructions as he held the vile out in front of him.  Per the instructions, he filled the vile with his saliva and tried not to feel silly about how he must have looked doing it. There was no one around to witness it and it wasn’t like he was the only one required to spit into a tube for this process.  

Once it was filled, he closed it up, sealed it into the bag and ripped off the adhesive strip to close the box and prepare it for mailing.  He buzzed with nerves once it was done and sitting in his lap, one step closer to the link that could change his life forever. Even though he was ready, there were still parts of him that weren’t prepared and the anxiety fizzled like an over carbonated beverage as he tucked the box back into his bag and trashed the rest of the evidence at the bottom of their plastic bathroom garbage bin.  

—————

The wind was warm, ruffling his fur as he ran without the stifling humidity he was used to in Louisiana.  It was a pleasant temperature, setting sun leaving its mark. The ground beneath his paws was firm, cushioned by the cool grass that was full and lush.  He could hear footfalls around him, heavier than Louis’ that always seemed nearly silent in comparison to his own.

Looking to his right he caught sight of another being, fur thick and white just like his own, shoulders level with his.  If they were to make eye contact, he wouldn’t have to tilt his head down as he was used to with the foxes. No, these beasts around him were like him, growing in numbers in his peripheral vision the longer they pushed forward.  

It was no longer a game, they weren’t running just to feel it anymore.  They were running as a pack and the anxiety was building within him as he became just one speck in a blur of fur and tails and teeth and howls and paws…

The paws, they were everywhere, nails digging into his muscles as they walked over him.  He was being trampled, overwhelmed, but the number of the pack just seemed to keep growing.  He yelped, tried to howl but his chest was too constricted by the weight on top of him. He was being crushed, driven further into the ground that had felt so different to him only moments before.  

He tried to howl but stopped as he thought he heard someone calling his name.  He tried to listen above the noise but the buzz was too much.

There it was.  His name again.  

He tried to search for it, howling in response, begging to be saved—

“Harry!”

Harry jolted and sat straight up like he was spring loaded, eyes wide and frantic.  He looked around while his lungs heaved, chest hurting from his rapid breath like he had just sprinted a mile.  

“You okay?”

He startled again and looked to find Louis’ concerned face staring at him.  It had been a dream, it had all been a dream. His body immediately wilted from its rigid and alert posture, going limp like a rag doll as he allowed himself to flop back down onto his pillow in relief.  

“Fine,” he croaked and dragged a hand over his face that felt covered in a layer of sticky sweat.  

“You were screaming.”  Louis sat with his legs crossed, knees touching Harry’s side as he looked down on him.  They’d given up their twin beds to the girls when they had moved to the basement, now sharing a hand-me-down king mattress they’d inherited when their great aunt had moved into a retirement home, the same one that eventually gave them her car.  Though they didn’t share the covers– each of them wrapped up in their own blanket burrito on opposite coasts of the king– Louis still complained that Harry kicked him in his sleep. The screaming was a new development.

“Sorry,” Harry mumbled as he curled up on his side with his back to Louis and hugged his extra pillow.  There was some shuffling around behind him before the warmth of a body pressed against him, arms wiggling their way around his middle in a secure hug.   

“Don’t be.  I was just worried.”  Louis pulled him in close and murmured his words against Harry’s shoulder, an easy and safe warmth for him to relax into.  “Just a bad dream?”

“Was being trampled by wolves,” his voice drawn out by the pull of sleep despite the rude awakening.  

“But you ARE a wolf… kind of.”  

Harry could tell Louis was smiling against him, but he resisted the urge to take the bait and push him away at his teasing.

“There were too many.”  He let the silence settle around them, his breathing coming back to normal to match the swell and fall of Louis’ chest against him.  It was in the fragile space just before sleep that he finally whispered his secret. “I submitted my DNA to find my family.”

“Wait, what?  To that site?”  Louis used his hand to push himself up, the pressure almost painful against Harry’s ribs.  Harry turned his head to look up at him, trying to read his expression before responding. Louis’ face was a blank sheet of surprise so Harry nodded and began to chew on his bottom lip nervously.  

“H, that’s great!”

The breath was suddenly forced out of his lungs when Louis dropped back down and squeezed him a little too tight to be comfortable.  He still found himself smiling at the reaction, though, hiding his grin against his pillow.

“Have you heard anything back yet?  Have you been matched up with anyone?  Has it told you what your canid mix is yet?”  Louis bounced their bodies on the creaky springs with each question, his enthusiasm infectious and causing Harry’s cheeks to blush.  

“Not yet.”  

The truth was that from the moment he had scribbled down the serial number to create his account in the computer lab after school, he had been checking at least once a day when he had access to the internet.  That was usually limited to before or after school, sometimes during lunch. It had been difficult, though, sneaking around to check with Louis usually not far away.

“They said it could be 6 to 12 weeks before I get any results depending on how busy they are.  It might be a few months before I hear anything.”

“Tell me as soon as you get them.  Maybe your family is rich and will buy us a new car.”

Louis nuzzled his nose against Harry’s neck, the motion tickling the soft hairs and causing goosebumps to erupt over his skin.  He couldn’t imagine his life without Louis in it, even with the thought that maybe his family did have money or lived somewhere exciting.  Having a best friend– someone he could run with, share secrets with, get into trouble with– had always meant more to him than the money their family didn’t have.  

“Yeah, maybe.”  It was the abundance of “what ifs” that had probably been the cause of his nightmare, but in Louis’ arms, another one didn’t seem so bad.  

—————

Harry blinked his way into consciousness with a motion rocking him like a boat pitching gently in the waves.  It took a few moments to realize it was the body still plastered to his back creating the movement and he stared straight ahead at the wall lit only by the soft light of dawn through blurry eyes until everything started to come into focus.  He snuggled back into the nose that was nuzzling into his neck, moving up to the soft spot just behind his ear that made him tilt his head for access.

Drawn to the body heat like a moth to a flame, he didn’t register the stiff line pressing low against his back until his bed mate suddenly froze, both of them realizing the same thing at once.  

“Sorry,” Louis’ sleep thick voice croaked against his ear, but he didn’t separate their bodies like Harry was expecting him to.  Instead, it was just his hips that he pulled away, still keeping the rest of his body plastered to Harry’s, his face still buried just along his hairline.  

“D’you ever get hard when you’re shifted?” Louis mumbled against him after the lazy silence of morning had stretched between them for a while.

“I dunno.  Sometimes a little I guess.”   Harry answered through a nod, his thoughts processing slowly, still in a sleepy haze.  He’d never really thought about it before. Most of the time he was running with the family, rarely on his own to even think of getting a boner when he was on four paws.  

“That’s what I was dreaming.  I was all animal, like in the wild.”  Louis tightened his grip around Harry’s middle and buried his nose deeper into his hair.  “You smell good. Did you buy new shampoo?”

Louis’ voice sounded slow and hazy and Harry wondered if maybe he was still half in a dream.

“Same kind you use.”  He couldn’t think of anything he did differently in his routine than Louis other than maybe washing his clothes more often.  “So you were just out there humping in the wild?”

“I guess so?  It felt different.”  One of the arms around Harry disappeared and he could feel the way Louis must have needed it to palm himself through his boxers.

“Good different?”  Harry was curious now, twisting his neck just enough to catch a glimpse of Louis’ face behind him.  

“Yeah, it was really sensory, like even scents in the air went straight to my dick, made me feel high with it.”

The idea was making Harry’s morning wood perk up imagining what it might feel like to get off while shifted.  He made a mental note to try to sneak away to try it sometime as he subtly slid his hand down to adjust himself.  

Louis had started stroking himself in earnest, the mattress nearly vibrating with the motion and Harry thought about giving himself some relief until a low groan cut off into a choked off noise of alarm behind him.  

“What the fuck??” Louis voice sounded higher than usual, frantic as he yanked his other arm free from where it had been trapped beneath Harry’s body.  The action caused Harry to fall onto his back and he immediately propped himself up on his elbows to see what was causing the alarm.

With both thumbs stretching the elastic of his boxers away from his body, Louis stared down at his crotch with his jaw dropped in horror at what he was seeing.  

“What’s wrong?”  Harry struggled to sit up and met Louis’ wide eyes as he turned his head to face him before directing his stare back to his dick.  

Harry could see his cause for concern as soon as the boxers were ripped down his thighs.  There, the base of Louis’ deep red erection had swollen like an inflating balloon. It looked angry and uncomfortable though he was still hard and steadily leaking precum from the tip.  

“Oh my god,” Harry groaned and fell back against his pillow while he covered his face with his hands.  Of course Louis would present when he was right there to witness every intimate detail and he tried his best to ignore the way his own dick twitched at the sight of an alpha’s knot in person.  Louis was his brother. Kind of. It wasn’t supposed to turn him on. Even if they weren’t brothers– kind of–, he wasn’t supposed to find alphas attractive.

“What the fuck,” Louis mumbled again followed by a hiss of sensitivity.  Harry couldn’t help but crack his fingers apart to peek out, Louis experimentally squeezing and investigating his half-popped knot.  

There was a sting of jealousy that began to fester the longer Harry thought about it, the longer he laid there staring at the ceiling while Louis moaned himself into sexual maturity.  Things were fine when they were both assumed to be betas. Just two ordinary teenagers figuring things out on an equal playing field. Then again, nothing had ever really been equal between them, but their differences were at least parallels.  

The bitter pill of envy seemed stuck in his throat and he tried to swallow around it to push it down.  There was nothing to say Harry wouldn’t present the same tomorrow, but deep down he knew that would never happen.  It wasn’t like anything had to be different now, it didn’t mean anything was going to change. Unless Louis ended up winning the omega lottery, they’d both end up with betas in the end anyway.  But the very air around them seemed to be shifting, altering everything Harry had known.

“Oh my god,” Louis huffed out as he flopped down onto his back beside Harry, boxers still caught up around his thighs.

“That was unexpected.”  Harry tried to keep his voice neutral, fingers sliding off his face to comb his hair back.  

“Very.”  

Their breathing began to sync up, both staring up at the ceiling while they waited for time to catch up to their morning alarm that was surely just minutes away from going off.  

“An alpha then, huh?”

“Seems like it.”

There was an awkwardness hanging between them that felt unnatural, a kind they had never experienced even after discovering their bodies together and living in each other’s pockets without privacy.  Harry didn’t like the feeling.

Luckily, their beaten up alarm clock began to beep on Harry’s side of the bed, saving them from any other awkward exchange.  In the end, it was just another morning.

—————

Harry plopped down in a chair in the computer lab and tried hard not to roll his eyes.  It wasn’t that things had changed between Louis and himself since he had presented a few weeks before exactly, but things at school had noticeably shifted.  The novelty hadn’t worn off and suddenly it seemed that Louis was the most popular kid in school. There were other alphas, of course, but in a beta dominated region, Harry couldn’t even fault everyone for fawning over Louis.  Even Harry had to admit that he had been curious and oddly drawn to Louis since that first morning in bed.

It was just that Harry had found himself in an increasingly irritated state as each day passed with no results.  Each day he logged into his account after school and each day he found the reports section void of any answers. The anxiety and nervous energy building up inside had started to manifest in unfamiliar ways.  With that and the fact that finals and end of year projects were looming in the not so distant future, annoyance at Louis’ new-found fame seemed to be the easiest outlet for him.

With clenched teeth and a huff of breath through his nose, Harry tried to ignore the way the girls were giggling and hanging on Louis’ every word just one table behind him.  He wasn’t even sure why he was bothered by it. It wasn’t as if he had never flirted before. In fact, he was known for it.

He tried not to think about it as he logged into his school account and opened a browser, typing in the familiar address on autopilot as he had multiple times a day.  It was also autopilot that had his mouse headed immediately for the X to close the window, the whole action turning into habit now after having had his hopes up so many times.

He jerked his hand when his out of focus eyes caught a hint of colour he hadn’t seen before and then froze as he stared.  There, in the corner of the screen next to his little profile picture, was a yellow bubble over the envelope icon. He gaped at the little number 1 in the middle and started to conjure up scenarios of what that message could mean.  Maybe it was just a notification telling him his sample had been lost or unable to be analyzed. Maybe it was a message that the research had been delayed. Maybe it was the professor going back on his word and telling him he needed to pay.  

The moment lingered as he sat frozen with the pointer hovering over the icon.  Thoughts were racing through his mind, nearly talking himself out of clicking, sure that the life of ignorance he led would be better than the unwanted answer that may be waiting on the other side.  

In the end it was a muscle twitch from holding his hand in position for so long that opened the notification, gasping as it happened before his eyes.  

This thing says you’re my cousin but I know all my cousins so who the fuck are you?

Harry blinked as he read the message and then read it again.  Of all the scenarios he had imagined for that exact moment, a single accusatory, run-on sentence was not one of them.  

He blinked hard once again thinking maybe he had hallucinated the message, but when his vision focused, the same words were still there on the screen.  Sure, it was the kind of phrasing and words he might have used with Louis or any of his other friends, but somehow coming from a stranger through such a medium made him start to question whether he even wanted to associate himself with the type of person who would send such a rude message.  

It was what he had wanted, though, so he clicked the link to see their connection without letting himself overthink it further than that.  The stranger had been right. Before he’d even had a chance to view his own reports, he was presented with the information the system had given him that linked him to the messenger as a predicted first cousin.  The profile picture was small, but he could make out what looked to be a tuft of blonde hair on top of the boy’s head and a face that indicated he had probably been around his age when the photo had been taken. There was no way of knowing if it was old or new, but it made him feel more at ease to at least assume they were part of the same peer-base.  It made the tone of the message seem more playful. He hoped.

So engrossed in the information in front of him, the jostle of his chair had him falling forward to smack his face right into the computer monitor before he even realized he was moving.  He let out a shriek and then a groan as his hands flew up to his nose, feeling down the bridge to make sure it wasn’t as broken as it suddenly felt. Unfortunately, that left the mouse unguarded against Louis who took control as he laughed and made himself comfortable on Harry’s lap.  

“What the fuck?” Harry groaned but made minimal effort to push Louis away.  

“Sorry, you just looked way too intense, like you were in another wo—”

Harry knew the exact moment Louis had realized what was on the screen, both of them silent and still.  It stretched between them and created a bubble despite the motion and sound of the lab and library around them.  It made Harry nervous to even breathe.

“H, you found them…” Louis said softly through an exhale, almost sounding as if he was in awe.  

“Not quite.”  

Harry rested his forehead against Louis’ shoulder in front of him and let the sting of his nose distract him from the rest of his buzzing thoughts that threatened to overwhelm him now that he wasn’t focused on the screen.  

“This guy seems like the one without parents.  Who writes something like this??”

Harry snorted out a small laugh against Louis’ back and wound his arms around his middle to hug him like a teddy bear so their position was more comfortable.   

“Have you written back to him yet?  I’m writing back to him.”

Louis was already typing when Harry lifted his head to peer over his shoulder at the screen, squeezing Louis a bit in protest.  

“Noooo, you can’t be the one to write back,” Harry whined, but it didn’t stop the click of Louis’ fingers.  

“Okay, here we go.  ‘I’ll tell you who the fuck I am!’” Louis started to narrate in a voice that made Harry actually giggle.  

“Take that part out!” Harry protested, but a grin still stuck on his face.  

“Nope, that’s the best part.  ‘My name is Harry and I’m about 18 years old.  I was adopted after I was found washed up on the bank of the Mississippi River during the big flood.  I don’t know anything about where I came from or who my parents are. I would appreciate any information you might be able to give me.  That’s who the fuck I am.’”

Louis started to laugh and Harry just shook his head, not expecting anything less from his adoptive brother.  

“Okay, I guess that’s decent.  Except that last part. Take that part out, too.  I don’t want him to think I’m a dick or something.”  

Harry reached towards the keyboard to try to erase the last sentence, a small wrestling match over the keyboard ensuing before the message was accidentally sent with only part of the line deleted.  

“You dick!  I can’t believe you did that!” Harry tried to sound mad, but it was hard to do through his laughter.  

“Whatever.  He’s family now.”

Something warm spread over him as he heard Louis’ words.  Even though it wasn’t a serious declaration, Louis had claimed Harry’s biological family as his own without thought.  It had been a constant state of mixed emotions since he had committed to the quest, but having Louis on board made it so much easier.

“Thank you,” Harry said softly as he pressed his face against Louis’ back and squeezed him around his middle.

—————

“I always knew you were a d-hole,” Louis snickered as he scrolled through Harry’s DNA results on the family computer, “What the hell is a d-hole anyway?”

Harry smacked the side of Louis’ head before he leaned down to look over his shoulder.  “I think it’s pronounced ‘dole’ and I don’t know, look it up.”

It was late, the sun long since gone to bed, and the only time they had been able to use the family computer that was usually claimed by one of their sisters.  Harry tried to hide how anxious he was while waiting for a reply to their message and knew he hadn’t been doing a very good job. He watched as Louis typed “dhole” into Google and then tried not to roll his eyes when Louis started laughing again.  

“Five percent of you originated in Southern Asia as one of these,” Louis pointed and continued to browse the Wikipedia page.  

“Keep laughing because that baby looks like a fox.  You probably have some d-hole in you, too.” Harry did roll his eyes then, flopping back onto the couch again and rubbing circles into his temples.  The wait was driving him mad.

“I should do this, too.  I bet I’m fox all the way.  One hundred percent red fox.  No questions.” Harry could see the way Louis’ ears would perk and tail would puff with pride even though he wasn’t shifted.  He expected nothing less from the cocky fox, always using his attitude to make up for what he lacked in height and build.

“I’m going to make you do it so I can laugh when you show up ninety percent d-hole,” Harry muttered.  

“Don’t piss me off or I’m going to reply to your cousin that you’re too busy jerking off to answer him.”

“Wait, what?” Harry sat up and twisted his body, trying to see the screen.  “Did he reply?”

“I don’t think I should tell you.”  Louis turned the monitor so it was out of Harry’s view, hiding the rest with his arm.  “You’re not being very nice.”

“Stop, this isn’t funny.  Let me see.”

Louis must have realized how serious the mood had become as he easily gave in and swiveled the monitor back to its regular position.  He clicked the message open before moving over, letting Harry see for himself.

Holy Shit!  Everyone thought you were dead!  How’d you know your name was Harry?  You have to be shitting me… wait, is this a joke?  Are there cameras on me or something? This is too fucked up.  This seems like a movie plot.

“I like this guy,” Louis startled Harry out of his thoughts after reading through the message several times over.

“Don’t you think he seems a little, I don’t know– vulgar?”

“Lighten up.  That is exactly how I would react and what I would say if it happened to me and you know it.  He’s probably around our age, too. I like him.”

Harry sat against the arm of the couch and ran his fingers through his hair.  Louis did have a point and it wasn’t like he hadn’t had the same thought himself with the first message.  

“Okay.  That’s valid,” Harry shrugged and began to pull at his bottom lip in thought.  

Everyone thought he was dead which meant there had never been anyone looking for him.  He knew it wasn’t right for him to feel hurt over that fact, but he found that he was. Through his whole childhood he had thought about his family never giving up hope, the happy and tearful reunion when they finally found him, stories of the years of searching that had finally given way to success.  There was a sense of loss, a hole growing within him as that fantasy was ripped away and slain before his eyes.

The sound of keys clicking made him look up, blinking away the tears that had started to gather there.  

“What are you doing??”

“I didn’t think you were in any condition to reply so I did for you,” Louis shrugged and hit send with an exaggerated movement of his finger.  

“Stop doing that!  I should be the one responding!  I don’t even know what you’re saying!”

Harry launched himself at Louis, both of them falling off the chair to the floor in a wrestling match.  Though Harry usually had the upper hand in their shifted forms, it was embarrassingly easy for Louis to immobilize him, pressing him down into the carpet and holding him their with the weight of his body.  They were both breathing hard from their efforts, Louis’ humid puffs causing goosebumps to prickle up across his neck where they landed, Louis’ nose pressed against his hairline.

He found himself going pliant, the comforting scent of fox surrounding him with an intensity he normally didn’t pick up as strongly when human.  He breathed it in, inhaling as deeply as a relaxation technique, the increased oxygen making him feel heady and light. Tart was a way he had always thought of Louis’ scent as they chased each other through the yard in their fur, sharp and unique and sometimes even overwhelming when it crossed over the line of bitter.  It was smoother now as it hit his nose, rounded at the edges and on the border of sweet. It reminded him of the discarded apples on the ground under the trees in late summer just before they began rot, still good despite their imperfections and trying to draw attention as if they knew their window to be enjoyed grew short.  It made him want to roll around in it, get his fill before it was gone.

He felt drunk with it and squirmed as he searched for a more direct source.   

It wasn’t until their noses collided that they both froze, Louis scrambling away from him suddenly to sit against the wall.  

“Sorry, sorry,” Louis rushed out, pulling at his hair and cursing under his breath.  

Harry wasn’t quite sure what had just happened and sat dumbfounded and confused until his head began to clear.  He could still smell the apples though they had again grown tart, his nose wrinkling with the pungent shift. A deep blush flushed his cheeks when he realized he was hard, the sweats he was wearing doing nothing to hide it.  All he could do was hope that Louis had been too distracted to notice and shifted his position to shield it from view with his knee.

It was as he moved that he caught sight of the yellow notification on the computer screen, forgetting all about his dick as he jumped up to click on the message.  

I guess I can’t say for sure since I was really little and don’t remember it.  If you really are the same Harry then we’re only a year apart and I was only 2 or so when it happened, maybe 3.  I’d have to ask my mom about it, she has never liked talking about it. Maybe when I’m back home some weekend you can come over.  I know she has pictures. Here’s my phone number, might be easier to text.

Harry pulled out his phone and started to add the number to his contacts, entering it as “cousin” until he could ask for a name.  563 wasn’t an area code he was familiar with but just because this guy was a cousin didn’t necessarily mean they lived in the same city.  Louis had biological cousins all over the south that they had been to visit many times. Harry’s real parents could live just a few towns north while this cousin lived halfway across the country.  

He typed the area code into google anyway and was surprised to find that it belonged to the northeastern side of Iowa.  While the shaded zone in the picture still hugged the path of the Mississippi, that section of Iowa was nearly a thousand miles away– according to Google maps anyway.  That was a long journey just to stop by.

Still, he started a text with the stranger– or cousin more accurately– and held his breath for a reply.  

Harry: Hey this is Harry from Map Your Breed

Cousin: Holy shit!  You’re a real person then.  Hey. I’m Niall!

Harry: Of course I’m a real person.  What did you expect?

Niall: I don’t know man, the internet is a fucked up place

Harry: You do realize you have to submit an actual sample of DNA to that site, right?

Niall: Good point.  This is still fucked up

Harry: What do you mean?

Niall: Everyone thinks you’re dead dude!  They searched for you for days

Harry: Searched where?  What happened?

Niall: I think a levee broke while they were trying to evacuate people or something and a bunch of people were missing

Harry: Where did that happen?

Niall: Near Dubuque.  I guess I don’t know exactly where

Harry set his phone down to do a quick Google search for Dubuque, all of the results referring to Dubuque Iowa.  On the map it seemed to be in the same area as the previous search of the phone number, but Dubuque was still nearly a thousand miles away.  That didn’t make sense at all. There was no way he ended up all the way in Louisiana after being swept away that far north. Another Dubuque– a closer Dubuque– had to exist.  

Harry: Dubuque Iowa?

Niall: Yeah of course!  That’s where most of the family still is.  I’m at Loyola in Chicago now but will be back home this summer when they kick us out of the dorms so we can meet up then when I’m back if you want

Harry: I live in Louisiana so I don’t know if I could afford to make it up there by this summer

Niall: Holy shit!  How’d you end up there?

Harry: I was found in Louisiana.  My mom found me washed up in a toy box at the edge of our property where we still live actually

Niall: That’s crazy!!!!  Just wait until I tell my nan… well I guess OUR nan. She is not going to believe me.  You have to come up here so we can meet! I would come there but then everyone couldn’t meet you

“Hey Lou, Niall wants me to come visit this summer–” Harry stopped when he looked up to find Louis gone, the place on the floor where he had been sitting now empty.  

“Lou?” He glanced around the room but found himself alone, unsure of how long he had been.  He hadn’t even noticed when Louis slipped away. The silence felt heavy around him with the realization, the buzz of his phone sounding amplified against the desk.

After chatting with Niall for a bit to make sure Louis hadn’t just run off to the bathroom or something, Harry finally gave up and decided to head down to bed.  He was surprised to find Louis just coming to bed as well, sitting on the edge of their mattress with red splotchy cheeks, flushed chest and damp hair.

“Did you just shower?” Harry asked, tossing his phone down while he started to strip down to his boxers.  He didn’t miss the way Louis snapped his gaze away, staring at the wall with his back turned. It looked like Louis hadn’t just showered.  It seemed like he was trying to hide something.  

“Uh, yeah.  So did he message you back?”  The way Louis cleared his throat made it obvious the subject was abruptly being changed, the room feeling awkward.  Harry stared at the back of Louis’ neck, confused about his behaviour.

“Yeah,” Harry answered after a moment, choosing to wait until Louis was over whatever bug was up his ass to address the mood.  “His name is Niall and he wants me to come up there to meet everyone this summer. I said I don’t know how I’d get there but I said I’d think about it.  It might be fun if we could come up with the money. I mean, I’d want to meet everyone at some point…”

“Sounds fun.  I’m sure you’ll find a way.”  There was a bite to Louis’ voice that Harry wasn’t expecting.  

Harry frowned as Louis flopped down and pulled his blankets over his body, facing away from him the whole time.  

“Oooo-kay…” Harry drew out the word, waiting for some kind of response.  When he didn’t get one, he just rolled his eyes. He didn’t realize presenting as an alpha came with so many mood swings and unexplained behaviours.  “Night then.”

—————

Harry cut through the meadow in a lope, the cool morning air not feeling as refreshing as it normally did.  He wondered when it had become routine for Louis to not join him, preferring to stay near the house rather than stretching his legs like they used to together.  It wasn’t nearly as fun alone though it did give him time to sort out his thoughts.

It had only been several days since he had started texting Niall yet he already felt a bond with him that Harry was sure only came with being family.  They had spent that time getting to know each other and filling each other in on their lives apart during the time they would have probably grown up together.  Harry also found out his real birthday which actually placed him nearly an entire year behind Louis which was strange since they had been raised thinking they were the same age.  

Louis, of course, wasted no time teasing Harry about it, calling him the little brother he had always wanted until Harry switched out his toothpaste for lube.  That ended up backfiring on both of them as a prank war ensued, ending abruptly when it was one of their sister’s that ended up on the receiving end of the salt replacing sugar for their oatmeal trick.  

Harry felt like he was finally making up for lost time, connecting with people who shared his DNA.  The courage hadn’t yet come to him to ask about his biological parents, but the lack of voluntary information on them or excitement to tell them that Harry had been found gave him enough information to keep his hopes low.  Niall never hesitated to tell him about his nan and his aunts, his cousins who were much younger than him and those that were much older. It seemed that the pair, Niall and Harry, were the only two even close in age which had left Niall feeling left out during family celebrations and holidays.  But also made their bond feel special that it had been Niall to find him, like it had been destined to happen that way.

The solitary morning runs let Harry catalog all the new information that he was learning about himself, things that he had always longed to know coming at him with lightning speed which made it difficult to retain all the details he never wanted to let go of.  He thought about being born part of a pack, being loved and missed by the group that would have raised him in addition to his parents. He pondered his family’s northern heritage, the Canadian native wolves that had made their way down to America where there were more opportunities.  All the tidbits Niall could remember that had been taught to him growing up, all the things that were still important to his family, those reasons contributing to why he had chosen the university that he had.

Being on his paws on his own also made him wish that he could run alongside Niall and the rest of his family, finally not feel out of place and awkward with all the smaller and more elegant creatures he was used to shifting with.  It had been an odd moment of exhilaration to learn that, when shifted, Niall was nearly identical to himself though in place of Harry’s snow white coat, Niall’s was mostly shades of brown.

As promised, Niall had asked his mother to send the picture of them together as babies, the little white pup Jay had pulled from the river cuddled up with the brown puffball that was Niall.  Jay had cried when she’d seen it, pulling out her own photo albums of Harry as a pup only with Louis alongside him instead, comparing the two before declaring her own confirmation that they were the same.

It had only been days but it seemed like longer, and the closer he came to filling the gaps in his life, the more determined he became to find a way to travel to the city of his birth.  He wasn’t sure how he was going to make it happen, but somehow he would. Even if it meant slaving away as a farm hand for the next few months. He could probably make enough for at least a bus ticket if he started soon or maybe Louis would want to drive up with him.  It might be a fun road trip before college if he could convince Louis to join him. If his reaction was going to be anything like it had been the first time he’d mentioned it, the possibility didn’t seem very likely.

The weirdness between them was still present but it varied from day to day.  They could be fine one minute like nothing had changed and then the next Louis would disappear, avoiding Harry as if they’d had a tiff that Harry didn’t remember.  It was also strange when Louis would grow oddly quiet, watching Harry like there was something on the tip of his tongue and, instead of blurting it out, closed his mouth.  That alone was out of character even without the other behaviours. It had started to make Harry grow anxious.

Finals were upon them as well which only added to the stress of walking around on eggshells.  If Harry could just pass his calculus final, he’d be a high school graduate in less than a month.  He’d be turned out into the world to start his life as an adult, something he thought he’d be doing with Louis at his side.  With all of the recent events, he wasn’t sure if that was still going to happen.

They’d both received their acceptance letters to LSU in Baton Rouge, still close enough to appease Jay yet far enough to let them stretch their wings.  Just two rural boys from Tunica testing out life in the city. It had been a done deal until Louis had presented, their housing applications already submitted prior to that happening.  Since then, it felt that Louis was working up the nerve to back out, to tell Harry he wasn’t interested in sharing a dorm anymore or maybe wasn’t interested in sharing anything at all. Any part of that scenario made Harry’s heart clench and wonder what he had done to push Louis so far away.  

It was ironic that as soon as Harry had finally discovered his biological family that he had started to lose the most important part of his adoptive family.  He wasn’t sure the trade off was worth it.

Louis was his best friend, his other half, his twin in so many ways.  The thought of losing him felt like losing a limb, a painful process that would leave him unable to ever feel whole again.  

This trip would be his last ditch effort to resolve whatever it was brewing between them.  At least then he would have the peace of mind that he had tried everything he could. If Louis would only say yes.  

—————

It was the week before graduation when Harry came in from a run on Saturday morning and was immediately tackled by little girls.  His loose gym shorts that he had thrown on to enter the house were nearly pulled off in the process. He held onto the elastic waistband while he was dragged into their living room and forced to sit on the couch.  

“Box from Gram!!” the girls sing-songed as they dug through the large cardboard box that had arrived with the mailman while he was out.  

Harry adjusted the snapback on his head, bill turned backwards to hold his sweaty curls away from his face.  He had always loved boxes from Gram. Ever since she had retired to Florida a few years before, she made sure the grandkids were still well sugared with care packages every few months that always included sweets and trinkets for everyone in the house.  His mouth was already watering as he imagined the frosted sugar cookies and the chocolate covered pecans that were usually included– all homemade of course.

So he wasn’t expecting it when, instead of a bag of chocolate, a large greeting card envelope was tossed into his lap.  He flinched as the corner narrowly avoided a sensitive region and lifted it to see his name scrawled in his Gram’s handwriting across the front.  It was bright blue in colour but non-descript, nothing to indicate the occasion for a card. It wasn’t his birthday– the real date or the date they had always celebrated on while he was growing up.  

The girls were all preoccupied– even though they had been the ones to drag him in– so he slid his finger under the seal to open it with a small sense of privacy from distraction.  

A smile grew on his face when he could see it was a graduation card, the joke on the front one that only a grandma would find humorous.  He laughed anyway and opened it to read the message on the inside. There was no way to hide his shock when crisp hundred dollar bills fluttered onto his lap, scrambling to collect them before they were lost to the mess of wrapping paper accumulating on the floor.  

Harry,
You’ve always been special to this family and always will be… but there
is another family that deserves to know how special you are, too.  Use
this money to go show them.
Love you,
Gram

Harry looked up cautiously to see if anyone had noticed the five hundred dollar bills that stayed clutched in his hand as he had read over the handwritten message.  To his surprise, no one had. Giving himself a nasty papercut in the process, he shoved the money and the card back into the envelope, white-knuckling his grip on it as he sneaked away to the basement.  

It wasn’t a fortune, might not even be enough to make the trip, but it was a start and the emotions that hit him were overwhelming.  He could only imagine what it had been like to sacrifice hundreds of dollars from an already skimpy retirement fund just to give him a chance to meet his family.  He only hoped there would be a way to pay her back while he still could.

“What’s wrong?” Louis appeared at the bottom of the stairs, forehead creased in concern at the sight of Harry and the tears that had started to fall over his cheeks.  

“Gram sent me money to visit Niall,” Harry sniffed, unable to control the waterworks once they had begun.  

The laugh that came out of Louis mouth was most certainly not the reaction that Harry expected, and he gaped at him from across the room wondering whether or not he should be offended.  

“What’s so funny about that?” Harry didn’t even attempt to hide the anger that had started to rise.  

“It’s just that,” Louis held up his own green envelope, “Gram sent me money to visit Niall too.  I was just coming to tell you. She said to look after you and make sure that you don’t get yourself lost.”  

“Rude,” Harry muttered, but knew it probably wasn’t far from the truth.  Louis usually drove them everywhere since Harry had the directional sense of a mapless mule.  If it wasn’t for his sense of smell, Louis always joked that Harry would never find his way home when they ran.  

A warmth spread through Harry’s body as Louis sat down on the edge of the bed next to him, close enough that their arms and thighs pressed together.  It was a closeness that Harry craved and had missed lately. He let it ground him as he wiped his tears and tried to compose himself for the conversation he felt was about to come.  

“Will you really go with me?” Harry asked hopefully and looked over with watery eyes.  

“‘Course I will.  I can’t send you off on a bus by yourself to stay with strangers.  They could be murderers or something.”

“They aren’t murderers,” Harry retorted but around a growing fond smirk.  He had missed Louis so much.

“You never know.  They did send you down the Mississippi in a toy box after all…”

It might have seemed inappropriate to some but Harry knew Louis from the depth of his soul.  Always trying to make everyone around him smile, Harry knew it was just to lighten the mood.

Harry knocked their shoulders together with a huff, “It was obviously a safe toy box or I wouldn’t have made it.  Don’t insult them.”

“Okay, Okay.  I guess you’re right.  But seriously,” Louis looked at Harry, all joking aside, “Of course I’ll go with you.  I know how huge this is for you and I’ve always wanted you to find them. I wouldn’t send you off to meet them alone.  Plus…” the mischief was sneaking back onto Louis’ face and Harry nearly rolled his eyes in anticipation, “Now that we found out that you’re nearly underage, you need some adult supervision.”  

Harry pushed Louis off the bed mid-cackle, rolling him further away with his bare feet while trying to hold back his own laughter.  God, he’d missed Louis.

“Whenever you’re done making fun of me, we’ve got some planning to do.”

—————

“Niall goes to Loyola so maybe we could meet him in Chicago?”

Louis looked up from where he had the map spread out on the table, expression making Harry pause like he was missing something.  

“What?”

“Loyola?” Louis questioned and Harry nodded in confusion.  “You know that’s an omega college, right?”

“You don’t have to be omega to go there.  It’s a fully accredited private university.  They can’t just single out a gender.”

“But it’s known for being an omega school.  They even have a full omega dorm with heat rooms instead of just a section of a normal dorm.  It’s, like, the only school that has that. That’s why omegas go there.”

Harry just stared at him.  Whatever point Louis was trying to make was flying right over his head.  “So?”

“So Niall moved hours away from home to go to an omega school because, what, he liked the view…?”

“I guess?”

Harry watched as Louis continued to stare at him incredulously, his nostrils flaring out to breathe in as if he were about to lose his temper.  It was something he’d noticed Louis doing around him a lot lately.

“What?”  Harry asked, feeling like he was failing to connect the dots that Louis was clearly laying out for him.  

“Nevermind.”  Louis spread his hands over the map and then started to follow their route with his fingertip.  “We could always stop at Graceland,” he continued as if the whole exchange had never happened.

‘Don’t change the subject!  Why does it matter if it’s an “omega school”?” Harry raised his hands to do finger quotes, only receiving an eye roll from Louis.  

“It doesn’t matter , I’m just saying.”

“What, you don’t think you can trust yourself around a bunch of omegas without popping a knot or something?  You all hot and bothered thinking about finding one to hook up with? That desperate to mate?”

Harry was getting irritated the more he thought about it, unable to stop himself from pushing the subject.  Of course that was why Louis knew it was an omega school. He probably spent his time searching omega hotspots every time he sneaked off, looking for a way to increase his odds of mating with one instead of being satisfied with a beta like everyone else, like Harry would have to be.  He was probably ready to pop his knot right there thinking about it, the rarest gender all rounded up together for easy picking.

“Enough!” Louis slammed his hands down on the table, his voice more commanding than Harry had ever heard it.  It made him freeze in his spot, jaw aching from where his teeth had clenched together in the rage of his surging thoughts.  

When Louis spoke again, it was through his teeth in a measured tone that suggested he was trying not to lose his temper.  “I only wondered Niall’s motive for going to an all omega school if he wasn’t an omega himself.”

“You think Niall’s omega?” Harry felt the anger draining out of him, replaced instead with a bitter streak of something he couldn’t quite place.

“I don’t know.  I just don’t think it’s far fetched to assume he might be is all.”

“Oh.”  Harry watched as Louis went back to the map, tracing his finger along one of the white lines of highway as they pondered their options.  “I’ve never met an omega in person before.”

Louis huffed out a noise of disbelief and muttered under his breath so Harry almost didn’t hear him.  “That’s ironic.”

“What?” Harry put his fists on his hips while he waited for an answer, “What’s that supposed to mean.”

“Just–  Nothing.  Forget it.  Now can we please just decide whether we’re taking 65 or 61 to the Arkansas border?”

Harry bit his bottom lip and wondered why it was was suddenly so difficult to push the argument that his pent up frustration was screaming at him to continue.  He’d always been able to push Louis’ buttons when he wanted, both of them able initiate blow out fights when everything just became too much. But Harry couldn’t get out another biting question or comment, could do nothing but look down at the map and follow Louis’ finger as it drew a path.  

They’d decided to plan their route to hug the Mississippi as closely as they could.  It was symbolic in a way, tracing the journey Harry had presumably taken down the river only in reverse to take him back to the place of his birth.  That meant more planning on their part, mapping out their journey instead of relying on GPS.

“I think 61 would be a longer stretch before we’d have to switch,” Louis suggested, tapping his finger and making the paper crinkle.  “Then we could take it all the way up through Memphis.”

“Okay.  I trust you,” Harry agreed.  He would trust Louis with his whole life if it came down to it.  

Louis looked up at him and, for a second, appeared shocked by how easily Harry had given in.  

“Are you sure?  It’s not my trip,” Louis asked softly and if it hadn’t been so sweet, the back and forth of their moods might have given him whiplash.

“No, it’s our trip.  I want you to be you and me again.  Just the two of us doing whatever we want, okay?”  

“Maybe not everything we want.  We have limited funds here.”  Louis smirked and Harry couldn’t hold back one of his own, and just like that, Harry knew it was going to be okay.  

—————

Without warning, the heavens had opened up the day they were scheduled to leave, water pooling where the ground wasn’t able to absorb it quick enough.  The lawn had turned to mud in an instant, splashing up onto their ankles and calves as they ran back and forth between the house and the car to load up.  

Jay had tried to convince them to hold off their departure until the storm had passed, but they were too restless to wait another day.  Plus, they had created a schedule that would get them into Dubuque the same day Niall would arrive and they didn’t want to waste a second.  

Harry wished he would have just slipped on his flip flops as Louis had, his sneakers soaked through to his socks that threatened to leave him with soggy feet for the first leg of their journey.  He pushed through, though, carrying the mass of blankets and pillows protected by the trash bags they were shoved into out to the car. A thousand dollars was a lot of money, but after Harry had insisted that they outline a budget, it didn’t take long to realize that it really wasn’t.  With a good chunk going towards fuel and some set aside for food, it really didn’t leave enough for them to stay in a hotel room each time they decided to stop. That meant they had to be prepared for back seat camp outs along the way.

It was all part of the adventure, Harry had decided.  They had camped out in the back of the family van on hot summer nights when they were kids voluntarily.  Catching a few hours of sleep at a rest stop as teenagers didn’t have to be much different from that. Plus, if it worked out, they would have enough money to get one decent hotel room to spend a day in Memphis on their way back home.  

“Don’t forget the cooler!” Jay called from the doorway, holding out the small cooler she had filled with snacks and bottles of water.  It was such a mom thing to do that it reminded him of the day trips they used to take as mini vacations during the summer. There was no doubt in his mind that he would find little sandwich baggies of baby carrots and grapes and probably some sliced celery with peanut butter when he opened it later.  

“Thanks,” Harry stopped to give her a wet hug, squeezing her just a little tighter than usual before planting a kiss on her cheek.  It was just a vacation, but the gravity of the destination made it feel like more, weighting their goodbye with a tangible energy.

“Be safe and know that we love you and this will always be your home.”

It nearly made Harry want to call it off, to cling to the only woman he had ever known as his momma and convince her that he would never need more, but he knew there would always be that pesky voice in the back of his mind asking all the “what ifs”.  

And so he gave her another tight hug and carried the last of their gear to their beat up car that he hoped would even make it.  Louis was already in the driver’s seat fiddling with the windshield wipers that always got stuck if the knob wasn’t caressed just right.  It would be a long, dangerous day if he couldn’t get them going, but Louis always seemed to have the touch.

Harry jumped into the passenger seat and situated the cooler on the floor between his feet.  The door slammed shut with it’s usual clunk and Louis barely looked up from where he was messing with the controls.  

The rain had soaked through his tee-shirt and left his hair dripping down onto his shoulder, leaving him chilled under the blowing air vents.  Without thinking, he shook his head like the dog that he was, grinning at Louis’ shrieke when water droplets attacked the side of his face.

“What the fuck??” Louis started and then let out a cheer when the windshield wipers suddenly squeaked their way across the glass.  “They’re aliveeeee!!!”

With the dramatics Harry had come to expect from him, Louis held his arms up and shook them towards the wipers like a mad scientist celebrating his work.  Harry tried to hide his grin behind his fist but he knew it was his dimples that gave him away and gave Louis more motivation to continue his antics. It had always been that way between them.  He’d been scolded with “don’t encourage him” more times than he could count and nothing had ever changed.

“Watch out Tucson, here we come!!” Louis yelled, quoting Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion in a way that no one beyond the pair would understand.  

“Wooo!!!” Harry responded and threw his hands up into the air like they had a convertible like in the movie, both dissolving into giggles when he only succeeded in giving his knuckles rug burn against the ceiling.  

“Ready?” Louis asked once they had composed themselves.  

“Yeah, let’s go.”

—————

It didn’t take long for the Baton Rouge radio station to fade out into static which unfortunately did not also apply to the storm.  The rain came down in such a thick veil that even the times the highway hugged the banks of the river, it provided no view. They could have stuck to the interstate and made better time through Jackson had they known the first few hours of scenery would be lost.  

By the time they began to see more signs of life entering the suburbs on the outskirts of Memphis, they’d both had enough.  A six hour stretch had taken them over eight and the stress headache was apparent through the creases etched across Louis’ forehead.  

“I don’t think we’re too far from Graceland,” Harry piped up once they had rolled up to the parking lot of a Walmart Supercenter and parked next to curb circled tree.  

“I’m not really in the mood, to be honest.”  Louis rubbed his eyes and then pressed his fingers against his temples when he had reclined the seat as soon as he’d turned off the ignition.  

The downpour against the exterior of the car was louder than the hum of white noise, but the crinkle of the worn and outdated Rand McNally atlas still seemed deafening against it each time Harry turned a page.  It was an older version from the house that had gotten wet at some point, the pages wrinkly and stiff after having seen better days. He remembered using the same one for geography assignments in elementary school which definitely gave it some age.  

“I think it closes early, anyway,” Harry answered offhandedly, looking at the maps of each state and section like he was reading a magazine for no purpose other than to do something with his hands.  

“Are we there yet?” Louis groaned as he shuffled around to find a more comfortable position after sitting for so long.  

“I told you I could take a turn driving for a while.”  

“Yeah, right after you asked me how I could see where we were going.”  Louis rolled his eyes and huffed, digging around for one of the pillows in the backseat.  

“It was raining really hard and I couldn’t see the lines!  I was trying to get you to pull over.”

“We’ll never make it there at this rate.”

They really had made more stops than necessary through the storm, munching through most of the snacks in the cooler within their first few hours and making excuses for numerous bathroom breaks as they passed through the small towns.

“That’s part of the adventure, Lou.  We’ll get there when we get there. Better to be late and arrive in one piece.”  

“God, you sound like momma,” Louis groaned and pressed his face down against the pillow.  

“Sometimes she has good advice!” Harry grinned and glanced over before shuffling around to rest his feet up against the dash.  

“I’m going to need you to shut up now so I can sleep off this headache or I’ll have to kill you.”   

“Go sleep in the back then,” he gestured with a nod of his head, perfectly content to examine the road systems of California.

It took awhile, but eventually Louis took his advice and climbed into the backseat, light snores filling the car soon after.  Harry just smiled to himself and, once he was bored enough, went to explore the aisles of Walmart.

Some Advil for Louis, four cheap pillows and some junk food later, Harry returned to the car and used the break in rain showers to change into some loose gym shorts in preparation for their first night in the car.  There really wasn’t enough room in the cramped back seat for either of them to be comfortable, but with the extra pillows combined with the ones they had brought to fill in the floor space gap, it really wasn’t so bad.  

With only a small amount of shuffling around, Harry was able to wedge himself in next to Louis who only groaned his protests until they were settled.  The edge of the seat was uncomfortably pressed against his hip and his legs were drawn up at a strange angle, but he was sure he could make himself fall asleep eventually.  If not, he could always attempt to get comfortable in the passenger seat even though the lever to recline it was broken.

“What time’s’it,” Louis mumbled as he wrapped an arm around Harry’s middle in an attempt to make them fit.  

“Nine.  We can get an early start if we can’t sleep.”  

“Mmkay,” Louis mumbled and nuzzled his nose around until he found the perfect spot against Harry’s neck.  The small space began to smell with the sharp sweetness of Louis that made Harry feel warm and happy, comfortable despite the humidity that would have him sticky with sweat on any other occasion.  He reached up a hand to make sure the door was locked and then snuggled back, content and sleepy in the corner of the Walmart parking lot.

—————

Harry didn’t have to open his eyes to know it was still the pitch black of night– aside from the street lamps illuminating the parking lot anyway.  There was just a feeling to the hours before the sun had even started to rise, something that Harry had always been able to sense in his bones.

Louis was breathing in long and purposeful breaths against his skin, the roots of his hair prickling at the feeling of being so deliberately scented and causing him to stir.  It wasn’t unpleasant, quite the opposite actually, and he tilted his head and pressed back against the feeling to give Louis permission to take advantage of the space. There had only been a handful of times, but it wasn’t the first that Harry had enjoyed having Louis exchange scents.  It made him feel hazy and high, especially in the space either just before or just after sleep and he always gave himself up to it. Even when they had been fighting.

It wasn’t until Louis’ breath hitched that Harry noticed that he was hard, the stiff line pressing against him through his thin shorts from behind.  They had woken with morning wood together before but not since Louis had presented and shied away to his side of the bed. The secrecy, or maybe the shame, was what made Harry more curious.  

They hadn’t had many conversations about the changes in Louis’ body and, while he knew it wasn’t his business, there were so many things Harry wanted to know.  That first morning it had looked almost painful to see the bulging knot and he hadn’t seen it since to know if it was still the same angry red it had been every time or if it became less irritated the more times it happened.  He wanted to know what it felt like and how it was different, if he came harder or if it was more difficult. He wanted to know if he knotted every time he got off or only certain times, how long it took for it to go down and if it made it awkward or more exciting.  

Just thinking about it was causing Harry’s own dick to thicken, subtly pressing himself back until he could feel Louis’ dick trapped perfectly between his crack and Louis’ belly.  He wondered what it would feel like to be knotted by an alpha, whether it would be uncomfortable or downright painful. There weren’t a lot of gay alpha beta couples, but he was sure that they existed somewhere in the world.  Maybe he would have a chance to try it once he was settled at school, find an alpha for a one night stand just to quiet his curiosities.

The idea of the boring beta beta sex he would be stuck with for the rest of his life seemed less exciting than it had when he was first discovering what sex even meant.  He would probably always have knot envy as long as Louis was out there having better and more intense experiences than him.

He wanted to reach back and at least feel out how it felt when a knot popped, how firm or soft it was, how big it would feel in his hand.  He wondered if Louis would let him touch it.

He let out a small whimper of a moan and tried to convince himself that he was only turned on from not touching himself in the stressful days planning and packing for their trip.  It was only natural that all the pent up arousal hit him at once now that they were finally on their way. If he could make it to the front seat, maybe he could jerk off before Louis was awake enough to realize what was happening.  Louis body was just so warm and comfortable, though. Making his body pull away felt more difficult than pulling two strong magnets apart.

Once he finally gathered the motivation to give his dick the attention it was craving, he felt Louis’ arm tighten around his middle, holding him in place to rock his hips forward.  Even if Louis’ actions were just sleep induced, Harry figured it didn’t matter if he just took care of himself right there. He reached down to squeeze himself for relief, awkwardly holding his arm out so it didn’t rest against Louis’ that circled him.  

Louis moaned and pulled him closer, nose snuffling around his neck while the hand that had been splayed out over his chest began to move south.  Harry felt a flutter of nerves low in abdomen that made him painfully aware of how close the warm hand was to finding him out. He wasn’t expecting it at all when Louis’ fingers wiggled under the elastic waist of his shorts and boxers, fingertips not stopping until they were touching the base of his shaft.  He held his breath while the fingers circled him and squeezed gently while a breathy moan hit his ear.

It was so good that his body felt like it was shaking and the air in the car had turned so sweet he could taste it.  It was like a collection of erotic fruit picked especially for him, the whole sensual experience making his dick harder.

He didn’t need much encouragement to help once Louis started to push his shorts down, shimmying them down to just mid-thigh in the awkward position they were it.  It was enough to have Louis’ naked cock rest between his cheeks and Harry wondered how long Louis had been rutting against him bare.

The glide was smooth and wet which was a strange and new sensation.  Harry wondered how Louis had produced so much precum or if maybe he had hidden away some lube somewhere close though it was warm and not chilled like the bottle in his room always felt.  Either way it felt so sensual and intimate, skin sliding against skin while a hand that wasn’t his own stroked him at the same pace. His mind was scrambled with it.

After a few attempts, they found a rhythm, Harry’s hips thrusting into Louis’ hand and then back against his dick in a subtle motion that never separated them.  Harry had never been so on edge and it was embarrassingly short lived when he felt the familiar pressure building up in his groin.

“I’m–” was all he was able to get out before he was spilling all over Louis’ hand and the new pillows in front of him.  It felt so good but not good enough to distract from feeling the studder of Louis’ hips. Louis’ messy hand pressed flat against his stomach and pulled them so tightly together that Harry could actually feel the moment that Louis’ knot popped, bulging against right up against his hole with a teasing pressure just a few seconds before the hot spurts splashed against his back.

Louis had filled the car with the smell of sweet apples but it was nothing compared to the sharp, bright scent of citrus when he came.  It was rare for betas to pick up on scents beyond basic genders, if even that, but then Louis was a fox. Foxes were known for their odors since they had especially strong pheromones and extra scent glands.  Harry had always been able to pick Louis out of a crowd, something he’d always attributed to spending so much time together. Louis had always said he was able to scent out Harry as well.

As lovely as Harry found the new scents, in such a small space, he quickly became overwhelmed and reached up to crank the window down a few inches.  He also hadn’t realized how stuffy and humid their activities had made the car either until the cool shock of fresh air cleared his mind.

Louis was already settled behind him, soft snores puffing against the back of his neck as they had when they first settled down to sleep.  He had so many questions, but it was clear he wasn’t going to receive any answers that night. Louis’ knot was still pressed up against his crack, defined at the base of his dick every time Harry pressed back against it.  It was hard to not imagine them locked together in this position after a heated round of sex, coming down together while they waited for Louis’ knot to deflate.

He shook his head when he started to get hard again, trying to talk himself out of those intimate images with his brother– kind of.  They weren’t related and maybe those were Louis’ thoughts as well. Whatever they were, he would find out in the morning.

—————

Several hours in, Harry stared straight at the road ahead of them and spoke.  

“So are we not going to talk about it then?”

“Talk about what?” Louis asked, glancing over while his fingers tapped along with the faint song playing over the radio.  

“The fact that you jerked me off this morning?”

The car jerked towards the center line and Louis scrambled to correct it, thankfully keeping them on the road.  “What??” he squeaked, voice high and panicked while a deep red blush rose on his cheeks, “I did WHAT?”

Harry stared at him like he was crazy, lips parted as he tried to make his brain form any words at all.  His mind had run through possible scenarios since Louis had jumped in started the car like any other morning, told Harry to find some tunes just like their drives to school, had gone through the McDonald’s drive thru and ordered them the greasiest breakfast he could from the value menu.  Had his own mind conjured up the whole thing in some twisted form of self deceit? But no, he had cleaned the evidence from his body with wet wipes while he had been very much awake, had done the same to Louis’ hand that had nearly been superglued to his stomach.

“You jerked me off while you knotted against my ass?”  Okay, so that wasn’t quite as eloquent as it could have been, but it was still the truth.  

“Was I talking in my sleep or something?” His voice was so tight and high that Harry wanted to laugh, sounded so panicked that he would have if he hadn’t been the main subject of the cause.

“Just kind of moaning about how good I smelled, but I don’t think that was in your sleep.”  

Louis’ cheeks had grown so red that Harry wondered if they would be the same colour as a tomato if he held them up side by side.  

“Oh my God,” Louis groaned, his knuckles white as they gripped the wheel.  

“I mean, it was mutually beneficial.  We both got off so I’m not mad or anything,” Harry shrugged and started to pick at the section of the seatbelt that had started to fray.  

“I knotted your ass??”

“No, you knotted against my ass.  Do you really not remember?”

Coming down from the initial shock, it was starting to sting that sexual acts were so inconsequential to Louis that he didn’t even remember them.  How many times had he done the same thing that Harry was just another orgasm in a faceless sea of people to him?

“I thought it was a dream,” Louis answered softly, shifting uncomfortably in the driver’s seat.  “I’ve been having so many sex dreams that I thought it was another one. Oh my God… I can’t believe…”

It was Harry’s turn to be embarrassed.  If he hadn’t brought it up, the elephant in the room would have dwindled to the size of a mouse, a pleasant memory he could have called on when he was feeling alone without having to worry about motives.  Instead, they were addressing it and it felt just as awkward as the day they had wrestled, but this time Niall wasn’t there to distract him.

“We don’t have to talk about it.  I just thought maybe you were mad it happened or something so you were trying to pretend it didn’t happen.”

“Harry… I think– Can we–”

“No, it’s fine, we don’t need to talk about it,” Harry cut him off with a wave of his hand, turning to stare out the window at the passing countryside.  He tried to ignore the defeated sigh from the other side of the car and rested his forehead against the cool window. One step forward, two steps back. He couldn’t help but think that by the end of their trip, he’d be trailing so far behind that Louis would hardly be a shadow.  That was the opposite of what he hoped would happen.

—————

The rest of the day was laced with quiet tension that kept Harry feeling on edge.  He nearly pissed himself as they passed signs for the Mark Twain National Forest, too anxious to break the silence to tell Louis that they needed to stop.  

When they arrived in St. Louis, they navigated into the city and found a parking spot near the arch, both of them getting out to see the landmark without more than a few words spoken between them.  They waited in line for the tram ride to the top only to find out that tickets were already sold out for the day.

“Guess we might as well keep going,” Louis finally said, peering up at the arch with eyes squinted against the sun.  “I guess we can say we’ve seen it. We can try on the way back.”

“Yeah, I guess.”  Harry kicked some loose pieces of concrete with the toe of his shoe, shoving his hands into his pockets as he turned back towards the car.  

It wasn’t normal for Harry to feel so moody and the emotional swings he’d been experiencing over the past month were starting to feel exhausting.  He wanted to blame it all on Louis’ behaviour since presenting– which didn’t help– but deep down, Harry knew there was something else at play. Always someone to advocate trusting gut instincts, he wasn’t sure he was even trusting his own.  Something didn’t feel settled and it made him question every decision he had made about finding his family and planning the trip. He was constantly picking fights with Louis one moment and then clinging to him the next, filled with overwhelming jealousy in one breath and being content.  

Sometimes he didn’t even feel like himself anymore.  

They had started early so they decided to keep pushing, grabbing another round of cheap fast food for lunch on their way out of town.  The awkward tension between them seemed to be swelling, suffocating them until Harry nearly choked on the bitter edge of it.

Somehow he managed to fall asleep as soon as they reached the Iowa border and awoke with a sore neck and a headache the next time they stopped to fill the tank.  

“Only about an hour or so to go,” Louis said while he leaned against the car once Harry had opened his door.  

“You should have woken me up,” Harry rubbed his eyes and stretched out.  His skin felt uncomfortable and itchy, extra greasy from the recycled air in the car for so long.  He was in desperate need of a shower.

“Naw, I was fine.”  Louis pushed himself off the car when the pump clicked as it cut off, replacing the nozzle and screwing the gas cap back on.  

“Want me to take the last stretch?”  His joints creaked and cracked when he stood up, but felt good once he was finally on his feet.  

“No, I don’t trust you,” he replied.  Harry frowned and placed his fists on his hips.  “You’ve insisted on taking the wrong turn more than once and I was right every time.  So I don’t trust you not to override my directions and get us lost somewhere in B.F.E.”

“I have not!” Harry started but then remembered that he in fact had.  “Fine. But I don’t want to hear about how you had to drive the whole way.”  

—————

“Uh, was that it?” Louis asked when suddenly found themselves on another bridge crossing over the Mississippi.

They had come over a hill and into what looked like a historic downtown and then they were past it like any other small town they had passed along the way.  

“No, that can’t be it.”  Harry twisted in his seat to look behind them as they crossed the tall bridge but nothing had magically appeared since they’d gone through.  

“I think that was it.”  

“Turn around and go back!”

“I can’t, Harry.  We’re in the middle of a huge bridge over a huge river.  I can’t just make a U-turn.”

“Here, let me get directions to my aunt’s house so we can get settled in and we can explore later.”  

The sun had started to slide lower in the sky as they approached their destination and it wouldn’t be long until they’d be trying to find their way in the dark.  

“We’re not going over there now.  We’re getting a hotel tonight.”

“What?  Why?” Harry looked up from where he had been searching for the addresses he had saved in his notes.  

“Because, Harry.  I’m not going to stay with strangers, especially when Niall won’t even get here until tomorrow.”

“Why didn’t we stop somewhere else then?” Harry could feel Louis’ growing irritation and it was agitating him as well, his hackles starting to rise.  

“Because there was nothing else to do in St. Louis!  You were there! That’s where we were going to stop!”  Louis’ voice grew louder with every word and it felt amplified in the small car.  

“Can you calm down??  Did you see any hotels back there?  We went through the whole damn town!”

“I thought that “can’t be it”,” Louis mocked, making air quotes with his fingers.  

“Fine!  Find a hotel then!”  

His feet made a loud thump as he raised them to rest on the dash though it ended up being closer to a kick.  His arms crossed over his chest didn’t help to dampen his tantrum, but he hadn’t been the one to start it. Harry hadn’t willingly brought Louis on this trip to spend the whole time bickering over stupid things.  They could at least be fighting about what the handjob had meant and why Louis had wet dreams starring him. That would have at least brought out some answers.

Louis found a place to turn around once they had crossed the bridge and made their way back over into town.  

“Ha!  Right there!  Hotel Julien.”  Louis pointed to a grey sign just off the road next to a building that looked more like an apartment building.  

“Sounds expensive,” Harry muttered.  

Louis still turned off on the next exit and circled around to pull up to the diagonal parking along the side of the building.  Harry made a move to get out of the car but Louis stopped him.

“No, you stay in here.  They’re not going to let someone underage check into a hotel.”

“I’m not underage!  I’m still eighteen! Do the math!” Harry protested, the driver’s door slamming over his words.  

It was true that his real birthdate made him younger than he had always thought, but they had started going to public school a year later than most of the kids in their district after the officials had decided that homeschooling kindergarten didn’t count and rejected their registration to enter first grade.  Now Harry knew that he had actually started on time.

“You have to be 21 to get a room apparently,” Louis grumbled as he flopped back into the car and started the engine.  

“So we aren’t getting a room, then?”

“No, I somehow sweet talked the lady into giving me one.”

Harry rolled his eyes.  Of course he’d used his magical alpha charm to bend the rules.

“So how much money did you blow?”  He couldn’t help the bite in his tone.

“Calm down.  It was only a hundred.”

They pulled into a parking space and Harry was the first one out and around to the trunk to pull out his bag.  The need to shower had only intensified over the last hour and being pent up in a small box of tension hadn’t helped.  

The lobby was grand, Harry had to admit that.  It felt a bit like stepping through time when they walked in, an elegance to the place that chain hotels never seemed to put the effort into anymore.  The woodwork was a beautiful colour and the soft seating was covered in dark statement patterns. He felt like scum walking through to the elevators with gym shorts and greasy hair with a worn out duffle thrown over his shoulder.  

The room was just as nice, but he didn’t take the time to admire it with the shower screaming out his name at a deafening level.  

Even after napping away most of the afternoon, Harry still felt drained as he fought the urge to sit down on the shower floor in the midst of the steam.  It seemed that spending any amount of time with Louis was draining anymore. They used to be inseparable.

His mind replayed all their arguments as he stood under the hot water, hair plastered to his face and skin turning pink.  It didn’t seem right to explain away their bickering with the idea that they had just grown apart. Harry knew they owed their friendship and bond more than a write off of coming of age.  It was all still there in the short windows that they let their walls down.

Even if Louis had thought he had been asleep that morning, in his dream he had still known it was Harry.  He’d still scented him unabashed, still pulled him closer, still wanted him there. They’d never been shy about their dicks before, jerking off in the same room or the same bed something they’d found came naturally with sharing such close space.  They’d even watched the same porn together on more than one occasion, not even flinching when they ended up coming together.

What happened in the car shouldn’t have felt any different than any of those times yet it definitely had.  

Harry hadn’t been able to keep the images from popping back into his mind the entire day, the way Louis had moaned against his ear echoing in his head and causing goosebumps to rise every time it did.  It was getting harder to convince himself that it was just because Louis’ hand was the only hand other than his own that had ever been on his dick, convince himself that it was only because he was knot curious.  

But then he couldn’t even conjure up an excuse for why his dick twitched every time he caught a hint of citrus lingering in the back seat.

Of course the hotel just had to supply them with Bath & Body Works White Citrus shampoo, the reminder making him hard before he had even squeezed enough onto the palm of his hand.  He tried his best to ignore it, tried to think about things that were the opposite of sexy, but the memory of Louis’ knot pressed against him, warm and wet, and the scent as he came was too overwhelming to ignore.  His cock demanded his full attention and his sudsy hand obeyed the commands without his permission. The glide was smooth and slick, just like Louis’ dick had been as he rutted against his crack, and he came hard with Louis’ name rolling off his tongue.

As soon as his dick was satisfied, the shame of his actions came rolling in like a thunderstorm.  Louis had never been anything but his brother and now he’d gotten off to him twice within twenty-four hours.  Worse yet was the guilt, the guilt of not feeling as disgusted with himself as he knew he should. The guilt that he wanted to relive it all again.  

He couldn’t bring himself to use the conditioner lest he have another flashback so he turned off the water and wrapped himself up in a towel with the images and emotional turmoil still bumbling around his head.  

—————

Harry was texting an overly excited Niall while Louis flipped through the limited cable channels after they had both showered and settled in.  

“Niall should be here around mid-morning if we want to go meet at his mom’s,” Harry said through a yawn, crossing his ankles at the foot of the bed.  

“I was thinking I might just hang out here,” Louis said, not even pausing his channel surfing.

“What?  Why would you do that?”

They didn’t even have the hotel room for more than one night.  How was Louis going to hang out at the hotel all day? What would he even do?  

“I don’t really want to go hang out with some stranger all day.”

Harry stared at the side of his face incredulously.  “He isn’t just some stranger , Lewis.  He’s my cousin and then there’s my aunt and my nan.  That’s the whole reason we came here !”

“I don’t see why it had to be you coming all the way up here.  Niall could have easily come to visit you.”

“Because everyone is here!  My whole family is here! I’ve spent my whole life wanting to know my biological parents and now that I’m finally here I want to make the most of it!  I want a chance to see where I came from!”

“And where are your parents, Harry?  Where are they? Haven’t heard a peep out of them, have you?  They could be shitty people, Harry! Horrible redneck drug addicts just waiting to take advantage of you and your eager puppy innocence!  You’re so blinded by this need to know the people who abandoned you that you can’t even accept the possibility that this is a stupid fucking idea!”

They were standing somehow, shouting at each other across the bed when only a moment before Harry had been inches from sleep.  The blast had been unexpected but the fire seemed to only be starting and even though Louis started it, Harry did not want to be the one to put it out.  

“How fucking dare you!  You were on board with this until something crawled up your ass over the past thousand miles!  Now you suddenly think these people are going to rob you and leave you beaten on the street or something??  I haven’t spoken with my parents yet because I HAVEN’T ASKED TO. Maybe I wanted to keep something special like that to experience in person!  I thought you understood that, I thought you wanted to be here with me, I thought you wanted to be part of it. You said you did. You said you wanted to be here.  You were just fine having a farting competition with Niall over the phone last week and now you just suddenly decide he’s dangerous??”

“I thought maybe just talking on the phone would be enough, that just knowing who they were would be enough.  I thought you’d remember where home was before we even left the state. I don’t know!”

“What the FUCK is your problem?  Of course Louisiana will always be my home, you will ALWAYS be my family.  Do you ever listen to me?? I wasn’t just given up for adoption, I was fucking found washed up like some fucking message in a bottle brought in with the tide.  Except there WAS NO MESSAGE! I never even knew my own birthday until a few weeks ago! And you want to stand here and insult the people who lost me? Who never knew what happened to me?  Who thought I was dead?? Because WHY, Louis? Why can’t you be happy for me? Why can’t you support me??”

“Because I don’t want to lose you to them because I’m in love with you!!” Louis screamed with his fists clenched at his sides, his whole body shaking for a moment until the whole room froze over.  

They stared at each other in different stages of shock, the words like a sharp slap to the cheek.  Time began to move one tick at a time, Harry’s brain firing at random as he tried to make any of it make sense.  

“Oh that’s rich,” Harry seethed through clenched teeth, eyes narrowing and muscles tightening throughout his whole body once he’d recovered from the stun gun-like attack of words.  “I don’t know what your game is here but that is fucked up to throw that at me. You think I would just drop everything because of some crazy declaration?? Like you would ever settle for a male beta relationship, like you would ever want one.  You’ve been hard up for an omega ever since you popped your first knot.”  

“YOU’RE OMEGA, HARRY!!” Louis screamed at him in frustration.  Harry just scoffed and rolled his eyes, tried to distract from the pressure of tears building up as everything became overwhelming.  “You ARE! I can smell it on you all the time! I’ve never been able to scent anyone as strongly as you and it drives me fucking crazy!  Do you know how hard it is to even sleep in the same bed as your scent every night!?”

“Why are you doing this?” Harry’s voice shook with the tears that had broken loose.  Of all the insensitive things that Louis could throw in his face, Harry never expected a jab at his gender to be one of them.  Louis had always teased him about almost everything but always in good fun, never with things that cut him down, never with things that would hurt him.  Harry was barely a breath away from sobbing.

“I don’t want to be part of some beta omega roleplay kink just because you don’t think you’ll find one,” Harry sniffed, well past the point of ugly crying at just the thought of being so degraded.  Louis had always commented on how soft his features were, how slight he had been when they were kids. It was probably all too easy for Louis to look at him and imagine what it would be like if he were omega.  Maybe Louis had been so moody because he knew Harry would never be more than a beta substitution.

“YOUR SLICK WAS ALL OVER MY DICK!!” Louis seemed to be pleading with him but Harry couldn’t pretend to be what Louis wanted when he had only just started to want it himself.  He couldn’t play the role in Louis’ fantasy while Harry was on the other side wanting the real thing. Harry wasn’t even sure if he wanted the real thing.  Being knot curious didn’t mean he had taken the time to think about what it would be like to be O.  It had only been simple curiosity. Even if he had liked the slide of Louis’ wet dick against his ass, even if he had liked the way their scents had heightened and morphed and mixed together, even if his dick had twitched when he felt Louis’ knot– those were all things he would never experience as a beta.

“I can’t,” Harry sobbed with the loss of everything he would never have, with the pain that Louis could never have them with him.  He stumbled towards the door, vision impaired by his tears and wracking sobs that had started to take over his body and choke the air from his lungs.  

“Fuck!!  I kept waiting for you to tell me or figure it out!  I thought you knew!”

Louis voice followed him out into the hallway but cut off abruptly when the door slammed shut.  There were so many stairs and so many hallways and he tried to make it outside but somehow found himself crying in the middle of a crowded bar.  He was lucky that, with everyone so preoccupied with their own company, no one noticed the sloppy mess of a teenager having a breakdown.

There was a vacant high-backed chair in a secluded corner and he easily curled himself up in it.  In his dramatic exit, he hadn’t even thought about grabbing shoes and he hoped nobody would notice his bare feet in the establishment that surely required footwear.  After goosebumps rose over his arms as he shivered, he realized he’d also left the room in just some sweats that had been cut off into shorts and a threadbare West Feliciana High School track tee-shirt.

Though he had been born towards the north, Harry was, without a doubt, a southern boy.  Their farm house had never been air conditioned so he had grown accustomed to the heat down to his bones, body temperature unable to cope with even the idea of facing a real winter.  Even in the artificially dropped temperature of the bar he shivered without a hoodie to curl up in. He couldn’t go back to grab one, wasn’t ready to face the situation again.

He’d caught sight of Louis searching for him, sinking lower in his seat so he wouldn’t yet be found, but he couldn’t risk getting caught back in the room.  And he didn’t even have a key with him.

He discovered he at least had his phone when it started to vibrate against his thigh, apparently having shoved it into his pocket when everything imploded.  Of course it was Louis trying to call and he silenced the phone and put it on Do Not Disturb mode so fast his fingers were shaking.

The phone was ringing against his ear before he realized he had decided to call Niall and he tried to collect himself and calm his post-sob hiccups so he would sound at least half normal.  

“What’s up mah brother?” Niall answered in his usual boisterous voice that, now that Harry had seen the town, seemed out of place for Iowa.  

Harry opened his mouth to answer but instead it just became a sob, the muscles in his stomach aching from it.  

“Harry?  Harry, what’s wrong?” Niall’s tone immediately became serious and full of concern.  They hadn’t even met yet and already he knew that Niall was a selfless force that would come running to his aid.  “Are you hurt? Are you okay? What’s going on?”

The noise in the background of the call faded and he could tell that Niall had stepped away from wherever he had been.  

“I’m sorry.  It’s’stupid,” Harry’s words slurred together as he tried to control his breath.  “I just– just had a fight– a fight with– with Louis.” Each hiccup that interrupted his words was painful through his lungs and diaphragm and he felt so small in his loss of emotional control with someone else there to hear it.  

“Are you okay?  Listen, I’m at my roommate’s house in Madison.  I can be there in about an hour, okay? Where are you?”  

Harry could hear shuffling on the other end and he squeezed his swollen eyes shut so tightly it ached.

“No, don’t do that.  I’m fine.” Harry managed with only minor interruptions.  

“You’re not fine.  I’m coming. Where are you?”  

“At the hotel,” he sniffed and tried to discreetly wipe the snot away from his nose.

“Okay, stay there.  I’ll be there in, like, an hour.  Less if I speed.”

—————

Harry had mostly calmed himself down by the time Niall was calling to say he was outside.  Even for summer, the night air was cool and the pavement was cold against his bare feet. He looked around lost for a moment before he was hit with a wall of heat that wrapped around him and squeezed hard enough to crack a rib.  

“You’re taller than I expected, but I guess you’ll do.”

Harry couldn’t help but let out a small laugh at the first words spoken to him in person and wrapped his arms back around the solid and grounding body.  

“Hi,” Harry greeted as he tried to pull away but Niall kept the hug firm.  

“Nope, not done yet!”

Harry fell back into it easily and was smiling by the time they parted.  Niall held him at arms length apart by his shoulders, taking a good look before he started to pull Harry back towards his car.  

“Come on.  Let’s get you out of here.”  

There wasn’t much fight left in him and easily folded into the passenger seat, barely protesting when Niall reached across to fasten his seatbelt for him.  

“Where are we going?” he asked through a laugh, adjusting the strap over his lap that was just a bit too tight.  

“Just trust me, okay?”  Niall was confident but still gave Harry a moment to protest before backing the car out of the space.  

The streets and sidewalks were empty, only a few street lights and business signs showing any signs of life.  Maybe it was the lack of activity that made Harry zero in on the defeated figure sitting on the ground with his back up against the brick building.  If it hadn’t been so dark, Harry would have sworn they made eye contact, a long and lingering connection before the car started to roll down the street.  Harry would know that figure anywhere and, even as they drove away, it felt like a part of himself stayed behind right there on the sidewalk.

He tried to trust Niall but still felt a hint of apprehension until they pulled up to the entrance of a large tree-lined park and the purpose of their outing finally dawned on him.  

It was the middle of the night yet Niall didn’t even hesitate, stripping out of his shirt before he’d even fully climbed out of the car.  Harry had to admit that he was giddy for a chance to stretch his legs after being cramped up in a car for so long and wasted no time stripping himself down right there in the open.  

“Shall we?” Niall quirked a brow and then was off, shifting mid-jump into his fur to land on four paws.  

Harry only hesitated for a moment before doing the same, shaking his flank out as he settled into his own fur.  Niall’s coat was even more beautiful in person. The dull light of the moon still made the deep browns shine and emphasized the shift in colour, the tips of his ears almost white as if they had been frosted like his blonde hair.  

They took a few moments to get acquainted, circling each other and catching their scents so they wouldn’t be blind to each other once they took off.  It was strange for Harry to not be hit with the strong wave that came with foxes. Instead, he found that Niall’s was subtle yet sturdy, gentle and easy on his nose.  It was different, but he had to note that it was not preferred to that of Louis’. He tried to push that thought aside, the whole point of running to clear his head.

Harry’s whole body buzzed with the excitement of finally being able to run as an equal with a beast like himself, hot on Niall’s heels as soon as the chase was started.  It began with playful nips and short sprints, trusting Niall to keep him safe in unknown territory.

Niall led them through the trees until they parted into a wide and open green space, both tearing through the field at full speed.  It felt just like one of his dreams, looking to his side to see Niall at his level but with none of the oppressive energy or terror that had followed in his nightmares.  

They ran for what felt like hours until he found that they were back at the car, out of breath with exhaustion pulling at his muscles.  He flopped down beside Niall until they had both calmed down, Niall the first to shift back once they had.

“Been a while for me,” Niall pulled on his boxers and then began to rub at his knees.  “There’s not a lot of open space in the city like that.”

“Just a normal run for me,” Harry grinned and snapped the elastic of his shorts against his skin.

“You never told me you were O, too.  They say it’s more likely to run in families, I guess.”  

Niall was so casual when he said it that Harry almost didn’t register the gravity of what he had said.  When he did, his mind seemed to grind to a halt.

“Wait, you’re O?” Harry asked and watched as Niall looked over at him like he’d just asked the dumbest question.  “You just– you never said.”

“Yeah, of course I’m O.  Why else would I go to Loyola,” he replied like it was an obvious indication.  

Harry blushed, thinking of how he had become so defensive towards Louis for the same argument.  

“I don’t know, never thought about it I guess.”  He started to drag his big toe through the sand that had built up on the asphalt, biting his lower lip in embarrassment.  

“You at least should have picked up on it now.”  Niall rounded the car to lean on the hood near the spot where Harry was nervously fidgeting.  

“What?” Harry looked up and watched as Niall crossed his arms over his chest and measured Harry with a steady look.  “Oh, well, no I didn’t notice. I’m beta.”

“You’re definitely O, Harry,” Niall said with bit of a laugh, “Have you not started scenting yet?”

“What?  No I’m– I’m not–” Harry felt his cheeks heat up as he grew flustered and he was sure his voice had turned into a squeak.  “Have you been talking to Louis or something?”

“What?  No, I haven’t been talking to Louis.  Wait, is that what you guys were fighting about?”

Harry tried to look anywhere but Niall’s face, not wanting to see the pity or any hints that Niall might be in on this weird and cruel joke Louis was playing.  When Niall finally caught his attention, the expression he found caught him by surprise. It was one of kindness and concern, but most importantly, of patience and acceptance.  

“Harry, have you not presented yet?”

If it had been asked by anyone else in any other tone, Harry probably would have punched them in the face.  Coming from Niall, though–

“I–” he fish mouthed as he tried to find words, tried to insist that he was beta, tried to insist that they were both wrong.  

But.  But what if they weren’t?

If he was only beta, if he didn’t have the ability to scent gender, he wouldn’t have been able to detect the shifts in Louis’ scent.  But he had. That alone invalidated his own argument.

The scents, the jealousy, the pull to Louis, the arousal, the slick –

Harry whimpered at the thought.  

“I don’t know,” he finally whispered and looked to Niall with desperation.  

“Come here, I didn’t mean to cause a crisis.”  

Niall opened his arms and pulled Harry into a hug, rubbing his back gently until he stopped feeling like he might fall apart.  

“Get in, let’s talk.”  

Niall gently ushered Harry back into the passenger seat, going around to climb in himself.

“So you haven’t presented yet,” Niall started as he reached to his side and reclined his seat, resting his feet up on the dash on either side of the steering wheel.  “Is that what you guys were fighting about?”

“Yes.  Actually, no.  Kind of.” Harry bit his lip and took a breath to collect his thoughts.  “At the end, yes. I didn’t want to believe him and kind of said some things before I stormed out.”  

“Louis’ alpha, right?”  

Harry nodded and leaned his head back against the seat, closing his eyes against the image of Louis’ face trying to convince him.  It had all seemed like such bullshit at the time, none of it had made sense.

“So he tried to tell you and you fought about it?”

“No, we were fighting because he was being a moody dick about being here.  He was just trying to be difficult and said he didn’t want to come with me to spend time with strangers and how I’m too trusting and my parents must not be good people or must not want me since I haven’t heard from them and stuff like that.”  Harry sighed and then lolled his head to the side to look at Niall. “I’m sorry. He’s really not a bad person and he really does like you. He’s just been, I don’t know, moody lately.”

Niall was quiet for a long time, so long that Harry started to think that maybe the things Louis had said had upset or offended him.  When Niall finally tilted his eyes away from the ceiling to look at Harry, there was something hesitant there in his expression that immediately made Harry anxious.  

“Your parents…” Niall started slowly, tongue wetting his lips in the pause like it was the only way he could continue.  “I was never sure how to bring it up.”

Niall shifted in his reclined seat and started to search through a backpack, pulling out several notebooks and flipping through them until he finally found what he must have been looking for.  

“My mom sent me these but it didn’t feel right to just email them to you or something.”

Harry took the collection of loose paper, crumpled and creased like they had been tossed around in the backpack for a while.  It looked like scanned newspaper clippings of varying lengths that had been printed off in black ink.

Search Continues For Dubuque Toddler was the first headline to jump out at him, his heart beginning to thud rapidly in his chest.  He shuffled through the pages, his eyes picking out random sentences and names after reading the headlines.  He didn’t stop on any of the articles until one made his blood run cold.

More Dubuque Flood Victims Identified
The bodies of several flood
victims were recovered Tuesday, Sgt.
Mills announced during Wednesday
morning’s press conference.  They
were found miles down river from
their last known location.
Over 40 residents have been
reported missing since Sunday after
flood walls failed during emergency
evacuations of areas not initially inclu-
ded in flood zones. Two police officers
assisting with the evacuations have
been reported amongst the missing.  
Dubuque county coroner’s
office has confirmed the identities of
two of the victims as Annalise Styles
(29) and David Styles (30), both of
Rockdale Estates.  The young coup-
le’s two year old son, Harry, has not
yet been located.  

Harry had to stop reading.  His hand gripped the paper so tightly that it had started to crumple but his limbs felt numb like they were no longer attached to his body.  He’d known it was coming, had even told himself to be prepared. There was a headstone with his own name etched across it not even a handful of miles from where he sat at that very moment that told the world that he should be dead himself.  All logic had told him the names on the stone next to his without having to hear the words for himself. Every detail he’d learned from Niall led him to this same knowledge. It was nothing new .  

Yet reading the words printed out on paper somehow made it real .  Harry wasn’t prepared for real.  He wasn’t prepared to finally find his parents only to have them brutally ripped away from him before he even had a chance.   

He was so overwhelmed in his grief that he didn’t even realize he was sobbing until Niall began rubbing his back, coaching him to breath with a frantic edge to his voice.  He tried to get his body to cooperate, but he could barely even get his hands to work long enough fumble his phone from pocket.

It was a reflex to call the only person he ever did, the only person he ever wanted to talk to when nothing felt right.  He answered on the first ring like he had been waiting with his thumb held to answer.

“Harry!  Oh my God, I’m so sorry— Harry?  Are you okay? Where are you?”

Louis’ concern only made him sob harder, the emotional highs and lows of the night draining him to the point of no control.  Everything within him felt like it was coming undone and he didn’t have any strength to stop it.

“They’re dead, Lou!” he sobbed out but he wasn’t sure if he’d formed the words enough to be understood.

“H, calm down. What’s going on?  What are you talking about?”

Harry could do nothing but hand his phone over to Niall, hardly registering their conversation before Niall was buckling his seatbelt for him again.  

“Here bud, talk to Louis.”  Niall was pressing his phone into his hand, wrapping his fingers around it until he gripped it on his own.  

“H?  Harry?  Just hang on, okay?  Niall is bringing you back to the hotel.”  

Louis voice sounded pitchy and off over speaker phone in Niall’s car.  It just made him need Louis’ comfort that much more than he already had before.  He needed Louis to ground him, to hold him close and keep him steady while it passed.  

Louis was on him as soon as they had pulled up to the hotel, Louis flinging his door open and nearly climbing in.  

“Are you okay?  Are you hurt?” Louis seemed to be inspecting him, hands moving over his body and then up to cup his face, nose pressing against his neck to scent him desperately.  

As soon as he was satisfied with whatever he found, Louis helped to pull him from the car, Niall at his other side to keep him on his feet.  

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know he was going to freak out like this,” Niall was saying somewhere around him.  “I would have waited or something, I don’t know.”

“It’s okay.  I’ve got him.”  And Louis really did have him, strong arms wrapped around his body to keep him upright, cradling him close at the same time.  

“Shhh, I’ve got you,” Louis murmured as they made their way inside, the chill of the air conditioning helping to clear his head.  

By the time they reached their hotel room, the sun had started to peek over the horizon and Harry’s head had started to pulse in response to his violent sobs.  His hiccups had returned and Louis walked him to the bed, leaving him for only a moment to grab the box of tissues from the bathroom.

“I’m sorry,” Harry’s voice broke, fresh tears breaking free.

“Shhh, no, don’t say that,” Louis hushed gently.  “Lie down with me for a minute.”

Harry obeyed, following Louis’ coaxing to lie on his side with Louis’ body snuggling in close.  He felt the soft press of Louis’ lips against the back of his neck, each point of contact settling his body until he could finally breathe.  He linked his fingers together with Louis’ where they rested across his ribs and squeezed them in silent thanks even if he wasn’t able to voice it yet.  

The sun steadily rose and, though Harry was beyond the point of exhausted, he wasn’t yet able to fall into sleep.  

“I didn’t know,” Harry finally sniffed when the air around them finally seemed settled.  

“Didn’t know what?” Louis voice was gentle and soft, giving his hand a squeeze to continue.  

“That I’m O.  I really didn’t know.  Niall had to tell me.” He shifted back to mold himself closer to Louis, hoping he wouldn’t mind how needy he was.  

“I kind of figured that you didn’t yet.  I couldn’t figure out how you didn’t know, though.  I thought it was obvious and you were just trying to avoid telling me.  I thought maybe you knew how I felt.”

“No, I thought you were starting to hate me.”  Another sniff slipped out and he took a long breath in to calm it.  “That you didn’t want to be around me.”

“Never,” Louis replied softly, pressing another soft kiss to the back of his neck.  “Even if you don’t feel the same, I still want to be around you.”

“I don’t really know how I feel yet.”  Harry was scared to admit it but knew he had to be honest or they’d be right back to where they had been before.  “But I know that I love your scent and I really liked what we did.”

He wiggled around until he was at an angle that he could see Louis’ face, needing to see how he felt about Harry’s answer.  Louis just smiled down at him and pressed a soft kiss into his cheek.

“That’s okay.  That’s where I’m at too.  I just know that either way I don’t want to lose you and I’m really sorry for saying all those things about your family.  I guess I was just frustrated and took it all out on you.”

“I said things too that I didn’t mean,” Harry nodded.

“It’s been a little harder to control my temper sometimes since I presented.  Sometimes I know lashing out with things I don’t mean but I can’t stop myself.”  

“Aww, your alpha hormones,” Harry smiled up at him, reaching to rest his hand against Louis’ rough cheek gently.  He grinned when Louis blushed pink at the comment. “Baby alpha,” he punctuated with a bop to his nose.

“Stoppp,” Louis whined, their playful roles clicking easily into place again.  

“Looking back, I can see why I was moody too,” Harry admitted, “I mean, if I really am omega.”  

“Oh you’re definitely omega,” Louis nuzzled his nose down against Harry’s neck, making a show of thoroughly scenting him like an obscene AO movie scene.  “Never been so sure of anything in my life but then when you got so slick – I don’t know how you didn’t know.”

“I thought you had lube or something.  It had never happened before,” Harry flushed, squirming at the rush that flooded him from the memory.  

“I can smell it on you now.  Are you wet?” Louis asked in a dropped voice, hand possessively gripping Harry’s hip.  

He shifted his hips and blushed, thinking maybe he could feel slick gathering.  

“Yea, I think so,” Harry whispered, hand twitching at his side to reach down to feel for sure.  He could feel Louis getting hard against his thigh, and though they both weren’t sure where they stood, Harry wasn’t shy about his curiosity.  

“Can I feel your knot?” Harry asked and his own dick twitched when Louis’ breath hitched.  

“Yeah, okay,” Louis nodded easily, wiggling his shorts down to free his hardening alpha dick.  

Harry lifted his head, wanting to see what it looked like as he touched and his fingertips trembled as they lightly moved over the slight curve towards the base.  

“Does it hurt?” Harry breathed, gaining confidence to squeeze at it gently between his fingers.  He marveled at the way it gave under the pressure, not hard like he had imagined it to be.

“The first few times, not really any more.  More of an ache, really.”

Harry nodded and watched it swell slightly with his touch, eyes widening as he he felt a glob of slick pulse out of him for the first time.  

“I want to feel it, Lou,” Harry moaned, wiggling out of his own cut off shorts and reaching behind himself to confirm he really was getting wet for it.  

“Harry, I don’t know– I’ve never– I don’t think I could pull out,” Louis groaned and reached down to squeeze his knot, eyes rolling back.  

“Please,” Harry shuffled back against him again, reaching back to grab Louis’ shaft and guide it through the warm slick there.  

“Fuck, Harry, are you sure?” but the head of Louis’ cock was already pressing against his hole, breeching him as the question was voiced.

The stretch burned and Harry almost pulled away, in hindsight realizing that he probably should have started with fingers as the first thing in his ass.  But he was committed and horny and wet and it was Louis. He wanted it so badly, wanted to finally feel Louis knot knowing now that he was made to take it.

His body opened up for it, slick pouring out to aid the slide, and soon Louis’ hips were pressed tight against his cheeks and they were both panting.  

“Fuck, you feel so good, so wet, so tight,” Louis was mumbling against his neck, the grip he had on Harry’s hips bruising.  “I’m not gonna– fuck, I’m gonna knot!”

Louis’ hips frantically pumped against him uncomfortably and then he could feel the swell stretching his rim.  It burned and hurt as they locked together but the bulb also pressed against things that made Harry moan. It took a few rough pumps of his shaft but then Harry was coming too, feeling the pulse of Louis inside him for the first time.  

It had been short and sloppy and a bit awkward but Harry was okay with that.  

“Sorry, I guess maybe it was a little overwhelming for my first time,” Louis hid his face against Harry’s hair.  

“I still liked it,” Harry snuggled back against him and tried to find a position that didn’t make the stretch feel so uncomfortable.  It had been overwhelming for Harry’s first time too, but he already wanted to try it again.

“Harry, would you maybe want to try this out?  See if it works? I know we’re like– I know I’m inside you right now but I really think we could work if we had the chance.”  

“No more fighting?” Harry asked, twisting his head back to look up at him.  

“I can’t promise that, but I know that I want to go through this with you, meeting your family, going to college, all of that.  And I want to do it as us, try it as alpha omega. Do you want that, Harry?”

“Yeah, Lou.  I think I do.”