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mercy-thompson-fanfiction · 4 months ago

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Hey! I really like your Alpha and Omega fics. You said that you take requests so if you ever have time could you write an alternate universe fic where Charles gets to spend some time courting Anna instead of immediately taking her to Montana (which is something he mentioned wanting to do in On The Prowl)

“No, you definitely cannot do that.”

Samuel’s voice was boiling over with amusement on the other end of the phone call as Charles described his predicament.

“And da said what?”

“Send her to Adam.” Charles closed his eyes, thoroughly defeated by the sound of his brother’s cackling laughter and his own predicament.

Over the moon infatuated, that’s what he was. He couldn’t get the look in her eyes out of his mind when he told her that he would be back. It was killing him not to already be back, but there were things to sort out and paperwork to handle now that Leo and Isabella were dead.

Anna. Brother Wolf reminded him of her name, as if he could forget any piece of her that she’d share. Mate.

“What does my sister-in-law want?” Samuel was laying this on thick for his benefit.

And yet, was good to hear him laughing. It put Charles at ease just as much as it put him on edge.

What did Anna want? He had only asked her a million times. She didn’t want to stay in Chicago, even with Boyd she was—not broken. Anna wasn’t broken.

She was hurting.

A pang of guilt struck him for having left her, but it was just as much for her benefit. The Omega settled the wolf, but Charles was finding the man a problem which was not something he was used to dealing with.

Gut instinct told him to take her with him. Anna was hurting and anxious in a pack that had caused her harm before. When he ran the idea by his da, he’d received a goofy grin—he could hear it in his voice—and a reminder that creating a situation where she was entirely dependent on him was manipulative and, given the circumstances, cruel. Same issue caused the next best thing (furnishing her apartment and putting food on the table) to be shot down. He got by with getting her a better job, but that had been against his father’s advice as well.

Because somehow being the reason she got the job was also detrimental to her mental health and general well-being. His brother had only just agreed with everything he had already had thrown back in his face by their shared parent.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t ask her?”

Charles had asked, and that was part of the dilemma, too. She hadn’t been in a good mind space when he’d suggested coming to Montana and then she had felt guilted into it. When she felt confident enough a few hours later, she brought it up again and said she might like to stick around a little longer.

Take a trip out to her family now that her nightmare was over.

That she didn’t want to stay in Boyd’s pack longer than she had to, but that following blindly just because he told her how he felt didn’t put her any more at ease.

“I don’t think, at this time, that she is of sound enough mind to make a decision like that.” Charles said finally. “And she feels she would like to learn a little more about it all before she jumps headfirst again. They kept many secrets from her. And that’s how it stands.”

“You mean to do this properly then,” His brother was definitely still grinning. “Da is right. Adam’s would be safest.”

Adam would be safest. Of course, there were still plenty of downsides. Adam was relatively recently divorced and unmated, so he was entirely unspoken for. Charles didn’t think Anna would find that to be a problem, but he certainly felt it was going to be a problem. Adam Hauptman was, as he understood it, not at all unattractive.

There was also the matter of that wolf there who had unsavory problems, Charles thought his name might have been Ben. Ben lived there, that was one to look out for.

Then there was his brother who Charles suspected wasn’t quite well, though his energy in this conversation suggested otherwise.

The image was already forefront on his mind of Samuel sitting far too close to Anna for Charles’ own comfort. He bit his tongue to keep from growling at the thought of Samuel’s arm around her in a vision that hadn’t even happened.

There was rustling on the other end of the line.

“Everything ok?” Charles came back down to earth for the moment.

“Can’t ever find anything in Mercy’s place. I’m not sure how she survived before I started putting forks back in their proper utensil slots.” Samuel snorted.

That explained the metallic clinking he was hearing, then.

And it also reminded him of another precarious detail about Adam’s and what sending Anna there entailed.

Mercy. Aptly named, if you looked at those whose lives she had touched, except maybe his brother’s.

“Where would she live?” Charles sighed finally, giving in.

They were both right. Adam’s would be safest short term, even if he wanted Aspen Creek to be best for her. He did hope it would be short term.

Samuel hummed some tune that Charles recognized innately but blocked out with his own thoughts.

“She could bunk with Mercy. Small room, but it might do her good to have a female roommate.”

“Mercy doesn’t do well with female wolves,” Rather, most female wolves didn’t do well with Mercy. “It would be impolite to ask her to put one up in her home.”

Charles suspected that might have been Leah’s doing and not Mercy’s own ability to get under everyone’s skin in a lovably, very-coyote fashion. Nonetheless, it would make Mercy uncomfortable.

And this was of course forgetting that Mercy was already sharing in more ways than one. Samuel had stolen her spare room and Adam shared her back fence.

Asking for more of her was in poor taste.

“Adam’s is out of the question even for a little?” Samuel tried. “He has a daughter she might like, you said she’s young. Adam would give her plenty of space and he wouldn’t step on toes.”

It didn’t matter if he wouldn’t “step on toes” so to speak. Charles would feel like his toes were being stepped on, regardless.

“If she was ok with it, maybe.” That was a lie and even over the phone his brother knew it and laughed, but this time it didn’t sound quite right.

Charles would circle back to that later when he had time to consider it.

“If you’re worried she can be stolen, maybe try wooing her a little better, brother.”

“Isabelle liked Adam.” Because his brain supplied the information.

Samuel laughed again, but this time for real.

“Isabelle would have taken any wolf with a heartbeat to her bed.” That was true, too. “If she hadn’t tried to sleep with him, I understand that she and Christy may have gotten along.”

Apparently, Samuel was calling to mind the same incident.

He was stuck at square one again.

“What do you want me to suggest?” Samuel sighed, but then he added, “Adam has a wolf who calls herself Honey. Her mate, Peter, is submissive. She could feel safe there.”

Charles knew Honey. She and Peter both were old, submissive wolves tended to live long lives, and they’d crossed paths a few times.

“Would Adam suggest it?” Charles questioned, thinking about the possibility very seriously.

There were boxes to check before they could even get that far. The Tri-Cities weren’t the perfect spot as far as location accessibility, but he could pull off the commute. He would happily pull off the commute for Anna’s sake.

Samuel said something along the lines of “probably” while Charles was lost momentarily in thought. Somewhere on the other end of the call was the distinct sound of a key scraping into a lock and the familiar “click” of said lock releasing before a door opened.

“Do you always lock Mercy out of her own home?” Charles asked just as Samuel was greeting his roommate.

Mercy stilled, he could tell without being in the room because he suddenly didn’t hear her. Any phone call he had with his brother was done intentionally when Samuel was either in the car or Mercy wasn’t home. She was prone to be a little skittish, their coyote.

Or, if he were being honest, she was more prone to being angry.

“Charles called to tell me some great news,” For all intents and purposes, Samuel sounded incredibly casual and unbothered by Mercy’s clear discomfort.

“Which is?” Mercy sounded not the least bit interested, but at least she took the bait.

“Family reunion, Mercy,” His brother told her. “Charles wants us to meet the new sister-in-law.”

Closing his eyes, Charles tried not to wonder if the kiss he had just heard was on the lips or on the forehead. It could go either way with Samuel and it wasn’t a relationship he needed all the information on in this moment. In fact, he was actively trying to stay out of it and hoped his father knew what he was doing.

They’d almost lost him already. Mercy might be a death sentence.

“Oh, Mercy, it’ll be like the good old days!”

Mercy had groaned.

Were there any good old days? Charles thought wryly about the crashed car and the peanut butter. There was the time she’d forgotten to close the pasture gate. Couldn’t forget the mystery of the missing left shoes. The disaster that was his father discovering Samuel and Mercy’s plot to run away—Charles still wondered where Samuel thought he would be able to disappear to that they couldn’t find him fast enough. Once upon a time, she had numbered no less than thirty-four toy ducks. There might have been more than thirty-four—they were currently numbered up to 1076, but they doubted there were that many. Only thirty-four were discovered.

Charles had been almost disappointed in Mercy at the time when he learned that they hadn’t been real ducks.

There was, of course, the Watergate Scandal. That might’ve been a “good old day”, he supposed with a small smile. The three of them had laughed, at the very least. Hundreds of tiny cups of water peppered the floor like little landmines. Mercy had started the trail at the front door and meticulously covered the entire home, including the basement stairs. They were pretty sure she exited over the garage and hopped down off the roof there, but Charles himself had never asked.

Leah’s scream of frustration could have been heard for miles when she came home the following morning. His father had come straight home from his business trip to see what the fuss was and to make Mercy clean it up. The Marrok then proceeded in through an upper story window thinking the water was only blocking the door.

He was wrong.

Charles and Samuel had helped Mercy clean up that prank. They might have indirectly been involved with the acquisition (and storage) of the millions of cups.

Memories of Mercedes were a strange combination of fond recollections of innocent pranks and then reminders of her delicate mortality and trusting nature. Those that fell into the latter category made him grit his teeth and wonder how none of them had succumbed to heart attacks or aneurysms. Surely, the frequency at which they’d had them should be deadly even to werewolves.

“Are the good old days in the room with us?”

Charles found himself hiding a smile from no one. He was alone in his home after all.

“We’ve had plenty of good times.” Was that an intentional double entendre or was Charles reading too deeply into a circumstance he still didn’t understand?

He couldn’t decide and thought maybe it would be best if he didn’t try and work that one out. He would come to learn more than he necessarily wanted to know if this all came to fruition.

“Wait, did you say ‘sister-in-law?’”

***

Very little went according to plan, as was typical with Mercedes Thompson. It was only a few weeks later that Charles found himself in the car with Anna on their way to Mercy’s trailer home.

Apparently, years of emotional abuse from the Marrok’s mate had not dampened her desire to help when someone needed it—even when that someone was a female werewolf.

“Oh, so she’s your sister!” Anna smiled brightly.

Charles’ heart warmed. He loved it when she smiled, the way her eyes seemed to sparkle and the edges crinkled upwards. She stuck her tongue between her front teeth sometimes, when she was trying not to laugh, and it was so obvious she was laughing anyways. It made him want to laugh aloud just from watching her.

“She might not like that comparison,” He shouldn’t have been smiling, but hers was so contagious. “Mercy didn’t have an easy time in Aspen Creek.”

That was maybe saying the least. He was sure Anna, of all people, would be able to get the story out of Mercy. Charles was an adult watching Mercy grow up, fairly complicit in how she was being raised. With Bryan and Evelyn, it had been ok, Mercy had grown up as normally as a coyote in a wolf pack could.

But then things had happened. Circumstances had changed. Lives were lost and Mercy was left stranded somewhere in the middle.

“And your brother doesn’t think of her the same way?”

“I don’t know what he thinks.” Charles admitted as honestly as he could. “Theirs is a unique history.”

Maybe not that unique, Charles thought while casting a sideways glance at her. Anna herself was little more than a child when she had undergone the Change against her will under horrifically traumatic circumstances. That was only a few short years ago and the years hadn’t proven kind to her in the least bit.

It was partly that reason, he supposed, that they were doing this—that he had even agreed to this. It wasn’t the age gap that upset him, theirs was tame by the standard of some others. It was the dynamic.

Charles didn’t consider himself a saviour by any stretch of the imagination and, truth be told, Anna had entirely saved herself from her biggest monsters. But she was fresh out of a situation where she had been intentionally made to feel weaker, to feel dependent on someone’s kindness, to cater to someone because of the dependency. He would be playing a dangerous game keeping her fed with a roof over her head, most especially in a town off the beaten path where she knew no one but him.

Safe. Mine.

Yes, he thought, very dangerous.

“And Mercy is a coyote, but you don’t know really how she is?” Anna recapped.

Not entirely, and he explained as much. Charles knew there used to be plenty of people like Mercy. He had met, he thought, at least one. Although, they hadn’t been a coyote.

He definitely would have known.

But he didn’t know what she was beyond the idea that others had once existed. Seemingly, the knowledge had disappeared with the people who would have held it.

There was a wave of sadness at the thought, one that Anna washed away with her own tsunami of peace.

“You said at home the spirits sometimes speak to you,” Anna began. “That they like you? They didn’t tell you what she is?”

“It would seem,” Charles smiled a little fondly at a memory of a coyote pup disappearing into the surrounding woods for a disastrously long and successful (for Mercy) game of hide-and-seek. “That they like her more.”

They turned, finally, upon the road Mercy’s home was on according to the address Samuel had sent.

It was one Charles already knew like the back of his hand. He had Mercy’s number memorized, too, if you asked him to recite it—both her shop and her cell.

And he’d throw in Margi’s for good measure if Anna were asking.

It wasn’t until they had parked that Charles realized that Anna had been the only person he had ever confided in about Mercy. It was possible even the coyote herself didn’t know how he felt about her. Samuel had always been the one to love kids. As he grew older, certainly as decades turned into centuries, Charles had come to assume that key part of his brother’s nature was why he’d taken to him despite all their centuries difference in age. Mercy, knowing her from practically-birth to sixteen and then even longer from afar…

He had come to realize sometimes the age difference in a family didn’t matter. Mercy was as much his sister as Samuel was a brother, even if she weren’t blood.

And—maybe most importantly—Anna wasn’t jealous.

Charles knew Anna was able to feel that way about him, and it had been incredibly satisfying to come to know it even if he discovered it at possibly the most inopportune time.

“Does Mercy know anything about me?” Anna asked him before they cut the engine.

She didn’t sound nervous, but her pulse had quickened and the adrenaline kicked in giving away her fear.

“She knows you’re important to me.” Charles tried to veil his frustration with the way his own brother had introduced the concept of Anna without ever speaking of her as a person by name. “And, through no fault of my own, she believes us to be dating.”

Or married.

“Well,” And she at least sounded amused now as her freckles nearly blended into her undeniably blushing cheeks. “We did go on one date, so I guess it could qualify us as dating.”

One date which had ended incredibly poorly with an attempt on his life which had fortunately missed but caused them to quickly return to her home and regroup before meeting Leo and his poor-shot of a mate.

“We could try again,” Charles suggested, “While I’m here.”

Anna smiled, tongue between her teeth because he himself had made her heart skip a beat.

“Yeah? I’d like that, I think.”

Even over the engine and outside the home, he could hear his brother’s cackle.

#not quite what was asked for #but I put this one off a long time #writing Charles stresses me tf out #mercy thompson series #fanfiction #patricia briggs #fanfic #mercy thompson fanfiction #anna x charles #charles and anna

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