The Carpenter's Destiny_Family Secrets

by Noah Harris

  “You,” Dean grunted, turning his face to eye Mikael with a pointed stare, “Are just trying to get laid.”

  “And if I am?”

  Dean repressed a shudder as Mikael ground himself against his ass, “Quit it. You got laid last night, twice. I do not want to have to deal with burst, frozen pipes because someone couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

  “I’m not wearing any pants.”

  Dean laughed at that, twisting himself around to push Mikael on his back so he could straddle his hips. Mikael’s bright eyes caught the morning light as he gazed up eagerly at Dean. It was hard to resist that face, no matter how long they they had been together. They saw each other every day, had grown used to one another’s habits, and yet, their physical and sexual desire that drew them to each other had not waned. . Perhaps it would happen eventually, but it was just taking longer than other relationships. For Dean though, as long as Mikael looked at him like this, like he was the most erotic thing Mikael had ever seen, and was almost dumbstruck that he was seeing it, he didn’t think it would be anytime soon.

  “No, you aren’t,” Dean bent to kiss the man gently, appreciating the feel of Mikael’s muscles beneath his fingertips as he braced himself on his shoulders. “But we do need to make sure that our home has running water. And doesn’t end up with a few thousand dollars worth of plumbing problems that neither of us really wants to fork out for. Plus, I’m sure Apollo would appreciate not being woke up to the sounds of us having sex.”

  “Hey, we gave him that nice speaker system that he abuses the hell out of.”

  “True.”

  Dean had been proud of himself for that little gift idea too. After having seen the quiet man poking about his old music collection enough times, he’d had the idea to buy the Bluetooth system. Apollo had picked up on the use of the device quickly, and it had been one of the few times that Dean had ever seen the man smile openly. Once he was shown how to get even more music, Apollo was content within the confines of his room. For his part, Dean didn’t mind the constant presence of sometimes loud music, or the cost of more songs, if it meant that Apollo found something to be happy about.

  “You can get laid later.” Dean bent to kiss Mikael a final time before heaving himself off of the bed to find his clothes as quickly as possible.

  “But, it would warm us up,” Mikael protested.

  Dean threw a pair of jeans at Mikael, “You keep trying, but you’re still failing.”

  “Aw c’mon,” Mikael pouted, shifting his hips once more. Dean would give him credit for the way he had strategically placed the blanket across his lap. It drew attention to his long torso and strong legs, with the dark hair that Dean loved. The brat knew it too.

  “Put your clothes on, horndog,” Dean snorted as he yanked a heavy sweater over his head, fighting a shiver against the cold.

  Grumbling, Mikael tugged the pants under the blanket and began wrestling them on. Dean wanted to bend down and kiss the pout away, but he knew that if he did that, they wouldn’t be leaving the bed again for awhile; which was precisely what Mikael was angling for. When Mikael had to give up the fight and stand to jerk the pants up, Dean’s eyes roved his body hungrily, then promptly had to remind himself that there were pipes to deal with.

  Turning on his heels, he strode from the room just as the spare bedroom door cracked open and a hunched over Apollo peered out. Despite having been here for a couple of months, this was the first time Dean had ever seen him look genuinely sleep-rumpled. The normally stoic, and slightly intimidating man looked almost cute standing there with his hair sticking up in every direction, looking both sleepy and uncomfortable.

  “Furnace went out,” Dean told him, glancing down as Jax squeezed out through the open doorway to wiggle happily at his feet. “Gonna go get it going before it freezes us and the pipes out.”

  Apollo grunted something that Dean took to mean the groggy werewolf was crawling back into bed. He kept later hours than he and Mikael did, and this was pretty early, even for them. Dean craved his morning coffee but if he wasn’t going to allow himself to have a bout of morning sex, then he would have to hold off on the coffee as well.

  Mikael thumped behind him as they descended the stairs, “I’ll get the lighter.”

  “There’s some on the shelf on the way down to the basement, just start breakfast.”

  “Don’t want any help?”

  “I think I can manage a furnace just fine on my own, Mikael. If I need you to build a new one, I’ll be sure to yell up the stairs for you.”

  “Smartass,” and with that huff to carry him onward, Mikael disappeared into the kitchen as Dean strode down the stairs leading into the basement. Pausing, he leaned out to snag a lighter before continuing on. It was the sort of furnace that had its own igniter, but it didn’t hurt to have the lighter as well.

  Somehow it was even colder down below, and despite his layers of clothing, Dean shivered. The one thing he hated about this basement, even as a kid, was that the light switch was at the bottom of the stairs. Why no one had thought to add one at the top, where it would be smarter and safer was beyond him.

  Flicking the switch, he waited for the harsh glare of the lights, but instead, they did nothing. “Oh, come on,” he complained.

  Annoyed, he flipped the switch back and forth in a futile gesture, not optimistic that it would do anything. Hope flared in him for a moment as he spotted a flicker in one of the long bulbs. The bulb shone brilliantly for a moment, the intensity of the light greater than it should have been. Then with a crack and the sound of breaking glass, it and the other bulbs burst, Dean’s surprised yelp was almost lost amid the noise.

  “You alright down there?”

  Dean rolled his eyes, mostly at himself, “Yeah, just breaking shit.”

  “Uh huh, sure you don’t want me to come down there and help?”

  “It was just a power surge or something, Mikael. We’re gonna need to get more bulbs down here though.”

  “I’ll add it to your list.”

  One thing that Dean had recently instituted was a list for them to take with them any time one of them ended up going into town. Both of them were notorious for forgetting something on shopping trips, and Dean had begun to enforce writing down everything they thought that they would need, in order to have a list handy. For some reason, Mikael grumbled about it each and every time. Dean figured it was a pride thing; the inevitable alpha needed to feel as if he always had his ducks in a row. Even as organized as Dean could be, he knew there were times he was scatter-brained. He just had less pride issues admitting it.

  “Great, now I need to get the wiring checked out,” he grumbled as he stepped carefully over to the nearby shelf and snagged a flashlight. He had slipped on some thick soled slippers before leaving the bedroom, but he didn’t want to stumble around in the dark and end up with a particularly large piece of glass embedded in the slipper and ultimately, his foot.

  With the illumination of the powerful flashlight guiding him, he moved carefully, trying to circle around the scattered pieces of the broken bulbs. All he could envision was a hospital bill on top of possible plumbing and electrical bills. He wasn’t sure if miraculous healing was part of this whole druid thing, but he wasn’t really willing to slice his feet open to test that particular theory. Considering his normal random bruises and cuts from his work hadn’t seemed to heal any faster than they had before, he was even less willing to risk being cut by a shard of glass.

  Moving over the last of the debris while mumbling to himself, he opened the door leading into the small room that housed the furnace. It also housed the washer and dryer, which he seriously considered moving up to the main floor. If he was going to have to pay to fix faulty wiring, he might as well just pay to have the hookups moved upstairs at the same time.

  Cost was a bit of a problem for them, though neither of them had really talked about it. It wasn’t that they were in a difficult position financially. Barring any disasters, they could make
it to the next growing season without having to resort to boxed mac and cheese and cheap deli-meat sandwiches to make it through the winter. Between the added supplies given to the pack, plus having Apollo around, there was more money leaving than he had accounted for. He was also learning very quickly that Mikael’s appetite was shared by his cousin, obviously a werewolf thing.

  “Damn metabolisms,” he muttered as he crouched before the furnace, hoping to figure out where the pilot light was and get this over with. Truth was, all he knew about the thing was that it was some sort of all-in-one deal that heated everything, including the water. He’d done his research before buying it, and it was apparently the safest of all the options. So, he’d chosen it, not wanting to buy something this pricey that would just fall apart in a few months or potentially kill them. He’d splurged on the expensive option because he remembered how damn cold the winters out here always were from the few visits he’d had as a child.

  Grunting in victory at the discovery of the switch, he carefully eyed the instructions sticker beside the door. The last thing he wanted to do was blow himself, or the house, up because he didn’t know what he was doing. Thankfully, the unit had a safety feature that shut down the flow of gas if it detected that the pilot light had been out for long enough. He wasn’t even going to try to figure out how they managed that little trick, though he assumed it was something to do with computerized sensors.

  “Turn the flow of gas back on,” he mumbled to himself as he read over the instructions, working as he did so. “Allow the gas to begin flowing, then…hit the clicker thing…err…igniter.”

  All he was met with was the sound of the igniter clicking over and over in a fruitless and irritating repetition. Swearing low, he bent over to check that it was in fact sparking with each click. He could smell the telltale signs of gas being released but was dumbfounded that it wasn’t igniting, even though there was a spark. He moved to turn off the flow of gas.

  A whisper in the shadows startled him and drew his head around.

  “Mikael?”

  Silence met his question, and he knew that neither Apollo nor Mikael would have wandered down here without alerting him in some way. Snatching the flashlight up, he swiveled around, illuminating the doorway and the hallway beyond, but found nothing. Before he could call out again, the beam flickered, mimicking a strobe light, then, just as suddenly, returned to full strength. Perplexed, he stood there, watching while the light faded as though a shadow had passed in front of it and in the next instant he was plunged into darkness.

  “The hell?”

  He gave the flashlight a few whacks with his bare hand, not really expecting it to work but there was a certain satisfaction to venting his frustration at the object. Now he’d have to shout for Mikael if he didn’t want to navigate the dark, and now dangerous, hallway back to the shelf. He was far enough away from the kitchen at this point that it would be hard for anyone to hear him, and the house was so thick and well insulated he’d have to practically scream to be heard.

  His motion to stand was stilled by the sound of another voice from the direction of the hallway. The hair on the back of his neck and arms stood up as he strained his ears to listen. Now that he was paying attention, the voice faded once again and he was reminded just how much he disliked being in this basement alone. The place had always creeped him out as a kid, which was typical for children and basements, but he was beginning to appreciate just how much he hated it as an adult.

  “Mikael?”

  He raised his voice, but it was unnervingly quiet in the basement. It should have echoed off the hardwood and concrete, but with the flat quality of the sound, he might as well have called through a dense fog. A shiver crept up his spine as he stood slowly, gripping the now dark flashlight in front of him like a cross to ward off the inky black of the basement.

  It had to be his imagination, but he felt totally surrounded and his mind flashed back to the illusion of something passing in front of the flashlight. Take the past few months out of the equation, and he would have simply dismissed the feeling, and everything associated with it, as a flight of fancy. However, considering what he had learned about the state of the world since then, he wasn’t quite as sure about that now.

  More than ever before, he wished he could have summoned up the very strength and power he had used in his showdown with Nox by the cairn. Yet down here, among the dead wood and cold concrete, he couldn’t feel the faintest flicker of anything. He didn’t know if just being away from all living things would do it, or if he simply lacked the strength to pull on it from here.

  The voice came again, and this time he could discern the low, cold rattle.

  Death.

  Whirling toward the sound, he hastily stepped back, feeling the chill of the basement more intensely. Sweat broke out, even as the cold seeped into his skin and seemed to brush along his bones. The word repeated again and again, now coming from multiple directions. There was no rhyme or reason to the path of the voice, it simply swept around him at will, appearing wherever it wanted.

  “Fuck off!” His shout was even more muffled than before and did him as much good as slapping the flashlight had done, though it did make him feel better, more himself.

  War.

  “Death and war?” He repeated dumbly, taking another step back and colliding with the furnace. His skin was so frigid that even the cold metal of the furnace felt nearly warm in comparison. Whatever the hell this thing was, it wasn’t attacking him; scaring the shit out of him, yes, but it wasn’t a physical threat him. If he could at least make sense of whatever the hell was going on, that would be a step in the right direction.

  “W-what does that even mean? I know war is coming, and death happens in war,” he snapped at the voice, now feeling angry that something was screwing with him.

  War.

  Death. Death. Death.

  “Okay, death happens from war! I got it, what does that mean? What comes with war and death?”

  Deliverance.

  The last word was uttered right next to his ear and he immediately lunged away from the voice. Ice seemed to pierce him to the core as he stumbled, tripping over a pipe from the furnace. The sound had been unearthly, from something not human that had been dead yet unable to move on. His mouth was bone dry and tasted of dust and dirt, like the inside of a crypt.

  His elbow flared with pain as it smacked into the furnace, the sound of clicking accompanying it. Fire flashed beside his head coming from within the furnace, all of the gas catching in a single burst of heat. Yelping in surprise, he rolled away from the furnace, hitting the hard concrete with a slap of bare skin.

  It was only then that he realized he could see now, the flashlight was on and pointed toward the far wall, lighting the room. The pilot light of the furnace also flickered, and he could hear the machine coming to life with a dull roar. His heart felt as if it were trying to claw its way out of his chest as he glanced around wildly, trying to see if the source of the voice was still lurking. However, he was alone. Whatever had come in the dark had left with the light and warmth.

  Shivering, he gathered up the flashlight and the lighter, glancing over his shoulder with each passing second. He slammed the little hatch door closed and hustled out of the small room, making his way carefully but quickly around the glittering shards of broken bulb still littering the floor. Slamming the flashlight down on the shelf next to the others, he all but ran up the stairs and into bright hallway of the main floor.

  Immediately the smell of coffee hit him, followed by bacon, and the blessed sound of Mikael talking. He breathed deeply, taking in the familiar smells and smiling to himself. The hammering of his heart eased, and then leapt almost guiltily when he saw Mikael lean past the edge of the doorway to greet him. Immediately, his brow furrowed when he spotted Dean, the spatula in his hand suspended in mid air.

  “You okay?”

  Dean took a deep breath, glancing back toward the door which he closed carefully with his foot. He de
bated lying about it, denying what had happened and putting on a happy face. He’d never once tried to lie to Mikael before and a strong part of him couldn’t stomach doing so now. With another deep sigh, the story spilled from him in an effort to make sure Mikael knew every detail and to keep from having to relive the terrifying event.

  By the time he’d finished, the spatula in Mikael’s raised hand had fallen to point at the floor. Dean couldn’t help but wince at the bacon grease he could see dripping from it. Mikael, however, turned back to the food, looking both troubled and thoughtful. For a moment, there was only the sound of the coffee maker gurgling out the last bits of brewed coffee and the bacon, flipped to sizzle on the other side.

  “Was it an attack or something?”

  Mikael’s question gave him pause. Dean’s hand halted in its motion to grip the handle of the coffee pot. He thought about it for a moment before continuing to pull it free and pour himself a full cup. He was still fighting to shake off the chill that had invaded him in the basement. What he wanted was to go back to bed and curl up with Mikael until it went away, but he knew there was no getting away from this now.

  “No? I don’t know really. There was definitely plenty of malice in whatever that was, but it didn’t feel aggressive. Just… I don’t know… it’s weird, but it felt like it was mad, both the angry kind and the insane kind, but it also sounded really eager. There was an urgency to it, like it was forcing every word out.”

  Mikael transferred the food to individual plates, chewing on his bottom lip, “Like a warning?”

  “I could have done with a letter or an email, anything but a disembodied voice that made me feel like I was standing in the middle of an arctic snowstorm at midnight.”

  “Very specific of you, babe.”

  Dean stuck his tongue out, feeling a bit better with Mikael’s teasing, “Your sympathy for my harrowing experience is duly noted, oh great, supportive boyfriend of mine.”