Red Cherry (BL)

EDIT (11/02/2023) The book is now published free on my main profile so you can head on there to read it.

Jaxon stumbled absently out of bed, he had barely slept a wink all night.

He winced as he rubbed the back of his neck, he had woken up exhausted, as always, maybe he should call up Mae, the Pack witch, for a fresh supply of sleeping potions.

He had stopped wondering why he could never sleep well, he had always been one to stay up late and easily wake up early the next day but keeping up with studies in college had worsened his insomnia and now he spent most of his nights tracing the pattern on the ceiling or watching the night sky from an open window.

He was up with the sun again, dark eyebags staring back at him in the mirror from behind a curtain of wild, dark red hair…

He needed to get in to work for today, he had gotten a late night call that a couple bathrooms on the second floor had their heaters stop working and so he needed to fix that as well as a hundred other things that sprouted up every minute.

He bathed lazily, his eyes moving out of focus occasionally, thoughts everywhere.

He was too lazy to go about making coffee for himself so early in the morning and he didn't want to go down to the third floor, where the kitchens were at, that would take up more time than he could spare.

So he waddled out of his apartment in a loosely knitted sweater and for the first time in weeks, jeans, and that was only because it was the first thing he grabbed when he reached his hand in his closet.

Mae had strictly warned him against bringing his work home although his apartment was just a hallway or so away from his office but he had to admit, it did help him work out better sleep patterns… well, slightly better.

Absently he wondered who was on patrol today, either Leon or Darian, they usually walked him to his office, loitering around for a while like they expected fully armed men to break into his office.

He didn't have the time to keep complaining about their presences so he let them be, like he always did.

He had only taken a few paces past his door when a taller presence framed him, heated breaths tickling his nape as he heard the familiar raspy voice of Leon.

"Morning, Cherry, how did you sleep?" Leon asked, wrapping an arm around him, electric blue eyes fixed on him.

"Good, you?" Jaxon said in reflex, eyes down on his phone as he scrolled through emails that had popped up over the night, most from corporations or the like that the Pack had dealings with.

A vein ticked irritably on Leon's jaw, his eyes taking in Jaxon's wild red hair that he forgot to comb - again and the very evident bags under the shorter man's hazel-green eyes but he knew that Jaxon hadn't said that to lie to him, he was just distracted.

He was always fucking distracted…

Leon wanted the entirety of his attention on him!

"Meh." Leon shrugged, slipping his hand lower over Jaxon's hip, he leaned forward to whisper directly in his ear. "I could sleep better in your bed."

"Nope, you kick." Jaxon mumbled, his eyes still fixed on the screen of his phone. "Not going to happen."

"Yeah, you have a point." Leon let it go, his electric blue eyes fixed on Jaxon's face.

Frustration mounting even as they got closer to the Head Beta's office, Leon still could not believe how dense Jaxie was, if he weren't on the receiving end of it, he might have even found it humorous.

"You're frowning." He noted, glancing away from Jaxon's face for the first time ever since they started down the hallway. "Why?" He asked casually.

The 'I'll murder who did it in a heartbeat' was silent and not because he was worried about Jaxie reading deeply into it, that wouldn't happen with how dense the adorable Head Beta was.

Jaxon looked up at this, catching a flash of silver piercings. "A couple heaters in the bathrooms on the second floor stopped working last night and the plumbers say they don't have anyone free to come in today."

Leon held his gaze, expecting Jaxon to ask him to help, did he know how to fix spoilt heaters? That was not important, he wanted Jaxon to need his help, that was all that mattered.

Jaxon glanced away, giving his phone one more worried look. “I’ll probably have to find a way to manage the issue till a plumber is available.”

Leon bit his lip, trying to swallow back the words bubbling up. What was it about Jaxie that made him want to do anything just to ease him? Because here he was about to offer to fix the heaters when he didn’t know shit about plumbing.

“I could take a look at it if you want.” He offered casually, opening the door of Jaxie’s office so he could go in.

Jaxon threw a bewildered look over his shoulder. “You don’t know how to fix things.” He reminded in a voice that held no blame but it just served to rile up Leon the more.

The ease at which Jaxie riled and calmed him down in split seconds should have made him keep his distance but Leon didn’t claim to be as smart as his twin.

“It’s just a broken heater, Cherry.” He answered in a dry voice, vein ticking.

Jaxon gave him a look. “And you are the Head Warrior, I don’t think that’s a part of your job description, I’ll handle it.” He waved away the other’s offer, settling on his chair and immediately firing up his system.

Leon slid into a chair, lounging gracefully. He had been expecting Jaxie’s reply because the Werewolf was so independent, he preferred to do everything himself and it wasn’t that Leon was worried about his inability to handle it, it was that Jaxon was overworked but he still refused to freely receive help.

Most of the things he helped the other do was just him going ahead to do it and when Jaxon complained, he ignored till he wore him down.

So yeah, he probably shouldn’t but he would go ahead and try to fix the heaters, because he was a stupid sap like that.

“Virgil mentioned something about the Luna going shopping with his half brother today.” Jaxon spoke up after a few moments of silence that had been filled up with quiet clicking of keys and paper shuffling.

Leon didn’t mind, he liked watching Jaxie work because he was too distracted to notice Leon staring unabashedly at him.

“Dale is tagging along with them instead.” Leon replied, licking over the side of his lip that his lip ring should have been at if he wore it, he had decided to skip on it, wearing just his eyebrow piercing instead and numerous earrings.

The Lunas’ of their Pack and their sister Pack had gotten kidnapped before so against his better wishes, he was now aware whenever either of them were leaving their Pack Houses so he would either tag along to protect them or remain on standby.

“Okay.” Jaxon hummed, he did not bother to try and get Leon to leave and perhaps get something else done than just hanging around his office because nothing he did made the Head Warrior go away not till he was ready to.

“Eaten breakfast yet?” Leon asked curiously, sharp, ice-blue eyes fixed on Jaxie’s face.

Jaxon gulped, he might be the only one that Leon was relatively nice to but he also got mad too, over things like this, it wasn’t fun.

“You… uh… you could say that.” Jaxon stuttered slightly, avoiding eye contact.

Leon was distracted with his plans of sneaking in to fix the broken heaters to notice this very obvious lie. “Sure.” He muttered absently, getting up to go around the desk to Jaxie.

He put his hand in the pocket of his ripped jeans and pulled out a scrunchie. He had taken to carrying them because Jaxie had complained once about his hair getting in his way while working.

Leaning over Jaxon’s chair, he gently gathered up his dark red hair, smoothing out the wild and tangled hair as much as he could with his fingers before gathering them up and holding them in place with the scrunchie.

Jaxon heaved a sigh of relief when Leon waved him and slipped out his office, it took all of his brain cells to concentrate when either of them were around, talking about either, he knew that Darian would be coming back from leading the morning patrol soon and as usual, his destination would be Jaxon’s office.

It made no sense, Darian could barely stand to be around people yet the second in command to the Head Warrior spent as much time as possible just hanging around his office, he had to admit that at least the huge, quiet Warrior was actually quite a lot of help.