Title: Caught by Choice
Author: Leela (leela_cat)
Pairing/Characters: Adam/Sauli/Tommy
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 8x100
Content/Warning(s): Werewolves
Author's notes: Written for glam_100, prompt #037: Moonlight. Many thanks to @dude__ette, @Choose2Live and @toobusy2write, who encouraged me when I was stuck, and to @shinyredrain for the beta.


Moonlight ripples across the surface of the infinity pool, seeming to run off the edge of the hill with the water. Tommy steps out of the house. He's barefoot, as required at the full moon, and when his feet touch the cool grass, he shivers with each halting step.

"We waited," Sauli says, holding his free hand palm out towards Tommy.

"You cut it close." The rebuke in Adam's voice makes Tommy smirk.

"I'm not late. You're still here." Tommy steps into place, holding up his hands, not touching, but close enough to feel the heat radiating from their palms.

.:.

Tommy bows his head, closing his eyes. Part of him is still fighting the decision he made only a few hours earlier. He'll be pack at the end of this night, omega to Adam's alpha and Sauli's beta. Fuck if he knows what that means, being pack.

"Pack," Tommy whispers, feeling out the word. He can't wrap his head around it, wouldn't be here if he had a choice, but no one will let a blooded omega remain free. If only he'd kept his claws to himself last month. If only—

"Family," Sauli responds, cutting off Tommy's train of thought.

.:.

"We won't force you, even now. You can still run. We'll hold on for as long as we can."

The effort it takes Adam to make the offer is clear, but Tommy is sure that he means it. His voice wraps around Tommy, seductive with power and truth.

Tommy takes a breath, and the scent of something alien, something different makes his nostrils twitch and his sinuses itch. It's Adam and Sauli, he thinks, alpha and beta.

Pack! Run! The memory of his father's voice murmurs through Tommy's mind, and he blinks, trying to ease the burning in his eyes.

.:.

"How—" Tommy has to stop and clear his throat, of the fear and shit that's clogging it up. "You'd just chase me, fucking catch me in an eyeblink."

"No." The lines on Adam's forehead deepen; the skin around his eyes tightens. "We spend the pack moon at home."

"Pack is not force, not captivity," Sauli says. "Not for us. We do not want you if you aren't willing."

Sauli's accent, everything that's different about him, is reassuring in a way that Adam's California-grown attitude isn't. Tommy's drawn to him, begins to believe that Sauli can protect him against Adam's instincts.

.:.

A breeze comes up, swirls around them, ruffles the surface of the pool and their hair, surrounds Tommy with their scents. He breathes deeply, draws them in, and tries to sort through the tales his dad told him about alphas. Tries not to curse again at the fate that had made him a fucking omega.

Not bottom of the pack, his dad once told him, but property of the alpha. Owned. Unable to leave.

"Leave now, if that's what you want." Adam's gritting out the words, a muscle in his jaw jumping.

"I can hold him," Sauli offers, "but go."

.:.

They would do it. Tommy can tell from the rigidity of their stances. The way Adam looks at Sauli, not at him.

It's so totally beyond his experience. He's blown away by it.

Tommy stares at his own hands. At the scars that mark his fingers from the fight last full moon, when he used his claws to slash open the Burbank alpha's throat rather than submit to his brutality.

Choice is such a fucking relative thing, he thinks. And, yet, it's being offered to him. If he can just get the fuck out of LA tonight, he'll be safe.

.:.

"Tommy!" Pain laces Adam's voice, roughens it. "Make a fucking choice, please."

As Tommy watches, Adam's nails grow and thicken, his hands start to transform, but he's holding himself still, waiting. Adam's staring at Sauli as if he's a lifeline. And Sauli, who the fuck knows how, is managing to keep Adam's alpha wolf in check.

"Please stay," Sauli says, and his gentle smile fucking drives itself into Tommy's chest. "We need you, for balance."

His heart thudding, his mouth dry, Tommy takes the last step forward and he twines his fingers with theirs, feels Adam's claws scrape his skin.

.:.

Before he's taken another breath, Tommy is drawn between them. Sauli holds him with his back against Sauli's front, and Adam presses into him.

"Oh," Tommy says. Overwhelmed, he rests his head against Sauli's shoulder, and his knees buckle. Adam and Sauli catch Tommy, support him, bear his weight, as the change overwhelms him.

The pain uncurls from Tommy's spine, but it's so goddamn different from every other full moon that he has no fucking words. There's no ripping agony, no sense of losing himself.

And as his wolf draws the moonlight down, Tommy's howl is doubled, tripled, and claimed.

.