Jaxon raised his head up from his desk to stretch out his arms, exhaustion sinking deep into the bone.
He was just getting a break for the first time all mornin… he glanced at the time, well make that afternoon.
He groaned and rubbed at his eyes, working out the cricks in his neck, how did he let the time get away from him?
His stomach rumbled and he cursed, realizing that he hadn't eaten a bite all day.
He got up with purpose, he deserved a break - plus he basically resolved every issue except for the one about the broken heaters.
He would have to go down to personally check up on them and apologise for the delay, the day was turning out to be a nice one, maybe he could call it a day early, he couldn't remember the last time he got to do that.
He stretched a bit, feeling his stiff joints pop in relief, his wild hair falling out of the ponytail Leon had put it in.
Just as he was about to make his way out, his desk phone rang and he reached for it, hopefully whatever was on the other end could wait till he ate.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Jaxon." A flowery voice replied energetically, a lilting quality to it. It was Agnes.
This call could go to both extremes, real quick too.
"How can I help you, Agnes?" He asked politely.
"I wanted to call earlier but… well, Greta just went to check up on Yvonne who has had her heater stop working and I think her entire apartment is flooded…"
"What?" Jaxon exclaimed, unintentionally cutting her off, broken heaters shouldn't make an apartment get flooded.
"Um… where's Yvonne?" He asked tentatively, if it was her apartment in question, she should be the one calling, no?
"No idea." Agnes sighed heavily.
Jaxon pinched the bridge of his nose and prayed for strength. "Alright, I'll be down in a couple minutes."
He could literally hear the smile through Agnes's voice. "You work so hard, that reminds me, I made pumpkin pie for you, its in the Kitchens."
He mumbled a distracted 'thank you' hanging up.
Jaxon sighed heavily, pushing a head through his hair and dislodging the scrunchie in his hair as he did so.
He was worried, he still had no idea how soon they would be able to get a plumber to come over, just when he thought his day was going smoothly.
He swept out of his office, there was no need to lock up because other than few trusted people, no one really came up to the Alpha's floor which was the fourth floor of the Pack House.
He made his way down, grateful that he didn't bump into a lot of people because it seemed like everyone wanted to talk to him.
Just as he got to the third floor, he bumped into Darian coming down the hallway, looking murderous.
Well the second in command, Head Warrior always looked murderous but this time it was basically palpable.
"Darian? Is… is everything okay?" He asked hesitantly when he got closer, the taller werewolf slowing down when he caught sight of him.
Darian cleared his throat impulsively - shit was about to go down because Leon was still trying to get rid of the evidence.
"Yeah, everything's good." He assured him, his dark blue eyes probing over the shorter Head Beta's form. "Are you okay?" He snapped to attention, his eyes narrowing as he noticed how pale Jaxon looked.
"Yeah." This time Jaxon was the one to clear his throat - why was their conversation so awkward? "I just got a call from Agnes, something about a flooded apartment, this shouldn't take very long." He found himself reassuring Darian.
Darian kept a poker face at this - oh, it wouldn't take long at all. "Alright, I'll meet you up later." He ended their conversation, now that he had seen Jaxon, showering was the next at the top of his list.
Jaxon was too distracted to notice how obviously wet Darian's pants were or how disheveled and overall wet he looked, continuing the journey down to the second floor where the broken heaters and Yvonne's apartment was located.
He swept towards the apartment in question, rapping a knock on the door.
He worried at his lip while he waited, what if Yvonne wasn't in, he didn't have the master key with him and he wasn't interested in going back up all those flights of stairs to get it only to have to come down again.
Just as he reached up again to knock, the door swung open to reveal an unimpressed Leon.
"D, if you're coming back here just to…" Leon trailed off when he saw who it was on the other side of the door.
"Cherry… oh shit."
Jaxon's hand froze in place, his eyes and mouth going round in shock. "Leo? You're the cause of the leak? Unbelievable!" He threw his hands up in frustration.
Leon just stood still, wincing at the awful timing, he was just about done with cleaning up and was about to ghost.
Jaxon got all up in his face even though Leon was a good number of inches taller than him. "I told you to let me handle it." He jabbed a finger at him, visibly upset.
Leon tried hard to keep a straight face, it was rare to see Jaxie get so worked up, it was taking up a lot of his self control to not slam him up against the wall and kiss the words out of his mouth.
"But I fixed the heater." He tried, a hopeful expression on his face.
"And flooded the fucking apartment!" Jaxon pointed out, face red.
"It's dry now." Leon said in an upbeat voice.
Jaxon cut him a cold glare and turned around to storm off, simmering silently.
Leon was quick to follow after. "I honestly don't get why you're so mad, I wanted to help you fix something and I did." He hurried after the raging redhead, uncaring that he was still shirtless.
Jaxon threw him a dark look. "And broke a couple things while you were at it."
"But everything is fine now." He insisted, trying to get Jaxon to calm down.
Jaxon stopped and reached up a hand to pinch the tender skin on the side of Leon's neck, pulling him along.
"Ow! Ow! Cherry! Shit, that fucking hurts!" He whined.
"Shut up, don't think I don't know that you dragged Darian into your mess." He whispered harshly to the constantly complaining werewolf.
Jaxon wasn't dense, he knew that it was solely because Leon allowed it that he could do this to him, as a matter of fact, he was pretty sure that he was the only one the blond Beta wouldn't go for his neck for doing something like this.
It better be that way because they hadn't grown up together for nothing and Jaxon was going to take full advantage of this leverage.
People backed away into corridors as they caught sight of what was going on, the entire scenario was just so wrong that it triggered their flight impulses.
Jaxon pinched him all the way up to the fourth floor, maybe he was overreacting but something could have gone badly wrong like what if Darian wasn't there to help?
Leon on the other hand was cursing the stoic second in command mentally, he must have definitely run into Jaxie on the way here and didn't try to stall him or alert Leon.
Leon wasn't surprised though, they had learnt to keep aside their differences to work together to protect the Pack but he was sure as hell not the other werewolf's favourite person.
He had zero regrets though, could this scene have played out differently? Fuck yes but he fixed something for Cherry and was going to go with the optimistic outlook, he just had to convince the redhead to do the same.
Leon rubbed at his neck when Jaxon finally let him go, making exaggerated noises of pain, he was sure he had a nasty, reddened bruise.
"You're mean." He muttered, lounging on a chair.
Jaxon was still trying to wrap his head around the entire situation, why would Leon go through all this trouble just because he wanted to help? That was so unlike him.
"I can't believe you spent your entire day trying to fix a heater." Jaxon paced around his office, occasionally disheveling his hair.
"I think we should talk about more important things, like this hickey you just gave me." Leon drawled, his predatory, icy gaze following Jaxon's movements.
Jaxon glanced at him in exasperation. "That's not how hickeys work."
"How would you know?" Leon teased, his eyes twinkling.
Jaxon forced his eyes to stay steady on his friend's face and not trace the tattoos on his arm or wander over the expanse of his torso much like he wanted to.
"Don't try to change the topic, I can't have you going around breaking things."
"I believe the term you're looking for is 'helping'. He countered calmly, propping his legs up on Jaxon's desk, his muscled arms going behind his head to cushion it.
Jaxon gulped, he was going to blame his prickling skin on the fact that he had not eaten all day and he was upset, it was definitely not because Leon was acting like… well, himself.