Mateless and Home Bound

Bonus Chapter: Healing

This was a good hiding spot. Probably the best one they had. Sure, everyone knew where this place was, but it still seemed to take everyone else much longer to find it. Sage still knew exactly where it was, no matter where in the forest they were. He always knew how to find his old home.

"I still can't believe you lived so close to me," Reggie said. They walked into the little hut together. This part of the forest was so quiet, all that could be heard was the sound of the door squeaking open and shut.

"I wish I met you guys when I was just a kid," Sage shook his head. "It would have been nice to have some friends back home."

"You mean to tell me that you didn't make a single friend here?"

"A few," he chuckled at his lover's reaction. "I got bullied a lot when I was a kid, though. That was one of the reasons why I wound up going to that charter school that we met at."

His childhood wasn't bad. His grandma did the best she could to make him happy and healthy. But, when talks with teachers and parents didn't solve the problem, she thought it best to just pull him out of those schools.

"I can't imagine anyone bullying you," Reggie pulled him close. "You even got the grumpiest of werewolves at our school to loosen up."

"Oh, please," he rolled his eyes. "You act like I did this miraculous thing. All I did was talk to them."

"That is a miraculous thing," Reggie laughed, pulling him towards the bedroom.

Snake really thought that Sage was just going to abandon this little hut. That it would disappear into the forest, and he would forget all about it. How could he, though? This place was still the last thing he had of his grandma. Of course, he was going to make sure it was all fixed up.

And it was perfect for when they wanted to get away from everyone. As much as Sage loved the new family he was in, and could talk their ears off, there were times when he wanted to just hang out with Reggie.

Victor seemed to be the only one who got it. Even before he found his mate, he knew when to give them space. Maybe it was just because he was a loner at heart or something.

Speaking of which, he was so happy that his friend found his mate. Especially since it was someone from their pack. As soon as he heard about Victor potentially having to leave and all the politics that happened with that, it broke his heart to think about. Victor was basically like a little brother to him. And he'd hate not having him around to mess with. He would have begged whoever was his mate to stay in their pack instead if it didn't work out the way it did. Now he could simply be happy in the fact that him and his mate were absolutely adorable in their own quiet ways.

Seeing them together always made him miss Reggie. With their schedules filling up the past few years, it had been more and more difficult to make time for each other. Unless it was the occasional dinner with the parents, which had slowly become less awkward over time, or the times in which they were all having fun with their friends. They just didn't have time alone with each other.

The dinner with Reggie's parents reminded him of when he officially met Reggie's whole family. His sisters had come down for Christmas the same year that all the chaos happened. They were nice and quiet when Reggie's parents were around. But, as soon as they were gone the three girls turned into absolute lunatics. They were surprised too that Reggie was gay. But their reactions were more like Scott's rather than how his parents first reacted to it. There was one of them that gave him the evil eye, but that was just about it. Most of the time they would talk about how they were shocked that he was gay.

"I swear this pack is blind," Victor muttered from the other side of the room. Sage had sat with him while they talked Reggie's ears off. "How was I the only one who knew right off the bat?"