No More Secrets

Who: Jocelyn and Grayson
Where: Babylon
When: midday

Jocelyn found Grayson right where she'd been looking for him, behind the bar at Babylon, which was thankfully having a slower day. "Grayson," she called, coming behind the bar and reaching for a nearby apron and tying it around her waist before sliding the crate of clean glasses along the bar to be put away. She was still hurting from her phone call with Kayos and knew full well she'd have to talk to Doc again sometime, tell him how badly it went, and reminding him why he was disappointed in her in the first place. "You asked her if she was demon?" Jocelyn glanced his way, grabbing a few wine glasses from the crate and sliding them into place in the holders above the bar. "How was that a good idea?"

Great, this again? That was the first thought to blaze through Grayson's otherwise unoccupied mind as Jocelyn made her presence known behind the bar. He had been in the process of cleaning up after a brief rush when the witch came along at which point all other tasks were -- if only temporarily -- forgotten. He lowered his arms to his sides, cloth still hanging from one hand and almost-empty bottle of whiskey in the other, pale eyes fixed on Jocelyn. "You know, until very recently, I didn't know it was such a bad idea." Honestly, was anyone going to clue him in about why that question was so god-awful? If Doc himself was a demon then clearly the race as a whole weren't so bad that everyone needed to get so up in arms about it.

Jocelyn sighed, not wanting to be angry with Grayson. She was taking her anger at Kayos and at Doc out on her friend. "I know, I just thought we'd ruled out demon based on her cheery disposition," she teased lightly, looking at him over her shoulder so a shot of dark hair obscured part of her face. Not that Grayson was most men, but it was a look that most men couldn't resist. "How'd meeting her go? She didn't seem happy about it when I talked to her yesterday."

"That didn't rule out her being a really cunning demon trying to throw us off by being all happy and perky." It was something of a dry joke but after Doc had had a discussion along these lines with him, Grayson had honestly been hoping to just leave it all in the past since apparently it was such a sore point for everyone. He wasn't mad at Jocelyn though, doubted he could be. She was one of the only real friends he had in this little town, after all. "It was... weird." That was the best way to put it, really. What other word could he use to describe a meeting that had gone all over the map?

Jocelyn quirked a smile at him, enjoying his humor on the matter. "That would a good tactic. Perhaps we should try happy and cheery to throw everyone else off." This time Jocelyn laughed a small laugh. Happy just seemed out of the cards these days. "Weird? How so?" She grabbed a few more glasses, replenishing the stock that had been used in the last rush.

"I think happy and cheery might hurt me," he told her with well-feigned sincerity, having tucked the cloth away leaving one hand free to be placed over his heart. Dropping it down again, turning the small of his back against the bar behind him so he could better converse with Jocelyn, he shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. She's weird." Grayson wasn't saying it to be spiteful, it was just how Kayos had come across. "I think she called me Jack. When she first saw me, I mean. She had this look in her eye like she recognised me, but... I don't know."

"I think you need some happy in your life, sir." He needed to get laid, but Jocelyn didn't come out with it. She'd worked as one of Babylon's girls long enough to tell who needed it and when. "Jack?" she asked, tossing him a glass she knew he could catch. "Who's Jack? Do you have a brother or someone she might know? Or thought you were?" That was weird. Kayos had been offended by Grayson when Jocelyn spoke with her, but if she thought he was someone else, well that would have made it even worse.

Grayson simply smiled at Jocelyn's straightforward statement about his need for some happy in his life. That had probably been true for years but after losing his family and his pack the way he had, happiness wasn't nearly so easy to find as it once had been. "Actually, I had-- have five brothers." Clearing his throat quickly he pushed up and off the bar. "I have no idea, she brushed it off as nothing but there was something in her eyes when she looked at me. I didn't buy it." Not for one second. Lycanthropes were especially skilled at knowing when others were lying and Kayos hadn't been entirely truthful with him.

"Five brothers? Seriously?" Jocelyn asked, her eyes lighting up. "Are they are... you know? Wolves?" Listening to his observations of Kayos though had her screwing up her eyes curiously. "Something eh? Weird. I wonder where she comes from. She seems like that, you know off? I dunno."

"All wolves," Grayson confirmed, grateful that he could hide his own emotions well. He couldn't remember the last time he had seen his brothers alive and well, hated that he didn't know where his family were now, what had happened to them. Having the distraction of talking about Kayos was a welcome one. "Doc talked to me about it. Her. But I don't know, I'm getting the impression that I'm not supposed to understand everything and given how complicated this has become, I'm willing to go along with that now."

"They definitely aren't telling us something. I wish they would though. It's not like we can't keep their secrets. It's not like Doc couldn't trust us with his secrets. What makes Kayos so special?" That was really the part that got under Jocelyn's skin. She couldn't figure it out and it was driving her nuts. "Ugh. I hate this, I hate feeling like hired help."

"I guess everyone has secrets," he said almost without realising the words were leaving his mouth, his gaze drifting off down the length of the bar but not for long, soon returning to the witch's face, and more specifically, her eyes. "I'm sure they have their reasons for whatever's going on. It might suck not being in the know about everything, but maybe we're just not supposed to know it all. Not yet, at least." Maybe they were better off, who knew?

"Do you have secrets Grayson," Jocelyn asked lightly, a sweet curious nature about her. It was the type of voice and tone that typically got her answers.

For what felt like a long time the werewolf stood there, quietly frozen in place, looking down at Jocelyn, not in accusation but instead trying to figure out how exactly he should answer that. Finally, when he did, it was with the truth. "Yes."

She'd expected that answer. He wouldn't have made the comment if that wasn't the truth. Hell she guessed she had a few things she could call secrets herself. Some stuff that she hadn't told everyone, but it wasn't as if she wouldn't tell him if he asked her about them. "Why keep them? Doesn't that make it worse?"

Before he answered those fresh questions, Grayson turned to be at her side of the bar and rested the small of his back against the counter there instead, Jocelyn to his right and his arms folding over his chest. Did he think it would be easier to talk about those secrets of his -- even vaguely -- if he didn't have to look directly at her? He wasn't sure. "They're secrets before I've already damaged enough people in my life," he told her quietly, turning his head then to fix his blue eyes on her green ones. Jocelyn was the first person since the destruction of his pack who had been trusted with anything even remotely related to the truth about what had happened to him in the past.

She held his gaze steady, knowing full well that most people don't give her real confidence like Grayson did. "Grayson," she reached out for his arm, resting her hand on it. "Damage? How could you damage people?"

It was almost sad to hear Jocelyn say something like that, to realise just how much faith she had in him, how much difficulty she had believing that he could be responsible for anyone getting hurt. Stifling a quiet sigh of defeat, he gave her a smile that was undeniably melancholy, lasting only a moment, before he told her in that same dropped voice for her ears only, "I was responsible for a lot of lives before I came here. I made some bad decisions and... they all paid for it."

Jocelyn's grip on his arm clenched a little, but she didn't let her eyes leave his face. "Because of the wolf thing? We've all had people in our past we couldn't save, even me, but you can't blame yourself. Sometimes you just can't save them." If he was someone else, someone she was sure would react well, she'd pull him close to her, but it was Grayson. He was far to stoic to benefit from a simple hug.

"Not just because of the wolf thing," he told her with a quiet steadiness that spoke of great restraint on his part. The wolf in him was displeased by this unnecessary rehashing of the past; wolves lived in the present, didn't linger on the past or contemplate the future, but as a werewolf Grayson didn't have that luxury, despite what the inner animal thought. "Jocelyn, do you know what an Alpha is?"

Jocelyn chewed her lip as she thought about the term. "Theoretically yes? The term's typically used to describe a certain personality type with humans, Alpha Male and all. Typically arrogant, bossy and hell-bent on success." She considered how it would term in Grayson's situation and then did her best to muddle through it. "I supposed with wolves, it would be...like a pack leader?"

The tall male nodded his head in an affirmation of her assessment. "You get it with wild wolves. Alphas, Betas, Omega. It all translates to werewolves, the terms carry across and so does a lot of the behaviour." He wasn't going to give her a crash-course in lycanthropes, that wasn't what they were talking about; the point was that she understood what an Alpha was exactly. "I was born into a pack and when our Alpha died, I made a bid for the position, but so did another male. We fought and I won, but I spared his life. I could have killed him; it was my right, and no one would have stopped me, but I didn't see the need to do that. I didn't want to start my term as Alpha by killing a member of the pack needlessly." Briefly his eyes turned away, memories of that fight and everything that had happened as a result of that mercy on his part flashing like a rapid slideshow through his mind. "That male tried to kill me more than once after that fight." His eyes found Jocelyn's again. "And he brought hunters down on the pack. They tore us apart."

Jocelyn felt her eyes grow wide, wishing desperately there was a way to keep the shock off her face. It wouldn't matter, Grayson could sense her feelings anyway. "Grayson, you can't carry that guilt with you. It's not your fault." This time her hand left his arm and touched the side of his face. "You're a good man, Grayson. If you blame yourself for being a good man and someone taking advantage of you, you'll lose all that good. This world is a fucked up place, but you can't just let all of that go."

Was Jocelyn right? There were people in his past who wold have agreed with her but now he wasn't so sure. He had done some questionable things in his time, if only since leaving Denver and being on his own, a situation in which wolves did not thrive. "The only way I can stop carrying that guilt is to find him and do what I should have done in that first fight." He told her that in a solemn, grave manner, with considerably less aggression than he should have possessed when saying such a thing.

"Not what you should have done then Grayson. What you do now. Now that you've been betrayed. You did the right thing before, he did the wrong thing." Jocelyn pushed up on her toes, and used the bar for leverage to reach all the way and pressed her cheek against Grayson's opposite cheek from the one she held. "And when you find him? Consider whatever fire power I have at your disposal," she whispered in his ear. Letting go she dropped back down to her actual height, letting her hand drop from his cheek and rest again on his arm.

That was something he hadn't expected, for Jocelyn to offer him what she did. When she lowered to her natural height again, his brow had furrowed slightly, something not wholly unlike confusion, as if the very idea of someone feeling that kind of loyalty for him was thoroughly bewildering. It was unexpected, yes, but more than that, it was touching. If he had only made one real friend in Marquette since his arrival, then he was glad it was Jocelyn. "Thank you."

"No problem," she told him with a coy smile. The tone seemed light but the look in her eyes was honest, truthfully and deep. She'd meant every word. "You know how Doc and Kurt were partners? How he is with Kayos I guess right? That's us Grayson. I know we've both signed on with Doc into the end of the world, but you. You're the one I'll fight alongside."

That meant more to Grayson than Jocelyn was possibly capable of understanding. The werewolf wasn't about to dive into some deep and meaningful explanation but just having the bond that they did made up for so much of what he'd lost, so much more than he had ever thought it would. "That's us," he agreed, giving her confirmation that he felt the same way. She wouldn't have to worry about where Grayson would stand in a fight. Wolves were deeply loyal, fiercely protective of those they saw as their own, and that was what Jocelyn had in Grayson. A loyal, fiercely protective wolf who would fight and kill for her if it came down to it.

She nodded, leaning so her head rested against his shoulder. Jocelyn had wanted Doc to be the man she leaned on when she needed him, but Grayson was a far better shoulder to lean on. "No secrets between us Grayson. You can tell me whatever you need to and I'll answer whatever questions you have." It scared her in some ways, being this close, this trusting to another person. She trusted Doc, but he'd already said that no matter what happened between them he wouldn't leave. In some ways he couldn't leave; she was bound to him. Grayson though could leave. She was reassured that he too was bound to Doc, but that didn't keep Kurt from leaving did it? Breathing slowly she closed her eyes briefly to slow her fear.

Wolves were good to lean on; they were loyal and passionate about protection and taking care of their own, Grayson perhaps more than most because of his past. He had failed a pack and it had defeated them but he would not let that happen again. It might not be a pack in the typical sense of the word, but he cared for Jocelyn just as much as if she were a fellow wolf under his care. He wasn't going anywhere, not if he could help it. "And the same goes for me," he said to her quietly but sincerely, lifting a hand and touching it softly to the back of her head, against her dark hair.

That eased some her fears. She was tired of secrets. That had been what got them to this mess in the first place. That and her utter inability to function properly in a relationship. "We need to talk to him. Both of us. Probably together. And I suppose I should see him on my own as well." Jocelyn was frustrated that she had to take over Kurt's place. "Our team is broke all to hell Grayson. We have to fix it."

The complicated politics that had formed out of nowhere in such a small group continued to catch Grayson off-guard. It seemed like things had been infinitely simpler in a werewolf pack; he missed that simplicity, the basic black and white of the law and how everyone behaved and where they stodd. "We will fix it," he told her, and yet he avoided promising her that. It didn't seem fair to promise something that he couldn't guarantee but instead could only hope to achieve.

She nodded against his shoulder but there were tears in her eyes. It was her fault this whole thing was a mess, and she was going to have to fix it. At least she had Grayson at her side, but beyond that was an annoyed boss and a girl who was reluctant to make amends. It was going to be a long road.