the path to heaven run through miles of clouded hell.
right to the top. don't look back.
-it's time, imagine dragons

see how nature- trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence;
see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...
we need silence to be able to touch souls.
-mother teresa

sehun had learned at his grandmother's knee that when his father was angry to simply seal his lips and fight back in his mind.  she had always whispered to hide the bruises with long sleeved shirts and put extra sugar in his morning coffee because maybe that would silently sweeten his disposition.  as much as sehun loved his grandmother, doted on her until her last breath, now he had to admit that she must have been slightly off her rocker because sometimes bruises can't be hidden and his father only hit harder when he sweetened the black death of his first morning cup.

he also had to admit that she must have been a fortune teller because she had cursed him with those words.

'sehun, you will never leave here.  your roots are buried to deep to just trail off. the moon is more likely to catch fire than you are to say a goodbye.'

he had learned from his own bloody scraped knees the frailty of mortality, the lies of tongue bitten promises, and the bubble of neverlookback that kept his eyes on the prize.  sometimes he laughed at himself because at every opportunity to leave the small town he had froze in place.  when he was offered an art scholarship at some fancy seattle university he had never sent in his acceptance reply.  when his father drove his drunk body into a tree trunk through the windshield of his truck, sehun hadn't closed up shop and walked off into the sunset.

that is how he found himself shoveling mountains of engine oil stained receipts into old school ledger columns at midnight when he is twenty three.  most nights he sleeps on a cot in the office of the grease monkey garage that had first lured in his mother.  the danger of a bad boy causing her to linger and have a child she named after changing the world for the better.  apparently her definition of better was to disappear just as she had appeared, this time leaving behind her son as a sacrifice.  sometimes life can be a , sometimes so can mothers.

so sehun fell into a steady, ever predictable schedule.  wake up from whichever spot he curled up into to drink a cup of tea, he had long since came to hate coffee.  he dragged his lanky frame through misty morning fog to open up shop, checking that the waiting room had a stack of new newspaper and water in the fountain.  he the cracked screen television on its three legged stand to fuzz out the country music channel that his regular old men customers preferred.  he pulled on stained and faded coveralls only to leave them ped down to bunch around his waist just in case the grouch pete that worked for him needed help.  then he waited.

he waited for the rest of the podunk town to wake up and start buzzing past his place in cars and trucks that he had undoubtedly tinkered on at one point or another in hs life.  he waited with a pencil etching over any black surface he could fill with his overflowing imagination.  he waited until pete stumbled in holding a bag of donuts he would reluctantly share after sehun stuck out a pouting lip.  he waited until the front door chimed out with a clatter of its attached string of jingle bells.

'morning,' he called out to a bright faced little boy that had been lurking curiously outside every morning for a good two weeks now.  the kid never replies but sehun had never expected him to really, he reminded him of himself fiteen years younger.  still learning how to trust yourself.

sehun ends up talking onesidedly and forcing half his favorite blueberry creme donut on the boy before he scurries out in time to run home and catch the bus to school.  then in comes the three old men that come in on everyday except sunday.  they bring their own coffee mugs and share one newspaper, fighting over the sports and comic sections until they each have a turn.  sehun once asked them why they came to a mechanic shop to have morning coffee and conversation.

'that damn diner is full of whiny brats,' the one that everybody since ever calls pops answers.

sehun doesn't ask again in case he gets lumped into the whiny brat category and uses their conversation as background music as he calls in his weekly order on parts and brakes.  he barely has time to hang up before his first customer bumbles in needing an inspection sticker because a deputy was nice enough to remind him this morning with a ticket that it had expired three months ago.

his second customer is the before mentioned deputy whose patrol car taillight went out.  sehun chuckles as pops asks the man if he gave himself a ticket.  he laughs even harder when the officer replies, 'lucky, i just got off with a verbal warning this time.'

he has a fairly slow tuesday morning with the old men that day until they start catcalling.  sehun looks up to see the grocery store's bakery manager climb out of her economic sized sedan all apron and curly hair and powdered sugar on her nose.  he went to school with her, knew that she worn full head gear braces for three full years, and had been hounded by pops to ask her out on four occasions.

'morning, mindy,' he smiles as she flutters into the waiting room.  instantly the whole place smelt of cookies.

'good mooring.  can you get pete to check my antifreeze?  my air conditioner is running hot,'  she giggles with an arm propped up on his desk top.

he doesn't mention that she could very easily check it herself or that it is november in upstate oregon so she really shouldn't need her air conditioner.  instead he smiles and nods and yells at the catnapping pete to 'wake the hell up' because he has a customer.  five minutes later mindy leaves frowning because she had plenty of antifreeze and no date invite from sehun.

'you are never gonna have kids at this rate, sonny,'  pops huffs.

sehun neglects to tell him that he is okay with that fact because he doesn't want the possibility of a descendent of his flesh to suffer just as he had.  he has had one too many dreams of a miniature him, all mussed brown hair and blank hazel eyes, running away while crying in pain.  he was terrified he had inherited his grandmother's fortune telling skills and was hellbent on making sure that such a scenario was never possible.

which wasn't very hard since he was in no way, shape, or form attracted to the opposite .  they were too soft, so easily broken.  all the pretty smiles and fast blinking eyes gave him goosebumps.  his mother had ruined him on ever being able to trust a flirteous sideways glance.  but his father had also ruined him on men.  he shied away from their thickboned fists and calm eyes that hid anger like water hid fish, always visible just under the surface.

so sehun was pretty much ed in the significant other category unless his helpful hand was considered in the running.  and as much as he had enjoyed fairytales in his childhood it was engrained in his bones to never expect a happy ending.  his bones had taken him everywhere in life so he supposed they knew what the hell they were talking about.

lunch time flies by, his morning companions long gone.  the afternoon ticks by until the little boy stops by on his way home.  he rummages in his spiderman backpack to present sehun with a rumbled and stuffed self folded envelope before disappearing out the door with flushed chubby cheeks.  inside the envelope sehun finds a clay paperweight the kid had probably made in art class.  it is a horribly sloppy form that he just barely recognizes as a wolf, or is it a dog, and sehun finds himself smiling genuinely for the first time in weeks.  his eyes crinkle around the edges and his cheeks hurt from the strain of feeling emotions.

vehicles trickle back into town from commutes to work in nearby cities or lumber yards and sehun sends pete home to his plumb, motherly wife.  he is in the back office, head stuck hanging upside down on his cot in boredom and reluctance to start paperwork, when he hears the faint rattle of the waiting room bells and the muffled sound of a deep voice calling out 'hello?' through the drywall.  he must have forgotten to flip the closed sign and currently was having a thirty second internal argument before he huffed himself into walking up front.  when he steps through the doorway, sehun is rubbing the tiredness out of the corners of his eyes until he freezes.

if there was ever a time his fingers itched for a pencil or pen or chalk or any medium to capture a human being in forever on paper it was now.  inky black hair past the collar of a simple grey v-neck, skin the shade of mystery, and rough hewed bones gracing the borderline of elegant and untamed.

sehun realizes he is staring but if he can help it because he feels like he is outlining the rough draft of his first masterpiece.  maybe his only, ever.

'hi,' now sehun wishes he could paint with voices.  'i was wondering if i could talk to somebody about a job.'

sehun nods quietly before probbing in his desk chair and flicking his eyes from the scratch of his pencil on the back of a receipt to the stranger's face.  back and forth, flick of lead and second glance.

'uhm,' the guy shuffles his feet and sehun silently curses because he shifted the shadows on his face so he starts another sketch.  dude shifts his weight and sehun growls because that slightly tilted his chin.  damnit.

'stop moving,' he mumbles up into the haze of confusion and irritation in the shifty amber eyes.  woah, now he needed to mix that shade in paint back home.

'so can i or can i not speak to someone,' he asks while subconsciously freezing at the demand.

'sure. talk away,' sehun replies never pausing when his pencil lead stubs out.  he simply grabs a stray pen adn smirks to himself because it is the same shade as the pitch darkness of his hair.

'you're the manager?'

'owner,' sehun doesn't even flinch at the exasperation or puzzled intake of air at him, such a young person, owning the shop.  he was use to it by now. 'do you have any experience?'

a resume is slid into his view over the paper he has already filled with eyebrows, nose, and ear curves.  he flicks up his own eyebrow and finally sets down the pen in his hand.  if the man had a resume then he most likely was too overqualified to work at the garage.  sehun was pretty sure that pete couldn't even pronounce the word.

he first scans the work experience section.  it is full of odd end jobs and a year stint at a garage in texas.  apparently this guy, oh wait kai, got around alot.  he traced along the black print of his references and was surprised to find a name he was familiar with.

'you know dr. zhang?'

sehun looked up from the paper to see this kai guy shrug then nod.  ' yeah. i live in the cottage on his property.'

'oh,' he flicks his eyes over the rest of the paper.  contact number, a luhan listed as emergency contact, and crinkled spots from sweaty fingertips. 'why the garage?  you seem to have plenty of other skills to get a better job.'

'i like to keep my hands busy,' he says and sehun hears the silent 'it keeps me out of trouble' on the end of the statement.

sehun gives him yet another once over.  fingers tapping a steady tempo against his left thigh.  frayed hems dragging the ground around his wellworn chucks that just happened to be a match to sehun's own faded pair.  he really had no reason not to hire him.  he seemed dependable enough, had the local family physician as his #1 reference, and a mile long list of job experience that included a bank teller position so maybe sehun could wrangle him into helping with paperwork.

but there was something about the stranger that had him shifting in his seat hesitantly.  the hairs on his arms were still raised since the first glance.  sehun would be lying if the feeling didn't spook the hell out of him because he had never felt so trapped in his own skin and he was afraid to find out the reason why.  so he folded.

'well.  come in tomorrow at seven.  you might want to bring a bag of donuts to sweet talk pete, my mechanic, into a good mood.'

a ghost of what could hardly be called a smile pulled on the straight laced lips as he suddenly stuck a hand out in formal greeting.

'kai,' he introduced himself.

'sehun,' came the reply.

when their hands connected, callus to callus, they both froze.  just for a second, more of a blink really, because one of them must have rubbed against something to cause the little jolt of electricity that flinched between their intertwined thumbs.  kai quickly withdrew his hand into his pocket while sehun cradled his in his other hand behind his back.

'see you in the morning,' they call in unison before kai disappears out the door to mount a motorcycle in the twilight lit parking area.

that night sehun leaves the paperwork even though he knows he will at the amount he will have to do tomorrow, and goes home.  he walks the four blocks in the dark, chin tucked his chest because the air is already starting to catch coldness to tease bare skin.  he unlocks the door to the little purple hued brick house his grandmother left behind for him.

dinner is leftover casserole and three beers.  the television gets flicked on to a rerun movie that he is using as a distraction so he won't walk down the hall to the spare room/studio that holds all of his art supplies.  he abso-ing-lutely refuses to create tonight because he knows once he starts that he will never stop.  not when he has finally found muse in the form of renegade, shady kai.

so he sleeps on the couch without setting an alarm clock because he hadn't needed one in years.  regardless of when he finally falls into slumber, if he even does, his body is trained to wake up at six o'clock on the dot.  he supposes he is naturally hardwired to be molded into his father's image and that made him sick.

he refuses to fall into those footsteps.  to evolve into a hateful bastard with a tendence to destroy dreams.

that night he dreams about something he hasn't since he was a kid.  he blames it on that little boy's makeshift paperweight because he dreams about wolves.

three.  one all shiny soft silver.  one slender and dainty rouge.  one nothing but a black shadow with eyes that can see into a soul so very easy.  they are splayed in front of him, silver and red flanked together at one side.  the black beast is closest to him, bowed onto his elbows and spine rimrod straight, scooting nearer by the second.  when one midnight paw reaches out to touch him timidly, sehun glances down only to realize that he is covered in fur as well.  bones morphed into a shaking crouch of the purest white.  before he knows what is happening, in his panic, his muzzle is thrown back and letting out a heartwrenching howl.  it is warm like fireplaces after the fire has naturally burned out.  it jerks sehun out of his dream and into a shivering mess on his leather soft.

he could almost swear that he could still hear that howl.  as if it was never part of the dream to begin with.

________

a/n: so, yeah. this is the first story i let my non-fanfic friend read and now she is pestering me for more. keke. but seriously guys i feel like i have created a monster. today was my day off and i did nothing but eat chocolate, drink green tea, and write this mess. as soon as i get done posting i will probably start writing again. oh my goodness.

please, please, PLEASE tell me what you think. this is my first posted wolf!au fic and i don't even know what is going on up in my mind. jeez. yeah. love you guys! seriously though, really, i mean it.

<3 jay