Trapped in the Loop

Aleksandr stared out at the beach, his grip tight around the bars of the railing.

His silver eyes were dull and unfocussed. He wasn't seeing the beautiful scene. He was seeing his own thing.

Memories. Good and bad. From his early life. Back when he was a human child and a Lycan pup.

He couldn't break from the loop of memories. He couldn't pull himself out of them. He was reliving every moment and he was hopeless to stop.

He was trapped.

Zeke had been looking for Alek all day, he had promised Moe to spend more time with the old man, plus he looked forward to talking to someone older than him for a change.

He panted softly as he exited onto the roof, he'd looked everywhere and this was his final stop.

He gazed at Alek for a moment before talking, he seemed to be out of it, in his own little world.

He walke upto him slowly, placing a hand on the older wolf's shoulder.

"You're a hard man to track down."
He explained, breaking the silence.
"Alek are you okay?" He asked, concearn glinting in his eyes as he faced the man, the grip on his shoulder tightening slightly out of worry.

He was coming to the end of his slavery now. But when he'd finished, that wouldn't be the end. He'd go right back to the start and repeat it all over again.

Aleksandr flinched violently when Zeke's hand touched his shoulder and jerked back, eyes wide and wild as they focussed.

He tried to slow his heavy breathing, hand covering his face.

"Sorry," he murmured softly when his breathing was under wraps.

"I didn't lash out at you, did I?"

Out of reflex Zeke jumped back as Alek did, eyes focused soully on the Alpha, his body relaxed slowly as Alek's did, what the hell was that...He thought, taken by suprise by the mans reaction to his touch.

Tentatively Zeke stepped forward, looking the man over with worry, he was acting strange, Alek was always so composed.

"No, no nothing like that."
He replied, shaking his head.

"Alek whats wrong?"

"Good."

Sometimes he got violent when he was pulled out of his memories and the last thing he needed was to accidentally maim a member of his pack.

His hand dropped and he was back to his almost perfectly compose self.

"Memories, is all. I'm fine."

Not that he was out of the loop, it'd be a while before he dropped into it again.

"Yeah I call bullshit on you being fine, people don't freak out like that when they're fine."
Zeke shook his head, trying to keep the snarky edge out of his voice.

He nodded to the clear spot next to him as he sat down, silently asking the alpha to sit down with him.

"Memories huh? I know a small amount of you past and even I know it's not healthy for you to dwell on it."

Alek's past mirrored his own tormented life, not something you wanted to remember constantly.

His lip curled into a small smirk. "You're getting brave." Not many people were brave (and/or stupid) enough to call out an Alpha like that. Especially their own.

The older Lycan sat silently when he was bid to and arched a brow at the younger wolf.

"I don't dwell willingly." If he could find a way to break from his memories and not have to return to them he'd quite happily take it. He didn't like reliving his life as a slave over and over.

Zeke smiled at him.
"Only because you are more than just my Alpha.
And if you haven't noticed by now, I am not one for self preservation."

If Alek were just his Alpha he would steer clear of him, not cause waves it if were possible, and aim to stay on his good side.

But this man and his sons and granddaughter were the only family Zeke had ever known.
He'd be damned if he just sat by idly if something was upsetting one of them.
If that meant getting his ass kicked for stepping out of line by showing his own form of concern then so be it.

He chuckled softly, Moe was definitely going to beat some sense of self preservation into his head one day.

His lips twitched into a small smile. To have someone he hadn't turned call him family in a round about

"Moe'll beat self preservation into you at some point, even if it's the death of her." She wouldn't follow him around and try to keep him out of trouble forever. At some point she'd get annoyed and try and teach him self preservation.

He leaned back against the railings, eyes sliding closed.

"I don't doubt for a second that she will, one day I will learn, but as she put it 'you can't teach old dogs new tricks' though I am sure that wont stop her from trying."

He let out a soft chuckle and looked back at the man as he closed his eyes.

"I take it that these episodes of yours have plagued you for some time then?"

He chuckled. "I don't know, she taught Coilean to be patient and less...violent." Moe was young, but she was a good teacher; even without realising it.

He rubbed his hand over his eyes, groaning softly. He always got headaches after he had relived memories.

"For the better part of three millennia." His slavery had really left a big scar on him, even if he didn't show it often.

"I'll have to thank her for that, despite everything your son has not sunk his teeth into me. I count myself lucky."

He chuckled softly, he could not say that much in Aodh and Moe's case though. Regardless he'd take their teeth over Coilean's any day.

"I see, then there is not much I can do to help."

"I was shocked when he calmed down. He had gone from attacking everything that moved like Aodh to being far more tolerable like me."

Aodh and Alek were complete opposite sides of the spectrum. It was a shock when Coilean slid from Aodh to Alek when Moe was born.

He pushed his hair out of his face sighing softly. "I'm used to it. It only happens ever couple of months. I spend a few hours watching my slavery, then suffer a little headache then go on like normal."

"Still."
He murmured, shaking his head slightly.

"It must be painful having to relive it over and over, I don't think I could handle having to go through all of that again."

Zeke could imagine that slavery back in Alek's younger days would have been far worse than what he had gone through, which was a chilling thought considering how he suffered.

He shrugged.

Yes, it was painful. Going through all the whipping, the screaming, the beating. It plagued him, scared him and angered him.

He hated it.

But he couldn't escape it.

"I've gotten used to it."

"I'll be sure to approach with more caution next time I find you in such a state then."

He replied.
Last thing he wanted was the Alpha maiming him because he snapped after one of his little episodes.

He nodded silently.

Good.

He didn't want to hurt the man. He liked Zeke. Hurting the man wasn't on his agenda.

"What was your slavery like?" he asked after a few minutes silence that he used to compose himself further. He was curious; he knew about the man's slavery, but he didn't know the details.

Zeke went ridged as Alek asked the question, it was not something he openly discussed. But the Alpha had previously opened up to him and it did him no good bottling it up.

"Unpleasant."
He muttered, his lips hardening in a flat line.

"I didn't know my parents, we were bred as humans, taken from our families and put straight into conditioning centers from the moment of our birth then turned when our bodies matured enough. They tried to breed lycans together but found that most of their bitches died off and it was too hard to find more."

He ran his hands through his hair, taking a breath to steady himself.

He nodded silently, staring up at the sky.

In some aspects, then, Zeke's life was worse than his had been. He hadn't had the love of a parent; Alek had, even if it was for a few short years.

"The Elves did that with us. We bred with humans to try and increase our numbers." He had had many children through breeding with humans. All male. He hadn't gotten close with any of them. He hadn't felt anything for them.

"Did your masters give you your name?" That was another thing that had him curious.

Zeke nodded softly.
"Yeah, they only chose the most able bodied of us to breed, thankfully I was purchased before I could have been put into the program."

He would not of wanted any of his children to have to go through that.

"No, my masters would not talk to me directly let alone name me.
We only ever came into contact with the feeders and the officers who would assign us to different tasks.
It was another lycan who named me, we shared a cell."

The memory made him grimace, that man had met a horrible fate, probably the reason Zeke preferred not to go by Ezekiel, it reminded him of that time in his life.

"You dont have any attachment to them. You have sex, you get told the woman is pregnant, you go on as usual. There's no loving moments between the family." Perhaps he sounded cruel, but there really was no emotional attachment at all.

His lips curled into a dark smirk. "You were lucky. I dont know what they were like for you, but you didn't want to meet you owner face-to-face back in my time. I was lucky enough to meet them." His smirk twitched to a sardonic grin. "Such a great time that was."

"They named us based on performance. When I wasn't causing trouble, I helped out a lot. That's why they named me Aleksandr."

"I understand that, but at that time I was unstable, knowing how I was I probably would of killed the woman."

Even back then he had very little sense of self preservation.

"I saw my masters on occasion, from a distance, the Elves still don't like to sully themselves by being around the slaves.
Clan's would get bored though and hold dog fights, I was picked on multiple occasions to fight for my masters."

He remembered those nights, they'd starve the competitors for weeks just so they would get a nice bloody fight.
Zeke's eyes hardened, you didn't know low until you have been forced to resorting to eating your own kind.

He looked up at Alek, brows inching together as he watched the man smirk.

"What happened between you and your masters?"

His eyes slid closed again. He had been a Lycan for over twenty years before he had been allowed to breed. He had been far too violent before that.

Alek snorted. "They'll sully themselves when it suits them." They sullied a lot more than just themselves.

"The only time I've ever had a chance to get a decent hit on my masters have been when they bed me." It was common practise to take a slave to bed when your wife didn't satisfy your needs.

He was just unlucky enough to be good looking enough to take to bed.

The Lycan had been bitter enough to attack any of the men that tried to bed him a good number of times. It had been pure luck that kept him alive.

Zeke shuddered slightly, he could not imagine what it would of been like for his masters to try and force themselves onto him.

There had been boys that they had taken to bed, young ones who had a less violent nature.
Zeke was wild and unstable, he spent his days either working, in solitary confinement or on the battle arenas.

"How did you get out?"
He asked quietly, silver eyes blazing as they looked at the Alpha.

This was the first time he had ever told anyone his story, Alek's life had been just as chilling as his own, he knew the man understood him.

His tongue ran over his lower lip.

"I ran."

The slaves were being moved from their quarters to the mines. For a century he'd gone down the same route. He had memorised it down to the last pebble.

When he was sure of his speed he had looked for any chance to escape on that route. It took years of looking and many attempts at starting distractions before he finally got a good enough opening.

"I started a group fight while we were being herded to the mines in the morning. It distracted the few guards that were there for long enough for me to run."

It had been risky; very risky. He was too paranoid to stay in the city. He had ran without any planning. He just needed to escape.