Chapter Text
Rodolfo was three years old the first time he met Alejandro — the first time the boy who would one day become one of his most important people bit him. He doesn’t remember it himself, only knows the story because his mamá would talk about it for years afterward. He’d been crying that day, inconsolable over something no one could pinpoint. Alejandro had been five, had still lived several houses down from his family in Las Almas back then.
“He came right through the window,” mamá would say, eyes misty from memory and a small smile on her face. “Not a word he said to anyone. He just went right to you, mijo, and bit your neck. I’ve never heard a sound like that come from a person, let alone a child. Like a rumbling croon. You calmed down so quickly, like you’d been waiting for it. For him.”
He wishes he could remember that day. He knows Alejandro does, but the man has never been able to put into words why he knew that biting Rodolfo back then, teeth still puppy-thin and sharp, would soothe his distress. It’s instinct, hermano, is the best he can come up with. And Rodolfo knows what that means now, but back then it was akin to magic to him. It still is, but now it carries the weight of knowledge and trust; a lifetime of companionship that started in an unorthodox way but grew into something more powerful than what words could capture. Alejandro has been by his side ever since that day, has watched over Rodolfo as he grew like his own personal guardian angel. They’ve been inseparable since day one, Alejandro because of what he calls instinct and Rodolfo because of Alejandro. Because he is a good man, a charismatic one; he knows how to inspire trust, how to draw people into his orbit. He is caring and protective to the point of violence, and the men he leads are soothed by it. Have never once feared their Colonel turning on them, because family is everything to Alejandro. Pack is everything to him, and he will tear the world apart with fang and claw to keep his people safe.
Rodolfo didn’t learn that Alejandro was a Shifter until he was ten. Had grown up trailed everywhere by the older boy, always felt safest in his shadow. He was small back then — runt-sized, the other boys always jeered and mocked. Rodolfo was a gentle child, sensitive to the point of crying at the first hint of cruelty until Alejandro would crowd close and familiar teeth would find the crook of his neck, sharp but never injuring him. Even as a pup still learning control, Alejandro never hurt him. Always pressed his chest to Rodolfo’s, or up against his back, and his rumbles would halt the tears faster than any hug from his mamá or papá.
The day he learned the truth was the day several teenagers caught him in an alley. They were already cruel and violent, already recruited by the cartel and learning to enjoy their newfound power. Rudy was the runt of their district, still so small and sweet, and those boys wanted to break something. Wanted see it cry and bleed. And he had, his little fists ineffective against those bigger, stronger predators. His face was covered in his own blood, his nose broken and his shoulders dripping red from several long, thin cuts. The boy holding the knife had come back for more, Rudy’s blood shining so brightly against the steel, and his crying had kicked up a notch, had risen to a shrieking wail that made them laugh until a deeper sound cut through the air. Something dark, violent, animalistic, and then it was their turn to scream when a monster dropped down from the rooftops and tore into them like a rabid beast.
Rodolfo remembers crying and shaking, hiding in the corner of the alley he’d crammed himself into and covering his head with his arms while he’d listened to the slaughter. Remembers sobbing and babbling pleas when a warm tongue had licked his hands, when a wet nose had nudged into the gap so the monster could lick his face. He’d flinched at the sharp sound of breaking bones, and then Alejandro was calling his name, low and frantic, and Rodolfo had thrown himself at the older boy with a wail and let himself be cradled close. Alejandro had picked him up like he weighed nothing, and he hadn’t thought to question why his friend was naked and covered in more blood than he was. All he could do was cling to Alejandro and sob, let himself be carried and soothed, and the tears didn’t stop until he felt teeth in his throat and a rumbling croon that had become more coveted than his mamá’s songs rattled through him.
Rodolfo still has those scars on his shoulders today, faded though they are. A bookmark carved into his skin, the chapter of his young life when he learned first-hand how cruel humans could be. The day he learned that his best friend was something more than human — a legend spoken of in hushed whispers. The Secret of Las Almas, because in their world, Shifters did not survive. The cartel couldn’t risk allowing monsters to live that they could not control, and so they slaughtered anyone they suspected of being one. But they never found Alejandro. Were never able to track him down even when word began to spread that a Shifter stalked the shadows of the city. Alejandro was only twelve, was only one Shifter in a city of tens of thousands of people — he was too young then to make a difference, but after Rodolfo’s attack, something had changed in him.
“Come with me, Rudy,” he’d coaxed, and Rodolfo had followed without hesitation because it was Alejandro. Covered in bandages and still whimpering in pain, he had nonetheless followed his friend out of the city, out into the surrounding wilderness. Far away from the place he had always known, almost up into the mountains where they liked to play after school. A place where no one would see them, the night lit only by the moon.
“Watch me, Rudy, and don’t be afraid,” his friend ordered, already an Alpha even back then, and Rodolfo had obeyed, wide-eyed and trembling, as Alejandro’s dark eyes glowed amber in the moonlight and he became something inhuman.
Rodolfo learned the truth that night, met the Secret of Las Almas in the flesh, and never once felt afraid. How could he, when he realized that the monster in that alley had been his oldest and dearest friend? When Alejandro had never once harmed him, had only ever kept him safe and protected him from harm? Rodolfo had felt no fear, only amazement, as he’d looked up at the Wolf.
Magic is real, he remembers thinking to himself, young and ignorant of so many things still, but he’d known that for a fact at that moment. Had reached up and gasped when Alejandro had pushed his muzzle into Rodolfo’s worshipful palms without a flicker of hesitation. The eyes were different — everything was different — but it was still Alejandro looking back at him. Still his rumble, his steadying croon, even when it was deeper and reverberating from a different set of vocal cords. He was still Rudy’s guiding light, his north star to safety, and that wasn’t going to change just because his shape did.
Looking back on that moment, he thinks that’s when he truly fell in love with his best friend, years before he would ever truly know what it meant to love and be loved by a Shifter. Years before the war they’d been fighting since the day they were born would break and they would find peace in the aftermath of so much gunfire and bloodshed.
Decades before anyone but Los Vaqueros would know the identity of Las Almas’ best-kept secret, when they would meet another pair of Shifters from a place Rodolfo would never know and he would realize what that love could look like from an outside perspective.
It looks brutal, and violent. It looks beautiful. It looks — it feels — like coming home.