Fandom: World of Warcraft
Pairing: Male Orc OC x Male Human OC [Romantic]
Rating: Teen
Content: Alternative Universe, Theramore joins the Horde, Bigotry in a fantasy setting, Worker abuse, Alcoholism
Date originally written: 6th June 2019
Summary: Korgah thinks over his interaction with Thomas, and decides that he wants to see the human again.

Not that he has any idea on what he should say.

Korgah had been in much better spirits when he’d arrived at his friend’s place.

It was a quaint little human-built house, decorated to the nines with tauren-made chimes, tapestries and dream catchers. Despite the very telling human-designed architecture, there was no doubt to anyone walking by that a tauren lived there.

When Korgah knocked on the too-small door, the large black-furred tauren had been quite surprised to see him arriving so early in the morning, but had let the orc into his home nonetheless. “I hope you haven’t had breakfast yet, because I have something for the two of us.” He said, lifting up the fish for Hau’ne to see. The tauren shook his head, chuckling a bit. “If I didn’t know any better I’d think you caught those fish yourself. I assume you found the culprit?”

Korgah hummed in affirmation, walking into Hau’ne’s house and making a beeline for the kitchen where he flopped the two big fish onto the counter. He fumbled around in some of the kitchen draws until he found a knife good enough for preparing the fish. Hau’ne was right behind him, grabbing the other fish so that prep could go faster. Kal was close by, watching the two in the kitchen, still with the other two fish stuffed in her mouth. Korgah looked over at her, almost as if he could feel her presence lingering. “You know you’re not allowed in the kitchen. Go and eat your fish elsewhere.” Kal huffed in response, promptly walking away into the front room, where she started to crunch down on the fish.

“Are you going to tell me who or what it was giving her fish, or am I supposed to guess?” Hau’ne said as he started descaling his fish. Korgah chuckled quietly. “Oh, I will. I’m just not sure you’ll believe me when I tell you.” Hau’ne made a sound at the accusation. “Try me.”

Korgah smirked. “Fine, then. It was a human.”

Hau’ne stopped what he was doing. “You're...joking, right? That's a joke."

Korgah was laughing now. "No, Hau'ne, It's not a joke. I'm being serious. I even spoke to him."

"You spoke to him? As in, you had an actual conversation with a human? And he didn't call you any derogatory names?"

The orc huffed at that. "No, he didn't. His father did, though. He apologised on his father's behalf and gave us some fish as a gift to...make up for it..I guess? I still don't understand how human customs work so I assume he was trying to be nice."

Hau'ne laughed this time, his chuckle deep and warm as they continued prepping their food. Korgah was already seasoning his own fish, seemingly ready to devour his meal. Hau'ne took his time with the cuts.

"When you're done with your fish can you do the vegetables?"

Korgah grunted in affirmation.

"And are you going to tell me what this human looks like and what his name is?"

"Thomas Wesley. Small and short. Blonde hair. Has spots on his face and a completely unrecognisable accent. It's supposed to be Dwarven mixed with northern Kul'Tiran but honestly I think he was just speaking another language, and somehow I managed to understand him through some magical bullshit."

Hau'ne barked out a laugh. "Are you sure he wasn't speaking a dialect of Common?"

Korgah stopped chopping the vegetables as he thought about it. "Huh...maybe he was? Does Common even have dialects?"

"I'm not sure. But it wouldn't surprise me, and it'd explain why you couldn't understand him."

They were both silent for a while before Hau'ne spoke up again.

"Or maybe he just had a terrible accent."

They both laughed.

"Yes, that too."

They soon settled into a comfortable silence, adding more ingredients into the pot as they chopped them up and seasoned them. When their food had finally cooked, they sat down on the floor near the fireplace that still crackled with heat and flame, eating peacefully.

It wasn't anything he was really used to from his life in Orgrimmar. Usually they would be seated around an open fire on a stone floor, or at least sitting on a log outside, where the heat of the sun would keep their bodies warm. Here, he was sitting on wooden floorboards that barely held his weight in front of a hot furnace in a home definitely far too small for any orc or tauren. It was...weird. Certainly not bad. But definitely weird.

"How long do you think it's going to take for our newer Horde members to start being as friendly as Thomas Wesley? And not just quietly polite like most are now...but I mean actually friendly."

Hau'ne's eyebrows raised at the sudden question that speared through the silence. He hummed in thought as he took another bite of fish. "I don't know. It has only been a few months...I think it'd take a year. Or more. I'm not sure, honestly. Quite a loaded question to be asking over breakfast."

Korgah huffed in amusement. "Sorry. I've just been kind of tired of being avoided by others like I'm carrying the blood plague or something. That interaction I had with Thomas Wesley was like a breath of fresh air."

"Then maybe you should go visit him. If he's as friendly as you say, perhaps trying to make friends with him wouldn't be such a bad idea. And maybe it'll jump-start the idea in people's heads that all people of the Horde can get along."

Korgah smiled. "That actually sounds like a good idea."

A few days went by, without a single sighting of the big white wolf that Thomas had grown accustomed to seeing. He thought nothing of it- much like the last time when he’d not seen her for an entire week- but he really wanted to see her again, and possibly her owner, too. He liked those two, despite only having seen the wolf a few times and the orc once.

However, he was so incredibly busy that there was no way he’d actually see them unless they both went out of their way to show up at the docks really early in the morning. The suggestion he’d made to Korgah about showing up to the fish stall when he was the one manning it was really starting to seem like a straight up lie. Thomas was sometimes the one behind the stall, but that usually only happened when something had gone wrong, either with the boat, the net or there was just bad weather about.

He didn’t like to admit it, but he prayed for bad weather, sometimes. He knew that doing so would make things worse financially- unless he learned how to fish in a small boat on the rocky waves of a stormy sea- but he couldn’t help himself, sometimes. He wanted something more out of this life than just fishing every single day until he carked it.

Thomas often wondered if things would be better for his life if his father just completely retired and let him take care of the business for himself. He wasn’t exactly business savvy, but he was certain he could do a far better job than what his father was doing. Tom at least had the common sense to know that at least more than one person should be supplying the fish. Having only one person doing the fishing job was completely and utterly absurd, but his father was far too stubborn and prideful (and broke) to hire anyone else. His father considered it an achievement to be able to run an entire business on his own.

Tom thought it was financial suicide.

He simply wished that he wasn’t so vital for the family business. He knew that if he failed, that he would be failing the business and his father. Then, they’d starve.

Well, Thomas would starve. His father would take all the money and run, probably. Or spend it all on booze, hoping to drown himself in the alcohol, and blame all of his problems on Tom. He was definitely enough of a git to do something like that.

Thomas sighed and tried to let the thoughts escape from his mind. He’d been thinking a lot about his future, recently.

Like whether or not he should put up with his father’s treatment anymore. Whether he should move out and start anew in a completely different city (it’d have to be a Horde one where he’d need to know Orcish, but he’d make it work if given no other choice). Or maybe he could work for someone else in Theramore who wasn’t a right prick. There were plenty of places that would hire a young, talented fisherman and skipper like him, for all sorts of reasons. His experience in sailing- even if it was in a much smaller boat- at least gave him the opportunity to try for a job in a different trade. Maybe he could become an actual sailor, or even a Captain of an entire ship like his grandfather...

Though he couldn’t imagine his grandfather approving of him being the Captain of a Horde ship, let alone being okay with anything that was currently going on. If he were still alive, he would’ve expected both his son and grandson to immediately leave Theramore for Stormwind when it was decided that Theramore would become a part of the Horde.

He was dead now, though. And Thomas didn’t particularly care about what dead people thought.

Thomas decided that none of it mattered. Not right now. He could think about his future later, when he wasn't busy.

When he wasn’t slaving away for a man that barely cared about his existence.

An entire week went by, and Korgah had still not managed to gather up the courage to go see Thomas Wesley.

He wasn’t sure what it was that was preventing him from going out into the streets in search of him, but his heart had been hammering in his chest due to nervousness whenever he’d genuinely thought about going out to go see him.

Korgah was never nervous, so the fact that he was feeling even the slightest bit of anxiety at the idea of seeing Thomas again made him question the reason why. He wanted to see Thomas again. He was a nice person who had shown zero fear, disgust or mistrust towards him, and was almost outright happy to have spoken to him. So Korgah had no idea why he could be nervous.

He thought perhaps that such an enthusiastic and energetic personality might’ve simply been a bit overwhelming for him, and that was why. It wasn’t as if he’d never met anyone in the Horde like that before, he had, he’d just never seen it in a human before. He truly didn’t know what to expect from Thomas, if he were to speak to him again.

And what was Korgah even supposed to say to him, anyway? He didn’t know what was an appropriate topic to talk about when meeting a human you’ve never met before. He’d never properly spoken to a human before until just last week, and the meeting had been a rather unorthodox one, to boot. He couldn’t just assume that everything that was normal to speak about in orcish culture would be the same in human culture. There had to be taboos and unspoken rules, just like there were unspoken rules in his own culture. What if he accidentally insulted Thomas by asking about his family and it turned out that asking someone about their family was extremely rude unless you were close friends?

Korgah pushed all the thoughts away from his skull. This was precisely the reason why he’d not managed to go out and find Thomas: because of his overthinking and too-active brain. If he messed up, he could just apologise and blame it on not knowing anything about humans and their culture.

Korgah was glad to have pushed the thoughts away, because in the distance, Kal’s furry white body was quickly disappearing as she quickly trotted her way down to the docks.

He sighed and ran after her.

Korgah was certain he’d arrived the docks at record speed. At some point, Kal had started to run, and Korgah had been given no other choice but to run after her. He was sure that he looked like he had absolutely no control over his wolf whatsoever...and while that might’ve been half-right, she was also leading him to where he had wanted to go in the first place...so she was kind of doing what he wanted. Just in a very roundabout way.

When Korgah had finally caught up to his wolf, he looked around the area. He saw no immediate signs of Thomas, but he was sure that he’d been here at some point that day. He wasn’t entirely sure about what the human’s schedule was, but either Thomas had just left for the water and would not be back for a few hours, or he was just about to come back to shore. He certainly wasn’t at the market, because Kal would’ve led him there, instead.

Korgah let Kal sniff around to sate her curiosity, while he found a place to sit for a moment.

He pondered on what he should do next. He really wanted to see Thomas, but at the same time he wondered if maybe he should leave to go and do something a bit more productive. If he was going to sit here and wait, he might be waiting for hours.

He didn’t even know what Tom’s boat looked like.

Korgah sat there for a while longer, trying to think of interesting, productive or fun things he could do if he decided he was going to leave, and watched as his wolf started walking off. He let Kal do so, knowing that she wouldn’t wander too far off. He was completely fine with that.

Until she started doing exactly what he’d hoped she wouldn’t.

Korgah whistled to Kal, trying to get her attention. “Kal! Get back here!”

She wasn’t listening. She started to trot away, her head down to the ground as she followed a scent she had picked up.

Korgah called out to her again, and that’s when she started to sprint away, reaching her top speed in a matter of seconds.

There was absolutely no way that he could keep up with her. Korgah had gotten up from his seat and started running after her as fast as he could despite that fact, knowing that if he didn’t try to keep her in his sights, he’d likely lose her for a few hours- at least.

Korgah was quite fast when he ran- all things considered- but he only had two legs to work with. Kal had four, and she didn’t seem to have any plans of stopping. Korgah felt lucky that she was running in a straight line and hadn’t broken his line of sight.

Yet.

Now that he thought about it, Korgah had been doing a whole lot of running after Kal, lately.

He wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to train her out of it, though. It kept him on his toes; kept him aware of his surroundings at all times. It was good for whenever he went out into the wilderness. Or into battle- not that he’d ever needed to fight anyone, as of late.

His thoughts halted when he realised just where Kal was headed towards.

The high, rocky shoreline.

Looking at it from where Korgah was, it really didn’t seem like a place neither a wolf nor an orc should even attempt to climb. Yet, as those very thoughts appeared in his mind, Kal had already started climbing onto them.

Korgah groaned in exasperation. This was getting ridiculous.

He made it to the rocks as fast as he could, and debated in his mind whether or not he should actually follow Kal.

He quickly decided which side of the debate he was on as he climbed up onto them, following his reckless and mischievous wolf to wherever the bloody hell her nose was taking her.

Korgah figured that if Kal fell into the water and drowned, or slipped and fell onto a sharp rock below which impaled her, at least he’d know about it. Perhaps he could even prevent something like that from happening, too.

He just hoped that she had a better grip on the rocks than he did.

As it turned out, Kal’Grok did in fact have a better grip on the rocks than Korgah did. She moved about the rocks swiftly and gracefully, knowing exactly where she should tread and where she shouldn’t. Korgah followed her steps, feeling almost relieved that the rocks had at least slowed Kal down. He was able to keep up with her now, not having to worry about losing sight of her.

The only thing he had to worry about was slipping and falling. He was sure Kal would save him if something like that happened, but he truly didn’t want to risk either of their lives, so he remained as vigilant as he possibly could while traversing the rocky ledge.

It had taken a bit of a while, but after some more climbing and jumping, and praying to the water and air elements to be gentle with him, they had both arrived at what Kal’s nose had been sniffing out.

It was a small, rocky cove. The waves here were not so insistent on angrily lashing over the rocks like they had been doing further out of the cove, and it seemed like a nice, private place to sit, relax and ponder one’s thoughts.

He started to climb down the rocks with Kal, when he noticed something moving down in the cove, wading through the water. It looked to be a person, but he couldn’t tell either the race nor the gender from his position. He’d have to get closer.

Korgah wasn’t sure it was such a good idea to get closer, though. If it was a human or a night elf, he’d likely end up giving them a heart attack, and who knows how they would end up reacting.

It didn’t seem to matter much to Kal, though. She was starting to climb down the slippery rocks even faster than before, and Korgah had no choice but to follow. If this was a complete stranger, he’d need to be as close to Kal as possible.

She didn’t really know what ‘personal space’ meant, and he knew that could spell disaster for a lot of different situations. Especially this one.

As Korgah got closer, he saw that the person wading in the water was definitely a human. They were holding something in both their hands, but Korgah wasn’t able to see what it was, as their back was turned.

They had blond hair, though. And that was promising. He prayed to his ancestor’s that it was Thomas.

It would certainly make sense if it was. Why else would Kal have led him here in the first place? She knew the human’s scent by now, even through all the smells of fish and saltwater. There was no way it wasn’t Tom. Sure, Korgah had been wrong before, and Kal’s sniffer could sometimes lead her astray if the wind was blowing the wrong direction, but he was confident that this person was Thomas Wesley.

As Korgah was absent-mindedly thinking, Kal had decided that she’d had enough of sneaking about.

She launched herself off the rocks and into the cove’s shallow water, creating a splash of massive proportions.

The human whipped around in surprise, almost dropping the crab that was in their hands when they’d heard the loud splash.

Not a moment later, a grin appeared on the human’s face.

“You cheeky bloody wolf! What are ye doing here Kal? Just can’t keep yeself away from me, can ye?” Thomas said, laughing as Kal excitedly came up to him, sniffing and licking his face in greeting.

“Oh yes, I’ve missed ye too, Kal. I'm afraid I can’t pet ye at the moment, though. Got me hands full and all that!”

Behind them, Korgah breathed a sigh of relief. He was glad that it was truly Tom, and not some random human who’d simply looked similar. He smiled as he climbed down the rocks the rest of the way before gently lowering himself into the water, the small waves coming up to his knees.

Tom brought the crab to his chest, trying to prevent Kal from getting to it, who had suddenly become very persistent that she deserved to have some crab for lunch. “Keep ye snout tae yerself, Kal! There’s not as many crabs ‘round here as there are fish. Every single crab I catch counts.”

Korgah chuckled quietly at that, and Thomas turned to the source of the laugh. Somehow, his grin just got even wider. “Throm’ka, Korgah! Fancy seeing ye here!” He said, greeting Korgah as the orc waded his way towards the two.

Korgah’s heart suddenly swelled against his will at the human’s greeting. Tom had remembered both his name and the orcish words for ‘Well met’. Tom had deemed both of them important enough that he should remember them for the future.

Korgah felt a bit lightheaded. He tried to compose himself.

“Throm’ka, Thomas Wesley. Kal’Grok ran off after your scent when we visited the docks, and I wasn’t able to stop her. I hope you don’t mind us accompanying you.”

“Oh, not at all! Just mind ye don’t step on any crabs that might be underneath ye! I’m catching them for me father’s stall in the market.”

“I’ll..try not to. Can’t say the same for Kal, though. She does whatever she pleases.”

Tom laughed and nodded in agreement. “Aye. She’s a mischievous thing, that one.”

Korgah smiled. He’d almost thought that the interaction he’d had with Tom almost an entire week ago had been a fever dream that he’d concocted to ease his worries, but he realised now how very real everything was. This odd human didn’t mind his presence. And Korgah didn’t mind Tom’s, either.

Kal was definitely smitten.

Either that, or she was just extremely hungry. Somehow, the hulking wolf had snuck off to investigate what were obviously the buckets that Thomas was using to hold the crabs he had caught.

“Oi, get yer nose out o’ that!”

Kal whined at him and sat behind the buckets like she had done at the stall the first time Tom had met her. “No, sorry Kal. It’s not for ye. Ye can have as many fish as ye like, but the crabs and lobsters are strictly off limits, ye hear me?” Tom said, pointing his finger at her.

Korgah could only look on as the human scolded his wolf like she was a naughty child (which wasn’t too far off, if Korgah thought about it). Kal whined and seemed to give up. The orc couldn’t help but chuckle. “Seems your manipulative ways have finally fallen short, Kal’Grok.”

She huffed at him indignantly.

Thomas placed the crab into one of the buckets, and inspected them for a moment, counting them. “Right then. Just a handful more crabs and I can get the bloody hell out of here.”

Korgah hesitated for a second, before speaking. “Would you..like some help?”

Tom looked up at him. “Oh..! Well...if ye want tae help, I don’t see why not. Ye know how tae catch crabs?”

“You grab them with your hands?”

Thomas laughed loudly at that. “Well of course! But do ye know where tae find them?”

Korgah thought about it for a second before shaking his head. “No, I guess not.”

“Come, I’ll show ye!”

They spent the next 30 minutes wading through the water near the edges of the cove, where Thomas showed Korgah where the crabs (and sometimes lobsters) usually hid, how to tell apart a male crab from a female crab, how to tell if a crab was freshly moulted or not, and which crabs should be thrown back and which were ready to be put in the bucket.

During that time, Kal’Grok had managed to sneakily grab a crab out of one of the buckets, and tried to silently crunch on it behind a large boulder, hoping to not be seen.

The entire ordeal was rather educational for Korgah, to say the least.

Though he’d learned very little about the human himself. He decided to be proactive.

“Can I ask you something?”

Thomas stopped what he was doing, and rose up from the water again, crab in tow. “Sure thing, mate.”

“What is your...schedule? When do you work and when don’t you work?”

Thomas waded back to the buckets, Korgah following close behind. “Well...I get up at 3am and take a 15 minute walk down tae the docks where I set sail out tae where the best fishing spots are, I stay out there for a few hours and come back at ‘round 6am, where I unload the fish at the market. Me father spends an hour preparing things before the stalls open at 7am. I’m usually expected tae go on the water immediately after I’ve finished unloading since it takes almost an hour tae get tae the next fishing spot. I continue tae fish for quite a few more hours, and I bring in more fish for the second half o’ the day, which is at about 1pm. Then I eat something, read a book, go tae fucking sleep and wake up at 3am tae do it all over again!”

Korgah frowned at that. “Do you ever get a break?”

“When I’m sleeping, yes. And on Saturdays and Sundays, since our stall is closed during that time. I usually sleep during those days, since the weekdays are so exhausting. Though, sometimes I do get tae do what I want on the weekends. Can’t be working all the time, of course.”

“I see...”

It was quiet for a bit of a while, with both Korgah and Tom continuing to search for crabs. Tom grunted as he pulled out a rather large lobster. Korgah mustered up the courage to speak again.

“Would you mind if I...met with you on the weekend? I...enjoy your presence, and so does Kal. I think...I would like to know more about humans. And you.”

Tom smiled up at him. “Of course! As long as we stay away from the pubs.”

“Oh. Not much of a drinker?”

“Oh, it’s not that. It’s just that me father hangs ‘round that area during the weekends...and I really don’t want tae run into him on me day off.”

“Can’t say that I blame you..”

They both returned to the buckets and put the last remaining crustaceans into them. “I appreciate ye help, Korgah. How about Saturday, at the tavern close tae the docks? Some good food and drink there, and I know me father doesn’t go there.”

Korgah smiled and nodded. “I will join you, then, Thomas Wesley.”

“Glad tae hear it! Oh, and...I’m not sure if they let animals in or not...so that’s something ye gonna have tae figure out yerself.”

“That’s fine. Kal can stay in for once.”

Thomas gave a small chuckle. “Oh I doubt ye will be able tae keep her inside for any longer than a few minutes!”

They both laughed.

Korgah could not wait for Saturday to arrive.