
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/526900.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      No_Archive_Warnings_Apply, Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Kate_Argent/Derek_Hale
  Character:
      Derek_Hale, Laura_Hale, Peter_Hale, Kate_Argent, Stiles_Stilinski, Scott
      McCall
  Additional Tags:
      Canonical_Character_Death, Dubious_Consent, Underage_Sex, Physical_Abuse,
      AU_from_season_1_episode_6, Headcanon
  Series:
      Part 4 of Gifts_for_Tumblr_Users
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-10-02 Words: 6819
****** Blue-Eyed Wolves ******
by AngeNoir
Summary
     Derek doesn’t know what to do. And he can’t admit that to anyone.
      
     Derek's formative years are shaped by the fact that he has blue eyes
     and too-trusting of a heart.
Notes
     NOTE: Dubious consent is the sex scene between 16 year old Derek and
     23 year old Kate.
     So I have to say I wrote this as a birthday present, hoping that
     Chiazu would enjoy it. I watched up to episode 6 over the weekend to
     have a better grasp on the show (beyond what tumblr has shown me in
     gifsets and what the fandom has shown to me in fanfiction). I write
     original werewolf fiction, so that's influenced this story a lot -
     especially the idea of dominant wolves needing an anchor to the pack
     that isn't going to be vying for dominance.
     I will welcome all criticism because frankly, I have no idea what I'm
     doing. I'm blaming this all on tumblr.
     And I will reiterate - this is AU from episode 6 because I haven't
     seen past it. All I know is what's in those first six episodes and
     the fact that I'm around the age Derek is at the end of this story
     and I certainly wouldn't be able to handle it. I just have a lot of
     emotions towards a guy who's lost everything and still has to put
     together some plan of action.

     I may or may not write more when I watch more. I just really enjoy
     Derek's character. And I like Scott. He's adorably naive.
Derek Hale is the youngest, and sometimes he resents that and the limitations
that come with not reaching his majority yet because Laura and Jason stick him
with watching over the younger cousins while they run with the adults in the
woods. Not that Derek could run in the woods with them yet, what with his wolf
still underdeveloped and not strong enough yet, but that means Derek is left
behind with Gabby and Sam – short for Samantha – and three brats who refuse to
listen to him. And while he doesn’t mind being around Gabby and Sam because
they’re really cool aunts, he does kinda wish they weren’t so lovey-dovey all
the time. There’s only so much he can take before he starts getting antsy
himself, after all.
“Derek?”
The call is loud in the forest, and Derek hunkers down where he was hiding,
wrapping his arms in a tight circle and glaring at the floor. He really doesn’t
have a chance to not be noticed; in a family of werewolves, there had been
nowhere a little kid could hide that someone wouldn’t find him eventually.
Still, he’d hoped they wouldn’t have noticed his disappearance for some time.
Then again, this is his fourteenth birthday, the day his wolf fully matures and
his training as an adult really begins. It makes sense that someone would be
keeping an eye out for him. Couldn’t have a rouge werewolf running in the
woods, after all, not with the Argent clan nearby. The Code prevented any
unprovoked attacks, but a rogue werewolf was a guaranteed exception to the
code.
The leaves crunch outside the little copse of trees Derek’s secluded in, and
Derek can catch a whiff of his uncle Peter. If he can smell his uncle, most
likely his uncle can smell him – but Uncle Peter doesn’t barge in or intrude.
Instead, there’s more crunching and then a sigh. “You okay, buddy? Family’s
kinda gone nuts. You’re not supposed to go through your first shift as an adult
wolf alone, after all.”
Derek swallows and says rebelliously, “Moonrise isn’t for another three hours.”
“I know, kiddo.” More swishing of leaves, and then Peter continues, “Still.
Being with the pack is a big thing, you know? Something you’re supposed to do.
Have fun with it. You’re a full-grown wolf, now, and you don’t have to stay
with the pups anymore.”
“’M a freak,” Derek whispers.
“Why is that?”
Derek swallows nervously as his uncle’s face started to come into view, and he
drops his head immediately.
There’s silence, and then the sound of his uncle walking over to where he was
curled up on the ground. “Hey, kiddo. What’s up?” There’s a long pause, and
then his uncle’s hand curls under his chin, tilts his head up.
Derek closes his eyes tight, but Peter makes a small noise of surprise. Curling
his skinny shoulders closer, he jerks his chin out of his uncle’s hand and
huddles on the ground.
“Hey, Der. Derek. It’s okay.”
“No it’s not,” Derek mutters, voice muffled by his hands and arm. “No one else
is like this.”
The leaves crunch even more as Uncle Peter sits down, and his knee brushes
Derek’s side. “That’s because no one else is special like you.”
“Yeah, thanks a lot, uncle,” Derek growls. “We’re all special in our own ways,
right?”
Peter leans over Derek’s body, one big hand splaying against the small of
Derek’s back and rubbing. A family of werewolves means physical language, not
spoken, and though Derek wants to deny what he’s smelling, Peter’s calm,
gentle. Caring, in his own way, even if Mom and Dad make noises about Peter’s
temper and viciousness. “No. You’re special. You know how long it’s been that
I’ve seen a wolf who’s shown blue eyes?”
Derek swallows hard and manages to whisper, “Does this mean I’m not a Beta?”
“What else would you be?” Peter asks, and his voice is calm, matter-of-fact.
Derek draws strength from that solid rock and shoves the tears and panic back
down, but doesn’t answer.
After a moment, Peter lets out another sigh. “Okay. Fact time. You’re not an
alpha, right? Alphas have red eyes, and you don’t. You’re not an Omega, right?
You’ve got a pack. So what does that leave?”
“I have blue eyes, Peter!” Derek snarls, and he’s more than slightly
embarrassed when his voice cracks. He can tell Peter’s trying to keep his lip
from twitching in amusement.
“That you do. Look – you’re still a beta. You kill an alpha, you’re still gonna
become one. But you’re more than that.” Peter pauses, looking at Derek closely
for a long minute before letting out a bone-deep sigh. “In a pack – in some of
the bigger packs, the alpha can be challenged weekly for alpha position. Right?
You know that?”
Derek nods, because Peter’s offering an explanation and anything – anything –
is better than having a physical difference that separates him from his family.
He’s different enough, geeky and awkward enough, in school, and Laura and Jason
both matured at twelve, not fourteen. This is – this is beyond the last straw.
Peter laughs a little. “’Course you know that. You’re not the one skimping on
your history lessons, right?”
A flush rising in his cheeks, Derek uncurls enough to punch Peter’s knee, which
makes Peter laugh, of course. Derek’s not nearly full-grown enough to make a
punch feel anything different than a tap.
After shaking his head, Peter sobers and runs his hand up Derek’s shoulder to
bury in Derek’s floppy hair, ruffling gently. “Blue-eyed wolves won’t challenge
an alpha, unless the alpha’s mad or destroying the pack. They’re – they’re the
baseline of the pack. They care about everyone, and worry about everyone. They
are great organizers and they hold the pack together, even though they can be
more dominant than any other wolf besides the alpha. A wolf pack with a blue-
eyed wolf is a blessed pack indeed.”
Derek blinks in surprise as Peter leans down, letting his nose touch Derek’s
the way his wolf would nose at Derek’s muzzle were they wolves. “Mark my words,
Derek. You’ll be a credit to any pack you live with, whether you stay here with
your mate or find another pack you enjoy. Blue-eyed wolves have the biggest
hearts and the strongest spines.”
“No one else has blue eyes, though,” Derek makes pains to point out, even as he
grasps hungrily at the idea that his blue eyes weren’t a curse.
Peter laughs, and there’s a vicious edge to it – one Derek’s intimately
familiar with, from Peter’s lessons on fighting and stealth, from Laura’s
lessons, from his mother snarling at one of the aunts over who eats first from
their kill. “No, no one else does,” Peter says, and his eyes flash golden
orange. “Most wolves have yellow, or orange, eyes. Most wolves have a need to
be top dog. You don’t. You’d be content following another alpha for the rest of
your life, never making a play for his position.” Peter pauses, and then adds
on, “Or her position, I suppose.”
That doesn’t sound like a plus to Derek, and he frowns. “So I’m a pussy?” he
says, voice rough and claws growing out of his fingers to dig into his bare
arms. As much as it was fall, and getting chilly enough to wear long-sleeved
shirts and turtlenecks even with werewolf blood running hot, Derek hadn’t
paused his rush from the house when he’d looked into the bathroom mirror and
seen blue eyes reflected back at him.
“Eh. Others will call you that, certainly. Personally, I’d see it as more of a
blessing. All the strength of a beta, but you don’t have the – the constant
anger and temper most wolves have. Only you can make it into a strength,
though. Will you?”
 
                                       *
 
Derek is still the youngest of his family, and the only one in his family who
woke up with blue eyes on the day of his maturation, and the all-elbows-and-
knees kid that sits in the back of English and stares at their substitute
teacher all throughout October.
She smells of strawberries and wildness, of a tart sweetness that captivates
and allures as much as it warns. Her name is Kate Argent, and Derek knows she’s
in the family business because he’s seen her uncle, the head of the Argent
hunters, along with her in his dad’s living room when they were discussing
boundaries, treaties, and truces. Derek’s family isn’t going to be wiped out –
they’d traveled away from all that, settled here, with the hopes of carving
this town as territory without bothering anyone else. The Argent family has a
base here, but it’s one they cycle through. The Argent clan is one of the
biggest, and one of the ones that takes care of pretty much all of the west
coast. They knew what the Hale family had been running from, had checked in
with Derek’s grandfather when they had first settled in the house and Derek
hadn’t been more than five or six. Since then, the Argents sometimes come over
to discuss a supernatural creature killing, to see whether, as wolves, they’d
known or could tell them something about it. Kate comes with her uncle, and
she’s strong, powerful. She knows what he is, and she sometimes glances over at
him and smiles.
Derek thinks he might live for her smiles.
Laura notices he has a crush (thankfully, she doesn’t know on who) and teases
him relentlessly. “Little sophmore’s got a crush, huh?” she asks, and her voice
isn’t exactly friendly but it’s not loud enough for the kids around to hear,
either. Derek’s gotten used to the tough brand of love that Laura and his dad
and Peter show. Jason is actually nicer than Laura, and dad jokes every day
that Laura will rule the pack soon enough. Still, no one wants to think of dad
growing too old to lead the hunts, so that talk ends quick enough, even if
Peter’s eyes go hard at that and he body-checks Laura – subtly – when they
leave the kitchen.
Kate doesn’t look like she’d body-check Derek if she gets annoyed at him. She
doesn’t look like she’ll break his arm, either, like Jason does when Derek
doesn’t get the lessons on fighting and hunting fast enough. She doesn’t look
like she’ll mock Derek for being spindly, like Laura does. She looks… perfect.
One November day, at the end of class, Derek stops by the desk (Mrs. Reva is
out on maternity leave) and puts his English essay down on it, waiting because
English is his last class and Laura’s always driving off and leaving him to
walk home alone anyway.
“Oh, hey Derek. How’re you doing?” Kate asks, looking up from putting her keys
into her purse.
Derek nervously fidgets at the edge of the desk, saying, “You wanted to see me
after class? You wrote this note on my paper—”
He breaks off when she smiles, like the sun springing forth on a cloudy day,
dazzling in its brightness. “Yeah, I just – this was really brilliant, Derek,
and you need to work on your grammar and spelling, but with some editing I
think you should enter it into a contest or something. It’s really, really
good, you know?”
And she moves from behind the desk, comes up close. He’s sixteen, so he’s not
short, but he’s still growing and she’s got an inch or two on him. His mouth is
dry as she throws an overly familiar arm over his shoulder. “I just – maybe we
could hang out, you could tell me about your writing? Do you write a lot?”
He shakes his head mutely no.
 
                                       *
 
It starts to become a regular thing, Kate driving Derek home. If they stop for
coffee on the way back, park in the wide woods and just talk, well… it’s not
like Laura cares. Laura’s got a slew of boyfriends, is confidently secure in
her attraction and sexuality. Derek’s still coming into his own as a beta, but
Kate doesn’t mind. Kate is even a hunter, so he can talk about how he’s worried
that when his dad gets too old, Laura and Peter will fight over alpha position
and one of them will end up dead. They’re competitive, and while they’re the
most alike they’re also the two most likely to butt heads over sometimes the
stupidest things.
Kate talks about how her uncle is so staid, so boring. She asks Derek if he’s
boring and Derek answers immediately, no.
 
                                       *
 
Derek loses his virginity around Christmas time. It’s not a special time,
really, not for wolves who don’t measure time by days, but still, there are a
few family members from out of town staying at their house in the woods. Too
many people cooped up in a finite set of rooms makes all the wolves antsy, and
Laura’s been disappearing almost before dinners. Jason’s out with a couple of
his friends, all the adults are remarking about how Derek’s gotten taller but
‘my god, Janet, he looks like a beanpole! Aren’t you feeding the poor boy?’ and
Derek doesn’t need that from everyone, not when he’s still coming to grips with
his bigger wolf form.
Apparently, Christmas at Kate’s is a big deal, which is why she bails. He’s
just hanging out in the woods when his phone vibrates in his jeans pocket and
Kate’s on the other end. She seems satisfied he answered, even as she makes
noises of surprise and protestations that he doesn’t have to come meet up with
her, she was just bored and managed to snag some hours free from too many
relatives.
They meet at the edge of the woods, her in her flashy car and Derek in his
hoodie and jeans and boots that crunch in the snow. He gets into the passenger
side and the warmth floods his body, makes him relax in a way that has him
half-closing his eyes and slumping in the seat.
“Cold?” she chuckles.
“You have no idea,” Derek mutters into the edge of his hoodie, flexing his numb
toes and fingers and wondering if it will look to childish to blow on them, to
rub feeling back into his nose.
She turns the car into the woods, navigating to the edge of a steep hill. Derek
knows this place, of course – even if he never ran through the woods with his
family, who could miss the rumors of the best place to go to do it in school?
Certainly not someone with oversensitive ears who was still learning how to
control his senses back in sixth grade. He blinks in surprise, turns to look at
her, and she’s left the car running and the heat on but her jacket’s off, those
nimble fingers unzipping her jeans, showing glimpses of black lace and moon-
pale skin.
Derek abruptly feels awkward, rough, too lanky and coarse, but before he can
say anything else she’s shimmying her hips and legs, kicking off shoes and
pants, and his mouth goes dry as all blood rushes elsewhere.
“You gonna stay all wrapped up?” she purrs, voice low and husky and suddenly he
can’t get his own pants undone, can’t move fast enough.
She laughs, high and bright and a little mocking, making Derek blush and bite
his tongue. “Need help there, Der?” she coos, and suddenly she’s straddling
him, silky smooth thighs on either side of his thighs, her fuzzy, tight sweater
in his face as she leans down, tilts the chair back until Derek’s lying almost
flat. He knows his eyes are wide, knows he’s acting like a kid, like an idiot,
but before he can do anything to fix that her long, thin fingers are sliding up
under his hoodie, running over his belly and he lets out an involuntary yelp at
the cold fingers and the tickling sensations that are familiar from his own
hand but somehow vastly different from hers.
“Teenagers,” she sighs, and then her fingers are sliding down, undoing his
button and zipper, sliding his boxers down enough to let his painfully hard
cock pop out and he whines in the back of his throat, eyes wide and so, so on
board with this while at the same time, wishing things were going just a little
slower, wishing he had time to get his feet under him, be ready.
But she’s more experienced, right? It’s okay to lay back, let her take control,
because she knows what she wants and Derek will probably mess it up. Especially
considering that her slim fingers are like hot points against his dick and he’s
going to come embarrassingly soon.
She strokes over his dick, leans down again to reach behind her as her lips,
pink and strawberry-tasting, slant over his mouth. He responds with more
enthusiasm than control, hands clutching at the seat beneath him because he’s
terrified his control isn’t good enough to keep his fingers from lengthening
into claws, not for his first time, not with this heaven happening above him
right now.
She’s shifting over him, her underwear gone and it’s startling how he managed
to miss that, how he was so preoccupied with spit-shiny lips and the swell of
her breasts inside her sweater and the narrow-minded focus to keep his hands
still that he didn’t notice her moving around, and somehow she’s got two
condoms in her hand, expertly opening one and setting the other in the driver’s
seat.
“I’d roll this on with my mouth,” she whispers in his ear, “but even I’m not
that flexible. Just imagine it, hmm?”
And oh god is he imagining it, imagining those lips pursed and rounded and
sliding down over his cock and then her fingers mimic the movement and he can’t
help himself, his hips are jerking up roughly and his hands fly from the seat
to her arms, holding tight as he gasps out her name.
“That’s it, baby, come for me,” she murmurs, biting at his ear and his hands
slide to her waist, slide up under her sweater, cup her breasts and bra and
she’s pumping his cock now.
He comes embarrassingly quickly, the world around him whiting out and his voice
is choked over her name, garbling it out around bestial whines and snarls as he
gives himself over to the pleasure.
When he comes back to himself, she’s put a new condom on, and he’s too
sensitive, shying away from her touches, but she’s not stopping. “My turn,
pretty boy,” she whispers against his lips, and he shoves her sweater up,
baring her breasts in black lace, nipples pebbled and playing peekaboo against
the gaps in the cups. The windows are fogged, his breath is ragged, and she’s
shiny, wet, rubbing the tip of his latex-covered dick against her folds and he
just – it’s too much, too quickly, and maybe he shouldn’t be having second
thoughts (he is a guy, what guy wouldn’t want this, why is he worried about
this?) but he is, he’s not sure and she’s still his substitute teacher and
she’s still seven years older than him and he just wants a chance to catch his
breath, think this through—
But he’s a sixteen year old male, and his recovery time is pretty much nil at
this point, so he’s hard in her hands and he figures well, it’s okay, right?
She knows what she’s doing, she got him off, he should get her off too – common
courtesy? And it’s not like his dick hates what’s happening, even if his brain
is overthinking it.
Then she’s sinking down onto his dick and he’s forgetting why he even had
second thoughts because this is – this is nirvana, this is heaven and he never
wants to leave, and her hips are rolling against his, her hands are holding his
hands to her breasts, her mouth is biting and sucking at his tongue and he
can’t keep from helplessly rutting up into her, can’t keep from feeling that
this… this will be okay. Everything’s going to be fine. Kate knows what she’s
doing, Kate likes him, Kate understands him, and everything’s going to be
alright.
 
                                       *
 
Mrs. Reva comes back part-time in April, but since Derek’s class is in the
afternoon he still gets to see Kate, who covers Mrs. Reva’s after lunch
classes. Since January, she’ll smile at him randomly, and he’ll fumble in
class, cheeks heating up. Thankfully, he’s already so awkward and so ignored by
the rest of the student population that no one makes the correlation.
Laura figures out that he’s hiding someone in April as well, and she asks him
bluntly if he needs her to buy him condoms.
“Laura!” he chokes out, mortified.
She looks at him matter-of-factly. She’s blunter than Jason, or even their
cousin Timothy, Peter’s son. She’d be a good leader, he thinks, but so would
Peter. Peter at least pretends to care about the slower members of the pack (of
which Derek most definitely is). Laura has no patience with stupidity or
weakness, and Derek’s suffered more than one broken bone or deep gash at her
hands. Still, she’s his sister, and she’s looking out for him – he gets that.
“If you’re doing it – and you are, what with how you’re coming back so often
with your scent washed clean – you need to not be making baby werewolves in the
world until you’re ready.”
“I’m fine,” he mutters, ducking his head.
Laura cocks her head at him, eyes glowing a dark gold. “When will the family
get to meet her?”
“What?” he asks, and his voice cracks on the word.
“Or him, if it’s a him – and the condoms are still necessary even if it’s a
guy.”
“No it’s – it’s a girl, I mean, Laura no, I’m not ready—”
At that, Laura pauses – they had been walking to Laura’s car, because it’s one
of the few days Laura’s not out with her boyfriend of the week – and meets his
gaze steadily. “If you can’t introduce her to the family, maybe you shouldn’t
be hanging out with her,” she states baldly.
Anger roars in Derek’s belly, licks up towards his chest. As a born werewolf,
someone who’s lived with it since birth, he doesn’t lose control of the
transformation (well, okay, once, but he had never had a blowjob before) but
anger always makes him sharp, the fury making fangs lengthen in his mouth.
Casually, Laura reaches out and snaps his finger backwards.
He gasps, the pain knocking him out of it, and while he’s not transforming-
angry anymore he’s still pissed when he hisses, “Maybe I just want something
special before you guys ruin it. I don’t see you telling dad how many guys you
sleep with! What is this, the tenth guy in three months?”
She snarls, eyes flashing gold again, and punches him hard enough in the
stomach that he can feel a rib go. Turning on her heel, she stalks to the car.
“Find your own way home,” she calls out, voice husky and primal and full of
howls just kept in check.
Derek reaches into his pocket and dials Kate.
She’s free, and when they meet up it's all Derek can do not to complain about
Laura. Normally, he’d be unloading, finding solace in the only one who’ll
listen to him, but today, Kate’s the one unloading. Her brother is apparently
back in town shortly, bringing his eleven-year old daughter and while Kate
adores the girl, her big brother is a pain in the neck.
“He just wants to control my life and I’m sick of it,” she complains.
They’re curled up in the backseat of her car, and if Derek’s breathing a little
deep to imprint her scent on his brain, well, she either isn’t noticing or
isn’t caring.
Of course, then she pokes him in the side. “Hey, pretty boy.”
He grunts, tilts his head up to look at her and smile. “You’re an adult now.
Tell him to fuck off,” he says simply. “I can’t wait until I’m eighteen and can
tell Laura to fuck off.”
“I thought wolves are supposed to stay together with their packs,” she muses,
and her voice is a lot more awake and aware all of a sudden when all Derek
wants to do is sleep curled up next to her.
“Don’t have to,” he murmurs. “Other packs to go to. We split off from another
pack a while back.”
She goes still next to him, and then her hand is in his hair, stroking, and he
growls contentedly at the tingling sensation that runs through his body. “You
did?” she whispers.
“Yeah,” he sighs, wiggling a little in happiness. “Usedta live in New York.
Moved when I was four, five. Before Grandda got hit by lightning.” He shudders
– he’d watched as his grandfather had been electrocuted that stormy night,
watched as the wolf was burned out of him and he was left as a human, half-
paralyzed and weak (electricity still terrifies Derek). Normal wolves would
abandon a member like that; they bring down the pack, after all, and dad
pointed out that there was a good nursing home in Beacon Hills, one that would
take care of Grandda. Peter had argued against it, saying that pack was pack
even if the wolf leaves. In the end, it was mom who insisted Grandda stay and
in return for dad’s keeping Grandda Peter had bowed to dad’s dominance and let
dad become Alpha of the pack without a fight.
“Why’d you move?”
The words drag him out of the half-doze, out of his memories, and he blinks
lazily. “Don’t remember,” he mutters. “Was a kid, y’know?”
She drags her nails over his scalp, and he relaxes against her side. “Well, I’m
glad you came here,” she says.
“Me too,” he says softly.
 
                                       *
 
It’s a full-moon night, only three weeks from the end of school. Generally
speaking, full-moon nights mean staying home from school, sitting in the house
with the other wolves, the humans out for the day while the wolves, restless
and antsy, try not to tear apart the furniture (Sam always gives such sobering
lectures that make you feel so ashamed for leaving claw marks on the
upholstery, even if your little cousins had been antagonizing you all
afternoon). Today, though, Derek’s more anxious than normal. He knows that,
come the end of the school year, Chris Argent will take Kate and move to
another hunter home, and he wants to see Kate as much as possible before it’s
time for her to leave. She promises she’ll be back come November, if Derek will
still be around. (Derek points out that he won’t be eighteen for another year
and a half yet – “I’m not the one leaving,” he had said, and she laughed and
kissed him breathless.)
Strangely enough, Laura’s feeling anxious too, and insists on going to school.
“I’m next in line for Alpha,” she points out that morning as she works to
convince their dad to let her go. “I’ll be able to control myself while at
school. I just don’t want to sit around here, staring at everyone.”
(Derek knows why she wants to get away from the house, especially when Peter
glowers from the edge of the table. Laura thinks she’s next in line for Alpha,
and she does have the dominance and control necessary, but she’ll have to fight
Peter and Peter won’t back down for her like he backed down to their dad.
Sitting around the house means tensions between them will rise, making it that
much harder to keep the transformation under control until moonrise.)
Finally, with Laura arguing the whole meal through, their dad agrees. “Fine. If
you want to go, go. But if you don’t come straight back from school, miss, I’ll
know of it and you’ll have a lot of pain to hold off the transformation that
much longer.”
Derek perks up. “Can I go too, dad?”
Mom gives his dad a significant look that doesn’t bode well, and Derek shifts
anxiously in his seat. Finally, his mom begins, gently, “Maybe it’s better for
you to stick around, Derek, hmm? It’s harder to keep the transformation under
control if you’re around the girl you like, and you’re already so nervous.”
Derek blushes. “No, mom, it’ll be fine. I’m fine.”
“Did you switch anchors?” Peter says, and his voice is teasing even if Derek’s
not sure what Peter’s teasing about. Switching anchors is something Derek had
never heard of, and he turns to Peter to ask how that’s possible – Jason’s
always told him the pack is the strongest and best anchor, to hold onto it –
when dad growls at Peter and Peter smirks but leaves the room.
“I can watch over him,” Laura sighs. “Please, can we just go, we’re going to be
late.”
Dad looks at her suspiciously, but Mom frowns at Derek. “I’d feel better if you
stayed home, Derek.”
“Please, mom?” he asks, and their dad sighs, but nods.
“David,” their mom goes, but Derek’s already out the door, nabbing his backpack
from his room and running out to where Laura’s already sitting in her Camaro.
“Why’d you tell them to let me go with you?” Derek asks, because Laura never
does anything without a reason.
Laura just gives him a long look and starts the car. “I’ll pick you up at the
end of school.”
“Where will you be?” Derek asks suspiciously, starting to realize that Laura
didn’t actually want to be in school.
Laura looks down her nose at him. “One day you’ll understand. For right now,
none of your business.”
She pulls up to the school and jerks her chin at the door. With a disgusted
sigh, he gets out.
And maybe his mom was right – everything in school is grating on his nerves
now, with the full moon pulsing in time with his heart. He can feel it on the
edge of his awareness, and everyone’s voices are unnaturally loud and abrasive.
He spends most of the day with his head down and his hands clenched in his
pockets. His teachers, at the least, don’t pick on him.
He doesn’t realize he’s listening for Kate’s voice after lunch until he can’t
find it. He decides to come in late for chemistry and seeks out the classroom
she’s normally in – and there’s a sub, because of Mrs. Reva, but it’s not Kate.
Confused, he walks in late, tries not to transform at the berating yell of Mr.
Johnson, and slinks to the back of the class.
In the middle of the class period, with Derek focusing in on his textbook and
trying to ignore all the voices around him, the door opens and the secretary
pokes her head in. “Laura’s here to pick up Derek,” she says in a soft voice,
but everyone notices and the cessation of noise is what makes Derek lift his
head and blink at her. It’s the middle of the school day, and Laura was off
with whoever. Why would she come back?
Laura’s standing in the office, ramrod stiff and the scent of grief and pain so
thick on her that it takes Derek a minute to notice there’s the smell of burnt
flesh, too. It’s cloying and sweet in a way that it really shouldn’t be, and he
swallows hard, because something’s terribly, terribly wrong.
 
                                       *
 
The hospital smells too much like death and sickness. It’s harder and harder to
hold onto his control here, and the full moon is a constant roar in the back of
his head. He’s sitting in the waiting room, claws digging into the palm of his
hand, when tiny fingers curl onto the edge of his shirt.
“Go away, kid.” The words force themselves out of a tight throat, past curved
fangs.
“You’re bleeding.” The words are solemn, young, and his eyes look up to see a
little kid, short with a buzz cut and a shirt buttoned up the wrong way. “Are
you here to see the doctor?”
“Go. Away.”
“Stiles, c’mere, we can see her now,” comes an older man’s voice, and the kid
looks up before looking back at Derek.
Slowly, the kid pats Derek’s knee, whispers, “I’m sorry,” and trots off.
Derek doesn’t want the kid’s sympathy. He doesn’t want anything. He wants to go
back in time and not leave home. He wants to warn his family. He wants his dad
back alive, Jason back alive, he wants—
“Derek.”
He looks up at that, at Laura’s voice, and her eyes are red even as her lips
are thinned and her composure intact.
“We’re leaving.”
 
                                       *
 
“He’s scarred all on one side. Not healing,” Laura says in short, clipped
sentences the day after the full moon. She’s on the edge, and Derek can hear
the grief even if she’s not showing any of it. “He’s not healing. I’m putting
him in the nursing home dad talked about.”
Derek swallows back the reminder that Peter hated the nursing home, hated
abandoning pack members to humans, swallows back any argument at all because
with dad dead and Peter no longer wolf… Laura’s alpha. And Derek desperately
needs a pack. He can feel all their absences like empty holes, and he doesn’t
know how he’ll control himself now that the pack’s gone. His anchor’s just…
gone.
They stop by the house. Laura to settle the insurance claim, Derek to salvage
whatever he can. Laura tells him everyone died except Peter, only the wolf was
burned out of Peter like the lightning burned it out of Grandda.
Derek steps out into the spring air and smells nothing but Kate.
And he knows.
 
                                       *
 
Laura thinks he threw up because of the smell of burned flesh, because of the
mess their house is. Derek doesn’t correct her.
Laura also mentions Kate’s smell, but because Laura had been taking AP Lit
she’d never had Kate as a sub, so it’s more indirect – ‘the smell is familiar,
I think I’ve caught it once before – do you know who it is, Derek?’
Derek doesn’t answer that question. Or any of the others.
In fact, it takes Derek three months to start talking again.
 
                                       *
 
Laura takes Derek to New York, to the pack that they left when Grandda split
away. Derek knows why they left, now – the pack’s more vicious than their own,
and that’s saying something. Almost none of the pack has ever gone to a school,
and there is no truce with the nearby hunters. And boy are there a lot of
nearby hunters.
Laura had gotten her report card and high school diploma mailed to her here.
Derek gets his 10th grade report card mailed to him and never completes high
school.
He desperately wants to.
 
                                       *
 
Four years later, Derek’s twenty-one, no longer a beanpole by anyone's
standards, and a bouncer at a local club. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s
enough to make pack dues (this pack needs all the money it can get, frankly,
and regularly pimps out wolves to get the money for the rundown mansion they
all live in [and sometimes ‘pimps’ is a very literal, not metaphorical or
sarcastic, verb]). Laura’s bartender at the same club, and alpha enough to
maintain her status as alpha even though they live with another pack. She’s
boyfriend to the alpha, actually, and while she only has Derek in her small
pack, she can fight Kevin to a standstill. They both break apart before the
fight gets deadly, but Derek’s heart jumps in his throat every time they come
to blows because maybe this time, Laura won’t win, or Laura will win
completely, and both of those options mean they’re stuck with the rest of the
pack (who pick on Derek mercilessly for his blue eyes, who shun him and treat
him like dirt).
Derek just wants to find Kate and hunt her down, but even that isn’t an option
because she’s a hunter and until he can prove that she’s the one who burnt down
the house, killing her will only give the hunters a reason to kill him.
Laura seems to have forgotten entirely about the burnt house and the smell of
charred flesh that never leaves Derek’s mind. She fits in with the pack because
she’s just as harsh and vicious as they are. And while Derek’s glad that she’s
fitting in, that she’s with just one guy now and she seems happy with him,
instead of the endless stream of guys before and never seeming happy at all
with any of them, he misses the closeness of the pack.
His new anchor is his bone-deep rage, and he holds onto that with all his
might.
 
                                       *
 
Six months later, he and Laura are on their own. Derek isn’t sure what made
Laura break up from that alpha, what made her go off on her own and take him
with her, but he’s glad that it happened. Glad that he can train and practice
and work one-on-one with Laura. As much as he practiced and trained as a kid –
born werewolf, after all – it had always been with hunting in mind. Not war.
Derek is preparing for war.
 
                                       *
 
A year and a half later, Derek’s newly turned twenty-three when Laura
disappears. He knows she had started poking around Beacon Hills only by chance,
and he decides to go back there and see if he can find her.
He’s halfway there when there is an empty hole that opens in his heart and soul
and he realizes that he is now utterly, utterly alone.
Finding half of Laura’s body is only confirmation. Derek refuses to cry – he
hasn’t cried once, not even when he found out it was Kate who had been the one
to kill his family – and instead renews his vow to himself.
I will be harder than any of them. I will avenge my family.
And then, one night, I will meet them.
 
                                       *
 
He finds two kids on his property. One’s scent is vaguely familiar, but he
can’t place it.
 
                                       *
 
The second is apparently a werewolf. A newly turned one, freaking out because
of – well, werewolf. Derek would have had sympathy at one time.
Now, all he sees is a link to the alpha that could help him find the hunters
that killed Laura. He could train this new wolf, teach him for the alpha, and
maybe then the alpha will extend an invitation to his pack.
(He refuses to believe it was another wolf that killed Laura. She’d held her
own against Peter and Kevin for fuck’s sake. If there’s an alpha that could
take her down…)
 
                                       *
 
Derek’s running scared and he knows it. Derek’s looking for answers and not
getting anywhere. Derek’s training, spending most of his days doing nothing but
running for five hours straight, lifting weights, trying to track down elusive
scents and put together clues without letting anyone know that’s what he’s
doing. He’s trying to find the alpha, and the one night he gets close to it, he
gets shot.
By Kate fucking Argent, no less.
He has to – has to find help. This would have been the plan, but later, when
he’d gotten his revenge, not now. Now he has to find Scott, because Scott can
help him.
Scott dumps him on Stiles, promises to find the cure, and all Derek can do is
pray.
Praying, of course, is never enough. Stiles takes him to the vet’s place (still
the same doctor, the one his dad and mom used to visit even though they never
told Derek why they would visit him) and Derek swallows his pride and asks for
help. Stiles refuses. Of course. Then again, Stiles hasn’t grown up like Derek,
hasn’t seen death and destruction at that age. Stiles would be upset being told
to cut off someone’s arm.
But Derek needs someone, and he has no one. Derek needs help, and there’s no
one to ask it from, no one he’d trust to ask it from in the first place.
Scott comes through, Derek gets his cure, fights not to scream from the pain,
and Scott and Stiles stand there like twin idiots, staring at him curiously.
Derek tries to imagine Scott as a pack member and while Scott isn’t ideal…
Derek’s desperate and just wants someone around. He doesn’t want to drive Scott
away, but Scott seems insistent on seeing the worst in Derek no matter what
takes place. Derek tries to train him, tries to teach him about pain and about
leaving behind love that weakens you, and Scott ignores him and gets control
anyway.
Derek feels useless, weak.
And that’s before he feels claws puncture his lung and heart, lift him off the
ground.
 
                                       *
 
Derek doesn’t know what to do. And he can’t admit that to anyone.
 
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