Archive of Our Own

PROLOGUE

“Dude, you’re such a cliché,” Stiles mocked.

Dean didn’t look up from the rhythmic ritual of cleaning his gun.  He was going to say something smart-ass with a slice of mean, but for some reason he couldn’t. Maybe he was more impressed with the kid who was on the verge of losing everything Dean couldn’t remember ever having than he’d admitted, even to himself.  “My dad taught me.”

Stiles was quiet for a minute, remembering that Dean hadn’t lost his father all that long ago.   He tried not to think of his own father, out there with Derek and Peter and Sam, on patrol. 

Then, sitting down with a calmness he rarely felt, he smiled.  “Mine did too.  He had guns in the house so I had to learn to use them.  My mom hated them- she’d rather they weren’t there and she was kinda rabidly anti-gun, but she got that my dad didn’t have a choice.  Still, she also knew hiding them wouldn’t work so she was okay with my learning. But I don’t know, since she died, I haven’t been able to use them without thinking of how much she would have hated that.”

Dean’s hands had stopped moving as he looked at Stiles intently. They shared a knowing, painful glance until Dean ruined it.  “Wait, are we having a moment?”

“Shut up.” But Stiles was grinning because he’d been a second away from saying something very similar.

And then they heard three cell phones ring almost simultaneously around the house.

They looked at each other, eyes wide, until Scott burst through the door.  Scott’s eyes were gleaming gold and he was partly wolfed out, nose flaring as he growled, “It’s here.”

*

The little girl twirled around. “Look, Derek,” she said in that childish cry that demanded he look now, “Isn’t it pretty?”

Derek looked up from the book he was skimming through.  He had an assignment due the next morning and his mother was still making him watch Jamie because he “shouldn’t have waited until the last day, Derek.”  He was annoyed and resentful and more than a little disappointed to not be spending the evening with Kate, but whatever.  “I’m looking, Jay.”

“No Derek, isn’t it pretty?” she twirled again, black curly hair bouncing around the dimples in her cheeks.

Despite Derek’s insistence on being in a bad mood, he couldn’t help smiling as he heard her lisp.  He wasn’t perfect and was more than capable of being a little bitch to her and her older brother sometimes, but it was hard to feel anything but joy at the sight of his three year-old cousin dancing in the light evening mist.  “Very pretty, Miss Jay.  You’re the belle of the ball.”

“Is that Belle from Beauty and the Beast?”  She asked, eyes impossibly wider.

“Naw, you’re way prettier than her.  And when you get older, you’ll get a much better BEAST!”  As he shouted the last word, Derek let himself shift his eyes and teeth.  Jamie screeched and took off running so Derek threw aside his book and ran after her on all fours.  He let her get about twenty feet before he tackled her, twisting so that he landed between her and the ground.   “And now, little Belle, I’m going to eat you!”

“No, no Derek!”  She wriggled and screamed, caught in that in-between place where children can’t tell the difference between real threats and games.  “Let me go, evil beast!”

“Never!”

Jamie managed to twist herself out of Derek’s grasp and tumbled to a heap on the grass a few feet away from him.  They breathed hard, her from the tickling and him from the laughter he couldn’t seem to stop.  But then she looked down at her new dress, now covered in grass stains, and gave a little cry.  “Derek, it’s spoiled.  You ruined my dress!”  She looked back at him, her face suddenly burned away in some places and puffy as if she’d been asphyxiated.  When she spoke, her voice was hoarse as if she had been screaming and had not been able to stop.  “You ruined it, Derek.  You ruined my dress.  You ruined everything.”

Derek’s eyes shot open and he sat up in bed almost before he knew he was awake.

*

“I’m bored.”  Stiles flung himself onto his own bed dramatically.  He shot a quick glance at his best friend when Scott made no response, only to see his best friend texting furiously.  Sitting up with a jerk, he threw his arms up in the air.  “Did you hear me?”

Scott looked up, surprised.  “Yeah, dude, I heard.  You’re bored.”

“So?”

“So what?”

Stiles sighed and stood up.  “Scott, this is the last summer we’re both going to be in Beacon Hills.  As of the fall, we’re transferring to schools out of town.  This is our last summer at home.”

“Stiles, we’re going to be back.  We’ve already spent two more years here than we’d planned. Junior college is over; time to party university-style.  And it’s not like we’re going to the ends of the Earth- we’re like two hours away. Why are you stressing?” Scott had a point; Lydia and Jackson had gone straight to a four-year university after high school and they came back almost every full moon and some long weekends in the middle too. Even Danny, who’d gone all the way to the East Coast, had done a great job of staying in touch.

“Dude, we’re going to be interning during the summers and then working and well- we’re going to have lives.  This is the last summer we’re free.”

“Some would say we haven’t been free for the last four years,” Scott pointed out.  “But you’re right, we should enjoy it.  Bowling?”

“Seriously?”

“Okay, no bowling.  Derek’s?”

“Derek’s it is.”

*

Derek and the pack had rebuilt the Hale house, but only to a point.  They had reinforced the walls and ceiling and re-furnished the home, but they hadn’t painted or bothered to match the furniture. Stiles tried not to think about it too much, but it was as if Derek wanted to sabotage his own attempts to move on by surrounding himself with a constant reminder of his family’s tragic end.

When Stiles and Scott approached the house, they could feel the odd excitement in the air.  The reason for the charged atmosphere was immediately evident.

“Allison’s here?”  Scott was wary at the sight of Chris Argent’s car, but even the thought of his girlfriend’s father and Derek in the same vicinity couldn’t keep the smile her name brought forth from emerging.  “What do you think she’s doing here?”

“Nothing good,” Stiles predicted direly.  “I have a feeling I’m going to be nostalgic about this morning’s boredom very, very soon.” In the four years since Scott was bitten, Peter Hale’s resurrection, and the Alpha pack’s desultory retreat, the Hale pack had established itself so that threats were now uncommon.  The onset of peace had allowed Derek to learn about being an alpha, and his developing leadership skills had encouraged Scott to join Derek’s pack.  But even with Scott and Allison reconciling, Scott and Derek becoming something approaching friends, and the Argents and Hales sometimes working together to stave off supernatural threats, it was an unspoken rule that neither would set foot on each other’s property.

This wasn’t good.

“This isn’t good,” Scott fretted.

“Oh you can say that again.”

When they walked into the Hale house, Scott did just that.  “This isn’t good,” he muttered when he caught sight of the visitors.

Allison turned to him with a worried smile, but her father didn’t move.  “Hey Scott,” she said.

“What is it?” Stiles asked.  “Another lizard, some kind of cat, or oh my God, a vampire?”

“There’s no such thing as vampires,” Derek said in a monotone, but there was a warm amusement in the glare that he shot Stiles that was rarely present when he spoke to anyone else in that tone of voice. His claws were out, digging into the arms of a chair Stiles was pretty sure Isaac had stolen off someone’s porch, and he did not look happy.

“For the thousandth time, Stiles, stop watching Twilight,” Boyd agreed.

“It’s worse.”  Derek added ominously.

“Well,” Chris argued, “I don’t know about that.”

Derek scoffed.  “The Winchesters are much worse than vampires, which don’t even fucking exist.  They hunt and kill indiscriminately. And if they do that here—“

“If they do that here… what?  The truce is over?”  Allison shot back.  “Are you going to hold all hunters, us, responsible for the actions of a pair of renegade hunters?  It’s not like we hold you responsible for the actions of every supernatural creature out there.”

“The fuck you don’t.”  Derek stood up in a quick, aggressive movement. “You always look at us first.  Especially if it’s werewolves.”

Allison stepped forward, obviously about to argue, but Stiles wormed his way between them.  “Okay, who and what are the Winchesters?  What’s so special about them?”

“They’re hunters, some of the best in the business.  Two brothers out of the Midwest, I think.  They were trained by their father, who got into the business when their mother was killed.  Claims that she was killed by a demon or something.  And no, Stiles, I don’t know if demons are real.  Some claim they are, but they’re the weird hunters who live in their cars and don’t really have jobs or families or lives outside of hunting, so who the hell knows?  But well, they contacted me this morning to tell me they’re on their way.  Hunter courtesy,” Chris explained.

“And you’re here because…“

“Because the Winchesters kill supernatural beings like… oh, us, and they don’t have a code,” Derek stated blandly.

“I’ll talk to them, Derek, and tell them to leave you alone.  They’re hunting something, and they’ve tracked it from Oregon so I think they’re going to leave local werewolves alone.”

“They’d better.” Derek moved towards the window and looked out.  Something about the set of his shoulders, the dark purpose in his voice, put Stiles on alert.  He knew Derek, he’d spent too many minutes watching the older man to not know him, and he knew Derek was worried.  And anything that worried Derek, worried him.  So he stuck around after everyone had left to talk to Derek some more.

“Why are you still here, Stiles?” Derek’s voice was a mix of affection and exasperation, but he kept his distance from Stiles, almost as if he was afraid of him.  Which was stupid because who was the ferocious, killer Alpha in the room?

Stiles, for once, went straight to the point. “Are they dangerous? I mean, any more than any of the other for-hire losers who’ve come through town over the last few years?”

“Stiles, they’re all dangerous,” Derek explained, looking at the walls around him as if he could still see the imprint of smoke and burning bodies on them. He probably could, Stiles realized. “Hunters have no other aim but to kill werewolves, and yes, sometimes Codes hold them back like a restraining order. But like all restraining orders, they’re there because there’s a threat, because we need them to protect us from those who would do us harm without reason.”

“Ah, the lesser known Violence Against Werewolves Act,” Stiles quipped, but he understood. “I get it, you know. I don’t underestimate hunters, Derek. Sometimes I still wake up in cold sweat and wonder if I signed Scott’s death certificate when I made him come out into the woods with me—“

Derek reached out to him, but stopped with his hand halfway to Stiles’s shoulder. “It- it’s not your fault, Stiles. And being a werewolf, hunters aside, has given Scott more than it’s taken away. He gets that too, now.”

“Yeah, I guess.” They stared at each other for a few minutes, an odd sort of tension in the air, until Stiles broke it with an uneasy cough. “Um, I’d better go.” When had he gotten so close to Derek, he wondered, as he wheeled around and almost ran off.

*

“So remind me why we’re headed to Beacon Hills?”  Dean threw a peanut in the air and caught it between his teeth, keeping his other hand steady on the wheel as he crunched obnoxiously.

Sam skimmed the notes he’d made on the laptop and answered absently.  “I’ve been tracking something, or someone, who has been moving south on Highway 5.  Whatever it is, it’s leaving a deadly trail.  There’s a particularly violent crime in every town it stops in.  And no, it’s not the shooter, but for some reason in every town he stops in, someone goes crazy and goes on a rampage.”

Dean thought about it for a minute, then flicked his eyes towards Sam.  “I don’t get it.”

“It’s a straight line between River Grove in Oregon and French Camp, California, on the 5.”

“River Grove?”  Dean yelped.  He remembered that town well. It wasn’t every day he saw an entire town getting hit by something that turned nice, normal people into zombies that were smarter and cleaner than the ones in the movies. He still sometimes wondered what happened to all those people who’d just disappeared when their zombie apocalypse had fizzled out. Hell, he still sometimes wondered how their fellow non-zombie survivors had explained what happened to the infected residents. Hopefully Sargent Varko, Duane and the hot Doc kept their promise and didn’t mention the Winchester brothers when they talked to the Feds. “Dude, you’re thinking it’s the Croatoan virus?”

“Well, yeah.”

Dean shook his head.  “I think even I’d have noticed if entire towns were disappearing in Oregon and California.”

Sam nodded.  “Exactly.  Look, we didn’t figure out what they were doing but it just ended.  Everyone disappeared, and yeah, if they all went out there and started killing and infecting everyone they saw, it would make the headlines.  One town, the government can hide.  But you take down an entire state, the biggest state in the country, and you’re probably going to have something out of a disaster movie, and no one’s going to ignore what’s going on.”

“So you think they’re doing isolated incidents?  That’s kind of reaching, isn’t it?”

“Come on, we know they were intelligent.  The infected in River Grove tried to trap us and fool us into thinking they weren’t infected.  And Duane… Duane fooled us all.”

“What are you talking about?”  When Sam didn’t answer immediately, Dean slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to an abrupt stop on the shoulder of the road.  “What are you talking about, Sammy?”

Sam sighed and shut his laptop.  “Dean, I didn’t want to tell you, but Dr. Lee contacted me a few days after we left River Grove.  They found Sargent Varko in his car- he’d been killed right after leaving River Grove.  I hacked into the database of the town handling the crime and um, I learned a few things.”

“Oh, did you?”  Dean asked with a bite in his voice.  “Jesus, Sammy, what else did you find out and not tell me?”

“His throat was slit and from the splatter it’s obvious that he was killed by the person sitting next to him.  Last we saw, that was Duane.  And that’s not all; there wasn’t enough blood found at the scene.  Someone must have collected it.  Who’s the last person I saw collecting blood, Dean?”

His older brother leaned his head on the steering wheel as he recalled Sam telling him about how a demon named Meg had used a goblet full of blood to communicate with someone his brother couldn’t see.  Probably the crazy bitch’s yellow-eyed demon daddy.  When he spoke, his words were muffled by leather.  “I let a demon live, didn’t I?”

Sam didn’t answer his question for a few minutes, but then softly pointed out, “You did what we both thought was right.  Hell, you did what was right.  He wasn’t vulnerable to the virus; we just didn’t figure out why.  I think he was a demon and I think he has the power to turn an entire town into functioning zombies the way he did in River Grove or, if he wants to keep a lower profile, he can just infect enough people to create a mass murder that devastates a town but doesn’t, unfortunately, seem so out of the ordinary in this day and age.  Take French Camp, for instance.  Some normal family guy went insane and took a gardening rake to his neighbors and the same night his cop brother decided that speeding was a capital crime and took out eight drivers and five passengers before someone finally took him down.”

“So we let Duane go and now he’s killed a whole bunch more people.”

“Now he’s killed a lot of people, yes.”  Sam winced, but forged on.  “And looking at the frequency and pattern of the attacks, the next one is probably going to be Beacon Hills in about a week.”

Dean straightened and started the car.  His face was set into a resolved expression and if he was a little pale, Sam knew better than to comment on it.  “No, it’s not.  Because we’re going to stop it.”

*

Derek looked up from his cell phone when he heard a knock on the door.  “Yes?”

Derek’s father poked his head around the door and smiled gently.  “Derek, do we need to talk?”

“Um, I don’t think so?”  Derek surreptitiously put his phone under his pillow, but he had a feeling his father, his alpha, hadn’t missed the movement.  “I’m sorry?”

“Is that a question or an apology?”  Lawrence Hale, known as Larry to no one but his irrepressible younger brother, asked his older son gently.

“An apology, sir.”  Derek cast his eyes down in shame as he remembered how he’d behaved at dinner, how he’d made his normally tough, no-nonsense sister cry.  “I’ll apologize to Laura later.” He heard his father move closer but didn’t look up.  When his father’s strong hand came down gently on his shoulder, Derek straightened.  It was comforting and warm, and he was too much of a teenager to admit how much he liked it, even to himself.

“Derek, what’s going on with you these days?”

Derek shrugged.  He wanted to tell his father about Kate, but at the same time he wanted to keep her to himself.  And even though he was sure he loved her in that forever way his father talked about his mother, he couldn’t help suspecting his father wouldn’t approve of his affair with his teacher.

“Derek, what’s going on?”  His father repeated, and Derek shrugged.  His father sighed and, after squeezing Derek’s shoulder one more time, walked away.

Derek opened his eyes slowly, clinging to the sense memory of his father’s hand on his shoulder.  All too soon it faded away, leaving only the lingering smell of smoke in the air.  And the overwhelming wish he’d opened his mouth and answered his father when he’d still been able to do so.

*

The Impala rolled into Beacon Hills the next morning.  “So you said you contacted this… Chris Argent?”  Dean wanted to confirm.

“Dad had his name in the journal.  Apparently they hunted a witch together.  Yes, I know, you hate witches.  Dad had a weird note in the journal though, something about Argent having friends in weird places.  But he also noted that the Argents are apparently a very old family of hunters.  Kind of a legacy thing.  I don’t think he and Argent got along that well.”

“Color me shocked,” Dean said wryly as he knocked on the front door. Dean loved his dad, but even he knew a lot of people wanted to kill John Winchester, and those were just his friends.

A young girl, no more than 19 or 20, opened the door but didn’t immediately invite them in.  Sam felt that she was sizing them up, but Dean didn’t share the same impression of her scrutiny.  “Hey, babe, you a friend of Argent’s?  He’s expecting us.”

“I’m his daughter,” she answered sweetly, but there was enough danger in that smile to set Dean’s radar off, and his hand strayed towards his weapon.  “And before you come in, you should probably know something.  The Argents were hunting the supernatural long before your family knew there was something under the bed, and we’re a matriarchal line.  So when I warn you that you call me babe again and I’ll pull your tongue out so far it’ll touch your ass, you’d better believe me.  Got it?”

“Got it,” Dean smirked, throwing a sloppy salute.  As she turned and led them down the hall, his eyes followed her appreciatively.

“Don’t even,” Sam warned.

“You should listen to him,” a boy’s voice warned and he materialized out of the shadows a couple of feet in front of them.

Both Winchesters jumped.  Until he’d spoken, they’d had no idea he was there.  “Who the hell are you?” Dean demanded.

Scott let his eyes gleam gold.  “I’m Scott, Allison’s boyfriend.”

*

“Wait, your daughter is dating a werewolf?  And you’re okay with this?”

Chris Argent winced, and it was obvious to Dean that the hunter was not as sanguine with his daughter’s choice of dates as he pretended to be, but the older man persevered.  “I respect Allison’s right to date whomever she wants to date.  She is a grown woman who has earned the right to make her own decisions,” Chris said in a practiced monotone, ignoring the scoffing sound coming from the pale, tall young man by Scott’s side.

Dean couldn’t quite comprehend what he was seeing, so he turned a wild eye towards Sam.  His little brother swallowed and tried to summarize what they’d learned.  “So there’s a code about hunters not killing supernatural beings that haven’t killed, and as part of this code, you hunt with werewolves?  There are werewolf hunters?”

There was a sudden snarling noise that made them all jump, but Scott’s friend was the first to recover.  Rolling his eyes, he called for someone named Derek to show himself.  “Come on Sourwolf, stop hiding and make your entrance.”

The French doors opened with a bang and a tall, dark-haired man dressed in leather and jeans strolled in, followed by two men and a woman, all about Scott and Allison’s age and all wearing a similar amount of leather and denim.  The blonde girl was showing a fair amount of cleavage and giving Dean the same slow, lip-licking glance of appreciation that he was giving her, and Sam was about to elbow his brother when she switched over to him.  He gulped and almost missed the entry of a fourth man, probably a good decade or so older than Dean.

The first intruder, probably the afore-mentioned Sourwolf, prowled closer to Dean and Sam, but his scrutiny held more disdain than appreciation.  “Don’t call us hunters.  We keep a control over supernatural beings that enter our territory but we’re not hunters.”

“Got it,” Sam said, leaning a little back in recognition of a real threat.  “You’re not hunters.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with hunters,” Dean tried to argue.  His gun was in his hand and not very subtly pointed at the werewolf within striking range of his brother.  “You need to get away from my brother, before I put a bullet in someone’s head.”

“Um, let’s not get into this again.  I’m Stiles, by the way, and you’ve already met Mr. Argent, Allison and Scott.  This is Derek, and his betas Boyd, Erica and Isaac.”  Scott’s friend waved a hand in the direction of the betas, who each raised their eyebrows when their name was called, except for Erica, who blew them kisses.   But Stiles’s body language made it clear that he considered himself allied with the wolves and not the hunters in the room. “And yes, they’re werewolves, and Allison and her father are hunters, and I’m human.  Oh, and the creepy, quiet guy behind them is Peter Hale.  We all work together to keep our town safe.  So um, can you tell us why you’re here?”

“Let’s get something clear.  I don’t know what kind of weirdass set-up you have going on here, Argent, but I don’t want any part of it.  We don’t work with werewolves,” Dean growled.

Derek growled back; it was a lot more impressive.  “If you’re going to be in my town hunting something, you don’t get a choice about being a part of ‘it.’  Unless you want me to rip your throat out with my teeth.”

“Is that a threat?”

Stiles wormed his way between the two men and threw his arms in the air.  “Okay, you guys have both done your spraying around the room-“

“Stiles!”  Scott groaned.  Stiles - and what the hell kind of name was that? - huffed at the interruption but didn’t seem offended by it any more than he was by the way Derek stood close to him, ready to guard him from any attack Dean might offer.

“Ew,” Allison agreed.

“Colorful imagery aside,” Peter broke in, “Stiles is right.  Look, we don’t like hunters, our hosts not excepted, any more than you like us, but if there is something that has come here and that threatens our people, we need to know about it.  And I don’t know if you’ve worked with werewolves before, but we’re good at hunting things. And while I’m sure you’re also very good, we’re even better.” As he finished his speech in a sexy drawl, Peter shot a very appreciative glance at Dean’s militant stance.

“Worked with werewolves, no,” Dean said softly.  “We’ve hunted them though.”

Derek lost his temper.  Lunging forward, he swatted Dean’s gun away with fingers sharpening into claws and held his body against a wall, fangs inches from Dean’s eyes, before the hunter could let off a shot.  “Are you proud of that?  Did it give you a rush of power and satisfaction to kill someone who was a father, or a daughter?  Someone who did nothing worse than eat a few wild rabbits or steal a sheep, and who didn’t deserve to have her head chopped off, her brains blown out, or to be barricaded in a house and left to burn to death—“

This time it was Sam who stepped in.  He wanted to pull his own weapon, but they hadn’t really come prepared for werewolves and he had a feeling that violence wasn’t really the answer here.  “Hey, look, we only go on hunts if something bad is happening.  And the werewolves we’ve gone after had all done a lot more than steal a couple of sheep.”

Derek relaxed a little, and from the corner of his eyes Sam saw the glowing color fade out of the other werewolves’ eyes as their teeth receded and they all started looking a little less… wolfy.  “Okay,” Derek said softly.  “Okay,” patting down Dean’s coat and stepping away.  “We can live with that. For now.”

“I guess,” Dean said, equally softly, much to Sam’s surprise.  “We can too.  And if you guys are going to help, you need to know what we’re up against.”

It was, without a doubt, the strangest conversation Sam had ever had, as they educated the supernatural team of Beacon Hills, six of them barely out of their teens, about demons and other beings the Winchesters had come across.

“I told you there were vampires,” Stiles said gleefully.

“Wait, so there’s a gun that kills… anything?” Chris asked, equal parts horrified and gleeful.  And then, “the bad guys have it?”

“You guys use magic to fight stuff?”  That was Dean, who was looking at Stiles with a whole new level of wariness.

“Only sometimes, and right now it’s more by accident than anything else,” Stiles admitted sheepishly. “But as soon as I’m done with college, Deaton’s going to teach me.”

But by the time the sun was going down, they had agreed on some things.  They had to bring Sheriff Stilinski, who knew about werewolves but was kept out of things unless he needed to be in them, into the plan.  Also, they had to congregate somewhere, and Derek had reluctantly thrown open the doors of the Hale house.  “It’s out of the way, and it’s huge, so it lets us hole up in case they do go the pandemic route again,” Stiles pointed out.

Derek didn’t look happy but he agreed.  Sam understood his reluctance when he got to the house and saw traces of fire still blackening the surrounding ground and some of the outside walls.  He swallowed and glanced at his brother, who looked sad but not surprised.

Dean had an unexpected understanding of broken people.

And thus started the most surreal week of Sam Winchester’s life.

*

“Um, so we’re getting Erica’s room?” Sam asked, looking around at the Pack with no little guilt. “We don’t want to put you out- we can get a motel room. We’re used to it.”

“You’re supposed to stay here,” Derek said reluctantly. “And it’s not a problem, Erica stays in Boyd’s room more often than not if they’re here. Which they won’t be much this week; I want them patrolling the town so they’ll stay in our apartment there. But there’s room for everyone, even Stiles and the Sheriff, and Scott and Mrs. McCall.”

Erica nodded. “It’s not a problem. Hell, you guys would get your own rooms if Mr. Argent wasn’t here.” She said the hunter’s name with a sneer; it was obvious that the truce was difficult for most people to swallow. Which, Sam knew, didn’t really make it stronger or weaker, just the product of desperation.

“Well, if one of you wants to stay with me, you could stay in separate rooms,” Peter suggested, his tone innocent. His eyes were anything but innocent, and his hands reached out to gently brush against Dean’s arm.

Dean blushed, much to Sam’s surprise. “Uh, that- that’s okay. Thanks,” he added, and Peter smiled widely. Dean turned to Erica and almost desperately asked, “Do you want to take anything-“

“Oh, right,” she answered, biting back laughter. She sashayed her way past them and made a production of filling a duffle bag she’d pulled out of the closet. Sam was pretty sure she didn’t need to take a lace and ribbon negligee on patrol duty but he was fascinated by how even the sight of sexy lingerie didn’t distract Dean from his quiet fixation on Peter.

Sam wasn’t sure what the hell was going on, but he knew he didn’t want to miss a second of it.

*

“Oh my God, little brother, you can’t wear that,” Laura groaned.

“What’s wrong with this?”  Derek looked down at his customary leather jacket, white tank, and jeans. “We’re going to a club, not the fucking Ritz.”

She stretched out an arm and gently brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes and then, with a quick twist he should have anticipated, she grasped that lock of hair and pulled.  “Ow!  Let go, you evil”- he shrieked, trying to twist his body away without pulling his head away from the hair she held.  “Leggo.”  He wasn’t proud of his own whining.

“Listen to me, Derek.  I’ve been working all week and I want to go out and get a drink, some wings, and then find a nice, brainless body-builder who will use his roid-enfused body to give me the fucking my body deserves.  And you are not going to ruin my night by sulking at home or scaring away all potential fucks.  You’re going to play my gay wingman and you are going to play that role with style.  Is that understood?”

Derek knew she knew she’d won, but he kept up pretenses for a little longer.  “You know, normal people don’t take their little brothers with them when they go out to hook up.”

Laura’s mouth twisted in uncustomary bitterness.  “We’re not normal, are we?”

“No, we’re not.” Derek looked down, and then gave a yelp as she twisted her hand again.  “Hey, let go of the hair.”

Laura let go, but then leaned forward and let her fangs out enough that he felt a light nip on his nose.  Not enough to break the skin, or really even hurt, but it made him swallow because it was something their mother had done.  “Hey, we’re not normal, but remember what Grandpa used to say?”

“We’re better than normal,” they chorused, and Derek let a rare smile break his face.

Laura smiled back, but then the smile twisted into something ugly and mean.  “Remember Grandpa Hale, Derek? You should.  You killed him.  You killed him, Derek!”

*

“You know that nothing’s happened in a long time when you actually want The Plague of Mindless Violence to visit your town,” Stiles observed sleepily as he collapsed into a chair.  Then he caught sight of the food and perked up.  “Ooh, breakfast!”

His father, following more sedately, groaned.  “Didn’t you just eat dinner at home?  And even if it’s eggs and pop-tarts, I don’t think you can call it breakfast at 11 at night.”  Despite his words, Sheriff Stilinski took the laden plate from Sam with a smile of thanks.   “But he’s right, it’s been three days and we haven’t seen any sign of him.   Are you sure he’s coming here?”

“That’s what Sasquatch says,” Dean said shortly.  “I’m just hoping he’s not wasting our time while all the action’s going on somewhere else.”

“I’m not wasting anyone’s time,” Sam said patiently.  “Hey, even if I was wrong about this place being next, which I’m not because Lydia Martin confirmed it and she’s apparently a genius at this stuff, it wouldn’t be a waste of time.  I’ve learned more about werewolves and other supernatural beings in the last couple of days than I’d learned in the last 20 years!  Thanks again for sharing your database, Peter.”

Peter smiled and waved a hand dismissively.  “Always a pleasure, Samuel.”

“Just Sam, thanks.”  Sam corrected, and Dean rolled his eyes.  He almost seemed jealous, which was ridiculous because Peter was nothing like the hot blonde waitress who’d ignored Dean and flirted with Sam during their previous case.  But Sam had noticed that for all his usual bluster, Dean had not handled Peter’s overt flirting the way Sam had feared he would.  In fact, the brother he’d always thought was homophobic actually seemed flattered by Peter’s behavior.  Except when it was directed at anyone else.

“Why are you all here?”  Derek stalked into the room.  “Aren’t some of you supposed to be patrolling?”

“Aye, aye Sir!”  Sam saluted.  “I’m just heading out.  Sheriff?”

Sheriff Stilinski looked down sadly at his plate as if he was saying goodbye to a loved one.  Derek snorted and rolled his eyes.  “You can take it with you.  Just remember to bring it back,” he growled.

“Yeah, the wolves are a little touchy when it comes to littering in their territory,” Stiles added.  “Careful, dad.”  His father paused by his chair to give Stiles’s head a somewhat sticky kiss and, twenty years old or not, Stiles rose into the kiss a bit and then watched his father leave with an old, familiar worry in his eyes.

Seeing it, Derek leaned over and flicked Stiles’s head, not even smiling at his packmate’s outrage.  For a second, Dean had a flickering thought that Derek had wanted to brush his hand over where Stiles’s father had kissed him, but then it passed.  “I have a question and I need you to find an answer for me.”

“Um, what’s the magic word? Please?”

“Sure, you’re welcome,” Derek said casually and then swept out of the room, effectively replacing Stiles’s worry with justified indignation.

Dean watched them leave with an indulgent smile that he dropped as soon as the door opened.  Chris Argent walked in and after a quick hello and update of zilch to Dean, filled up his plate and went to his room.  Peter, on the other hand, stayed to pick at his food and stare at Dean.

“Dude, what is it?” Dean had tried to just avoid the stare, but Peter’s was unrelenting and just plain creepy.

For a minute, it seemed as if Peter would just smirk and walk out mysteriously like he generally did, but instead, “I’ve been talking to people about you.”

Dean slowly put his fork down.  Oh well, it was his third helping anyway.  He made his body stay relaxed and kept his voice calm.  “Oh?”

“You’re in my house.  You and the Argents are in my fucking house.  Did you really think I wouldn’t try to find out who you were?  I’ve heard the stories but I wanted to know more, to talk to wolves who have lived where you’ve hunted.”

“And?”

“Paris.  The one in Texas, not France.  1999.”

Dean cast his memory back.  That was… a long time ago.  Hell, it’d been before Sammy went to college.  Texas meant they’d probably stayed with Paulie, which… oh.  “Werewolf.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know him?”  Dean kept his eyes on Peter but his hand slowly crept towards his gun. He liked Peter, maybe even more than liked him, but he’d kill him if he had to, even if it broke off another part of Dean’s crumbling soul.

Peter nodded.  “I fucked him on this table about a year before you or a member of your hunting family killed him.” That wasn’t quite true, as that table had been turned into ashes long ago, and even then he’d never have fucked anyone on the family dining table when there were kids in the house, as there had always been back then. But that was all the work of hunters too, so to hell with accuracy.

Dean swallowed, so caught up in a sudden, rare guilt that he forgot to react with the homophobic mask he’d perfected after growing up with his father, who’d been too military and too broken to deal with a son who’d had feelings for men as well as women.  And maybe, just maybe, for reasons he wasn’t prepared to explore, he couldn’t find that mask when talking to Peter Hale. But regardless of his own feelings, the things they hunted weren’t supposed to have sexual partners or histories. They were monsters, not lovers. “I… I—“ He searched for something to say, but then settled on the truth.  “He killed people.”

“He went rogue.”  When Dean looked confused, Peter explained.  “We don’t kill or turn people against their will.  Doesn’t make a lot of sense to get that attention, but every now and then sense goes out the window and you get the Alpha packs, who want superiority and enslavement, or you get rogues.  Werewolves who are usually crazy and who bring attention to us.  We try to put them down before hunters get involved, but sometimes we fail, and then we go to ground until the hunters leave.”

“Put them down?”

“Yes, we take care of our own.  Sometimes we rip their throats out, or we set them on fire.  Right, Scott?”

Dean hadn’t even seen Scott enter, but Derek had already explained that werewolves had heightened senses.  He looked up to see Scott standing in the doorway, Allison by his side.  The young werewolf was stiff, his face vulnerable and somewhat guilt-stricken in the light.  Obviously working to change the subject, Scott ignored Peter and told them what Allison and he had observed in the diner they’d been to that evening. “Nothing, everything seemed normal.  Families were out and everyone was talking about Lindsay Lohan’s latest escapade, not murder or mayhem.”

But Peter wasn’t so easily dissuaded from his point.  “That’s interesting.  And I’m sure you and Allison observed a lot while you were on your romantic, star-crossed lovers outing.”

Allison bared her teeth.  “Stay out of our relationship, Peter.”

“Your relationship?  Please.  A hunter dating a werewolf is a slaughter waiting to happen.”

“Oh, and who is going to do the slaughtering, Peter?”  Allison shot back.  “Is it you?  Because out of all of us in this room, you’re the only one of us who has gone insane and killed a bunch of innocent people, including your own niece!”

Peter rose to his feet, but his voice remained silky soft.  “Oh my dear, I wouldn’t go throwing murderous rage stones into people’s glass houses if I were you…”

“I’d just lost my mother!”

“So had I!”  This time Peter shouted and sprouted some extra hair.  Dean shot out of his chair and pulled out his gun but didn’t do anything yet.  In the past three days he’d already learned that a little hair or teeth didn’t mean a lot, but this seemed much worse than the skirmishes he’d seen so far.  “I’d lost my mother and my father, my two brothers and their wives, and my pregnant sister and her husband.  And because my little brother was impotent, I lost the two children who were being raised calling someone else Daddy but who were biologically mine!”

In the silence that followed, Dean lowered his gun.  Scott had a hand on Allison’s shoulder, caught somewhere between wanting to protect and restraining her.  But Allison didn’t need to be restrained; her face was wet and she raised a hand to cover her shaking mouth.

Peter’s features returned to human and his voice lowered, but the passion was still there.  “Does that surprise you?  Have you never looked at the toll that hunters exact when they go rogue?  For what I did, I know I’m not getting forgiveness from Derek in this life or the next, God knows I’m not forgiving myself, but I’m damned if I’ll hear judgment from a little girl who went around torturing her innocent peers and plotting to kill my nephew who has, for all his faults, refrained from taking a life other than in defense of another or for the general common good.”

“Hey,” Scott finally said.  “That’s enough.”

“No,” Allison stopped him with a gentle smile.  “I love you for always defending me, but he’s right.  I messed up, and yes, so did he, but the truth is that he’d have his family and I’d—“ her face twisted but then she took a deep breath and continued, “and I’d have mine if we all would stop this stupid cycle of killing instead of talking things out.  Peter was insane then, and Kate was insane, and no amount of talking would probably have helped them.  But a lot wouldn’t have happened, or might have happened differently, if one of us had done this.   So I’m going to start.  Mr. Hale, on behalf of every hunter I can claim to represent, I am so sorry for what was done to your family.  If I could have stopped it, I promise you I would have.  And I know that’s not much comfort, but I do mean it.”

For a minute, it was so quiet Dean could hear the wrought-iron Ikea clock in the hall ticking away the seconds while three men stared at the woman in their midst.

Scott was the first to recover.  Beaming, he grasped his girlfriend’s hand and kissed it, and Dean was torn between amusement and the need to hurl.  Peter, however, examined her eyes to discern her sincerity.  Whatever he saw must have been convincing because a tension that had been there as long as anyone present had known him seemed to evaporate.  He shuddered with the release of it.  “I’m not sorry for your aunt, but on behalf of the Hales, I regret what happened to your mother.”

“I can accept that.”  Allison, too, looked as if she’d shed a heavy weight.  She tossed a smile Dean’s way and then pulled Scott out of the room.  Dean doubted either of them was going to sleep any time soon, under the same roof as her father or not.

Dean slumped back down into his chair, but didn’t resume eating.  He watched Peter carefully as the man obviously fought giving in to his emotions.  He wasn’t sure whether to pull out his gun or a box of Kleenex, and a part of him wanted to run away.  But a different part, a broken one that was too familiar with loss to walk away from someone drowning in it, made him get up and go towards Peter to pat him on the shoulder or offer him the last slice of the unexpectedly delicious cake Boyd had baked.

He wasn’t expecting Peter to grab him or push him against the wall.  He definitely wasn’t expecting Peter to kiss him like he was trying to suck his tongue out of his mouth.  But hey, unexpected events weren’t always bad, and it had been so long since Dean had been with a man.  Since Dean had felt strong arms hold him up, and the press of a thick, hard dick against him, in him.  It’d been a long, dry 20 months with Sam in his car, beside him all the fucking time.

He pushed Peter away a bit, ignoring the older man’s growl to work on his buttons.  He smirked a little at how nonverbal Peter was, because yes, he was that good, and then had to stop breathing and throw back his head when Peter pushed his knee up against his crotch.  “Fuck!”  He groaned, feeling Peter’s teeth, just a little too sharp to be human, in the crook of his neck.  “Fuck,” he said again, rubbing himself against Peter’s denim-clad knee.  He could feel his cock getting a little wet at the tip.  He was close, too close.  “Dude, not in the kitchen!”

Peter pulled away to glare at Dean for a second, then rolled his eyes and pulled the man out of the room.  Over Dean’s shoulder, he caught a glimpse of a tall, open-mouthed young man.  Had he not been so far gone, he would have been shocked at how he’d missed Sam coming into the house. But he was too far gone to care, and Dean had no idea Sam had seen them dry-humping in the kitchen so he wouldn’t stop.

“Oh my God,” Sam gasped.  “Oh.  My.  God.”  He knew he was starting to sound like Matthew Perry from that show Jess had made him watch, but he couldn’t stop himself.  “Oh my God.”

Upstairs, Derek flinched away from the book he was reading and his face screwed up in disgust.  Curious, Stiles leaned over and read the page Derek had been skimming through a second ago.

“Um, what’s so disgusting about flies?  I mean yeah, that they carry diseases is bad, but not magical curse diseases, which is good news.  And hey, it’s kinda gross to see them on your food or in your drink, or eew, finding a dead fly in your soup is disgusting –“

“I can hear my uncle fucking Dean Winchester.”

Stiles stopped mid-sentence and stared at Derek for a second before taking on an expression of horror.

“Yeah, that was how I felt.”  Derek slammed his book shut and closed his eyes.  “Okay, if I can tune Scott and Allison out, I can tune this out.  I can tune this out.”

“It’s like the train-wreck that you can’t look away from,” Stiles said, grudgingly impressed.  “I mean, I can’t stop picturing it and I know it’s a little creepy but they’re both hot and wow I really can’t stop picturing it.  And I can’t even smell or hear anything!”

Derek shot him a glare.  “And you’re not related to either of them.”

“There’s that, too,” Stiles admitted cheerfully.  “Oh, cheer up, Sourwolf.  Peter’s probably going to be a lot easier to deal with now that he’s getting some.  And man, Dean’s going to be the same.  You know, you might… Oh hey, look at how late it is!  Time for all traumatized wolfies and their research buddies to go to sleep.”

“I might what?”  Derek asked ominously.

Stiles looked anywhere and everywhere but at his Alpha.  “Um, you might lots of things.  Like sleep!”

“Or be easier to deal with if I get laid?  Is that what you were going to say?”

Stiles gulped.  “I… I—“

Derek stalked towards him.  “Well, Stiles?  Do you think I’d be easier to deal with if I had sex?”

Stiles had an inch or two on Derek, but he felt penned in and trapped in a way that should have been scary instead of hot.  He squeaked out an answer that the other man ignored.

“Would I?” Derek asked, softly now.  He moved into Stiles’s space, breath whispering on Stiles’s lips, but didn’t close the distance between them completely.

Stiles suddenly knew that Derek would never make the first move.  Not this troubled young man who had real issues with consent, power imbalances and differences in strength.  So he screwed up his courage and forced himself those few extra centimeters and finally, after three years of wanting, kissed Derek.

Stiles learned a lot of things that night.  He learned that he liked being fucked but that he loved fucking Derek, which worked well because Derek became a whole other person when he had someone’s cock up his ass.  Younger, carefree and all melty and needy in a way Stiles had kind of been looking for all his life.  Derek, who had hardened himself into rock for everyone around him, became soft as putty after he’d been fucked and bitten and scratched.  And when he was soft as putty, he held Stiles close in a way that reminded Stiles of naps with his mom, or popcorn and movie nights with his dad- being safe and warm and knowing there was someone between you and the monster under the bed.

He also learned that Derek was ticklish on the balls of his feet, that he had a thing for biting at Stiles’s mouth, and that the bed in his room had really squeaky springs.  And that for all that Scott had put him through in the Scott-and-Allison Harlequin love story, Scott was so offended by the noise the bed made when Stiles was fucking Derek that he banged on the wall twice.  Whatever.

*

 “Do you see that, Derek?”

Derek turned his face towards where his mother was pointing and squinted.  He couldn’t see anything until… oh.  “Is that a baby, Mom?  In that lady’s stomach?”

“Yes, baby.”

Derek’s eyes widened.  He was still getting used to the knowledge that babies grew in mother’s stomachs, and getting over the destruction of the illusion that storks brought them, in the middle of the night to wherever the mothers were at that time. Disney had so much to answer for. “Wow.”

“Yes, wow.”  Darcy smiled and clutched her five-year-old boy closer.  “Isn’t that amazing?”

“And my new cousin is growing just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Derek pursed his lips and pushed himself on his toes, then let his feet drop back down.  He repeated the motion a few times.  He was still a little jealous of his sister, who got to go visit Aunt Alex and see the new member of the Hale pack being born, but it was cool to get a glimpse of what she was seeing.  “Is that baby a werewolf?”

“Derek!”  His mother reprimanded. Little Derek then remembered that they weren’t supposed to talk about werewolves in public, and he supposed the grocery store parking lot counted as public.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

Darcy let her hand brush his hair, swallowing the ache in her that rose up and choked her.  She worried about this child.  She wasn’t sure why, but she worried about him in a way she didn’t worry about her daughter.  “It’s okay, but you know the rules.  And no, this baby is the son of the sheriff.  He’s going to be a beautiful, normal human boy.”

“Will we be friends?”

“Oh baby, you are going to be the best of friends.  And when you are both a little older, that beautiful, normal human boy will play with my extraordinary son.  You two are going to do great things together.” Then she turned, and her eyes were dark with an expression of hate her son had never seen before, certainly not directed at him.  “And then you’re going to get him killed.”

Derek didn’t open his eyes.  He just pulled Stiles closer and breathed him in, as if that would fight the dark future his dreams foretold.

*

Dean opened his eyes.  For the first time in a long while, he had no idea where he was, and that didn’t bother him.   He could feel the heat of someone beside him, someone he’d not just fucked but whom he’d slept with, and that should be bothering him but it wasn’t.  Which, of course, was completely freaking him out.

An arm snaked around him and pulled him closer.  “Stop overreacting.  You’re an adult, you had sex with another, unmarried adult.  Get over it.”

“Christ,” Dean exhaled noisily.  “Sam must have noticed I wasn’t in the room-“

“Sam saw us last night.  He didn’t throw a hissy fit and disown you or do anything much at all, so I think you’ll deal.”

“Sam saw?!?”  Dean jumped out of bed and began looking for his pants.  “Fuck it, I know they’re somewhere.”

“I killed Laura.”

Dean stopped moving clothes and sheets around and looked at Peter.  Something about the set, almost unconcerned cast of Peter’s face made him stop and listen.

“The fire- it killed my family.  My parents, my siblings, and my three nieces and nephews, with another on the way.  Jamie and Bry were too young for school and  Ryan’d had issues with the full moon the night before so we kept him home.  But Derek and Laura, my older brother’s two, were at school.  I don’t remember much about that day, except that I was with Darcy, Derek’s mother, doing some repairs in the upstairs bathroom when it started.  We smelled something, and then we knew something was wrong.  It was like someone had severed the wires in our brains.  We knew we had to get to the kids, and that we were going to die if we stayed in that house, but we couldn’t seem to figure out how to get out.  I think that the bitch, Kate Argent, must have put mountain ash on the windowsills when she seduced my underage nephew into letting her into our house for an afternoon fuck the day before.  Thanks to the wolfsbane gas she dosed us with, I don’t remember much of what happened, though I can still see Jamie suffocate to death in her mother’s arms.  The smoke, you see, kills before the fire does.  Her eyes were looking right into mine as the light went out of them, and the only comfort I had was that I was going to die and be with them in a few minutes.”

Dean swallowed.  “Okay,” he said stupidly.  “Okay.”

Peter went on as if Dean hadn’t spoken.  “I don’t know how long it was before I came back to myself, but it wasn’t that long.  All I can remember is seeing Derek and Laura, shell-shocked and grieving.  And the smell of that woman was still in my nostrils, almost drowning out the smell of burned flesh. See, I’d smelled her in the hour of what should have been my death, and I’d smelled her on Derek for the past few months.  During the seven-year coma after that, Derek would visit and tell me things he’d never tell anyone else, things he thought no one was hearing, and I put all the pieces together.  And in my angry, insane mind, I started to think the only way to obtain justice for those I lost was to become Alpha and do it myself, since Laura couldn’t or wouldn’t.  It wasn’t until after I came back, after Derek and the kids killed me that I realized I’d killed more than an obstacle in my glorious master plan.  I’d killed the girl who’d been the first baby in her generation, who’d taught me how to change diapers and hold babies, who’d walked to her father from my hands while her mother documented her first steps and cheered us on.”

Dean sat back down on the bed heavily.  “Okay,” he said again.

“Is that all you can say? Okay?” Peter asked with understandable irritation.

Dean got why Peter was irritated, and a confession like that deserved one in turn.  “My dad, before he died, told me I might have to kill my brother one day.”

Peter raised an eyebrow, searching for truth in Dean’s face, and then got to his knees.  He crawled towards where Dean was sitting on the bed and cradled the hunter’s face in his hand.  “Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t kill him.”

Dean shook him off.  “You don’t get it.  My dad wouldn’t say—“

“Fuck your dad.”  Peter could feel Dean’s anger rise, but he was always more the type to face the storm with mocking laughter than run for shelter.  “No, I get what he was doing but take it from someone who has the blood of someone they love on their hands.  There’s always what you think is a good reason, and then you wake up one day and you know that was bullshit or temporary insanity or whatever.  Find another way.”

“Find another way,” Dean repeated.  He turned the words over on his tongue, thought about them a bit, before he smiled.  He leaned over and kissed Peter, ignoring morning breath and all the work they had to do.

Peter smiled against his lips and gently pushed him down before straddling him on the bed.

*

The next day was, for lack of a better word, awkward, which wasn’t surprising considering the walls were not soundproof and there were parents there who’d heard their kids having sex.  Stiles’s father tried not to look at Derek, who avoided being in the same room as Peter and Dean, and Chris Argent bristled every time Scott was in Allison’s vicinity.  Sam, on the other hand, was falling over himself trying to show how supportive he was of his brother.  Stiles wasn’t quite sure where Sam had managed to find a rainbow shirt and a PFLAG laptop decal in Beacon Hills before nine in the morning but hey, he wasn’t complaining.  He hadn’t thought anyone could turn the shade of greenish-red Dean was sporting every time his brother spoke.  Isaac seemed to be the only oblivious one, but that was probably because he spent most of his downtime skyping with Kyra, the werewolf mechanic he’d met last year while visiting Lydia and Jackson.

Melissa McCall came over after her shift with Chris’s hunters, who were staying in the town and watching over her and the general populace, while Erica and Boyd ran in from where they were patrolling the less-frequented borders of Beacon Hills.  All of them picked up on the strange atmosphere but aside from a hurried, whispered conversation between Melissa and Stiles’s father, no one asked anything.  He had a feeling Boyd and Erica had smelled enough, despite his shower (but it was with Derek so did that even count?) that they knew exactly what was going on, but they just smirked and kept quiet.

“Okay,” Melissa broke into the awkward start and stop of conversations, interrupting Sam in his rambling story of the first Gay-Straight Alliance meeting he’d attended at Stanford.  It was probably also his last, but he’d gone to support a friend who’d just come out, so more power to him.  “Okay, so what’s going on? What’s the plan?”

“Are we sure this thing is coming?”

“Yes,” Sam answered, but this time he was echoed by Derek, who shrugged when everyone stared at him.  “Something is.”

Stiles stared at Derek.  “You can feel it?” Turning to the others, he explained.  “One of the books I read had a theory that Alphas have a stronger relationship to the forest.  Sometimes, when a threat was coming, they would know before it got here.”

Derek rolled his eyes.  “The birds aren’t talking to me, Stiles.  This isn’t a Disney cartoon or some mystical story where I’m one with the forest. I got a call a few minutes ago from a pack member in French Camp; the family you mentioned that were killed by a rake-wielding neighbor were werewolves.”

“When were you going to tell us?” Scott demanded as he rose to his feet.

“Now, when we were all together.  Sit down.”  Derek’s voice was calm and tight, and there was enough authority to make even Scott obey without argument.  “They were the Alpha and her family, to be precise.  I’ve sent out feelers to the other towns you mentioned but I have a feeling we’re going to have similar news.  Whatever this is, it’s hunting werewolves.”

In the silence that fell over the room, Melissa McCall moved closer to her son and Boyd took Erica’s hand.  Then Sam broke the tense atmosphere and shot to his feet.  “I have an idea, but I need to do more research.”

*

“So… J. K. Rowling had it wrong.  Werewolves don’t join the Dark Side.”

Sam rolled his eyes but huffed out a laugh.  “I guess, Lydia.”  He moved closer to the phone as he spoke, unsure if she could hear everything over the background noise of beta training.  “But you see what I do, right?  You think they’re talking about werewolves?”

“Hey, I’ve taken four college semesters of Latin, like you did.  We’re both reading this right.  Werewolves are the natural enemies of demons, because they can sense them and Alphas can destroy them.  But why now?”

“What do you mean?”

“There are packs everywhere, Sam, and they have been living peacefully for years.  Some less peacefully than others, but regardless, there seems to be a concerted effort to go around killing Alphas.”

“Fuck… it’s the Yellow-Eyed Demon.  He’s planning something,” Sam realized.  “Something big is going down so they’re starting to take out the beings they know can stop them.”

Lydia didn’t say anything for a few seconds.  Sam braced himself because he’d been warned she didn’t pull punches.  “Sam, whatever is going on probably has something to do with what your family’s been fighting, what killed your mother and your father.”

“I know,” he whispered, knowing the werewolves could hear him.  But it wasn’t them he was worried about.

Lydia sighed.  “Well whatever it is, thanks for coming there and warning them.  And please, Sam, keep my town and my pack as safe as you can.”

“I will.”

His voice was reassuring, but as she disconnected the call, Lydia bit her lip and stared into the distance.  She was startled out of her distracted thoughts when strong, warm hands pressed on her shoulders.  She looked up at Jackson and tried to smile, but her lips trembled.

“Do we need to go back?” he asked, his hand already reaching for his phone.  He’d go, too, risking the money and approval his parents meted out, even though he needed both. Derek’d ordered him not to burn his parental bridges because Derek thought family was sacrosanct, but Pack came first. His family’d get over their Beacon Hills issues way faster than he’d get over ditching his Pack.

She shook her head.  “No, not this time.  We need to work through the summer if we want to graduate early and get back to Beacon Hills after grad school.  We’ll go back on the full moon as intended.”

His hands pressed down a little, and she put her own up to clasp his, feeling him hold it and bend down to kiss her palm.  He came around the sofa to hold her and together they looked out the window and worried.

There were a lot of reasons to stay away. There were the parental threats to cut off all aid if Jackson went back, the destructive relationship Lydia still had with her parents, all the Supernatural bullshit that was probably going to get one or both of them killed one day, and the hunters. But there was one reason to go back. One very, very important reason. They were Pack.

“Okay, let’s go this weekend,” Lydia said.

Jackson smiled.

*

Scott had a book open in front of him, but had trouble focusing on it as he thought about Allison’s hair, the way she smiled at him, or how the sweat rolled down her face when she straddled him…

“Dude, you’re such a cliché,” Stiles’s mocking voice surprised him out of his thoughts.  The house had been quiet, so he’d drifted off, but the sound of his best friend talking made him concentrate on his senses. It sounded like Stiles was in the kitchen.

“My dad taught me.”  That was Dean’s voice.  Scott could smell gun oil, and he couldn’t help snickering.  Stiles was right; Dean was a cliché.

There was silence, and Scott couldn’t help thinking of his own father, who’d never really stuck around to teach him anything.  But Stiles’s father had.  “Mine did too.  He had guns in the house so I had to learn to use them. Scott, too. My mom hated them- she’d rather they weren’t there and she was kinda rabidly anti-gun, but she got that my dad didn’t have a choice.  Still, she also knew hiding them wouldn’t work so she was okay with my learning. But I don’t know, since she died, I haven’t been able to use them without thinking of how much she would have hated that.”

Again, silence. Stiles never mentioned his mother to strangers, and Scott was about to join them in the kitchen when Dean spoke.  “Wait, are we having a moment?”

Scott didn’t hear what Stiles answered because his phone went off at that exact moment.  A few seconds later he burst into the kitchen to spread the bad news. “It’s here.”

*

“So wait, you smelled something?”

“Yeah.  Derek was patrolling the northern part of the road leading from the house to the preserve and he smelled matches burning.  ‘Course, he checked it out because he didn’t want some kids setting the forest on fire, but there was no trace of fire.  Just in case, he called Peter, Sam, and your dad and they came out to smell it. Peter said it could be sulfur.  Sam said demons smelled like sulfur.  So they think it’s here.”  Scott spoke so quickly that they barely kept up as they drove through the forest, but his lungs were able to keep up with the speed that excitement brought to his vocal cords.

They got to where everyone else was gathered, and as soon as Dean got out of the car he started sniffing.  “I don’t…” he began in confusion.  “It’s not that clear.”

Peter stepped up behind him.  “It’s faint for your human nose, and surrounded by a lot of other scents, but trust me, it’s there.  It’s been a while, at least a couple of hours, so it’s not here any more.”

“So what’s the plan?”  Stiles bounced on his toes a couple of times in his excitement.  Out of the corner of his eye, his father saw Derek put his hand out towards Stiles as if to calm him, but then Derek stopped and turned away.

“We need to isolate ourselves,” the Sheriff decided.  “This thing gets people to kill its targets, and to protect the people it makes do horrible things against their will, we need to not give them an opportunity.”

“There’s enough food in the house to hole up there a while,” Derek agreed.  “Scott, I know your mother has to work but get Erica and Boyd to the hospital and have them stay with her and bring her right back here between shifts.  Sheriff, Isaac is going to be going around with you on ride-alongs because he’s always dreamed of being a cop.  Argent, you should probably send your hunters out of town.”

Chris wanted to argue, but he knew Derek was right.  It made sense to have those who could smell the demon guarding the people who had to leave Hale House.

“I’ve been talking to Lydia, and we think there’s a way to stop Duane.  We need to get the demon himself to come to us.  From what I get, the bite of an Alpha is enough to make a demon mortal.”

“So Derek bites him, and we can kill him?” Dean asked.

Sheriff Stilinski looked troubled.  “What about the human?  Don’t demons possess people?  Is killing the demon going to mean killing an innocent person?”

Sam exchanged a look with Dean, who wanted him to lie.  But Sam had come to like and respect the Sheriff.  “Yes, it does, and you’re right, but in this case I doubt the human would still be alive without the demon in him; demons aren’t careful about maintaining what they call their ‘meatsuits’ and he’s been possessed for a long time.  He’s probably going to be grateful.  Possession is a torment for the victims.  Someone is using your body to do horrific things, and you have no control over it.”

Stiles shuddered.  “That sounds like torture.”

“Yeah.”  Dean thought of the young girl the Yellow Eyed Demon’s daughter had possessed, how she’d used her last breaths to thank him for a death that had released her from possession.  “It is.”

*

“I feel like this is the hunt that is never going to end,” Dean complained.

Sam looked up from the books in front of him.  “Dean, there’s so much to learn here.  There are books that will never be in any library in the country, with creatures that even Bobby and Pastor Jim had never heard of.  And then there’s the lore of creatures that we don’t need to hunt, who live peaceful lives side by side with humans.”

“Come on Sam, you know I’d rather be out there salting and burning then in here with a book!”

“Don’t you ever get the urge to just set up shop somewhere?”

Dean paused, remembering the homes he’d created in a million small towns all over America.  “Yeah, sure I do,” he admitted.  “But I wouldn’t want to stop hunting.”  Looking down at his hands, he added, “I don’t know if I know how to stop anymore.”

Sam swallowed.  It was still too soon to think of how much he could hate his father, but sometimes it was difficult to think anything else.  “I don’t know if I could just walk away from all of it.  I thought that was all I wanted but if there’s anything the last couple of years have taught me, it’s that hunting will follow me wherever I go.  But I guess if I can’t escape it, it might be cool if I could figure out a way to combine it with the life I’d like to have.  I hate hunting, but I think I could live with it if I had a life outside of it.”

Dean looked at his brother narrowly for a few minutes and then changed the subject.  “But it’s been eight days; how long before he makes his move?”

Sam thought about pushing, but decided to let it go.  “He has to have figured out that we know he’s coming, or he’d have acted yesterday.  He’s going to come here himself to spread his disease and take out the Alpha and anyone groomed to take over, so that the Pack tears itself apart.”

Dean thought of Peter and Derek, keeping a careful distance from each other as they navigated the hallways of their personal mausoleum, of Stiles and the way he blushed red when Derek entered a room, of Scott and the way he took care of his mother and girlfriend, of Boyd and Erica and their plans to open a bakery together, and of Isaac, who took to affection and respect with a thirst that made both Winchesters want to dig up his family for a good old-fashioned salt n’ burn.  “We can’t let that happen.”

*

It was later that very day when everything came to a head.  Dean and Erica had just put the finishing touches on dinner while Sam, Isaac and Peter laid the table.  “What are we eating?” Peter asked as he debated over the cutlery.

“Mex”- Erica stopped mid-word when she heard her text message alert go off.

Then it was Stiles’s, Sam’s and Isaac’s.  They all reached for their phones immediately but knew what the message said.  Someone was coming to the house.

“Devil’s Traps!” Dean ordered, and everyone rushed to darken the lines of the Devil’s Traps they’d prepared ahead of time.  He pulled out a flask of holy water and watched as Chris and Allison Argent dipped their arrows in it.  Stiles, meanwhile, took his own supply and attached it to the water hose that lay coiled outside.  He and Derek sprayed outside the house and by all the windows, covering all the entrances and exits except the front door.  Halfway through, Derek stopped and let Stiles finish as he waited for Boyd and Scott to come back.  He was half wolfed-out, scenting the air as he searched for the threat he knew was coming.

Boyd and Scott came running through the woods.  Scott sported a bloody gash on his eyebrow but Boyd was dragging his leg and looked about ready to collapse.  Derek ran towards him and caught him before he could.  He handed him over to Scott and Stiles, telling the other two to take him inside.  “It looks like wolfsbane, so get him to the Argents.”

They began to take Boyd into the house but Scott stopped first to describe what they’d seen.  “I think they got the hunters to come here.  The hunters are infected.”

“Fuck!”  Derek waved them inside and stood outside his house, ready to protect it, and the people inside, with his life.  He felt more than sensed his pack emerge to stand at his back.

Stiles, however, was still inside with Allison. They rummaged through their collection of herbs as Stiles berated Chris constantly.  “Derek told you to send them away! They know how to deal with werewolves, they’ve seen us prepare for the Croatoan virus, and they’re susceptible to it.  There was a reason he wanted them sent away!”

“I know!” Chris snapped back.  “I told them to leave.  But I don’t run an army, Stiles, and they have minds of their own.”

Stiles scoffed.  “Yeah, I guess I should have expected hunters to not follow the rules.”

“Yes, you should have,” Chris agreed, acid dripping from every word.

“Enough!” Allison ordered.  “Hey, Boyd, it’s going to be fine.  I’m pretty sure this is it.”  She quickly lit the wolfsbane on fire and then had Stiles and her father hold the young man down as she stuffed the wound.  Almost as soon as Boyd had relaxed, they re-joined the battle.

The hunters whom Chris had ordered out had obviously recruited more people.  Stiles wasn’t quite sure how many people were shooting at him and his pack, but there were a lot.  He tried to keep an eye on his father and his… boyfriend? Lover? Alpha?  Not that he worried about Derek, Sourwolf could take care of himself, but he couldn’t help having the sneaking suspicion that he was getting everything he wanted, only to have it all taken away.

He dodged a machete- who the hell carried around a machete- and swung his baseball bat at the head of the guy who’d been wielding it.  They were too close together, so he wasn’t able to get in much of a swing, and the man stumbled a bit but didn’t fall.  Stiles had time to think “oh shit,” before the hunter in front of him looked shocked.  The hunter fell to his knees and then onto his back, the same look of shock staying on his face, and Stiles looked over him and into the eyes of the werewolf who’d saved him.  “Hi,” Derek said with an irritatingly sexy grin.

“Hi,” Stiles parroted.  He was pretty sure he had a goofy grin on his face, but who cared? Derek’s grin wasn’t any less goofy, and they were winning anyway, right?

But Derek suddenly stiffened and spun around.  The hunters must have brought Molotov cocktails or something else flammable, because they’d managed, in the heat of the battle, to set Derek’s house on fire.  Again.

“Boyd!”  Erica screamed.  “Boyd!”  She ran towards the house but a hunter’s bullet hit her in the shoulder and she fell to the ground.  She struggled up, but Derek shot past her before she could get to her feet.

Derek ran into the house, ignoring cries for him to stop.  He leaped over flames and let his senses go wild, fearing he’d smell charred flesh, the odor that followed him into nightmares.  But he heard a heartbeat, strong and excited, and followed it up the stairs.

Boyd was coughing constantly but he wouldn’t leave.  “We have to save the books,” he gasped.  The books had survived one devastating fire because they’d been stored away but would not survive another.

“Leave them,” Derek ordered, but Boyd refused.  They were their culture and their history, and they’d saved their lives in the past and would save them again.  Derek gave in and, instead of dragging Boyd out, grabbed Sam and Peter’s laptops and took those out as well.

They emerged, coughing, into the bloody, flame-lit night where the battle was almost done.  Dean, Scott, Chris and Allison were finishing off the last of the hunters, and everyone else was just standing around, watching them walk out of the house with expressions of anger mixed in with relief.   Erica ran towards Boyd and kissed him.  Stiles also approached Derek, but more cautiously and awkwardly.  “Dude, you went in there for a couple of books and a laptop?”

Derek shrugged.  He wanted to kiss Stiles, but the way the younger man was shifting from foot to foot reminded him of all the reasons not to kiss him.  He settled for pulling him in for a long, tight hug. Stiles hugged him back, clutching on as if he’d been terrified Derek wouldn’t get out on time.

“Not to interrupt the moment, but this isn’t over.”  As Peter spoke, Derek was able to make out the smell of sulfur.  He looked up and through the trees and saw a young man, probably just about Stiles’s age, but he smelled something much older and far darker inside of him.

Around him, the werewolves all smelled what he did, and they shifted.  Dean and Sam finished off a hunter and stood, heavily armed and ready, watching the young man approach.  The other humans were also ready, but all they could see was an unarmed, nicely dressed young man.

“You can’t let him come close, Derek!” Sam yelled.  “He can infect any one of them.” Them, not us, but that was a thought for another time.

Derek sprang forward and ran towards the young man.  It was as if his body had been waiting for this moment, because instead of shifting into the half man, half wolf form he normally took, Derek’s body continued the transformation until he was a wolf.  It was the first time he’d fully transformed; a sign that he was finally embracing his status as an Alpha.  He tore through the woods and his paws ate up the feet between them.

But Duane had his own tricks.  When Derek was just a body length or so away, Duane waved his hand, making Derek’s body rise off the ground and slam into a tree.  It hurt, but Derek’d been through worse.  Before he could attack again, Peter jumped over him and managed to swipe his claws through Duane’s face before the demon used his powers to push him away.  Peter’s head hit the tree hard enough that he lost consciousness immediately.

Then it was Scott who attacked from the side, but he didn’t draw any blood before he too was pushed away.  Boyd and Erica attacked simultaneously, but Boyd’s lingering weakness doomed that attempt.  Still, the double attack made it impossible for Duane to be too fancy in pushing them aside, and all he managed to do was throw them back a few feet.

The humans watched in frustration, wanting to help their friends and family, but unwilling to risk infection. They could end up hurting the others if they came under the demon’s control.

The werewolves all noted how much harder it was for Duane to use his powers on them when their attacks were coordinated, and Derek snarled out an instruction that they all seemed to understand.  They circled Duane once, twice, and then they moved.

Scott and Isaac went for the feet, Boyd and Erica for the torso, and Derek made for the throat.  He got Duane’s shoulder but that was enough.  There was a hoarse scream, and then Duane’s eyes filled with an awful, horrifying black color that made all of them back off a bit.

There was the sharp crack of a bullet, and then a hole appeared in the center of Duane Tanner’s attractive forehead. He fell over immediately, and Dean walked into the circle of werewolves, gun in hand, and stood over the possessed boy’s body. “Sorry, kid,” he said sincerely. “But it had to be done this time.”  Then, crouching down, he whispered, “For Sargent Varko, you asshole.”

*

“Well, you’re all invited to come stay at my place, except for those of you who have homes, of course,” Sheriff Stilinski offered.  “And on that note, I’m going to go to my house, where I’m going to have a drink and then a shower in my bathroom, and then I’m going to sleep in my bed.  Stiles, you’re coming with me.  And that’s not a suggestion.”

Stiles could have said that he was twenty, and beyond his father’s orders, but the truth was that he kind of wanted to sleep in his own bed too.  He looked at Derek, who was standing next to his uncle over the remnants of his still-burning house, and then back at his father.

“Go, Stiles,” Derek ordered gently, and Stiles went.

“I’m going to take you up on that offer, Sheriff, if that’s okay,” Sam said gratefully.  He picked up his laptop and walked towards the Impala, looking at Dean to see if he’d follow.

Chris packed up the last of the hunter’s bodies and slammed the door shut.  “I think I’m heading out now too.  Allison, you’ll be home after dropping Scott and Isaac off at Melissa’s?”

“Yes, dad.  See you later.”  She and the boys left, all throwing one last look at Derek as they left.

Dean went to follow his brother, but then turned back at the last minute.  He walked up to Derek and held his shoulder for a second, and then turned to Peter.  He took Peter’s arm and pulled him back so that he could kiss him, long and lingering.  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he promised.

Everyone left, and it was just the last two Hales.  Derek watched the house burn.  It wasn’t really the house he’d grown up in, that was long lost, but it was the closest they had.

Some small trinkets, remnants of a family and a normal life, had survived the first blaze, but they were beyond saving now.  It had been a constant source of painful joy, the glare of a perfect sunrise, when he found something that had once meant nothing.  Just three days before he’d been in what had been the vegetable garden, and he’d found the dog monopoly piece where his mom must have hidden it to avoid all the fights the kids had over it.  It was truly painful to think that all that he’d managed to save was probably gone, and that he’d never again feel the heart-wrenching, angry connection he used to feel when he found remnants of his happy past.

“Are you going to rebuild it?” Peter asked hoarsely.

Derek thought about it for a second.  “No,” he decided.  He was done with this part of his history.  It seemed as if his motto should have been: if you build it, they will come to burn it down.

“Good,” Peter said, and he exhaled.  It was as if a chain had been broken for both of them.  Peter could maybe begin to escape his ghosts, and Derek could begin to let go of his anger and grieve.  “Put something here, will you?  Not another house, but something of them.  All ten of them.”

“Eleven,” Derek corrected, because even if Laura had survived the fire, Kate’s actions had set into motion events that had sealed his older sister’s fate.  For all intents and purposes, Laura had died in that house with their parents and family.  The years he’d gotten with her ,when she’d held them together with nothing more than her strength and her resolve, had been a gift.

“Let’s go?” Peter asked.  Derek nodded, and the two men began making their way to Derek’s car.  They weren’t touching or holding each other; there was too much between them for that, but for the first time in eleven years, they walked in sync with the other’s steps.

THE NEXT DAY

“Are you going somewhere?”

Sam jerked his head up at the question, almost losing his grip on the newly laundered shirts he was packing away in the duffle bag.  “Um, what?”

Stiles smiled from where he was standing in the doorway of the Stilinski guest room.  “I asked if you were going somewhere.”

“Well, the case is over, which is usually Dean and my cue to start going.”  Sam shrugged, as if the constant moving didn’t get to him, as if the urge to grow roots didn’t tear at him.

Stiles stared at him and even though his hyperactivity made it impossible for him to hold the penetrating gaze for too long, Sam had the feeling Stiles knew exactly what he wasn’t saying.  As if in support of Sam’s theory, Stiles asked, “Why?”

Sam wondered where to start: the warrants for their arrest, the demon, their mother… But Stiles had heard all of it over the past couple of weeks, so he just shrugged again.

“You know that we can help you start over, that my dad can keep the police off your tail, and that your brother is more than capable of continuing the hunts without you, and everyone knows you hate hunting, so I don’t get why you have to go.”

“You don’t know everything,” Sam told him.

“So tell me!”

Sam sat down on the bed and then leaned back, putting his head on his folded arms and staring up at the ceiling.  “Apparently, my dad told my brother he might need to kill me one day.  I think- I think the demon did something to me, the night he killed my mother.  Something bad enough that my own father was afraid of what I might do.”

Stiles had paled a bit, but he kept up his steady gaze.  “That sucks.”

Sam laughed.  It wasn’t a pleasant sound.  “Yeah, it does.”

“Still not getting why you have to go.  In fact, it kind of sounds like you should stay away from hunting, if you want my opinion.  Which you probably don’t, but that’s never stopped me from giving it.”

Sam looked at him in shock.  “Um, I have to find the Yellow Eyed Demon and figure out what he did to me.  I have to stop whatever he’s planning.”

“Dude, from everything you’ve told me, that’s exactly what he wants you to do, and that probably means it’s the last thing you should be doing.”  Sam stopped breathing for a second, but Stiles kept going.  “And anyway, man- vengeance, so not a good idea.  Look at what happened to Peter.  He’s a walking advertisement for what happens when you start letting vengeance eat at your soul!”

“It’s not that easy.”

“It kind of is,” Stiles said, more gently.  “I get needing justice, and I get what a lack of justice gets you.  I’ve also had Derek, who’s still a 15-year-old kid who fell in love with a sex offending, baby-murdering bitch, as a walking advertisement for the need for closure, because he’s never gotten it.  But dude, you know that Dean’s going to get justice for your mom and your girlfriend, and for all the people along the way who don’t matter enough to get backstories.  I’m not telling you to walk away from the supernatural, but I’m offering you a way to do that while you go to school and make friends and become a part of the pack.”

“I don’t think the demon will let me,” Sam admitted.  “And even if he did, I can’t leave Dean.”

“Fuck the demon, and don’t worry about us.  We’re freaking werewolves and lizards and witches, and we have ways of taking care of ourselves.  If there’s anywhere you could stay, Sam, it’s with us.”

For a second, Sam let himself think of it.  If it was possible anywhere, it was possible here.  Except for one thing. “Dean?”

Stiles smiled.  “Yeah, dude, I don’t think you have to worry about that one,” he said enigmatically, and then ruined it all by wiggling his eyebrows.  Cackling a little at Sam’s groan, he made a quick retreat, saying only, “Think about it.”

Stiles ran down the stairs, stumbling a little near the bottom but righting himself before he did any damage.  “Meant to do that,” he said quickly but Derek’s back did not indicate that he’d heard him.  “Hey, Sourwolf, what are you brood-” he began, but then stopped when he came up alongside Derek and followed the werewolf’s gaze to a half-full box on the dining table.  He sighed.  “Can’t believe I’m moving out and going to Cal soon.”

Derek stood silently for a moment and then raised his already stiff shoulders.  “Stiles,” he began gently, and caused all of Stiles’s warning systems to go on red alert.  “We need to talk.”

Stiles glanced back at the box before returning back to his boyfriend’s eyes and shook his head.  “Oh no, no you are not doing this to me.  You are not breaking up with me, dude.”

Derek caught his flailing hands and forced him to still.  “Stiles, listen to me.”

“No, you are not doing this to me.”

“Stiles, listen!”  It was the alpha voice, but something real and sad and steady in Derek’s voice made Stiles obey.  “Stiles,” he said again in that gentle voice that Stiles was already beginning to hate, “this isn’t an ending.”

“Then why does it sound like one?”

“It’s a beginning.”  Derek ducked his head and caught Stiles’s eyes, forcing him to look at him.  “It’s an amazing, wonderful beginning and you deserve to go on it without worrying about the boyfriend back home.  And I’m not breaking up with you.  I’m just proposing a two-year break.”

“Why?”  Stiles was suddenly furious.  “Why are you doing this?  Why would you make a move and then end this for two fucking years a few days later?”

“Because I never meant to make a move until after those two years!”  Derek exploded.  “Damn it Stiles, I wanted you to go to college free, and then I wanted you to come back and choose me.  If we start on this now, if we use words like forever and always and all that now, you’re going to wake up one day and never know if you settled for me because that was all you knew.  You’re going to be like one of those people who wakes up after ten years of marriage and realizes they never knew there was a world out there that was bigger than the town and life they grew up with! Or worse, you’re going to make me become the one person I swore I wouldn’t be.  Know who that is?”

Struck silent, Stiles could only shake his head.

“Kate.”  Stiles twisted away and protested at that, but Derek steamed on.  “She was older and hot and I thought I was in love because it felt great that someone like her would be into me.  I’m not saying I’m going to take advantage of you and kill your family or that you at twenty is comparable to me at fifteen, but still she got me at a time before I could make informed choices and took away all the great aspects of what I should have experienced in college or just being freaking young.  There are huge gaps in my life, people I’ll never meet and things I’ll never get to do, because she took away the freedom I had to do them.”  Derek stopped there.  “I won’t be Kate.”

“You’re not, and no matter how many years –“

“No matter how many years is right.”  Derek smiled sadly, and in that moment they both knew he’d won.  “Stiles, for four years you’ve been the person I’ve trusted most.  If I had a problem, I’d only need to text you and you’d give me five different ways to kill it by the next morning.  And I’d like to think I’ve been the same for you.  That was more than enough for four years, and it can be enough for another two.  Another two years where you get to be a typical college student, where you get to experiment, and then if you still want to be with me, forever, I’ll be here and we’ll be pack.”

Stiles wanted to argue, but instead, what came out was, “You’ll wait?”

Derek’s smile widened.  “Stiles, I spent eleven years after Kate waiting for you.  I can wait a couple more.  And in the meantime…”

“In the meantime,” Stiles agreed, and it was as much a promise as the way he grabbed Derek and pulled him close, pressing his face into Derek’s neck and breathing him in, feeling him scent him in return.  “In the meantime.”

*

Dean packed away the wooden box that the Argents had given him, and sent a quick, silent thanks to somewhere he hasn’t quite defined yet that his brother had reminded him to take notes when Chris was talking about how the contents of the box worked.  He closed the trunk of the car, stretched to work out the kinks his back had developed as he’d bent over the Impala’s secret compartment and turned, only to jump in shock.  “Damn it, can’t you people stop sneaking up on me?”

Peter smirked and shrugged.  “It’s a part of the gift, Dean.  Aside from wearing a bell- and no, that’s not an option- I don’t see that happening.”  He stopped speaking and shifted, uncharacteristically uncomfortable in his own skin.

“What?” Dean asked suspiciously.  Peter’s behavior was a lot like Sammy’s had been as a kid when he’d wanted something he knew Dad would freak out over, but Peter shouldn’t have had any requests… “Oh hell no.”

To his credit, Peter didn’t dissemble.  “Dean, you know that Sam’s happy here, that he wants to become Pack.”

“He’s not going to become a werewolf –“

Peter waved his hand dismissingly.  “No, no one is suggesting the bite, and anyway, there are human members.   But he’s happy here and there are good schools near enough that he can go with the rest of them, finish up his undergrad and finally go to law school.  It’ll be safer for him and God knows it may be safer for the rest of us.”

“Hey, I told you that stuff in private,” Dean spoke in an angry whisper, shooting panicked glares around him.

“No one’s around.  But this is the best place for him and you know it.  He’s with people who know the supernatural and can help him fight it off.  And can let him build a life and protect anyone he builds it with.  Which is what the demon tried to destroy.  You have to know that Sam being with you, on this path, is what the demon wanted so it has to be the worst possible place for him to be.  This is a place where monsters, both human and not, try to be good, where horrible things happen but people rebuild, and I can’t think of a better place for Sam to be.”

Dean couldn’t argue, but at the same time, he couldn’t quite imagine getting back in that car without Sam by his side.  And, “I can’t stay.”

“No, you can’t,” Peter said gently.  “And you can’t be on your own.  Or at least you shouldn’t.  Which makes you a lot like me.  I can’t stay here, with Derek.  I love Derek as much as I’d love any child of my own, and I know he loves me, but the specter of Laura stands between us.  Where she’ll always be, and rightfully so.   I know I deserve to be haunted by her for the rest of my life, but I can live with her ghost when I’m not here, surrounded by my worst sins.”

“Are you saying you want to come with me, to be a hunter like me? With me?”  Dean tried to imagine a life of hunting with someone who wanted to be there, who had as much darkness within him as he did but who somehow made the whole world brighter, who would share his bed and hunts with equal passion and competence...  It was impossible and all too possible to imagine, all at once.  But this wasn’t an easy life, and he didn’t wish it on anyone.  “Do you realize what that would mean?”

Peter raised an eyebrow.  “Well, we’re going to have to negotiate where we stay and how we stay; I have enough money to live in luxury for the rest of my life and there’s no way in hell you’re getting me in a motel 6 outside of an emergency.  Hell, I’d be perfectly satisfied staying in the woods before I’d sleep on scratchy sheets or use a bathroom that’s got anything on 6 legs moving around in there.”

“That’s not what I meant, but you should know that ghosts don’t always haunt five-star hotels.”

“I don’t have to work where I sleep, and I get what you meant.”  Peter looked at the still smoky remains of the place he’d called home.  “I know what your life means. And you should remember that I’ve been hunting since before you were born and that that I don’t die easily or permanently.  But before you agree to take me with you, you should know that if you hunt with a werewolf, there are hunts you won’t be able to take and prey that you can’t kill.”

“Werewolves,” Dean acknowledged.

“Oh, I have no issue with killing rogues.  I was one, yes, but I know how rogues can make life difficult for those of us trying to go… legitimate.  But there are monsters who are causing no harm and humans who are as evil as demons, and I’d rather kill those who deserve it than those who were born a little different.”

Dean rolled his eyes.  “You’re going to be just like Sam and have a debate every time we go on a hunt, aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” Peter said, then smiled seductively.  “Or maybe we can just agree to kill whatever’s killing and then fuck it out on silk sheets in some ridiculously expensive hotel room?”

Dean closed his eyes and felt Peter’s warm, gentle hands cup his face.  “I’ve never hunted with anyone but family, or people who were family in all but name.”

Peter leaned forward until his breath brushed Dean’s lips.  “Some day, I hope that I, and mine, will be in that category.”

Dean was so used to holding family close, to grasping on to what he had tightly as it tried to slip through his hands, that for a second he could not compute what Peter was offering.  Then he opened his eyes and senses and figured it out. Pack, home, family- love, and all he had to do was say, “Yes.”

EPILOGUE- SIX YEARS LATER (the present)

Isaac whoops as he paints the last bit of trimming with a flourish. “Done!”

Scott smiles at his friend’s enthusiasm.  “Looks good, Isaac.”  Then, as Isaac blushes, he turns to his wife and quickly asks, “Are you sure you should be around the paint fumes?”

“Oh my God, Scott,” Allison groans.  “I’m pregnant with a werewolf child; he or she’s hardly going to be allergic to non-lead paint fumes, in the womb no less.  If you’re going to be like this for all nine months…”

Lydia sighs.  “Can we please stop talking about this pregnancy?“  She rolls her eyes as everyone around her looks shocked.  “Oh, whatever, Allison and Scott know that I’m happy for them and perfectly ready to fight Erica for godmother rights, werewolf or not, but that’s not what today is about.  Today’s about the new Hale house, and Derek finally embracing the concept of four solid walls, a roof that doesn’t leak, running water and, hold the presses, electricity.”  Though her words are sarcastic, her tone lacks its usual cutting bite.  She’s as touched by this moment as the rest of them.

Derek would be touched too, if he could have spared any emotion for it.  In some small part of himself he’s still aware of his surroundings, of Pack around him, in what is his new yard and in his home.  He can hear voices from inside murmuring as they set down rugs and move furniture around a bit, but even though he can hear every word, he isn’t listening to any of it.

Instead, his heart is in his mouth as he looks straight at his new home.  The house is still on Hale land; he has to keep his home there to ensure that the Pack always has it to roam on, but there are trees and enough space separating them that he can’t even see the place where his family died.  Not that there’s much to see; in the past few years his Pack has done a good job of planting shrubs, flowers, and trees so that there is nothing to tell visitors that ten people died there in a horrific fire other than a plaque, engraved solely with ten names, and ten beautiful white rosebushes.  He rarely lets a day pass without going to the site to tend those ten bushes, and the one red rosebush, for Laura, but he is glad that he can’t see them from his new home.

It’s a nice house, big enough for the Pack, but it looks nothing like the home his mother built.  It has more contemporary and sleek lines, with brighter colors that reflect Lydia’s burgeoning interior designer aesthetic more than his mother’s traditional sense.  There is a basement, but it has multiple exits hidden all over the property and modes of communication with the outside world so that no one can ever lock the Pack in there to die.

But more than that, it’s home.  And it’s never more home than when Stiles opens the door and peeks out.  He’s holding a bottle of champagne, and Derek isn’t all that surprised when Stiles insists that they bang it on the front door.

“This isn’t a ship, Stiles,” Jackson rolls his eyes.  He glances quickly at his watch, making sure he doesn’t have to leave for the hospital any time soon.  His residency has him working an insane number of hours, and he’s grateful for the stamina that lycanthropy gives him.  Sam, struggling with associate hours, is bitterly envious of Jackson’s abilities.

“Plus, I just got finished painting, and I don’t want to have to touch up the door,” Isaac groaned.  “Scott, stop encouraging him.”  Scott’s too busy laughing to argue.

But it’s Derek who takes the bottle from Stiles’s hand and, after a quick kiss on his husband’s lips, shatters it against the door.  He watches the Pack tumble over each other as they rush inside to admire their own work, and he looks again at what they’ve built.

As he stands in the threshold, a whisper in the wind on an otherwise still night catches his attention and he turns his head.  A light breeze is rustling the trees around him, trees that have watched him learn to walk, stumble and fall, and walk again.  They are old, loved friends and he can’t help thinking that they are celebrating with him.  It’s been a long, hard road to rebuilding, but standing where he is, he finally knows peace.

He will never forgive himself for what he did, what he brought down on his family.  But with time, and with love, he’s learned something approaching acceptance.

“Hey, Wolfman!”  Stiles insinuates himself between Derek’s arm and his body and angles his face so that it’s almost pressed against Derek’s. Then he lets himself go a little cross-eyed looking into Derek’s eyes because he knows just how to get Derek to stop brooding.  “Come on in, we’re trying to have a party here.”

Derek can’t help it.  He snorts and leans in to laugh inside Stiles’s mouth.

No, he’ll never forgive himself, any more than Peter will forgive him, or he’ll forgive Peter.  But he’s got so much these days, and he’s so happy, that he’s forgetting how and why they died.  Not them; he’ll never forget them and who they were even if the years dim their faces and voices, but standing here, surrounded by family and friends, Pack, he lets himself forget how they died. Because even if forgiveness is an unreachable goal, and acceptance is a plateau he has to work every single minute of every day to maintain, he has enough happiness in his life that he gets to forget from time to time.

And that’s more than enough for Derek, and his pack.

“Did you fall asleep here?”  Peter’s laughter woke the six-year-old up.

 Derek let his eyes open blearily as he shook off the remnants of sleep and tried to figure out why he’d drifted off sitting d- “It’s Christmas!”

“That it is, nephew mine,” Peter agreed.  “What, does that mean something special to you?”

Derek spared his uncle an exasperated glare before running to the living room.  “It’s Christmas, everybody!”  He stopped suddenly at the sight of his entire family already congregated by the tree.  Even the cat had beaten him there.

His sister rolled her eyes from where she stood, examining the different tags.  “Yeah, Sherlock.  We’ve all been up for ages but Mom insisted we wait until you were here to open stuff, and she wouldn’t let Uncle Peter wake…”

“That’s enough, Laura.  Santa is still capable of revising that naughty and nice list,” his mother warned, and his sister subsided.

Derek couldn’t revel in his enjoyment of seeing his sister schooled because of the sheer excitement he felt at the sight of all the presents.  He ran for the tree, and his legs comically cycled in the air as a strong arm wrapped itself around his waist and scooped him up mid-run.  “Hey, little man.  No Christmas hugs and kisses?”

Derek obliged his parents with quick hugs and kisses, but his distraction was obvious, and as soon as he was done he escaped to the tree.  “What did I get?”

“Turns, kids. In fact, I’m going to play elf for the day,” Peter said as he took baby Ryan from Alex and stood over Derek and Laura.

“Mine first!” Laura and Derek yelled, and Ryan joined in with a babble.  Peter absent-mindedly kissed his nephew’s fuzzy head and pulled a box out.  “And the first recipient is… Miss Darcy!”

Derek and Laura couldn’t even be disappointed because it was their gift.  Their mother ripped open the wrapping and exclaimed tearfully over the framed photographs inside. And then it was Derek’s turn, and then Laura’s, and little Ryan chortled over the wrapping and ignored the present when it was his.  Even the cat got a little stuffed mouse and deigned to paw at it a little before remembering that he was above such things.

All too soon, there was nothing left under the tree and Derek collapsed in a sea of ribbon and colorful paper.  “Best. Christmas. Ever.”

Laura smiled at him in rare perfect agreement as she sat playing patty-cake with their cousin.  “What was your favorite?”

“The bike,” he answered promptly.

“Okay, kids, it’s time to clean up, wash your hands, then…” Peter called.

“Pancakes!”  They all shouted together, and sprang to their feet, leaving Ryan to grab at the cat until an adult came to rescue it from the toddler’s moist grasp.  Peter stood up, his nephew and biological son in his arms, and looked at the ornaments glinting in the sunlight on the tree.  “Well, baby boy?”

Ryan threw his arms out and leaned back, squealing in pure, perfect joy.

THE END