if you should ask me where i've been all this time, i have to say, "things happen."

[altercate]

CHARACTERS: peter and derek hale.
LOCATION: somewhere shadowy and ominous most likely.
WARNINGS: will update as needed but both these characters have some pretty messed up stuff in their backstory, so approach with caution.
SUMMARY: derek unfortunately is missing two episodes worth of memories. conveniently, peter has these memories and volunteers to share. such a helper.

[ on some level, he's fully aware this is a bad idea. peter lies, lies, lies and derek understands that about him. he lied about laura and derek can't forget that, that it was peter's claws that ended her life, even if it was the hunters that had cut her in half.

but peter talks about gerard and the kanima, about stopping them both and that's--it's information derek needs. he needs to fix this, because it's his responsibility. it was his mistakes that brought gerard to town, his teeth that turned jackson into the kanima. he had to be the one to deal with this. so he goes. he hangs up and he goes and it's predictable and stupid but he can't afford to say no.

he smells peter before he sees him. everything tenses, expression going flat as he watches his uncle step into view. there's no greeting. just derek waiting silently, patiently, for peter to make his opening offer. ]

Comments

[seared]

[ derek and his pack need to be delicately handled. peter is infinitely more clear on this fact than he was, the first time-- and look how that ended, flesh seared again from bone and his bones resting beneath the place they both used to call home.

there were other factors at play than simply not enough finesse-- the more feral wastelands of madness yet to work through to exit out the other side, body at leart unscarred once more; scott's ridiculously unwavering feelings for an argent, stiles' unfortunate habit of helping dig up the trails peter left behind-- but peter isn't one to defer responsibility, only to adapt and learn and bite the right place hard enough next time.

he can handle derek, at the very least, under the guise of educating and guiding him; that much of his story isn't a lie. it's the rest of the pack that will serve his biggest problems, all derek's wayward teens aligned against crazy uncle peter. lydia will help topple the strongest resistance there, a gentle pressure on the places he can't yet reach. for now:

derek. ]

What, no hello? [ he holds his hands up showily, proof of no harmful intent. ] Although I suppose not being thrown into something vertical and a good twelve feet away is an improvement, in and of itself.

[altercate]

[ it's like before. no, it's worse than before, worse than the hospital when peter had picked him up by his throat and dragged him, feeting kicking out uselessly, desperate to find leverage and he could hear the frantic racing thud of stiles' heartbeat and why hadn't that idiot run away yet, because derek couldn't-- i can take him, derek had said and didn't that confession rankle now, all those hours and hours pouring out his desperation to a his catatonic uncle who wasn't really so catatonic.

peter smells like ash and death, but derek thinks he probably smells the same, death and ash and blood, like a brand that won't come off, a mark shaming him for what he'd done, what he'd brought down on his family. but peter smells like ash and death and pack, lingering traces of derek and the burned out ruin of their house and isaac and it raises derek's hackles, the instinctive need to snarl, snarl, snarl at someone who'd gotten so close. ( derek remembers his uncle's blood under his claws, remembers dirt sticking to it, coating his hands as he dragged the corpse into the house and buried him only that hadn't stopped him from clawing his way back out, had it? ) ]

No.

[ derek didn't come here for small talk and he wishes with all his heart for boyd at his right, for his pack at his back, but no, let's not fool ourselves. derek wouldn't have brought them along for this. ]

I came to hear you explain. That's all.

[seared]

I suppose it's understandable. Things... well. 'They haven't been good between us' is an understatement, isn't it? And I am sorry for that.

[ his heartbeat thumps away, steady and true. he's derek's apologetic uncle, the prodigal returned home with hat in hand.

(and he is sorry-- sorry because derek belongs at his side as his beta, sorry because while he'll slit his nephew's throat without any internal debate if need be they still are family, sorry because derek's stubborn refusal to understand that everything peter did he did for pack and for justice has set them on opposite sides of an indelible line.

lying as a werewolf-- to a werewolf-- can be easy, provided you're a sociopath.)

he waves off any protest. ] No, no, I know. You don't believe me-- and why should you?

[ he doesn't move any closer, but he reaches for derek with the parts of them that have fur and teeth and claws, the parts that remember when peter was drafted to teach derek to hunt, when he let him try the motorcycle despite dire warnings against allowing it. not a push, not a bid for submission-- peter's almost entirely sure his strength isn't up to it, not yet; maybe not ever, because resurrection doesn't come without a price to pay-- but an extended hand. (a blatant emotional manipulation.) ]

But you can believe your senses. Your ears, your nose. You're alpha, Derek, so when I say to you that together we defeated Gerard Argent and his pet gecko-- am I lying?

[ thump, thump, thump, says the steady and honest beat of his heart. ]

[altercate]

[ derek's weak spot has always been his emotions. everything in him was shattered and broken when his family died, and the reappearance of peter, of someone who feels like home ( even if that home is scarred and burnt ) is like a kick in the stomach, like pain beyond pain beyond pain, but derek gravitates towards it because that's all he has.

peter tugs, tugs, tugs on the parts of derek that rememeber before. before things turned to ash, when peter was his favorite uncle, and he should know that peter's twisting something inside of him, but derek's so blinded to it, shuttered and crippled by his own weaknesses and sharp, desperate desire to have a family again, to have pack the way he once had. ]

No. You're not.

[ it's begrudging, dragged out of him slowly but it doesn't hide the slow, relucatant thawing that's taking place, derek slowly easing back his claws. ]

[seared]

Death changed me, Derek. Before I was-- mad.

[ he laughs shortly, more a huff of air. ] But then again, I'm told the pain will do that to you.

[ he can feel the thaw in the air, see derek inching down down down from attack mode. bringing up laura specifically is the wrong move here, but that leaves a million options still yet left. ] Please, Derek.

...Alpha. [ he lowers his gaze just enough; deferential while still familiar. he doesn't need derek worried about a hostile takeover, but he needs a nephew, the boy he can still predict and soothe and manage. ] You know what being cut off from the pack can do to us-- and you need a power base, especially surrounded by unfamiliar wolves.

[altercate]

[ derek scoffs in answer. before, as if peter still wasn't. as if rebirth had given him back whole and sane, the way he'd been before the fire. derek doesn't hope for that. derek doesn't even know how to hope for something like that, for the return of anything that had been part of his life before kate argent burnt it down. ]

How can I put you this close to my pack?

[ the implication hangs there, a pointed accusation. last time you tried to kill us all. last time you were a rabid dog and i had to be the one to put you done. ]

[seared]

Because you killed me once, when I was stronger than you. Now?

[ he smoothed a hand down his chest. idly affectionate. ] It took a considerable amount of work and planning to play Lazarus-- more than you know. I'd hate to waste it all only to die in space.

[ he takes a step closer, then another. ]

I may not be the man I was before, but I'm not quite the man I was after, either. Take a chance, Derek. [ he laughs, quietly and with genuine amusement. ] At least this time you can't bury me under the house. The house, really?

[altercate]

[ it's a nice speech. a good speech, because derek can see the sense in it. his uncle isn't who he remembers, but he thinks he knows him well enough now, to know that he's stronger, that he could put him down if he needed and that peter doesn't want to be put down. ( nevermind that derek doesn't want to do it. )

there's a pause, and then derek exhales a long, slow breath. he looks abruptly exhausted. derek's tired of burying his family. even peter. ]

It felt like the right place.

[ because shouldn't they all be together? shouldn't his family all be in one spot? ]

[seared]

[ compassion isn't something peter feels much of, anymore; dim stirrings, indulgent urges, fine. echoes of the man he was, stirred up in the ashes by a word or a phrase or a glance, fleeting and ultimately unimportant on the larger scale. the decimation of the hale pack changed the two men left standing in different ways, but they're both embers from the same fire: derek gone hot and prideful, peter cold and calculating.

he shakes his head, and for a moment there's life in his eyes, flaring familiar past the chill. ] I think you may have a problem letting things go-- and let's consider the source, here.

[ another step, and another, until he's close enough for a hand on derek's shoulder again. ] Consider it, at the very least.