Archive of Our Own

New York City is always loud and busy, but even more so on New Year's Eve.

Derek Hale is sitting on the roof of an old ten-storey brickstone building in Brooklyn and watches the nightly city burst with life. The streets are filled with people, laughing, arguing, drunken with happiness and alcohol. Traffic is even worse than usual, cars honking, cab drivers shouting angry insults at pedestrians who dare to get in their way. Half of New York must be on their feet right now, eager to get to one of the hundreds of parties being held tonight. Times Square must be occupied by a cheerful crowd by now.

It's the fifth New Year's Eve since the greater part of Derek's family died a horrible, fiery death. The fifth without a house full of laughing people and the smell of his mother's awesome dinner in the air. Derek is still not used to it.

Laura's out, too, invited to a frat party by a few guys she knows from class. She had called them friends when she told Derek about her plans but he doubts she really meant it. His sister has never been a very sociable person. He used to be one, before the fire.

Derek huffs. He doesn't really care that he has to spend New Year's alone (or at least that's what he tells himself) - but he is a little bit miffed that Laura prefers the company of a bunch of horny frat boys to her own brother's. He's her only living family, after all. Well, if you leave Peter out of the equation, and honestly, what's left of Peter but an empty, burnt-out shell? He hardly counts.

Even more important, Derek is Laura's only Beta. Sometimes he wonders if that's the only reason why he's staying with his sister, why he followed her across the whole continent - a werewolf needs a pack to survive (how often has his mother drilled this message into him and his siblings?) and a pack is no pack without an Alpha.

With another huff, Derek shifts and tries to find a more comfortable position on the cold, hard floor.

He'd asked Laura a few times, casually, whether she'd consider finding a few people to offer the bite to but she stubbornly refused every single time, told him to shut up and flashed her Alpha-red eyes at him if he didn't back away immediately. She doesn't know what happened between Derek and Kate Argent but she knows that someone somehow must've done something that allowed the hunters to find the pack and catch them off guard - and that's enough to make her utterly suspicious of people in general.

So it's still just the two of them, living in a two bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. Their family inheritance and the money Laura received from the insurance company after the Hale house burned down was more than enough to pay for the rent, Laura's college tution, the fuel for her beloved Camaro and to make a living, even in a big city. They eat mostly take-out, they watch TV, they spar for fun and to stay fit. Sometimes they fight for real.  Neither of them knows the names of their next-door neighbours.

Derek hates it. He hates this city made of glass and concrete, hates the ignorant people who seem to think their stupid little problems are important.

But Laura wanted to go to New York and he would be an Omega on the run if it wasn't for her, so he swallowed his pride and followed her without complaint.

"Derek?" says a female voice down in the apartment. It would be too faint to hear if Derek was human.

"Up here," he answers equally silent.

Seconds later a brunette head pokes out of the hatch leading up to the roof.

"There you are." Laura takes in his short-sleeved shirt but thankfully she doesn't ask if he's cold. She knows he wouldn't be out there if he was.

"Here I am", Derek confirms. "Why aren't you at your party?"

Laura huffs and drops a brown paper bag before she sits down next to him.

"I figured I'd celebrate New Year's with my beloved baby brother rather than with a house full of muscled, cologne-drenched twenty-year-old college hunks."

Derek raises an eyebrow at her disbelievingly.

She huffs again.

"Okay, one of them grabbed my boobs and I might or might not have squeezed a certain part of his anatomy in a way that could impair the possibility of fathering children someday."

Derek just snorts.

"Don't worry", Laura adds. "He was pretty drunk already and tomorrow he'll probably only have a faint recollection of getting too close with a chick with very sharp fingernails. But I still thought it was better to get out of there."

Of course. Laura is too smart to draw attention to herself, too controlled to ever wolf out in public. She would've been an Alpha like their mother was - powerful, wise, respected - if she'd ever gotten the chance.

The siblings sit next to each other in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts, Derek staring at his feet and Laura staring at the sky. It's a clear night and back in Beacon Hills you could've seen the stars. Here, they are drowned out by the bright lights of the city.

"I bought us something", Laura says after a while. Without looking down she reaches into the bag she brought with her and pulls out two red plastic cups and a bottle. Derek blinks. It's champagne. Cheap one, but still.

"You remember the part about werewolves not being able to get drunk, right?" he asks.

Laura punches his shoulder playfully. It hurts.

"Yeah, I remember that." She hesitates before adding: "But we need something to drink when we make toasts. It's called a tradition, dumbass."

Derek just stares at her with an open mouth. There is no real New Year's celebration in werewolf culture - their calendars are different from the human one, following the moon rather than the sun - but living among humans and even having some human packmembers, the Hales adapted some of the human traditions: Having a small dinner with the pack, sitting together, laughing. Making toasts at midnight.

"I found something else," Laura interrups her brother's thoughts. "And if you laugh about it I'll have to rip your throat open with my teeth. Can you get me a bowl of tap water?"

Derek scoffs. "What for?"

But Laura has already turned her attention to the bag again and takes out a small cardbord box that's almost assaultingly colourful and looks like some toy out of a cheap children's grab bag. The word MOLYBDOMANCY is written on the top in silvery letters.

"Just be a good boy and get a bowl with tap water, will ya?" 

There's a hint of Alpha hidden behind the teasingly patronizing tone, but Derek's curiousity gets the better of him anyway and he does what he is told. When he returns to the roof Laura is crouching on the floor studying a piece of paper, the open box, a spoon and a small candle next to her. 

"What the hell are you planning to do with all that stuff?" Derek asks as he steps closer, slowly beginning to wish that she'd just stayed at the party so he could spend the rest of the night alone and brooding. Would've suited him better. When he sets the water bowl down Laura looks up at him with a smile that can only be described as devious.

"I'm gonna take a look into your future!" she breathes with sparkling eyes. If she was a normal young woman she would've probably giggled after that. But Laura Hale didn't giggle. Never. "It's called molybdomancy, or lead-pouring," she explains in her normal voice. "You melt some lead, throw it into the water to cool down and solidify, and the shape the metal takes tells you something about what fate might have in store for you in the year to come."

"Another tradition?" Derek asks and raises an eyebrow. 

"Yes. I stole this box from an exchange student at the party; he had about a dozen of them so all the guests could try it. Apparently, molybdomancy is a big New Year's thing in Europe and they sell those sets for peanuts over there. Thought it would be fun." Laura shrugs. "Nice to do something normal people do for once."

"Normal people try to read the future out of molten lead in their free time?"

"Molten and cooled down again," Laura corrects and Derek knows there's no use in arguing with her. 

She pulls out a lighter and lights the candle. Surprisingly, neither of the siblings has the slightest problem with being close to open fire. Maybe they should have. It would probably be the natural thing.

Then Laura preceeds to take a little ball of lead (looking far too much like a bullet for Derek's liking) out of the box, drops it in the spoon and holds it over the flame. They watch silently as it melts into a silvery puddle, reflections of the fire dancing on the surface, their movements almost mesmerizing - until Laura twists the spoon and throws its contents into the water-filled bowl. The water sizzles and steams. After a few seconds Laura dips her fingers in and fishes the lead figure that is supposed to reveal her future out. 

"Umm..." She holds the metal lump at eye level, turning it around a few times and watching it from different angles. "It kinda looks like an hourglass," she states after a while. 

Derek doesn't say anything. To him, it looks like a deformed piece of lead, but Laura would probably claw him if he told her that. She is already browsing the little booklet that obviously came with the molybdomancy set. 

"Hourglass, hourglass..." she mumbles absentmindedly. "That means... oh, there it is! An hourglass stands for luck and success in academic issues!" Her finger points triumphantly at the entry. 

"Well, that's good for you because you'll need a hell lotta luck if you ever wanna get your degree." 

He is only able to duck from his Alpha's punch because he anticipates it.

"It's your turn, dumbass," Laura tells him, somehow managing to make the word dumbass sound like an affectionate term of endearment. She really seems to enjoy this attempting to be normal-act. So Derek does her the favour, sighs and copys her earlier actions. 

As he pulls his own lead figure out of the water, his heart skips a beat. Only one, but it's enough for his sister to notice. 

"What's it look like?" She leans closer to him to get a better look. 

But Derek can't talk. Somehow his voice seems to refuse to obey him as he stares at the small piece of metal, so tiny but so heavy in his open palm. 

"It..." He swallows and tries again. Damn it, Hale, get your shit together!  "It's a wolf," he mumbles, holding his hand out to Laura so she can see it. "Half a wolf."

And even in the semi-darkness of the roof it's obvious: The distinct snout, two pointed ears, two paws. A wolf. With the bottom half missing. 

"What does it mean?" Derek whispers, aware that his heart is still beating too fast, hating the fact that Laura can hear it, that she can probably smell the anxiety suddenly coming off him in waves. 

Laura doesn't answer and for a few moments they just stare at each other, two people whose common sense tells them that molybdomancy is just a silly party game and that the wolf is simply a coincidence, but whose knowledge of the supernatural world has taught them that coincidences rarely exist. 

"Laura. What does that mean?" Derek repeats, more pressing this time, his heart speeding up with every breath. 

And then, suddenly, the tension is broken as Laura's Alpha instincts kick in and she wraps her arms around Derek, her only Beta, her brother in arms and in blood, and pulls him close to her. "Calm down, dumbass," she whispers soothingly into his ear. 

He growls angrily in return. Does she have to treat him like a fucking child? A pup who has to be soothed and calmed? He has gone through the same shit she has and sometimes he hates her for forgetting that. Derek's just as strong as Laura is. Except that she isn't the one freaking out here. Maybe he doesn't hate her but rather the fact that she is the only living, non-comatose person who's ever seen his weak side. 

"What does it mean?" he asks for the third time, reining his wolf and doing his best to control his breathing pattern. He knows she won't answer him while he's still upset.

There is a minute of silence, followed by a sad smile on Laura's face when she finally says: "It means... that next month, you and are going to drive upstate and find a nice, vast, secluded forest to spend the full moon in. Being stuck in this nutshell of an apartment makes my wolf sick. And when was the last time we had a proper sibling race?" She nudges him affectionately and Derek nods.

"Yeah, sounds great."

"Then it's a plan," Laura decides. It would've sounded cheery if it wasn't for the contradicting expression on her face she isn't able to hide. She isn't their mother, after all. Close, but not quite there. Maybe never quite there. 

Derek can't stand the awkward silence that follows, so he reaches for the bottle of champagne and the red plastic cups. "So, what about that toast?" he inquires as he fills them to the top and hands one to his sister. 

Laura takes a few seconds to contemplate before she stands up, raises her cup and speaks with a clear voice into the cold New York night: "To the Hales. To you and me, Derek. They might hunt us, burn our home down and kill our loved ones - but they will never defeat us. Because as long as the two of us still have each other, we'll still have something to fight for."