Chapter Text
It’s been five years since the existence of werewolves has been revealed to the population of the world. Five years since the supernatural part of the world stopped being invisible to regular humans.
It’s been five years since Derek started running.
The reveal happened in the worst way possible for him.
After his family was burned to ashes by out of control hunters, only he and his sister Laura carried the Hale name. Then two years later, when they were finally settling down in New York, the call came. The hunters were rounded up -- all but one, who just happened to be the one that orchestrated the whole plan -- and put on trial. Laura, older by three years and therefore Derek’s legal guardian since he’d been sixteen when they were orphaned, was asked for a victim statement.
Derek didn’t want to go, didn’t have the strength to face the hunters who did the damage or the town that had nothing but painful memories now. But since Laura went, Derek followed, unwilling to leave his sister’s side for any time at all.
The trial was a big deal, eleven victims of a variety of ages dead, and the attention of the whole town and more was on the proceedings. Which was why there were multiple angles of the moment when a badly damaged creature burst into the courtroom, aimed straight for the hunters on the defendant side, and ripped into them.
Laura reacted automatically, to danger and to the familiar scent that neither she nor Derek had smelled in two years on anyone but each other. By the time Derek figured out that the creature that attacked was their uncle Peter -- there was no identification of the victims of the fire, and the investigators assumed he’d perished along with everyone else, though they didn’t find the body -- Laura was gone.
She managed to take out Peter, but he got one last swipe in, one perfectly aimed move that left her gasping and falling backwards, pulling him onto her claws before she let out one last breath, Derek’s name carried on it in a whisper.
Derek’s eyes flashed red before he knew what was happening, and he didn’t think. He left Peter, grabbed Laura’s lifeless body, and broke through the nearest window on his way out, out and far away.
The subsequent investigation revealed the whole Hale family as werewolves, and with that, the bubble was burst open. Hunters rallied in defence of their friends who’d been killed in the court, using Peter as their proof that they did the right thing. In response, human members of werewolf packs came out of the woodwork -- a lot of them literally -- to defend Derek and Laura, and all werewolves. Laws were drawn up, and the world was slowly adjusting, little by little, person by person. Derek only knew a little of what was going on, though.
He left that day, buried Laura near their old family home, and then -- before anyone thought to look for him there -- he disappeared into the forest, avoiding every sign of humans or other weres.
It’s been years, and he still doesn’t understand what happened that day. Why Peter was there, how he managed to take out Laura who should’ve been stronger since she was an Alpha. All he remembers is freezing in fear at the monster that attacked his sister, the creature that had no resemblance to any shapes that he’d ever seen werewolves take. The years that he’s been on the run have been filled with nightmares filled with images of everyone he knew turning into the same creature, the same abomination.
Everyone, including himself.
He usually stays away from humans, and from any civilisation even when he can smell the supernatural. Sometimes it’s inevitable though, and he uses that to keep at least a little up to date on what’s happening. Most of the time it’s old newspapers, but every once in a while he catches a glimpse of a TV.
Today marks the anniversary of that day, and Derek is close to the small town that he grew up in again. It’s late, dark, and that’s why he dares sneaking up to a house on the edge of the town so he can peek in the window.
He’s in luck, as the TV screen is angled so he can see it from outside, clearly visible through the window.
It flickers, and he freezes when the red scrolling banner on the bottom gets obscured by an alert.
Uncontrollable.
Dangerous.
Do not approach.
The words of the breaking news alert appear on the screen, just below a photo he recognises all too well. It’s an image of the attack, of the monster that his uncle turned into. And then, before Derek can figure out whether Peter somehow managed to come back from the dead, the image is replaced by another photo, one that makes his blood run cold.
It’s him -- a photo of him from years ago, from before the fire. It’s side by side with a rendering of how he’s supposed to look now, older and darker, the eyes Alpha red, and lips curled back over elongated fangs. It’s not the image that he’s seen in reflections lately, but close enough to make him panic.
A beat later, he’s running again.