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“You’re not just a bad boy, Aiden.” She’d told him, “You’re a bad guy.”
Ethan had heard endless counts of complaints about Lydia’s comment to Aiden. He’d bring it up often, periodically throughout the week, constantly seeking his brother out for assistance.
“If I buy her flowers, will she think I’m a good guy?” Aiden had ask one day as he tossed his sweaty shirt off and into his cross country bag. Ethan had only rolled his eyes, hoping one day his brother would finally realize what it meant.
By far the best piece of advice Ethan had ever offered to his brother before his departure was in the locker room after another one of Aiden’s good guy mantras, this time induced by the McCall pack situation, “Scott doesn’t care about power, he cares about people.”
And when Aiden was finally able to grasp this, it had been too late.
Some may argue he did as much as go out of his way for Danny, to allow his brother’s boyfriend’s envision of the flawless black light party to come to life, but Ethan knew even then Aiden was only helping to please himself.
Something Aiden had clearly not done for himself was die for others.
Ethan’s brother died in the hands of a cold sword, driven through him as though he were nothing, all in the name to protect those who didn’t even trust him. Looked to him as the villain, the good for nothing; the one who would never be of use.
But for Aiden, he died for the people he did trust. He fought in the name of the heros, for those who he knew could engender a better day.
While the death of his twin brother was hard enough, Ethan struggled the most with the legacy of his brother. He wanted everyone to know Aiden was the good guy, wanted it painted in the streets and written in the stars, but even then Ethan wasn’t sure anyone would even believe it.
When he watched his brother crumble to his knees one shadowy night in Beacon Hills, he had deep wounds in the process of mending, blood in his hands, blood everywhere. He wanted to tell him, tell his brother he had done well with his life, tell him he was so very proud of how far they had come together, and say something they didn’t exchange very often: that he loved Aiden.
But the words never came.
Ethan loathed crying, he could do the sappy romance stuff with Danny and feel fine about it afterwards, knowing he’d pleased him, but crying was more of an action taken to please ones self. Crying had never satisfied Ethan.
That night, tears swarmed his eyes so swiftly he was unable to catch them, blurring his vision. But he wiped them away quickly to catch the final minutes of his brother’s beating heart. Aiden’s final words were still pertaining to that of his good guy persona he wished to achieve, and Ethan couldn’t stop from feeling gratitude swell inside his chest when Derek, who knew a thing or two about transforming one’s character, promise Aiden he’d tell Lydia. Tell her he was, in fact, a good guy.
Ethan heard Aiden’s final breath before he seen it, one minute he was looking into his brother’s eyes willing him to live within his thoughts, the quell hum of a gentle rumbling from Aiden’s heart pounding in his ears, and the next, nothing.
After that, Ethan wasn’t really sure what he wanted to do. He was lost, to say the least. Without the constant accompaniment of his twin brother he was no one and nothing.
One thing Ethan was sure of is that no one in the town of Beacon Hills knew he and his brother for who they really were, and now they never would. No one had ever taken the initiative to ask. He’d explained it briefly to Scott and Stiles one afternoon after his brother had fought off Cora, but that’d nearly ended in disaster; as all things seemed to nowadays.
What Ethan wanted his friends of Beacon Hills, with whom he would leave behind, to understand is that he and Aiden never had a choice. They hadn’t since they’d been bitten, and they hadn’t even chose that for themselves. Their whole lives since receiving the bite had been a dictatorship, they were the pawns. Somewhere along the way, admittedly, Aiden had become a bit more lethal, a bit of a bad influence. But he did it to stay alive, to stay with his brother and stick by his side no matter what happened.
They left their parents at an early age, the minute they knew they had fallen victim to lycanthropy they set out to find a pack and settle in elsewhere. It was always hard for them, always had been. Their first pack were savages, taught them nothing, and relentlessly reminded them just how much of a bitch to the pack they truly were.
Deucalion, at the time, seemed like a saving grace.
He knew how to help them, how they could control their abilities. Ethan suspects when they joined the alpha pact is when the main problems began to emerge. The killing became frequent, starting with the complete destruction of their old pack and mapping their way all the way to a small town called Beacon Hills.
From the looks of it, it wasn’t much of a place. Leisure activities were few and the people even fewer, never had the twins suspected they’d been led right to the place where their hearts would soon belong someday, forever.
Within the first few weeks, Ethan and Danny were talking. It started when he’d accidentally bumped into him one day at the library. They shared a few classic, corny jokes about Shakespeare over coffee one afternoon and it had taken off after so, that easily. Whereas Aiden typically only commented on the ‘totally hot, fiery, redhead’ who kept making out with him in various undesignated classroom, when he felt the need to brag. But Ethan watched Aiden become something new, he watched him care for Lydia and care for her friends despite their obvious distaste for him. And soon he found his brother doing favors for her, wanting to make her smile, and protecting anyone in relation to her. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before.
There was a period, though, for both of them where everything had gone amiss in Beacon Hills. Neither Ethan nor Aiden wanted to harm Boyd, after slaughtering their pack they weren’t too keen on harming anyone ever again, but they had no choice. They did everything they were told to be with each other, to survive. After it’d happened the Earth seemed to shift, Deucalion and Kali were pleased, but he and his brother felt panicked and manic. They questioned their position in the pack often, wanting a way out but knowing finding a way would only lead to their inevitable death.
When Kali died and Deucalion practically flew out of Beacon Hills, they were left alone again, their alpha status deceased. Scott McCall was the new alpha and he and his friends were trying to establish some sense of normalcy, and while the twins knew they weren’t really welcomed, they knew this was finally their chance to be apart of something real and good.
When they were miraculously given just a small piece of what friendship and life and love were really like within the confines of a humble pack, it slipped through their fingers just as fast as it’d came, leaving only one half of a set of twins to remain.
A total of 10 people, other than Ethan, showed up for his brother’s funeral. It was held a few days before Allison’s, hers would be given more detail, more attention.
Danny came and hugged Ethan until he was wheezing, but still unable to smile.
He was among people who would never know his brother for who he really was, never care. Most of them were there because Scott came, and while Ethan knows Scott was warming up to he and his brother it wasn’t hard to see through Scott’s exterior. He was mourning Allison more than anything else, which was understandable for obvious reasons. Kira and his mother, the nurse, were at his sides smiling sadly at Ethan when they went in for hugs.
Isaac and Chris Argent kept their distance with Stiles, Lydia, and the Sheriff not too far behind. As much as Ethan wanted to, for the sake of his brother, he still couldn’t find it in him to reach out to Lydia and to let her know that the last thing his now dead brother was concerned about was how she perceived him.
When he saw Derek lightly step in a few minutes late he couldn’t help but ask, “Did you tell her? Did you tell Lydia about him? What he did?”
“Yeah.” The man with few words replied, and that’s what cracked Ethan.
The realization that she knew, but hadn’t said a thing to him, instead wrapped in Stiles’ arms like a security blanket of sorts.
The following day he decided it was in his best interest to leave Beacon Hills.
It was a town that was small in size but yet too big for him in so many ways. The emotions were heightened there, the struggles and strife so difficult to overcome, especially when you’d lost the one who’d always helped you conquer them.
That morning he went to school, sat on the steps restlessly waiting for Danny. When Danny seen him from across the way he’d smiled brightly at him, and in that instant Ethan had a short convulsion of doubt cloud his judgement. He felt he was unable to go through with the whole thing, talking to Danny, wishing he’d opted for just fleeing without a word. But then he remembered Danny in the coffee shop one misty morning, or Danny at the hotel openly showing him his scars, saying he was a survivor. He thought of how Danny was a lot like his brother in many ways, he’d stuck with Ethan after all this time, not questioning nor doubting him, actually wanting to be with him despite all odds. At that, Ethan knew he couldn’t leave without a final departure to Danny.
And when he’d finally worked up the nerve to tell him as politely as he could, he was taken aback by Danny’s calm approach telling Ethan that it was okay, and that he couldn’t do it either. At first, of course, Ethan was struck with a sense of grief. What had been wrong with him? But then Danny’s telling him he doesn’t think he can date a werewolf and Ethan’s mouth is hanging agape, possibly reaching the bottom step of the school.
“You knew?” Ethan’s asking him, still in utter shock.
“Dude, it’s Beacon Hills.” Danny’s saying so casually, and Ethan kind of has to agree, but in a different way.
Because, dude, it’s Beacon Hills. If you can find a way out of this town, you sure as hell better take it.
__________
It’s the five month anniversary of his brothers death.
Ethan returns to Beacon Hills only seeking to celebrate the life of his brother, if only because no one else ever will.
He’d grown up in the last couple years, even with grief plaguing his every move. Even while coming home to a lonely apartment, he spent his days coaching a local Lacrosse team in another small city in California, one not horrifically consumed by the supernatural. It was something he enjoyed and the interaction with the young, feisty high school students gave him more than enough memories of his brother to know he would never forget the way things were before he was gone.
Ethan began approaching the headstone, having to dodge and make his way through a set of trees, navigating his way to his destination by memory. As he emerges out of the forrest and into the cleared path he can see a young redhead peering at his brother’s grave. At first glance he could’ve sworn it was merely a trick of his imagination, but the further and further his feet guided him the quicker he was able to grasp that the girl was real.
He was only a mere few feet away when she rises from her perched position over the headstone. She doesn’t turn to face him, only says in a hushed whispers, tears evident, that, “I knew.”
“I knew all along.” She reiterates.
“What?” Ethan walks closer to the girl, her black lace dress swishing with the breeze when she turns to face him.
“I knew he was a good guy, Ethan.”
Before either of them can even fathom the significance of such an event there’s tears pricking their eyes and they’re engulfing one another in hugs, only breaking apart to smile greatly at the other.
The rest of the afternoon they spend sitting in the sun by Aiden’s grave, sharing about their lives over the past 5 years. Ethan shares stories of the rowdy teenagers he deals with on the daily, tells Lydia how he both hates and loves his job all at once, not really knowing how that can be. He learns that 2 years ago Lydia settled down with Stiles, and that last year they had their first kid. A daughter named Addie.
When the sun begins to set Lydia stands, shakes off the edges of her dress and holds her hand out to Ethan.
“No, thanks.” He says, “I’m gonna stay a little while longer.”
Lydia looks concerned at first, but nods with comply, smiling fondly. They wave a friendly goodbye to one another, promising to stay in touch, and then he’s alone.
The moons full when Ethan starts roaring, it’s the same roar his brother adored. It made him feel empowered, gave them both a sense of hope that they could overcome all odds. His eyes are a incandescent blue, his roar an echo among the empty forrest, when he hears footsteps approach.
“I thought that sounded like you.” The voice is familiar, though he can’t quite place it. Until he turns, Danny.
He can just make out the softness of his feature, the tightness of his jaw through the darkness of the night, but there was no denying it was him.
“I wanted to tell you something.” He calls from across the way, beginning to edge closer.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, I’m ready.” He says from a few feet away now.
“For?” Ethan ask, unable to keep his hint of a grin at bay.
“To date a werewolf.”
And then something so inexplicable is occurring. Ethan can’t explain the feeling that arises as he watches Danny’s eyes turn into a golden, light brown as though they were glowing.
They spend the rest of the night roaring at the moon, vowing to never let the good guy go faceless.