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“Where is Peter?” Chris asks Derek, watching the werewolf washing his car.
Derek shrugs, not even looking up from his work.
Chris frowns. “I haven’t seen him for four days now. Aren’t you worried?”
Derek shakes his head and calmly says, “He has been gone before. When I was a kid he disappeared for a week once. My mother was pissed. But turned out, he was just tracking a stupid deer for days because he couldn’t drop it. Peter can look after himself. He likes to be independent. My mother tried to keep him at home and it only led to a lot of yelling. Just wait. He’ll come back.”
When Chris makes a doubtful noise, Derek finally looks up to meet his eyes, arching a brow. “Are you worried?”
Chris clears his throat. “I just have a bad feeling.”
“So you are worried. Hm.” Derek turns back to his car, the crease between his eyes deepening. When he continues talking, his voice is still calm, but there is a certain tension in it even Chris can hear. “I didn’t forget you were the reason for Peter’s absence many times. I remember well how he sneaked out and returned reeking of gun oil. I also remember - vividly - how he returned and smelled all disappointed and heartbroken. You better don’t hurt him again.” Derek’s voice doesn’t falter, but Chris still catches the threat hidden in his words. It kind of surprises him. Apparently, Derek is not as indifferent towards Peter as he wants people to believe.
He doesn’t say anything to Derek’s words. Instead, he goes back to his car and returns home.
Is he worried about Peter Hale? he wonders, when he warms a quite pathetic instant meal in the microwave.
I just like to know where he is prowling around , he tells himself while eating. That’s it. It’s just about keeping an eye on him. After all, who knows if Peter isn’t brewing up a new devious plan behind their backs? Right.
Chris ignores the quiet voice in the back of his mind that tells him he’s lying to himself.
The call comes in the middle of the night.
Chris is instantly awake. A remnant of his father’s drill.
“Yes?” He asks, pressing the mobile to his ear and blinking to get his eyes used to the darkness in the room.
“Chris.”
Peter. It’s Peter who breathes Chris’ name. It is only one word. But it is enough to make Chris’ stomach sink. Because this is not how Peter sounds. He never sounds like this. So quiet and hesitant. And he doesn’t call Chris in the middle of the night. They barely talk since Peter came back from the dead. Barely look at each other. Whatever they had in the past, it has died with Chris leaving Beacon Hills and Peter burning. That’s what Chris tells himself at least.
The worry he feels now, the worry that makes his throat clench, tells another story.
Chris gets up and switches the light on. Something is terribly wrong. “Peter? Are you alright?”
His fingers tighten around the mobile when Peter makes a noise in the back of his throat. “No. Hurt.”
Chris freezes. Fuck. “How hurt are you?”
“Burns. Can’t breathe.” Peter coughs and goes terribly silent.
“Peter? Where are you?” Chris asks frantically, pacing the room.
A long pause. A pause in which he only hears Peter breathe shallowly. Goddamnit. “Peter! Talk to me.”
“I don’t know,” Peter finally says. It sounds rather slurred.
“You don’t know where you are?” Chris rubs his temple and closes his eyes. “Tell me what you see.”
“Forest.”
Chris wants to hit something. “Okay. Alright. What do you smell or hear? Anything strange?”
It takes Peter a long moment to answer. “Waterfall. Cut wood. Oil. Machine. Smoke, but old.”
That is something. Chris thinks fast. Could be a sawmill. He quickly opens his laptop and searches for the nearest sawmill. It is still quite far away. Miles. He can’t waste time.
“I am going to find you. I’m coming for you, you hear me? Hold on, Peter,” Chris says, not even reaching for fresh clothes or a jacket. He just jogs to his car and jumps inside. “Are you still there?” He asks, putting Peter on speaker.
“Hmmm. Tired.”
“Don’t you dare hang up,” Chris hisses, his fingers tightening around the steering wheel. “Talk to me, Peter. Don’t fall asleep.”
Peter chuckles weakly. It sounds rattling. “You … you are still such a demanding bastard. You always were.”
“Says the one who always gets what he wants,” Chris huffs.
“Not always. Wanted you. But … but you left. Still … still want you. But … not possible.” Peter sighs.
Fuck. Chris feels his chest clenching. “Peter …” Don’t you dare confess that you still have feelings for me and then die, he thinks almost angrily. Don’t …
“I’m sorry,” Peter slurs, barely audible. And hangs up.
Chris curses. He calls Peter three times, without success. Then he calls Derek. “I need your help finding Peter,” he barks into the mobile.
Derek is silent for a moment. “Alright,” he eventually says. Whatever he hears in Chris’ voice is apparently enough to alert him as well.
“I’ll pick you up in five minutes,” Chris tells the werewolf and ends the call.
The forest around the sawmill is dark and silent.
Chris watches as Derek closes his eyes and sniffs, the crease between his eyes deepening.
“And?” Chris presses.
Derek opens his mouth and draws in the air. He opens his eyes. “This direction,” he says, pointing into the darkness.
“You smell him?” Chris asks while he follows Derek, a hint of hope pooling inside him.
Derek looks at him over his shoulder. “I smell his blood,” he says, his voice grave.
Chris curses under his breath. But he has to be thankful that they have a track at all. This could have been the wrong sawmill.
They walk through the forest for a long while, until Derek growls quietly and Chris instinctively reaches for his crossbow. “What is it?” He hisses.
“Hunter,” Derek snarls and goes to his knees. Only now Chris sees the body on the forest floor. “Dead,” Derek says, pressing his fingers against the man’s throat. He growls again. “He has Peter’s smell on him.”
“Peter killed him?”
“Yes. Snapped his neck. There was struggle,” Derek says, pointing to the churned earth.
Chris feels no sympathy for the man. “Let’s move on,” he urges Derek.
Derek goes back to following the trail. When he starts to move faster, Chris has to struggle to keep up with him. His heart is pounding in his chest. Please, he pleads to nothing and everything. Please … Let him be alive.
Derek hurries through some bushes that leads to a clearing and stops abruptly.
Chris almost bumps into him. He looks over Derek’s shoulder and his breath falters.
He sees Peter laying on his back in the grass and somehow, for a moment, everything just stops. Even his heart seems to falter a step. The next moment, he can move again, and he does. He hurries to Peter and feels sick because he can’t see if Peter’s chest is moving.
He kneels in the cold grass and reaches for Peter’s wrist, feeling for his pulse. It is there. But barely. Now that he knows Peter is still alive, he can take a closer look at the werewolf. He almost wishes he didn’t. Peter looks closer to death than life. His skin is grey and there are fine black lines everywhere. He is breathing shallowly.
Chris searches for a wound and finds two bullet holes. One in Peter’s leg and one in his shoulder. He feels a murderous rage. If Peter didn’t kill everyone involved in this, Chris just might go on a rampage of his own …
He reaches for the wounds and checks if the bullets are still in there, trying to ignore the whimpers that escape Peter’s throat when he touches the angry red injuries. No bullets. Peter must have pulled them out with his claws, Chris figures. Before he passed out …
Chris looks up when Derek crouches down beside Peter as well, his eyes wide. He lays a hand on his uncle’s arm and draws pain, grimacing.
“How bad is it?” Chris asks him.
“Very bad,” Derek answers quietly. “The poison is everywhere.”
“Fuck,” Chris curses. He rummages in his pocket for the vials of wolfsbane. “Which one?” He asks Derek.
Derek sniffs at one of the bullet holes and then points at a vial. “This one.”
Of course. Of course it is one of the deadliest and most unpredictable ones. Chris briefly closes his eyes, willing himself to calm down.
“Hold him still,” he tells Derek and opens the vial. Derek swallows and grabs Peter’s arms firmly. Peter makes a hurt noise, but he doesn’t struggle.
I’m sorry , Chris thinks and rubs the powder into the wounds firmly. Peter abruptly opens his eyes and screams. The sound makes Chris shudder. It is cut off abruptly, when Peter’s head lolls to the side and he coughs up black goo.
Derek pulls pain again and Chris can’t do much more but lay a comforting hand on Peter’s shoulder. “It is going to be fine,” he says, partly to Peter and partly to himself.
Derek looks up and meets Chris eyes, nodding curtly.
“I should put a tracker on you,” Chris tells Peter dryly when the wolf finally wakes up after two days of sleep.
Peter groans and rolls around in the bed, burying his face in the pillow. He glances at Chris, the hint of a smirk on his face. “My, are you worried, Christopher? About me?”
Chris stays serious. “You could have died. You almost did.”
“I didn’t think someone would care enough,” Peter says dryly and shrugs.
Chris glares at him. “You are an idiot. Do you really think Derek doesn’t care about you? You are his family. He helped me drag you out of that forest and bring you here. He helped to wash the blood off you and he pulled pain for hours until I told him to go home. And you think he doesn’t care about you?”
Peter blinks. For once, he doesn’t seem to have an answer on his tongue.
“And by the way,” Chris adds, crossing his arms, “you don’t need to play-act. I remember everything you said on the phone. I remember how you said you wanted me and still do. I remember your I’m sorry. You called me when you knew you could be dying. Me. And I’m fucking tired of this thing we do. This pretending not to care. It’s time to end that.”
Peter slowly sits up and stares at Chris, grimacing when he pulls at his wounds that are still not fully healed. “What do you mean with it’s time to end that? Are you saying that you … That there is still something between us?”
“There could be. But I need you to be honest with me,” Chris says.
Peter studies him for a long moment, until he slowly nods. “Alright. I can do that.”
Chris sighs and gets up, running a finger over the gun that sits in the holster at his hip. “You can start with telling me everything about that night. How many? What did they want? Where are they now?”
“Five hunters,” Peter says, scowling. “They just wanted to have some fun. And they weren’t stupid. They had good tricks. They just underestimated me. Thought I’m a weak little Omega they can string up and play with. One is dead. Snapped his neck. The others … I don’t know where they are now. Maybe searching for the next wolf they can use as a dummy for their toys.”
Chris nods curtly. “After you recovered, we will go on a hunt,” he says calmly. Coldly.
Peter’s breath catches. Then, a smirk spreads on his face.