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The fox is crying again.
Peter curses under his breath. He shifts his weight, grimacing when his muscles scream in pain. This is the fifth night he spends in the cage. His whole body feels sore and stiff. His head is pounding from the dehydration and his stomach feels so empty, it hurts to think about food. Whoever put him in here only provides the amount of nutrients that prevent him from starving or dying of thirst.
The night is freezing. Peter finds himself wishing he would be able to shift fully, like Talia and Derek. At least, the fur would warm him.
He sniffs the air and grimaces at the sour wave of fear and desperation hitting him from the cage beside his.
The fox arrived yesterday. He is young and looks frail. His hair is a mess and his clothes have seen better days. They are dirty and torn at several places. His shoes are too big. The fox’s skin is pale like the moonlight and dotted with moles.
He is lanky and looks handsome in a special way, but his noises are annoying and Peter wishes he would stop the constant sniffling.
“Crying isn’t going to change anything you know,” Peter growls, his voice loud in the silence of the night.
For a moment, the noises stop. There is a shuffling sound and then some more sniffling, before the fox exhales shakily and murmurs, “I can’t help it. I’m sorry I offended your superior hearing, wolf.”
The fox’s voice sounds hoarse and fearful, but there is also some fight in it. Peter likes it.
“What is your name?” he asks the boy. He doesn’t really care. But he can’t sleep anyway and has been bored out of his mind for days. He needs a bit of stimulation.
“Stiles,” the fox whispers after a moment of silence.
Peter frowns. “What kind of name is that.”
The fox sighs. It sounds resigned. As if he has heard that question a hundred times in his life before. Which he most likely had. “The name my parents gave me is unpronounceable,” he explains sullenly. “So I decided to be Stiles.”
Peter hums. “Alright, Stiles,” he tries the name out.
“Your name?” the fox asks.
“Peter.”
“Well. That’s a remarkably ordinary name,” Stiles says and Peter scowls a bit.
“Born or bitten?” Stiles asks next.
“Born,” Peter answers, not without the usual hint of proudness.
“Same,” Stiles says and Peter arches a brow in surprise. There are not many born werefoxes around. They are even closer to extinction than werewolves.
There is a moment of silence. Finally, Stiles shuffles and leans against the cage’s bars. “What are they going to do with us?” he asks.
“I have no idea,” Peter admits. He hates the not knowing. All he knows is that they are hunters. They caught him when he was taking his regular evening stroll, looking out for threats. They were well prepared and too many for him to fight. Especially with the wolfsbane grenades that made him weak and tired. He expected to wake up dangling from a ceiling, about to be tortured or questioned, but instead, he woke up in this cage and no one has spoken a word to him ever since.
Well, apart from Stiles now.
The fox makes a little noise in the back of his throat. “I want to go home.”
Peter sighs. He would like to go home too. To be so far away from the pack he is supposed to protect makes his skin itch and his wolf crawl at his mental walls. But he has tried to get out of the damn cage. The bars are laced with wolfsbane and there is a line of mountain ash around the cage. These hunters want to be extra sure he won’t escape. Peter wonders what their plan is. They wouldn’t keep him alive if they just wanted to kill him.
He hopes the pack is already searching for him, but there is no way to tell. Everyone knows Peter likes to be independent and disappears from time to time to be alone for at least a while. He always returns. This time, he won't.
Peter howled for a few times since he has been caught. He howled loudly and silently, trying to use the packbonds to call for help. He has given up on howling loudly, because it alerts the hunters and ended in a row of very painful electric shocks.
There is still hope, he tells himself.
Stiles sniffles. It sounds like he is almost about to cry again. Peter sighs. He gets as comfortable as possible on the cold hard ground and says, “So, Stiles. Tell me something about yourself.”
Peter likes Stiles.
When he doesn’t cry, he talks like a book. He’s a smart boy. He’s interested in all kinds of things and knows a lot about the supernatural. Even things Peter doesn’t.
The boy really is interesting.
To his surprise, Peter finds himself growing increasingly fond of the werefox.
“I am going to get you out of here, too,” he promises Stiles. “I’ll get you back to your parents.”
This makes Stiles awfully silent for a long time.
It doesn’t take Peter long to guess the reason.
“They are dead, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Stiles whispers.
“Hunters?”
Stiles’ silence is answer enough. Peter feels the blood boiling in his veins. His wolf snarls viciously.
“We’ll avenge them,” he says.
Stiles looks at him with gleaming green eyes, nodding after a moment.
On the seventh day of his captivity, Peter finds out what the hunters are planning.
They bring some water for him and Stiles and talk not far away from the cages.
Peter immediately strains his ears.
“How long are we going to have to wait here?” hunter number one grumbles, kicking a stone. “I am tired of keeping these abominations alive.”
“Well, we’ll have to wait until the Argents arrive,” hunter number two says, and Peter snarls at the name Argent, too many memories connected to it. “You know the tantrum Gerard is going to throw if we kill them before his kids get a chance at hunting them. They are supposed to be their first kills after all.”
Peter feels his skin crawl. So that’s why they are still alive but provided with the minimum of water and food. They are supposed to be weak, so that newly trained hunters can hunt and kill them. That’s just like Gerard.
Stiles looks at him with wide eyes and Peter knows he heard it too.
Peter wishes he could spare some comfort, but life has taught him better. It seems like he has to hope he and Stiles will be able to outrun the inexperienced hunters and survive this.
But with Gerard being there … Unlikely.
One night before Gerard and his children are said to arrive, Peter hears a howl and he smirks.
Fucking finally.
The hunters stand no chance against a furious Hale pack.
When Derek finds Peter in the cage, he shakes his head. “I knew something like this would eventually happen, Uncle Peter,” he says mildly.
“Stop talking and get me out of here,” Peter snaps. His wolf screams for freedom.
Derek has to call one of the human pack members that have lingered in the back, avoiding the fight.
Peter’s brother in law breaks the mountain ash barrier and finds the key to the cage, opening it, completely unaffected by the wolfsbane, of course.
Peter gets out as soon as he can, stretching and groaning, testing every muscle.
“Who’s this?” Talia asks, sniffing at the second cage, her eyes flaring red briefly.
“This is Stiles,” Peter says, glancing at the fox that presses against the back of the cage with wide green eyes, baring his sharp little teeth a bit. “He’ll come with us.”
“Really?!” Cora asks, frowning. “He stinks, Uncle Peter.”
Peter ruffles her hair. “Behave. He has no family left. And I like him. You’ll get along.”
Talia takes one look at him and sighs. But she is smiling at Stiles when her husband opens his cage as well. “Come on then, little fox. My brother is a weird one, but he cares. Sometimes too much,” she mumbles. Peter pretends he didn't hear her.
Stiles hesitates. “I am not little,” he says sullenly. “I’m almost 19 years old.”
He looks from wolf to wolf, his nostrils flaring, but in the end, he exits the cage with a relieved sigh, stretching just like Peter did. “Thank you,” he says, looking at Talia.
She nods and gathers the pack. “Let’s go home.”
Stiles looks a bit lost when everyone talks and prepares to leave the horrible place, but when Peter takes the fox’s hand and says, “Come on. At home, we’ll have a proper meal and a good night’s rest together,” Stiles smiles and follows.