Chapter Text
The thing about ravens: they're nosy little shits. Troublemakers. They are wily, cunning, and have a vicious streak of humor; tricksters known for their relentless teasing. They are often fond of wolves, but rarely – if ever – is that affection returned.
*
It feels strange to be back in Beacon Hills again. There's something in the ground that calls to Derek and Laura, and something in them that listens, but this is also where their parents died, their siblings, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Derek feels restless, and Laura even more so. They take their time to reacquaint themselves with the territory. They spend long weeks hiking through the preserve, sometimes together, sometimes splitting up, looking for god-knows-what.
Since they returned, Derek's sense of alertness is in overdrive, so it doesn't escape his notice when someone is staring at him. He exhales softly and instantly grows claws at the prickling sensation in the back of his head. Turns around ever so slowly, listens for heartbeats, scans the tranquil forest scenery for trespassers. There's no one. No hunter hiding behind the bushes, no steady heartbeat that betrays a human with ill intentions.
But there is a very small rhythm, a steady drumming high above him.
Derek looks up, and there he finds it: a black bird on the branch of an oak tree, eyes trained on him. It's a good deal too large to be a crow, but with its glossy dark feathers and shiny beak it's easy to mistake for one. As a werewolf, Derek considers himself to be on the top of the food chain; an apex predator that triggers terror in every lesser creature. There's something unsettling about the probing eye contact. He's not used to animals staring back at him that brazenly.
“Fuck off,” Derek grumbles and makes little shooing motions.
“Caw,” the raven says. It looks unimpressed.
*
Whenever Derek is in the preserve the next days, he feels beady little eyes following his every movement. The raven observes his comings and goings with keen interest. Sometimes it hops from from branch to branch to follow Derek; at other times it soars over him like a shadow he can't cast off.
“There's a raven,” Derek informs Laura. “A raven that stalks me.” He hates the whine in his voice, but it's there nonetheless.
“There are no ravens in the preserve, never have been.” Laura frowns. “You sure?”
“Yes,” Derek stresses. “It's a raven. Black, feathery, has a shiny beak. The little pest follows me around all day.”
To Derek's utter dismay, Laura's face splits into a wide grin at that admission, and to his further horror, she pinches his cheeks, which is exactly what their great-aunt Clarice used to do whenever they visited. Derek still has nightmares about her dust-dry marble cakes. “Looks like someone fell in love with your scowls, little bro!”
“Ha ha,” he says, deadpan. “Your levity is misplaced.”
*
They find a nice house on the edge of the preserve, in comfortable distance to their next neighbors. It suits them just fine. Being werewolves, they're always left to straddle the shoreline between the human world and their more feral nature.
Derek is stuck with grocery duties for the foreseeable future, but at least that position has its perks. He closes the doors of the Camaro, picks up a grocery bag and angles for a donut, wriggling one of them out of its package. He nearly moans in anticipation of the artery clogger – it's filled with hazelnut crème and generously sprinkled with sugared almonds – but before he can take a bite, he has a face full of flapping wings. Derek sputters and drops the grocery bag, swinging his arms, but he's too slow: the raven thrusts himself in the air before his very eyes, and the donut is secured tightly in the grip of his talons.
“You flying rat!”, Derek yells in its direction, and he's so enraged that his fangs drop.
“The raven stole my donut!” Derek tells Laura as he slams the front door shut, heavily lisping through his teeth. “That bird is ungodly!”
“It's only a bird,” Laura tries to reason with him.
“We're not talking about chicken hatchlings here, that raven is an agent of evil! I'm sure right in this moment it's concocting sinister schemes in its peanut-sized brain!”
Laura sighs deeply and keeps writing on her application.
*
The next time Derek leaves the house, an acorn gets chucked in his face.
Derek sputters and wipes his face, while the wretched bird with its impeccable aim circles over his head, keeping himself just out of reach. It's croaking in a way that sounds suspiciously gleeful.
Derek's control snaps with a mute little twing, just like that. He's opens his mouth wide and releases a roar so great it seems to shake the foundation of the forest.
The raven chucks another acorn at him.
It hits Derek right between the eyes.
*
Derek may or may not indulge in increasingly violent daydreams about accidents that could befall the foul creature.
“You're not taking this threat seriously enough,” he whines at Laura.
“Make peace with your little bird friend,” Laura tells him sternly, in her best elementary teacher voice.
Derek crosses his arms in front of his chest, feeling profoundly wronged and awfully petulant about it. “Never. That airborne bully was probably hatched in hell.”
*
He's been going about this all wrong. The first rule: know your enemy.
Derek begins to scour the internet for information, reading everything about ravens he can find (mostly to figure out out how to repel the damn creatures). The result isn't quite what he expected. He learns that ravens and wolves often work together in the wild. Ravens follow wolves to scavenge on their kills, bent on stealing a significant portion of them – which sounds about right, considering the donut theft – but ravens also alert wolves to prey that's easy to kill, like sick deer, pointing them in the right direction. The birds recognize the chorus of howling that indicates the beginning of a wolf hunt, but in turn the wolves have also learned to understand some raven vocalizations. In a rare display of interspecies communication, some wolf howls are even met with raven calls, and some raven calls with wolf howls. Since ravens can oversee a large area, they're known to alert wolves to dangers the wolves aren’t yet aware of, serving as their extra eyes and ears. So close is the relationship between the two species that the Inuit call the raven the wolf-bird, and in Norse mythology, Odin is flanked by a pair of ravens and a pair of wolves. In the stories of the Tlingit tribe, ravens are form-changing tricksters that outwit their canine opponents. It's probably not too far from the truth. Ravens are known to tease both adult wolfs and cubs, playing with them for no other reason than their own amusement.
His internet search leaves Derek more baffled than he was before. Ravens sound like bullies, alright. But apparently they're not... all bad.
Harrumphing in annoyance, Derek closes every tab. He still doesn't feel charitable towards his insistent shadow. He knows evil when he sees evil.
*
The lake is something that Derek always missed in New York. It's hidden in the heart of the preserve, far away from the hiking trails, and the sight alone is enough to ease the knots of worry in Derek's chest. He's always loved swimming in the crystal-clear water, especially at dawn when the forest is just waking up. This time is no exception. Derek enjoys the way the cool water parts around him, the way it caresses his naked form with each stroke. When he rises from the lake, he is bathed in morning sunlight, and rivulets of water glide over the planes of his muscles, leaving trails of glittering beads in their wake. Derek groans and stretches himself.
And stares straight at the raven when he turns towards the shore of pebbles. The bird is perched on a branch over the waterline and has opens its beak in what appears to be shock. For a moment, the only sound is the wind rustling through brittle leaves. Then the bird launches itself into the air, fluttering wildly and hitting a tree in its mad bid to escape. A loud screech follows. Derek watches in bewilderment as the raven nearly tumbles to the ground before it saves itself with an acrobatic somersault and gains height again, flying away as fast as its wings will allow.
“Are you kidding me,” Derek says. “That's what it takes?”
And sure enough, the raven disappears after that little episode.
Derek feels slightly insulted, truth to be told.
*
Slowly, the dust begins to settle.
Beacon Hills might not yet be home again, but Derek isn't surprised anymore in the morning, the first split second he wakes up. There are some neighbors he regularly chats with, there are routines that he and Laura carve into their lives, each day a bit deeper. Their scent has begun to permeate the house, the soothing mingle of pack scent, of safety. Laura gets a job at a local elementary school, putting her teacher degree to good use. Derek starts working at a local bar. He never went to college, never had the nerves for it. Their parents set up college funds for all of them, and Derek knows they wanted him to do something else with his life than wash glasses and pour gin, but whatever chances he had to steer his life in a different direction are long gone now. Derek might scowl too much to be a good bartender, but apparently disinterest and bulging biceps muscles work like a siren song on some bar-goers. He's subjected to pick-up lines all night long, and yet only one in a dozen manages to wheedle a minuscule smile out of him. He's pretty sure there's a betting pool on who's the first to sweet-talk him into a quickie.
One guy in particular (grungy-looking, bleached hair, call me Zac) is constantly around. Zac greets Derek with a cheery, 'hello sunshine!' every evening, and seems entirely undeterred by the stone wall of reaction that endearment triggers. In terms of persistence, he is probably the probably the worst offender of the lot, although he isn't the weirdest.
The weirdest wanders in one evening, hands buried deep in the pockets of his red hoodie. He seems strangely familiar to Derek, even though nothing about the pale, mole-dotted skin, the upturned nose or amber eyes rings a bell. Derek is sure he wouldn't have forgotten his face. And yet...
There's something about him.
The guy looks at Derek with a nervous, apprehensive sort of energy; like Derek might growl and bite if he comes within touching distance. Nevertheless, he manages to place himself on a bar stool, clears his throat awkwardly, and then says with a nonchalance that his heartbeat immediately belies, “Hey Derek. One lager?”
Derek's brows furrow on their own accord, and then realization hits him a moment later. “How do you know my name?”
The guy startles visibly. “Uh! Well, your... name tag.”
“I'm not wearing a name tag.” Derek points to the figure-hugging black V-neck he's currently wearing, which is at least two sizes too small for him and most likely responsible for the landslide of tips he's already earned that evening. It's one of his typical 'make it rain' outfits, and there are no name tags in sight.
“...oh yes, I see that. But the one you wore the other day.”
“I don't wear name tags, at all. Ever.”
“Ha,” the guy says, rubbing the back of his head. “Funny. Then, um. A co-worker must have mentioned your name.”
Derek taps his chin, as if he's earnestly considering the possibility. “Could be.”
The guy deflates in relief. “Yeah, of course, right, so stupid-”
“-if not for the fact that you're here for the first time.”
“What? No! I'm not! How would you know?” the guy sputters, eyes going wide and panicked. Even more tellingly, his heartbeat has begun to rabbit wildly in his chest. Derek hears it as loud and clear as a drum solo.
“I have an infallible memory for faces,” Derek says, even though he hasn't. What he has is an infallible memory for scents, but it's not like he can disclose that fact.
The guy slinks off the bar stool, mumbling something mostly unintelligible that contains the words, uuuuh okay, I'm going.
Derek watches his retreating form and scrunches up his nose. The guy leaves a stench of intense anxiety behind, as well as clammy spots on the counter, right where his palms were placed.
It's a bad sign.
One that makes Derek's gut clench in the worst way.
When he comes home that night, he seeks out Laura and wakes her gently, and he tells her with a heavy heart what he suspects just happened.
*
Laura was so pedantic, so careful. They asked around, back in New York. Called in favors. Hell, they spent an entire month scoping out Beacon Hills and the surrounding areas, including the widespread wilderness of the preserve, just to make absolutely sure that the area is as hunter-free as they presumed. Beacon Hills appears to be scorched earth for supernatural creatures, and subsequently it has been classified a poor hunting ground.
There are still price tags attached to their names. Hunters without morals, without code, out to get them. The Hale family has a long history. They used to be pillars of the werewolf community. Standing out always comes with a risk, and the smart hunters destroy the supporting elements to watch the rest of the structure crumble.
Laura takes his fears very seriously indeed, but no matter how much they look around, the guy with the red hoodie is nowhere to be seen again.
What follows is a stressful, extraordinarily shitty week.
At work, Zac still turns up every evening and tries to pester a date out of Derek. Zac's temper grows shorter as his inquiries turn more personal, more intrusive, but he still tips so excessively well that Derek can't bring himself to blacklist him, as much as that spinelessness pains him.
Laura doesn't fare much better. She helps to organize an open door event at her school and has to meet a brigade of parents who are already much too concerned for the academic future of their kids. One frazzled-looking woman even tries to bribe Laura with freshly baked cookies, although they taste so bad that Laura almost gets ill on the spot.
“I had to lie through my teeth,” she tells Derek and musters up a weak grin. “Worse than Aunt Clarice's sugar-free organic marble cakes.”
Derek winces in sympathy. “Damn. And here I though that's impossible.”
*
It happens when Derek is at the supermarket.
His bond to Laura – a fixture in his life, a steady source of warmth and belonging – is there one moment, like it's always been, and the next moment it flickers violently and then mutes.
Derek's heart stops. He releases the grip on the glass of tomato sauce he was holding, and it falls to the floor and breaks with a loud crash. Derek numbly watches chunks of tomatoes flying everywhere, red sauce spreading in each direction.
He feels violently ill.
A store manager tries to stop him when he crashes through the throng of other customers, and there are yells and curses as he shoulder-checks his way outside, but he doesn't hear anything, doesn't care. He feels helplessly untethered, cut loose from his anchor, and now he's so lightweight he could blow away with the next gust of wind, just like that.
He drives home on autopilot, gasping in distress when he finds their front door wide open, the furniture in the living room trashed, and the scent of wolfsbane heavy in the air. He tracks the scent as long as he can, but it dissipates quickly once he's doubled back to the driveway.
Derek is so distraught it takes him a moment to notice the insistent squawking. His old tormentor is back again, erratically circling over Derek's head.
“Go away,” he says softly, feeling lost and broken.
But the raven refuses to leave and doesn't stop cawing, flying in direction of the street for a short moment before turning on the spot, gaze boring into Derek's. It repeats the odd little dance again and again.
Sometimes ravens lead wolves to their prey.
Derek's mouth falls open. “You want me to … follow you?”
The bird cries again. Maybe Derek is going out of his mind, but he thinks it sounds beseechingly, urgently.
He has nothing to lose, has he?
Derek follows the raven, first haltingly, then with more conviction. It flies as fast as Derek can run, and leads him a few miles around the perimeter of the preserve, to a nondescript, abandoned looking house in the middle of nowhere. There are two heartbeats inside; none of them Laura's.
But one still sounds familiar.
Derek rips the door open with so much force it falls from its hinges and then he roars, shocking Zac and an unfamiliar woman. Zac lost his grunge look but acquired an arsenal a weapons; apparently he's more interesting in staking Derek than in boning him. The woman would look harmless in any other setting, if she weren't just pressing a towel on Laura's face. His sister is lying on a cot and much too still, too quiet.
It's clear that Derek caught them off guard, and the ensuing fight is quick and bloody. The raven even joins in. His massive beak is a more formidable weapon than Derek ever would have guessed.
The hunters die; they have to.
Afterwards, Derek hurries over to Laura and rips the towel from her face, wincing at the searing pain that causes. The fabric is soggy and infused with what appears to be highly potent wolfsbane. It's not wonder he didn't hear Laura's heartbeat when he was outside. It's so slow and weak it's almost indistinguishable from the the background noises. He cleans her face with tap water as good as he can and sobs quietly when he hears her heartbeat grow steadier, grow stronger, when the bond between them flickers back to life.
“How did you find me?” Laura croaks as she opens her eyes.
“I had help,” Derek says, and cradles her in his arms, relief flooding him so intensely he almost feels dizzy. He hasn't lost her; not this time. But when he nods towards the raven, the bird is gone. There's a naked young man in his stead, and Derek would feel alarmed if he didn't recognize the moles and soft brown hair.
“Hey,” the guy says sheepishly, raising a hand for a half-aborted wave. “I'm Stiles.”
“Huh,” Laura says, wonder spreading over her features. “That's your little stalker?”
“Yeah,” Derek replies hoarsely.
*
Strange events unfurl in the preserve on the night of the next full moon, far from prying human eyes. Three long forms melt away into the shadows of the underbrush, and then there are two wolves trotting around. They grapple with each other for fun and then lower their muzzles to the forest flood, avidly tracking scent trails through the terrain. Wherever the wolves go, a charcoal shadow follows them. It skillfully navigates through the trees and occasionally darts down to capture one of the wolves' tails by the tip, yanking on it none too gently, which results in loud growls from the wolf in question and makes the shadow emit a series of cr-r-r-ruck sounds that sound like gleeful laughter.
