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Lydia sat alone at the edge of the woods that surrounded the large house that Derek had bought for the pack, watching the sunset. She knew the rest of the pack could find her with ease, but the forest around her was silent expect for the slight breeze and occasional squirrel. She absently flicked sparks of energy over her fingers, the magic dancing across her skin as if some strange current of electricity ran through her. She glanced up sharply when she heard a stick crack and was surprised to see Derek standing there.
“Hey,” she said, closing her first around the sparks of magic, extinguishing them.
Derek nodded, took a few steps towards her and raised his eyebrows a barely noticeable amount. Lydia nodded back and turned her eyes back to the horizon. Derek sat down beside her and silently glared at the sunset for a minute.
“Are you alright?” he asked at last.
She nodded, a little jerkily, still staring off at the horizon.
“He’s fine now,” Derek told her.
“Good,” she replied, voice a little low and rough.
“You didn’t hurt him,” he said quietly.
“Yes, I did.”
Derek sighed. Lydia’s magic put her in an interesting place between the human and werewolf members of the pack. Either way, she didn’t have anyone to teach her how to control her powers and while their library was slowly filling with tomes about the arcane, there was only so much she could manage to not find out the hard way.
“He’s fine,” Derek said again. “You’d have to try a lot harder than that to hurt him.”
“He’s my boyfriend, Derek,” Lydia snapped. “I’m supposed to be taking care of him, not burning his skin off.”
“It was an accident. We all know you didn’t mean it to happen.”
“But it did. And I wasn’t even that focused. I could have done so much worse to him if I’d actually been trying.” She wrapped her arms around her knees, eyes still fixed on the setting sun. “My magic is a curse,” she said quietly.
Derek sighed. That sentiment was all too familiar.
“You just have to learn to control it,” he said.
“How?”
“Time.”
“I don’t have time. You saw what I did to Jackson trying to heal a simple cut. What if that had been Allison or Danny? Or Stiles?”
Derek tensed at that.
“Exactly,” said Lydia. “I’m not—.” She swallowed. “I’m not safe to be around them.”
“They know what they signed up for.”
“They didn’t sign up to be afraid of their friend.”
“They aren’t afraid of you,” said Derek gently, reaching out a hand towards her.
“Don’t touch me,” she said sharply, smacking his hand away.
Derek jerked back and sucked in a breath, the sparks of magic on her hand having faired with her anger and burned angry pricks of pain into his skin.
“I’m sorry,” she said at once, watching him shaking out his burned hand. “I’m so sorry, Derek.”
“It’s fine,” he said, showing her his already healing skin. “Lydia, listen to me,” he began, but was cut off by the sounds of running and Jackson appearing out of behind them.
“Lydia.”
She got to her feet quickly, pushing past Derek like he wasn’t even there.
“Are you okay?” she asked, stopped a few steps shy of where Jackson stood.
“I’m fine,” he assured her, reaching out to try to pull her to him.
Lydia stepped back quickly, like a startled animal.
Jackson sighed and held out his arm for her to see. She approached him again, peering cautiously at his skin. There was a patch on his arm about the size of her palm where the hair had been singed away, but the skin underneath was smooth and whole. She reached out and cautiously touched his arm before jerking her hand back again.
“Hey, hey,” he said, trying to sooth her. “It’s alright.”
“No, it isn’t. I could have really hurt you.”
“Not really,” said Jackson.
“Yes really. Jackson, I wasn’t even trying yet when I did that to you and if it had been Allison or Danny or Stiles we’d all be waiting in the ER to hear if they needed a skin graft or not.”
Jackson was silent for a moment.
“You’re not any different from the rest of us,” he pointed out. “We could all take someone down if we had to.”
Lydia shook her head.
“But I don’t have the control you do.”
“It’s fine,” Jackson insisted, trying to pull her close again.
Lydia ducked away from him, turning to face the bloody horizon.
Behind her back, Derek glared pointedly at Jackson.
“I’m here when you need me,” he said, gently touching her shoulder before retreating back into the woods.
“He’s right, you know,” Derek said after a minute of waiting for Jackson to be out of earshot. “It’s going to be alright.”
“I was supposed to be practicing my healing magic and I burned his skin off,” she said flatly.
“And that’s why you were practicing on a wolf. We heal.”
“But you still feel pain,” she said. “And what if that had been for real? What if it hadn’t been a wolf?”
“There’s no point in what if”s,” Derek said quietly.
Lydia turned to look at him, but Derek just stared moodily at the traces of the sunset.
“I’m going home,” she said at last.
“Wait.”
She glanced at him.
“Lydia, I know it’s hard, but you will learn to control this. I know you have it in you.”
“You don’t know anything about it,” she said hotly. “You got taught all kinds of things by other wolves. I’ve got no one.” Her throat was starting to get tight and she willed the burning in her eyes to stop. “I wish—.” She brushed her hair out of her eyes. “I wish I could be like you.”
“No, you don’t,” he said quietly.
“You can control it.”
“I had to learn and so do you.”
“But you know your powers, your limits. I want that, Derek. I want that.”
Derek shook his head.
“We already know your magic makes you immune,” he told her.
“But if I were willing—,” she began.
“No,” said Derek flatly. “I think one Hale almost killing you is enough.”
Lydia went very quiet and still.
“So you won’t help me,” she said at last.
“Even if I thought it would work, you wouldn’t need it. You can do this.”
Derek flexed his hand and his claws extended. Before Lydia had realized what he was doing, he had torn four, bone-deep gashes in his left arm.
“What are you—?” she cried.
Derek held out his arm to her, blood dripping down onto the leaf-strewn ground, but Lydia shook her head, backing away from him.
“Do it now before it heals,” he told her.
In the distance, he could sense his pack stilling at the scent of fresh blood, but he kept himself perfectly calm, not sending out any signal of fear to draw them closer.
“I trust you,” he said, teeth gritted against pain.
Lydia licked her lips and approached him.
“Are you sure?” she asked quietly.
Derek nodded.
Lydia gently laid her hands over the ragged tears in his flesh. She closed her eyes, concentrating her energy, and after a moment a soft, golden light began to emanate from beneath her fingers. Derek kept his jaw clenched, but gave no real sign of whether she was healing or hurting him. After a moment she drew back, Derek’s blood now smeared across her palms. Together they looked down at his arm.
“Told you,” Derek said quietly.
Lydia gave him a weak smile.
“You need to get cleaned up and then go home,” he told her. “Get some sleep. I’ll see you back here tomorrow.” There was neither question nor command in his voice; it was just a statement.
Lydia nodded and turned to head back towards the house, moving with a quiet grace through the trees.
Derek returned to the rest of the pack, told them Lydia was fine, and sent them home before returning to the house with Isaac, the other full-time resident at the moment.
Derek climbed the stairs to the third floor, which he alone occupied, at least while Peter was off finding himself. He went into his bedroom and dropped onto the bed, wishing he had someone to guide him, to help him help Lydia. He thought he’d done the best thing he could for her by trusting her to heal him and, thankfully, being right, but he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure of anything much these days.
Despite everything that had happened, what echoed most in his head was not Jackson’s yelp of pain or Lydia’s flight away from the pack after she’d hurt him, but rather her request for the bite. People who wanted that scared him. Not in general, but in the moment when the want flared in them he always thought he could see something dark – wrong – in their eyes. He didn’t want that for Lydia, but he didn’t know how to pull her back either. All he knew to offer her was the trust and protection of pack and so that’s what he would offer.
***
“But why not?” demanded Arthur.
Ian Hale sighed as he looked down at his eldest son.
“Because turning children is forbidden; it’s wrong,” he explained again.
Arthur crossed his arms across his chest.
“I’m not a kid. I’m thirteen. And I’m not just some random human. I’m pack.”
“I know you are. Of course you are, but you’re still too young.”
“So when I’m older—?” he asked hopefully.
“When you’re older, you’ll know better,” said Ian quietly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arthur asked, a bite in his voice.
“Derek,” hissed Laura, making her little brother jump. He’d been so focused on listening to the argument that he hadn’t heard her approach. “What are you doing?”
He looked up at her guiltily.
“Nothing.”
Laura rolled her eyes. At fifteen and with more younger siblings than anyone should ever have, she was an expert eye-roller.
Derek sighed.
“Art and Dad are fighting.”
In the living room, Ian was finally offering a response to his son.
“You don’t need this, Arthur. I know that you think you do, but you don’t.”
Laura glanced at Derek and joined him in his eavesdropping. Together, they shifted slightly to the left so they could see just passed the edge of the door frame.
Arthur’s eyes had gone hard in a way Derek had never seen from a human before. They looked like they should have been glowing blue yet they remained a steady brown. The sight made Derek suck in a breath. Of course he’d seen his older brother mad before, but not like this. There was something dangerous in Arthur’s eyes now and it scared him how much that anger changed his brother’s face.
“I want it,” he said, his voice low and unwavering.
Ian was very quiet for a moment, taking in his son’s dark, unwavering gaze.
“No.”
“This is my choice,” Arthur said, his tone still even, not rising even an inch with a child’s petulance.
“It will be when you’re of age, but for now you’re thirteen and this isn’t a choice you’re old enough to make.” Ian’s gaze was just as steady at Arthur’s and his eyes were calm, but Derek caught just a glimpse of something that looked almost like fear. “You have to trust me, Arthur.”
“You don’t get it,” spat Arthur after a moment. “You were born; you can’t possibly understand. How am I supposed to look after anyone if I can’t change?”
“It’s not your responsibility to look after anyone.”
“I’m the second oldest. Someone’s got to help Laura.” Derek could see the frightening, dark shell over his brother’s eyes starting to crack as Arthur’s lip began to tremble. “I hate being human. I hate it! I feel so weak all the time and it isn’t fair. Derek could kick my butt and he’s ten. It’s not fair.”
“This pack will always have humans in it,” Ian said firmly. Gabby, his youngest child had also been born human as had Steven, his nephew, and David, his brother’s partner, was human as well.
“That’s not the point,” Arthur said. “The point is I don’t want to be weak anymore. I can’t control anything. I want to be strong. I want that.”
“And you will be,” Ian assured him. “But right now you’re thirteen and you’ve got plenty of people to look after you.” He folded his strong carpenter’s arms to signal that the conversation was over.
“I don’t want to be looked after,” Arthur muttered as he turned away from his father. “I want to be wolf.” Arthur stalked out of the living room before Ian could call him back. He pushed roughly past Laura and Derek.
“Arthur?” Derek called after him, frowning with concern.
“Leave it,” Laura said gently, putting a hand on her little brother’s shoulder. “He needs time to cool off.” She dropped her gaze as their father left the living room as well, though his path led towards his basement workshop.
After they were both gone, Derek turned to his sister.
“Do you think Dad’ll give it to him when he’s older?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Laura said. “Dad might be right; he might not want it then.”
“Why wouldn’t he want it?”
“David doesn’t want it.”
“Did Dad ask him?” asked Derek, eyes going a little wide. He’d never heard of his father offering the bite to anyone before. His mother had been bitten before she’d met her husband.
“I don’t think so, but I heard Uncle Peter asking him about it one night,” she said.
“What happened?”
She frowned, trying to remember.
“Um, he asked David if he wanted it, said he could talk to Dad about it, but David said no.”
“Why?”
“Because not everyone wants to be a supernatural monster,” she replied, rolling her eyes again and pulling her dark hair up into a ponytail.
“We’re not monsters,” said Derek at once.
“I was kidding.”
“Well, it’s not funny.”
“Whatever.”
She turned away to head upstairs.
“You think Art’ll be okay?” Derek asked.
Laura stopped and turned back to him.
“Yeah, I think so,” she said. “But it might take some time. It’s got to be hard for him, being human and knowing that even if he does get the bite he’s already missed the best part.”
“What’s the best part?”
“Being a puppy.”
“Do you miss it?” Derek asked.
“Yeah,” she admitted.
It had been several years since Laura had been able to fully turn. Once she’d hit puberty and had lost her peace with herself she had only be able to turn halfway. It was perfectly normal and most wolves recovered from it in their early twenties, but she said that it would never be the same again. Derek was clinging to the tail end of his puppyhood and starting to dread the day when he tried to turn and found he couldn’t do it properly.
“Just give Art some space, okay? Try not to rub it in,” Laura told him.
“Okay.”
She smiled at him and went up to her room.
Derek stayed alone in the hall, wondering how he could help his big brother, but coming up blank. Eventually, he went into the kitchen, grabbed a pen and scrap of paper from beside the phone and scribbled a quick note. He then trotted upstairs and shoved the note under the door.
“Go away, Derek,” called Arthur darkly from inside.
“I am,” Derek assured him as he hurried away from his brother’s room. However, he paused at the far end of the upstairs hall and focused his hearing on Arthur’s room. He could make out the sound of his brother’s footsteps moving across the carpet, the faint sound of paper, and, after a moment, a sigh that was mostly annoyed fondness, but a little bit of happiness. Derek knew he had done well.
Arthur-
I know that I don’t know what it’s like, but I just wanted you to know that it’ll be OK. It’s got to be hard hearing that from Dad, but I think he does know best. He’s never led us wrong yet, right? We’re a pack and a pack has to trust each other. Anyway. Are we still on for going to the game on Saturday?
- Derek