Chapter Text
Derek woke up slowly, to the feeling of something dragging across his forehead. It brushed along his skin, feather soft, and almost not there at all. He slapped his hand to his face expecting to find an insect, but nothing was there. He huffed, rolled over, and decided it was a dream. He shuffled in his bed, tugging his covers up to his shoulders, and then settling again. A second later the feeling returned, in the same spot, but this time with more pressure. He sighed, trailing his fingers over the skin of his forehead, and then rolled out of bed. He still felt half asleep, like his dreams were trying to crawl out into the real world. He yawned as he walked down the familiar hallway of his parent's house and into the closest bathroom. It was still a little strange, being back in his childhood home, and it took a moment for his hand to find the light switch and flip it on. It took him a moment for his eyes to adjust to the light, but once they had, he could see it. On his forehead, just below his hairline, was a crude drawing of a penis. He stared at it for a long time, before he let his head fall forward and he groaned again. Of course his soulmate was an idiot; of course, they were the kind of person to draw a penis their forehead. He couldn't get something normal because that wasn't the kind of luck Derek Hale had.
He grabbed a hand towel, wet it, and started to desperately scrub at the drawing. He knew it wasn't going to work; it wouldn't go away until his soulmate removed the mark from their body. The scrubbing made him feel better like he had taken some kind of action to try and remove it. By the time he was done, the skin on his forehead was bright red, and nothing had been accomplished. So Derek stalked back to his bedroom, grabbed his suitcase, and started to dig desperately through it in the hopes that he had something to cover it with. He glanced at his phone, 4:24 displayed on the screen. His alarm was going to go off in just over half an hour anyway; he might as well be up now.
Stuffed in one of the pockets of his suitcase he found a beanie and sighed with relief. He changed into shorts and a t-shirt, tugged on the beanie, and headed out for his morning jog. He plugged headphones into his ears, tucked his phone into his arm strap, and then set out. His forehead itched the whole time he ran, almost like a sunburn in the moments before his body healed it away. He tried to run slowly, letting his feet hit the ground harder than normal, letting the vibration travel up his legs, and distract him from the drawing. But, only an hour and a half later he was back at his parent's house, and he found Laura's car parked right behind his rental. She had pulled in so close, that he would never be able to leave without her car being moved first. He knew she had done it on purpose so he couldn't skip out before seeing her. He hesitated for a moment, glancing toward the woods, and the rest of his family's houses. There were places he could hide, people he could hang out with, who wouldn't instantly know something was wrong. But, Laura was persistent, and she was determined to spend a bunch of time together now that he was home. Derek squared his shoulders, turned back to the house, and headed inside. Laura was in the kitchen sitting at the table, with a mug full of coffee, and the newspaper opened in front of her. Derek walked past her, grabbed a mug and filled it with coffee from the pot she had made.
“What's with the hat, Der-Bear?” she asked. She hadn't even moved, when he looked back at her, he hadn't even seen her look up at him. She had zeroed in on the hat instantly, making him wonder--not for the first time--if Laura was something more than a werewolf. He had to fight to keep himself from frowning at her because that was essentially an admission that something was wrong.
“Nothing, I just decided to wear it,” he answered, as he walked over to join her at the table. He pulled a chair out and dropped down into it. Laura finally looked up at him and raised one of her carefully styled eyebrows at him.
“It's going to be a million degrees out today, why would you want that?”
“It was fairly cold when I left for my run,” he answered and then took a sip of coffee. Before Laura could say anything else, Cora shuffled into the kitchen. Her hair was a mess and she looked for all intents and purposes like an angry overtired teenager, even though she was on break from her second year at college, and not actually a teenager anymore. Derek felt a twinge of sympathy, he had only just finished his own college life, but it wasn't that long ago he was in her place. She walked up to the table and took Derek's mug from him, downing the contents as she continued passed him to the counter to refill the mug. “Come on,” he mumbled.
She started in on the freshly poured mug, and then glanced at Derek. “What's with the beanie?” she asked.
“Nothing! I just decided to wear it,” he snapped, making both his sisters raise their eyebrows at him. The two women glanced at each other, Laura's lips quirking up at a dangerous angle before she looked back at Derek.
“Wow, sensitive,” Laura said.
“You're wearing it too low,” Cora said, after another sip of coffee. She set the mug down on the counter and reached out to pull the beanie back away from his forehead. Derek yanked away from her, pushing himself to his feet, and knocking his chair back so it clattered to the ground. His sisters looked at each other again and then back to him. He stared wide-eyed at them for a second, before Laura lunged across the table at him. Derek jumped back again and darted to the side to try and avoid her. He collided with Cora, who grabbed at him, but he had almost a foot of height on her and was able to pull away again. He turned again, stumbling backwards and into Laura, who he only had 3 inches on. She grabbed the beanie with one hand but lost her balance as she did. Derek's legs tangled against the fallen chair, and both of them were sent to the ground with a shout and yelp.
Laura stared up at Cora, holding the beanie up in the air in celebration. Derek rolled onto his side and covered his face with his hands as quickly as he could. During all the commotion none of the siblings noticed their parents standing in the doorway, or their brother and uncle who had stepped into the room. “For werewolves,” Peter said, making them all jump. “You two aren't very graceful.”
“What's going on?” Sam asked his eyebrows furrowed as he looked from one of his siblings to the next.
“Derek's wearing a hat!” Laura shouted.
“Derek's wearing a beanie!” Cora shouted.
“And?” Talia asked, shaking her head a little as she did.
“He's hiding something,” Laura said, as she got to her feet. Cora pointed accusingly at Derek, who was still on his side with his face covered.
“You're almost 30,” Derek snapped, “what the hell was that for?” But, he slowly sat up, and let his family see what he had been hiding. There was a second of silence before the laughter started, and Derek knew he was never going to live this moment down.
“Oh my god, Der, let me take a picture!” Laura said, dropping his beanie as she hurried to grab her phone.
“No,” he snapped, scrambling back to his feet and trying to get out of the room. Instead, Peter stopped him, snapped a picture, and kept laughing. Derek could see that Sam had turned around, laughing so hard that he was using the wall for support. “It's not that funny.”
“Oh Sweetie,” Talia said, covering her mouth with her hands to hide her smile. “It kind of is.”
“Thanks, mom,” he muttered and pushed past the group. He made it back to his bedroom, where he collapsed on the bed, and waited for the world to swallow him whole. He managed to spend ten whole minutes alone, before someone—his dad—was knocking on his door.
“Come in,” he mumbled. His dad opened the door just enough that Derek could hear the laughter downstairs, slip inside and then close the door again to block out the sound. He sat down on the bed next to him and waited for Derek to sit up. It took him a few more minutes before he reluctantly sat up and looked at his dad. Matthew held out the beanie, and let Derek pull it back on before he said anything.
“It's not the worst thing that could have shown up,” he said slowly, making Derek's frown deepen. Matthew laughed softly and then nodded his head. “Okay, it's fairly bad.”
“Yeah, that's an understatement,” Derek snapped. “What if this means my soulmate is an idiot? Or some kind of drunk?”
“Or a college student who had a little too much to drink,” Matthew offered.
“Or a high school student who had too much to drink,” Derek said.
“Well that would be unfortunate, but if your soulmate is too young you'll just have to wait it out,” Matthew said. It wasn't uncommon for soul mates to be born with age differences. Sometimes the separation of age was so large that people decided they didn't want to get to know their soulmate at all. The pain of losing the perfect person so quickly sometimes didn't seem worth the time together.
“At least this time I doubt it's fake,” Derek mumbled, putting his hand against his covered forehead. His father hummed in agreement and nodded his head slowly. Derek glanced at him, and then down at his hands. This wasn't the first time Derek had felt someone writing on his skin. The first time it happened, he was 15 and sitting in the middle of one of his classes. They had a substitute teacher, who had put on a movie, and sat behind the desk. Derek was staring at the back of Paige's head, feeling sorry for himself, but trying to be happy for her. A stylized S had appeared on her skin the other day, and now she was dating a guy who lived in the UK named Steven Rossborough.
There had been a sudden itch on his arm then, sharp and a little painful, so he scratched at it. But when the feeling didn't subside he looked down to see a swirling line pattern had appeared on his arm. He gasped softly and watched as a few more lines appeared. He stared at his arm, waiting for anything else to show up, but then the lights to the classroom flicked on and he looked up. His teacher was writing something on the board then, and as soon as she raised her arm, Derek saw the same marks on her arm. His heart leapt into his throat, as he watched her. She was older, obviously, and he remembered thinking she was so goddamn hot, that he was going to die.
But, it hadn't been real. She hadn't been his soulmate; instead, she was a hunter who wanted to kill his family. She had used magic to create the lines on Derek's arm; that's why they had hurt as they appeared. They burned their way across his skin making him wince when they appeared. It had been Paige who made him realize Kate was lying to him. Paige had told him her favourite thing was laying in bed late at night and writing messages to Steven. Derek had smiled and that night he tried, but Kate didn't answer. He didn't say anything to her, instead, he kept trying. Then, one day in class, he drew a circle on the back of his hand as she wrote across the board. Nothing appeared. He drew another, and another, by the end of class the back of his hand was covered in blue pen.
He confronted her, and everything had gone wrong. Derek ended up in the hospital, Kate was arrested, and his whole family knew that he had slept with a rogue hunter. They found out she had plans to burn their house down, and Derek almost let it happen. The guilt still sat heavily in his chest over ten years later. “Whoever this person is,” Matthew said, pulling Derek back to the present. “They will be perfect for you.” He held out an old Polaroid photo, one that was folded and scratched. The photo was of his mother, when she was about his age, looking happy and wild. In the corner of the photo was a kiss mark, made by bright red lipstick with a string of x's and o's underneath it.
“The lipstick held up pretty well,” Derek said, as he looked down at the photo.
“Your mother re-kisses it,” Matthew said. It made Derek snort out an awkward laugh and look up at his dad.
“Really?” he asked, but judging from the stupid smile on his father's face he knew that it was true.
“It was the first photo I ever saw of her. I had written my work schedule on my arm, and she had written back that jobs were boring. We exchanged addresses and sent photos. Then, a few months later, I moved to Beacon Hills and joined the pack,” he said. “Whoever your soulmate is, they will do the same or you will go to them. Even, if they're in high school now or an idiot or something else altogether. They will fit into your life perfectly, at least for a while.” Derek stared at the photo of his mom and tried to take in all the details of it. She looked so happy; before she was a mother before she was an alpha before she was anything but a teenager. He didn't feel that same excitement at the idea of finding his soulmate; instead, it formed a painful ball in his stomach one that hadn't left since that morning. Derek handed his father back the photo and nodded his head slowly.
“Thanks, Dad,” he said. Matthew pulled Derek into a hug and squeezed him tightly. Derek laughed a little and hugged him back. Then the two went downstairs where Talia and Cora were the only two left in the kitchen.
“Laura had to get back home to the kids, and Sam headed to work,” Talia said, as she set two plates of toast down on the table for them. Matthew pulled open of the chairs out from the table and then sat in the one next to it. Derek sat down beside his father, refusing to look at Cora, who was staring at him.
“Are you ever going to kick Sam out of the house?” Derek asked as he took a bite of toast. Cora huffed out a laugh and shook her head.
“Could you ever picture Sam out of the house?” she said, clapping her hands together near her face. “Oh! How could I ever live a day without my mommy?!” Cora said in a baby-like voice.
“That's true,” Derek said, “who would make him his lunches and tuck him in at night?”
“Oh, leave your brother alone!” Talia said, putting her hands on her hips. “We're wolves! We are meant to stay in a pack! I don't know how I raised so many children that won't stay home! I never moved out, I have lived in this house since I was born.” Derek and Cora both looked over at her, eyebrows raised, and matching frowns on their faces.
“Sam's the only one who isn't a wolf, Mom,” Cora said like she'd somehow forgotten. Talia made a noise in the back of her throat and turned away from the table, deciding her children were too much to deal with right now.
“I don't have time for this, I'm meeting with Deaton and the boy he is training to be our new emissary today,” she said. “I had hoped to have Derek join me, but he can't go with that hat on, and he definitely can't go with that drawing on his forehead.” Cora laughed and Derek groaned. He grabbed the edge of the beanie and pulled it down a little closer to his eyebrows.
“I'll come with you,” Peter said, coming back into the kitchen. “I hear the boy is rather fetching.”
“You're married, Peter,” Cora said.
“I don't know what that has to do with anything, it's not like getting married made me blind to beauty,” he said. Cora made a disgusted noise and slumped back in her chair, as Peter walked past her. “Besides, Corrine has no problem with me looking.”
“Peter,” Talia said, frowning at him.
“What?” Peter asked with a stupid grin on his face. A second later, Emily came skipping into the room, dressed and ready for breakfast.
“Daddy!” she said sharply, making Peter turn and look at her. “I want a big girl cup this morning,” she informed him as she climbed up onto the chair next to Derek.
“Very well, Princess, a big girl cup it is,” he said. Derek watched as Peter started to get Emily's breakfast ready so that Corrine could sleep in. He could see thank you love you and a small heart on the inside of Peter's wrist. His chest tightened again, as he looked back down at his food. He wanted to go looking for apartments that afternoon, but he probably wouldn't be able to bring himself to go now. Instead, he planned to sit in his room, read until his eyes hurt, and the day was over.