#werewolves can be whatever the fuck maybe they are still 'themselves' in their wolf form or maybe they are completely wolfified

[woodnrust]

Although vampires are my bread and butter I will say that I think, in terms of creative endeavors, werewolves are the superior option due to how flexible they can be. Whereas with vampires it's more like you got Two options either antisemitism or AIDS allegory

[therhythmafterthesummer]

Don't apologize for a long reply!!! I loved reading it!!! And I agree that changing the surroundings might help you, even going from sitting on the sofa to sitting on the floor might be helpful. I know it helps me with my ADHD when I'm studying. Also libraries or coffee shops where I feel like everyone is working on their projects motivates me to work on my stuff, so it's worth trying!

Also I had a discussion about omegaverse stories with my friends and there's one thing that made me wonder about wr worldbuilding. Or maybe a couple of things.

1. If the rut happens because it's a biological call to impregnate the mate, do they stop once the mate is pregnant? It's just funny to imagine Pretty and Chris, years in the future, her with a seven months pregnant belly and him being all "gotta make sure it sticks!!!" and her being like "babe it did months ago, you're not gonna fuck another one into me until this one comes out"

2. I assume that wolves can smell the hormonal changes from pregnancy since they can smell things like ovulation (which btw if I was a human partner I would be mortified because holy shit they can smell when I'm on period and they probably can smell my used tampons/pads or they can smell which cup I'm using to disinfect my menstruation cup oh my god)

Anyways back to the question

Do you think their smell changes gradually as the baby is growing in the belly or does it happen as the hormones change with the implantation? Because I can imagine both, but just the image of Chris looking like he's wagging his tail like in those videos of dogs hearing "do you want to go on a ride?" even though he's in his human form, with the biggest smile and shiny eyes, telling Pretty that she's pregnant even though it was only a couple of days... Idk the thought of werewolves being pregnancy detectors is just funny to me.

3. And since we're on the topic of smell, can wolves smell themselves? Like "oh shit that smells like my period is coming in a few days". Do wolves with uteruses even have periods? Dang, imagine being an alpha and being unlucky enough to have your period and rut at the same time...

Those are very weirdly specific and invasive questions but we had a 3AM conversation about different problems in omegaverse stories, so... I'm curious lol -🖤

omg bby i still haven't tried changing ANYTHING so i'm still struggling with the same things since you sent this like a month ago lol. i'm my own worst enemy

ANYWAY, love me some Lore™ questions.

that is a hilarious scenario lol. but in this world, ruts wouldn't be triggered if the wolf's mate's already pregnant and the dates happen to overlap. their instincts know that their pregnant mate's body can't take being under that level of physical stress without risks, and making sure their mate and their litter are safe is mostly what they'll be focusing all their energy on.

they can smell the changes in other people's bodies. periods, pregnancies, ailments... anything could potentially affect their scents so they just... pick up on it.

but no, i don't think they can smell themselves in that way. kinda like how humans can't pick up on the smell of their homes because they're used to living there... it's probably the same with wolves and whatever happens inside their bodies.

[hekateinhell]

AU where instead of vampires they are werewolves, what changes and what doesn't?

I'm dying because since the summer I've been wanting to write a Lestat/Armand werewolf AU so I can have a fairytale anthology, but one of the things that trips me up is figuring out which werewolf lore to go with OR if I want to just amalgamate a bunch of stuff and put my own spin on it like I did with the mermaid! But Anne Rice actually wrote werewolf books — I haven't read them, but they're there! So I'm going to go with my gut on this one. It's kind of a free for all, nobody correct me as some of this will be my own lore. 🤧

Quick Lore Overview

Temperament. Werewolves tend to be much more aggressive and animalistic and lacking in self-restraint; you think Lestat's got a bad temper now? Just wait. But this goes for all of them, and it's ugly. I'm going to chose to channel this into their sex drives as well. 🫣

Werewolves can be out and about during the day looking, just like any other human! Lore varies on whether or not they only transform during a full moon or it's every night or at simply at will. I'm leaning towards the last two options simply for drama and angst reasons. Imagine Armand not wanting to be around a Daniel after sunset because he knows he's going to transform into a powerful, irrational beast only motivated by hunger and lust! Lestat will risk it all to try to spend as much time with his human lovers as possible and he will live to regret it!

Werewolves aren't immortal! Most of the time they are depicted as they have the average human lifespan. So I guess we can fuck around and make them immortal or we just have to bring everyone to the same timeline if we want the ensemble cast! Is Daniel going to 15th century Venice? Is Armand a seemingly mortal teenager running around in the 1980s or the modern day? Is Lestat living in Roman Gaul during the 1st century BC? We have options!

But if we go with that they are not immortal, everyone is (maybe) much less traumatized? Because it's not centuries and centuries — several mortal lifespans — worth of compounded trauma? So for example: while the relationship is still complicated and difficult to navigate, it's much easier for Armand to open up to Daniel. Perhaps he's not as terrifying to Lestat when they first meet because he is his mortal age and not 300 years worth of darkness and despair wrapped up in a pretty little package. And Lestat would actually be younger than Louis, and the same age as Daniel, etc.

What Changes

Lestat doesn't give Louis "the choice I never had." Most werewolf turnings are unintentional and the byproduct of an attack gone wrong and that's what happens here. Lestat's senses are so haywire and primal, he doesn't stop to take stock of his victim until it's almost too late. But he does rear back for a split-second and is so entranced by the moonlight illuminating Louis's delicate features that he stops; the shock of it jolting him back into his human form and rational brain.

Claudia happens, but since Louis is the one who attacks her, it's his bite that transforms her. And she is able to age! (But don't get me wrong, it is ridiculously hard to raise a werewolf child as well. For instance, bedtime is a nightmare).

Whatever fights you saw between any of them in canon, take that and amplify it x10 in terms of violence, hostility, and collateral damage. It's the animal in them, they can't help it! At least werewolves are still have accelerated healing, and Armand and Lestat look very sweet licking each other's bloody wounds that they themselves have inflicted (in both wolf and human form).

What Stays The Same

Louis and Lestat have a very fraught, volatile relationship in the beginning. Louis didn't consent to becoming a werewolf and he does to end his own life repeatedly before Claudia enters the picture. He loses his ability to play the martyr card when he attacks Claudia and she is transformed, and so his relationship with Lestat finally begins to gradually mend. After all, Louis is no better than him anymore.

Armand steadfastly refuses to turn Daniel. Armand did have a choice in his turning but he was very young (let's say 14/15?) and infatuated with his sire and easily swayed. Daniel is swept up in the dark romance of it all, and he covets what he perceives to be the raw, reckless freedom and power Armand and his pack (Lestat, Louis, and Claudia) exhibit, as well as the connection they share.

I think the overall relationship dynamics stay the same, for better or worse.

[nat-20s]

what’s poppin everyone please have this fun lil writing warmup/short story inspired by me thinking “Dancing in the Moonlight” was definitely 100% about werewolves

~*~

“So, this your first transformation?”

The counselor? Leader? Tour guide? Asked this with a perfectly jovial tone, as if the typical social mores surrounding, ugh, lycanthropy, didn’t apply to her. They didn’t know what exact title to call her, and her name tag just said “Luna”, which, reflecting on it, either was a joke on her part or a reflection of her parents’ sense of humor.

Picking at the scabs from last month, they cringed and replied, “No. Uh. Second.”

Luna lets out a low whistle. “Oof. That sucks. Guessing you got bitten rather than inherited the ol’ wolfman gene?”

“That’s...kind of personal?”

Unlocking the front door of the log cabin that served as King Harvest’s Headquarters, Luna shrugs and says, “Shit, sorry. Forgot the whole weird stigma around your source of the once monthly nightmare, as if it fuckin matters. Also, I know, I know, ass out of you and me. Hey, you got any dietary restrictions? Gluten, peanut allergies, the like?”

Voice flat, they tell her, “I’m vegetarian,” and waits for the obvious response.

As they wander through the cabin towards the kitchen, Luna flipping on the light switches, generic club music starts to filter in. Instead of the obvious response, Luna asks, “You like veggie burgers? Or maybe pasta? I’d offer salad, but that’s really not gonna cut it for tonight.”

“I ate before I came.”

With a snort, she tells them, “Oh yeah? Did you have about 4000 calories?”

“No? Why would I have?”

Sweeping out her arm, she gestures at the food laying out on the counter and tells them, “Then eat up! 4000 is really a minimum for the night if you don’t want to feel like someone physically beat out all of your energy in the morning. 6000 is more the target area, but we got, hmm, about 15 minutes before things get uncomfortable, and half an hour max before things get dire.”

They glance down to the food, and, admittedly, the broccoli alfredo does look pretty appealing. Still, they have to ask, “Is this a cult?”

Luna lets out a bark of a laugh that has nothing to do with her (maybe) being a werewolf. “Okay, first of all, what kind of cult is like ‘fuck yeah, we’re a cult’? Secondly, despite the first thing, I can say that we’re not a cult. I know how “King Harvest: Center for Movement Therapy” sounds, both clinical and vague enough to be suspicious as hell, but I didn’t come up with the title, blame my long deceased dad for that one. Plus, ‘King Harvest: Bitchin’ Wolf Dance House’ probably wouldn’t look good on the grant applications.”

“Grants?”

“Oh yeah. This bad boy’s been publicly funded since its opening in 1972. Hence no membership fees.”

“Is that why animal control is giving out your business card? Are they one of your sponsors?”

“Nah, that’s just Jack. Me ‘n’ him go way back, hell, to his park ranger days.  I mean, yeah, I think he’ll campaign for us, but mostly I think he just hates capturing a wolf in the night only to have a naked, trembling human in the morning, and he knows that our program significantly reduces the odds of that happening, at least in this neck of the woods.”

They let out a hum, then glance back down to the food. As appealing as it down look, they’re still about..30% convinced this is an elaborate organ harvesting operation. Or sketchy sex thing.

Apparently sensing their hesitation, Luna says, “You got a favorite chip?”

“Salt and vinegar.”

Grabbing a sealed family sized bag from the overhead cabinets, Luna tosses it to them. “If you come back next full moon, either eat enough in advance or have a real meal here. That being said, excuse the turn of phrase, you should wolf that down. It’s sure as hell better than nothing.”

They catch it, and the bag opens with a puff of air that speaks to a reassuring lack of tampering. As they toss a chip into their mouth, Luna grabs a water bottle from the fridge and places it down next to them. “So? Any questions for me? We’ve still got about ten minutes before we have to go out there.”

Rolling their eyes, they tell her, “No. None at all.”

“Great! Soon as you’re done eating we’ll get you started.”

“I was being sarcastic.”

“Yeah, no shit, smart-ass. Seriously, what are your, we haven’t got much time.”

“I don’t know? The whole..thing? I mean, how is it supposed to..work? Like? At all?”

“You ever see Amok Time?”

“Is that relevant?”

“It’s a yes or no question babe.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then the explanation is going to be a lot more technical and take a lot longer, ultimately to likely make less sense.”

“...I’ve seen it.”

“Great! So, Pon Farr is basically this chemical blood imbalance that results in fuck or die disorder, yeah? But then Spock neither fucks nor dies, and eventually the vulcans get their shit together and find out that an intense fight can serve the same function, and the blood fever chills out. Lycanthropy operates on a similar enough basis for comparison. You’re compelled to act out on energetically heavy base instincts, returning to the ways of the wolf or whatever. Traditionally, that’s done through running and hunting, which has, historically, been a crapshoot at best. Theoretically, sex can also get the job done, but I’m sure you can imagine how that gets extremely dicey extremely quickly. Either restraints or isolation has been implemented for a while, but, c’mon, they’re bandaid solutions, and they’re far from foolproof. Luckily for us all, my grandmother decided to connect back with her ancestors, and there was a handful of stories having huge festivals to deal with ‘moon violence’. She tried it out, and, yeah, dancing works.”

“That sounds…”

They don’t know how that sounds. Made up, mostly.

“Like a bunch of hippie bullshit? Yeah, it kind of is, Grandma Josephine was a huge hippie, but it’s hippie bullshit that works. In fact, let’s go see the others, it almost always makes things clearer.”

Figuring that whatever they’re about to see can’t be worse than their transformation last month. They head through the sliding glass door out the back, the thump of the music suddenly loud enough to be felt in their chest. The sight that awaits them makes them drop their chips and let out a gasp. Barely able to speak, they exhale out, “None of them...they’re not wolves. How..how??”

Indeed, the roughly forty people jumping to the pulse of whatever they’re listening to (some to the in house DJ, some, apparently, to what’s playing over the large headphones they have adorned), resemble the image of a wolfman much more accurately. They bare claws, fangs, elongated snouts, upright ears, and  serious amounts of hair, but they’re on two legs, and moving like humans. Some of them are even singing along to the lyrics, which really shouldn’t be possible.

Luna grins, making it obvious that she’s used to this level of shell shocks. “Ultimately, you do have to give into some damn rigorous instincts. But dancing is a human instinct, not a canine one, so you end up, well, humanoid. Pretty nifty, huh?”

“And they all..they all keep their minds? I didn’t...they don’t blackout?”

“Not since we banned alcohol in the 90s! Here, watch this.”

Luna nods her head at the DJ, and the DJ, obligingly, turns down the music for a moment. The members of the crowd not listening to their own music pause, then look towards the door. She cries out, “Hey gang! HOW WE ALL DOIN’ TONIGHT?”, and gets a mix between a howl and “WOO!” cried back. The DJ then turns the music back up, and the general movement of the crowd resumes.

They should be more skeptical. They want to be more skeptical, they were just minutes before, but it’s hard to disagree with something right in front of you. “This will work for me? I just..have to dance?”

“Well, it’s not guaranteed. Few things are. But we have yet to have someone turn violent on us. If you start to fell yourself slipping from consciousness, though, I do ask that you start heading further into the woods, as to not hurt other guest. If you find yourself just getting tired, there’s beds inside, and a fair amount of pillows around the edge of the quote unquote dance floor, if you end up in more of a nesting mood. Also, I recommend taking off your shoes before you start.”

“What? Why?”

Luna gives a pointed glance at the dancers’ feet, which, ah. They’re about twice as large as normal and at least twice as sharp. The converse on their feet would be no match. “Ah.”

“Ready?”

They shove off their shoes and place the remainder of their chips aside. “As I’ll ever be.”

Good thing, too, as they’re starting to feel an uncomfortable pressure in their chest that was the prelude to disaster last month.

Luna strides to the center of the dance floor, which is really a plush lawn surrounded by forest. The crowd naturally moves around her, and she yells out, “Aiyana! Play my song!”

Aiyana gives a nod, and the opening notes of “Dancing in the Moonlight” start to sound out. “Seriously?”

Luna shrugs, grinning like a fool, and says, “It’s a classic!”

“It’s cliché at best.”

Luna shrugs, and then begins dancing. She’s hardly elegant, but she is dazzlingly joyful in her uncoordinated movements. As the song reaches the first chorus, she gives a twirl, and in the split second it takes, she’s transformed. They blink in shock, not knowing you could transform that seamlessly, that quickly, that painlessly. Luna in half wolf form is just as expressive as the human Luna, and she gives a nod over her shoulder as if to say Come on.

Feeling somewhat foolish, they start to bop their head to the tune. Luna lets out a huff and grabs their hands, spinning them around and forcing them to get moving. At first, it’s them indulging Luna, but as they let themselves get lost in rhythm, they feel a stretching sensation in their face and limbs. It’s not unpleasant, more like when you wake up and work out the tension in your spine. They open their eyes and look down at their hands, now covered in fur in and made for slashing. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt, and they’re still themselves, and they had no idea that full moons could be like this, maybe for the rest of their lives.

They turn their head to the night sky, and their body can’t help but continue to dance. Despite all their fear, all their dread, “movement therapy” worked, and they can admit, at least to themselves, that they feel warm and bright.

[shadowhunterspolycule]

the first major snowfall in ages finally hit nyc recently and all im imaging is the Polycule attaching snowboards and the such to the back of simons van and them just being happy with snow day activities

oof, this ask is from so many months ago, i'm so sorry. i was very busy. i'm also not sure how great my answer will be because i'm a whole ass brazilian so i have no idea what snow day activies are, but i will try anyway

so, major advantages: meliorn has magic and maia is a werewolf and if i'm not mistaken it's said or implied that werewolves have a higher core body temperature than humans. or maybe i made that up, but it's canon for me

major disadvantages: raphael and simon are vampires, which means that technically they are kind of "cold-blooded" creatures? i mean they would still have other important temperature regulating mechanisms such as mitochrondrial heat production and muscle contraction, but they basically don't have a heartbeat/blood flow/arguably blood at all, which is a major way of regulating core temperature, and canonically their skin feels pretty cold, so like. they probably are more suscetible to temperature changes is what i'm saying (i'm mostly going off this source [link] for this. i'm already overthinking this answer good job me)

plus i am once again saying that raphael is from guadalajara which means that like me he is used to Worm Temperchoores, like, WAY warmer than NYC's, and he grew up without pretty much any kind of snow at all. and sure he's lived in NYC for years so he's SOMEWHAT used to the cold but he still spent his formative years in guadalajara, so like. he fucking hates the cold, is my point

but back to major advantages: meliorn and magic! which means they can do something about it. don't ask me what, but i'm sure they can do Something. i mean i'm sure to some extent the downworld has already figured out a solution to this problem cuz while it might not kill them (since they're immortal) it is very uncomfortable and probably makes them slower, which is a disadvantage to say the least. plus raphael has magnus who knows that raphael is a grumpy ass in the cold. also i think java is similarly hot so magnus Gets It, but idk what the temperatures usually are in jakarta

anyway my point is that magnus probably got some coats/vests/blankets spelled for his boy so they can keep him toasty (since they are otherwise kinda useless for vampires since they rely on trapping body heat and vampires don't have any) and vampires in general probably have access to that kinda stuff, but still, rapha gets grumpy and his face is still cold and everything is just awful and he doesn't understand how gringos do it. his complaints fly for about 2 days before the New Yorker Squad™ (particularly simon and maia, who drag clary and inevitably everyone else is there) decides that they've had enough of this and that raphael will learn how to enjoy the snow

he is like "i am not willingly going into the snow! you don't understand, i'm a vampire, i won't get back my body heat the way you do". simon: "i literally am also a vampire". raphael: "you're just a fledgeling, you wouldn't understand" "i've been a vampire for like, ten years!" "seven" "same thing" "it's so not the-" "i have gone through enough winters to be able to understand, and you, sir, are going to learn to enjoy the snow. have you EVER even made a snow angel?" "no" "well this changes today"

he literally has no excuse because meliorn has this super sweet spell that keeps him from losing heat so like. he doesn't even need a coat (he's still wearing it and preferably also a scarf and gloves because he is, first and foremost, dramatic) so he is forced to have a day off and go play in the snow, woe is him

(he tells the clan that should they need anything they should ring him, but they're like "nah simon has promised us pictures of you in the snow, we can handle ourselves" and it's not like raphael is too busy these days, really)

anyway! they have fun. simon strikes me as the winter lover kind of person altho really i think he enjoys all seasons in their own way, but like... hot chocolate and scarves and snow fights, yes? and while i think maia might prefer warmer temperatures she can double enjoy herself in the snow now that she's a werewolf because she gets less cold and like, damn, tell me that being a wolf and jumping headfirst into a pile of snow wouldn't be fun. you can't, unless you're a bad taste bitch

i also think maia is the building snow forts kind of gal because, idk, she just looks that way. and sure she's excited about kicking everyone's asses during snowball fight but FIRST she needs to have a full fort complete with towers and windows for her to throw snowballs from and shit

rapha is the one that helps her build it the most cuz he likes the motions and besides it is a little less energetic than whatever it is that the rest of these wackos are doing. again izzy didn't get any chances to play in the snow either so naturally clary is dragging her around from snow activity to snow activity and running around everywhere and holy shit they have so much energy. simon is there as well naturally and eventually they make it their goal in life to ruin maia's and rapha's fort, which ends up kickstarting the mandatory snowball fight. even tho maia only has a half complete fort

(eventually when everyone has left maia and rapha will come back and finish the fort. it's the principle of the thing. raphael also wants to build an igloo or some shit and maia rolls her eyes but actually i can see him being into building snow things? it's just soothing and nice and quiet and he can pretend there's Elegance and Finesse to it)

and meliorn is just watching them curiously the whole time because of course they know snow but they dont really know about Snow Activities these funky little non-seelies dedicate themselves too. i feel like the seelies have their own snow activities, maybe like, festivals? dances with the snowfall and games to welcome the change in the environment, that sort of thing. but they are nothing like snow angels ("it doesn't look like an angel in the slightest, just like you kept moving your legs and arms in the snow" "thats what it is" "right, so...?") or snowmen ("also doesn't look like a man" "meliorn we aren't exactly artists") or snow fights (altho that one they can appreciate) and they're really interested in like participating even though they dont understand and everyone has to keep telling them that it's Not That Deep and izzy is so amused she just kisses them one billion times

eventually they start doing it just to get more of those laugh-filled kisses of hers

also at least one of them, probably izzy of rapha or meliorn since they are the snow ignorant ones of the group, is absolutely horrible at making snowmen. probably izzy tbh because shadowhunters dont exactly have a knack for these things. like clary's snowman is all artistic and simon's is fun and creative, maia's is pretty, raphael's and meliorn's look like the Platonic Ideal Of A Snowman, and izzy's looks like A Pile Of Dirt. clary giggles at it for an embarrassing amount of time, which inevitably leads to izzy taking the snow from her snowman to throw snowballs at clary and triggering a new snowfight

and then they have some soup inside and cuddle under a blanket as they fight over what they should watch and all is well with the world

[yandere-sins]

Imagine Yandere Werewolf Bakugou was kidnap and a slave by a witch then Y/N who is a retire knight kills the witch. Y/N sets him free but like he has no where to go. He has been a slave for a long time that his pack is gone some where, he is weak from the lack of food, and shelter. Y/N is like, "You can stay with me for awhile. I don't mind." Y/N lives in a comfy cabin and this is where Bakugou felt warmth in so long by this knight treated him kindly. Y/N thinks herself as an older sister.

@popcornsalazar Thank you for requesting, was a really interesting idea! ♥

»»————-———— ♡ ————————-««

When did he forget who he was?

He was Bakugou Katsuki, the strongest, biggest wolf of his pack, undefeated ever since he tore away from his parents and attract his own followers! He was a werewolf, a strong, dangerous creature that could maul any small little human figure. And yet, he had been captured by a simple witch, a nobody, someone who needed a piece of wood to cast some spells, say abracadabra and ride on a broom.

So when had he decided that this was okay? Living at the witch’s side for so long, being nothing but a guard dog, only ever taken off the magicial, invisible leash to scare away unwelcome visitors. He, the great Katsuki, a simple pup on a rug, chained down and greedy for every bone thrown his way. How could it have come to this?

And then, how had it come to you being allowed into the witch’s lair, cutting her head right off without even noticing him? You had no armor, no flag - a sign of belonging to a kingdom - stitched up on your clothes, and yet you had handled the sword with precision, blood splattering everywhere without even a wrinkle of concern on your face. At that time, he didn’t know why you even came, simply spilling blood without any word and turning to leave without a blessing or another thought.

If he hadn’t objected, ask you to help him, you would probably left him there to starve. Luckily, the moon phase had just ended, turning him back into a human, and he remembered your red face as he approached you, still chained and naked. Your first reaction had been to throw a fur rug at him, but at least you had heard him out, believed him when he told you his sad tale of captivity.

Just… the werewolf part. That he didn’t tell you.

Freeing him from his chains, you had helped getting him a cloak to cover up, inviting him to track back to your hut, so he could eat and get his strength back after being held capitve for so long. You must have noticed his rips shining through his skin, the countless scares adorning him. Even if they weren’t from the witch per se, it was a good thing he was so proud of them, loving to show them off, adding something to the pity you found for him.

For the first time in long, he felt alive again. Conversing, laughing, hearing of the outside world. It had been years apparently, since the witch caught him, as unbelievable as it was. Even if this wasn’t the rush of a hunt, the feeling of bones cracking in his jaw, it still was… satisfying. He couldn’t deny it.

Maybe he should have feared you. Feared the silver blades that you liked polishing and sharpening in case of an emergency. You were a knight, trained to kill, having done so countless times. The witch had done nothing to you, aside, apparently, taking a child from the nearby village. But you were just like him, a hunter, a killer. You liked the thrill, and didn’t mind the dirt and blood.

You were also annoyingly concerned about others how he found.

That was the only reason you even took it upon yourself to kill the witch and take him in. Nothing more than feeling so much empathy, that you’d even give him your bed to sleep in and cook more than you could afford to feed him, even if he couldn’t give you anything in return. Even when he swore upsidedown against that stupid hag that had captured him, you had been calm, patting his shoulders and promising it would be okay. That he was safe now. Like a child.

You always had the prettiest breathing rythm when you slept. It was always nervous and alert when you two went out, but you were incredible calm in your dreams, at least, for someone so ready for every attack that might come. Katuski had come to quite like being able to lay beside you, even when you still protested that he should have the bed alone. Guess you’ve gotten softer for him by now, trust building every day.

But this was bad, really bad.

All around him, it smelled like you. The cabin, the bed, the clothes he was wearing. It wouldn’t have surprised him if he smelled like you too. Truth be told, he had been ready to get home. He knew the city close to you and he knew how to get home from it, hoping he would find his pack in his territorry or maybe with his parents. Katuski hoped they bunch of idiots had been reasonable enough to reunite with what was closest to him, in hopes they could find him.

But how was he going to explain this smell? Everything about him smelled like you, and he got concerned whenever you two went out and he wasn’t able to smell you anymore. Sticky like honey, that’s how it felt, unable to seperate from him anymore. As if you had become one with him already.

Eyeing outside the little window above the bed, he could see the moon in full view. Soon enough, that damn, white ball of light would be complete again, giving him a new moon cycle to live out what he deep down was. A hunter, a wolf, a monster. Katsuki knew that if it came down to that, he wouldn’t be able to stay with you. How could a renowned knight like you ever accept someone like him, even if… Katsuki had long accepted you as his mate.

There weren’t many other explanations as to why it was so hard for him to separate from you. He had tried running away a few times already, not wanting to deal with staying with you longer than needed and getting more indepted to you. But by night, he had come back, and you had welcomed him even when he apologized only through gritted teeth. Why it made him crazy to not smell you and why he felt better smelling like you than smelling like blood and forest as werewolves usually do.

Those were only a handful things that showed him what this connection between you two really was. And he could deny it and curse the gods or whatever holy reigned over him, but undoubtedly, it was you. You were his mate, even if that made the neck hairs on both of your necks stand. The last thing Katsuki wanted was to be bound down by another spell, another inevitable strike of fate, but here he was, and his time to be angry about it run out with every second the moon revealed more of itself.

Latest by morning you would see it. His… form. You’d wake up next to a stinking mutt, only that this mutt wasn’t only technically bigger, but also ten times as dangerous as any street dog. And you’d jump for your swords, he’d slap them out of your hand and either maul you or devour you whole in his paniced instincts. So what could he do? Katsuki knew he should have just left, ran as far as he could and hoped he wouldn’t find back, but he found himself glued to the mattress, glued to the feeling of your back against your arm, you two having to sleep so close with how tiny the bed was.

And by your fucking scent.

So when had he decided that being with you like this was okay? That it was better to curse his existence than the rush of the hunt, the freedom of being a werewolf? Just because he wanted you in his life, was that worth it? Perhaps, because he was chained for so long, he had forgotten the taste of the other, so this was the only thing that felt good right now. But he wouldn’t know if he didn’t experienced going back to his better self.

Turning his head towards you, he watched you sleep peacefully while he was tormented by his thoughts. He knew that even if he tried to explain the situation, it wouldn’t go well, and it wasn’t like you could be with him while he roamed and pouched the forest. Maybe he was the next thing you’d set out to kill after he got too close to the village one day. But even worse so, he just couldn’t find it in himself to leave.

Overwhelmed with this feelings, Katuski found himself at a loss of what to do. Your scent would always lead him back to you, even when playing the role of the big bad wolf. In the end, with all the risks calculated, all he could do was hope that his other form could still recognize you, know not to hurt you. Then again, who knew what other things it wanted to do to you, besides shredding your body into pieces.

But it was his best bet. Not long from now, he’d be awaken, and this place wasn’t a good one to do that. Quietly, he slipped out, sharpened instincts helping navigate the dark and be quieter than a simple human like you could hear. It even helped him pick you up from your bed, wrapping a blanket helplessly around you before exciting the cabin, not bothering with closing the door.

If he couldn’t escape you, then you couldn’t escape him either. And if he had to make sure you both survived this, he had to get you away from there, shielding you from anything that stretched towards you two as he ran out of the forest, trying to find a cave, or a hideout for a while. Maybe he’d be able to explain it to you, maybe you two would be able to live alongside of each other if only you could understand him and his feelings.

Katsuki promised you quietly that he would be good to you, take care of your needs and provide for you in even the dire times. He could hunt, he could fight. He only lost his glory for a moment or two when he got captured. He’d lead his pack again, make them welcome you as his mate. Maybe build a family with you. Even if you two wouldn’t be able to see eye to eye at first, it would come eventually, the more time you two spent together.

Once you learned you could rely on him, your lives could weave themselves together easily, become one beautiful shared lifetime of joy. He was the greatest werewolf to live, he’d become it once again, to the point you’d look at him with awe in your face. And maybe, he would be able to learn to control himself, chaining you somewhere you couldn’t escape him, so he could learn patience even when he was blinded by his animalistic instincts. He just needed a chance to try this out.

And you needed a chance to see to which lengths he would go, just for you.

[ally-writes-many-things]

Who you are (Hamish Duke) Part 2

Summary: You were an Adepti for The Order but you were also a spy for Gnostic council. The council called you back to Belgrace to spy on Vera after the recent werewolf attacks which is when you find out something about one of your old best friends.

Words: 1611

Requested: Yes

Prompts:

Warning or A/N: Part 3 is when it picks up

You walked into the Temple with a bunch of members running around doing multiple things. An acolyte bump straight into you spilling some kind of mixture all of you. "I'm so sorry Adepti. I didn't see you standing there,"

You were annoyed about it at first but you remembered how hard it was when you were an Acolyte. You half smiled and looked at them. "Look, take a deep breath and relax. I know it's hard your first year but just remember to take a deep breath,"

The acolyte smiled at you. "Thank you,"

You nodded and walked past the acolyte and dodged other members and into Vera's office. "Why is the temple so busy?"

"Coventry,"

You rolled your eyes. "What is he doing now?"

"Elemental Transference, what's all over your shirt?"

Your eyes grew big at the mention of that. "Some acolyte spelled something on me and for who?"

"Renee Marand. What did this acolyte look like? I'll make sure they'll clean up after the ritual,"

You quickly walk over to the chair and sat in it. "Nah, don't worry about it. Isn't she that necromancer that was kicked out?"

"She is,"

"Does the gnostic council know?"

Vera nodded. "Oh don't worry about spying on Coventry. He's trying to find all the pages to the Vade Maecum Infernal,"

"The Vade Maecum is-"

"Dangerous. I know. Edward wont listen to reason,"

You shook your head. "What does this have to do with Renee?"

"Necrophone,"

"The same Necrophone that lets you talk to the dead? I thought that was just some story?"

Vera shakes her head. "No. It's very much real,"

You sat back and started thinking that maybe Vera was right to suspect the Grand Magus but you still were wary to spy on him. Anyone that gets in his way, gets killed and you liked being alive too much to die. "Why does he want it?"

"Something to do with the Vade Maecum and how he thinks that the necrophone will help him find the pages? I don't know and I don't know what he wants with the Vade Maecum either but I have a plan but I cant execute it until after the transference is over,"

"What's the plan?"

"All you need to know is heal Renee, get the Necrophone and find the remaining pages,"

Edward walked into Vera's office and you quickly stood up from the chair. "Yes, Grand Magus. Is there anything you need me to do?"

Edward puts his hand on your shoulder. "You looked more and more like your mother each and every day,"

You were a legacy, that's why you went through the levels so quickly was because you were practicing magic all your life. You've known Edward since you were little. Hell, he took you in after your parents have died when you were tenish. "Really think so?"

He nodded. "Yes. She..both of your parents would be so proud of you,"

"Thank you sir,"

He nodded. "And no, we got everything under control for the time being. We'll let you know when it starts."

You nodded and started to walk out of the office but Vera called you back. "Hold on,"

You turned around and looked at her. She walked up to you and handed you a book. You looked down at it and it was the werewolf manual. "I know we haven’t had a recent attack but you can never be too careful,"

You nodded and walked out of the office and noticed that one of the cauldron was bubbling and Jack was walking away from it. You shrugged because you didn’t know if it was suppose to do that or not since this was your first transference ritual.

--

It had been a few hours since Vera gave you this book and it had taken you just as long to read it. It was a very hard book to read because one it HAD way too much information, drug some points out, and some of it was written in a different language which you had used magic to read. You were just about to stop reading when you read that both human and werewolf forms had a different smell to them. Human form while smells like whatever that human smelled like and the smell of the wolf smelled like warm fur.

You rolled your eyes at the information because that was obvious. You felt your dog's nose rub against your leg. You looked at your dog and smiled as he laid down next to you. You quickly put the book down and went to sniff your dog's fur as he was a wolfdog and his fur was always warm. When you got the smell, you were with a familiar scent. It was the same scent as Hamish, Randall, Jack and Lilith had but your dog's scent was overpowering like theirs were.

Could they really be the werewolves that attacked everyone? Could Hamish?

You were on your way to find Hamish when you saw Jack and Kyle get into a van and drive off. You got back into your car and followed them to a warehouse and saw them start to load people into the back of the van, which you were guessing were the elements. You then see Kyle trying to drive off but something had a hold of the van and then it was let go and Kyle run into a wall. You couldn't see what had ahold of the van cause if you were to move, you would've been spotted. You then see Lilith walking up to Jack's side fully naked. You quickly cut your hand and said the words of a spell that allows you to hear what someone is talking a distance away.

"You wanna explain yourself, asshole?"

"This isn't what it looks like,"

"Really? 'Cause it looks like you're driving five people to their slaughter,"

"I didn't know that,"

"Now you do and we're going to stop it,"

"No, the Grand Magus is after something and I need to know what it. You can't stop it. I won't let you,"

"You think I can't take you?"

"You think you can take Silverback?"

There was a moment of silence before Lilith walked away.

Whose Silverback? Why was Lilith naked?

--

After Lilith had left, you did too. You were confused as to why Lilith wants to stop the ritual and not to mention how she knows about The Order. You got back to campus, you walked into Blade and Chalice, you started to walk the bar when you heard your name being called. You turned and saw that it was Randall waving you over. You were hit with the smell of warm fur again. The same smell you smelt on your dog but more intense. "Y/N! How are you?"

"I'm good. Where's Hamish?"

Randall shrugged. "Probably, doing teacher assistant things,"

You chuckled. You couldn't believe that Hamish had decided not to become a lawyer because that was the main thing he had always talked about. "Fun,"

"So you travelled around the world?"

"I did,"

Randall was about to say something but his phone went off. He looked down at his pocket, pulled it out and read whatever was on the screen. He grabbed his drink and chugged it before standing up. "Gotta go meet up with Hamish and Lilith. I'll catch you later?"

You smiled and said of course.

You waited a few minutes after him leaving before you got up and left to go after him. He had walked a good few minutes into the woods before you saw a house. A house that looked completely abandoned on the outside. You waited till he was inside the house before walked up to one of the windows. You tried to open one of the windows but it was locked. So you did the same hearing spell you did before. It wasn't much of anything but you saw Jack walking out of the woods. You didn't have to move to hide because you were already in a well shaded area.

Lilith started walking down the stairs. "You're such a fucking hypocrite."

Hamish tried to calm her down. "Okay, lets take a breath,"

"You have the nerve to give me shit about eating some monster's heart, but you turn around and drive a van full of people to their death!"

Randall looked at Jack in shock "You what?"

"It's the Elemental Transference. The spell needs willing sacrifices. Five of them,"

"You're supposed to be sabotaging it. Not helping,"

"I did and we were up and running around again in twelve hours."

"Dude...We're you're we,"

"So you failed. You admit it,"

Failed what?

"No. Look, I talked to Coventry. I saw it in his eyes. He's so desperate for this spell, he'll do anything. He'll risk the entire Order, and we need to know why.

Why is Jack telling them this?

The rest of the conversation was talking about what the spell does and how it's possible and how Jack needed to know what Coventry was after.

"Randall, you wanted an inside man. Let me do my job as a Knight,"

That's the second time you heard them calling themselves Knights. What the hell are they talking about?

"Then go,"

You saw Jack nodding his head and walking out the door.

What are the Knights? Why does Jack desperately need to know what Coventry was after? Why are Hamish, Lilith and Randall want to stop the ritual? Why did Jack tell them?

You were so into your thought and didn't hear the window opening until you heard your name. "Y/N?"

You looked up and saw Hamish looking at you.

"Hi,"

[literary-spirit]

Chapter 5

The next day after first meal Bjorn, Torvi, and Bonnie cleaned out Rollo's old keep. The place was filthy. Rats the size of small puppies had made the place home and she wasn't entirely sure they weren't leaving without a knock down drag out. Aside from the rats, cobwebs and huge furry spiders dominated every crack and crevice in the structure. The situation was so dismal, she'd begun to have second thoughts. By the smug expression on Bjorn's face, she could tell he already knew she was about two seconds away from begging him to stay. Yet, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Not even if she had to accept canine inspired rodents

and tarantula like spiders as her new housemates.

Once they removed most of the dry rotted furniture and she'd thoroughly scrubbed the wooden plank floors with the same lard soap they actually used to bathe with, Bjorn said they were done for the time being. Since several hours of sunlight still remained in the day, Bjorn opted to go fishing at the harbor, while Torvi went off to train with the keep's other shield maidens. Bonnie decided to remain behind to work on a spell that would transform the ingredients she gathered the day before into things needed for her hygienic care.

From the first incantation, she could tell something was off. To say something was different with her magic would've been an understatement. Kind of like calling the sun sort of hot. Yeah, she'd always been powerful, thanks to her lineage, but there was altogether a new level of potency to her sorcery. Even the aftereffect of her spell presented in a way it had never done before. This new development caused simple enchantments that had become second nature to her, to get all twisted. And after about an hour of dealing with the same results over and over again, the frustration was fucking real! She slapped some of the ingredients off the stone table.

Damn it! She hadn't had a bath in almost four days. Pretty soon, she would be looking and smelling like who did it and why the hell you let it happen. "Shit, I wish I had my L'Occitane Almond Shower Scrub Duo from home in my hands right now!"

A tingling sizzle tickled the palms before the body scrub duo materialized in her hands. Shock nearly drove her to drop the containers, but she recovered in time and placed them on the table. Holy hell? What is happening? She stared at the half-used bottles from her and Niklaus' master bathroom. How the hell did she conjure these? She wasn't a conjurer. But then again, did she really conjure them or wish for them? Wait! Then did that mean she'd somehow fucked over the immortal witch spell and now she was a got damn Jinn?! She didn't wanna be a Jinn!

Shit! Stay calm. She shouldn't panic and since Jinns couldn't make wishes themselves there's no way she could be one. Hell, she could prove she wasn't a Jinn and correct one of their latest fuck ups in the process.

She closed her eyes and whispered, "I wish I was home." Slowly, her lids lifted to reveal the same hovel she stood in before she closed her eyes. An ache cracked her chest wide, "I don't understand. Why am I here?"

"To save my sons," an imperious, but deferential voice said from behind her.

She spun around to find the Queen of Kattegat, standing in her little hole in the wall. "Queen Aslaug." Her head dipped in a bow.

"Please, do not bow to me. It is I who should bow to you," she swept down in a graceful bow. "The sorcery within demands that I must. The mystical energy that surrounds you overwhelms and amazes."

Not knowing what the hell else to say, Bonnie focused on the Queen's prior admission. "Why'd you say I'm here to save your sons?"

"Because it is the truth. I dreamt of you, before you arrived," Queen Aslaug moved around the stone table, eyeing the shower scrub duo as she went. Once in front of her she stopped and clasped hands with her. "Your presence balances the scales against the many calamities waiting to wreak havoc on us all. I've foreseen it."

"Queen Aslaug-," she began.

"Let us not provoke the gods by further talks of this nature," she squeezed Bonnie's hands before releasing them. "You should go sit by the water in the cove before second meal."

Bonnie grabbed her shower duo from the stone table and placed them in the now empty basket. "Well, I did wanna wash." She gathered her last day dress, which was stiff, rough, brown, and barely grazed her ankles. It, however, was clean.

"Then wash you must," Queen Aslaug cosigned. Her gaze darted around the keep, "Bjorn, informed me you'll be residing here." She turned back to face Bonnie. "I'd offer for you a bench in the great hall, but I believe you to prefer privacy over comfort."

Bonnie gripped the handle of the basket with both hands. "That's true."

Queen Aslaug nodded. "While you're gone, I'll have thralls come finish putting your keep to rights."

"Thank you," Bonnie said.

"It is the very least I can do," Queen Aslaug said before turning to leave.

****

After her shower under the waterfall Bonnie felt more like herself. Though she was still confused by all that had transpired since she fell backwards in time at least she'd gained some stability. Now she'd be able to start gathering the pieces and putting things together. Once she finished oiling her body she redressed and headed back into the woods. Not long into her trek she realized she was being stalked. The sun had begun to make its descent. She didn't have long before darkness fell and whatever stalked her attempted to turn her cakes into a meal.

She thought about making a run for it but every show she'd ever seen on animal planet cautioned to never willingly offer chase to a predator. Yet, she was a melanin gifted woman in a melanin challenged land, slasher flick rule numero uno demanded that she haul ass. Decisions. Decisions. Decisions.

Bonnie released a harassed sigh. She neither wanted to get sweaty or bloody, "Look, you and I both know you're there so come on out. If you're gonna try and kill me you can at least face me before you carry out the deed."

A collection of seconds turned into a minute before she finally saw movement in the multiplying shadows. Moments later a shit ton of wolves varying in sizes and color inched forth on their bellies into the fading light of day.

 Each kept their heads resting on their front paws and their eyes downcast. A wolf the size of a small pony covered in golden white fur with a pair of crystal blue eyes 

continued to creep forward until his snout practically touched the toe of her shoe. Werewolves? In the Viking era? Of course, there are because no matter what the weird and freaky better known as the supernatural always seemed to know exactly where to find her! She was a fucking beacon for the strange and unexplained.

Bonnie squatted to trail her finger through the tufts of fur between his ears. "How are you all in your wolf forms when there hasn't been a full moon since I arrived. Either you're hybrid or cursed and since it'll be over another hundred years before the first hybrid is made, then you must be cursed." She trailed her hands over the length of the wolf's body. Though she sensed wild but potent magic, she didn't sense any dark energy it would take to invoke a curse. "Yet, I don't sense any dark magic." She stared into the wolf's eyes, "You fur babies must be something else altogether."

The wolf shimmered from canine to man, and then stood. One minute a gorgeous animal sat facing Bonnie, and the next all she saw was a slab of meat wearing a turtleneck of golden hair. She glanced up into a face that was cloaked in shadows by the light of the sun. For a moment, her next heartbeat refused to pound.

"Klaus?" She whispered.

A hand reached down to help her up. "I'm known as Ansel, Goddess."

"Ansel..." Wait, could he be..., "Why did you call me goddess?"

He laughed and the corners of his eyes crinkled the way Klaus' did when something genuinely amused him. "Because that is what you are, the Goddess of Twilight."

Her eyes popped. What in the Stephanie Meyer madness was he talking about? "E-excuse me who?"

"The prophecy foretold your arrival," Ansel said, still clasping her hand in his. "It was divined, your appearance would relink the descendants of Fenrir with their witchery lineage thereby affording us control over our shift."

This sounded like some sun and moon curse mumbo jumbo. Disregarding his nudity, she stepped closer. "Who spoke of this prophecy to you?" Maybe this person was a millennial throwback as well.

"We've always known of this foretelling," Ansel said, punching holes through the hope she'd managed to gather, "but the one who came before you did confirm the prophecy would come to past."

"The one who came before me?" She questioned, practically dripping desperation.

"Yes, the dark woman," Ansel answered, his eyes searching hers. "She lives deeper in the forest. Not many non-shifters venture that far into the woods. For those who have a mind to try, there are spells and curses in place to ensure no one unwanted reaches her."

"Ansel, I have to speak with her," she dropped her basket and covered both of their hands with her other, "Can you take me to her?"

His head bobbed. "Come," he knelt and picked up her basket, "it'll be quicker if you hoist yourself on my back."

****

By the time they made it to the tiny shack deep in the forest, night had fallen. Yet, the zillion twinkling stars in the black velvet sky were able to pierce the canopy of leaves and provide an adequate amount of light for Bonnie to see. Ansel placed her on the ground a foot or so away from the door of the shack. The familiar energy wafting from the keep embraced her. She knew this magic. This was the magic of her ancestors. It was Bennett magic. Her magic.

The cloth barrier to the dwelling shifted and out stepped Ayanna Bennett. 

She appeared to be in her mid-twenties, but she could've been older. Bonnie had come to know her well during her brief afterlife on the other side. "You have the look of my mother. I don't even have to sense it to know you're my own."

For the first time since she'd been dropped in the middle of time Bonnie broke. She tumbled into Ayanna's arms and fell to pieces.

"Help me," she whispered.

"You're the answer to all of our cries," Ayanna whispered next to her ear. "The Goddess of All would not have sent you to us lacking. Whatever is needed you already carry with you. Come, we have much to discuss."

Once inside, Bonnie sat on a wooden bench next to a stone alter.

Ayanna handed her a smoldering cup of tan liquid. "Drink, it's an herbal concoction meant to ease fits. It also aids in uncluttering your third sight." Without further urging, she sipped the tea. "Now, tell me all."

"It all started with this ancient evil and an immortal man willing to sacrifice his eternity to save his child," she began, "and the sacrifice his lover made so he wouldn't have to." For the next several hours Bonnie recounted the entire twisted tale of her and Klaus. By the time she was finished, she could barely keep her eyes open.

"So, why do you believe this Niklaus is the Viking to which the prophecy refers?" Ayanna questioned.

Bonnie laughed like Ayanna had out joked Kevin Hart. "Who else is of Viking descent and stronger than Klaus?"

"Who else indeed! Seems to me, all you have to do is march back to Kattegat and tap one of the many Vikings there on the shoulder. I wager any number of them is stronger than this Niklaus," she said, waving a hand as if she was waving off the very thought of Klaus. "And why would you want to form a mate bond with him? The same disrespectful dolt who places other witches over you in his regard. As if anyone other than a witch of our familial line could shoulder the burden of being the eternal witch."

Bonnie's eyes closed and remained so. "Did I mention Ansel's his father?"

"Ansel?"

Klaus' fathers name is the last thing Bonnie heard Ayanna speak before sleep claimed her.

****

"We have to get her back. The sons of Ragnar Lothbrok is ripping away the forest looking for her," Ansel's voice penetrated the thick fog of sleep that held her captive.

She heard a clucking sound, then Ayanna. "Calm yourself. They'll never make it past the first line of magic."

"That is what I'm trying to tell you, woman," Ansel bellowed. Frustration clear and plain in his tone, "they already have."

"What? How is that..." Ayanna's voice trailed off. "It's her. Her magic shields them. Why is this so?" A moment past, and then she felt Ayanna's lips at her ear. "You've learned many things on your spiritual voyage last eve. Things which must be considered. You have to return, Bonnie. For not only have you and your wolf achieved the goal you sought, but you've also attained so much more."

When next she opened her eyes, she was laying on a pile of fallen leaves and wildflowers. Her basket sat next to her head, while every last son of Ragnar stood staring down at her with varying expressions. Actually, everyone except Ivar who more or less leaned over her shooting her a unit inspired with nothing but ill intent.

"Um, good morning," she said, lacking anything of note to say.

****

"I thought you'd been raped and killed by Skogarmaors!" Bjorn yelled in her face as she drooped on a bench in the great hall.

Queen Aslaug's eyes rolled at Bjorn's antics,

 while his brothers peered on in silence. Their faces giving nothing away.

She had a banging headache and Bjorn was nowhere close to easing her pain. "I'm sorry, Bjorn. It wasn't my intention to worry you are your family."

"Ack! Loki take your intentions," He threw up his hands and turned away from her, "I have no worries for your intentions. For all I know they're harried paving a path to Helheim."

"Where were you, hmm?" Ivar questioned. His stare unwavering as always. "Your appearance speaks of you being sheltered from the elements. So, who sheltered you?"

"On my way back from the Cove I met someone in the woods. He told me some things that lead me to believe he knew someone who could understand the reason I've come to be here," she said, attempting to be as honest as she could without placing Ansel or Ayanna in danger.

"You said, he told you," Bjorn turned around to face her.

She gave him a slow nod, "yes."

"Name this man," Bjorn demanded.

Reluctantly, she shook her head. "I'd rather not."

"I've heard sagas of a dark woman dwelling in the deep of the forest," Ivar said, while his steady gaze tracked each expression that crossed her face. "Many have spoken tales of her being a witch."

Queen Aslaug laughed. "Ivar, halt with your tales of spirits and witches. You're being distressing."

"Did you allow yourself to be plowed by this man?" Sigurd asked, straight facing the hell out of her.

"Sigurd!" Queen Aslaug released a heavy sigh before taking a sip from her cup.

"What? I'm sure that was Bjorn's next line of questioning," he defended.

"No," Bonnie snapped, chopping Sigurd up with a unit meant to leave him DOA, "There was absolutely no plowing going on between me and this man." To her surprise, Bjorn exhaled a sigh that appeared to be motivated by relief. She stood and walked over to Bjorn. Placing a hand on his arm, she gazed up at him, "the only reason I followed him is for answers. That's all, Bjorn. I swear it upon our oath."

She watched the anger and tension drain from his face as he reached up to cup her cheek. "Did you learn anything?"

"No," she emphasized with a sad dejected shake of the head, "I was given some kind of herbal concoction while there and I fell asleep before finding out anything. When I awakened, you guys were standing over me."

"I'm sure in time you'll have your answers," he allowed his thumb to trace the path of her cheek before returning his hand to his side.

She gazed out the great hall door toward the forest and prayed to the mother of all he was right.

[nelllraiser]

chains and grace | adam & nell

TIMING: october 30th, the full moon, just before sunset. LOCATION: the trees near dark score lake. PARTIES: @walker-journal & @nelllraiser​ SUMMARY: adam and nell prepare themselves for their first full moon as werewolves.  CONTENTS: medical blood (sacrificial fingerstick prick)

Fallen leaves rustled under Adam’s feet, forming a carpet of brilliant oranges and yellows while subtler strings of red and browning rot. The waning afternoon sun forged the forest canopy in halcyon golds. The shadows of the sun-silhouetted branches played across Adam’s face as he affixed more chains to the trunk of the stoutest tree he could find. Adam had no idea how strong he’d be on the first transformation, but he wasn’t taking any chances. 

Kaden may’ve not wanted to kill him, but Adam had more than a few former coworkers with aim that’d put an army Ranger sniper to shame and fewer qualms about pulling the trigger. Thus a remote location and strong bonds were preferable here. 

Adam ‘I love fine ass and incendiary rounds’ Walker realized that there might just be a certain ironic justice in him worrying about trigger happy paramilitary. 

“How’s yours going,” Adam asked his dance partner for this lunar stakeout.

 If Nell hadn’t been treating this evening as a sort of funeral for life as she knew it, the autumnal palette of the trees paired with the steadily setting sun and the company of Adam would have made for a wholly enjoyable setting. As it were, the somber feelings she’d been trying to avoid ever since being bitten by the werewolf were quickly encroaching, refusing to be shoved away in these last moments, effectively ruining any hope for a happy or peaceful outing. 

“I’m going for a nice cat’s cradle look,” Nell answered, still managing to refuse the dread in her stomach access to her sense of sarcasm, even if the joke fell flatter than it normally would have. “I thought it’d be a nice last ‘screw you’ to the wolf part of the situation.” The chains alone were enough to cause her anxiety to prickle uncomfortably, not exactly a fan of imprisonment ever since she’d been trapped beneath the Ring. “What about you?” She looked to Adam as she reversed the question, posing it both as an attempt to get a read on his tree to chain ratio, as well as how he might be handling the situation as a whole.

“Kind of just going for restraint over style here,” Adam noted as he strained his way through some of the last preparations, the muscles of his neck and upper arms wiry the fallen Hunter leveraged one foot against the tree he was trying to bind chains around. “Y’know”, Adam posited, leaning back far enough to look at Nell upside-down he continued to heave at the chain into place around a huge super maple while pushing against the bark with a leg. “I’d hoped when we were going to start tying each other up it’d be…”

This particular train of thought was interrupted by a rasping click as the last chain link slid past the main knot into tautness. Adam stumbled backward, taking off guard by the unexpected success and tripping over a root. 

“Guess what I mean is,” Adam amended, changing his tone and just decided to own the mishap by sitting up with his back against the chained tree. “We still don’t have to do this together if you don't want to,” he prevaricated carefully. “When we first change we’ll have no control, and I honestly dunno if like...we might end up hurting each other with the chains? I dunno.” 

The truth of why he thought Nell might not want him here on the night she lost her magic had little to do with safety, but Adam wanted to give her an easier out here if she wanted it. 

In the end Nell would most likely be banking on the power of her magic when it came to the hardness of her chains. Physical knot tying wasn’t a practical skill she’d been taught when the same end could be achieved with a simple spell. Still- she sat back on her heels to take a look at her handiwork, head tilting to the side to gain a new perspective that didn’t actually provide any other insights. Sparing Adam a flicker of amusement both at his words and momentary fumble, she dusted her hands on the sides of her pants restless now that she didn’t have the chains to preoccupy them. “Never say never. Maybe it could be a treat for making it through the first full moon.”

Maybe Nell had misjudged where that sentiment was going, though. Was Adam having second thoughts? “Why wouldn’t I want to? Do you not want to? Do this together, I mean.” Nell generally gravitated towards having what she perceived as moments of weakness by her lonesome, preferring not to have audiences for the times she felt most vulnerable. But in a break from tradition— she’d been grateful to not have to do this alone. There was nothing more she could do for the chains, and she let her own back slide down the trunk of her tree before settling onto the ground. “I thought werewolves don’t usually go after each other.” Or was there a different reason he might want to change their plan, and go his own way.

Adam sat on leaves at the foot of his chained tree, glancing up at the boughs swaying above him in the canopy overhead before looking back to Penelope. He drew a knee up and laid an arm across it, flexing his fingers and ignoring the whisper of imagination that visualized claws tearing their way out of them. 

“I’m down to do this together,” he assured carefully, pushing images of shredding skin and distending ribs out of his brain. “I just...I dunno.” 

“Feel you are losing a lot more than me here,” the fallen Hunter pointed out softly, “thought you might want me not being here when… y’know.” 

“Oh-” was Nell’s unintentional filibuster of a reply, unsure if she wanted to open the floodgates concerning that particular can of worms. For the most part she’d been avoiding it, preoccupying herself with learning as much as she could get her hands on when it came to Bloody Mary, the mysterious sands, and Adam’s own disappearing abilities. The looming loss of her powers left her feeling as if there were a black hole deep within her stomach, and if the witch so much as stood still for a single moment to spare it a thought— it would pull her in, dragging her under like a similar hole had threatened to do when Bea had been killed. “I just...you know when Bea died?” she began, not entirely certain how to express herself. “And sometime afterwards you let me come over- and it was nice. I don’t know-” she backtracked self-consciously. After all, sharing emotions in person was not one of her stronger suits. “I guess maybe I thought it’d be nice again or something- if you were here.” As for what there was to lose... “Do I? I mean I know your abilities are gone right now, but I’m sure whatever strength and senses that come from being a werewolf won’t be the same as what you had, right? And- well- I can’t imagine it’s all that comforting to become something you were trained to kill.” Dark brown eyes that appeared nearly black in the fading light of the setting sun rose to find Adam’s while she finished.

Adam nodded as Nell alluded to when he’d broke down and they were together. While some fraternity mates had given him knowing nod the morning after the truth was….more vulnerable than that. Adam’d played along with lascivious implication because it was easier to let play it off as just another fuck-romp then admit he’d been falling to pieces. “I’m glad you’re here Nell,” he said with steady directness. “No matter what happens.” 

“I’m more ...worried that I am trained to kill and I kinna get lost in it,” Adam admitted. He was past the point of pretending that he wasn’t an adrenaline junkie who got a rush when his family had warned he should only feel dutiful dispassion when dispatching the enemies of mankind. “Part of me can’t get enough and it made me good at what I do for all the wrong reasons,” confessed one who might’ve become a very different man if he hadn’t been born into a Hunter family that stressed moral utilitarianism and military discipline rather than bloodsport. “I tried not to let that control me but uh…”

“Guess what I’m trying to say is that if I’m this fucked up as a human,” Adam tried again, “what is wolf-me going to be like?”

“I’m glad you’re here, too,” Nell answered with her own unwavering certainty, a gentler smile granting itself to Adam. It was softer- calmer than her usual confident grins and smirks, though just as sincere. “Whatever happens I’m glad we can do it together.”

The mention of her magic had reminded Nell of the flower seeds she’d brought along with her, hoping to create one last thing with her gifts before she had to say goodbye to them. Not yet retrieving them from her pocket, she began to draw a circle in the dirt between their two trees, a single finger paving the way of runes and sigils as it trailed along the forest floor. 

Her spellwork paused as she listened, looking up with a slight frown as he shared. “I don’t think you’re fucked up,” she said reflexively, never enjoying those she cared about speaking of themselves in such a way. “I think we’re just...doing the best with what we’ve got, you know?” But she knew it went beyond that. There was no denying that werewolves had a natural bloodthirst about them the closer it was to the full moon, and it made sense that Adam might dread what result that would garner when paired with a desire that was already present. “Well that’s why we’ve got each other, right?” she asked, referring to the unofficial pact they’d made to check on one another when it came to questionable deeds. “To make sure...we’re still the people we want to be. I won’t let it happen-” Her voice was strong, Nell’s sheer determination peeking through. “If getting lost to that isn’t what you want- if it seems like you’re getting close...we can figure out how to pull you back. And I think at the end of the day the fact that you don’t want to become that says more about you than liking the rush of a kill says. Intentions are more powerful than people give them credit for,” she ended, somewhat aware that her words bordered on lines of witch-hippy speak, but also knowing it to be true after a lifetime of powering her magic with just that.

“Thanks Nell,” Adam managed with a thick swallow, wanting to echo her sentiment but feeling guilt for being the impetitus of this whole situation. Seeing Penelope perform this last swan song of a spell just hit it home that he’d fucked up the life of yet another of his friends. 

Ma’al had suggested another way right? Service to Hell for being a Hunter again? 

But ..Nell was losing her powers for the sake of saving his life. If Adam was really considering taking on the mark and swearing himself to the Hells, shouldn’t it be to restore her powers, not his?

“Nell uh.” Adam swallowed, feeling the horrible tension of this last option in his chest as the sky gained streaks of livid violents and yellows in the countdown till sundown. 

“If I could make a deal to save your powers...even if it might mean doing something morally uh, not so great.” That admittedly was probably an understatement given what Ma’al true form actually was, but Adam didn’t want to foist that on Nell’s conscience. “Would you take it?”

He felt real shitty dropping this on Penelope as they were trying to resign themselves to their fate. But if he could offer her a chance to keep this part of herself...wasn’t even becoming Ma’al’s new pet wolf worth it? 

“I’ll do it if you need me too,” Adam assured, suddenly thankful for the tree’s unyielding support against his back. 

Nell’s face had been turned towards the sun as it continued to sink lower, half-convinced she could see every single millimeter disappear behind the horizon as it went. It felt as if it were some great celestial clock counting down the minutes she had left with her magic, and the moments left until she’d lose a piece of herself that was as much as part of her as an arm or leg. Then as Adam called her attention back, she sat back on her heels next to her tiny circle, satisfied with the work she’d done. “A deal?” she echoed first, not entirely certain what he’d meant by it. Her reflexive gut reaction was a quick reply of “Don’t do that.”

The little indent between her eyes furrowed as Nell tried to truly process what it was Adam was offering, and potentially at the expense of himself. “Listen-” she began carefully, hoping she’d somehow manage to find the right words. “When I came to help you- Sure- I didn’t know that it’d result in losing my magic. But well- the thing is-” She paused on the precipice of her words, still not quite used to bearing herself openly though she was getting used to it with Adam. “I’d still do it knowing what I know now.” Though her magic was the biggest price she could think to pay, there was one thing that she knew would demand an even larger toll, and it was losing someone she cared for as much as she did for the hunter before her. “And if it’s morally questionable- and I just got done telling you I’d help keep you from that…I wanna keep that promise to you.” There was a pause before she continued on. “I don’t know what I am without my magic,” she admitted with a hitch in her voice, “but I know it’s not a person that wants to have a hand in something that might hurt you.” This time she leaned forward to place a tentative hand on top of Adam’s. “But thank you.” She wasn’t sure how else to show that the gravity of his offer hadn’t been lost on her.

She glanced back at her circle, finally taking the daffodil seeds from her pocket. “Do you wanna help me?” she asked with a nod towards the magic runes, deciding that if they were going to have this transformation together- why shouldn’t they do this together as well? 

Adam wasn’t going to force anything on another person, but Nell’s decision still made his teeth grit down. Guilt and the trainwreck he’d brought his friends’ lives seemed to line his gut with lead. 

Morgan had told Adam something about what it was like to wield magic and lose it. Adam couldn’t really relate to be able to feel the universe coursing through him, that meld his pure intent with quantum fields, or beckon beings across universes through sheer desire. In truth, Adam was a pretty physical guy who was content with the simpler animal pleasures of life. 

Sure, he knew a lot more about other dimensions and otherworldly beings than people might expect from his test scores, but Adam's soldiering upbringing had viewed the multiverse as a dark and pitiless infinity full of eldritch predators and malevolent alien gods. 

Not exactly something you want to “embrace.” 

He wanted to be there for Nell, to be a pillar for her while she went through this loss like Morgan's girlfriend had been. But Adam worried that he couldn’t relate enough to how Penelope experienced the world to be who she needed him to be. When Nell had said earlier that intentions were powerful, the cold utilitarianism of ‘threats’, ‘tactical priorities’, and ‘strategic objectives’ that Adam was brought up in almost led him to say something dismissive before he stopped himself. 

It was that impulse Adam feared. Ideological baggage doesn’t just disappear. That bullshit stays with you, lodged deep in your brain stem somewhere, jumping out whenever you were scared or uncomfortable. Like when you were about to literally split out of your own skin and become something hunted by your own people. 

As just a random example. 

Adam got up and dusted off the leaves from his jeans and walked over to Nell. He took a knee by the arcane diagram. “So uh...we need to chant ominously in Latin or…?” 

Despite the heaviness of the air surrounding them, Nell cracked the beginnings of a smile while Adam posed his question, reminded of the time they’d worked on the demon amulet in her greenhouse. “I think I can carry the chanting part and make it just ominous enough.” Tearing open the seed packet with her teeth to sprinkle them over the center of the circle, she felt her the ache of her loss rise to meet her as she reached for her magic for the last time that mattered. “Remember when I said emotions can make magic stronger? Like the wolpertingers at my birthday party?” she asked. “They help fuel it and make it more powerful if you focus on them. And then it’s almost like you can just pour them into the spell. Just letting them leave you to create something new that isn’t exactly them.” Nell couldn’t help but feel that no amount of the dread and premature mourning for her abilities she put into the spell would be enough to chip away at them, but at least she could use them to form something that would live past that loss. “It’s like free magical therapy,” she tried to joke, though her hands wavered as she passed them over the seeds. “So if you just focus on what you’re feeling, and let them go into the spell- you’ll be helping too.” 

Nell reached forwards to lightly clasp Adam’s wrists in her hands, trying to guide his palms to the center of the circle where the seeds lay before resting them atop the soil. Pulling a hidden fingerstick out of a bobby pin from her hair that was kept for situations such as these, she looked at it for a moment too long— realizing there’d be no need for it after tonight. How many more things like this would she find after her magic was gone? Like little knives hiding around her life to slip between her ribs when she least expected it. Shaking the thought away she pricked the tip of Adam’s finger, letting the droplets of blood wet the dirt. Then she did the same to herself before covering the hunter’s hands with her own, the Latin falling from her as the blood mixed. She let every emotion she’d been forcing down for the past month painfully bubble up inside her until it felt like she might burst before letting it spill over into the magic. Slowly but surely, green shoots began to sprout through the cracks of their fingers, the stalks reaching towards the setting sun as new life was born, already desperate to survive. Nell could have gone further- taken the plants to completion and let them bloom. Instead she let the magic end after the daffodils had grown a few inches above the ground, wanting them to find their own way in a new world just as Nell and Adam would have to do in the coming days. 

“Well- that’s it, I guess,” Nell said shakily. It was over. “Chain time now?” she asked as casually as she could, tilting her head back towards their respective trees.

Adam looked up at a sky the color of blue slate, crisscrossed by the lines of cirrus clouds that’d had been lit up in a conflagration of deep carmine by the setting sun. The branches of the forest’s canopy stretched across the sky panoramy like arms through up against the crepular glare, the autumnal reds and oranges of their leaves transmuted into titian gold by the last sunlight passing through them. 

But shadows deepened in this last fading flare, lengthening from the trunks of trees, gnarled masses of roots, and undersides of the softly swaying branches. The leafy carpet of the forest floor darkened until the conjured daffodils seemed defiant against the gloom in their lush newborn yellow, basking in the last dappled rays. 

Adam glanced from the blood lingering on his finger to the daffodils that’d blossomed in the span of seconds. It occurred to him that...in a way...these flowers had come from him and Nell, there was a tiny part of him in those stems and blooms. “Woah Nell, like...that's amazing,” he breathed, not sure why this small last act of fertility should get so much more of a reaction then the crazier stuff he’d seen Nell do on the battlefield. 

Maybe this was part of what Morgan had meant about the universe becoming a part of you?

A cold dismissive part of Adam reminded himself that he wasn’t thoughtful or smart and he shouldn’t be doing galaxy-brain bullshit about some fucking flowers. It was the same remorseless inner voice that’d always reminded Adam that orders were orders, he needed to focus on the mission not the distractions. 

The boyish sense of wonder snapped off like a light switch. Even in his last minutes of humanity, the bone-deep conditioning still put blinders on Adam’s selfhood. 

“Yeah we need to get ready,” Adam rose to his feet again. He hesitated a moment, wondering if he should hug Nell, say something that he more felt for her then knew. 

Adam’s lips parted as he searched for words for a moment, but they closed as he swallowed down his own sense of guilt and failures as a man. He’d tried to meet Nell’s eyes, but quickly averted his own gaze and started busying himself with the chains, affixing heavy iron locks to his wrists. 

Nell mirrored his hesitation after they’d stood, knowing she wanted something in that moment— but uncertain how to act on it. But tonight they didn’t have time to find the words or motions, seemingly already a prisoner to the rising moon and setting sun despite the shift having not yet happened. The last grain of sand had fallen through their hourglass, and now they had to face the inevitable. This wasn’t the end— not really. But no matter how many times Nell tried to tell herself such, she couldn’t get the words to stick. Things were changing after tonight whether she liked it or not, doors closing and opening. Some were clear cut and well-defined like the loss of her magic, others were shrouded in darkness, unable to be found in the gloom of uncertainty that was where they went from here. The rooms the doors were closing on were the ends of many a thing she wasn’t wanting to relinquish, and even if she lived to see the sunrise it wouldn’t be what it was before.

At least Nell wouldn’t have to do it alone. This was the only good she could think of that was coming of tonight as she glanced over to Adam once more, still trying to find what it was she wanted to say. Instead she focused on shackling herself, locking the cold metal around her wrists in a way that was little too reminiscent of her prisoner days in the Ring. Ignoring the shiver that went down her spine, she decided this was her last chance to say something and did her best. “This is gonna sound shitty- and I don’t mean it like that but...if I was gonna get bit I’m glad it’s with you.” It wasn’t perfect, but it’d have to do. 

The last ray of light blinked out of existence in those last moments, and Nell waited- not knowing in the least how to prepare for what was coming, going forth into the darkness with the realization that at least she had one, tiny lantern in the form of the guy who’d stumbled into the Ring looking for a demon amulet all those months ago. She didn’t know how they’d gotten here, but even now she wouldn’t change it, somehow grateful in these last moments for it. Nell waited until the pinks and purples of the sky stopped reflecting against the new glass of the lake, waited for what felt like hours but couldn’t have been more than mere seconds. Waited until she heard the first cricket begin its song, and there wasn’t a scrap of light left in the sky. But there was nothing. Her hands were still her hands, her feet still encased in the sneakers she’d worn, and her magic…

Nell reached for it once again, a half-laugh, half-cry of relief breaking from her lips as she realized that one in a million had come to fruition. The full moon had come, and she was still here, human and magic and everything she’d been before. Instantly she tried to crane her head towards Adam’s direction, struggling to get far enough away from the tree to see him clearly in the new darkness. “Adam?” she asked carefully, unsure whether she’d get words or a wolfish snarl in response. She repeated his name more insistently. “Adam? Are you there?”

Adam felt the moon in his blood. The air felt heavy around him, as the tidal pull of the moon was ripping at his body. Energic pressure seemed to press down on Adam. His heartbeat hammered in his temples. 

Nell said something to him. Where was he?

Red tinged thoughts flooded into Adam’s head, a visceral longing that quickened his breath and brought up goosebumps of frisson along his skin. 

He needed to snap Nell’s neck, to hold her close as she went still and cold. 

It’d make him strong again. Whole again. 

The Hunter’s Moon whispered in Adam’s veins like wine seeping deep into his bloodstream. 

But Adam looked down at his hands and saw only human fingers. 

The fuck? Why’d he feel this way...the moon...what was going on?

“Yeah I’m here.”

Nell muttered a spell to unlock the metal around her wrists, a wave of relief once tumbling through her as Adam voiced his confirmation. “You’re okay? You’re human?” she asked again, as if she could hardly believe it. And why should she? Kaden had said their odds were one in a million and here they were— apparently two in one million. “You’re sure?” Another breathless laugh found her as she marveled at their luck. “We fucking did it,” she said before stepping forwards to unlock Adam’s own shackles, even though they’d had no hand in deciding their fates when it came to turning into werewovles or not. Gone was the hesitation she’d felt before they’d locked themselves to the tree, rushing forwards to throw herself into Adam for a hug as elation made quick work of any previous uncertainties.

Adam looked at the places on his wrist that Nell had unlocked the shackles from. There were no signs of struggle. He hadn’t just wolfed and out blacked out. His clothes weren’t shredded and Nell was elated. 

What happened? Had his mutation differentiated into those of a Beast Hunter after that encounter with the wolves, granting him immunity? But if that was the case how had Nell not contracted it? 

Adam took Nell into his arms, just content with the reassuring presence of it as his brain still tried to go through the stages of shock, acceptance, and relief. He tried to banish that ingrained Hunter paranoia and just enjoy being alive and human with Nell. “Yeah, we made it,” Adam affirmed back to her in a murmur as he held Penelope close. 

The moon burned like molten silver in the sky, seeming to briefly ripple into deep crimson in Adam’s vision like a heat mirage. He could feel Nell’s heartbeat against his chest. Even as he craved Nell’s touch to reassure him that this was real, that they were really going to make it, a small savage thought slithered into Adam’s mind. 

What would it be like to feel that heartbeat stop?

Somehow Adam knew...without knowing how...that it’d make him strong, vital, ecstatically alive.

He pushed the thought away, hoping it was just some lingering trace of lycanthropy in his bloodstream reacting to the full moon.

Yeah, must be. 

His embrace tightened around Penelope, content to just hold her close and just ...be..for a little while, enjoying this unexpected act of mercy from the universe.

[asterekmess]

S3A - E3

Hiya, back with another episode of the rewatch. I am...not looking forward to this episode. *deep breath* here we go.

Read More’s save sanity

Hey, so I know this is a really heavy first bullet point...but isn’t anybody else uncomfortable with the image of a black boy running around out of his mind with fury and bloodlust and going after little...white kids? Am I reading too much into this? I know Cora’s running around too. I just...whatever, I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut.

Straight from way too heavy to way too light. So that girl dropped a big jar of fireflies, but they say that fireflies that actually glow aren’t native to California, which would mean these are part of the whole magic thing going on, and at the end of the whole firefly thing they get rid of all the fireflies. So...what if someone finds that jar and opens it?

...nevermind the jar opened up somehow...

Okay, listen, I have a petty and biased hatred for this moment with Scott. Like...is it so hard to say, “I had to get the kids he was chasing away from him?” It’s not like they don’t have time..they just stand there in silence for a while. I also hate the savior pose he strikes there with the kids clinging to him. Like, I get that it’s a very common trope. I still hate it. I use the anti-scott tag for a reason, let me be salty.

why te fuck does Scott FLOAT in the intro?

Lydia has seriously emptied an entire bottle of ibuprofen? She should be dead. Or at least at a hospital. She’s too smart not to know how dangerous it is to take ibuprofen (even the recommended dosage) for too long at a time.

Lydia...Lydia knows about werewolves now. Did no one tell her about this whole escape plan for the betas? She could’ve helped.

Cue the shitty SFX running. Y’all look ridiculous.

Man, come on. Are you seriously telling me that Derek never played hide and seek with his siblings? Like, they’re werewolves for fuck’s sake. Derek never did fake chases through the woods? He tracked PETER for christ’s sake, all the way across town. He was like yards behind him before he got shot that one time.

This show relies a lot on character’s losing time and just finding themselves places. Jackson losing time, Lydia losing time. Lydia losing time again, but in a new way. Later, it’ll be Stiles losing time. I’m just saying, it happens a lot.

It’s fucking august in California. Does it actually get that cold? Poor Lydia’s nose is always red cus she gets forced to wander around in the dark and freezing. I can see her goosebumps when she kneels next to the pool.

I know it’s gotta be hell on her voice, but I think it’s so interesting the way Lydia screams and how it has to jump around the chords before hitting that one note. I don’t know why I find that so interesting. Guess it just reminds me of a wolf howl. Seriously, look ‘em up. Weirdly similar. GO  Holland!

What do you mean the last memory that she had of her mother, Scott? You should’ve told her RIGHT THEN. Right off the bat. There was TONS of time between her getting bit and when she died. You should’ve told Allison right away. Fuck you, you had all of spring break!

god fucking damn it now I’m crying again. Erica, sweetie...Derek honey...

I’m trying to get past the tears to enjoy this romancey stuff, with the candles and the lil lamps, and the LOTR references. I’m really trying.

This is totally not what I should be thinking about while watching the two of them make out, but like, so does Caitlin not go to their school? She just sort of appears a couple times, but Stiles doesn’t seem to know her. Maybe she went to the same school as Heather?

don’t like bugs don’t like bugs ew ew ew ew

Hi cora!

Isaac! You’re somehow feeling better, even though you were apparently out of commission like an hour or two ago...wait huh?

I gotta say, okay, listen I just can’t help it. I know this is serious, but that lil smirk on Isaac’s face? I don’t think he looks smug, personally, I think he looks like he’s about to go play, go rolling around in the grass and leaves, playing with a pack member. He’s been alone for so long this summer, what with Jackson leaving. he’s had no wolves to play with (cus’ we know Derek’s a grump). As worried as he’s gotta be, I bet he’s having funnnnnn.

I..uh..Cora what sound is coming out of your mouth? That..that does not sound like a wolf. That sounds like a wild cat of some kind. Wolves don’t make that screechy noise. They bark and growl, like the sound that came just before. That doesn’t even sound like a roar. Who gave you cheetah sounds?? You’re canine, not feline. Come on they did SO WELL with Derek’s sounds-- No. NO Do not tell me they gave Cora cat sounds cus she’s a chick. I’m gonna fight someone. (For those of you interested, if you scroll to the bottom of this webpage, you can listen to wolf growl snippets and they’re such good quality (I think the bark snippet is broken tho). Listen to those whimpers and whines too, fucking fascinating. I love wolves. Such beautiful animals.)

Cora with Isaac and Scott attacking her and growling at her: “Fuck you, I’ll bite you!” Cora with Derek just growling at her: “BYE bro!”

Stiles, honey! I missed you! Literally, just the sound of your voice makes me feel better.

Scott, Seriously, Derek just said you haven’t tracked either of them anywhere near the pool. You’ve both been following them all night! Yeah, they’re dangerous, but they couldn’t get to the pool and back in time to fight you! I”M GONNA SMACK YOU. DOn’t use that fucking patronizing tone of voice when Derek is TELLING YOU FACTS.

OUR fault? OUR FAULT? I’m gonna fucking *kicks a chair and storms off, grumbling* *Spins around, cus fuck it i’m gonna yell. it’s my post.* NONE OF THIS is DEREK”S FAULT. NOne of this is ISAAC’S FAULT. Fuck dude, I’ll even say that it’s not Scott’s fault! If it’s anyone other than the Alphas’ fault, it’s Allison’s, but tbf she thought she was helping.

DEREK SHUT YOUR PRETTY MOUTH. I swear to god.

ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING? DEREK WOULD NEVER SUGGEST MURDERING BOYD AND CORA. NEVER. He thought Cora was fucking dead and he just found out she’s alive! HE WOULD NEVER. NEVER. FUCK YOU. FUCK EVERYTHING. *Throws a plate* YOU KNOW YOU ONLY FUCKING WROTE IT SO THAT YOU COULD SHOW OFF SCOOT MCFUCKFACE’S SUDDEN FLIP IN MORALITY BY HAVING HIM SAY THAT “KILLING ISN’T THE RIGHT THING TO DO” OH REALLY Scott? REALLY? Killing is bad? YOU DIDN’T THINK SO WHEN YOU SPENT MONTHS attempting to commit PREMEDITATED MURDER of a GUY WHO WAS ALREADY DYING. MONTHS. Scott. FUCK YOU. FUCK THIS SHOW. 13 minutes in and I’m already about to chuck my laptop across the room. MY CAT WON’T EVEN CUDDLE ME ANYMORE I’M SO ANGRY.

And now I’m really fucking sad, cus’ I hate watching this poor girl get told she’s just hallucinating.

WHY does everyone go shopping at fucking 8 pm in Beacon Hills? What...Chris you don’t even have a day job.

I don’t...I don’t understand this scene with Isaac. Like..what exactly are they trying to imply? That he thinks she’s hot? All he’s seen is her raging around with fangs free and glowing eyes. And yeah, some people definitely think that’s hot. But like...that’s just so...what? I choose to read this scene as him just wondering about Derek’s home life. Like, “Since when do you have siblings? Why don’t you tell me these things? I have an aunt?”

WHAT DO YOU mean “Your world?” CHRIS YOU GREW UP AS A HUNTER. THIS IS YOUR WORLD TOO. He was YOUR dad. You’ve been a part of this WAY longer than Scott! Don’t blame the werewolves for ruining your life! THAT WAS YOUR DAD and YOUR STUPID HUNTER CODE’S FAULT.

OKay, listen, I have so many issues with this I need a therapist to mediate my conversations with it. FUCK YOU TW for bringing in Chris. I dont’ give a fuck if he’s experienced or trying to redeem himself. He is a HUNTER he has Slaughtered Derek’s kind for his entire life. He may want to do the right thing, but the right thing definitely doesn’t involved him Standing in front of Derek and forcing him to listen to hunter PROPAGANDA BULLSHIT. I’M SO FUCKING MAD. This was so inappropriate, holy shit. SO far beyond okay. Even the CONCEPT that werewolves wouldn’t be as good at tracking other werewolves as hunters are is fucking stupid. You said it yourself, Chris they can follow scent up to TWO MILES AWAY. Wolves can track their prey for weeks without losing the scent. Just because Isaac stepped on some footprints doesn’t mean he’s incapable of finding them. And what’s all this shit about them “Being able to rely on their human half”? NO? First off, minor detail. Werewolves aren’t half wolf, half human, dumbass. They’re all werewolf. AND The show has said like Ten TIMES that they can’t access their human form/the thought processes they would normally have during a full moon without an anchor, and Boyd and Cora are effectively anchorless on this moon. This is just utter bullshit and I’m so goddamn angry I don’t even know how to process it. “If you’re not trained like me you have no idea this print is Boyd’s” YEAH THEY DO. THEY CAN LITERALLY SMELL IT.  DEREK ALREADY IDENTIFIED THE TRACKS. FUCK you.

ALSO. Getting REAL SICk of people slicing their wrists every time they need a little blood for a ritual or for bait. YOU CUT THE MEAT of the arm. ON THE BACK. WHERE YOU WON”T HIT a VEIN. DUMBASSES.

WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK DO YOU MEAN NINE YEARS DEREK? YOU’D BETTER MEAN CORA WAS NINE YEARS OLD, CUS’ THE FIRE WAS SIX YEARS AGO. and what do you mean you don’t have a lock on her scent? you’ve been following it just fine all night! Wolves remember human scents decades later.

Booooo, i hate the entire concept of wolves going mad on a full moon. It’s lazy and boring. Wolves are not vicious animals, they’re shy as fuck. THey don’t attack without reason. Werewolves should be the same. Full moon’s enhance their wolfishness, so it should make them MORE SHY. The moon should enhance whatever they feel, rather than just making them mindlessly aggressive.

“Primal apex Predatory satisfaction”? seriously? Shut the FUCK up Chris, I’m really fucking sick of your hunter bedtime stories.

....i hate this woman.

Casual reminder that Isaac wouldn’t suggest Killing boyd. Ever. I fucking hate these writers.

yeah yeah, running scene. blah blah blah.

See, I never really understood those fics where Peter just refuses to give anyone any info. He tells Derek what’s up constantly. He didn’t lie or hold anything back when he helped Derek figure out what was up with Jackson or how Jackson needed Lydia to be cured. He walks right up to Derek and says “Hey, so those Alphas clearly want you to join them and that means they’re trying to make you kill your own pack” Peter helps Derek all the time. He’s just a dick while he does it.

Look, I love this moment with Peter, his “Let Scott be the hero of his morally black and white world. You and I, we live in shades of gray” lines are so good, and they speak so much to his character and personality. And he’s right. But I hate that they built the scene around Derek planning to kill his own pack, and following Scott around doing as he asks. I just hate what they do to Derek here.

The dog whistles suddenly have no effect on their hearing? Love it.

Take a second to bring up a plotline you won’t explain for ages. I vibe with that, so long as it is eventually explained.

OOh, suddenly BHHS has a football field?

Not gonna cry, not gonna cry. FUCK I’m crying again.

I just...dude I’m over here trying not to completely lose my shit and cry like a baby, and Stiles is in the middle of panicking and losing his oldest friend and he still puts the dots together. Like. Jesus christ this boy.

NOW Derek? You choose NOW to take Every Single Step down the stairs? JUMP.

...what is this a cartoon? Glowing eyes in the dark? one too many sets? Yeah, yeah, I get it, they’re supposed to look like fireflies.

Why did you stop to look at each other after blasting them? Just go.

OH, yeah, of course Scott has to be the one to hear the extra heartbeat. Scott. Not Derek. Not the ALpha who’s senses are heightened above the a Beta’s. Not DEREK the ALPHA who has a PACK, which makes his senses even stronger that that. No. Scott. The omega. Because he’s like an inch closer to the door. Yah. Sure. That makes sense. SUre.

Dude I wish my high school had that much backup supplies free for the teacher’s to grab. Also, I hate this woman.

WHy were the lights off in the boiler room if she was in the back grabbing stuff? That..what?

OH. I forgot, so Caitlin’s out of high school? She’s...what, 18? 19? Okay, fine, I’ll take that.

Oh stop faking Jennifer, fuck you.

Crying again. dont’ mind me. This is Derek. Not choosing to kill his beta or his long lost sister. Choosing to die himself instead. THAT is Derek (it’s self-sacrificing and it’s because he gives his own life no worth, but it’s still him.)

HOW IS IT DAWN? THAT WOULD BE like 6 HOURS of standing around! Or did the sun not set until like 10 pm? Hm? This show has no concept of time, and werewolves are very time oriented. Someone take away the show from the writers. They’ve lost their privileges.

I hate this. I hate that Isaac shouts for Scott. Not Derek. That’s just so fucking dumb. I’m so tired of it. I’m just so fucking sick of it.

I don’t even wanna look at this. I hate this woman so much.

YOU REALIZE that the third Virgin was Taken. The third virgin is DEAD. the sacrifices have been made, and now Jennifer has control over people. This is where she starts controlling Derek. Right Fucking Here. He loses his agency the moment they touch, if not the moment they make eye contact or he gets in range. I hate it. I HATE IT.

BOOM. Episode three, and Stiles already has the villain after next figured out. He’s past the Alphas now. 

Final Thoughts: I’m angry, I’m tired, and I honestly got very little joy or interest out of this whole episode. I hate what this show did to werewolves and how much insane Scott glorification there is and how every little thing HAS to be about Scott. Scott’s relationship with Chris. Scott saving the kids. Scott’s the one Isaac calls for. Scott’s the one who hears the heartbeats. I get that he’s the main character. I also hate that he’s the main character. It’s just so sad and pathetic and boring and just....ugh. I’m going to bed. I will try for another episode or two tomorrow.

(I promise I’m okay. Just go listen to the wolf howls for me in that link, huh? Listen to those beauties and imagine how amazing a wolf show could have been.)

[serendipitioussurvival]

Queen and Gentry - Steter

His life was empty without her, his chest always felt hollow without her. She enraged him like no other and made him feel so fucking vulnerable that he worried she was his weakness. In the same breath when she smiled at him so genuinely it made him feel like he could rock the fucking world. When she had been hurt, however, it made him feel like he was lost at sea in the middle of a typhoon or hurricane. And when he had been too lost in his thoughts it was her gentle calling of ‘Big bad?’ or ‘hey assface!’ that had him returning.

Oh. Fuck.

It started with small things; brief touches against his arm that could be mistaken for her trying to shoulder check him, or offering him meals and little desserts that she had made. Then she started to show up at his address - how she had gotten it made him proud and annoyed, it was his home dammit - and made sure he came to pack meets. Because she gravitated towards his side during pack meets so did Erica and Vernon until they, too, were scenting him as pack. It was insulting and beautiful at first until he began to feel the pack bonds with them form. Stiles had saved them, they followed her as if she were their alpha, and because she was including him - for whatever reason - he was a part of their small pack. 

Because Peter rarely took anything without giving something - though that something was often in the form of scathing replies, sarcastic wit, and dramatic eye rolls - in return, he made sure to start ‘leaving’ books around on magic for the little Spark to read up on. It went from small things to a very real, very important thing the moment she, Erica, and Vernon stood up for him when Scott and Derek found out that he was teaching them how to fight and defend themselves, how to work as a unit. Scott, as expected, was pissed off that they - his pack - were doing something that would promote violence behind his back.

Derek was pissed off that his sired beta’s had not asked him to teach them, especially when he had tried before. 

“You tried, sourwolf? I’m fairly certain that what you did was literally throw around three betas without giving them an idea of what they were supposed to do and or focus on, and then - when they were hurt, you broke their bones to get the healing factor to kick in faster!” Stiles raged, standing in front of the three betas with a glare that was equal to that of an Alpha. “Peter told them how to use their senses, how to get their healing to kick in faster without extra pain. He’s been at it longer, he’s been a Beta longer, he knows how to teach other Betas to control their shift and find their anchors.” then, with a fury that made her breathtaking, she rounded on Scott. 

“And you! You expect everyone to just lay down and not cause a fight because you’re a fucking ‘True Alpha’?! You’re still a teenager, Scott, people will see that before they see you as the ‘True Alpha’ you’re trying to keep as a claim. What if another Gerard shows up, Scott, huh? What if he takes Erica and Vernon again, what if they decide that they want to shoot up some of our pack after they agree to a peace treaty? Huh? What then?!” 

“We still have to give them that option for peace, Stiles!” he urged, confused as to hell why she was so adamant on siding with Peter when she normally was on his side with certain arguments. “Gerard was a mistake, but -”

“Allison was the one who shot them full of arrows!” Stiles was a spastic, energetic, and loud girl. Such was why her calm, curt, still fury was so worrying for those in the room. “Allison, Scott, and I love her like a sister, but it was Ali who shot them full of arrows, repeatedly, because Gerard manipulated her.” 

“Gerard was evil-” Scott tried, angry for her bringing up Allison but also sad because she had. 

“There are more people like Gerard than you know, Scott.” and maybe it was because his friend, his sister, was looking at him like he was a moron or a child, but it had Scott raging. 

“People like Peter?! He killed people too!” and maybe that wasn’t exactly the right thing to say, because now Derek was edging towards Stiles, choking on her anger and wanting her to calm down because Erica and Vernon were tensing for a fight behind her. 

“Peter killed guilty people who deserved to fucking die.” Peter had never had anyone he wasn’t openly manipulating angry for him. For Stiles to be so on his side, to agree with what he had done… “Peter didn’t take a human fucking girl from the middle of a Lacrosse win to beat her senseless so she could be made into a message to the Alpha and her werewolf best friend.” and to that the entire room stiffened.”You knew,” she spat,  “You just didn’t want to believe it.” 

“You-you're lying-” before he could finish the half-hearted attempt to regain control of the situation - his mind, honestly - Erica and Vernon both growled and shifted with intent to hurt him. 

“No.” All it took was for Stiles to look at both of them for them to remain where they were and calm down, burning cinnamon cooling down and releasing its grip on the ‘were’s in the room. “Scott, are you ordering us as Alpha to stop these training sessions?” she was furious, but there was a calm acceptance to her that actually scared the ‘were’s. This felt like a charged moment, like whatever Scott said would change everything. 

“I -” Scott wanted to say yes, he really did, but he understood the need for everyone to learn how to protect themselves. Ever since that lacrosse game, Stiles had quit and gone to some self-defense classes that a few of her dad’s colleagues were putting her through. Now she was learning how to fight werewolves from Peter and Scott - Scott only saw Peter as using this for an opportunity to turn his friends against him. 

“He’s turning you against me, can’t you see that’s what he’s doing?” He tried again, needing his friend, his sister, to see reason. 

“You didn’t answer my question. Is that an order, Alpha McCall?” it was in instances like this that Peter saw how truly remarkable of a wolf she would make. Her fury was calculated and directed with a level of intelligence that would make other Alpha’s blush. She knew just what to say to utterly demolish her opponent and she could say it with a ferocity that rivaled a raging Omega. 

“No.” Scott bit out, shoving his hands into his hair to try and relieve the pressure that was building there. 

“Good, then we’re not going to discuss what I do in my free time with pack members you neglect.” In a movement that could be taken as a challenge to any other Alpha Stiles spun around, openly rubbed her cheek against Erica’s, then Boyd’s, and finally, with a narrowed glare that dared Peter to try and deny her, rubbed the other side of her cheek against his previously scarred one. She smelled of rain when he actually moved his face into the motion, scenting her back despite how stunned he still was. “You are the Alpha, Scotty, but I am the Emissary and this is my pack.” 

After that she and Scott got into arguments frequently, most of which devolved into screaming matches that had the other pack members flinching away from the table. Lydia and Allison were, surprisingly enough, on Stiles’s side, despite saying that Scott still had some good points to his arguments. Peter never needed to be dragged to another Pack meet again as he went willingly. 

It was a month later that she called a pack meeting, asking for everyone to show up. When everyone - including Chris Argent - was present in the room - including one confused Alan Deaton - Stiles entered the loft smelling of Peppermint and ash. 

“I’m adding one more to our pack.” and, as expected, confusion and alarm broke out. 

“Who?” Chris asked her, drowning out the questions of ‘What have you done’ and ‘what do you mean?’

“Deucalion.” she stayed standing in the doorway, arms crossed, defiant and completely set in her decision despite the two shouts that were immediately aimed at her. Scott being the loudest. “You granted him mercy, but you also made him an Omega. Omega’s go fucking crazy, you really want to deal with a crazy Deucalion?”

“I agreed with her,” Derek told him when he stood by her side, surprising Scott further. “He learned how to fight while he was blind, Scott, he learned how to utilize his senses in a way I’ve never even heard of. Stiles, Erica, Boyd and I already met with him a couple times.” 

“You already met him? You already decided on this without asking me, without-” 

“It’s what I’m doing now, Scott. Pack meet, pack discuss, pack decide. I started checking on him to make sure he wasn’t losing his sanity, that was three months ago.” and Chris, god bless him, was the voice of reason right alongside his daughter and Lydia. 

“Erica, Vernon, you’re okay with him joining the pack?” because he had been the one who had taken them captive and held them captive for months until Stiles had found them. 

“He stopped Kali from torturing us,” Erica announced with a shrug from her spot on the spiral staircase beside Peter. “Honestly I think he’s the only reason I’m alive, Kali was especially pissed off that day. He’s… he’s not the same.” 

“I think it’s because he got his eyesight back,” Boyd agreed, arm wrapped tight around Erica while she sat between his legs on the staircase, just a few steps below Peter. “If he tries anything, well, we’re a large pack, we can take him.” 

“He’s another Alpha!” Scott distressed, “he could just kill me and take over the pack!” Stiles rolled her eyes and looked to Derek, as if asking for him to take over. Peter was too awed at the way Stiles had changed, at the way she seemed to no longer be trying to actively hide her true self from everyone and instead embraced it with conviction that had him hungry for her. When Derek put his hands up in a ‘It’s all on you’ motion she sighed heavily and turned her champagne gold eyes on Scott.

“Scott, no offense bud, but I could kill you, and take the Alpha spot. You don’t come to training, you don’t try to run with the others on the full moon, and you’re actively denying your wolf’s instincts.” of course he had, he never wanted to be a werewolf! “See, that’s exactly my point!” ah, this was the point where it would divulge into a screaming match. “You don’t want it, never wanted it, so you’re denying it while trying to keep the authority of it! You can’t be an absent leader, Scott!” 

“You don’t know what it’s like!” it was funny how he became the flailing ones whereas Mieczyslawa was the calm, collected hurricane she was always meant to be. 

“Scott, you don’t have Asthma anymore, you’re basically always fucking ripped, you can literally feel familial bonds, you’ve gained more attention from the female Populus in these past two years than you ever had, and you made first line as well as Captain of the Lacrosse team!” her hand slapped harshly into her chest and drew a flinch from those that cared about her. “You could still be asthmatic getting chunky with me on fast food and snacks spending every Friday night binging video games and sitting on the bench during lacrosse games while we lament about how we wish things were different. You found your anchor, your mom literally told you to fucking stick it to someone who could kill her because she believed in you. You’re only problems are because you’re denying that wolf side of you that you keep seeing as a monster!” 

“Well why don’t you ask me to bite you then so you can be a wolf!” and there it was, the question Peter had been asking himself ever since she had denied him in the parking garage what felt like an eternity ago. 

“Because it would hurt too fucking much to realize you don’t need me as much as I need you.” and that… well, Peter understood that. It brought the whole situation into perspective for him and brought a whole new understanding to her reaction when he had asked her. She didn’t want to be like him, that had been a truth and a lie, because if she turned into a werewolf she would’ve been like him. Bondless, alone and on the road to insanity that most likely would’ve resulted in her death. “Pack vote on Deucalion.” amidst the awkward atmosphere the majority vote was for Deucalion joining, Scott was too stunned to put his own vote in, let alone deny said vote. 

Erica and Vernon flanked her when she took her leave, putting all attention on Scott as he stood, flabbergasted, in the same spot he had been in. Few people glanced to Allison, as if to gauge her reaction to hearing that - was it a confession? - declaration from her best friend toward her ex-boyfriend. 

“Well, it was about time for that.” Lydia expressed with a dramatic sigh as she pushed away from the table. “It’s not a romantic confession, Scott, so don’t go thinking too highly of yourself. Honestly,” she smacked her lips and eyed the room with a hint of distaste. “I hoped she’s snap sooner or later, called me out at the Homecoming but didn’t care that she was hiding her real personality from everyone.” She sniffed derisively and flicked her hair over her shoulder, glaring at Peter with a tone of acceptance that hadn’t previously been there. “Hm.” and with that high pitched huff of approval and acceptance, she sashayed her way out of the room. 

Peter wasn’t sure how he was supposed to actually react to the current scheme of things. Not only had Stiles openly declared that Peter was a part of her pack, but she would also openly fight Scott for his current placement in her scheme of things. Her pack, which consisted of Deucalion, peter, Erica, Vernon, and apparently Lydia. From the look that was shared between Chris and Allison, the two were in favor of what Stiles was saying. It was then that Peter made sense of the little touches she made sure to do to him, the way she made meals or gave him little baked goods. How she was always, always trading sneers with him and openly challenging him. The entire time she had been scenting him, considering him pack, showing him he had a place with her. 

He was strangely touched and insulted that a teenage girl thought that she could force a pack bond on him just because she didn’t want to deal with him going omega crazy again. In the same breath he knew that wasn’t why she had done it, she would’ve told him outright if that had been her reasoning, instead she showed up at his house so often that her scent could always be found in some corner of his apartment, left a few of her jackets - there was even a cover she used when she showed up very suddenly declaring that she was going to use his couch to sleep and if he touched her she would wolfsbane mace him. He had been too stunned at her brashness to even react before she was curled up on his couch with a fluffy cover curled around shoulders. 

When he had recovered he had wanted to bang his pots together, toss her off the couch, play the T.V at its loudest volume. Instead he found himself walking softly, barely using the oven, let alone the microwave in case the sound was too loud to wake her up, and checked on her frequently to make sure that she was fine. 

Little tart took that as permission to do it frequently too. Still, through all this he only knew of Stiles being ‘Stiles’ - he didn’t want to make her presence seem permanent in his life by hiring a P.I to find out her real name (since none of her fucking friends knew it, thank you Scott) - and was utterly floored when it was Deucalion who called her true name out in the middle of a sparring practice. 

“You’re doing good, Mieczyslawa, this time focus on the way the air feels against your skin. You’re not a werewolf, but you can feel the change, every human can. You just have to attune yourself to it.” she nodded and vanilla sprouted from her in her pleasure at having her true name called so perfectly. “I’ll go slow and progress the more successful you are.” another nod but neither were ignorant of the stares centered on them. Stiles was not a werewolf but she was doing better than Erica and Vernon when it came to the training Deucalion implemented. She was doing so well, in fact, that it often meant she was doing lessons with him on the side, or during breaks in between their training sessions. 

She didn’t dodge the first time Deucalion shoved her though she did follow his movements when he stalked around her. After the first three shoves she managed to dodge or swipe his hand away, then after that she stumbled only twice, managing to keep up pace with him until he started using his werewolf speed. 

“Okay,” she sighed heavily and settled into a stance, captivating them all with her pure ozone that leaked from her. “Deuce, try again.” to his credit he did without hesitation. Where she once fumbled she was now sure in her movements, where she was choppy she was now graceful, and the pace with which she moved had increased until both their limbs were nothing but blurs. “I’m fucking NEO!” she shouted in glee after the session, cackling madly with Erica at her side, questioning just how the fuck she had done that. 

Peter, however, was trying to remember how Deucalion had pronounced her name, tried to form it without being too obvious. He would never admit, even under the threat of torture, that he was jealous that Deucalion knew what her real name was and, from the way they were talking in another language that sounded harsh and beautiful, could also speak whatever language it was she was fluent in. 

“It’s Polish,” Deucalion answered his unasked question when Erica and Vernon left with Stiles hours later. Peter tried not to seem too interested when he looked at Deucalion but felt his eyebrow twitching when the man was wiping his hands on a rag, grinning slightly every time he glanced at Peter as if he were amused. “Her name and the language.” he wondered how he knew but refused to ask it, he didn’t want him to think that Peter owed him for answering simple questions. If he elected to talk without being asked anything then that was his business, Peter was just enjoying his confusing day. “We looked into the human who taught a sireless Beta how to control himself, though we thought she was a Druid at first.” with a shrug Deucalion tossed the rag on his shoulder and crossed his arms over his chest. “You can imagine our surprise and suspicion when we found she wasn’t a Druid and was purely human.”

Purely human? Yes, that’s what he had thought at first too.

“Then she trespasses onto our territory, charms Ennis, and takes our hostages before they can even be utilized.” yes, he had been shocked all to hell and back when she showed up at the old Hale House with two twitchy Betas and a ghost. The ghost being his niece whom he thought was dead, another one who had been abandoned like he had. She had recently gone back to South America - Beacon Hills was ‘too cold’ for her - but she and Peter kept in touch through Skype and phone calls. 

“Erica says you stopped Kali from torturing them,” to his credit the Alpha sighed heavily and sank into the pillar of the porch. “Why?”

“Because Derek was supposed to kill them, if they perished before they got the chance then that was one less beta who’s abilities he could absorb.” He was honest, at least, so points for him. “Now… now I think it would’ve been a great loss to involve her any more than she had been.” it most definitely would have been, Stiles had the severity of loyalty that made her put her own life in front of those she cared for. 

Peter didn’t expect him to be one of those people, especially since he could fucking heal. 

“You stupid, idiot girl!” he panicked and clutched her tighter to his chest while Chris drove them to the hospital. “What gave you the right!? I can heal but you can’t you -” her pinched expression turned wry, even though the pain he was trying to drain from her but couldn’t because the little tart was somehow stopping him from doing it. “Let me take your pain!” 

“You’re-” she groaned and shut her eyes tight, “So dramatic, it’s just a - just a bullet.” Just a bullet, yeah for him maybe! It had been intended for his heart but she had fucking jumped right in front of it and took it instead. He would kill her, he would save her first and then kill her and then bring her back just to kill her again for causing this pain in his chest. He hadn’t even wanted her fucking pack bond and now he could feel the pain she was denying him from taking through it and he couldn’t- “Peter, breathe.” and with her calm placations he raged. Her, who was currently bleeding profusely into Chris’s back seat, was going to tell him to calm down when she could be dying!? 

“Fuck you.” he snapped, then - “Let me take your pain damn you!” her brows furrowed even deeper at that, as if she didn’t know why he couldn’t. 

“I’m not - not stopping you from doing it.” and it was hard to tell if she were lying or telling the truth because her hummingbird heartbeat was fucking normal and that did absolutely nothing for his control. “An-anyway, hunting season, I just, rounded a mend when - someone took a shot.” she grimaced and sank into Peter’s hold. “Didn’t - didn’t-”

“My daughter and Isaac stuck around to try and find the Hunter while Peter and I rushed you to the hospital.” Chris finished when she started coughing, jaw tight every time he looked at her through the rearview mirror. “We were tracking the deer when we came around the cliff face overlooking the city when the shot rang out.” she sagged completely against him and nodded briefly, eyelids lowering slowly as the exhaustion set in. “The hunter used a 30.06 and that’s a common hunting rifle caliber. It’ll all be plausible.” Chris was impressed with her ability to come up with an alibi even through her pain, that didn’t mean he was calm. He didn’t have a werewolf’s sensory amplification but he could smell her blood as if it were covering him. The normally fair-skinned girl was now sickly pale with sweat making her hair stick to her forehead and her eyes - which were regularly black - now looked sunken. 

“Peter, don’, don’ wolf out, kay?” she breathed, “‘m fine. ‘n don’ wolf out ‘n Scott, either. Chris, don’ le’ em.” she cleared her throat and hissed when Peter jumped out of the car the moment Chris pulled it up in front of the Emergency entrance. “Hi, ‘lissa!” she chirped when several nurses motioned for Peter to put her on a gurney, beaming even though her eyelids were drooping shut again. “Fancy meet’n you here.” 

“I just thought I'd stop by.” Melissa offered through the tears that had started to shed at the sight of Stiles covered in blood. Chris was rushing in the exact moment they wheeled her away, leaving two panicking adults while another nurse tried to get answers from them. He took over easily enough, especially when Peter completely froze at the sight of her blood on his hands. Chris could only assume what was going through his head - he was certain that it had to do something with the darkest part of his memories -  and didn’t want to push him too far less he snap and wolf out. 

It was strangely easy to get Peter to one of the showers in an empty room they’d been led to so that he could wash his arms and hands. Nothing could be done for the shirt, but then again Peter would still be able to smell her blood. Erica and Vernon came later, breathing hard and immediately gravitating near Peter. Jeorek came minutes later and was immediately dragged away by Melissa and a doctor. 

Peter was furious, he was sad, he was enraged and he was so fucking confused. He couldn’t take her pain but she wasn’t stopping him from doing it. She had taken a bullet meant for him and he was covered in her fucking life blood and he didn’t like it. She had placated him even though she were in pain and he didn’t fucking know what all of this meant. 

He knew his bond that he had with her hurt, that it was aching and dulling the longer time went on - he wasn’t sure if that was because she was dying or because she was sedated, he hoped beyond hope that it was the latter. If it was the former he- well, he wasn’t sure what he would do, or how he would react. He knew, faintly, that his thoughts were calm and hectic, that he had underlying thought processes ranging from several ‘what ifs’ to dozens of ‘but this could happen’, none of it really went focused on for more than a second overtop the large, terrifying thought, of ‘She could die.’

She could die. 

She could die.

She was probably dying.

She was - and it was because of him - maybe not directly but indirectly. She, she forced the bond on him without asking! He had asked her if she wanted the bite and now she was taking him down with her and-

“Peter,” he curled his hands into fists and dug them into his abdomen, not wanting to look at them any longer, not when he could still smell the blood that had once coated them. “She’s going to be okay,” he looked up them, glaring at Chris and his calm freaking demeanor that had him wanting to rip his fucking throat out. “The bullet nicked an artery but she’s okay.” 

“It wouldn’t have nicked an artery if she hadn’t jumped in front of me.” he growled, fists pressing tighter into his abdomen so he wouldn’t run them through his hair or into someone elses throat. 

“You’re pack, of course she was going to jump in front of you.” Erica growled, pacing in front of Vernon - who was standing by the wall with his arms crossed across his chest. 

“I never asked to be pack!” 

“You never told her no!” Erica snarled at him, flashing her eyes and challenging him in a way that had his ass slamming right back into his seat before he could flash even a hint of fang. “She claimed you as pack over and over and you ever once told her no!” Peter rose with the calm fury he’d perfected all his life, truly on the edge now that this Beta, this beautifully protective and ignorant beta had tried to challenge him. HIM. 

“I don’t want to be part of her pack.” he didn’t, he really fucking didn’t, not when she could get hurt and die at any fucking point, Spark or no. She could heal, she’d heal faster than a regular human, but she couldn't heal a bullet to the heart or head or throat. She was human and he couldn’t deal - he wouldn’t be able to take it if she died. Not when it made him feel every single one of his pack bonds burning all over again as his family died. As they suffered. 

“Then tell her.” Jeorek challenged, arms crossed tightly to prevent himself from reaching for his gun to shoot the bastard that would dare leave his daughter now. “You don’t want to be a part of her pack then you tell that to her face and break that bond instead of letting it be drawn out.” how dare them, how dare all of them do this to him, try to keep him in a place he didn’t want to be! 

He had stormed out with full intent to come back and tell her that he didn’t want to be a part of her pack. 

He never did. Never went back or went to visit her despite every nerve in his body and every urge of his wolf telling him he needed to go see her, to make sure she was okay, to confirm that she was healing. Instead, he focused on researching what he could about the hunters that would dare hunt in Argent territory and avoiding the general populous. 

Mieczyslawa, of course, had to take that plan and just fucking wreck it. 

“You are the most idiotic mother fucker this side of Beacon hills.” Stiles Stilinski groused, standing in his doorway, looking as emotionally wrecked as she was physically. Damn him he couldn’t actually look at the brace on her arm that kept it slung against her chest. He couldn’t look at the bandages and wound dressing that peaked out from beneath her loose top. “You want to be emotionally stunted for the rest of your life? Fine. You tell me right now you want out of the pack and I’ll leave you alone, forever.” 

“Just like that?” he snarked, claws coming out to impale the wall of his door, not that she could see it anyway. “After dragging me to pack meets for months and dragging me into your little group of misfits you’ll let me go, just like that?”

“Yes.” damn him he loved that she could tell the truth and lie all with a single word. He loved and hated that her eyes were like gold, burnt and broken but so defiant that it made him hate her all the more. “I won’t force you to be somewhere you don’t want to be, but only if you really don’t want to be there. I’m not going to take half-assed excuses or reasons, Peter. You’re a grown-ass man, if you give me some bullshit excuse then I’m going to tell you to fuck off until you give me a better one.” who the hell did she think she was. He didn’t need to give her a reason or an excuse. If he said he didn’t want to be in her fucking pack then that was all he had to say!

“I don’t,” he growled out, knuckle deep in his drywall. “Want to be,” cinnamon began melting with brown sugar, gold eyes turning to a dark russet brown in her acceptance and grief. “In your pack.” he expected her to fight, was ready for it, but that cinnamon and brown sugar turned too sweet, too rich for him to take too many deep breaths. She stared at him for a moment, then two until he was finally ready to snap at her. 

“Fine.” his heart dropped to his stomach when she turned around and marched away, quickened steps doing nothing to take away her scent from his doorway. He hadn’t been able to bask in her scent for a week, hadn’t been able to see her or appreciate the small things about her habits that actually made him yearn for her. Now, with her scent so potent in his doorway, he found he wanted to just stand there, breathe her in even though it was physically painful to do so. Cinnamon and brown sugar, the too-sweet warmth that made his throat close up and his eyes burn. The scent that had built and built until it was overpowering her natural scent and leaving him with it saturating the area of his apartment. 

The smell of her heartbreak. 

He didn’t run after her despite every molecule in his body telling him to - if he were being honest it was because his body and wolf were telling him to go after her that he fought it so hard. He got three noise complaints that night and, by the morning, had a new living room table ordered to be shipped to him. 

He thought she’d message him at least once within the next week. 

She didn’t. 

He didn’t hear anything until he dragged his ass with the conviction that he didn’t care, he was just trying to figure out what his Nephew and true Alpha McCall were planning, to the pack meeting. 

There was no pack meeting, only Derek and - surprisingly enough - Cora were chilling out in Derek’s loft. They seemed just as surprised to see him as he was to see them. Then, then there was anger. Anger from Cora. 

“Now you show up.” she stalked towards him with a fury that was both impressive and confusing. Why it was directed at him he had no idea. “After a whole month, Uncle Peter, you are just now showing up?!” and then she was punching him right in his solar plexus, catching him off guard with how fast she went from confrontational to physical. 

“Cora, he doesn’t know.” Derek groused, sighing heavily over the dozens of open books laid out on his table. “Stiles isn’t in Beacon Hills.” that, that had taken his breath away far quicker than Cora’s punch had. She wasn’t in beacon hills? Why the fuck wasn’t she in Beacon hills? Where was her father, what was being done, why wasn’t he - why couldn’t he -

Well, he wouldn’t really have to be informed if they weren’t pack, would he? He wouldn’t have been able to feel if she were near, not with the aching chasm that was once the bond between the two of them. Still, he had pack bonds with Erica and Vernon and nothing felt off, they knew where he lived and he hadn’t been told by them that Stiles was gone. He hadn’t seen anything in the news about missing persons and there was no way in hell that Scott wouldn’t be currently lording this over him if something had happened to her. Not when all his theories about Peter being the biggest asshole since fisting became a thing were proven true. 

“Where is she?” he didn’t care, he didn’t care he didn’t care. 

“France.” Cora bit out, “Chris, Allison, Erica, Vernon, and Isaac all went. You would’ve been with her, would’ve known, if you hadn’t screwed up somehow!” the rest was far too many expletives about his character, personality, and his lack of dedication to things he was attracted to in Portuguese for him to give much thought to. 

“Deucalion went too, Peter.” that stung even though it shouldn’t have. He had told her he didn’t want to be a part of her pack, hadn’t visited her while she was in the hospital, hadn’t reached out to her first. Even so, even despite all that, Deucalion had gone and Peter hadn’t, not even to make sure she was safe, not to look over the betas who had become pack to him without even having meant for them to. 

“When are they due back?” Cora shut her brother up with a glare when he went to answer Peter. 

“Why don’t you ask her yourself, Uncle Peter? Or are you scared?” the growl he centered on her was worthy of Alpha status. Peter, of course, did not do that. Not until it was nearing the two-month mark and the silence of his apartment was overwhelming. No amount of nights out could fill the silence, running never exhausted him as much as he needed so he could just pass out when he went home. Home that was now empty, home that was no longer home. Home with jackets that weren’t his and a cover that no longer smelled like Stiles, a place that no longer had traces of her or pack, a place that suddenly seemed much too big and much too quiet. 

‘You’ve reached the voicemail of ‘Name here’-” he hated that her voice alone made his every limb settle, hated that it filled the ache that had been in his chest. Especially when she was snickering and giggling while trying to remain serious, he could practically see her in front of him making faces while recording the damn voicemail. “If you’ve important business, leave a message, if it’s important call again, hang up, and call again.” so, of course, he did just that, only it wasn’t Stiles that answered. 

“I am unsure who this is, as you’re listed as ‘Big Bad’,” Deucalion rumbled, sounding as if he had just been woken up. “What is it?” Peter hung up. 

Deucalion had answered Stiles’s phone, Deucalion who sounded as if he had been asleep had answered Stiles’s phone. Deucalion who had to be around Stiles for him to be near her phone, asleep, in Paris, together. 

His cell phone vibrated in his hand, he actually hesitated to answer it when ‘Little Spark’ flashed across the screen. “Is everything okay in Beacon Hills?” a very groggy Stiles urged, causing his stomach to hollow immediately. She had been around Deucalion, they had to be in the same room, and they were most definitely sleeping together. But were they sleeping together, or sleeping together? Why did his wolf lament and his heart ache at the possibility?

“Why are you in France?” he countered, refusing to play to her tune and instead demanding she play to his. He heard the shuffling of covers and the creak of a mattress that was obviously of poor quality, and then her heavy sigh that had his anger rising. 

“Why do you care?” she sounded so tired and defeated that he almost asked if she were okay. Damn the habits he had developed when she had been present in his life, like a leech or a tumor. 

“The Pack meant to be protecting Beacon hills just ups and vanishes without finding suitable replacements? Fairly certain I should be aware of that much, at least.” not the wisest thing to say, considering the fact that she was frustrated with him. 

“We have suitable replacements. Derek, Cora, Scott, my Dad, and the Police are all protecting Beacon hills.” He really should just leave it at that, lest she think he cares more than he actually did. Or showed that he cared as much as he did? He clearly cared for her, even if he didn’t actually want to. “I’m not - is there anything else?” didn’t have any time for him, did she? Not when she was busy with Deucalion and her pack in France. 

“When are you coming back?” it was snapped and curt and definitely dangerous in ways that let on more than he had been comfortable with. 

“I don’t know.” she sighed again, “Hopefully before school starts again.” he heard her heartbeat clearer and a muffled ‘Yeah, yeah I know, we’ll be fine. We’ve got time.’ and then another person joined her on the bed, or rejoined her. “Peter, was there something else?” she was dismissing him? As if he didn’t matter?

“Of course,” he purred, “wouldn’t want to interrupt your time with Deucalion.” he heard her intake of breath and felt minute satisfaction with the fact that she seemed so affected by his barb. Then he felt guilt, and not because he was wrong or because he had so obviously hurt Stiles, but because he could feel the protective anger through the bonds he had with Erica and Vernon. 

“Too late,” calm, calculated, and with the force of a fucking freight train. “Goodbye, Peter.” 

He crushed his phone when he heard the dial tone.

He contemplated flying to France just so he could throttle her and promptly decided against it incase she saw it as him going out of some kind of affection for her. Still, staying in Beacon Hills was out of the question. He needed to go somewhere, needed to get away from every memory that haunted him and the ghost-like laughter that tickled the back of his head. He had a plane ticket to Ohio booked and his bags all packed and ready in under eight hours with only one stop in mind. He just wasn’t expecting Derek and Cora to be skyping Stiles in their dining area. 

“-ay, that’s what the Druid’s here are saying. They’re going to give me a sapling from their Nemeton to take to ours, it should purify whatever dark energies are polluting it and give it enough power to start being able to draw on the currents once again.” she sighed and ran a hand over her face, the black sling contrasting ominously against her skin and tank top she wore. “There’s also another Spark here, they’re apparently common, but not whatever I am. If we find out whatever it is that I am I’ll end up coming back once school is over and spend a couple months learning how to do… whatever it is that I do?”

“Stiles,” Derek began, concern clear in his tone and on his features. “You look like shit. Are you sleeping any?” 

“Uh, I think we all got like four hours last night?” Erica pushed her way into the screen, glaring darkly at the side of Stiles’s face for even trying to lie. 

“Stiles slept an hour and has been taking her Adderall left and right like they’re fucking hard candy.” Peter stepped further into the Loft without much thinking about it, his pesky wolf clearly wanted to see Stiles. “Hello asshole.” Erica greeted with a sniff then, with a level of sass Lydia would approve of, flicked her hair over her shoulder and stalked out of the screen’s frame. 

“Yes, well, my shit sleeping habits aside.” Stiles groused, frowning angrily at her arm as she readjusted her sling. “That’s everything that’s happened so far. We’ve got another week or so and then we should be on our way back. I’ll have to plant the new sprout into the current Nemeton and purge whatever is blocking the energy flow before school starts,” she fidgeted a bit with her sling, then glared once Deucalion snapped at her to stop messing with it. In Polish. 

Peter did not learn Polish for Stiles, he had learned it so he would know if they were talking about him to his face. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he could now perfectly pronounce her name. Hearing the two of them bicker at one another in Polish had him wanting to put his two cents in just so he could see her reaction.

“Stiles, find you a Euro boyfriend and get fucked.” Derek and Stiles, simultaneously, inhaled their drinks and fucking spat them everywhere. 

“Cora!” they spluttered inbetween hacks, glancing at her in abject horror while Erica cackled like a witch in the background. “Not only is that a fucking awful idea, but I actually have to stay a virgin for the ritual I’ve got to do for the Nemeton Sapling.” not sleeping with Deucalion then, interesting - not that he cared either way. “And I’m not going to end up getting anyone in Beacon Hills after either. People aren’t interested in me.” she shuffled a bit in her seat, “None that I’m interested in, anyway.” He almost whined at how sad she sounded and caught himself from correcting her that plenty of people found her attractive. Every time he, Erica, Vernon, and Stiles went out she’d get multiple stares of lust from multiple men. 

“Okay, what about Derek?” 

“I don’t see him like that and he definitely doesn’t see me like that, even if my age wasn’t a factor in his decision making.” yes, she and Derek had come to a mutual fondness for one another after she rescued his Betas and, as such, were at a mutual understanding of the other. Cora huffed and crossed her arms. 

“Well, then I’ll find someone from South America. You should date someone, Stiles, get you someone to temper you out or urge you on. You’re fucking amazing.” Peter wondered briefly if Mieczyslawa Stilinski was like a drug to Hale’s. Derek hadn’t liked her at first and neither had Cora, now both were friends and advocates for her. He loved it and hated it, they were his family and yet they were friendly with the one who had manipulated him into being in a packbond with her when he was fine with his solidarity. 

“Am I not an option?” Peter drawled as he rose from his train of thought, having meant it as a teasing remark that came out much too curious for his liking. That had Derek and Cora both turning to look at him despite his attention resting solely in Stiles’s dulled iris’s. 

“You’ve already made your choice clear and I’d rather not hear it again.” his choice? About her? Was he missing something? “Der, Cora, I’m heading off. Take care of one another and please watch out for my dad.” she hedged a moment before murmuring a quick goodbye and ended the call, leaving his niece and nephew to stare at him with a level of interest that had him defensive. 

“Do you want to be an option for Stiles?” Cora, damn her, inquired with a gleam in her eyes that reminded him far too much of Stiles when she was teasing him. Of course he wanted to be an option, he always wanted to be an option when it counted for things that would give him a leg up in situations. Stiles, however, was like a laser straight through the fog of his bullshit that could cut straight to the heart of things with him. He hated that she had that effect over him, as well as the fact that she seemed to never react the way he wanted her to when he was messing with her. 

Still, did he want to be a genuine option for Stiles? His life was empty without her, his chest always felt hollow without her. She enraged him like no other and made him feel so fucking vulnerable that he worried she was his weakness. In the same breath when she smiled at him so genuinely it made him feel like he could rock the fucking world. When she had been hurt, however, it made him feel like he was lost at sea in the middle of a typhoon or hurricane. And when he had been too lost in his thoughts it was her gentle calling of ‘Big bad?’ or ‘hey assface!’ that had him returning.

Oh. Fuck. 

She anchored him, she anchored him and took the foundation of everything he knew and just wrecked it because she was his anchor. 

“Uncle Peter?” She had become his anchor, she had somehow wormed her way into a bond with him and taken his interest in her motives to make him complacent with her plans! The devious little minx! She was his anchor, how the fuck - why was she his anchor? She was like a fucking hurricane, hardly anything about her was stable like an anchor should be! Why - what- “Uncle Peter!” he snapped his jaw and growled, brought back to reality by Cora standing right in front of him. At some point he had dropped his bags and was now breathing hard, heartbeat thundered through his ears and raising his rage. 

“I’m leaving!” he snarled, grabbed his bags, and fucking ran. She was his anchor, Mieczyslawa Stilinski was his anchor and he - 

Loved it. Hated it. Did she know? Had she intentionally -?! 

It had taken him five minutes to get his temper in check and not put his claws through his steering wheel. No, he couldn’t deal with this, he couldn’t - he needed to get away. Time away would help, it’d give him the chance to put his thoughts in order. He needed time away from everything that reminded him of Stiles, he needed time away to try and get her out of his head and to get the festering wound that replaced where her bond once had been healed. Yeah, yeah, he would go to Ohio, he’d take that flight, now he just needed to get there. 

He spent all of a month in Ohio before he could no longer take it. Every brunette he saw made him think it was Stiles, every time he heard the audio of any Marvel movies he immediately expected to hear ten facts about the movie from Stiles. Whenever he heard tinkering laughter, or smelled vanilla, he immediately thought of her and he couldn’t take it. His month away forgetting her had been spent in agony remembering every little detail about her. No one had her skin tone, no one looked as good with moles and freckles like she did, no one smelled as honest and sincere as she did. 

No one reminded him completely of Stiles but everyone reminded him of the little things about her. He hated it, he saw her in everyone, almost like a ghost he couldn’t escape. It was why he was surprised all to hell that she greeted him at the airport, pale and with blackened eyes but sporting a smile that was absolutely mischievous. He should’ve been angry at seeing her waiting for him or even joy, anything but the sinking feeling that something was wrong, that this wasn’t Stiles. Not his Stiles. 

“Peter,” she purred, eyeing him with a hunger that was not what he was used to associating with Stiles. “welcome back home.” he approached her slowly, suspiciously, and then out of a need to control the situation when her sandalwood and vanilla smelled burnt. “I missed you.” that sounded wrong, almost like whatever was in front of her was twisting her around in an attempt to twist him. 

“Missed you too.” he drawled, willing to play the game so he could try and catch whatever this was off guard. “When did you get back?” 

“Week and a half ago,” her pout was adorably wrong, whatever this thing is was trying too hard to be her. “I missed you.” she went to hug him when her whole body froze, fury and abject horror clashing like tidal waves. “Not him,” she growled, clearer now than earlier, “Not him you fucking -”

“Stiles?” her eyes shot up to look at him, one black and broken while the other was her champagne gold. It was like she was frozen in that moment, half her features contorted in fury while the others were contorted in pain and sorrow. Something was possessing her, clearly, and she was fighting it so valiantly but -

“Yes,” she drawled, black flashing to bleach white as a single tear fell from her eyes, “but none of my loved ones.” his phone rang the same moment the lights to the entire airport shut off, encasing Stiles and the way black bled into her gold as the last image of her he’d see for a while. 

“What the hell,” Peter ground out as he answered his phone, lights back on and Stiles nowhere to be seen. “Is going on?”

“I assume you’ve met the Nogitsune, then.” Chris sighed through the phone, “Are you injured?”

“No,” what an insulting thought, “but I do believe that she agreed to a full possession just now.” a very sharp, angry ‘What?’ came from the backseat of whatever vehicle Chris was currently driving. “Nogitsune, then we’ll just need darling Alpha Scott McCall to bite her so we can recapture the Fox.” if only it had been that easy. Stiles, possessed or no, was still Stiles in that she took everything they knew and just flipped it right side down. 

“Oh,” the Void Stiles cooed, eyeing Peter with hunger and distaste. “You’re so lucky, little wolf, you have so much anguish and pain that I’d grow fat if I fed off of you.” she sighed, wicked gleam in her eyes glittering roughly against the low light in Derek’s loft. “Not my loved ones,” she mocked, irritation mixing like ash with her scent.

“Which is why you were able to break Noshiko’s tails, but now why you can’t hurt me, Jackson, or the twins.” gold eyes flicked to him at that, surveying his features for some hint of a lie before she broke out in a wide, malicious smile. 

“You don’t know. You didn’t leave the pack and Beacon Hills and her, because you didn’t know!” he hated that whatever he had said was the wrong thing, hated that it brought it such glee. “She was so sure! Beautiful, turgid little pieces to my game. Erica, tell him, tell him what little Stiles told you.” it was cooed in a faux sexy sneer with hands that were not supposed to be grabbing at her hips the way they were. 

“Stiles doesn’t love with just a little of her heart, she loves with everything she is. When she heard the story of how the twins were abused it reminded her too much of when her mother got sick and she vowed to give them a better chance at life, to show them kindness.” Erica began immediately, smile like poison when Void Stiles seemed to deflate with how easy she began spilling the secret. “She sees what she could’ve ended up as in Jackson, alone and trying hard to be noticed, to do everything perfectly. She hates that she sees that in him and hates that he hates her, but she still wants to show him that he’s enough.” Void actually looked a little angry at how easily these dark secrets were being exposed, even if the reactions of those around them would have normally satisfied it. “You, she would’ve helped you originally with your plan, Peter. She’s said so multiple times to anyone whose cared to listen to her. Then she fell in love with you, and you told her to fuck off.”

Void seemed energized at his reaction to that particular bit of information. When had she told him of her feelings? When had he told her to fuck off with said feelings? Why did his chest feel like it had dropped into his gut and his heart had stopped dead?

“She chose you.” Void cheesed, “She chose you but you didn’t choose her! Oh! She would’ve went insane before I’d even gotten a hold of her if she didn’t have her pack.” disgust was in its tone even as its eyes slipped to the doorway and it began grinning awfully when Noshiko and her daughter appeared. “Now it’s a party! Tell them, Noshiko, how you summoned me and then betrayed me, tell them how this was the necessary outcome!” it threw her arms wide in indication of the scene, it was then that Derek and Scott struck, resulting in Derek being thrown into a pillar and Scott latching onto his friends arm with his teeth. 

The oni appeared the moment Stiles’s skin dried up and cracked, advancing immediately on the downed girl before the Nogitsune could leave her. 

“No!” Peter roared, launching himself at one of them to buy her time. He didn’t think to do so he just naturally threw himself in front of her, threw himself at the danger so he could give her time. He couldn’t think about her confession, nor his denial of it, nor why he felt so fucking hollow. Chris and Deucalion immediately took up arms to assist while the twins - startled as they were - tried to launch themselves into the foray, slivers of pack bonds shimmering in their chests that felt so sweet they ached. 

Try as they might two Oni broke through just in time to place its hand into a fist by her face, catching the escaping Nogitsune Firefly. One Oni stayed behind as the rest converged into one to check Stiles, even as her skin began falling away like a clay outer layer to show a pink-skinned Stiles with frazzled hair and wide, tired gold eyes. 

Unlike the rest, however, it drew its knife down the length of Stiles’s bitten arm and promptly disappeared, leaving Stiles to fall to the ground and break the rest of the clay that had been around her body - including the mark that used to be on her arm. Scott’s bite, too, was gone, with no blood as evidence that it had ever been there in the first place. 

“Stiles!” Jeorek cried, clutching his daughter to his lap so he could search for a pulse and relaxing only when he found one. “C’mon baby girl, wake up.” he pleaded, tapping his fingers against her cheek a few times to bring the light back to her wide-open eyes. It didn’t sit right with Peter, seeing her looking up with dead eyes as if was a foreshadow into her future. He didn’t care that he was projecting his turbulent feelings to those around him, didn’t care that he knew this feeling as the panic and desperation he felt when his family had burned, knowing he felt no familial ties to the spark. 

“H-hey pop,” she greeted, voice raw and barely above a whisper.

[lymskr]

stats: Declan Grímnir Thorirsson McAuliffe, 29 (b. October 9th, 1990.) he/his (cis.) species: human occupation: musician working the nearby ski lodges & hotels / hunter

alignment: somewhere between lawful evil and chaotic neutral.

+ charming. observant. driven. adept. loyal. – ruthless. deceptive. reticent. calculating. macabre.

lymskr old Norse – ‘cunning’, ‘wily’. intelligent malevolence. an underlying sense of ill intent. danger lurking in the undertow. eyes unseen in the woods somewhere.

aesthetic

taller than god. speaking of; 'heathen devil’. monochrome tattoos. a circle of nine spears for odin on his arm. the grim mask of death. a sacred quest. a hollow future. choice as an act of vengeance. choice as an act of love. to hear the choir of gods as you creep through ancient woods. to follow the old ways, the old law. singing in tongues, lucid. dreaming awake, lost.

history

( tw physical/verbal child abuse, patricide, cult mentions, murder, mentions of arranged marriage. tl;dr at the end )

1.

He watches as the floating pyre burns, firelight dancing across the surface of the water. His mother is crying; his siblings, too. It’s the funeral of a king, he knows, to be set aflame like this, caught between sea and fire, earth and sky. It’s also a way to ensure the dead cannot walk again. That nothing might return from where it shouldn’t – and as he stands there, amidst the misery and smoke-black grief of his family and kindred, he finds himself daring his father to come back.

I’d do it again. I’d make you fucking suffer, second time around.

The proverbial throne is his, the kingdom and crown, the sword and the sceptre. He doesn’t want it.

When the time comes for the sjaund, the grave-ale at the end of a week he’s spent pretending to mourn a man who doesn’t deserve the effort – at the end of a week where they all expect him to become the new head of the family – Declan does what no one thought him capable of:

He spits in the face of his legacy, his bloodline, and tells them he’s leaving.

2.

They spent that August looking for signs. Freyja might reveal herself in the flight of falcons; Freyr in a good harvest. Rán and Ægir if the waves sweeping the shore grew heavy. A fall of white petals standing in for snow in the late-summer heat as a sign of Skadi. In truth, Aidan Thorir McAuliffe hoped his firstborn might be born to thunder and sheaves of lightning, making them – himself – twice-blessed by Thor. But none came. No one revealed themselves. Not until their son was born with a caul on the ninth day of October did they know who had chosen their child; why the rest had not made themselves apparent.

It was an omen of Odin’s favor.

They named him Grímnir, for an old facet of Odin – Grímnir, masked one, fitting for a boy born in the caul. The first in three generations to be chosen by the One-Eyed himself, Declan’s birth was an auspicious sign for the McAuliffes. By all accounts, it was the highest of honors, to have a child born beneath the watchful eye of the Allfather.

And yet it earned him his father’s ire. He has spent a lifetime wondering if it was jealousy or fear that left those scars on his back, that drove his father’s knuckles into a fist, into a hand clenched around whichever weapon would hurt – but not kill – his son. Did you think you were driving me towards greatness, or were you hoping you could break me?

3.

For as long as there have been beasts in the woods, there have been hunters to kill them. It is an old story – an old law. For centuries, his family has followed an Seanreacht, lines stretching from Massachusetts back to Ireland all the way to the ancient Norse. The old law encompasses the modern remnants of the Ulfheðnar: the ‘wolf coats’. What word survived of them among outsiders is that that they were berserkers, dressed in nothing but wolf pelts as they went into battle – all to honor Odin, the One-Eyed, the Allfather, the leader of the Wild Hunt.

The truth is that they slew werewolves. The grey pelts adorning their shoulders had once been people.

4.

Among those following an Seanreacht in the States, the McAuliffes are admired and feared in equal turn for their single-minded obsession, for the way they raise their children and keep the old ways. Their life is devotion: to the gods, to the hunt, to the songs and the stories. As the firstborn of the main house, Declan’s fate had been carefully laid out – he would devote himself to the cause or break before it; he would marry appropriately, and when the time came, he would take over. Not once did he struggle against it – for years, he did everything he could think of to live up to weight of his future. He let himself be hammered and bent into form; bore the brunt of his father’s expectations and cruelty without complaint. He was his father’s son in name, and at convenience; in theory and in blood – but he was not his father’s son, he was his father’s tool, blunt or sharp depending on the need.

Talent is innate, but skill is forged. It was his father’s favorite saying, and Declan wishes it didn’t come with the memory of his back bleeding, stinging as though he’d been set on fire. Punishment was a lesson he learned early – but that didn’t stop the lessons from coming, again and again.

Not until Brighid Nolan was taken in by his family did Declan so much as stop to pause at the way he’d been raised – and even then, it was not so much a pause as a moment’s stutter, because all he had known was life under his father’s thumb. What scraps they got of a childhood were spent on a petty rivalry that turned to bloodied, bruised understanding – and then Brighid left.

Funny, that. An omen all her own.

5.

It is winter, and it is dark, and he is a blade.

(No, that’s not right.)

It is winter, and it is dark, and he is pointing his rifle at his father, because a wolf has bit him, and his father takes it with grace, as an Seanreacht dictates. It’s a kind death, one befitting his foremost teacher–

(… No. That’s not right, either.)

It is winter, and it is dark, and his father is begging for his life. Slobbering, cursing, as he tells Declan of a cure, as he tells Declan that he cannot kill him, that he must listen to his father, and not the old ways, do as you’re fucking told, I won’t die here, boy–

It is winter, and it is dark, and his father begins to run, like he thinks the Allfather might stop the bite from taking. Like he thinks Declan didn’t learn a damn thing, all those years spent being broken into whatever shape suited his father best. Like he thinks Declan doesn’t remember the lessons.

He exhales.

He shoots.

(In the hands of his maker, he became a formidable weapon.)

6.

The wolf escaped his father’s aim, but Declan drags a corpse back to the compound all the same. The rites are due to begin any day when Brighid calls.

(She’s crying. It’s an unfamiliar sound.)

He cannot tell you why he did it. He likes to think of himself as a logical man, and, by all accounts, wrecking his future was not logical. With logic gone, what remained? Grief. Resentment, maybe; a shining, hateful moment of spite. Loyalty, wretched and wrong, for someone who left, no less. Love, unspeakable.

He comes home with a traitor, brandishing scars that match; comes home bound in blood to a woman who is not his fiancée, and all that stops them from burning the mark of the blood oath off his skin is that he is his father’s son.

Funny, that. How things work out.

7.

They leave, and they do not look back. His family and his bride to be think it’s the work of grief – are prepared to forgive him for his transgressions, are prepared to let him have this for the next few weeks. But weeks turn to months turn to a year, and then another, and another. He fields calls. Tells them that he won’t invoke odelsrett; that he has no intention of taking over.

They keep calling.

8.

They left, and they didn’t look back. But faith is a complicated thing, and it’s been ingrained in him since birth. There are things he has seen he doesn’t have an answer for. He knows the world well enough to have reached the conclusion that if there’s such a thing as werewolves, it wouldn’t be so strange for there to be gods and other creatures out there. And so he still sings the songs, carves the effigies, finds comfort in the habit of it all, even if he cannot decide if the echo sounds hollow or not.

9.

He remains bound to her by blood, by choice, by the things they do not speak. They’ve come to Blackrock for their quarry, for the one that stole from her – but winter’s stalking closer, and with it, wolves. So they bide their time, as the cold creeps closer. He sings the songs, and carves the effigies, and remains a hunter true.

tl;dr

– raised as a Norse-flavoured cultist in an abusive home – killed his own father – was the firstborn heir; abandoned the calling for Brighid – a traitor to their cult – also, blood oath. bound to Brighid 4 life – now they travel the States killing werewolves, and Santí is at the top of their list

wanted connections

(john mulaney voice) he’s NEW IN TOWN

Declan’s looking for information, as winter nears – to that end, he’s relatively friendly, even charming, in how he approaches people. (He wants to suss out hunters and wolves alike.) He’s 6′5″, otherwise known as ‘so tall it’s terrible’, but has a way about him that makes you forget how intimidating that can be – until he wants you to remember. 

As he is indeed NEW IN TOWN, i’m simply looking to Vibe–– some quick ideas:

– MUSE B hears him playing at a nearby ski lodge; thinks that’s real neat – ....... i swear i’ll come up with more ideas but i mean honestly let’s just vibe, babey

[mingjue]

give us the good werewolf!! i Must Know More

HEEHEE...............

ok BASICALLY, this will obviously be focused on Qinghe/the nie bros, so just for ref

Nie - Werewolf

Lan - Satyr

Jin - Elven

Jiang - Mermaid/Waterfolk

Wen - Draconic

WWX is vampire bc hes stupid and gay

Mingjue is half Elven, but you wouldn’t think he was asides from the big ears, Huaisang is full ‘wolf; jgy is elven/dryad; Wen Qing & Wen Ning are draconic/waterfolk

(For those who see this in the tags, this isn’t Om*g*v*rse or A/*/O do NOT touch this if u like that shit)

NOW, for actual werewolf content

The way the pack works in Qinghe is still pretty similar to clans in canon, just slightly different

Mingjue and his direct family are the head family Of Course, and they secure this position via duels/fighting should another family want to take over; these duels are common under stressful times, but Mingjue has been able to keep it held down. 

The duels are like.....scheduled ahead of time, and are held in a secure area; the rules are that you can’t kill your opponent, that if you win you must treat the wolf who lost, + only the wolf who challenged the leader can fight, no one else (and vice versa, only the leader can fight) can join in, And More

like you cant aim for vitals, use teeth beyond taunting, fights cant be scheduled during/near full moons, and the fighters must choose whether they will both fight in humanoid form or wolf form

 Clan elders supervise the fight, and have selected specific soldiers that will help break up the fight if anything goes wrong; doctors are also on stand by bc these fights get BLOODY (esp w mingjue)

Huaisang nearly loses his position after pretty much being back-to-back challenged for his position, which instilled the rule that duels can only happen three times a year. He’s managed to win his duels with his own tricks, but they can still end pretty bloody

Ranking is not much different due to the clans wanting consistency (also im stupid and gay)

The nies end up becoming the most medically advanced due to how dangerous shifting is; they develop medications to ease pain, different magic stuff to control body temperature, etc. etc.

and actually the Nies are known for being pretty wolves

TYPICALLY a fully shifted wolf during a full moon aren’t the prettiest things to look at; most commonly their fur is patchy, their limbs are obviously distorted, faces look mutilated in a sense, all that

BUT, due to advances in cultivation & medicine they’re able to be calm after a shift, so they’re able to keep up w personal hygiene LMAO

Mingjue personally is almost obsessive with keeping his fur a certain way to be both 1. Handsome :) 2. intimidating as hell; he has the advantage of getting rlly thick hair from his Elven side, so his pelt is flush. but he also leaves some of it “messy” and puffed out for the intimidation bit

huaisang keeps his completely brushed n smooth and he’s usually nested in his bed when he shifts. he was also blessed with the fullness in his pelt, but his chest/belly and thighs are more ‘bare’ compared to mingjue.

they also braid what parts of the fur they can; mingjue and huaisang have LOTS of braids as usual

ALSO the most common pelt color is black with white/lighter pelts being on the uncommon side, second most common are dark creams/browns/reds with black snouts/heads/legs/etc. 

Mingjue has ruddy brown + black snout/legs/all that; Huaisang has brown w black ticked (i have NO idea what the dog term is for that, its like the tips of the fur is black??) 

both have bright amber/yellow eyes

ALSO THEIR TAILS...........

ok. PRIMARILY. they dont have tails in human form, BUT, it’s possible, and it’s something that puppies/young disciples will usually let show??

Mingjue ONLY shows his tail when hes in private with someone close, like Huaisang or Xichen, and he Knows they won’t be walked in on. He just has this Thing where he’ll be fucking humiliated if someone else saw it. he also has rlly long fur on his tail so its PRETTY, he just thinks its childish

Huaisang on the other hand kept his tail out until he became the sole leader of the pack, save for like, banquets he attended with Mingjue bc mingjue would tell him to Quit It.

getting rid of a tail is an hour long process so mingjue has to watch the time to get huaisang before they go anywhere

if theres no time to hide a tail, tuck it in ur pants so it doesn’t move and hide it under layers

just. a tail in humanoid form is a different context than just seeing it when they’re shifted, and again a sign of childishness.

puppy ears in human form can also happen but it’s discouraged heavily because of the possibility of damaging ear canals.

OH ALSO, another reason why like, the nie clan has that GIANT ass wall surrounding its city, is because they go on total lockdown during full moons. 

puppies are a fucking MESS to deal with, and they run like. constantly. If they’re still it’s because they’re either eating something or they’ve passed out from exhaustion. Huaisang was a TERROR when he was a puppy and mingjue still has a scar on his arm from when he went ballistic from pent-up energy

SO! There’s different parts of the city where puppies and young wolves can run around, destroy shit, eat whatever, wrestle each other, all that, and they’re HEAVILY supervised by elders/adult wolves who have better control of themselves during fullmoons

the only wolves who can leave the area during a fullmoon are Mingjue and Huaisang, and maybe like, a really well-respected elder or two, but that’s it

and despite popular belief this is actually the WORST time to attack Qinghe. Every wall is guarded, everyone is in a state where they can mutilate someone thats usually considerably stronger than them in human form, and Everyone is on high-alert whether they’re destroying a tree or nearly unconscious

theres also areas in the city sealed off for weaker/sickly wolves who are taken care of by capable adults, citizens of other species, all that

full moons aren’t hated in qinghe! they’re quite fun if you’re a werewolf; the areas for Going Ham are usually packed with different stuff u can mess with, you just have to watch ur back

they also aren’t that violent bc again, intense supervision by elders and the like; and they’re becoming more and more festival like with cultivation and medical advancement

then of course, the sword situation is still very much the same; my version of werewolves are like, slightly allergic to silver, but piercing one or having silver near won’t kill a wolf. the most it will do is give them a rash :/

all of their jewelry/accessories are made out of different metals because of this, esp since Qinghe is rich with that (+jewels/gems bc i love that hc so much)

THENNN i think last thing for now, they DO wear some form of clothing in wolf form, MOST of the time

typically there’s enough fur to cover privates, but its not unusual for there Not to be enough fur, so there’s specially made hanfu for full moons that are custom made for each wolf

basically being a seamstress in Qinghe will Get You Places, bc tears will happen, people will want them adjusted if they’re passing them to another family member, fashion choices, etc. etc.

Mingjue normally wears really simple hanfu and dachangs (the like, over-robe thing), but xichen bought him a specially made hanfu that he likes to wear during really important events, should he be in wolf form :)

huaisang buys new full moon hanfu every few months He Likes To Sit And Feel Pretty By Himself............(Or Maybe For Jiang Cheng If He Visits..........)

[rhythm-catsandwine]

Bitten

Warning 18 + non con, mentions of rape

Words 4 315

Sam and Dean loved each other more than brothers should. They always had and always will. Neither one was really much more Domont than the other. Dean protected his Sam more than Sam protected his Dean. They switched in the bedroom each day or night. In public Dean was possessive of Sam, and he just went with it.

They had been hunting almost nonstop since the days Chuck killed their son and let all hell break loose. It didn’t turn out like anyone especially the Winchesters expected. At first, there were a lot of demons and all the monsters they had killed over the years, and then some. More hunters emerged in the world. Which helped the Winchesters? Then the real changes started, a strong, and dominant type of werewolf emerged from the shadows. They were very different from the werewolves they were used to fighting. The new type of wolf was made by the archangel Michel. The Winchesters couldn’t figure out how to kill them. The usual way didn’t work; the silver bullets didn’t kill them. The werewolves quickly started taking over the world. They preyed on humans or turned them. Soon society started to change according to the way of the werewolf.

Sam and Dean were tired and had just taken care of several monsters and Demons in the past few weeks. They had gotten from another hunter that needed help on a hunt not too far from the bunker. They were running low on supplies and needed rest. They thought they could handle one last hunt before it was ‘bunker time’ but they were wrong. They pulled up to a huge abandon factory and parked on the edge of the huge parking lot in front. Dean glanced over at Sam.

“You sure this is the right place?” Dean asked

“Yeah, this is the place” replies Sam Sam’s phone vibrated as he got a text. “They said to meet them inside top level. That’s kind of weird don’t you think”

“Our lives are weird, nothing normal about us. We hunt musters and demons. We have a car that’s more like our home. Our best friend is an angel, we had an adopted half-angel son. We told god to go to hell. Plus incest Sam, siblings don’t usually fall in love and fuck each other. So nothing’s weird. Except this new breed of werewolf. You got anything new on them yet?”

“No, but I heard someone has found some lore on them. It’s not much, but it could clue us into how to kill them. I plan on contacting them when we get back to the bunker”

They get out of the Impala and start to walk across the parking lot. They get across and find their way through the factory. Finally, at the top they meet the hunter. He is a tall and big guy, about the size of Sam and Dean. He seemed different, but nether Winchester could put a finger on it.

“So you the hunter that called us?” Dean asks

“Yes, names Damian, and you must be Sam and Dean”

“Uhh yeah that’s us” replied Sam

“So what ya need our help with?” asks Dean

“Actually I don’t really need your help…I thought the hunters need to become the hunted” Damian grows as he turns in to a werewolf. More werewolves come out and start circling the Winchesters.

“Shit, it was a trap,” says Sam as he looks for an escape route.

“No shit Sherlock,” says Dean as he grabs Sam’s hand.

“Run Sammy, we got to run”

Dean shoots at a wolf that backs off enough for them to make a run for it.

“Dean! What the hell! Bullets just wound them, you know that” complains Sam as they run.

“I gotta do somethi…” Sam feels Dean being pulled from his grip. Then the wolves are on him too. Dean screams in pain as Sam glimpses him being bitten form one of the wolves. Then he feels teeth sink into his flesh. The wolves are gone as quick as they appeared.

The Winchesters are left lying on the floor. Dean starts to drag himself over to Sam.

“Sam? Sammy? Baby? Talk to me, you bit too?’

Sam opens his eyes to see Dean lying right in front of him.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I got us into this mess” Sam cries

“No, you didn’t the son of a bitch got us both”

“We dyeing De?”

“I don’t know Sammy, I just don’t know, but whatever it is we do it together”

Then they blackout from a wave of pain all over their bodies. They awake hours later face to face with another werewolf. They both realize they’ve been turned. The two new wolves circle and growl and the other. Then they both catch the others sent, and get close enough to see their eyes. They realize that it’s another, their eyes didn’t change color and their sent is mostly the same.

“I realized the wolf I am staring at is Dean. Shit! We’ve been turned in to this new kind of werewolf. Dean’s eyes are the same beautiful green. He smells like Dean too, but little different. His fur is a mix of golden blond and brown but how do we turn back?”

“wait, that wolf is my Sammy, his eyes are still his, he still smells like him too but little Different, He is a beautiful brown, the color of his hair. Fuck he’s big, really big, huge”

“Maybe if we concentrate hard enough we can turn back… I concentrate on becoming human, and I see white as pain shoots through my body. I can feel myself starting to turn back, but it’s like I’m too weak to complete the transformation and there is some kind of block in place. I try again then feel Dean Head but me hard in the shoulder. I feel weak and shaky. Dean looks at me as shakes his head. His eyes and expression say ‘stop, not now’”

“I get Sam to stop trying to turn. Then I press our heads together. He’s bigger than me so he leans down to deepen the touch. I feel soothed by the touch, like when we kiss or hug. I break the connection then start heading back to baby. Sam isn’t following get so I look back and bark at him then turn back. I can hear him following me and soon we are walking side by side close enough to brush against each other”

“We make it back to the impala, we’re both exhausted. Dean jumps carefully on the hood and looks at me. His eyes say ‘get up here bitch’. I jump up on the hood too, being careful not to leave a scratch. We curl up together taking over most of the space on our cloths must have been shredded when we turned. Our wolf forms are bigger than our human form. We are out in the middle of nowhere and its still night. I grab us both a change of clothes out of the trunk and head back to Dean. He has turned back too, so I wake him up.”

“Hey,” says Sam as he tosses his brother a change of clothes.

“You okay Sam?”

“Yeah, you?”

“ sore and still tired as hell”

“let’s just go back to the bunker, I can figure out how to turn us back”

“Yeah okay, but can you drive? I’m too tired”

They drive back to the bunker. Dean sleeps leaning against Sam the entire way. He wakes up when they park in the garage. Finally, back at the bunker, they both fully relax. Sam gets to work on research and Dean makes them some food.

“Um…uhhh Dean…” says Sam as Dean hands him a plate of food.

“What? You find something?”

“Yeah, the way to get unturned is still unknown. And there’s this Alpha/omega/beta dynamic. The omega submits to the alpha. The alpha is the protector and more dominant. All omegas can get pregnant. Since we were turned, we will start presenting during the first week. Then the omega and alpha go into a heat/rut about three months after being turned. The omegas are treated like crap, and the alphas get all the respect and opportunity. The omega needs to be claimed by a bite of an alpha…”

“slow down Sam, so what we stuck like this until we die?”

“looks like it”

“So you think I’m the alpha, and you the omega?”

“I think so, but there’s not much yet about who’s who. Just signs of presenting The alpha is more protective, has increase body temps, possessive, and way stronger than omegas and betas. The omegas are motherly, start nesting, have decreased body temps, and are weaker and usually small”

Sam stats eating and Dean just sets trying to absorb the information he had just received.

“So what happened to that lore book someone was making?”

“I called them and they are going to send me the info sometime this week, even though it's incomplete and in a rough draft”

They finish eating as Sam continued to research. His lips curl up into a slight smile. “So get this! We will get stronger, and have heightened senses, and age slower than humans. The age of adulthood is 50 in the social community. So you know this isn’t all bad”

“so were like kids again, and we can actually have kids”

“This entire thing has me freaked out. What if I’m the alpha and you’re the omega? Or hunters figure out how to kill us and we…”

Dean scoots closer to Sam and puts his hand over Sam’s. “Hey, we’re going to be okay. We’ve both been through a lot worse. Hell and back. And we made ‘us work” comforts Dean.

“It’s just going to be a lot to adjust to. We’ve become one of the things we hunt, and this thing is new to everyone, and taking over the world as we know it”

“Don’t think too hard, you’re just going to make things worse.” Says Dean as he kisses Sam on the cheek.

Dean stands up and runs his hands through his grimy hair. “shower?” he asks Sam

Sam shuts his laptop and follows Dean to the shower. They jerk each other off while letting the water wash everything away. Then go to bed to catch up on some needed sleep.

Then the next day Sam and Dean make a run into town to get supplies and eat at a local diner. They return to their bunker with enough supplies to last a few weeks. They are still waiting for the information from Sam’s contact. So they busied themselves around the bunker. Dean cleans the bunker and their weapons. Sam organizes their food and answers any questions other hunter calls to ask them.

They start to present signs the second day as they continue their work and research. Dean starts feeling cold and puts on his coat, and Sam feels hot and just wears a pair of running shorts. Sam starts to stand a little taller and confident and then hits the workouts harder. Dean had started lifting too, for hunting in the increasingly tough world. He notices he can’t lift as much as he used to, and his aplite dips and weight starts going down.

Sam returns from a run to find Dean wrapped up on the couch. He had several pillows and a few blankets. They looked like they were carefully arranged. “is he nesting?” Sam wanders

The third day they notice their sent changing little. Sam stats to smell muskier and Dean smell softer and sweeter. Then they finally get the information they had been waiting for. Sam starts to read the small lore book.

The first part is mostly information they already figured out or knew. The next part goes over what they needed to know now.

Sam starts reading about the signs and differences on alphas and omegas. He realizes that they were wrong. He was going to be an alpha and Dean his omega. He finds Dean in the kitchen again and hands him the book.

“Dean we…we were wrong about the Alpha you and omega me thing. It gets worse and better.”

“What?”

Dean reads the pages Sam had marked.

“I don’t know Sammy; this is the only stuff we got on … our type of wolf, so it could be wrong.”

“Dean you’ve been nesting and you look smaller. I’ve been feeling more territorial and possessive���

Dean runs his hand through his hair and then grabs his car keys. “Hey let's go out tonight and clear our heads.”

“Dean if you are an omega it’s going to be dangerous for you out there until we mate, er mark.”

“We don’t know that yet, and what’s the worst that could happen?”

They head to Dean's favorite bar in the next town over. Werewolves had taken over the town, so everything felt different. They felt the could fit in but still stood out at the same time.

They park in front of the bar and go in. The business had changed since they were last there. It was divided by alphas and their mated omegas on one side and omegas and betas on the other. Alphas could go anywhere they wanted. Omegas stayed on the omega, beta side unless they were with their alpha. They both try going to the alpha side. Dean is stopped before he can go in by an alpha, not too much smaller than Sam.

“sorry omega you can’t go in unless you're claimed and with your alpha. “ says the alpha male

“I’m not an omega” Snaps Dean

“Yes you are and you need to learn to show alphas respect and submission.”

“He’s with me, he’s mine we just haven’t marked yet” replies Sam

“You can go in, but he can’t unless he’s marked. You two new pups should think about marking soon, so nobody steals your omega” the alpha says

Dean scoffs and goes to the omega/beta side and Sam goes the alpha side to talk to other alphas. Dean orders a drink as he sets at the bar. He tries to clear his head, with a couple of beers. Then an alpha comes up and smells him, looking him over. Dean turns to face him.

“what the hell you doing?’

“a handsome strong omega like you should have been claimed by now”

“Yeah well, I’m with someone. Fuck off asshat” Dean growls

“How dare you show me disrespect,” the alpha says as he leans in closing Dean in. He’s trapped between him and the bar.

Dean suddenly feels like he’s prey to be hunted. He tries to get out but the alpha is too strong and leans closer to him.

“You aren’t claimed, but come home with me and you will be”

“ I told you in with someone, I’m not yours, I’m taken” Dean hisses

The alpha stands taller and Dean can feel his dominance looming over him. The alpha's eyes seem to turn almost golden. Actual fear hits him in the gut hard. He feels violated in the worst way. Dean tries to shove the alpha off. Pushing with all of his strength. “You're almost as strong as some alphas, your gonna make strong pups”

“I said get I’m already taken”

“Listen you stupid omega, you're fertile, and I need another omega, gonna round you out with my pups when you go into heat. Your mine now” the alpha says as he runs his hand down Deans' arm.

“Get off, don’t touch m….SAM! SAM! Dean calls as the alpha gets more aggressive rubbing his scent all over him. His hand runs down Deans back, then moved to places only Sam had touched him.

“Get off of him he’s mine!” Sam growls putting a hand on the alpha and pulling him off, Dean.

Dean lunges toward and clings to Sam. He breathes a sigh of relief when he feels Sam wrap his arms around him.

“So you are with someone! Don’t worry I know when I’ve lost, but you’d better mark quick, other alphas won’t be as agreeable as me.” The alpha backs off.

Sam leads Dean back outside and to the Impala. He removes his hand when they are standing by the car.

“Hey, you okay?”

Dean shakes his head.

“No, I’M A FREAKEN OMEGA SAM! This Alpha/omega shits fucked up. Back there….”

“Dean, talk to me. This is no time to bottle your emotions. We still have a lot of work to do. We need to be on top of everything”

“ I felt so powerless, venerable and … violated….scared even”

Sam pulls a reluctant Dean into a hug. “ Hey, I told you this is hard for me too. You said we can make it through this. Let’s just go to the bunker and forget this ever happened”

“S-sam I need you to mark me.”

“ Dean I…”

“But, don’t think I’m just going to submit to you”

“ I don’t want that either, the whole complete dominance thing is just wrong, but I don’t know how it actually works”

“What did that book say?”

“Not much, but it says something about sex, and a thing called knotting. We can get stuck together for up to an hour. But we don’t have to knot to mark. So maybe we should go back to the bunker”

“ I don’t want to wait Sam”

“Dean, we could be ‘tied’ together. And I don’t think people want to see us having sex in a car in the middle of a parking lot. I think it’ meant to be more private. And omegas secret stuff called slick…”

“I know that part! Let's just pull over somewhere and do this!... when you mean tied together like… your stuck inside of me?”

“ uuhh yeah”

Dean rubs the top of the Impala “as much as I love you and having sex with you, I don’t want to stuck like that in her yet, but I need you to mark me in my baby”

Sam blushes as he steps toward Dean. “ me too Dean she deserves it, she’s our home” Sam puts one hand on either side of Dean, caging him against the Impala. Dean feels safe as he leans up to kiss Sam.

“let's go I remember seeing the perfect spot on the way up here”

They get in and about halfway back Dean pulls off on to an old dirt road and into a small clearing just off the road.

“so as long as you don’t put your dick up my ass we can’t knot right?”

“uhhh, yeah I think so, sounds right, makes sense”

“so just what, grinding with our clothes on, be enough…” says Dean as they climb into the back seat. For once they were glad they hadn't had sex for a few weeks. It would be easier to cum, and hopefully, mark.

They kiss deep and hungry. Dean blushes as he feels slick leak out for the first time. It doesn't feel as weird as he thought it would. They lay down as they have so many times. They had always let everything play out on its own. Unless they were doing something kinky and had a plan of who would top or bottom. This time Dean layed down and Sam chased Him.

“Shit you smell so good, De. Want you. Need you. ” Sam breaths as he starts to grind down on to Dean. He feels Dean rut up against him and blushes when he lets out a deep growl.

“need you, Sammy, please. Need to be….yours” growls Dean as the grinding thrusts get harder.

Sam can feel his first-knot forming. Instinct takes over and he starts nipping at Deans' neck. "mine" Sam growls Dean tilts his head to the side, exposing his unmarked, but scared skin. Sam’s teeth sink smoothly into Dean's flesh. The omega winpers as he feels the bite and his release of cum and more slick.

“sorry” apologize Sam.

“no, it was one of those hurt so good things” utters Dean still in a daze

“Dean, mark me too”

“what?” Dean questions as he snaps back to reality.

“omegas can mark their alpha if the bond is strong enough” Sam states. “Please”

Dean pulls Sam back on top of him and kisses him along the jaw than to the neck. Sam moves his head, gently hitting the back of the seat. Dean still had some energy left as he nipped at the sun tanned skin. He felt his own teeth come out and sink into the flesh. Sam ground down hard once more as he came in his jeans.

They both sat up and stared at the marks they had just given. “Dean just hold still I want to try something, don’t freak out” Sam ordered as he leaned in and started licking the bite mark. The bleeding stopped and a beautiful scare formed. Dean returned the effort.

“So does this mean we’re like married or something?” Dean wondered aloud.

“I guess so”

“But I didn’t even get to propose to you”

“But you kind of did when you asked me to mark you”

Dean blushed and covered his face with his hands and mumbles “Okayfineyouwin”

“let's just get back to the bunker and get cleaned up”

The next day they continue their research on their own kind.

“So get this, we have a telepathic connection now”

“so how the hell does it work?”

“I don’t know, maybe it comes naturally over time, here just read everything we have so far in the book” Sam hand the unfinished book to Dean.

“Whatever”

“I want to cling to you, need your sent to mix with mine,” Dean thinks

“ You still smell like that alpha from last night, I want to rub my scent all over you and show everyone your mine”

“what,” asks Dean

“what I didn’t say anythi…” Starts Sam

“Ohhh,” They both say before closing the gap between them.

“ Sam, what does my sent smell like to you?”

“sweet sent, but in a manly way. Like gun powder, our car, motor oil, beer, whatever you just ate.”

“ How are you doing that so easy?’

“Just concentrate”

“You smell like musk, sweet sweat, old books, and Baby”

They cling together most of the day, at some point, they wind up wearing each other's shirts. Sam keeps randomly hugging Dean and massaging his back. Dean just leans into the touch, even though he normally wouldn’t let Sam take care of him in that way. They practiced turning in to their wolf form and back again.

The rest of the week Dean notice his strength coming back. They both started craving meat and to hunt like wolves. Sam started talking to other alphas to get more information. He found that most were not as predatorial as the alpha at the bar. Much to Dean's annoyment, he learned to stay near Sam at all times in public. If he didn’t he couldn’t go to very many places alone. Truthfully he didn’t want to after the bigger/aggressive alphas kept eying him like a prize to be won or stolen.

They both noticed Dean was built like an alpha and could put up a fight against a smaller weaker alpha. Hunting got better due to their heightened senses.

Over time they got used to the slight change in the dynamic in their relationship. Dean still protected Sam. Sam protected Dean more.

They had just sat down at a diner to eat dinner after a hunt. They fell into a new routine when in a public setting. They would set in the same seat, with Dean on the inside and Sam on the outside.

An alpha glanced at Dean hungrily, but Sam put his arm around Dean.

“Why the fucking hell does everyone keep looking at me like that. We already marked!” “Dean your big and strong for an omega. Your really ‘pretty’ to. Smart and can fight. And apparently ‘very fertile’. You're highly sought-after. I think this should stop after your first heat or we …. Have pups. It’s whichever comes second. “

“ But we can’t have kids right now, still too many monsters and shit loose from fuck Chuck.”

“I know Dean, but we have to get more supplies today, your first heat will start next week. I know you don’t like it but you’ll have to stay in the bucker”

“Shut up, I know that already”

“Dean, do you want pups …. I mean at least someday when things die down a bit?”

Dean started eating the food at their table. He sighed “idontknow”

“Dean?” Sam used his alpha voice only when he really had too on Dean. His eyes turned more golden as he glared at his omega.

“yes, I want them now, but the world is too dangerous…and ….What the fuck did you just use your alpha voice on me?”

“Sorry, I wouldn’t if you stopped lying or keeping things from me. And maybe we can get Cass to help”

Dean thought as they both ate. “ yeah let's talk to Cass, wait do you want pups too? “

“Yeah, I kind of do Dean”

Castiel agreed to help the Winchester. They decided to hunt a little less. They would be like the new Bobby for other hunters. They eventually hunt down and kill the pack that turned them. They made it quick as a thank you for their new life. They had grown to love their new life and it's perks (better sex, and senses, and increased strength. plus the ability to have a real family).

They created a small pack and hunted prey and the supernatural together. Cass was like an unofficial member of the pack and helped the pack as much as he could. He was uncle Cass to all of their pups.

[draconida]

Shance Fic Recs (Part three)

More Shance! With Kuro and Sven too. 

82- Mysteries Become Reality by FullmetalDude1 [M/M/M/M, Sven and Kuro]

The world is full of mythical creatures that are slowly but surely being integrated and accepted into society, but a couple of hate crimes and BS still happens.

Lance is a human in this world, doing his best to help Mythics out even if he's got a bad history.

Then he meets 4 super hot Mythics in collage and he is gone, but he'll never admit that.

At least, not until he's been held for ransom by a gang of haters.

83- i don't have too much but i know enough by quiddative

Lance shot a panicked look at Keith but the asshole just laid there uselessly. “Don’t look at me like that,” he snorted. “They’re your kids, after all.”

What?

“What?” Lance and Allura yelled.

Allura turned to Kolivan with narrowed eyes. “Explain,” she demanded.

Kolivan looked very much like he wanted a drink. “The two of them appear to be the Red and Black Paladins’ children from the future.”

(Or: Lance and Shiro's children appear from the future and emotions ensue.)

85- Remember Me by boredomsMuse

Back before Kerberos, Lance and Shiro had been close. Boyfriends, type close. Boyfriends who'd meet each other's parents, all of them, type close.

Except, none of the Paladins know that. Not even Shiro.

86- Starlight Starshine by stirlingphoenix

'He’s beautiful', was the only thought Shiro’s mind could process as he watched Lance in person for the very first time. Those two little words repeated themselves on a loop over and over, making sure he’d never forget this moment. He’d always thought Lance to be exceedingly attractive, but seeing him in real life, as opposed to the TV screen or a movie poster nearly blew his mind.

Shiro had every intention of getting out of there before he ended up doing something embarrassing. Nevermind the fact that Lance wouldn’t know who he was, he still wasn’t too keen on potentially making a fool of himself. But just before he could make a beeline for the exit, the sound of his proper last name echoed throughout the air, forcing him to stop dead in his tracks.

“Excuse me, Mr. Shirogane?” The nervousness that plagued his caller’s voice hit Shiro’s ears wrong, yet it was still oddly familiar to him, as if he’d heard that same tone over a hundred times before.

As it turned out, he had, just never like this. Turning around, he came face-to-face with the lead of the production, the one and only Lance McClain himself, standing before him with a curious, perhaps even anxious expression covering his face.

87- Hi by Nevermoree

"in a world where you have your soulmates’ first words tattooed in your skin, he, obviously, has… well, that."

88- Te prefiero a ti by Nevermoree [Explicit and only spanish]

Lance has been in love with Shiro since he can remember, so when he have the opportunity to spend the night with Shiro, he have decided not to waste it. It's supposed to be a one-night deal, but things do not always work out the way you plan.

89- How to get a hot, shape-shifting dragon-man to fall in love with you by charlotteXOyates [Explicit]

Discovering a new species is a dream every reptile expert can relate to, so Lance's excitement upon meeting Shiro, a man with scales and a dragon tail, is understandably through the roof. What's less understandable, however, is Lance's sudden desire to help the dragon-man with his rut…

90- Daycare, Toddlers, and a bit of Love by starryrosez

Lance falls in love with the father of a boy he looks after in daycare.

91- Claws by AshesTheTerrible [Explicit and omegaverse] Lance had clawed his way through the Galra military ranks. This was the most important day of his entire existence. He was being assigned to a commander. One of the most ruthless commanders in the Empire. He had to make a good impression.

It would be just his luck that he'd be stricken with the beginnings of a ruthless heat. He knew the suppressants made him sick, but he took them anyway. Anything was better than a fucking stupid heat. He couldn't very well look strong with his heat boring down on his shoulders.

But puking at the feet of your new commander doesn't exactly make you look like a model Galra either… hindsight Lance supposes. 92- Lance's Guide on How to Embarrass Yourself in Front of Your Insurance Adjuster by Eilera

“This is for my mama, Hunk. She was so worried about this whole thing. They just finished renovating. I’m not gonna let her down. If my name isn’t Lance fucking Hernandez Martine-holy fuck he’s gorgeous.”

“Oh no. No. Lance do-“

Lance didn’t even hear him because there was a fucking gorgeous god walking up the path to the front door.

(In which Lance is helping his mama with an insurance claim and he was not prepared for the smoking hot insurance adjuster.)

93- designated drivers anonymous by kalakauuas

"It’s halfway through his sixth attempt at a puppy-filter pic that the bathroom door whooshes open wider than Lance’s mouth trying to prompt the puppy tongue onto the screen. Right when Lance screeches in surprised terror, he takes the picture.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know it was occupied,” says the person who threw the door open, his hands rushing to cover his eyes quicker than Lance would run from his mom’s chancla.

The good thing is, aside from vaguely humiliating selfie poses, there’s nothing to see here."

Lance and Shiro meet through a shared hobby, if you consider hiding in bathrooms during house parties a hobby.

94- Tris for Guys by quiddative

“Um, my name is Lance McClain-Reyes and I have a personal training session,” Lance said, though it came out as more of a question than a statement.

The girl hummed and typed something on the computer. “Ah, right on time,” she said. “Looks like you’ve been paired up with Shiro. If you’ll just take a seat, he should be out in a few minutes.”

Shiro?, Lance thought as all the gears in his brain suddenly screeched to a halt. I must have heard wrong. There’s no way—

“That’s okay, Pidge, I’m already here,” said a deep and familiar voice just behind Lance.

(Or: What do you do when the guy you've been crushing on turns out to be your personal trainer for the day?)

95- easier to lose by quiddative [Explicit]

Shiro is at the peak of his NHL career. Unfortunately, being famous has its downsides, particularly when it comes to dating. And that’s on top of the fact that he’s still in the closet. However, a chance meeting with college student Lance, who seems to be the only person in the entire city who doesn’t know who he is, gives him hope that maybe he won’t die alone after all. Just as long as he can keep his identity a secret.

96- A Halloween Tail by Cathwren

Lance just wanted to have a fun Halloween night, but when homophobic idiots give him trouble he makes a new friend in the dashing young knight that swoops in to save the day. Secrets are shared and Lance can easily say he got a night to remember...and maybe even a boyfriend.

97- 13 stories for Halloween by liddie [Explicit]

A collection of 13 Shance stories for the month of October featuring (but not limited to): vampires, kitsune, werewolves, demons, cursed scarecrows, ghosts, merpeople, oni and whatever else comes to mind!

98- Head Start by SuccubustyKisses [Explicit]

Werewolves. If there was one scent Lance knew above all else, it was Werewolves. Being born from a werewolf father and a human mother Lance knew werewolves. So when he got to the Galaxy Garrison and smelled werewolf in his class his first thought was to make peace with the other wolf.

Sure, Lance was only a half blood, and the closest to transformation he'd ever gotten was sharpened canines and claws during a full moon, but he was still wolf. As such, wolves should stick together. He left his family pack behind to come to the Garrison, maybe he'd be able to form a new pack here.

99- Forgotten Gods and Scales Like Jewels by keir [Explicit and Dubious Consent]

Lance has spent his entire career searching for the elusive and forgotten god of war and lust, a god made of part man, part snake. The pieces are there, and once Lance puts them together, he and his team discover the long forgotten temple dedicated to the naga god, but more lies in store for Lance than he could have ever dreamed of discovering.

100- Of God's and Fae's by MommaVanillaBear

A fae of the ocean, casted aside and alone made the dangerous trek to the festival of lights, and though the way back should have been easy, his steps become lost and the ocean he searches for is replaced by thick foliage and towering trees. Caught by a creature that claims to be an Earth fae, the one of the ocean must spend a month living in the forest or else the God who watches the forest will become aware of him. And there was no way the ocean fae could fight or hope to escape the wrath of a god.

101- Pornstar Lance by Ryuani [Explicit]

Lance used to work as a pornstar but space kinda stopped that.

102- Take a Chance by nuuuge [Fem!Shance]

Lance really just wants the hot Basketball prodigy to notice her.

103- Yearning Touch by CirqueBordello (CircusTalia) [Explicit and Sven]

Sven volunteers to be part of an experiment. But when that experiment makes a change in his body, Lance is there to support him but also realizes he likes the new Sven.

104- The Shirogane Triplets by MermaidLance [Explicit, Trans Lance and the title]

Three Boys

One Lance

He's in for an adventure.

105- Next Time, Pack Them Separately by Quiddity

“So, uh, you in Detroit on business?” Lance asks. The guy glances at him and for a second Lance thinks that he’s terribly misread his mood and he’s about to be snubbed in the worst way. Then he notices the dark circles under his eyes. The man’s totally exhausted. “No,” the man says, shuffling together his papers and securing them together with a wicked looking alligator clip. “I’m headed to New York.” Lance perks up. “Oh! Me too! I’m headed there to meet up with- uh…” Lance is cut off when his neighbor unbuckles himself, stands, and pushes into the line of passengers with a muttered apology. Lance sits there, dumbfounded as the man opens the overhead compartment and pulls down his- Nope. That’s Lance’s bag he’s strapping over his shoulder. That’s his palm tree name tag, that’s his laptop, that’s his senior film project he’s been working on for the past six months and his external hard drive with only back up of three hundred hours of work just shambling down the aisle and off the plane. Oh no.

106- The Knotty Omega by keir [Explicit, omegaverse and little All/Lance]

Lance never saw himself doing porn, but the opportunity fell in his lap with a wicked smile and the smooth talk of Lotor, a producer. The omega finds himself at the center of attention for many horny alphas as he does the most taboo and engages in heat sex for the camera.

107- Double Trouble by liddie [Explicit, Kuro and Shiro]

When Lance agreed to help out at his grandma's flower shop during summer break, he didn't know that it meant managing the shop singlehandedly for months while she went adventuring off to Europe.

Sure, he needs to practice his magic with living things...and yes, plants are a good way to do that without bodies stacking up if something went wrong. But Lance can't even keep a dandelion alive to save his life, so how the hell is he going to keep the entire stock of his grandma's enchanted flower shop alive and healthy for four months?

The answer is simple. He's going to summon himself some help using the dusty old spell book he found in the attic.

It's too bad Lance's handwriting looks like chicken scratch on a good day…

108- To Drown In You by Val_Creative [Explicit and Trans Lance]

Humans are a fearful race, unable to conjure anything other than simpler, volatile emotions, or so Shiro’s mer-clan has taught him. Lance’s compassion and his openhearted empathy deepens Shiro’s need for more. And he’s only know Lance for the turn of a moon.

109- How Deep is the Love We Think We Know by mizufallsfromkumo [omegaverse]

It had been a considerable while since Shiro nested.

So long in fact he didn’t even realize he was doing it.

Until he yanked one of the Castle’s lounge couch cushions out from behind Pidge. No regard for the fact that she was using it. He just knew he needed that one because it was the softest of all the other cushions. Pidge’s surprised squeak as she toppled to the side didn’t even register with him for a moment.

Or at least not till Keith called him out.

110- Repayment by SuccubustyKisses [Explicit and omegaverse]

“I need you to do me a favor Coran.”

“Anything for you, son.”

Lance stepped forward, digging his wallet out of his pocket and slamming it down on the desk in front of him. “There is a man here, an alpha named Shiro. He lost his arm in a car accident.”

“Yes, Takashi Shirogane. It’s a shame what happened to him.” Coran looked away sadly.

“I want you to take this credit card and give him everything he needs. The best, top of the line products.” Coran looked down at the credit card pressed between Lance’s hand and his desk then back up at Lance. “Please?”

111- Dream a Little Dream by thinkpink [Explicit]

Shiro is an adult- he knows how feelings work. He definitely knows his own feelings. Right?

112- Telltale Blush by thinkpink [Explicit and Dubious Consent]

“So why don’t we just skip the part where you throw lines at me and I pretend not to be interested, and you can suck my dick instead.”

113- Dress to Impress by thinkpink

How did Shiro even get sweatpants in space? And why are they so god damn thin!

114- A Dragon by liddie [Explicit]

On the day of his wedding, Prince Lance is carried away by a fearsome creature of old. The remote island is a prison and the dragon his keeper, although Lance is not completely alone. A mysterious man named Shiro is also a prisoner of the dragon, but as Lance learns just who he is, he comes to realize there is more to Shiro than he first thought.

115- In Flagrante Delicto by gwendy1

in flagrante delicto (adverb)

Definition of in flagrante delicto: 1 : in the very act of committing a misdeed : red-handed 2 : in the midst of sexual activity

116- Black's Deal by SuccubustyKisses [Explicit and little Klance]

I’ll give you what you need to get what you want, but you only get two quintent. Do you agree?

“Yes.”

Or the story of Shiro taking over Keith's body in the time of his disappearance between seasons 2 and 3.

117- The Beast Of Pirate's Bay by SuccubustyKisses [Explicit and Major character death, but don't scary you. Happy ending]

A loud shriek filled the air, causing him to fall back onto the damp metal of the ship floor. “I’m sorry.” He whimpered, covering his ears as the sound continued to ring out.

As instant as the sound came it quickly disappeared, leaving Lance to tentatively uncover his ears. “Please,” he begged, tears escaping his eyes as he looked over the side of the boat again. “I won’t even enter your territory if you just bring me a juniberry flower!”.

118- The Lion, The Witch, and the Cursed Ghost by SuccubustyKisses [Explicit]

When lance goes to Kogane forest in search of the cat he saw plastered all over the news he ends up with a lot more than he bargained for. But he's not complaining.

The ghost floated up, arms crossed as he looked over the trees. “I’ll make you a deal.” Lance’s eyes brightened, he knew his excitement was obvious. But, he didn’t care. “If you can find me in this forest before the sun sets, I’ll take you to see Shiro. If not, you will leave this forest without a fight.” He turned and lowered down to Lance’s level again, holding out his transparent hand. “Do we have a deal?”

Shiro must be the cat.

Lance reached out, taking the hand, surprised when he actually felt contact. “Deal.” Before he could even shake the hand properly it was gone, along with its owner, only the flutter of leaves in the air showing he had even been there. Snatching up one of the leaves, Lance grinned. This ghost vastly underestimated him.

119- That's not a phone by CrypticGabriel [Explicit and Trans Lance]

Lance had a part-time job at the movie theater. During his job, he liked ogling at a frequent flyer named Shiro. But he never expected to catch him doing the unthinkable while watching a movie. And no. It didn't involve a phone.

120- Let's Play A Game by liddie [Explicit]

About to leave for a little vacation time at his grandfather's seaside cottage, Shiro gets a text from Allura asking if he can drop her friend Lance off at the beach on his way. He agrees, but is entirely unprepared for everything that Lance is.

121- How Do I "Casual"? by The_Busy_Beee

Sometimes Lance loves living in the same building as his best friends.

Sometimes he hates it with a passion.

Usually only when Keith's involved, however.

Or:

Lance brings home a guy and isn't sure how to handle the "morning after" situation. Keith is exhausted and thinks Lance has murdered somebody.

122- Spilling Secrets by The_Busy_Beee

Everyone knows the past never stays in the past.

Or:

Shiro finally meets the Blue Lane crew, Lotor is a shit, and Lance really just wants today to go well.

123- Good Girl by strawberrylovely [Explicit and Fem!Lance]

Shiro hears Lance masturbating in the team bathroom. He’s not sure whether to help or run away, so Lance makes the decision for him.

124- Beautiful Breed by Blue_Queen662 [Fem!Lance]

Kept in captivity for years, Lance had not had any contact with others like herself in a long while.

Shiro had been gone from the sea for years. From being separated from his pod for a long time, he had forgotten how it feels to be loved by a mate.

Shiro has been chosen to be Lance’s mate. For his strangth, speed and intellect; it was decided amongst guests at a dinner party that the Champion will mate with Zarkon’s prize pet.

125- my boyfriend's back (and you're gonna be in trouble) by heavenlyrare

The Galra and the Alteans haven't been at each other's throats, thanks to Prince Lance's and Commander Shiro's relationship.

Unfortunately, the rest of the universe doesn't seem to know that.

126- Missing Pieces by AshesTheTerrible [Explicit]

Shiro comes back from two tours overseas a changed man. He has one less arm and a lot more nightmares. His best friend Keith convinces him Yoga is the perfect form of meditation to help with his PTSD and he's skeptical at best....that is until he sees the instructor and is instantly in love.

127- Full Moons and the Mornings After by Impetus

Lance really needs to stop letting stray wolves into his apartment.

128- My Best Friend's Brother? How Cliche by orphan_account

Lance has been pining after Shiro since he was 14, and the last time he saw him before Shiro left to go to veterinary school had been embarrassing as hell. But, things were different now. 3 years had passed, Shiro was back, and Lance was a new and improved version of himself. This time, Lance wasn't afraid to do what he wanted to.

OR that one where Lance hasn't seen Shiro in years but when he goes to drop some food off at Keith's house he walks in on Shiro working out.

129- How To Use a Long Rest by avoidingavoidance [Explicit]

In which the team's game of Monsters and Mana isn't actually a game, and Lance takes good care of Shiro. Several times.

130- Just Take That Breath in Your Lungs by mizufallsfromkumo [Omegaverse]

When Shiro was younger, and freshly presented as an Alpha, he use to think about how things would be when he claimed his mate for himself.

Ideally it would be their wedding night, but it wasn’t a necessity. Shiro was fine with whenever moment arose and felt right. And when his intended mate would find it, Shiro would turn on soft music. They’d maybe dance a little, or speak soft words of love. Then the night would progress in a slow, gentle, and loving path towards claiming.

Because yeah, Shiro was a hopeless romantic at times.

Sue him.

But that was the furthest thing that was happening, Shiro thought as he and Lance flopped into the nest both of them had constructed over two weeks ago.

131- Can You Find the Path that Leads Back to My Heart by mizufallsfromkumo

Lance was just left to sulk in the cockpit. And wonder just where his relationship stood with his mate, who had his soul transferred and fused into a clone's body. A clone Lance had just continued on courting like nothing ever happened, because he didn’t know his mate had even died in the first place.

Lance never thought going to space would be filled with so much drama.

Much less, drama that made his life sound like really bad telenovela plot line.

132- Some Good Shooting by AshesTheTerrible [Explicit and Trans Lance]

Lance and Shiro had been nothing but a hurricane of spats and frustration since the switching of lions. And then quite suddenly...they weren't anymore. Hunk couldn't figure out what had changed between the blue and black paladins but the rest of the team just seemed happy the two were working together. Maybe a little too well in fact.

Unbeknownst to the others, really all it took to change the two paladin's attitudes toward each other was one hard kiss in the hangar doors.

Parts 1 / 2 / 3 

[thisdiscontentedwinter]

Baby Daddy - Chapter 15

You can read it on AO3 here, or find the Tumblr Chapter Index here. 

Waiting is the worst. Stiles has never been a patient guy, and having a sheriff for a father hasn’t made things any easier. When Stiles was a kid, after he lost his mom, he could sometimes work himself all the way up into a panic attack, thinking of all the terrible things that could happen to his dad once he left the house to go to work. And then, of course, one day it did happen. One day Stiles got pulled out of class to be told his dad had been shot, and they didn’t know if he was going to make it.

Jesus.

The last eight months have been stressful as fuck, and today really isn’t helping.

But at least today Stiles isn’t all alone. He’s got Derek with him, and focussing on Derek gives him something to do apart from panic.

He microwaves some pizza pockets he’s been keeping hidden in the very back of the freezer, and forces Derek to sit on the couch and eat one.

“It’ll be okay,” he tells him for what feels like the hundredth time, and with a lot more confidence than he actually feels.

Derek gives him the side eye. “I can hear your heartbeat, you know. I can tell you’re lying.”

“What?” Stiles blinks. “Okay, so first of all, if my heart rate is elevated it’s because I’m scared, not because I’m lying. Lying would be a deliberate attempt to hide the truth. Second of all, you can hear heartbeats?”

Derek nods.

Stiles blinks as he processes the reality of something as crazy as that. “How the fuck do you sleep?”

“You learn to filter stuff out,” Derek says, a slight tug at the corner of his mouth like he’s trying not to react to Stiles’s wide-eyed curiosity. “Everyone does that though, even regular people. We just do it more.”

“Wow.” Stiles ruminates on that for a moment. “So, like, if there was a mouse in the walls, would you be able to hear that?”

“Probably.” For a moment it looks like Derek might actually smile, but then he abruptly ducks his head again, as though he’s caught himself. His expression shutters again.

“Dude, you’re amazing.” He offers Derek what he hopes is an encouraging smile. “I’d love to know more about you and your body and stuff.”

Derek’s eyebrows shoot up.

“That came out wrong!” Stiles’s face burns as he very much does not think about Derek’s body specifically. And in detail. He does not. “I mean, I’d love to know more about what werewolves can do, and how you’re different from the rest of us, if you’re cool talking about it.” He swallows. “Sorry, my mouth runs ahead of my brain a lot of the time. Also, I have ADHD, so that’s saying something, because my brain is also all over the place, and it becomes this whole mouth-brain vicious circle thing.”

Usually when Stiles word-vomits all over a virtual stranger like that, they nod politely and attempt to extricate themselves from the conversation as cleanly as possible. But Derek’s holding his gaze, and his expression is open and soft and somehow strangely fond, like Stiles is a revelation. And the good kind of revelations, not the Bible kind.

It makes something fierce and protective uncurl inside Stiles. It makes him want to stand between Derek and the world, and be his armor. But Stiles isn’t really big enough for that, is he? It won’t stop him from trying though.

“When I as younger,” Stiles says, “this was the worst part. The waiting. Like if Dad got a call in the middle of the night, I’d know it was a big deal, because, well, when they wake the sheriff up in the middle of the night it’s usually a big deal. And I would always try to stay awake until he got home again, because what if I fell asleep again and something happened, and I’d always know that I hadn’t even cared enough to stay up for him?” He picks at the pizza pocket crumbs on the plate, and shrugs. “But at some point I realised I couldn’t do that anymore, you know? That whatever was going to happen was going to happen anyway, and it had nothing to do with me, and being awake or asleep wouldn’t change a damn thing. So, like, we can sit here and worry, or we can sit here and I can ramble at you and ask you questions about werewolves, and whatever happens will happen anyway.”

Derek nods slightly, like Stiles is actually making sense, which again isn’t the sort of reaction Stiles is used to from people he barely knows. Stiles is very much an acquired taste.

“So I’m going to choose to ramble and ask questions,” he says. “And just so you know, that doesn’t mean I’m not also not going to be freaking the fuck out for my dad, and for Laura and your uncle, and for…”

It hits him suddenly. The baby has been such a nebulous concept up until now, even knowing that Laura is pregnant. But it’s still real, isn’t it? A baby. And a part of Stiles thinks wildly that there is no practical difference between a baby who is never born and some invented human being pulled entirely from the imagination—they are both people who fail to exist— but that’s not really true, is it? He feels it. It wouldn’t hurt like this if the baby was just some hypothetical human being.

“And for the baby,” Derek finishes for him, softly.

“Yeah.” Stiles swallows and it hurts. He flashes Derek a shaky smile. “So yeah, fucking werewolves, huh? What is that about?”

Derek returns his smile, and reaches out and takes his hand. “You can ask me whatever you want to distract us both, Stiles.”

“Do you turn into a real wolf?” Stiles blurts out. “Or just like a super hairy and kind of unconvincing Lon Chaney Jr.?”  

“I’m very convincing,” Derek says with a hesitant smile that grows when Stiles laughs. “We have two shifted forms. We call one of them the beta shift. It’s with claws, and hair, but it’s still basically human-shaped.”

“Cool,” Stiles breathes. “So cool!”

“And…and most of us can shift into a proper wolf form too,” Derek says, but there’s something guarded in his tone.

“Most of you?”

“I can’t,” Derek says, his tone clipped. “I haven’t been able to, since… Since the fire.”

“Oh, that really sucks.” Stiles squeezes Derek’s hand. “Do you know why?”

Derek looks away. “My pack bond isn’t strong enough.”

“Because you lost your family?” Stiles asks softly.

Derek shrugs, still looking away. “Laura can still do it.”

“I’m really sorry, Derek,” Stiles says.

“It’s just a shift,” Derek tells the floor.

“Yeah, I guess. Seems like you miss it though.”

Derek looks back at him, eyes wide. “I do.”

Stiles leans in closer, knocking their shoulders together. “Maybe you’ll get it back one day. What can you do to make your pack bond stronger again?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll bet we can figure something out,” Stiles says. “I’ll bet you can do there werewolf equivalent of group exercises and trust falls, and all that lame shit they make you do at camp. But cooler! Because werewolves.”

He’s talking out of his ass again, but it wrings a tiny smile from Derek, and Stiles might be a little bit in love with that smile. It transforms Derek’s whole face, and Stiles feels a rush of warm pride at being the one who put it there. Okay, so he thought Derek was a tweaker the first time he saw him, but he’s not. He’s a guy who’s been beaten down by all the bad shit that’s happened in his life, and at some point—at this  point—that’s enough. Stiles might have absolutely no control over whatever happens today to Laura and to Peter and to Dad and to Parrish, but he can do this, right? He can make sure that, whatever it is, Derek doesn’t have to face it alone.

“Okay,” he says, forcing lightness into his tone, “so how about you show me your claws, Mr. Chaney Jr.?”

***

Derek doesn’t just have claws—he has fangs as well, and Stiles has to force himself not to reach out and touch them the same way he did the claws. There’s a line, right? And sticking his fingers in another guy’s mouth is probably crossing it.

He follows the curve of Derek’s mouth with his gaze, biting his own lip when he sees the way Derek’s fang digs into the plump flesh.

Derek catches him staring, and Stiles feels the heat rising in his face.

“What else can you do?” Stiles asks him.

Derek glowers, his heavy eyebrows tugging together, and then suddenly coarse, dark hair is sprouting from his cut-glass cheekbones, and his forehead transforms into a thick ridges brow that would be the envy of a Neanderthal. His eyebrows vanish completely somewhere in the process, but a deep widow’s peak compensates for the loss.

Stiles lets out a startled laugh, and this time he can’t keep his hand to himself at all. He traces Derek’s ridged brow, his pointed ears, and then runs his fingers down his wolfy sideburns. Derek turns his head into Stiles’s touch, like a cat, and rubs the side of his face against his fingertips. His eyes shine brilliant blue again, and Stiles wants to laugh at how crazy this is, and how Derek is rumbling like a cat as well.

“Are you sure you’re even a wolf?” he teases. “And not a little kitty cat?”

Derek snaps at his fingertips, and Stiles laughs and pulls his hand away.

“You’re amazing though,” he says, taking Derek’s hand in his, and pressing the pads of his fingers against the tips of Derek’s claws. “When I was a little kid I used to believe the world was magic for way longer than I should have, you know?”

Derek’s throat bobs as he swallows, and Stiles wonders if he can even talk in this form.

“But look at you!” Stiles says. “Holy shit. Look at you!”

Derek rumbles again.  

***

The minutes tick slowly away towards the hour, and the tension in Stiles winds tighter and tighter. He doesn’t even know what’s happening, and the not knowing just drives his anxiety higher. He keeps checking his phone every thirty seconds until Derek takes it off him firmly and sets it down on the coffee table just out of reach.

Stiles flashes him an apologetic smile and leans back again. They’re sitting close on the couch, shoulders pressed together, and Stiles leans his head on Derek’s shoulder. Is that weird? He doesn’t even fucking care at this point, because he needs the closeness, okay? And then Derek shifts, and Stiles is about to flail upright again and apologise, but Derek isn’t trying to get rid of him. Instead, Derek lifts his arm and brings it back down again around Stiles, like it’s totally not weird at all, and Stiles exhales slowly. Just two bros cuddling, right? But there actually are extenuating circumstances, and it’s dumb to feel so awkward about this, because why shouldn’t two guys get their snuggle on when they both need a bit of emotional support? It’s only weird because society is fucked up.

Still, Stiles can’t help but notice that Derek smells good. He smells of warmth and soft cotton and some sort of body spray that Stiles doesn’t recognise. And he also can’t help but notice that the chest he’s resting his head against is incredibly well-defined.

God.

Stiles is such a creeper.

He feels a tickle of warm breath against the shell of his ear, and realises that he’s not the only creeper in this scenario. Is Derek smelling his hair?  

Stiles turns his head, and Derek flinches back, and they both reach a silent gentlemen’s agreement not to mention they were smelling each other. At least Stiles thinks that Derek’s suddenly pink ears mean that he’s agreeing without words that they will never speak of this again.

But Derek’s arm is still around him, so Stiles reaches up and curls his fingers around Derek’s wrist to hold him there.

He’s okay with never talking about this again.

But right now? They both need it.

***

Stiles blinks himself awake when Derek moves. They’re still cuddling on the couch, and Stiles is attached to Derek’s shirt by a thin string of drool. Gross. He levers himself upright.

“Sleep okay?” Derek says. His face is back to normal now, his eyes green instead of luminescent blue.

“I was just resting my eyes,” Stiles grumbles at him. He reaches for his phone, and squints at the screen. He hasn’t missed any calls or messages. “

“Whatever happens today,” Derek says. “Thank you.”

He sounds vulnerable again, and scared.

“Hey.” Stiles reaches out and catches Derek’s hand, and settles back down beside him. He’s not letting Derek go yet. “Whatever happens, we’ll look out for each other, okay? I drooled on your shirt, Derek. We’re totally bros for life now!”

He thinks it should make Derek laugh, and wonders why it doesn’t.

They continue to wait.