triskehale | sweet little sixteen (closed; luke)

When Derek Hale wakes up, he's 16 years old and very much not in the bedroom he remembers falling asleep in. Also, there's a cat sitting on his chest.

"What the--" The cat is staring down at him with big yellow eyes and a judgmental expression. Derek flashes his golden eyes in return, but the cat looks thoroughly unimpressed. Derek pushes the cat off of his chest and sits up, looking around the room in confusion. His eyes catch on a cage across the room, and widen slightly when all he sees in it is what appears to be a giant purple cotton ball with eyes staring back at him. "Okay..."

He's in a cabin, and it's weird. It's weird mainly because this cabin smells like him. And not just because he's in it. Everything smells like him, like he's been here for months, but that's impossible. Last night he was at home in Beacon Hills, chasing his siblings through the preserve. He went to bed early because he had a big basketball game today. Laura smacked him upside the head and then his mother rolled her eyes and kissed his forehead. You know, normal bedtime stuff.

But now he's in a cabin that smells like him in a place that doesn't smell anything like home, and the damn cat is still staring at him. He turns to get out of bed and his hand catches on something. It's a red sweatshirt, and he brings it up to his nose to smell it. It's not Derek's, but it smells nice, like lavender and honey. It's a comforting enough scent, but it means nothing to him. He tosses the hoodie back onto the bed and gets up, grabbing his underwear when they fall down his hips.

The clothes in the dresser all smell like him, but they're too big. He finds a black v-neck shirt that hangs a little loose, and a pair of jeans that he can belt up. The cat is following him and meowing, so he follows his nose to its food and pours it into the little bowl near the kitchenette, and then turns around to survey the cabin again. There's a phone on the nightstand, but when he calls the house number, he gets a message that the number isn't in service. Same with his mom's cell, his dad's, and Laura's. None of the names in his contacts are anyone he recognizes, and he's beyond confused. His scent is the most confusing. All over the cabin it's him, but darker. It's muskier and tinged with sadness and anger. Which makes sense, if he's been trapped here, but that's impossible.

There's another scent, that lavender honey, but it's fading. Whoever it belongs to hasn't been here in a long time. Stronger is the scent of another wolf, and Derek's eyes flash gold as he inhales it. It's an alpha, but not a threat. It's a warm, friendly smell, and Derek knows that's who he needs to find. If this other wolf is the alpha here, wherever the hell here is, then that's who he needs to talk to. Especially if they know each other and he can explain what the hell is going on.

The boots by the door fit him, if a little loosely, and he goes about tracking that scent out of the woods and into the city. It's nowhere he recognizes, and it doesn't smell like home at all. Signs keep telling him that he's in Darrow, and he doesn't recognize that either. It takes him awhile, but soon he finds himself in front of a bookstore. It hasn't opened for the day yet, and Derek follows the scent up to the apartment above it. The scent is strongest here, and Derek bites his lip a little nervously as he knocks on the door.

He hears movement inside and he lifts his chin, doing his best to appear capable and calm. He is the son of Alpha Talia Hale, and a beta of the Hale pack. That means something, and he has to make a good impression.

Plus, he just really needs this guy's help if he wants to get home.

Which he really, really does.

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"I don't, but the basement locks as well," Luke says, his voice gentle. If Derek doesn't want to be alone during the full moon, Luke certainly isn't going to send him away and while he doesn't trust himself out in the open, he knows the two of them will likely be safe enough in the basement.

"I can stay down there with you," he offers, then smiles again, the corners of his eyes crinkling. "As long as you promise not to let me carve up any boxes of books if I start to get restless. I'm really not myself and while I'm okay with other wolves, I still tend to get a little... well, restless is as good a word as any, I suppose. We'll stick with that."

"Really? You'd do that?" Derek asks, brightening up a little. It won't be spending the night out on the preserve with his family, but he'll be with someone familiar enough. That should help. "Wow. Thanks, man. And I'll do my best with the book thing."

He eats a few more bites of his sandwich and then takes a sip of his soda, looking over at Luke with a pleased smile. "We must be pretty good friends, huh? That's awesome."

"Yes," Luke says. "We are."

It's funny, but it's been a long time since he's had a good friend who's also a wolf. Most of the time, when he's around other wolves, he's been there as their pack leader. That isn't to say he's been unable to make friends, but it's been different, not the same as this at all. This is much more relaxed, much easier, and Luke finds he prefers it significantly. Derek might be needing his guidance right now, but for the most part he doesn't feel like he's responsible for him above all else, and that makes it easier for them to just be friends.

"We'll look out for each other," he says, smiling.

"Awesome," Derek replies, brightening considerably and picking his sandwich back up. Now that that's settled, it's one less thing he has to worry about. He polishes off the first sandwich and washes it down with his soda, making a sound as he remembers something. "Does looking out for me include letting me go through all those old books in your apartment? Some of them looked seriously ancient, dude."

Luke huffs out a laugh at that and then waves his hand. "If you want to. Some of them, anyway. There are others that shouldn't be handled by anyone." He's managed to find a fair number of first edition and hard to find books, those are the ones he keeps in a case, locked away from people and the oils on their fingers.

No one really cares for those ones except collectors anyway, but eventually someone is going to want them and he'll be able to make a fair amount of money for himself.

"Do you have books made of human skin?" Derek asks with a laugh. "Like Hocus Pocus?"

He finishes off his food and then pushes his tray away before sitting back in his chair, rocking it back onto two legs and patting his flat belly. Derek looks around the mall with vaguely curious look on his face, nose tipped up slightly to take in all the smells. It's all sort of an assault to the senses, and Derek squints blearily before turning his gaze back on Luke. "Do you want to get out of the mall? There's like thirty-two different types of cologne in the food court alone."

"I sell books, I'm not a witch," Luke says with a laugh. "I don't have anything made out of human skin. I hope." He's has admittedly collected some pretty strange things over the years, but he doesn't think any of them have been made of human parts.

"Yeah, let's go," he agrees, getting up from his chair. "You'll get used to that hopefully. I've found over the years it's gotten easier to tune out smells, as it were."

"No, I'm fine back home, it's just-- everything is different here," Derek says quietly. "I've only ever known one place."

He gets up and grabs Luke's tray once they're both finished, looking around with a slight pout as he dumps their contents into the trash and sets them down. He smells the ocean here, but it's different than the Pacific. Absolutely nothing is familiar, not really, and Derek swallows hard as he turns to look at Luke with slightly slumped shoulders.

Luke thinks about his first few days out of Idris, how jarring they had been. How difficult it was to adjust to an entirely new world, how it had smelled, the sensation of being so visible when he had spent years using concealing runes to make it so mundanes couldn't catch the slightest glimpse of him. It had been his first time out in the world without them, out in the world as a werewolf, and it had been awful.

"You'll be alright," he says again, reaching to lay a hand against the back of Derek's neck. "You'll see. Come on."

Luke's hand on Derek's neck is warm and comforting, calming, and it reminds him that he isn't alone. Luke may not be his alpha, the one he swore his undying loyalty too as soon as he was old enough to know what it meant, but he's still helping Derek through this more than he even knows how to put into words.

"Thank you," he says quietly, nodding and giving Luke a small smile before grabbing his shopping bag and heading for the entrance of the mall, doing his best to tune out the scents and sounds around him. "Time to go get the cat?"

sweet little sixteen (closed; luke)

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