the wolves all cry

The first time Derek dreams about her, being here in Darrow, it's bittersweet. He sees her through the crowd, looking around the train station with curious, bright red eyes. Derek's own eyes glow blue in response, and he feels lighter, the burden of alpha removed and given back to the person it was meant for.

Derek runs through the crowd towards her, hand outstretched and reaching for his mother, his alpha, so beautiful and strong. Whole.

The train platform stretches and Derek never gets any closer, but she's smiling at him. He wakes up breathing hard and wiping at his eyes. He sits up, and they glow red where they're reflected in the window. It's the first time in years that he hasn't dreamed of her on fire.

The dream sticks with him for days and he tries his best to shake it. It's impossible, her coming here. Well, it isn't, really. But Derek never expects it to happen.

He goes to sleep, and he has the same dream. Except this time, when he runs to her, the platform doesn't stretch and he comes skidding to a halt in front her like an eager pup. She looks at him indulgently, fondly, and Derek feels lighter than air. He's smiling, and he reaches for her, but her warm, kind eyes suddenly turn cold, fierce.

I know what you did, Derek. She opens her mouth and extends her fangs, snarling at him. Derek takes a reflexive step back and feels sick. You killed them all.

He looks up and the rest of the family is standing behind her, all of them glaring at Derek. Their clothes are scorched. Derek whimpers and takes a step back, chest aching with guilt. He trips over something and lands on his ass, scuttling backwards and away from that accusatory look in her eyes. He deserves it, but it's still so hard to see.

You broke my heart, Derek. Now I'm taking yours. His mother shifts into her wolf form, lips curled back in a snarling growl as she paws at the ground, claws digging into the cement.

"Mom," he whispers, whimpering and baring his neck in submission. She runs for him and Derek screams as she lands on him, pinning him down and getting her teeth around his throat as her claws tear into his chest, ripping through muscle and breaking bone. "Mom, please."

He's screaming in agony even though he knows that he deserves this. He deserves it eleven times over. He screams for his mother, screams for the pain he's feeling, and he's still crying out when her claws rip through his beating heart.

Even then, he can't stop screaming.

Derek has never given much thought to Valentine's Day, for obvious reasons. It's always been kind of a nuisance to Derek, just a day drowned in the overwhelming scents of sugar and flowers, arousal and excitement. It's usually easy to ignore.

But now things are different. Derek has someone to go home to. Not to mention that it's the full moon.

His senses are already on high alert due to the moon's closeness, and all day he's been surrounded by horny, happy people. It's impossible for Derek not to feed off of all the energy, and all he wants is to be near Stiles.

His valentine. God, how is this is life?

He has no idea how big of a deal to make this, so he swings by the grocery store and gets Stiles a few bags of Reese's hearts and a silly little card. The present that Derek planned on giving him for Christmas wasn't ready in time, and it's been sitting in his sock drawer for a bit, so he can give him that too. It's sappy enough.

Stiles is moving around inside the apartment when Derek gets home and he has to adjust himself before going inside, because he's been half-hard and horny all afternoon and just the scent of Stiles is affecting him.

But it's okay. He can be good. Probably.

"Hey Stiles." Derek finds him on the couch and smiles at him, flushing slightly as he hands over the bag of Reese's hearts and leans over the back of the couch to kiss him on the cheek.

It's late by the time Derek trudges out of the woods, sun long gone. He doesn't usually leave the woods in wolf form, but he doesn't hear anyone around and he goes seemingly unnoticed as he slinks through the streets, bundle of fabric clutched between his strong jaws.

The fire escape is easy enough to maneuver and his bedroom window is still open a crack, a habit he can't shake even though Stiles lives in their den now, rather than above it. Derek noses it open with his muzzle and climbs through, claws clicking softly against the polished hardwood. He flicks his ears and tilts his head, confirming that Stiles is in his room down the hall. Derek spits out the bundle and yawns, stretching his jaw.

The clothes unravel to reveal the rabbit inside. Its soft, lifeless body rolls across the floor and Derek cocks his head, ears perked up. He doesn't really remember tucking the rabbit into his bundle because his belly is full enough, but then he recalls reading Stiles' words in his human form. Derek is good for keeping Stiles protected and fed, and he wants to at least do a good job of that.

He flattens his ears back against his head and scoops the rabbit up, slinking gracefully out of his bedroom and down the hall to Stiles' room. The door is shut and Derek whines softly, setting the rabbit down in front of it, still too settled in his wolf-brain to realize that it isn't really the type of food Stiles enjoys but hoping it's a good offering all the same. He considers scratching at the door and trying to get Stiles' attention, but it occurs to him that Stiles probably doesn't even want to see him after their fight earlier.

He goes back to his room with his tail between his legs and hops up onto the end of his bed, turning around in a circle and lying down to curl up and rest his head on his paws, staring sadly at the door.

Derek was bored.

At first, he relished in the unfamiliar feeling. He hadn’t been bored in years, and he took hearty advantage of it. He explored the city at his leisure and caught up on his reading. He went grocery shopping and jogged along the beach. It was a normal, boring life and at first he truly enjoyed it.

But a normal, boring life is not what Derek was meant for, or what he was born into. Derek was used to his heart pounding, to his senses staying heightened and sharp, constantly prepared for a fight. There was an itch growing under his skin, a craving for the bone-deep adrenaline that he’s so far gone weeks without. He’s constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop because life here is just too good. No one is trying to kill him. No one is dying at his hands or because of his mistakes. There’s no way it can last. He’s uneasy, and he wishes something, anything, would happen just so he can shake the uneasiness in his bones.

Well, be careful what you wish for, and all that.

Derek follows Stiles into the coffee shop near their building and looks around out of habit. Whenever he walks into a room, the occupants are made note of and exit routes are planned. This isn’t something he can shake, no matter how bored he gets. Dean is off to the side with his hands in his pockets, obviously waiting for his order, and Derek walks up to him as Stiles darts off for the counter.

“Dean, hey.” They give each other a casual nod and seem content to occupy the same space together without saying much else. He likes that about Dean. Stiles puts in their normal order and comes over, eyes narrowed at Dean. Stiles never really got over the whole vampire attack thing, which he blames Dean for, and that brief moment of contact has been all the two have had.

Derek rolls his eyes in fond exasperation and claps a hand on Stiles’ shoulder, partly touched by his loyalty. “Down, boy.”

Dean just looks a bit unimpressed and amused all at the same time, and the three of them have a bit of a standoff while they wait for their drinks. Dean lingers to continue making small talk with Derek until he and Stiles get their orders as well, and they all head for the door. There’s a group of teenagers clogging the main entrance so Derek leads them towards a single door at the side of the shop.

He has a hand on Stiles’ back as he pulls it open and ushers Dean out first. Stiles follows and Derek feels something like a vacuum, like the air is being sucked from his lungs while he’s tugged forward by a string at his belly. Everything goes white and he’s dizzy for a moment as he stumbles through the door.

The air outside is cool and a little muggy and the air smells dirty, nothing like Darrow. He shakes his head to clear the stars from his eyes and when he opens them, they are not standing outside of The Bean Counter. In fact, they aren’t even in Darrow at all.

Red floods his irises as he reaches out to reach for Stiles. He sighs in relief when he grabs his arm and then turns to face him and Dean. “Holy shit. Why are you a newsie?”

Stiles’ clothes are entirely different. He’s in a white linen shirt with suspenders over brown tweed knee pants and stockings, with a newsboy cap jammed on his head. Dean looks like something out of a mobster movie, dressed in a dark three-piece wool suit and a fedora on his head. Dean and Stiles are gaping at each other while Derek turns to take in their surroundings. The air smells all wrong, and soon he realizes why. They’re a long way from home.

Derek is standing next to a classic 20’s Cadillac on a cobblestone street lined with plenty like it. There are no modern cars anywhere. There’s nothing modern at all. His heart pounds as he turns to look in a different direction, eyes widening as he takes in a familiar landmark. The Flatiron building looms over them, tall and proud, and Derek’s heart leaps up into his throat.

“This is New York,” he informs them, and Dean and Stiles look over at him. Derek spent years here, and if he breathes in deep enough he can catch familiar scents on the air. “So, we know where we are.”

Derek slides his hands down his own heavy suit, taking in the black, pinstriped three-piece monstrosity and blood red tie. His vision is momentarily obscured by his own fedora, and he reaches up to pluck it off of his head. There’s a weight at his side and he finds that it’s a revolver in a side holster, tucked neatly under his suit jacket. Below that is a hip flask clipped to a black leather belt. He looks up at Stiles’ slack mouth and Dean’s green eyes, letting the red fade out of his own as the panic subsides. “When are we, is the better question.”

Stiles' reaction when Derek tells him that his pregnant werewolf friend is coming over for dinner because she wants to meet him is pretty much what Derek expected. He gapes a little, making that face he does with his brows knitted and his mouth open while he tries to process something, before shrugging agreeably.

He even helps with dinner. And by helps, he means that Stiles sprawls on the counter and picks things out bowls and pans and acts like a general nuisance, but it's still appreciated.

Derek makes a meal worthy of two werewolves and a growing teenage boy; huge juicy steaks and baked potatoes with all the toppings, with a side of steamed veggies because even wolves need something green. Stiles sets the table and it all feels oddly domestic, especially when Derek sets out a bottle of completely pointless wine, considering two of them can't get drunk and one of them is underage. It just felt like something he needed to buy when he was shopping for their dinner. You have someone over, you serve wine, right?

It's five minutes to eight when he puts a basket of warm bread rolls on the set table, having just changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a black scoop-necked tee shirt. He looks over at Stiles and raises an eyebrow. "Hungry?"

Derek is standing at Stiles' stove, shaking a pan back and forth as he makes stir fry.

Stiles is on the couch in the living room with some tinny electric pop playing softly from his laptop speakers, papers and books spread haphazardly all around. Derek burns his thumb on the edge of the pan and tries not to think about how domestic this all feels, how it's something he could get used to, how walking into either apartment to find Stiles there waiting feels like a lot like coming home.

He finishes up the stir fry and dishes out generous helpings on two plates, grabbing forks and two bottles of water as he carries them out into the living room. Stiles has his body contorted simultaneously around both a book and a laptop in a way that shouldn't even be physically possible, and he doesn't react in the slightest when Derek says his name.

He rolls his eyes and uses the back of his hand to shut his laptop before setting his plate down on top of it, ignoring Stiles' squawk of indignation. "Eat."

He holds out the fork and water and then sits down next to him, propping his bare feet up onto the coffee table and crossing them at the ankles. He cradles his plate near his chest as he slouches, propping it up with his fingers and shoveling a bite into his mouth. It's good, even he can admit, and he nods in approval before digging in with gusto. It's a personal goal to cook at least one thing for them both every day, and so far he's pretty much stuck to it. Money's getting a little low, but he'll worry about that when he needs to. Point is, he's getting a lot better at cooking.

It's one thing he never would have told anyone back home, but here Stiles knows. It's easier to admit things here, to him. Derek tries not to think about what that means.