Chapter Text
When Peter wakes up in the woods, he immediately knows something is off. He doesn't know what time of day it is, but more importantly, he has no idea how he got here. The back of his neck stings. He touches it, and when he pulls his hand away, it's smeared with sticky wet blood, blood that, by the smell, is still sluggishly flowing.
Only an alpha would cause that, but try as he might, he can't remember doing anything that would piss his older brother off enough to require a friendly scuffle, the incident with the cat and the oil can last week not withstanding. But the kids had giggled over that for hours, so it was definitely worth it.
He's...disoriented, just a little. Just enough that he can't quite pinpoint his location. He considers howling for the pack, but not only would Nathan laugh at him for a week, but there really aren't any wolves in California these days, and howling is generally kept to emergency situations. His head will clear soon enough, and in the meantime his nose is still functioning perfectly.
He takes a deep breath and then freezes. The breeze is carrying a scent he instantly recognizes – of course he recognizes it, would know it anywhere – but he hasn't smelled it in ages, and it shouldn't be here. Should be anywhere but here. There's a crackling in the underbrush, and he whirls on his heels, claws half extended, just in time to see Chris Argent slip into the clearing.
For a minute, Peter's brain blanks, because Chris is different. It's not entirely unexpected; after all, it's been close to twenty years. They're men now, not boys, but it's more than that. Chris looks hard, and he's carrying a gun in one hand and has another strapped in a thigh holster, and he's looking at Peter with a look he's never seen Chris direct at him before. He thinks it might be loathing.
It's another snap of twigs that jerks him out of his reverie – a deer a hundred yards off, his mind helpfully supplies half a second later – and he hisses out low, mindful that Pack could be here any minute.
“What the hell are you doing here, Chris? This is Hale territory.” He may not know exactly how he got here, but he knows the scent of home. “And I can't imagine Gerard's any less forgiving these days than he was twenty years ago.”
Chris blinks, and then his expression morphs through exasperation, to disappointment, to resignation. “Cute, Peter. Really. But we don't have time for this. Save your mind fucks for when we're not at war and two steps away from being slaughtered. I'd think you'd at least care about your own neck enough to stop with the games for the time being. Did you find Allison?”
Peter stares at him blankly, recognizing neither the name, nor why he should be looking for her. Chris face darkens.
“My. Daughter. Did you. Find. Allison.”
Peter laughs, if only because the idea of Chris as a parent is hilarious. “You have a daughter?”
If it weren't Chris, Peter might be concerned about the way he bares his teeth angrily, but as it is, it only raises a slight hint of instinctive alarm, enough to make the wolf raise its head, take note. Chris had always had an angry edge, but this is approaching cold rage. Chris jerks a phone from his pocket and mutters under his breath, but Peter can still hear just fine.
“Derek can babysit if he wants you coming back as anything but a well dressed corpse.”
Please. Peter would leave a gorgeous corpse. But the mention of Derek triggers his memory, which outweighs the confusion as to how Chris would know anything about his nephew. He glances at his watch. “Shit.” He feels around for his phone, but of course it's gone, because that's just the kind of day it's turning out to be. “I'm late picking Derek up from swim practice. Although -” he smirks conspiratorially at Chris, “-he probably wouldn't mind. He hasn't told me yet, but I think he's met a girl. About time, too. I was beginning to think the only things he was attracted to were baseball and swimming and his comic books.”
But instead of looking properly amused at the idea of a fifteen year old with his first crush, Chris's face goes completely blank and he takes a step back. Then he says, very carefully -
“Peter, what's the year?”
His head must really have been scrambled, because it takes this long for Chris's cryptic comments about war and slaughter to sink in.
“Something's wrong, isn't it?”
The blankness of Chris's face is giving way to something incredulous, and maybe a bit horrified. “Just answer the question, Peter.”
Fine. The whole Q&A is becoming tiresome, anyway. “2005. Which you should know. Are you sure you didn't hit your head at some point today?”
Chris spits out a fuck. And then fuck, again, before shifting his gun from one hand to the other and running his fingers through his hair. “What happened earlier?”
“What's going on, Chris?” Chris's stress is leaking off of him, and the instinct to go to him, try to comfort him, is strong. But they're not teenagers anymore, and he has no idea why Chris is here, or why he's looking at him like he's the combination of a ghost and a nightmare.
“Earlier, Peter. What happened?”
He hopes his eye roll accurately conveys his exasperation with Chris's non-answers. “Woke up. Breakfast. Julia's pregnant again – they haven't told the kids yet, not since she lost the last pup – and Nathan is hovering as usual, so I dropped the kids at school. Coffee at Hanison's. They still have those disgusting cupcakes, you know. And then -”
He stops abruptly, because he... “Then I was here.” As if in response, the back of his neck twinges again, and scratches at it, frowning when his fingers still come away bloody. When Chris sees the blood, he moves quicker than Peter remembers, is standing next to him and fisting his hand in Peter's hair. He yanks his head down to expose the back of his neck. Whatever he sees makes him curse again.
“Goddammit!”
Peter doesn't get a chance to ask, because there's a howl, off to the right. One he doesn't recognize. Chris stiffens and jerks his hand back from Peter's hair, uses it to unholster his other weapon.
“We need to move. Now.”
“Chris, what -” Another howl sounds, to the left. They're calling to each other. Sounding out a hunt.
“Now!” Chris roars, and takes off. And because it's Chris, Peter follows. Chris isn't even attempting to be quiet, apparently more concerned with speed than stealth. They run for a mile, maybe two. The howls continue, sporadic, but they're falling further behind, and Chris uses precious air to speak.
“You must have gotten away from them. They don't know where to look.”
The amount of information Chris has, that Peter obviously doesn't, is starting to piss him off, but he can appreciate the urgency in Chris's movements, and so he keeps his mouth shut and follows Chris another half mile or so through the forest, and then they're bursting through a clearing with a small cabin. Which...he also doesn't remember ever being on their territory.
Chris seems to breathe easier once they're inside, and he points Peter to a chair. “Sit. I'll be right back.” He grabs a mason jar from a cabinet and leaves before Peter can argue, but he can hear him moving around the parameter of the cabin. Barely two minutes pass before he's back, the jar now empty. At Peter's look, he explains, “Powdered cougar's blood. Makes it smell less like...us.”
Peter stands, paces across the room toward Chris, and tries not to feel upset that Chris doesn't even try to hid the fact that he steps back to put the small kitchen table between them.
“Enough, Chris. Time to fill the rest of the class in. Where are we? Who is that out there?”
Chris has gotten much better at hiding his emotions in the intervening years, but Peter was once an expert in Chris, so it's fairly easy to see he's struggling with himself. Peter waits. He's nothing if not patient. Always has been. Finally Chris shrugs, and it's then Peter realizes he's still loosely holding the gun in one hand, safety off.
“This is one of our safe houses.”
Peter shakes his head and snorts. “The Argents don't have safe houses on Hale land. Try again.”
“Things have...happened. The Hale territory isn't quite what it was.”
“I'm pretty sure it hasn't changed that much since I had breakfast.”
“Hmm.” Chris's smile is small, and utterly humorless. “Considering the breakfast you're thinking of was about six years ago, give or take, I think you'll have to accept the possibility.”
“Bullshit,” he spits out.
Chris shakes his head, rolling his phone around in his spare hand, dialing a number, only to erase it and start the whole thing over again. “No bullshit, Pete. And right now, we're all kind of fighting for our lives.”
His phone trills loud in the silence that follows, and while Peter can't quite hear the other side, he listens intently to Chris's end.
“Argent. Yeah. She's okay then? Take her to Scott's. I'll be there in a bit. I've got....” He shoots a look at Peter and the lines around his mouth tighten. “Something came up. Yeah. We need to regroup. Yeah. Yeah. At the house. Okay.” He hangs up and resumes the earlier conversation as if there hadn't been a break in it.
“An Alpha pack is trying to gain control. Allison and I are lending a hand to beat it back.”
Peter holds out his hand. “Your phone. I need to call Nath -”
“Derek. Derek is your alpha now.”
That makes no sense whatsoever. As little sense as the Argents working with the Hales, although that's a bit more reasonable if Chris is the patriarch now. Even if something had happened to Nathan, Laura would have been the natural successor. Derek is a born beta. The only way he could ascend to alpha would be if -
Chris is watching him closely, so Peter has no doubt he sees the color disappear from his face. “What happened here? What am I missing?”
Chris slowly walks the length of the kitchen and back again, tapping his fingers across the counters. “Your neck. If an Alpha can implant memories, I'm going to assume they can take them, too. But I'm guessing for only as long as it takes you to heal. I'm not sure what forcing the issue will do, and we can't afford to have you out of commission. Right now, you're the only person besides me who has fuck all idea of what you're doing, so even if you are a ps...are going to be down for a few days, it's better than doing something that makes you delusional. Which has happened to some of the kids.”
He's telling the truth, but he's lying, too. Or, more likely, leaving things out. “Then I should find Derek. If the kid is our alpha now, I should be with him. He needs pack around him.”
The force with which Chris is pinching the bridge of his nose is turning the pads of his fingers white. “I don't...I don't think that would be a good idea right now.”
“And why not, Chris? You're going to have to give me a little more to go on than that. He's my nephew.”
Laughter barks out of Chris, sharp and dark and flavored with something Peter can't even begin to translate, but his smell has shifted, deep notes of acrid ash polluting it. “That actually means something to you, doesn't it?”
“Of course it does. Pack is family, and family is pack. Come on, Chris, I know we actually had this conversation once. How many times have you been hit on the head, since, that you've forgotten it.”
Chris just stares at him and shakes his head. “Jesus, this is a clusterfuck.”
Peter's frustration has reached levels such that he's afraid his eyes are starting to turn. Chris should know that Peter hates having only a partial picture, more than any damn thing. He thrives on knowledge; it's the reason he's responsible for the pack's archives. “Chris-” he bites it out with just a hint of a growl.
“I should just dump you right off on...” He clenches the edge of the counter, and a piece of cheap formica breaks off. “Let me clear this up for you. You and your nephew are not on the best of terms. No one in the town is on the best of terms. We are fighting tooth and nail just to survive, your family is not here to help you, and right now this is the safest place for you to be.”
He nods, because it makes a kind of sense. “Because you're here.”
“No! Not because -” The grinding of Chris's teeth makes Peter's skin crawl. “No. Because you're not yourself. And the less people who know that, the better.”
“Why? Exactly.”
If Chris mangles his hair anymore than he already has, he's going to start losing it, and that would be real shame. Even though he's cropped it far closer than he used to, it's still too nice to ruin. “Stop that!” He smacks at Chris's hand.
Chris blinks, his face going blank again, and when his expression comes back, it's the one that looks like he's been sucking on lemons all day. “Look, Pete. You still trust me, right?” The words come out reluctant, and Chris's eyes shift from his, to the counter, back to his again, but his heartbeat stays steady.
Peter smirks. “Of course. Unbroken and safe, right?” Something about the words sound completely wrong when he hears them, but he can't pinpoint exactly where the wrongness lies.
“Yeah,” Chris nods, and finally puts the gun down. “Unbroken and safe. So trust me on this one, okay? Two, three days tops, you can fill in the blanks yourself. But until then, just stay here. If we need you, I promise I'll let you know.”
“If Derek -”
“If Derek needs you, I promise I'll let you know.”
Peter pretends to consider, but in reality, there was never any question. “Fine, but you owe me.”
The same humorless laugh escapes from Chris's mouth, and Peter wonders what happened to him that made him so bitter. “Oh, I'm sure we'll settle up all kinds of debts eventually.”
Chris shoves away from the counter and nods toward the bathroom. “Let's get those claw marks cleaned. God knows the last thing we need is for infection to set in.”