A/N: I ship incestuous pairings. Never said I was better than it.
It's been years, years and now she's just standing there staring at him, head tilted to the side.
"Cora," he says, and his voice has never sounded so broken.
Her eyes are flickering, wavering things. A rabbit ready to take run from hunt. But wait, that's not right she is a wolf, a wolf. And yet, wolves still cry. He can feel the prick of tears behind his eyes, the secret tell that he isn't as strong as he pretends to be, has to be. Because as he looks at her so much like Mom she looks just like Mom and she gazes back at him, the world is breaking into fractures.
He's told her about Laura, of course. Now that he's gotten his hands on her, calmed her down after she's killed. She hasn't shed a tear strong kid like that. When they would wrestle as children and he there was blood drawn, she'd be the first to spit it back in your face.
"Where have you been?" he asks then, and suddenly he's sixteen years old again, Derek I'm sorry, there's been an accident… He stood at her grave and weeped, weeped for years and for eternity.
The smile she gives him is feral, a wild thing as her hands shake and she looks out the window of his home. (Not his home can't be his home his home is with her it was with Laura but they've left him, going to leave him, they always do.) "Around," she says at last, flexes her fingers into fists.
Her claws are out.
"Cora," he says again, tries to step close, to touch her to know she's real.
"Don't," she hisses, stepping back. "Derek…don't."
And so he stands there, doesn't know what to do with himself, never knows what to do with himself. Not since I thought you were dead… "Please?" is the last thing he asks, nothing but a whisper.
Her shoulders bristle, her mouth purses, he can smell the fear on her. Primal and explosive and tainted with years of loneliness. Hales are meant to stick together. He knows she's thinking the same thing as she clears the distance between them, raises palm to his cheek and marvels at the stubble there.
"You're different," she says, wide eyes he'll remember a hundred, a thousand lifetimes. "But you're not."
"Cora…" he pleads.
And when she kisses him, it tastes like death and salvation.
The clothes come off in a bumbling hurry. He touches her in revelry and she doesn't know what to do with it. She's spent strange nights with strange men, if only for a bed. But she's never been loved, not like this. And it doesn't matter if this is wrong, if they shouldn't.
Because it's all they want, all they need.
"Cora," he murmurs, a steady cadence against the pulse of her throat.
There are aching bodies and a bed, and she's never seen a grown man cry, not the way that he does. Her big brother, the one who was always fearless, destined for greatness. Wolves shouldn't be left without their pack, she thinks as he sinks into her, strangled gasps and moans. But we've got each other, for now.
He's going to leave bruises on her hips, she knows it. And she bites his neck, solid evidence he's here. She remembers when she was just six years old, fell and scraped her knee while skipping down the sidewalk. Everyone else told her to stop whining like a baby, but he'd found her there on the ground and picked her up, carried her into the bathroom and stuck a band-aid on her mangled knee. She's still got a scar there, a memory.
She loved him best, always has.
"Derek," she whispers, tangles her hands in his hair as his thrusts become erratic, breathing the sound of roaring flames. "Derek…"
"Why'd you leave?" he asks, hands around her throat, claws digging into her skin as if he were to steal the life from her and keep it as his own. She's near the peak and blood seems to heighten it, just like his blatant need for her. "Why'd you go away?"
"I had to," she says, begging him to believe. "I had no other choice."
When he comes it's with a call of her name, a strangled sob into her flesh. She follows right after, clings to him and shivers, won't ever let him go again she thinks, but knows completely better.
"Shh," she soothes, because he's just this lonely child she doesn't remember and remembers better than most as he lays atop her, gasping against her skin. "It's all going to be okay."
And when he kisses her, it tastes like lies and coming home.