Chapter 1: Wolfsbane

There were days where he hated Brooklyn, if not for the huge amounts of people or the tightly-knit buildings, but for the cold. Freezing cold winds whipped past his body as he walked down the streets. He was wrapped tightly in the heavy parka that tried (and failed) to keep the chill from his bones. Dirty snow was packed under his shoes as he walked along; the steps of those around him just made it worse. Yeah, he hated Brooklyn.

A sneeze worked its way into his nose and he damn near whimpered as it came out like a rocket. With a finger rubbing the bridge of his nose, he walked into the bar, trying not to sneeze again. It really sucked that it was so cold in Brooklyn at this time of year. It always caused him to nearly sneeze up his stomach on his nightly walk to The Lady. Yeah, he definitely hated Brooklyn.

"Hey, Hale. You look like you got a tomato smooshed in your face, what's up?" The owner of the bar, a woman that reminded him irritatingly of his sister, helped him work his parka off and hang it up so the snow could slough off.

"I'm fine." With a final rub to his nose, Derek Hale went to shed his other jacket and head out to the bar itself. It was time to put on his face—the one that smiled and wooed people into thinking that he actually cared if they tipped him or not.

Honestly, it was night like these were he hated everything about this damn city. There were too many people; they flocked in and out of this city like pigeons and they were just as disgusting too. The smell that permeated the air of The Lady as people came in, got drunk, and left—it was mouth-numbingly disgusting. Maybe he'd like this place a little more if he didn't actually work in a bar, but there wasn't any place else who would hire a guy who looked like he could eat them alive if they got on his bad side. It wasn't necessarily his fault that he looked like that. It was just a condition of the wolf.

The Lady wasn't really packed tonight, which was generally a good thing. There were random stragglers, but the snow storm that was happening outside tended to keep people away. The downside to all of this is the fact that less people meant that Daniela, his sister's look-alike, tended to talk with him more.

"So, Mister Grumpy," He glanced over at her as she slid over next to him. "What are you doing after tonight's shift, huh?" Her brilliant brown eyes danced as they slid over his body. Great, he could practically smell her eagerness to get into bed with him. Actually, that was probably the sickly-sweet scent that came off of her in waves. Derek could never really tell. He wasn't that good with that kind of stuff.

"Sleeping." The reply came with a grunt as he filled up a highball glass with hard scotch and handed it over to an already wasted customer.

"Well, that's no fun!" No fun for you, you mean? Derek resisted the urge to snort. "We should go out together."

It was with this that he set down the bottle he was using and looked at her—really looked at her. Dark blonde hair framed her face, the body of it tied up at the crown of her head. Brown eyes looked up at him near-adoringly and her smile was wide and full of promise. Although the swirl of desire from a potential mate was there, his mind put up a huge red sign that screamed at him to stop. Fucking your sister's look-alike was generally in bad taste.

Before he could reply, there was a sharp pull on his stomach and it felt like his whole body had dropped out of his feet. Choking back bile, his whole body arched forward violently. It was so sudden—his mind was reeling.

"STOP!"

Screams echoed into every inch of his being.

The terror gripped his chest hard and he felt himself start to change.

Instinct took over—though his mind still worked.

Running into the back room, he collapsed into extra barrels. Claws ripped and tore, beer splashing onto his body as they burst. A short yelp was heard behind him, but he ignored it—this feeling of pure dread was horrible, harder to deal with than the consequences of his actions.

Although the screams were gone, the feeling of pure fear didn't subside.

One of the things that humans didn't understand is that everything has a scent or a taste; something that identifies something to its owner. Everyone has their own scent. Every emotion has a raw taste in his mouth, like a perfume that's too strong. Some wolves went insane, having tasted an emotion and keep wanting to taste it—reveling in that taste, that scent, that feeling.

This feeling? It tasted like his sister.

-x-

He was in Beacon Hills the next afternoon.

While he felt bad for leaving Daniela so suddenly last night—"Hale! Where are you going? Are you sick!"—It was important, very important.

The house looked just as he and Laura had left it. It was rotten and burnt, falling apart and broken. It smelled like smoke and dead things, just like it always had, even after this long. Eyes flitted from window to window, searching for faces he knew wouldn't be there. Pain radiated from his heart outwards, but he stuffed it under years and years of harsh denial and conditioning. This wasn't anything he hadn't seen before.

Fingertips moved against the burnt wood and he watched the ash shift from the railing, falling to the ground. It was oddly peaceful. Strange, how something that ripped apart his family was so nice now. Nice probably wasn't the right word, but Derek was never really good with those kinds of things. Stepping up to the front door, he pushed the remnants of it open. It hadn't been open in a while if the squeal of the hinges told him anything.

He knew that his sister was here in Beacon Hills. She had come to check on their uncle, Peter, who was in pretty much a vegetative state due to the fire. Laura came back here once a month to check up on him. Family was family, and he was in a state that they needed to support him with. Despite what hunters and other humans who presumed to know what Werewolves were like they were a pack. They cared for each other.

With a little sigh, he entered more into the house and stepped up the cracking steps. While the damage from the fire was intense, the house was still standing. That brought more of a pang of pain to his chest than just seeing it did. Resilience. Derek pursed his lips a bit to keep himself from choking up. He was trying to find his sister. There was no room for sadness.

No one was in the rooms and no one had been for a while. There was the fading scent of teenagers that had come in there probably for some dumb dare or another, but other than that, there was nothing. Not his sister or any other wolf.

Well, that was frustrating.

As he made his way back into the forest, he listened for people around him. Being caught out here probably wouldn't be the best thing. A man who hadn't been seen here for years, wandering around in the forest around his burnt down house? It seemed a little suspicious, even to him.

Sucking in a breath, he sampled the air around him. The smell of his sister was around, but it wasn't strong. Either he was up wind or he was really far away from it. Were the forests really this large? When he was younger, they always seemed so small, restricting.

It was getting pretty dark. The trees around him became dimmer and dimmer and he listened as everything fell asleep. When night fell, it was almost like the world was being put on pause. No birds sang and aside from the random rustle of restless babies, there were no animals moving around. The nocturnal ones were so quiet even his ears barely heard them and… it was peace. And a time to go searching for his sister.

Stepping through the brush, he continued listening and smelling. Her scent was getting stronger, but it was doing something weird; like she was in two places at once, or something. A frown danced on his lips as he walked further on one path. It wasn't until he was nearly on top of her scent that he smelled death.

Despite his werewolf-conditioning, his heart started to pound heavily. Legs moved faster as he rushed towards one of the scents and that creeping suspicion rose in the pit of his stomach. Just a few moments of running had him nearly trip and fall over something heavy and solid with his sister's scent on it. Maybe this would be a clue as to where sh—Oh.

Oh.

Eyes stared blankly up, as if she watched her attacker. Arms curled around her head. She must have landed on the ground as she was running. Her skin was pale, paler than he had ever seen and her innards spilled onto the ground like a deer's body gutted in a hunt. Her legs were missing.

Derek didn't puke or cry. He simply stared. There had been so many like her, cut up and tossed away as if they were broken parts of a car; twisted and mangled and hard to recognize. All he could think of is seeing his uncle, sliced and gutted like this so many years ago. But no, this was his sister, his own sister. Laura. Laura Hale.

He felt his legs give out from beneath him, rocks hitting his knees and shins. He didn't care much about the sharp pain. All he could see is the accusing eyes of his sister, staring at him from hollow depths. A clawed finger (clawed? Was he…) came out and brushed back her hair slightly. It was matted and dirty, strewn about her head wildly.

It should have never been this way. He was supposed to take care of her, even if she was older. He was supposed to be the snot nosed little brother that beat up all of her suitors and growled at the girls who treated her like she was less than them. They were supposed to be best friends, watching bad werewolf movies to laugh—well, she would laugh—at the humans thought of their kind. The most important thing about all of this? She was supposed to be alive.

The way the earth turned on was amazing. Trees kept swaying in the wind and the light sounds from the town were just as restless. Everything kept moving even through Derek felt like his heart had been dissected by a sadistic hunter.

It was then that he heard the sirens. They weren't close to him, but they were coming into the forest. Yelps and barks of dogs made his wolf roil and push at his skin. There was also another scent in the air, but it was more than a smell. It was a feeling.

There was an Alpha in the area.

-x-

Derek had immediately gone back to the house. He couldn't stand to be around the body anymore and he definitely didn't want to be there if the police found her. The fact that there was an alpha running around too was a little too alarming for him. It wasn't his alpha. Although, he supposed that she was dead now. His parents had never told him what to do when your Alpha died. They always just said that he'd "know who to follow."

Oh well. He couldn't keep thinking about this. All he wanted to do tonight was sleep. He'd look for the other half of his sister tomorrow.

Though his mind kept him awake. He heard the screams of some poor boy either getting caught by the police or getting chased by the Alpha; he couldn't really tell which it was, but the thought of either made an uncomfortable feeling twist in his stomach.

No. Sleep now.

Worrying later.

-x-

The next morning found Derek in the middle of the forest with a heavy tarp folded over his shoulder. He could smell the blood; fresher than his sister's. Had the Alpha actually gotten someone? Kneeling down, he wiped up a drop of blood from the leaves, and, moved it close to his nose. It smelled human and it ran for the road. Although he couldn't smell wolf in the blood, that didn't mean anything.

Derek knew the Alpha was trying to build his pack. But who was this Alpha? More importantly, who had killed his sister?

A rough growl escaped his throat as he stood and continued to talk through the forest. He could barely smell his sister's upper half anymore. The smell of old, dead blood was quickly over powered by the new smells of the forest. Even the smell of his sister had diminished with the new movement of the forest, but she was still there. Now he had to find the other half. He had to.

Walking along the path that he hadn't followed the last night, he passed where her upper-half was, and didn't look. He couldn't. At least not right now.

The scent of his sister's bottom half drifted lazily through the forest in no real discernible direction. There was a sinking suspicion that it had already been taken, probably by the police, although he kept searching until he ran into the remnants of caution tape.

"And I thought they were supposed to clean up this stuff," Derek muttered to himself, ripping past the flimsy barrier, and looking down at the red splotch that had already started to be covered in leaves. They'd taken her. The almost worried feeling in his stomach was still there, but it had subsided. At least he knew where to find it if he needed it. It also wasn't that hard to break into the Beacon Hill's morgue.

So, he headed back to the upper-half of his sister.

Seeing her body again wasn't as hard as the first time. In fact, he was able to wrap the thick tarp that he had kept on his shoulder around her body and pull her up into his arms. She was just meat, right now. She had no face, no scent, no real meaning to him; just meat that he had to bury. Choking back the strange lump that had started pushing up in his throat since this whole thing started, he walked back to the house.

Depositing the meat to the side of the house, he grabbed the shovel that he had leaned against the house the last night. The hole he dug wasn't six feet deep, but it was for a reason. Depositing the meat into the hole, he started to fill it up again. That's when he remembered -

She wasn't just meat.

She was his sister and his Alpha. This needed to be properly done, no matter how much it made that weird lump press up into his throat.

-x-

The Wolfsbane was potent. He could feel his own wolf surging beneath his skin, but he thankfully had enough control to keep it just there. This was probably the hardest thing to do for a Werewolf. When they were in a pack, it was usually the whole pack that did this. The new Alpha would find the Wolsbane and each of the betas would tie a few petals into the rope, remembering a fond memory for each one tied.

Derek had always found it a bit ridiculous in the past. The Alpha was dead, so why were they treating them like they were still alive? Why did the spirituality of the Werewolf depend on remembering the past when they should be more worried about the future? It just never really made sense

That is, until now. With every petal tied and pulled into the rope, he remembered something. Even if it was as silly as her making pancakes for him one random morning, he remembered it. Every memory made that lump in his throat grow tighter and tighter, higher and higher, until it spilled out through his eyes. Damn it, he tried so hard not to have these emotions.

She was gone—dead! She was in the past… It… It shouldn't have reduced him to a blubbering baby. But it did.

As he tied the last petal onto the available rope that he had, the memory hit him full force. It was a simple memory, but it was significant.

"Oh, come on, Frowny. I'm not going to be gone for very long!" Derek grumbled and tried to twist away as Laura messed up his hair, "I'm just going to visit Uncle Peter and then come back right away." The smile that she had lit up her entire face and it nearly made him smile. Nearly.

"Then go, already!" He knew he sounded like a brat, but he always tended to sound like that around his sister.

"Aww, you're such a sour wolf, Derek. How about you smile for me, and then I'll feel better about leaving you here all alone?"

"I'm not twelve anymore, Laura."

"And yet, you're still my baby brother," The sassy look that Laura retaliated with made Derek slump in defeat. Pursing his lips a little bit, he glowered back up at her. "C'mon, Frowny! Smile!" He could see her hands coming towards his face and he immediately scooted away from her on the couch, smiling broadly at her. She could do dangerous things with those hands and he didn't want his cheeks to hurt for the next week.

"Good! Well, I'm off. Be good, eat your cereal and remember to go to the bar," Laura leaned close and pressed their temples together, her soft cheek pressing into his rough one and her hair, her scent, falling over him. That made him relax a little bit more because, no matter how much he liked to fake it, he was worried for her. Just something in his gut told him that this visit would go wrong.

Then again, he always got that feeling before she went to Beacon Hills.

The tears that escaped from his eyes made it hard to see as he tied off the rest of the plant. Damn it, damn it, damn it! Swiping at his eyes, he hefted the heavy rope into his arms and headed out to the grave site.

Putting the Wolfsbane into the ground was a meticulous and tedious job, and was supposed to be done by the pack. However, it was just Derek this time. It took a long time—hours and hours of adjusting and pushing and adjusting a bit more until it looked and felt like a proper Alpha's burial.

He knew that it was customary to stay around the Alpha's burial until the night… he just couldn't do it. It made him feel weak and disgraceful, but he just couldn't. Instead, he escaped into the forest, running through the trees as fast as he could. This excess adrenaline and—and pure emotion was too much for him right now.

"…that's not the only weird thing. I hear stuff I shouldn't be able to hear; smell things!"

"Smell things? Like what?"

"Like the Mint Mojito gum in your pocket."

There were other people in the forest and one of them smelled like brethren.

AN: Yup! This is my first Teen Wolf thing and I promise I won't abandon it like I did my last multi-chaptered fic. xD There are actually people depending on me and hounding me to get it done. So, that's good. I hope you guys enjoy!