Title: The Immortals
Summary: No one riles you up quite like Cora.
Character(s): Derek Hale, Laura Hale, Cora Hale
Notes: AU on account of we barely know anything about Derek's life and also (WARNING) Dark!Hale family. Title from the same song by Kings of Leon.
Runaway, runaway, runaway from the beast
got a bullet in your back and you're shaking at the knees
Cage the Elephant
In Cora there lingers a great beauty.
Derek hears his father and Peter say it all the time, sees the way the statement makes his mother's eyes tighten and her smile curdle into a grimace. Cora takes it in stride, wriggles and dances through the house's hallways. She's just turned nine, all long smooth legs, fine dark hair to her waist. She looks like Laura, the same pointed jaw, but her mouth is that of their mother's, pleasantly full.
The femininity of Cora's face is more obvious than her sister's, but Derek doesn't see how one can label one daughter prettier than the other. He knows Cora, and he knows Laura, and for all he loves them (not that he'd admit that, because being nearly fourteen means that feelings are strictly off-limits), there's the simple fact that Cora is something completely different.
Laura, at sixteen, has already come to grips with responsibility. She's a straight-A student, and there's a sweetness to her expressions, the seriousness that she holds somehow softened when she rolls her eyes. For all the responsibility Laura holds, she knows how to have fun; even if no one will ever admit it, Derek knows she's the favorite of the family.
But Cora is like Peter. She can be vindictive, wild, always eager for another romp in the forest. Her smile is infectious, but it's a dangerous kind of grin – all teeth, gums bared and hands curling. She's reckless where Laura is careful – it serves to solidify the power that Laura will develop as alpha. Derek will make a good beta, for his obedience to his father and to his uncle and, when he needs it, to Laura.
The same cannot be said for Cora though. For all the dedication she holds there is too much lust in her eyes, in the way she smacks her mouth. The likeness to Peter is uncanny, despite the obvious differing features. There is want in both their faces, and the difference in Cora is that she's willing to take it.
Their uncle will always, always listen to his brother. There will be no undermining here, no cases of the betas running off to find a better pack. Pack is family, here, and Peter – despite his lust for more – will stay so long as it is best. Then again, that may be because Derek is the only one who knows about the girl from Nunavut.
Derek won't lie; sometimes, Cora scares him. Right now is one of those times, when she is looking at him as if he were a canary in the cage and she, the cat that wanted to play. It's almost like he weren't built for this life; despite this, he can't imagine anything else. The wolf is as part a him as his eyes or his hands. He doesn't think he could live without it.
"Derek," she sing-songs, voice falsely delicate. Her voice is low for a girl's, sultry despite her age. Later it will lose it timbre but for now it is full and youthful. She's got that feral look about her again, the one that lingers in Peter if you stare long enough. Peter is better than that, Derek knows, would never do such a horrid thing, but that doesn't mean the monster doesn't exist. It exists in all of them. Cora just happens to be more in touch than the rest of the family. She starts to say his name again but he cuts her off, says, "What?" a bit more forcefully than intended.
A brief flash of glee fades from her face before he can memorize it, quickly replaced by a fake pout. That mouth, painted pink, quickly opens again, and he says upon noticing the shining stickiness of her lips, "Why are you stealing Laura's makeup?"
She scowls, "She's not supposed to wear makeup." Derek glances at the book he's reading, something by S.E. Hinton, and sets it aside. His younger sister will always be the most fascinating.
"Since when do you care whether she listens or not?" he asks her, eyebrows high. She reaches out, runs moist fingers over them, and smiles prettily. He finds himself melting, just a bit, at the sight of the innocent grin, the smile rarely coming out unless she was Laura. The little girl idolized her sister – as females seemed wont to do at that age. Just a few years ago Derek would have found himself with Cora all the time, tomboyish enough to withstand his roughhousing and affinity for the wolf. Now, though, Cora tends to follow Laura around, explaining the long hairstyle that they both now keep.
"I don't," she says, as lightly as nine-year-olds can, "I'm just saying. Papa doesn't like it." She pulls away from him then, away from the roots of an old tree he's nestled himself into. Peter finds amusement in the steadily increasing moroseness of Derek, teases his mother after many failed attempts at extricating his nephew from the forest or his room. Derek doesn't see the big deal but then again, he'd much rather allow himself to be separated from the family – not for long, just a few hours. He likes quiet, too.
Then Cora says, "But Papa likes me." Derek almost recoils, sees the hungry look on her face, barely catches her saying, "So everything will be okay," before she sprints inside, a peal of laughter lingering in the November air, heady and thick.
Winter break and their parents have gone out for groceries. Peter is up in Nunavut again, no doubt trying to convince the mystery woman to marry him for the umpteenth time. Derek is on the couch, flipping through channels, and Cora sits on the couch opposite to him, elbows and knees pressed together. She looks bored; tense and ready to jump. In the kitchen, they hear Laura beginning dinner. Cora lets out a sigh.
"I'm bored," she says. Derek ignores her, long enough for her to begin to fidget for a few minutes. He can picture Laura's smirk as she listens in. Finally, finally the youngest Hale loses patience, lunges across the small space separating the two of them, knees digging into Derek's stomach.
The whoosh of air precludes their struggle, her sharp giggles pulling Laura out of the kitchen. The scent of boiling water – salt added, because Laura's planning to die of hypertension one day – and the herby vegetables quickly spreads throughout the house, no doubt more noticeable because of their heightened senses. She props herself up in the arch of the doorway, grins at her siblings as they wrestle.
A laugh escapes her when the two of them tumble to the floor, Derek's "Ooph," and Cora's shriek of exhilaration echoing in the room. Laura steps forward, says, "Are you okay?" still breathy with laughter, as Derek feels his right sleeve start to pull away from his shoulder. In the split second of him pulling back, trying not to crush her, Cora sinks her teeth in, sharp. He isn't sure if she's turned or if she's still completely human, but he jerks away from that deadly mouth when the pain starts to sting.
"Cora," Laura says sharply, nostrils flaring at the scent of blood. Her hair is tied up, and she wears a headband. Her apron is orange, the shirt she wears under white and printed with birds. Her mouth is stained red.
Derek is still hovering over Cora, one hand over her left shoulder and the other cupped around the wound she gave him. He doesn't bother glancing at it, already feeling the skin smooth as the black sweater he wears settles against his body once more. Cora blinks up at him, brown eyes widened in innocence he knows isn't there right now. She smiles.
"Laura has a boyfriend," she says, and begins to sit up, uncurling her legs from where they had been scrunched between her body and Derek's. He backs up, too, settles on his knees in between the coffee table and the couch. He looks up at Laura then, aware of the heavy atmosphere in the room and of the beading condensation on his upper lip, where the first signs of a mustache are barely being grown. Laura is unimpressed.
She crosses her arms over her chest, holds her chin up high and says, "I do. So?" There is no weakness here. Not like in Derek. Sure, at school it's all bravado but at home? That's a far different story.
Derek's breath catches, thinks of the caution with which his parents appraised Laura's time in high school. They didn't let her do track, no cross country, no soccer. She stuck to the arts instead, painted and taught herself guitar. Only twice in the five years she brought a friend home, and none this year. Junior year had been uneventful so far. Both times it had been because of a group project, and their father had been more than thoughtful in analyzing Laura's explanation.
"Don't cost me my education," she'd finally snapped, and their mother had said, "Enough, Laura," in too an authoritative voice to be ignored. Ultimately it was their mother's choice; their father was willing to follow her to the ends of the Earth and Laura hated it.
Not as much as Cora, mind you, but oh what a despicable thing.
Derek isn't sure how he feels about that particular aspect of the pack, only knows there is a fine line of power between his parents and occasionally Peter, too. Maybe that's why the comments about Cora bother their mother, but the protectiveness that lingers in her knowing eyes is enough to show Derek that there is more to this hierarchy than he knows.
More than he wants to know.
"Boyfriend?" he croaks, and he feels an odd flush of protectiveness flow through him, starting in his chest and expanding outwards. He feels lighter yet heavier at the same time, mouth dry as he looks at his sister – pretty, lovely Laura, for all the odd comments about her and Cora. A strand of hair has fallen over her green eyes, and she huffs. He watches it float up, then hover back to frame the wide face, sharp jawline.
She rolls her eyes, but behind the sweetness of her expression there lingers some worry, and she says, "Camden," and the word comes out soft, delicately rolling off her tongue. Somewhere in the back of his mind he makes the connection, remembers the heady smell of red algae, his hair bleached from chlorine.
"Oh," is all he says this time, and Laura and he stare at each other until the rumble of their father's Camaro lurches them, Laura rushing back to the kitchen to make sure nothing's burnt. Derek looks around, then, sees a well-kept cozy home, and then sees Cora, brown eyes shining and a smile on her mouth.
"Made you look," she says, and then scurries to the front door, straight into their parents' arms.
Peter comes back the day before break ends. He looks tired, worn, and when Cora presses her nose to his neck her face wrinkles, eyes squinting. She pulls away with a fake smile, and Laura steps forward then, wraps her strong arms around Peter too, heads close together. Derek greets him similarly, standing close when his uncle's hand holds onto his shoulder once they pull apart, his father watching from the arch of the kitchen.
His mother looks worried where Peter is haggard. There is similarity in their faces, though the elder Hale's face has a sharper chin, closer to Derek's own – telling, as Derek takes after his mother, most days. His father's in the kitchen and he can hear him scolding Cora and a cousin. Everyone is home today.
Not only does the Hale house hold his direct family members and Peter, but the other Hales as well – his mother's parents, and then another Hale sibling, two years Peter's elder, Adriah. She's yet to marry despite two daughters, and Derek's noticed the way the house gets quiet when the comments are made. After dark, too, they chat, the only light being the warmth of candles his mother rarely uses; Derek only knows this because he finds them, during the nights that the moon is too close but not quite enough to pull.
"Heirs," Adriah will say to Talia, "what of heirs?"
"You deserve happiness," Talia always says, "a husband to love, even."
His aunt will make a displeased sound, say, "He's gone," like Talia doesn't know what she's talking about. Derek doesn't know much about his cousin's father, knows that for a long time Adriah had lived with his family but that the secret proved too much for him to bear—especially when they hadn't been married in the first place. He hears them talk, those dark nights, hears the words "mistake," and "affair," and "worthless," but Adriah showers the seven- and three-year-old with so much love it's easy to overlook.
It feels so much better to see Peter snatch up Sylvia as she shrieks, chubby hands hitting at his face as he laughs with too many teeth. Nadine, meanwhile, is as serious as a first grader can be, with large blue eyes like Derek. If he's being honest he'd say she's his favorite, her hair too light to belong to the Hales. She's got blond curls, and though she's quiet for the most part Derek can manage to pull out that fiery little part of her she likes to hide away. She's perfect, like the rest of Derek's family, even if they drive him nuts (because being thirteen-almost-fourteen sucks).
But they're not like Cora was at that age, and they won't be like her when they reach her years, either. Because it's true – in Cora there lingers great beauty, but there's madness there, too. There's madness in all of them and even Derek isn't sure he can keep his at bay for long. Oh, they'll all manage, of course, but Talia can sense it long before anyone else; it's obvious in the way that she'll refuse the bite to strangers, leaving the other packs in Beacon Hills and out of it to deal with any extra weight. Deucalion is closer to her philosophy than say, Ennis, but at the end of the day the Hales are unique.
And Cora…Cora is a multitude of contradictions. He catches her and Laura speaking, that same night Peter returns, after dinner, just as he's entering the kitchen after throwing out the trash. It's his sisters' turn to clean the dishes and kitchen, and in the next room he can hear Nadine fluffing pillows. It smells like cinnamon and stir-fry, and Laura's voice is pitched so low that Derek's willing to bet that the sound doesn't escape the kitchen. He's lingering, outside, and can see the warped silhouettes through the foggy glass, Laura in a high-collared blue nightgown and Cora in a gray shirt. Both are dark-haired and serious, and Derek peers, just watching.
"Be careful," Laura says, and he sees the smudged figure that is Cora shrug, toss her head back.
"I'm fine," the younger girl insists, and Laura exhales, back straightening as she stares down at her sister.
"I'm serious," she says, hands going to her hips. The soapy suds soak into the fabric, and the kitchen light catches Cora's eyes at an angle that makes them glow yellow without the needed benefit of shifting. Derek almost presses against the glass, their tones wavering too low to hear them properly, but catches himself as he tilts. "Watch yourself," Laura warns, and then turns back to washing dishes.
Cora watches her, for a moment, a drying towel cradled in her hands, and Derek sees it, sees the danger that is in his sister's face, and the power that is in Laura's stance. And Derek, well, Derek has never been a leader. He doesn't think he ever will.
"Something bad," Cora says, and this time Derek does lean forward, delicately touches his fingertips to the frosted glass, "is going to happen. And none of us can stop it."
"Is that what Dean said?" Laura says, and her tone is clipped, bored even.
"No," Cora says, "Marin," and Laura's entire spine stiffens, all that Derek can hear is the subtle creaks of the house as its inhabitants settle in for the night. Cora has turned back towards the dishes, systemically drying. Laura doesn't move, and Derek feels his mouth go numb at having stood outside for so long.
"Don't talk to the other packs," Laura finally says, and Cora immediately shoots back, says, "Aren't they our allies?" The word is awkward on her tongue. It's like he's watching her try on their mother's clothes, too big to fit for now even if she'll one day grow into such a role. It's almost like she's a secret puzzle piece, one that they're all terrified of letting slot into her place.
"You are a child," Laura half-hisses, and both of them pause to see if anyone has noticed; Derek holds his breath, snowflakes sticking to his eyelashes. His fingers are going numb, too. "They know our weaknesses."
"We have four," Cora says dully, "really two. And both are fa—"
Derek scrubs a hand across the door and both freeze, turning to look at him as he stomps his feet to get excess snow off. He looks up after a moment, door closed once more and his jacket halfway off. "You two still aren't done yet?" he says, and then Laura turns around to finish washing, says, "Well, your darling sister here is a chatty Cathy."
"Hey," Cora says, voice tinged with a whine, and Derek knows it's an act, says, "Hurry up. I'm going to bed," giving a smile when they splash him. He climbs up the stairs and into bed, and thinks of pack meetings and full moons and hunters. That night he dreams of fire.
a/n: largely arose because, in the minute between hearing her name and finding out she was Derek's sister, a friend and I speculated that Cora was a past lover. I didn't quite want to let go of that, but obviously did not make it incestuous. Just creepy.
Also, does anyone know what color eyes Haley Roe Murphy has? I feel like they're green but until I'm certain I'm going to think I've described Laura incorrectly. All comments appreciated! Read and review :)
Edited 30.12.13