Notes: Inspired by (and title borrowed from) Beasts of Burden by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson. Beta'd by Dusty, who is about to be consumed by a pile of schoolwork. Everybody wish her luck and send caffeine.
Animal Rites
The bed is dry
The fire is warm
Lay down to rest
Fear not the storm
By sheltered hearth
Or 'neath the stars
We guard their sleep
As they guard ours
-Traditional canine lullaby.
ε
There's a bronze statue of Lucille Ball on a bench. Every part of the statue is tarnished except for the breasts, which have been polished until they shine.
"The implications here disturb me," Stiles says.
Derek replies, "They should put up a sign."
"What, 'please refrain from molesting the statuary for novelty photos'?"
"Maybe just a city-wide ban on tasteless photography. Then they could make people stop taking upskirt shots of Marilyn."
Derek is, of course, referring to the twenty-six-foot-tall statue of Marilyn Monroe over on Tahquitz.
Palm Springs is weird. It's like the Epcot Center version of itself. Derek's been here almost a week, and he's still considering the possibility that the entire city is time-locked in 1962. A friend of Stiles' is letting them borrow her tiny one-bedroom condo, which is situated in a gated community whose residents regard Derek with deep suspicion.
Stiles contemplates Lucy for a little while longer, then says, "We should go check for polished spots on the Sonny Bono statue."
"No."
Stiles laughs, admitting defeat, and leans against Derek in a way that isn't quite as obvious as hand-holding as they walk down the street.
Coming down off the stress and adrenaline of the last few months has left Derek more than a little disoriented. Stiles seems to be just as bad at relaxing as Derek is; he hasn't been sleeping well. Bad dreams.
"You're doing it again," Derek says.
There's a guilty set to Stiles' mouth as he shoves his phone back into his pocket. "Sorry."
"I thought you left that in the car."
"So did I," Stiles says, rubbing at his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Just tired."
They get waylaid on their way back to the car when they stop to join a crowd of people outside one of the bars—it's the kind of establishment that can only exist in the desert, essentially three walls and a roof—who are all watching some blue-collar guy belt out an astonishingly good rendition of "My Way" on the karaoke machine. Then a middle-aged bartender with dark circles under her eyes comes out to yell that they either need to come in and order something or fuck off and quit blocking the sidewalk.
They pick the first option.
A few rounds later, Stiles throws his hands up and says, "You can't get drunk, can you?"
"Not off this," Derek says, taking another sip of his drink. "Unlike some people."
"I'm a skinny human with ADHD and one kidney, give me a break."
Their table is just secluded enough that Derek can lean closer and run his fingers up under Stiles' shirt, gently brushing the new scar on his side. "Is it bothering you?"
"I'm fine. Really." He gets that look on his face, the one that means all attempts at serious conversation from this point forward will be in vain. "Actually, I've come to the conclusion that all these extra organs are holding me back."
Derek huffs a laugh and pulls his hand out from under Stiles' shirt. "Want another round?"
"Sure, thanks. Water, this time, or the doctors will yell at me."
There's a guy wearing a brown suede jacket and a straw cowboy hat leaning against the bar when Derek gets there.
"As I live and breathe," the guy says, voice dripping with smarm. "If it isn't the Wolf King himself. You've moved up in the world since the last time I saw you, Derek."
Derek watches the man out the corner of his eye and tries to sound bored as he says, "Do I know you?"
"We met in New York, although I was wearing a different face at the time. You traded me a story for a bracelet."
"I remember." To the bartender, Derek says, "Two waters, thanks," then he turns his attention back to the man. "You're a long way from New York."
"Yes and no. The old man is still telling stories in that bar in Harlem. I'm just here at the same time, is all." He takes a swig of his beer and adds, "You can call me Jack, by the way."
The bartender places two glasses in front of Derek, covering a yawn with her hand. Derek grabs them and says, "See you around, Jack."
"Maybe sooner than you think," Jack replies.
When Derek gets back to the table, Stiles raises an eyebrow and says, "Friend of yours?"
"Not really."
ε
They're about a block from the car when they notice the ambulance lights.
Through the handful of gawkers in the way, Derek can see a woman lying on the sidewalk, a leash wrapped around her hand. The pit bull on the other end of it won't stop barking, and the medics vacillate just out of its reach. One of them flinches every time the dog barks.
"Holy shit," Stiles says. "What happened?"
"She passed out," Derek says after a second. "Just keeled over right in the street."
"You heard that from the medics?"
"Not the medics, the dog."
"You speak dog?" Stiles winces. "Wait, no, that was an extremely stupid way of putting it. Ignore me."
"I'll be right back," Derek says.
He pushes past the spectators and grabs the dog's collar, unclipping it from the leash and pulling the dog away. The dog doesn't bite, but strains against Derek's hold, trying to reach the woman; she's young, maybe mid-twenties, in jeans and a t-shirt. Not a mark on her.
"Thanks," one of the medics says, kneeling down to check her pulse and breathing.
The dog stops squirming and turns its head, ears pricked forward. Derek follows its line of sight; there's another dog sitting across the street, a big gray mongrel. If someone had never seen a real wolf in their life, they might say this dog looked like one.
The pit bull starts squirming again, and Derek is distracted enough that this time, it escapes. It darts across the road, and Derek is sure there's about to be a fight—
But the two dogs just run down a side street together, disappearing from view.
ε
That night, Derek wakes up to the overwhelming reek of fear.
Stiles has kicked most of the covers off. His eyelids are fluttering, and he's making small, hurt noises, his breathing shallow and rapid.
Derek reaches over and puts a hand on Stiles' shoulder, gently shaking him. "Stiles."
Stiles isn't usually a deep sleeper, but this time he doesn't respond.
Derek shakes him again, a little harder. "Stiles."
Outside, in the backyard, something lets out a high-pitched yowl.
Derek throws the covers back, gets up, and walks to the patio door, pushing the drapes aside. There's a coyote sitting just on the other side of the glass.
It says, "Derek."
"Jack?"
The coyote swishes his tail in the dust, looking at Stiles through the door. "If you want to help him, shift and come with me."
ε
It wasn't until after he killed Peter that Derek realized just how misshapen a fully-shifted Alpha actually is. For example, he has to run on all fours, but the claws on his front paws are long, razor-sharp, and don't retract. Running over long distances is, at best, awkward.
He and Jack lope along the highway. Even at this hour, there should be a low-grade buzz of activity throughout the city, but there's nothing. Not even traffic.
The entire valley is dead silent.
"What's going on?"
Jack stops by a pulled-over squad car and puts his paws up on the door, peering in. Derek can see that the two cops inside are fast asleep.
"The whole valley is like this," Jack says. "Every human is asleep, and won't wake up." He drops back down onto all fours and circles around the car, leaving the road behind and heading out into the desert.
Derek smells other animals upwind: dog, rabbit, and something sharp and cold he can't quite identify. "What's responsible?"
"I'm taking you to someone who can explain it better than I can."
They reach a rock outcropping, surrounded by a smattering of scrub bushes. Jack leads Derek into a hollow underneath it.
Someone yelps, "Aah! Wolf!"
"That's no wolf," someone else says. "It looks too much like a human."
"Calm down," Jack says. "I said I was bringing help. This is Derek. Derek, meet Ben, Jessie, Tucker, and Nevada."
Derek recognizes Ben and Tucker as the mongrel and pit bull from earlier. Nevada, a jackrabbit with a huge chunk missing from one ear, says, "Jack, I wish I could say I'm surprised your definition of 'help' is a werewolf."
"Please don't talk about me like I'm not here," Derek says.
Jessie, a tiny little Jack Russell, wails, "It can talk!" and tries to hide under Tucker.
ε
Jack and Ben lead the way, further into the desert.
Ben says, "Your human word for 'nightmare' comes from the name of a dream spirit." She pauses, sniffs the air, and adjusts her course. "One that lives off fear. Centuries ago, a shaman managed to trap one here, but the wards he put up are failing. The nightmare starved for hundreds of years. Now it's reaching out and trying to feed."
Jack says, "Do you have the spell?"
"My mistress managed to finish it before she fell asleep like the rest of them."
"'Mistress'?" Derek says.
Nevada's faster than all of them, and has been running impatient laps around the group. "Ben's a familiar," he says as he passes Derek.
"Is that why you're all here?" Derek says. "To save your owners?"
Nevada stops to scratch an ear. "Well, not me, obviously." Then he's off again.
"And not Jessie, either," Tucker says. "She doesn't have any owners."
"Do too!" Jessie protests. "They just left me behind." She trots in closer to Derek. "I heard werewolves live forever and can read minds."
"You heard wrong," Derek says, distracted by the sudden chill in the air.
Jessie's ears flatten to the sides of her head. "Nevada! You swore that was true!"
"And you believed me. Whose fault is that?"
The ground gets steeper and more uneven as Ben and Jack lead them up a rocky hill.
"The spell my mistress prepared will bind the nightmare and force it to take mortal form," Ben says as they near the top. "Then we can kill it."
Tucker whines. "Do we have to? Can't we just chase it away?"
Ben hesitates and turns around, head and tail hanging low. "The nightmare has to die before Annie and the others can wake up. I'm sorry, Tucker."
"There isn't much time," Jack interrupts. "We need to keep moving."
Ben turns back around and starts walking again.
Derek moves up to keep pace with Jack. "So that's why you need me."
"You are the muscle of this operation, yes," Jack admits. "I'm not sure how resilient this thing will be. And werewolves have a knack for killing the unkillable."
"That doesn't mean I enjoy it."
"Really? Hmm."
The hilltop is more or less flat. A long time ago, someone dug a circular trench in the middle of the plateau, but now it's mostly filled in.
"I don't see anything." Nevada sniffs the air. "Or smell anything."
"The nightmare doesn't exist in the physical world," Ben says. "Yet." She walks to the trench and starts digging, reconnecting the broken parts of the circle.
Jack shakes his fur out and says, "This is where I take my leave, I think."
"You're not staying?" Derek says.
"Ha! No. This is dangerous." Jack starts running back down the hill, barking one last, "Good luck!" as he goes.
"He does that," Ben says. The circle is almost restored.
Derek huffs. "Your friend is kind of a flake."
"I wouldn't call Jack a friend." Ben finishes digging and steps back to survey her work. "He's an ally. A capricious one."
Derek pads closer to the circle. "So how does this spell work?"
"I'll need your help, actually," Ben says. "Tucker, you too."
Tucker's ears perk up. "What do you need?"
"Stand over there and don't move."
Jessie bounces into view, her stump of a tail wagging so fast it blurs. "What about me?"
"You and Nevada keep watch," Ben says. "Make sure you don't cross into the circle, Jessie. Derek, sit over there."
Ben sits equidistant from them both, forming a triangle outside of the circle. She chews at the base of a claw until blood wells up, then raises her paw and flicks the droplets into the circle. There's a building charge in the air, like lightning is about to strike. It makes Derek's hackles rise.
Ben starts to growl, a deep, steady vibration. A challenge.
Face us.
You have trespassed.
You have harmed our loved ones.
This aggression will not stand.
Come out and fight.
Face us.
Tucker fidgets. "Is it working?"
"Yes," Ben says. "Just stay—"
ε
Derek wakes up.
It's morning. A few rays of desert sun peek through the curtains, forming patterns on the carpet. Derek can smell something cooking in the kitchen; one of the first things he discovered on this trip was that Stiles is a cook of questionable skill but boundless enthusiasm.
Derek rolls out of bed and stands, stretching, then walks out to the kitchen.
"Hi, sweetheart."
He stops dead.
Stiles is on his knees, hands up, fingers laced behind his head. There's a gun pointed at the back of his skull, and it's being held by Kate Argent.
She smiles, all teeth. "Did you miss me?"
"Don't hurt him," Derek chokes out. He can barely breathe. The panic is suffocating him. "Please don't hurt him. I'll do anything you want, just let him go."
"You always did beg so pretty." She tilts her head, looking down at Stiles with mock fondness. "You might not want him back after I tell you what he did, though."
"What?" Derek starts forward, stops when Kate clucks her tongue and nudges the gun against the base of Stiles' skull.
She says, "I mean, even by my standards, the con he pulled is pretty twisted."
"Derek," Stiles breathes, staring up at him, tears in his eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to, you have to—"
Kate laughs. "Listen to that. He's good, sweetie. I'm almost fooled." The smile drops off her face. "Almost."
She squeezes the trigger—
ε
A sharp pain spikes through his ear. Derek snarls and leaps to his feet.
"Sorry!" Jessie yips, scurrying back. "Sorry sorry sorry! I didn't know how else to wake you up!"
Derek shakes his head, still groggy. His ear doesn't feel like it's bleeding; it doesn't feel like a bite at all, actually. There's an icy, persistent shiver under the skin of his ear that won't go away.
The jury's still out on whether or not he's about to throw up. "What happened?"
"I don't know! Everyone's asleep! I bit a werewolf. Am I a werewolf now? Am I gonna turn into a human every full moon?"
Ben, Tucker, and Nevada are all lying in the dirt around them, twitching occasionally. Dreaming.
Above them is a black, roiling mass of something that's too thick and oily to be smoke.
Ben is closest. Her ears are pressed tightly against her skull as she whimpers.
Derek lifts a forepaw and brings it down on Ben's tail.
She startles awake, snapping at air. "Off!"
"Easy!" Derek replies, taking a step back. "The spell didn't work."
Ben looks up, then cocks her head to the side. "No, it worked. Just not fully. The nightmare must have figured out what we were doing."
"And attacked before you could finish the spell."
"Exactly." Ben trots to Tucker's side and says, "Jessie, wake Nevada," before nipping Tucker's ear. Tucker yelps and scrambles to his feet.
Derek says, "What now?"
"I don't know." Ben looks back up at the half-coalesced nightmare. "I didn't think the spell could be interrupted. I don't know how to finish it."
"We need bait," Derek says. "Something to make it want to come through."
"Such as?"
"This thing feeds on fear, right?"
"Yes, but—"
Whatever Ben was about to say is interrupted when Jessie lets out an earsplitting, high-pitched bark directly into Nevada's ear.
Nevada bolts and is ten yards down the hill before he's even halfway awake.
The not-smoke pulls in on itself and surges after him, forming chitin and claws and teeth.
Derek charges down the hill; behind him, he hears:
"What was that?"
"I didn't want Nevada to turn into a werewolf!"
Sprinting headfirst down a steep hill isn't the worst idea Derek's ever had, but it's still not a good one. He just needs to keep moving. If he tries to slow down or stop, he'll fall.
He can't quite tell how many limbs the nightmare has. It's fast, though, snapping its jaws shut just behind Nevada's tail.
Derek hits the bottom of the hill and puts on an extra burst of speed, but he still can't catch the nightmare. It goes for Nevada again, and he manages to dodge by a hair—
Jack blindsides the nightmare and slams into it, knocking them both into the dirt. He springs to his feet, baying, "Come on, over here! Chase me, you bastard!"
The nightmare screeches and tears after Jack, but in the precious few seconds it was down, Derek has eaten up the distance between them.
Jack sprints into a gorge, the nightmare nipping at his heels, Derek almost on top of it. The nightmare's tail swings into view. Derek lunges and clamps his jaws around it—this teeth barely dent the thing's armor—and pulls, dragging the nightmare to a stop.
It screams and writhes in his grip, twisting around, trying to bite him. The nightmare doesn't have any eyes; its head is covered by a single chitinous plate.
Jack is nowhere to be seen. Derek hears from above him: "Hold it still!"
A few pebbles tumble down the cliff.
Derek tightens his grip on the nightmare's tail and tosses his head, slamming its body against the rocks. It tries to run, but Derek digs his paws into the dirt and hauls it back.
Above them, something goes crack.
"Derek! Move!"
Derek lets go, throws himself out of the way, too-sharp claws catching in the dirt as what seems like half the cliff comes down.
The nightmare tries to turn in place; it can't seem to decide between fleeing and going for Derek's throat, stumbling as the ground shifts under it.
It doesn't notice the boulder until it's too late.
A meaty crunch echoes through the gorge.
Jack comes striding down the hill as Derek shakes dirt and rubble out of his fur. "Decided to help after all?" Derek says.
"All the bars are closed."
The nightmare lies crushed under the rock, letting out wet, ragged gasps. Yellow ichor oozes from its mouth.
As Derek approaches, it tilts its head back.
Derek brings his claws down across its throat.
The nightmare lets out one last, gurgling breath and stills.
ε
Nevada hops a few inches closer to the corpse and sniffs. "Are you sure it's dead?"
"I dropped a cliff on it and Derek nearly took its head off," Jack says, flicking his ears back and forth in annoyance. "It better be dead."
Tucker gives the nightmare's tail a perfunctory poke with his nose. "I want to go check on Annie."
Nevada springs away from the nightmare. "I'll come with you. You'll need help sneaking into the hospital."
"I'll come too!" Jessie says, bounding after them.
Jack stretches and yawns. "Well, somewhere in this valley is someone who'll serve me bacon at four in the morning. See you around, Derek."
"God, I hope not," Derek says.
He starts the walk back into town. After a moment, he notices Ben's following him.
"Thank you for the help," she says.
"It needed to be done."
"I know. But that doesn't mean I can't be polite."
They reach the highway and start running alongside. Every few minutes, a car comes roaring past.
Derek says, "Does Jessie know she's dead?"
"It's hard to say. We haven't said anything to her. But she may have figured it out on her own."
"What happened?"
"Car. She was chasing a rabbit."
The wall surrounding the condo development was meant to deter teenagers and drunks, not wildlife. Derek scales it easily, while Ben just manages to claw her way over.
Ben says, "Jack thinks we should help her move on. He says it's not natural for her spirit to stay here."
"What do you think?"
Ben pauses for a moment. "... She's never hungry or cold. She gets to spend all day chasing Nevada or playing with Tucker. She's happy. That's what matters, right?"
"I have no idea."
Ben sighs and starts walking again. "Me neither."
They sneak into the condo's backyard. Derek stops just outside the patio door; he can see Stiles inside, sleeping peacefully.
"Can I ask you something?" Ben says.
"Sure."
"I've been getting this... feeling. Like—I don't know, like all the magic is going away. I've tried asking Jack, but..." Ben looks down at her paws, scratching at the dirt. "Can you feel it?"
"Yeah."
"Are you scared, too?"
"... Yeah."
ε
Stiles stirs and rolls over when Derek slips under the covers. "Hey," he says, voice still thick with sleep. "Everything okay?"
Derek kisses him, wrapping his arms around Stiles and pulling him closer until there's no air between them. Stiles' mouth tastes a bit like morning breath, but that doesn't matter because he's awake and alive and safe.
Stiles blinks, clearly not awake enough to process Derek's weirdness right now. "Um?"
"I'll tell you in the morning."
Ω