Disclaimer: I don't own MTV's Teen Wolf or any of its characters, wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: This story is meant to fit into the canon events of season 4 until just before the end of 4x12, "Smoke and Mirrors" where it goes very AU. The premise is that Scott and co. escaped Kate in Mexico and return to Beacon Hills without the showdown we saw in the final episode where Kate is 'defeated.' In this au Derek still 'evolves', but Chris doesn't go with the Calaveras to track down Kate, but rather returns with the whole pack to Beacon Hills. – This is a Bobby Finstock/Chris Argent fic, with minor references to: Stiles/Derek & Lydia/Parrish here and there.
Warnings: spoilers for seasons three and four and one or two vague illusions to things that have happened in season five. *Contains: sexual content, blood, guts, gore, canon appropriate violence, references to using alcohol as a coping mechanism in both past and present tenses, kidnapping. - There will be more warnings to come as the story progresses. There will be 40 chapters and this fic will update once a week.
Regress to my mean (and kiss me pretty)
Chapter 37
The hunters that didn't go down with the cliff face, he ripped into. Shifting only partway due to the lack of space. Nothing more than a wild tangle of claws and teeth as he leapt out of the grass and slashed his way through. Exploding them from their skins. They reeked of rot and wet mush inside. Like they weren't really there. They were empty, hollowed out of every worthwhile feeling. Each and every one of them on par with the surviving Berserkers that weaved between them. So far removed from their natural parts that the world shuddered with disquiet the longer they breathed.
He was aware of the others flanking him, wielding long burning torches of mountain ash. Advancing steadily as he raked his claws deep into the closest Berserker, slamming another two off the cliff-edge as Kate screeched in anger. Wrecking all kinds of havoc he never knew could feel so cathartic as he carved a hole through their ranks - Scott and Derek fighting close behind him. They forced the last Berserker back towards the crumbling shale by sheer force. Slamming his fists against it's bony chest again and again until it stumbled, swiping out desperately. Still fighting even as it tumbled backwards into the yawning blackness.
He roared into the mist when one of the hunters embedded a load of shot into his back. Feeling it sting for a handful of seconds before he whirled around and grabbed the asshole's rifle by the barrel, ignoring the deafening blast as the man pulled the trigger again – frantic. Clawed hands ripping down the collar of the man's hunting jacket as he picked him up and threw him across the clearing. Taking down the last of the hunters in a gibbering pile that had them scrambling off into the forest, screaming their heads off. Funneling right back down to Deaton and Parrish who knocked them cold and had them in handcuffs quick as anything.
Now he just had to-
"Stop!"
He looked up, tasting blood on his tongue. Every bone in his body going rigid when he realized she had Chris by the throat. Holding him up against the cliff-edge as she looked around the clearing frantically. Feline eyes scared and alone as the pack filled in the gaps, turning the tables so that it was her who was surrounded.
The too long silence stretched, then stretched some more.
"It's over, Kate," he told her quietly – gently even.
"It's never over," she hissed, claws tight against the tacky mess of partially congealed blood smeared across Chris' neck. Only getting more agitated when she looked down and realized Chris wasn't even looking at her. He was looking at him like the claws threatening his jugular didn't even matter.
Chris.
His eyes shuttered themselves as he breathed him in.
He wanted so much to be able to ask the man's permission.
To know that the man wouldn't blame him.
Was this okay?
After everything was said and done, would they be okay?
Would they-
"I didn't ask to be this!" she said desperately, eyes mad. Somewhere beyond manic, beyond predictable as the world started to feel a bit blurry from where he is standing. Existing somewhere in that weird, in between place of conflicting perspectives. Watching as the woman in front of him fractured in his mind's eye. Shifting to the bright little girl who'd liked her hair in pig tails and secretly wanted to be an actress.
"No, but you earned it through shitty karma," he pointed out, all but tipping off the continental shelf that seemed to exist between reality and sanity. Realizing that he could feel it. All of it. He could feel the pain in Chris' wrists and all the words the gag was keeping back. Worst of all, he could feel her. So far gone she already smelled acrid and partially decomposed. Quagmired in a pit of bone-deep exhaustion that hurt him even though it was second hand. Every part of her hurt. Her skin. Her eyes. She was aching – slurred.
This had to end. That was pity talking, not vengeance. Petty anger and violence weren't inherent to the animal underneath. But oddly enough, the capacity for empathy, even for someone like her, remained the same.
"I just need control," she whispered, more to herself than anything. Muttering under her breath as the wind whipped her hair everywhere. Not seeming to notice Chris struggling against her as the rocks under their feel shifted dangerously.
He went cold.
If she fell, she was going to take Chris with her.
He took an automatic step forward.
She hissed. Yowling low as her knife slithered out of her jacket cuff to play across the vulnerable pale of Chris' throat. Beauty and rage intertwining as his claws sunk into the meat of his palms.
"What do you think would happen if I turned him?" she asked, panting. Cutting a thin little scratch down the curve of Chris' earlobe. Watching the blood well up and slowly start to bleed.
"He would probably be very pissed off," he answered, inanely. Because sometimes sarcasm just wasn't something he could switch off. And honestly, it was probably true.
"If I made him, he would be mine," she murmured, like she was talking to herself again. Making absolutely zero sense and adding another horrifying level to the entire thing that shivered under his skin like someone was walking over his grave. "He'd have to help me. Help me get control. We're family. He would make people spill their secrets. Just like Dad."
"You could have him in your teeth and he would never be yours," he growled. Bleeding honesty out of every pore he had. Feeling saturated in it as a challenging hiss left her lips and the tension ramped up another notch.
He took another step forward. Jerking back automatically when she swiped out with her free hand. So close he could separate the wind parting around her claws. Feeling that thing again, the sensation that squared his shoulders and settled deep as a growl rose up from his throat. Eyes glinting dark and narrow-slitted as she slashed at him again. But rather than be intimidated he took another deliberate step. Then another. Her claws were laughable against his and he let her know it. Snapping bloodstained teeth as Scott and Derek let go of an answering, vicious sound in the background. Showing her a nightmare of long incisors he could feel cutting into his lips as they grew. Dripping red down his chin as he let go of a challenging huff.
She hissed again, posturing. Baring her teeth as the wind whisked the clouds clear. Bathing them in the light of a sallow crescent moon as he tried to judge the space that remained between them.
He just needed to get close enough to get Chris away from her.
But how?
"Let him go, Kate," Derek said lowly, just off to his right. The picture of self-restraint as he looked at the person responsible for killing almost his entire family with what looked dangerously like sympathy. Like he was looking at an entirely different version of the girl he'd known as Scott nodded – eyes glowing Alpha-red as Lydia's suddenly went unfocused and distant on the other side of him. "It's not too late to walk away. Just let him go."
He looked up and found the answer unexpectedly in Chris' eyes.
And oh-
Well, then.
All of a sudden he knew what to do.
"Self-sacrifice has never been something my sister has understood," Chris had admitted after a moment. "Even for something she believes in."
It was knee-jerk simple, really. One of those rare times where everything falls neatly into place. Getting to experience it a second time as the words the man said to him in his living room all those months ago brought everything back full circle.
Only Chris had decided he was going to be the one to take the fall.
And that was not happening.
Not now.
Not ever.
"Alright," he rasped, throat dry enough it actually made a clicking noise. Able to tell the exact moment her grip on Chris eased in surprise. Looking up at him as Derek and Scott turned the same way, faces frowning.
He didn't blame them.
This wasn't the plan.
But now it had to be.
There was no other option.
"I know what you want. I'll tell you how I did it – I'll show you if you want me to," he lied, words dangerously brittle as the realization proved ground across his skin. Knowing it was the right call even as something in the back of his mind started flat out yelling. "But it's going to be me for him, understand? You let him go and I'll tell you how I did it. You'll get what you need, I promise."
Her expression was a hundred different versions of desperate suspicion. But in the end, desperation won out. Overriding common sense as Chris's face screamed a negative across from him. Pleading for him not to do it as Lydia jerked in place, eyes wide as the blood-shot whites seemed to go on forever.
Kate shoved Chris away, hard. Tossing him to the ground with punishing force as she lunged forward and hooked her claws into his shoulders. Raking them down as he swayed backwards, growling, letting their combined momentum rock them back towards the edge of the cliff.
Almost.
Almost.
Just a few more meters.
"You smell like him," she hissed, whispering in his ear like it was something filthy as he flinched away. Snapping his teeth as her claws dug in another inch. Burning like they had on the field. Threatening to poison him with the same sickness that'd rotted her to the core. "You've made him yours."
He was going to say something, something smart and probably a bit condescending, but instead, he found himself replying in kind. Gripping her by the arms before she could react and sinking his claws deep. World narrowing as she howled and tried to pull away. Eyes bulging comically wide as she realized how close to the edge they were.
He was able to watch her make the last big connection.
Seeing it dawn across her face like nothing in the world had prepared her for it.
Mouth opening, then closing as Chris warbled his name and not hers.
"I strip you of the powers nature gave you and return you to what you were," he gritted.
He wasn't sure where the words came from, but they felt right leaving him. Taking his natural place in the order of man and beasts as she thrashed like an animal caught in a trap. Eyes flashing like she knew as the ferocity in her eyes ramped up to match the adrenaline.
He looked over and found Chris again as the man wheezed from where Kate had thrown him. Clutching his ribs and curled in on himself, expression a rictus of self-loathing and desperation as blue eyes locked on his. Knowing what he was about to do. Screaming at him without words as he wondered if there was ever a good way to say this kind of sorry.
He had to force himself to look away in the end.
This ended here.
One way or another.
"What are you?!" Kate hissed, yellow eyes piercing. Still looking for answers like a plunging fever. Empty and rageful as the others condensed around them, circling. Helping Chris out of the dirt as the realization that they were at end of the line lit up in the back of her angry yellow eyes.
"Right now?" he snarled. The muscles in his neck straining as he sunk his claws as deep as they could go into her upper arms. Holding them poised on the very edge of the cliff, buffeted by wind howling up from the valley bottom as she yowled and struggled. Sinking her own claws into his chest. Carving him up as the ribbons of red healed before she could finish. Letting her see the futility of it before he caught her by the throat and growled.
"Grouchy," he finished. Jerking them forward and sending them careening over the edge before anyone could say so much as a word. Not realizing until the echoes reached him in mid-fall, that somewhere along the line, Lydia had started screaming.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – There will be more to come, stay tuned.
Reference:
- Lydia is a banshee.