Mark was late.

By now the painkillers and the caffeine had kicked in, John was nursing this third coffee of the day, and he was bouncing his leg in nervous anxiety. Mark had not called in sick, yet, but he wasn't there when his shift started either. He wasn't there five minutes later and by now John was fiddling with his phone, pondering if he should call him or not. He'd told Stiles that he would swing by Mark's place after his shift if he didn't show up but he might return the favor of dragging his ass out of bed here soon.

John gave him another five minutes. Then he would call him. If he didn't pick up, the first thing John would do once he was out on patrol would be a safety check on Mark.

Mark did come in four minutes later.

"Damn, you look like shit," John said under his breath. He was sitting at his desk but even over the distance, Mark looked like he hadn't slept in ages. He looked worse than John felt and that meant something.

Mark shouldn't be able to hear his muttered comment but he looked over to John and ran a hand over his tired face. Instead of perking him up, the gesture made him look even more wrung out.

They didn't get a chance to talk, there were too many people around and since Mark had been sick for the first time ever and still looked the part, everybody wanted to check on him. Even Sheriff Thompson came out of his office when he noticed him.

"Take it easy today." John caught that bit of their conversation. However, it wasn't as if they had a stressful day ahead. With the day shift, they had missed everything around the morning rush hour and they would be done before the drunk ones came out in the evening. They just had to finish up some paperwork before they were supposed to go on patrol together.

John glanced over to where Mark had made it to his desk. He seemed busy with starting the paperwork but John got the feeling that he'd glued his eyes to the desk on purpose. Not that they would be able to talk freely at the station anyway.

About an hour later they walked out to the parking lot and got in the car they would share for the next hours. John got in the passenger seat, his head was still throbbing and concentrating made his eyes water, if he wanted to survive patrol, he better let Mark drive. Not that he looked more up for it than him.

Mark started the car without a word but when he eased it out of the lot, he did take an audible sniff.

"Man, did you sleep in the bottle?"

"Kind of," John admitted and shifted in his seat. "Didn't hear from Stiles all day, you called in sick …"

He wasn't trying to make excuses for crawling into the bottle last night but it gave him a good opening for what he wanted to talk about.

"You never get sick." John looked over to Mark who kept his eyes on the road. "By now I know that you can't get sick. What was I supposed to think?"

"I'm sorry if I worried you." Mark did sound sorry.

"Understatement," John muttered and waited for an explanation. Which didn't come. "I'm too hungover for games. Where were you yesterday? Because the only explanation I came up with is that you're either avoiding me or that Agnes dealt with your control issue." He didn't like either but the latter sent shivers down his spine.

"Kind of both," Mark said after a long moment. "Agnes took me out into the woods where I could run off some energy and we did some exercises on control. She didn't even have to put me in one of the cages." He cracked a smile as if that was funny but John felt his guts twisting.

"Cages?" They put people in cages?

"They are in the escape tunnels under the main house where nobody can hear it if you have to take it out on something," Mark explained, now with an amused glance at John. "Think of them as drunk tanks for werewolves. A place where you can cool off without hurting yourself or others."

It did make sense but John still didn't like it.

"Still no word from Stiles?" Mark changed the topic.

"He came by in the middle of the night," John said, his memory still fuzzy about that. "Put me to bed." Cleaned up after me.

"How is he?" Mark asked and John didn't have to be a werewolf to catch that he was holding his breath for that answer.

"All healed up. No scars or anything." John still couldn't quite believe it even if he'd seen it with his own eyes.

"That's good." Mark breathed out in relief but he still looked miserable.

"You hurt Stiles." John wasn't going to let him off this easily. … might have died for a second … "Derek wanted to come after you."

"Wanted?" Mark asked. He tried to keep a neutral face but his eyes widened before he brought his features under control.

"He's very protective of Stiles, when he saw how badly you injured him he wanted to kill you," John said to drive that point home. It might be cruel but he wanted Mark to understand what he'd done.

"Why didn't he?"

"Stiles," John said simply. "He stopped him."

Mark stopped the car at the side of the road.

"Why?" Mark asked, fingers still cramped around the steering wheel.

"Don't get me wrong." John let out a sigh. Seeing the emotions rolling over his partner took away most of his anger. He couldn't just forgive and forget but seeing him sitting there with his head bowed and his breathing too fast, wondering, hoping, that he might be forgiven, it broke John's heart.

"Stiles hates you," John continued. "He would love to see you dead but he doesn't want to put that on Derek's consciousness. He doesn't want to burden him with another death."

"Can't say that I blame him." Mark nodded. "Nancy's parents think I'm a hero. I couldn't tell them about Stiles but I tried to tell them that it was mainly you who saved her. They didn't listen. I'm pack and you're not, of course, I was the one who saved their child." He let out a bitter laugh.

Now John understood why Mark looked so ragged. He'd most likely beaten himself up over this. He might have waited for Derek to drown him in his sleep. And the parents thought he was a hero.

Mark reached into his jacket and came up with an envelope.

"Would you give this to Stiles?"

"What is this?" John took the envelope. It was thick and if he was not mistaken, there was money in there. Quite an amount of money. "If you're trying to buy yourself out of this …"

"I'm not," Mark said too hastily. "There's a letter in there too. What I did to him … I know that money can't fix this."

"He'll throw the money in your face." John remembered how Stiles had fought him when he'd tried to buy him clothes from a thrift store.

"There's not much else I can give." Mark's shoulders slumped. "This should help him to get by for a while. It's more about the letter anyway. Make sure he gets it?"

"Okay." John put the envelope in the inner pocket of his jacket.

With that out of the way, Mark started the car but John could tell that there was still something bothering him. However, before John could tell him to spill it already, he was too hungover for this shit, the radio came to life and they had actual work to do.

John couldn't help it, he kept an eye on Mark. When John had found out about werewolves, Mark had assured him that he was in control. Always. And then he'd lost control. He'd severely injured Stiles and he'd put Nancy's life at risk in his blind rage. So yeah, John did keep an eye on him.

They were called to a dispute between neighbors and it didn't take long for the two parties to yell at the deputies as well. In the end, it wasn't just the two neighboring couples but what felt like the whole street, yelling over each other. John thought his skull would just crack open and that his brain would leak out of his ears any second now but he managed to grit his teeth through the yelling.

They had to threaten to arrest the bystanders to make them back off before they could even start to defuse the situation between the neighbors.

John expected Mark to snap. He'd seen him shift from human into a monster in a second and he couldn't help but wonder if the abuse they were taking here would push him over the edge. At least it was just verbal abuse, for now, but John felt the tension in the air and saw fists twitching.

Mark did get irritated, they both did, but he didn't snap. No claws, no fangs, no rearranging his whole face. Still, John only breathed easier when over an hour later they were back in the car.

There hadn't been an arrest today but they had made it very clear that next time they would take everybody to the station.

"You're afraid of me," Mark stated when they left the neighborhood in the rearview mirror.

"I'm not." John let out a sigh. His ears were still ringing from all the yelling, some of which had been his own. He'd taken the bottle of painkillers with him this morning but when he reached for his water bottle to wash two of them down, he found it empty.

"Just fucking great." He dropped the bottle between his feet and swallowed the pills dry. "Can we stop for coffee somewhere?"

"You were watching me like a hawk the whole time," Mark said but did make the turn that would bring them to their usual coffee shop. "You thought that I would lash out on those people."

John couldn't deny that.

"That doesn't mean that I'm afraid of you," John said quietly.

"If you want another partner …," Mark started. "I can talk to the sheriff. You can have somebody else tomorrow."

It could be arranged, sure, but they weren't that many deputies to begin with. Switching partners meant to break up another duo that had worked together for quite a while. It didn't seem fair.

"Do you want another partner?" John asked, not sure about his own feelings on this matter. He wasn't afraid of Mark, that hadn't been a lie and he hoped that Mark had picked up on that, but what he'd done to Stiles …

"No," Mark said without hesitation. They reached their destination and Mark parked the car in front of the coffee shop. "At the lake … when I … you didn't freeze. You acted. You hit me over the head and you put yourself between me and Derek."

"Not my brightest moment." John laughed awkwardly at that memory. Hitting a werewolf did sound like a stupid idea but getting between a werewolf and a Nöck, both ready to rip the other one apart, was downright suicidal.

"It was your best moment," Mark insisted. "You do what has to be done. With you as my partner, I know that you can and will stand up to me."

"Somebody has to," John muttered, oddly touched by Mark's confession.

"That's exactly my point." Mark patted his shoulder and John felt the tension lifting off both of them. "C'mon, coffee's on me."

They went to get their coffee and Mark threw in a box of donuts as well.

John thought that they still worked. It would take a while and John doubted that he could ever forget the picture of a pale and bloody Stiles but they still worked. Mark had fucked up but he deserved a second chance.

Not that John was any better, he was beyond fucked up as well. How often had he come to work hungover? Mark hadn't said a word about it but he must have thought about it. He must have wondered if John had his back when it mattered or if he would be too drunk to do his job.

Maybe this was his second chance as well.