John wakes up in a cage that's far too small for him. The tightly confined space forces him to stay crouched and irritates his aching muscles. He takes a moment to take in his surroundings, years of police training kicking in as he tries to piece together the puzzle. He's in a dark room, the walls are musty and there's a repetitive drip that clashed against the cement floor every few seconds. There's a wooden table right beside his cage and John can barely make out what's on top of it. The small bits he does see don't put him at ease.

He spies Peter almost immediately after and wants desperately to call out to him, but stops himself. Their captors might not know he's awake yet, and if that's the case then the smarter decision would be to stay quiet and figure out what he can before they return. He struggles to get to a position where he can see Peter over the table. John has to crane his neck and press his cheek against the top of the cage before he can get a good look.

Peter's still in his boxers, hanging from the ceiling by two chains that look strong enough to hoist an anchor. His head is lulled to the side, hanging between his outstretched arms while his toes barely touch the ground. Peter wants to see if he's alright. From here he can't tell if Peter is still breathing, but he hopes with every fibre of his being that he is.

He takes one more quick look around, noting the barred windows and the open doorway before he gives in and calls out to Peter.

"Peter!" he tries, finding his voice hoarse and chalky.

He clears his throat when he doesn't get an answer and tries again, "Peter! For God's sake, please answer me!"

There's a twitch and a low groan that follows and John lets out an exasperated sigh of relief. Peter's not dead. Though, he's sure, now able to catch a better look at the nasty tools set atop the wood table from his craned head position, if they don't escape soon then that could very likely change. "Are you alright?"

"John..." Peter grumbles, trying to shake himself awake but still unable to lift his head. "John..."

"I'm here." he offers quickly, hoping maybe if he keeps his voice calm Peter will be more susceptible to slowly coming to. "I'm alright, Peter."

Peter's head jerks up with a start, suddenly hyper aware and clearly on high alert. His eyes dart around the room lightning fast before they settle on John, crouched in his little cage in nothing more than a thin white tee and pajama bottoms. He snarls violently, eyes flickering over to a brilliant and angry blue as he struggles in his chains, leaning towards John with all his might.

John saw the color, and wanted to comment, but now just wasn't the time, "Peter, I'm alright. You need to try and calm down-"

"Where are they?!" Peter growled, teeth slipping into their canine form as he went back to glaring around the room in rapid search.

"It's just us, Peter. Please, try to calm yourself." John tried again, "It'll be easier to figure out how to get out of here if we're both level headed."

"They put you in a cage."

"And you're hanging from the ceiling like a slab of meat!" John snapped back bitterly. Desperately trying to stay mello even as his temper raised with his mate's, he recollected himself and started again, "I'm just as freaked out as you are, maybe even more, but if we want to get out of here-"

"I'll rip their throats out." Peter snarled, jangling his chains once more, "I'll make them wish they'd never-"

"Peter, stop." John ordered, trying his best to project a voice that was both soothing but stern, careful not to challenge Peter, but made sure he understood that he needed to listen to John. "You are going to calm down. Then we are going to come up with a plan to get out of here. Once we're free, you can take me home and I'll remind you why it's good to listen to my ideas."

Peter snorted, despite himself, "The sex chair?"

"The sex chair." he nodded once, "Now do you think you can take a deep breath for me?"

Peter huffed, jangled his wrists once more, but complied, "Okay."

"Neat trick." Came a sultry voice from the doorway, echoing slightly off the cobblestone walls of the room as a man stepped into view.

Peter quickly began to grow restless again, lip curling up and exposing his threatening sneer with promise.

The man huffed, "Looks like you've still got some training to do though."

"Why are you doing this?" John asked immediately, eager to get the focus off Peter.

He scoffed, "That is, without a doubt, the stupidest question you could have asked."

John frowned. Peter snarled.

"You've got to know you're seeing a fucking werewolf, right?" he continued, gesturing towards Peter with a careless arm, "How do you sleep at night? Ever have nightmares about him tearing out your throat? I bet he'd wait until your eyes are closed. It's an animal thing."

"Peter is not an animal." John bit out angrily, surprised by his own defensiveness.

"Pfft." he spurred, and rounded the little table that sat between him and Peter, inching closer to John's little cage, "He's an animal alright. When you really think about it, you're fucking a mutt." he crouched down in front of John, ignoring Peter's insistent struggling, "You know, there are laws against beastiality, sheriff. "

John moved back, not exactly eager to be so close to this horrible man, "You're disgusting."

"You're the one sleeping with a monster. I'm just stating the facts here."

"So you kidnapped him to kill him? Just because he's a werewolf?" he nodded towards the table, "Not even humanely. Even dogs aren't tortured before they're put down. Who's the real monster here?"

The man chuckled, a little grin pulling at the corner of his mouth, "I like your spirit, I really do, but you've got a bite."

Peter's neck drew tight, jaw working angrily even as his eyes widened with respective fear, "He's not turned. It's not that kind of bite-"

"Why else would you bite him if you weren't going to turn him?" he retorted, cocking his head over his shoulder to ask.

Peter's hands curled into fists above his head, but he remained silent.

It was the wrong choice, evidently, as the man stood. John wanted to call him back, away from Peter, but he was too intrigued with Peter now, "What did you do, wolfman?"

Peter growled, and gritted out through clenched teeth, "He's still human. That's all that matters. You don't have to hurt him."

The man's eyes expanded a fraction, his face lighting up with new discovery, "Oh, you didn't."

When Peter silently averted his eyes, the man pivoted 90 degrees, smiling over at John jovially, "Oh, you did! You did!" he laughed, "You mated the sheriff of Beacon Hills. Wow. Quite the play, wolfman. I'm actually a little impressed. Get a little inside man on the force, huh? You think that'll stop us from tracking all of you down?"

Peter cocked his head, "All of us?"

"Every. Last. One." he smirked, "See, our predecessors, those pesky Argents, never really understood that to take down a pack in the animal, you target it's members one by one."

"Why keep John?" Peter asked bitterly. "You know he's not a werewolf."

The man shrugged, "Well I might have let him go before, but I've found that you beasties are much more... agreeable when your mate's life is on the line. I think I'll keep him around a little longer, just to make sure you don't get any bright ideas, you understand."

"Why did you start with us?" John asked desperately, wanting to draw out the man's dialogue for as long as possibly, praying with all his might that someone would come to get them soon. "Why not go after the Alpha first? If you took out the leader then the rest would be easier... right?"

He grinned, "Honestly? Easier to catch an older targets. Your nephew's got that mate that looks like he could run for days straight if he wanted."

John was grumpy at first, slightly offended about being called "old" but... when he'd mentioned Stiles, his targeted anger has flipped. He didn't say anything, talking about Stiles would only make it worse in the long run, and he could only hope they got out of here and killed these bastards before they got the chance to go after his son.

But John was sure Peter saw him flinch. He growled.

"Oh calm yourself." their captor said, strolling over to the table with a slow leg, plucking a tool off the table to twirl in his fingers menacingly, "So who goes first?"

Peter lurched forward, under three inches away from being able to snap at the man's face, struggling in his chains with rage.

"I'm going to bite into your wrist," Peter glared, "and pull the tendons out with my teeth very slowly, to make sure you feel it when they rip and snap."

John flinched, staring wide-eyed up at Peter as he snarled out threat after threat.

"Well... Thanks for volunteering, mutt."

"Stop! Don't!" John tried, but he'd already shoved some kind of needle into Peter's side, forcing the syringe to empty with his teeth gritted in a grin.

Peter roared, straining upward and away from the infliction, but in vain. John tried to get them to stop, he yelled over and over, but nobody listened. He watched them poke and prod with this and that, Peter howling and thrashing in his restraints.

"Peter!" he yelled, desperately shaking the bars of his little cage, "Stop it, please!"

But he didn't listen.

"Wolfbane." he grinned, "You're familiar. It's not enough to kill you, but it will certainly knock down your tolerance for pain, wolfman."

Peter snarled, but it was much weaker than it had been a moment ago.

"That's right. Just let it sink into your blood. Your healing factor should take a nice punch real soon. Wanna test it out?" the man leered, lifting a tool that John couldn't quite grasp an understanding of. One side was rough and jagged like a saw, but the over was sharp like a knife. He sadly got his answer when the man drove it into his side. The smoothe side of the blade made it easy to insert while the ridged part dragged and cut along the skin in a rougher shape. It was awful.

John wanted to scream, but Peter did it for him.

"Explain the hierarchy of your pack and I promise I'll make your death a quick one."

Peter grunted, head tipping back so that he could face his tormentor before spitting at him, "Go to hell."

He shoved in again, this time tearing the muscle near a shoulder, "Try again."

"I'm not telling you anything." Peter growled, "You might as well kill me. I won't give you anything."

The man looked at him thoughtfully, and tapped the bloody weapon against his cheek before smiling, "Maybe you're right." and when he turned, face leering over at John with something sickening, John felt his stomach drop, "You think he'll tell me anything?"

Peter lurched forward, "He's a human. You don't have to kill him. He hasn't done anything wrong, just-"

"He's mated to a damn werewolf, it's almost just as bad as being one. He chose to associate himself with you monsters." he spat back, and came a few steps closer to John's cage, "He's also the sheriff. We can't have him going around telling anybody about this, and a good upstanding fella like him, as naive as he is to your kind, he'll tell people."

He kneeled beside John, hand jutting forward to grab John's hand before he could pull them away from the bars, "Tell me what I want to know and I'll let you go with a bullet to the head. Quick and painless, I promise."

John grit his teeth together, "I won't betray them."

His yell was louder than he thought it would be when his finger was brought backwards, pushed and pushed until it finally gave with a sickening snap. Peter was making all sorts of loud, angry sounds that were inhuman in nature. The man tugged on the broken digit, "Looks like it separated at the knuckle. I could've made it a lot worse. You could still tell me what I want to know..."

John bowed his head. If Peter could stay strong then so could he, and John would be strong for the rest of them. All those kids... Stiles. Derek. All of them. "No..." he said, and prepared for another snap.

Instead the man sighed, "Damn it. Ventura, they're not gonna give anything up, get in here. You take the sheriff and I'll put down the mutt."

Peter began wildly snapping his jaws as Ventura neared John, not even seeming to care as the man in charge came closer to him, that awful device back in his hand. John is dragged out from his cage and forced to his knees, hands behind his back and head bowed - like an execution. "You're all awful people." he bit out, glaring at the man as he neared Peter.

He angrily stomped back, "You think you know what we're about? We spend our lives killing all the monsters that go bump in the night. You're just too diluted to see that."

Peter pipes up before John can retort, "I forced him."

All eyes turn, and John is fucking furious, because what? "Peter-"

"He's under the influence of a drug. I bit him. He only doesn't understand how right you are about us because he's under the drug's thrall."

The man stood, snorted, "Yeah, right."

"I'm only telling you because I'll be dead anyway. Might as well fess up before I'm gone."

His eyes flicker briefly over to John, then back to Peter, "You're just trying to save his life."

Peter scoffed, and John was starting to see what kind of game he was playing at, but he was having none of it, "Peter just shut up. If we're going down, we're going down together. Don't let my last memory of you be you trying to bullshit everyone by pretending you don't care about me."

Peter's eyes widened briefly before he huffed, head shaking with fond frustration, "Damn it John. I was trying to be the hero."

"I don't need a hero." he smirked, "You don't have to pretend to be one, you're not. I already know that."

"Only you would say that." Peter smiled, "I suppose I'll have to just let you be my hero then, is that it, sheriff?"

"Damn straight. I wasted three years just to get my badge. You'd better let me make the most of it."

"This is heartwarming," Ventura sneered, "truly. Can we kill them now ?"

The man nodded, turning back to Peter while Ventura put a hand over his shoulder and placed the barrel of a pistol against his head.

"I love you, Peter."

Peter smiled, "Next time, you let me play hero."

Ventura frowned, relaxing his tight hold momentarily with his confusion, "Next time?" and was promptly knocked off his ass and away from John by a large body.

A growling body with glowing red eyes and teeth that ripped through flesh.

Ventura screamed, and Stiles came rushing in, "Dad!"

"Stiles! What the hell are you-!?" John went to stand, run to his son and cry, but he was dragged back and off of his knees by his hair, yelping and struggling.

The man in charge held John against his own chest like a shield, the same crude weapon he'd shoved into Peter's torso now less than an inch from his neck, still bloody even. "Nobody moves!" he shouted, and Derek's growl echoed off the walls as he stepped away from Ventura's mutilated carcass and in front of Stiles.

"I'm sorry we're late Peter... everybody else is finishing off the others."

The man jerked John once, "Do you not see that I've got him with a blade to his throat?" he spat angrily, and Stiles glared.

"I see it. I'm just not worried about you."

He scoffed, "I'm leaving with him. Nobody follows or I swear to god I'll kill him."

Stiles' expression might not make sense to anyone else, but John can see the underlying smugness, pushing aside the fear that's usually more prominent. He knows something... "Stiles-"

"Shut up! "

Behind them, where he'd let his guard down, Peter had been moving. Packs made you stronger, and as soon as Peter could hear the sounds of distant fighting he'd felt strength coming back into his bones. He knew they'd be alright, it was only a matter of stalling.

He silently pulled himself up by his chains now, curling his body with a combination of practiced gymnastics and werewolf strength so that his feet planted firmly on the ceiling. He made eye contact with Derek, knowing this would only work if he was paying attention, and when he knew he was, Peter kicked off hard.

The chains popped away from their fixtures in the ceiling, and Peter dropped down behind the two of them with an angry growl.

The man swung around quickly to defend himself from Peter, so quickly in fact, that he nicked a small patch of John's neck with the blade.

Peter could smell it, his keen eyes caught it, and he saw red, "You cut him."

The man shrieked and moved the tool away just enough to get a look, "I didn't-"

The blade far enough away from the sheriff and their captor distracted, Derek make his launch. He tackled the man to the ground with a violent roar, and John ran towards Peter, desperate to get his arms around him. Derek had him pinned, about to make the killing blow when Peter stopped him.

"Derek."

John looked up, and Derek cocked his head with a growl.

"Don't kill him."

Derek's teeth pulled back to reveal his canine snarl, but Peter stared back at him, "He hurt my mate, Derek. He's mine."

The wolf growled, but it was short and non threatening. John realized Derek was going to let him finish the man off.

"Peter, don't-"

"Stiles, take your father home. Derek... will you make sure they get out safely?"

Derek looked like he wanted to fight, even in his wolf form, his eyes shining a brilliant red that stated, I am the Alpha and I don't take orders, but Peter stopped him with a held up hand, "I'm not challenging you, nephew. I'm asking a favor." and to accentuate his point, he tipped his head to the side, neck exposed.

Derek snorted, muzzle twitching and wet before he stepped off of his prey. The man struggled as Peter pulled him violently to his feet.

The wolf nudged Stiles, and Stiles obediently grabbed his father's arm and pulled him away in a panic. John protested with curse after curse, dragged away by his son and a large, black wolf. As they went, he could hear Peter, voice low and dangerous as he snarled at the man in his hold, "You hurt him."

There were blubbering pleas for his life, a blood curdling scream, and then Peter's retorting growl, "You we're going to kill him."

John was no longer able to make out anything Peter said to him, but the man's screams, guttural and desperate, overgrown with the sound of death, could still be heard even after they'd gotten out of the building. John heard one more cry, a plea to the heavens, and then there was nothing but silence.

When Peter finally comes out of the shady looking building to meet them, he's got blood splatter stripped across his chest. His eyes are dark and brooding as he makes his way to the group. He doesn't go directly to John like he'd expected, sulking over to Derek with a purpose. John sorely wondered if he was the only one who felt like he needed to cling tightly onto Peter, the adrenaline finally fading and giving way to exhaustion now that he's seen Peter alive and well.

He stares jealously at Derek as they wrap cautious arms around each other. It's a curt hug, very stiff and awkward like they don't know how to console one another. John remembers then that they've been estranged for years. It's very likely this is the first time they've hugged in ages. Derek's shoulders lose a bit of their tension when they pull back, but Peter is still strung wire tight.

He notices John then, and gives a final nod to Derek before making his way over to John.

John meets him halfway, nearly crashing into his chest when he tightly wraps his arms around Peter's middle. He fights off an amused chuckle when Peter's tossed a little off balance, freezing up in John's embrace with a cut-off surprised squeak. It's only a small moment of hesitation before Peter returns the gesture, circling his arms around John's shoulders and burying his nose in John's hair.

"I'm so sorry you had to-"

"Did you kill him?" John interrupts, face still firmly pressed against Peter's chest.

Peter's heartbeat quickens, John can hear it where is ear is pressed against Peter's torso. He knows Peter doesn't want to answer him, maybe he'll even try to lie, but John already knows the answer. He'd asked because he wanted to hear Peter admit to it. He wanted Peter to know John was disappointed, that killing was wrong.

"I'm not a good man like you are, John..." Peter finally said, arms growing impossibly tighter around John, as if he thought John might disappear if he let go.

The sheriff shook his head, and finally drew back enough to look Peter in the eyes, "You are, Peter." he said firmly, "You just don't know it yet."

Peter let out a rush of air, deflating as he pulled John in for a kiss. When they parted he smiled, full of thankful relief as he asked, "Would you be willing to show me?"

John placed a careful hand on Peter's cheek, and Peter was quick to cover it with this own appreciatively, rubbing his cheek into the palm.

John was determined from there on out to act as Peter's guiding moral compass, and realized with some bi of awe that maybe that was exactly why they were meant to be together. Maybe it was why Peter's wolf had sought him out, knowing John would be the balancing yin to his yang. John swept his thumb over Peter's cheekbone with a sigh. Honestly, if it had been him in there, if he'd had a moment alone with the man that tortured Peter, John might have even done the same. He didn't have the right to judge, and he didn't want to.

He simply wanted to be there for Peter. He wanted to encourage him and let him know that he could be better. He didn't have to be the villain.

John pressed their foreheads together wearily, "I love you, Peter. Nothing you can do will change that, but we'll work on this. You are good. I want to show you that."

Peter smiled, warm and lovingly as he tilted his chin up to kiss just over John's brow, "That's all I could ever want."

"Also," John grinned, and jerked his head towards the tiny gaggle of teenage werewolves, staring at them, "you know you're officially a part of that family, right?"

Peter snorted, so John continued, "Your eyes glow blue now, Peter." he smiled, and reveled in the moment Peter's eyes widened, the realization dawning on him before he whipped his head around to reassess the rest of the pack.

Of their pack.

"John..." he breathed, elated, surprised and wanting to howl, "I- we have a pack."

John grinned, kissed Peter on the lips, and held fast to his hand as they walked over to join the rest of them. Stiles hugged him, Derek inclined his head, and John watched giddily as the rest of the pack members sniffed and rubbed their scent onto Peter, officially inducting him into their family.

John has never been happier.