A/N: This is where things start to get pretty dark. I've touched on certain elements lightly in previous chapters, but this is the first chapter where we really start to delve into certain events and the effects they've had on the characters. Basically, every single one of Scott's pack is pretty screwed up, with a whole host of trauma in their past, and none of them are remotely equipped to healthily deal with the things they've been through. Troubled teens being troubled without an adequate support system is a major theme of this fic, so I'm not going to be skimping on how things are addressed and touched on. Trigger warnings for references to/discussion of rape, torture and underage prostitution definitely need to be applied from here on out.

Chapter 5

"Wait, I'm what?" Scott asked, staring at the phone in his hand.

"Dead," Aiden supplied again. His tone was way too cheerful to be informing someone they'd been deceased for three years. Dick. "Or so the story goes, anyway. There was a funeral, the whole nine yards. You even have a grave. An empty one, I guess. Do you want us to go check it out, or would that be too weird? I mean, I was going to -"

"Aiden," Scott interrupted. Head spinning, he sat heavily on the ledge ringing the perimeter of the loft's roof. His eyes stared unseeing out at the harbor, seeking an anchor somewhere in the swells rolling across the surface of the water. People said focusing on one fixed spot could help you keep your balance, but there was no foothold to be found in the chaos of the sea. Not that it would have worked anyway. Nothing Scott ever did seemed to work the way it was supposed to. "Why would they think I'm dead? I left a note."

A note that didn't explain much, he supposed, but still, it's not like it was a suicide letter or anything…

"Yeah, they didn't get it. Three guesses what happened there."

"Peter."

"That's what we're thinking. The hunters were already in town investigating his kills, right? Which looked like animal attacks. And he probably knew his nephew was on his way too. But then you totally screw up his plans by skipping town, and that's not something that was going to go unnoticed, not with your dad being an FBI agent and everything."

"What does my dad have to do with it?" Scott asked, startled. "I don't think Peter even knew he was still in the picture."

"He must have," Aiden said, his inflection conveying the shrug he was no doubt making on his side of the phone. "Because that's what everyone thinks happened…some psycho he put away years ago killed you to get revenge. Even made a video confession. Bet you anything Peter was behind that camera, scaring that dude shitless until he said whatever he wanted him to say. And then he killed him and made it look like a suicide before the cops could get there."

"With a confession from someone with a motive, nobody was going to look further, even without a body. And no chance of connecting my disappearance to Peter, since his MO was always to make things look like an animal attack," Scott realized.

"That's what we figured too. Obviously he had plans to handle his nephew and the hunters who were looking for him, but the FBI digging into his murders, trying to figure out what had happened to you? That could have fucked everything up for him."

"Jesus," Scott swore. He rubbed at his face with one hand, trying to knead the tension out of it. Relief eluded him even there. It'd been bad enough imagining his mom trying to understand what could have made him leave, sitting in his room just waiting for him to come home. It was another thing entirely to picture her crying at his own goddamn funeral, taking flowers to his grave…god, Stiles probably visited his grave, even knowing there was nothing buried under his tombstone. Was it in the same cemetery his mom was buried in? There weren't many burial options in a town as small as Beacon Hills. Nausea churned in Scott's belly.

And what about the Facebook pages Stiles had set to public? He'd always assumed it was his friend's way of reaching out to him wherever he was, making sure he had a way to communicate if the urge to click on that message button and just type 'hey' ever became too great to resist. But unless Stiles had meant the pages to reach out to the Great Beyond, that had never been the point at all. Way to assume it was all about him, Scott reflected ruefully. Guess sometimes a Facebook page is just a Facebook page.

God, what about his dad? He'd barely thought about him in all this time, he'd gotten so used to the man's absence in his life. But believing his son was dead because of him, because of someone who wanted to hurt him - Scott had never actually thought his dad was so uncaring that even he would be unaffected by something like that. Was he drinking again? Was there anyone Scott had left behind who wasn't hurting because he was a stupid, reckless idiot who didn't know what the hell he was doing?

"Have you seen her yet?" He asked at last. No need to specify who the 'her' was. Aiden answered with silence, stretching into almost half a minute.

"No, not yet," he said at last. "Ethan's headed to the hospital later today to poke around. He's going to check in on her then. Is there anything you want him to keep an eye out for, anything you want him to say or do whatever?"

"No. No, just-," Scott rubbed tiredly at his face some more. "What about Stiles. How is he?"

"Bitter. Angry. Suffering from bad acne."

"Aiden."

"Sorry," Aiden said with a resounding lack of apology in his voice. Scott didn't know why he'd assumed his two friends being in the same zip code would result in anything other than catastrophe. "Just saying, he seems like your average teenager hanging out with werewolves who could all snap him in two, and overcompensating for it. Course, mention your name around him and he turns into the Siberian tundra, so…there's that."

"Pretty sure he went to sleep last night plotting a hundred different ways to kill me and hide my body," Aiden mused after a pause for reflection. "I mean, not that he could, let's be real. I'm an evolutionary masterpiece and he's like…one hundred thirty pounds. But y'know. Points for intensity."

"Do you think I did the right thing?" Scott blurted it out, unable to contain himself any longer. The flow of words spilled out of him, like a dam crumbling under the onslaught of floodwaters breaking free. "Should I have stayed? If I'd turned around, or just given it a couple weeks…or…or what if I'd told him, or his dad, or my dad, or just lasted a little bit longer until Peter's nephew got there -"

"Scott. Scott! Listen to me, you can't do that, man. You'll drive yourself crazy that way. Honestly? I don't think there was a right thing to do there. I think you were fucked either way, and you did what you thought was best at the time. You can second guess it all you want, but that doesn't mean it was ever going to turn out any better. And personally, speaking as the selfish bastard who'd still be in a cage being picked apart by mad scientists if you'd never left Beacon Hills, I'm pretty glad you did."

"You don't know that," Scott protested feebly. "You could have escaped eventually without me. Maybe even with Theo."

"And you don't know that," Aiden countered. "Maybe we could have, maybe we'd have been worse off. Maybe we were going to lose Theo either way."

"Yeah well, you definitely wouldn't have had to deal with Kali and Julia if it weren't for me," Scott said stubbornly. "Me and my fucking True Alpha bullshit."

"Okay, and what about Brett and Lori and Carrie? Kali would still have gotten her claws in them. Or Liam? He'd still be turning tricks on the streets. And Tracy and Josh and the others would still all be in the Dread Doctors' lab if you hadn't convinced us all to go back looking for Theo. I can do this just as long as you can."

He opened his mouth to argue the point further anyway. Hesitated. Aiden sensed the opening and played his trump card.

"What about Connor? You never left Beacon Hills, he's never born. As shitty as it was how all that went down, are you telling me that's really what you want?"

The nausea in Scott's belly reignited with a fury, chasing the bile up his throat like a flame following lines etched in gasoline. How could he possibly answer that? How could he even begin to admit to the one person who came close to loving Connor as much as he did - how could he tell him about all the times he'd woken up to the sound of his son crying and just lain there. Staring at the ceiling, silently praying Connor would just stop on his own. Unable to get up, unable to cross the room to his crib for fear that this would be it, this would be the time he'd finally look down and see her face laughing back up at him instead. How could he admit that sometimes he had to take a breath and steel himself before picking up his own kid. Afraid that touching him would resurrect phantoms that defied all attempts at exorcism. Fingertips ghosting up and down his torso, just the pads teasing him ever so lightly before becoming curved and razor-tipped. Slashing him open until his skin was hot and sticky beneath the stain of his own dried blood. Her breath a whisper of menace laced with amusement as it traced a path along the arch of his neck to up behind his ear.

How sometimes, when looking into his son's golden eyes, he was overwhelmed with so much hatred, more than he'd ever imagined he could have within him, not at Connor, fuck no, he loved his son, he did, he loved him so much but god he hated his son's mother more than he'd ever hated anything in his life. And they were so intertwined, so intricately connected he couldn't separate the two no matter how hard he tried…and he tried, and the more he tried, the more he felt like he was being physically pulled apart. There were hooks embedded beneath his skin, tethered to emotions pulling him in every direction. Each day ripping him further and further until one day there'd be nothing left to hold him together at all, and not even werewolf healing could stitch nothingness back together again.

How could he even begin to say any of that to Aiden, when just saying it to himself left him gasping for air, caught in the throes of an asthma attack that would never fucking stop?

"Scott? Scott! Are you there?"

Aiden's panicked voice finally cut through the bloody haze fogging his view of the afternoon air around him. From the sound of it, he guessed his friend had been trying to get his attention for some time now. Clamping down on his runaway emotions, Scott reined his labored breathing back into its normal rhythms. One lungful of oxygen at a time. He looked down to see the hand not holding his phone had turned into a fist full of claws. He was gripping the ledge so tightly it'd crumbled between his fingers and painted them gray with their dust.

"Sorry, I got distracted for a minute," Scott said hoarsely. He swallowed, forcing saliva to wet his parched throat. To another werewolf's ears, the lie couldn't have been more obvious. Aiden let it pass without comment.

"So how are things going over there anyway?" He asked instead. Scott leaped at the segue like a dying man grasping at salvation. Sometimes it was good to remember why their firm insistence on not talking about shit was exactly what they needed.

"Terrible. Kira's freaked out and won't let any of us near her. Not that I blame her."

"You need to tell her the truth, sounds like."

"I know," Scott sighed. "It's just a matter of how. How do I get her to trust me, that I'm only trying to look out for her because her mother was worried for her safety…when I don't trust that her mother's remotely concerned about what happens to me and my pack in the process?"

"You still think she's hiding something?"

"I know she is, I just don't know if it's something that's actually going to bite us in the ass. I believe her when she says her daughter's safety is her only priority, but that doesn't mean we're anything other than expendable to her. And without being sure, how am I supposed to be like 'oh hey, you should totally trust me with your life because your mother loves you very much, but also, the second your mom tries to screw us I'm putting my pack first so don't trust me too much, got it?'"

"Yeah," Aiden said with an audible wince. "See, this is why I'm glad you're the Alpha and I don't have to figure out these kinds of things."

Scott exhaled. "You suck."

"Nope, that's my brother. I lick."

"You're disturbed."

"Wasn't hugged enough as a child. Plus the whole thing where I was tortured and experimented on. Nyah nyah."

Scott laughed. "I miss you, loser."

"Gross. You're getting my emotional barriers all wet with your weepy manchild tears. Pull yourself together, dude. I'm embarrassed for you."

"I'm hanging up before I compromise your fragile masculinity any further."

"It is very delicate. Dainty, even."

"You're a freak," Scott said, affection inescapable even with three thousand miles between them. Why had he thought sending the twins away was a good idea? "Be careful out there."

"Eh, only the good die young," Aiden said dismissively. "Talk to you soon, O alpha, my Alpha."

He hung up before Scott could dwell too long on his parting shot. He wasn't wrong. In their mutual experiences, it was always the good ones who went first.

That was exactly what had him so worried.

Dusting his hands off on his jeans, Scott clambered down the fire escape and swung through the open window. Diego, Carrie and Beth were clustered around the kitchen. Everyone else was…preoccupied.

Scott closed his eyes. "Please tell me Zach isn't doing what I think he's doing."

Standing on the landing at the top of the stairs, the young beta held a giggling, squirming Connor raised in the air high over his own head. Lori, Tracy and Hayden were sprawled across the couch below, scents thick with amusement. Josh sat at the piano while Brett and Liam lounged on the stairs.

"Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba!" Zach sang out in a voice puberty had not been kind to.

"Okay," Carrie reported dutifully from Scott's side. "Zach definitely is not using your son and our future Alpha as a prop to reenact the Lion King."

He sighed.

"There's far too much to take in here, more to find than can ever be fooooooooound," Zach sang. Josh's fingers flew across the ivory keys of the piano, seeking a chord progression that could minimize some of the damage the younger boy was doing to innocent eardrums. Thank god one of them had actual musical talent.

"He's skipped three whole verses," Beth said, arms crossed and face skewed in judgment. Diego shrugged and slurped a spoonful of cereal from the bowl in his hands. Beth's judgment shifted an exact 45 degrees to face him head on. "Do you have to do that?"

Diego took another deliberate slurp, just a little louder. The one time scion of a revered hunting clan, ladies and gentlemen.

"It's the Cirrrrrcle of Liiiiiife. And it moves us allllllll."

The girls were swaying on the couch now, singing along. Brett and Liam were doing high kicks up and down the stairs. They looked absolutely ridiculous. Despite himself, the corners of Scott's mouth twitched ever so slightly upwards.

"Why is everyone always going on about this movie?" Diego asked, watching the scene unfold in front of them with a critical eye. "I don't see the appeal."

"You've never seen the Lion King?" Carrie turned towards him in surprise. Beth sniffed.

"He's from Mexico, Carrie. The whole world doesn't revolve around American cinema."

Diego shot her a bemused look. "We watched American movies all the time. Just not Disney ones. Hunter family, remember?"

"Oh," Beth said, visibly deflating. Carrie covered her laugh with a cough.

"Till we find our plaaaaaaaaace, on the path unwiiiiiiinding."

In that moment, Scott couldn't find it in himself to regret a single choice that had led to where he was standing. Pack was family. Pack was for life.

"It's the cirrrrrrcleeeeee, the circle of liiiiiiiiiiife."

Zach bowed his neck, with Connor raised as high into the sky as he could reach. In the wake of the music, only the baby's rampant babbling broke the silence. Scott raised his hands and began a slow, steady clap.

Zach's head jerked up, eyes gleaming gold in a sudden panic as he noticed Scott standing by the window for the first time. He yanked Connor close to his chest, looked at him, looked over at his Alpha. Looked back at the baby in his arms. "This isn't what it looks like."

Scott just shook his head, a single eyebrow raised over a slowly spreading smirk.

Whatever games Noshiko was playing, whatever Ethan and Aiden found in Beacon Hills, it didn't matter. There would not be another Theo. Another DeMarco. He wasn't about to lose anyone again. Not to this nogitsune, not to Kali.

For better or worse, he was the Alpha, and a true Alpha protected his pack.

Whatever it took.

One a scale of 'one' to 'ominous', Lucas rated the mansion in front of him an easy 'this place is possessed as fuck and the curtains are probably gonna murder me.'

He easily vaulted over the top of the brick garden wall. Landed in a crouch between bushes of pink and purple azaleas in desperate need of a pruning. Regarded the green shuttered windows gaping at him from both sides of the front door like some fucked up ghost face guarding the entrance way to hell. Regretted everything.

"I could have gone pro," Lucas told the house mournfully, longing for the days when all he had to worry about was making the Varsity soccer team as a freshman. Predictably, the house gave no fucks. He kicked some gravel from the garden path in front of him as he eased around the side of the structure, keeping a watchful eye out for any movement from within. Nothing but the wind stirring the lace curtains in the upper story's windows. Fucking possessed murder curtains that were gonna strangle him. Man, why did he always get the shit jobs?

The bushes rustled behind him and he rolled his eyes.

"You coming in with me or are you gonna wait out here?"

"How'd you know I was following you?" Corey pouted, popping up alongside him. Lucas' lips caved under the weight of a tolerant smile.

"You're not actually able to turn invisible anymore, remember? Plus, there's those."

He nodded down at the eye-searing white and gold sneakers adorning his boyfriend's feet. Corey brightened and gave a little twirl.

"Oh yeah, you like them? They're new."

"I noticed," Lucas said dryly. "Where'd you get them?"

"Brett and I went shopping the other day," the younger boy hedged, wilting slightly when Lucas shook his head. Going shopping with Brett was code for exercising the five finger discount with the help of a little supernatural speed and enhanced senses. Shame wasn't a look Corey had ever worn particularly well though, and his defenses kicked in a few seconds later. "Hey, I'm about to risk life and limb to go into a creepy haunted house. I deserve nice things."

"Nobody said you had to come," Lucas pointed out. "Actually, nobody even suggested it."

"I am trying to have a heroic moment here and you're ruining it."

"You were bored and the TV and all the laptops are already being used at home," he translated. Corey shrugged.

"That too."

That deserved another eye roll. Lucas indulged himself. Sobered as he turned to face the house again, where it lurked darkly against the backdrop of the softly spreading twilight. Shadows deepened and reached grasping fingers across the lawn even as they stood there. It definitely wasn't going to get any less creepy the longer they waited.

"Maybe you should stay out here," he said, unable to shake the chill tap-dancing up and down his spine. It's just a house, he told himself sternly. Then laughed. Cuz he was just a kid, right? Welcome to the supernatural, where literally anything can kill you. Fuck his life. "I don't have a good feeling about this place."

Corey looked skeptical. "When do you have good feelings about anything?"

"When I'm with you," the older boy teased, bumping his boyfriend lightly with his shoulder. Corey flushed, pink staining his cheeks.

"That was so lame," he muttered. "Well, now I have to go in the creepy murder house with you. Ugh, let's just get this over with."

"Wait, what? No, that wasn't what I - ah hell," Lucas swore. He had to jog to catch up with Corey's brisk pace as the other boy walked resolutely up to the front of the house.

"Are you crazy? Don't use the front door," he hissed. Corey looked back at him with his patented 'don't make me request your IQ score' expression. One of them, anyway. He had like five.

"Why not? It's unlocked," he said, twisting the door knob for emphasis. The door creaked inward with a squeal of protest from long un-oiled hinges.

"Well yeah, but - subtlety."

It was Corey's turn to roll his eyes. "It's not like there's anyone home. Besides, if the house is going to eat us anyway, do you think it really matters if we go in a window or the front door?"

Well. That was a good point.

He slipped through the door behind his boyfriend and let it ease shut behind him. Even with a werewolf's keen night vision, it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness inside.

They stood in a massive indoor courtyard, lined with balconies where the second story overlooked the interior space. Cobwebs and ropes of ivy hung from the massive wooden beams, the leaves dried out, brown and decayed in death. Lucas brushed a strand out of his way as he edged further into the house. A few leaves shook loose and drifted down to the tiled floor, crunching beneath his feet.

A large stone fountain dominated the center of the courtyard, illuminated by a few faint sunbeams left over from the dying day. They filtered down through a skylight up above, dancing across the walls, spotlighting the once white paint now yellowed with age. Lucas was no architectural prodigy, but he couldn't help but feel that the whole scene was a mish-mash of different styles and decades that had no business coexisting in such a chaotic jumble. It left everything tainted with a vague sense of wrongness, the lack of symmetry feeling less a symptom of incompetent design and more…deliberate. As though to evoke unease.

Something about the fountain raised the hair on the back of his neck, and fisting his hands in his hoodie, he crept closer for a better look. Rust stained water still trickled down from the spout at the top, but that wasn't what had drawn his attention. It was the art, the figures carved into the stone edifice, lithe bodies contorted in strange configurations. Their hands had too many fingers. Their knees bent in the wrong directions, their spines were arranged in positions that were either inhuman or extremely painful. Some of the figures had horns curving out from their foreheads. Others had antlers.

All had faces etched in agony, eyes wide and mouths open in silent screams.

Ripples in the water caught his eye, and he peered down in spite of his better judgment. Light played around the edges of the fountain, a soft glow that had nothing to do with the skylight overhead. He could half-glimpse images reflected in the water, ethereal figures dancing, their movements more hinted at than actually visualized, always just slightly out of focus.

"We need to go," Lucas whispered, tearing his eyes away with no small effort. "Corey, we need to go right now."

"I don't think we can."

He pivoted to see the stricken look on his boyfriend's face. Followed his eyes back in the direction they'd come. The door they'd entered through should have been no more than ten feet behind them. It might as well have been ten thousand. The courtyard stretched impossibly into the distance, the door an illusive trick of the eye at the furthest range of even his supernatural vision.

Shit.

"Luke. Lucas!"

Tugging on his sleeve, Corey drew his attention back towards the depths of the house. The fountain was gone. The second story balconies were gone, hell most of the walls were gone. A fog-shrouded forest grove took their place, massive trunks reaching up towards what should have been the ceiling, but now was only empty shadows. Intricate root systems grew out of the few walls that were left, woven together to form tangled knolls, delicate silver-petaled flowers randomly spaced throughout the undergrowth. The leaves overhead were green and gold, limned with their own faint radiance, and fireflies flitted through the air all around them. Everything was heavy with the intoxicating scents of a primal forest unspoiled by man, all musk and loam and the fragrances of the foliage. The part of Lucas he thought of as his wolf side stirred restlessly inside him. A glance at his suddenly restless boyfriend said he probably felt the same.

In the deepest shadows between two imposing trunks, roots and branches had conspired to form a giant throne, looming large against the far wall of what should have been just a house. The man sitting on that throne, chin in hand and elbow propped upon his knee as he regarded them - he was the strangest thing of all.

Clad in an elegantly tailored black suit and tie, he should have looked completely out of place upon his forest throne. Instead, it was like nature warped to accommodate the modern, corporate style of attire, making allowances so that the way the shadows fell upon him, the way the fireflies lit his face, everything about him looked like he was exactly where he belonged. His skin was so pale it was practically moonlight, but there was a subtle wrongness to it. Too smooth, too flawless. Without the blemishes or sparse imperfections that kept skin from looking untouched. Unreal. Artfully disheveled black hair was crowned with a simple golden circlet, a single emerald centered atop his forehead. His eyes watched them with clear amusement; black and gold, but slitted like a cat's.

"You can come closer, little wolves," the man said at last. His voice was somehow both as natural and unnatural as the rest of him, nothing remarkable about the slight baritone other than the way it managed to fill the whole space, echoing around them despite the utter lack of acoustics. "I assure you, you're far more likely to bite than I am."

Yeah, that wasn't actually reassuring. Lucas had only met a couple of Fae before, but it only took one to know when you were in the presence of the Fair Folk. But those brief encounters had been nothing like this one. This was one of the old ones. He was confident of that. Even if he was unsure about anything else…that he could be certain of. This Fae was old as fuck.

They were so screwed.

"Who are you?" Corey managed to get out, though Lucas wasn't sure how. His own voice still eluded him. Forward momentum, however, did not. Something pulled him deeper into the grove, no matter how much the human in him screamed out in the name of self preservation. He'd never felt his wolf nature as keenly as now. It was like an entirely separate creature buried in his skin, pushing him forward whether he liked it or not.

He very much did not, just FYI.

"You're the ones who trespassed in my domain," said the Fae, humor evident in every plane of his face. "Shouldn't that be my question?"

"You seem to already know the answer to that," Lucas gritted out, finally finding his tongue. "And I didn't see your name on the lease."

An elegant eyebrow arched. "You saw the lease?"

Man, they really weren't kidding when they said the Fae loved their games. Word games included, apparently.

"Who are you?" Lucas repeated Corey's question stubbornly. If you just chose not to play, there was nothing they could do about that right?

The man leaned back on his throne, fingers drumming against the armrest.

"Names are whatever we choose them to be and mean just as little. I have many names. Alberich. Arawn. Finnrava. Cernunnos. I can't imagine knowing those changes anything for you."

Yeah, apparently just not playing wasn't going to be an option.

"What are you then?"

The Fae raised a slim hand before him and considered the large opal ring adorning his index finger. "Lord of Leaf and Shadow," he decided at last. "Very old. Very bored. Have you come to entertain me?"

"Not sure I'd be any good at that," Lucas said. It was probably a good idea to not let the condescending prick with the power to conjure forests out of thin air get to him. Yeah, should probably focus on that. "Never did get the hang of juggling."

Alberich or whatever the fuck just laughed. "The human in you wants to run away. The wolf in you wants to run to me. And yet you do neither, and respond with wit. How can that be anything other than entertaining?"

He'd been going more for defiance there, so, you know, fuck you dude.

"You're who Noshiko Yukimura came to meet a few weeks ago," Lucas said, pressing on. It was the only thing he could think to do. He could smell Corey's fear beside him. He was pretty sure he reeked himself, but as long as he kept the Fae Lord's attention on him, well…okay, he wasn't actually sure that would accomplish anything, but it was something to do. So. Doing it.

"Noshiko," Alberich said thoughtfully, propping his chin back in his hand. "An old friend. What of it?"

"What did she want? Was it about the nogitsune?"

The Fae shrugged. "She did mention Akio was up to his old tricks again. Terrible nuisance that one. Thinks he's oh so clever, but he's actually a very droll fellow. Not at all creative."

Akio? Was that the nogitsune's name? Lucas could have kicked himself. Why had none of them even thought to ask if he had a name? This Fae could say whatever he liked, but it was a lot easier to fight something with a name than some vague undefinable menace. He thought back to the footage Tracy had shown him. What else could he mine out of this guy, as long as he was being forthcoming? And you know, didn't turn them into rabbits on their way out the door or whatever?

"But you didn't help her," Lucas said. He remembered the kitsune's angry steps, retracing her way back to her car.

"Regrettably, she was unable to meet my price."

"You said she's your friend."

He laughed again. "She is. Never let that be a reason to do something for free, boy. It sets a bad precedent."

"You didn't send her away empty-handed though, did you?" Lucas asked. Playing a hunch. His dad had been a gambler. When he was a kid, Lucas would use to sit at the top of the basement stairs, watching as his father hosted a weekly poker game with men Mom forbid him to let in the house. He knew what it looked like when someone was running a long con. This dude might think he's slick, but centuries old or not, he wasn't any different than the card sharks huddled around Dad's poker table under a low-watt fluorescent light. "You weren't surprised to see us here, because you're the one who told her about our pack. About Scott."

Alberich just smiled and spread his hands. "Well. As you said. She is a friend."

"How'd you even know about Scott?"

"I'm Lord of Leaf and Shadow, boy. The woods keep no secrets from me."

Lucas nodded, taking a step back. Trying to see all the angles. Noshiko came to this guy for help. He won't help her, sends her away. But to Scott, who will help her. Scott doesn't trust her though, so they come knocking on this guy's door. That was the sequence of events, that was the full circle. What'd it mean though? What was the point?

"Noshiko couldn't meet your price," he said. "So you wouldn't help. But you'd help if someone did meet your price, right?"

The Fae steepled his fingers, eyes alight with excitement. He was enjoying this way too much for Lucas' comfort. "You have nothing I want, little wolf."

"Just me? Or does that go for everyone in my pack?"

There was silence for a time then, as Alberich sat back and regarded the empty air, an absent smile playing across his lips. Lucas chanced a glance at Corey; his eyes gleamed gold and his whole body vibrated with tension. He wasn't sure what about this Fae or this place was making their wolf sides react this way, but neither of them could take much more of being here. He frowned, tilting his head to follow the hint of darker hues at the edge of his vision. It was the weirdest thing. When he looked straight at the trees, their leaves were green and gold. But when he looked out of the corner of his eyes, they were black and purple, the fireflies malformed little creatures with wings the color of dried blood. He shivered.

"A True Alpha," Alberich said at last. He scratched at his chin. "A novelty like that grants a certain…cachet. It's been a very long time since the last of those. I'd honestly started to think we'd never see another one."

Lucas bristled. Both at the reference to his Alpha as a novelty, a curiosity to be gawked at, and at the implications. But there was the angle.

"So this is about Scott. You knew Noshiko wouldn't meet your price, so you sent her to Scott. Knowing that would bring him to you sooner or later."

Alberich raised his brow. "You are a clever little thing, aren't you?"

Don't take the bait, Luke. Don't let the all powerful ancient as fuck dickbag provoke you.

"Why do you want Scott?"

"Nostalgia, perhaps." Alberich shrugged. "As I said, it's been a long time, and who knows how long til the next one. If there is another to come at all."

He sighed. "None of you are what you used to be. You were all meant to be so much more than…this. But you just couldn't resist succumbing to those baser human urges, could you? And so you took a gift and squandered it all on senseless feuds and violence. The novelty of that, I assure you, has long since worn off."

"What are you talking about?"

The Fae just looked at him coolly. "Who do you think made you, little wolf?"

Lucas frowned. Not something he'd spent a lot of time thinking about, but: "I mean, there are stories. About Deucalion and Zeus. The gods, right?"

Jesus. Was this guy saying the gods were actually real?

"And what," asked Alberich, "do you think they called the gods…when they stopped calling them gods?"

Umm.

Fuck me.

The Fae, the - fuck, whatever the hell he was, teased a hand across his mouth, savoring their stunned reactions. "That's the danger of names, pup. You call someone something new, and you convince yourself that becomes the new reality. That they've somehow been altered to fit their new designation, but really…nothing's changed at all, has it? They're the same as they ever were, just addressed by a new random assignation of phonetics and syllables."

He stood, the air suddenly thrumming with nervous excitement, the wolf inside Lucas practically standing on hind legs in its need to break free.

"Tell your Alpha he can have my aid against Akio, if he desires it. All he has to do is come ask for it himself."

"As long as he meets your price, right?" Lucas spat. Because no fucking way this freakshow, god or no god, just wanted a little chat with Scott out of some fucked up sense of nostalgia. "What happens if I don't tell him?"

"Tell him or don't, boy. I leave that entirely up to you. I'm certain I shall have my entertainment either way."

His posture changed, a shift in the air then, a scent in the wind conveying he was about to depart.

"Wait!" Lucas shouted. Alberich regarded him patiently, those strange cat-eyes still alight as Lucas fought to form words from the scattered chaos the Fae had made of his thoughts. "You say you made us, that you made werewolves. Why?"

The Fae's head tilted to the side, for the first time his face a mask of something other than amusement. "Why?" He repeated slowly, mouth twisting as though he found the word wholly unfamiliar and had no idea what to do with it. "Why what?"

"What was the point? Why did you make us?"

Alberich's eyes were utterly alien in their confusion. Cool. Inhuman. Still amused, but the patient humor of a parent explaining something he found plainly obvious to a child.

"Because we could."

Lucas blinked at that. There was no way not to. By the time he opened his eyes again, the Fae was gone. The throne was gone, the forest was gone. The walls were back as they should be, the balconies above with their ropes of dead ivy hanging just above his head. The fountain quietly burbling. The door, ten feet behind them.

"Can we get out of here now?" Corey asked fervently. Lucas nodded. They got the hell out.

Supernatural strength and stamina drove their legs into the pavement at a speed any Olympic athlete would blanch at. It carried them a good four miles before they finally slowed enough to match the paces of the pedestrians mobbing the sidewalks downtown. They stopped at a crosswalk. Lucas whipped out his cellphone and frantically texted, fingers flying in his haste.

"Umm." Corey said. Voice pitched low, both to avoid being overheard, but just as much in sheer disbelief. "Just to recap - did you just yell at a god?"

"I have no fucking clue," Lucas said. He'd reflect on that part later and figure out then if retroactively pissing his pants was warranted.

Are you at home? Is Scott there? He texted Tracy. Her response came only moments later.

Yes, and no. Why, what's up?

"Are we missing something about this whole True Alpha thing?" Corey continued, too preoccupied to even wonder what Lucas was doing. Not that he could blame his boyfriend. Like, literally, what the HELL just happened? "I mean, why is it such a big deal to everyone? It's not like Scott got any special power-up from it or anything, there's no secret decoder ring, so what the hell is everyone's fucking obsession?"

"I don't know Cor," Lucas snapped, a growl escaping as his control slipped. The younger boy flinched and he immediately regretted everything but there was only so much he could process at one time and he was only human and give him five freaking seconds to catch a goddamn breath please?

Need to talk. Meet us at Central Park. Bring Malia, don't tell anyone else.

Her reply was nearly instant.

What the fuck? Freaking me out, Luke, what the hell is going on?

Just do it Trace.

"C'mon," he said to Corey, impatiently setting off once more. Brow furrowed, Corey opened his mouth to inquire further, but whatever he saw in Lucas' face made him shut it. And god, was he ever going to nurse a guilt complex about that later. He just really needed to be freaked out right now, okay?

They waited for the girls under a bridge in Central Park, far enough away from the main paths that they were unlikely to attract attention. Lucas couldn't keep his eyes from darting towards every bush and tree, every shadow the lampposts cast across the ground. Alberich's claims rang ominously in his ears. Could he see them or hear them or whatever here? Should they have gone to some abandoned warehouse or something instead? How the fuck were you supposed to hide from someone who claimed to be a fucking god?

He caught Tracy's scent and turned towards the approaching girls in relief. Stopped when he realized Josh was with them. The Asian girl shrugged.

"He was with me when I got your text and you freaked me the hell out. Couldn't exactly ditch him after that."

"Why did you want her to ditch me anyway?" Josh asked crossly. "What's going on?"

Malia said nothing, stopping in front of Corey and Lucas and looking between them. Her nostrils flared as she took in the stench of fear and anxiety and adrenaline still roiling off them in waves.

"What happened?"

They told her. Lucas starting and Corey chiming in wherever his voice faltered, their words tumbling over each other's in their haste to get it all out. About the house and how it changed in an instant, the Fae's cool inhumanity, the way their wolves went berserk just to be nearer to him. When they were finally done, the tidal wave of suppressed emotions and observations slowing to a trickle that finally dribbled to a stop, Josh exploded.

"What the fuck are we doing talking about it here then? You need to be telling Scott this, not us!"

"I -," Lucas started. Stopped. Wet his lips. Malia watched him, face inscrutable, but she nodded. He tried again. "I'm not sure we should."

Josh stared, speechless. For all of two seconds. "Are you fucking kidding me? He sends you to this house to find out who Yukimura met, turns out it's a freaking GOD who claims to have made werewolves in the first place, says he can help deal with this nogitsune freak if Scott asks, and you don't think we should tell Scott? Of course you have to tell him!"

"Yukimura said no, Josh," Lucas yelled back, the few fragile threads keeping him in control finally snapping beneath the weight of the night's events. His eyes flared and the wolf caged within his chest lunged against the bars. Josh actually took a step back. "Do you get that? The woman so desperate to protect her daughter she came to a pack of fucking teenagers - she went to a god first, he told her his price, and she said no. I don't know about you, but when a thousand year old kitsune won't say yes to a deal even to save her own daughter, I think that's pretty goddamn significant!"

Josh pursed his lips, his face mutinous. "Why did you even tell us then? You've obviously already made up your mind, why bother saying anything at all?"

"What exactly did you call us here for, Lucas?"

He whipped back to meet Malia's pitiless gaze. He couldn't begin to guess where she was falling on this, her control was way too ironclad for that. No one was more loyal to Scott than the twins and her, but did that mean she was pissed at him for even thinking of keeping this from Scott, or that she agreed with him? He glanced down at Corey, who looked as helpless as he felt.

"It's too big," he finally whispered. Begging them to understand. They weren't there, they didn't know, but…they had to understand. Maybe he was the biggest coward in the world, but he needed someone to get it, to take this away from him, to pass the buck to. Some of that must have leaked through, because Malia's face gentled ever so slightly. He'd never have seen it if he wasn't looking for it, but the tiny softening around her eyes was like a rope thrown to a drowning man, because fuck, he was in way over his head. "I don't know what to - I shouldn't be making a decision like this. It shouldn't be my call, you know? I just - whatever this Fae, this god, whatever he wants, Yukimura said no, but Scott will say yes, won't he? I mean, I'm right, aren't I? Whatever it is, he'd say yes anyway."

"He would," Malia agreed, as if there'd ever been any doubt. "Corey? What do you think?"

The youngest among them shrank under the others' combined attention, chewing nervously at his lip. He shook his head then, eyes gold and resolute. "You can't let him say yes. Alberich - whatever he wants, its nothing good, you could feel it. You can't let Scott say yes to him, you just can't."

"You're asking us to lie to our Alpha," Josh said, face screwed up in misery. Lucas' heart thudded just a little bit harder at that because it meant even Josh understood, no matter how much he didn't want to. Relief washed through him; he was right. He knew he was right, but-

"I'm asking you to protect your Alpha," Malia said, taking that weight off Lucas once and for all. Whatever happened next, he'd done his part, right? It wasn't up to him anymore. It should never have been up to him.

Tracy rested her hand on Josh's arm. "You know Scott will pay any price to protect us. Hasn't he paid enough already?"

"It's not just us though." Josh snatched his arm away, spun restlessly, ran his fingers through his hair. His own eyes flickered erratically, shifting back and forth between human and wolf every time his scent spiked with a fresh wave of emotion. "It's Beth and Zach and Liam and Lori. We're out of our league here, you all know we're so fucking out of our league here - what if saying yes to this guy is the only way to keep them all safe? What about Connor? It's not just the nogitsune, it's Kali and Julia and who the fuck knows who else, what if saying yes is the only way to protect them, and Scott doesn't even know until it's too late to do anything about it?"

"Then it's up to us to make sure it doesn't get to that point," Malia said. "Anyone tries to lay a hand on Connor, they have to go through me. That'd be true whether we had this Fae's help or not. If we do our job right, if we can be enough, then that's all that matters.

"It's really that simple for you, isn't it?" Josh laughed bitterly. "Don't you get it? That's the whole problem. What if we're not enough?"

"Then be better," she said in a voice as firm as iron. He set his jaw and shook his head.

"We shouldn't be doing this," he said, his own voice as threadbare and ragged as hers was rock-solid. It was the protest of someone who's already given up. "This feels wrong."

"That's because it is wrong," Malia said. "That doesn't mean it's not necessary."

"You didn't see what he was like," Lucas said, trying to ease some of the anguish on his friend's face. It was easy to forget sometimes how deep Josh's loyalties truly ran. He just wasn't someone who did anything halfway.

"Whatever Luke," he said. "I'm obviously outvoted here. Do what you want, I won't say anything. But this is a mistake. It's a mistake and doesn't matter if you wanna admit it or not, you all fucking know it."

Tracy reached for his shoulder again, but Josh shook her off. "Don't touch me," he growled, stalking off into the darkness.

"I'll keep an eye on him," Tracy told Malia softly. "We'll be home later."

She darted off in pursuit, leaving just the three of them lingering under the bridge.

"I'll tell Scott you checked in with me earlier and didn't find anything at the house," Malia said without looking at either of them. "You two should probably go wind down. Have sex or something. Whatever."

Lucas and Corey stared at each other, wide-eyed. Not that they were opposed, like that was really something he could use right now, Lucas figured, but…

"You reek of guilt," she said bluntly. "Scott will know something's wrong right away. You need to go cover it up somehow. Try not to be alone with him for the next few days, but don't be obvious about avoiding him."

Lucas nodded. "Are you going to tell the twins?"

"No. Aiden would never keep anything from Scott."

Which seemed to imply she knew Ethan would, but Lucas decided not to touch that. The intricacies of the original four pack members' dynamic was not something anyone else had ever been inclined to poke at. Still, he couldn't help himself from asking.

"Have you ever done this before? Kept something like this from Scott?"

Malia finally looked at him.

"Once," was all she said.

"Do you ever regret it?"

"No."

Problem was, he couldn't even begin to guess if she was lying.

"You're an idiot," Ethan told his brother for the third time this hour, thirteenth time this day, umpteen millionth time this life.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones," Aiden sang.

"And you're going to get us both caught," Ethan finished for him. He shouldered his backpack and pushed through the mass of students swarming towards the exit. It was only two days in and he already hated literally everything about high school. It was the actual worst. He was pretty sure it was even worse than the Dread Doctors' experiments - okay, that was hyperbole. Still. He was in a mood, and his brother's idiocy was not helping.

"What were you thinking?" Ethan asked, hissing his exasperation under his breath. None of the Hale pack were remotely nearby to overhear. He'd already become adept at tracking their movements, not that that was difficult. The entire lot of them were about as subtle as a herd of elephants. To be fair, it wasn't like any of them had the McCall pack's experience (or motivation) to stay well hidden and constantly alert. But Ethan wasn't particularly interested in being fair at the moment. He was cranky, he missed his pack, Beacon Hills werewolves were idiots, his brother was an idiot and high school was the actual worst.

"Seriously, saying yes to a date with Lydia? When you know damn well that her pack's already suspicious of us and just using that to try and dig up dirt to prove we're not who we say we are? When you know damn well that there's plenty of dirt to dig up because spoiler alert! Guess what? We're not actually who we say we are?"

"First off, calm down, you're being hysterical," Aiden said, pushing through the double doors at the end of the hall and emerging into late afternoon sun. Ethan sub-vocalized his growl and imagined ripping off his twin's arm and beating his condescending face in with it.

"Second, I don't think Lydia's actually pack? She doesn't quite have the scent. I think she's more just…pack adjacent. An accessory. Well, I mean, really it's more like they're accessories for her," he laughed.

"Oh my god," Ethan said. "You're into her. This wasn't some idiotic scheme to get closer to the Hale pack, this was you saying yes because you're actually into her and have somehow convinced yourself this isn't going to end badly, when, oh yeah, spoiler alert! It's absolutely going to end horrifically!"

"Okay, lose the whole spoiler alert thing. I'm already over it. You tried it, it didn't work out, let it die."

"Could you focus? And what about the part where Scott specifically told us not to do this sort of thing? Did you just completely miss that?"

"Umm, no, I was there," Aiden said as they cut across the quad towards the woods at the far edge of campus. The rest of the student body was migrating towards the parking lot in a mass exodus heralding the end of the school day. It was so ritualistic. So mundane. People actually did this every single day? Ethan shuddered at the thought. He was already going crazy and it hadn't even been a whole week of mindless repetition yet.

"In fact," his brother continued, holding up a finger for emphasis, "I specifically remember he said we were not to seduce anyone!"

He beamed triumphantly, as though he'd just made some brilliant argument. Ethan stared at him.

"Right. So?"

"So, he didn't say we couldn't be seduced. I'm not seducing anyone! I'm just being open to Lydia seducing me."

Ethan wondered if he looked this obnoxious himself when he was being that smug.

"Semantics," he retorted, rolling his eyes. Aiden pondered that.

"I don't know what that word means, so I'm just going to choose to ignore it," he said loftily.

Ethan pinched the bridge of his nose, a migraine imminent, werewolf healing or no.

"Look," his brother continued. "It's not like I wasn't thinking when I said yes. Like you said, we know that they're suspicious of us, we know she and Danny are trying to seduce us basically, and we know that we're both hot as fuck and suave as hell. Someone like Lydia Martin comes up to someone like me and I shoot her down, you think that was going to make them less suspicious?"

"You've found the perfect marriage between ego and logic," Ethan marveled. "How did you do that?"

"I'm just saying, I had to play along! It was my best move. Gotta maintain my cover as an ordinary teenage boy not immune to Lydia's considerable charms."

"Spoken like a true expert."

"Well, I pretty much am."

"You're the furthest thing from an expert. You've never been undercover before. You know what else you've never been before? On a date."

Aiden squinted. "So?"

"You do realize that Lydia Martin is in fact not as ditzy as she pretends to be, right? Like, you're not that oblivious? You picked up that it's a total act?"

"Yeah duh," Aiden said. "It's one of the things I like about her. She has layers."

Ethan sighed. "She has an IQ that puts most rocket scientists to shame, if I'm betting right. That's what she has. And she's going on a date with you to try and put that considerable intellect to use figuring out if there's something suspicious about you."

"What's your point?" Aiden asked impatiently.

They reached the edge of the woods and wove between the trees, putting as much cover between them and the campus as possible. Ethan stopped and faced his brother.

"You said it yourself. We passed ourselves off as the exciting new transfer students at the top of the food chain. Social equals to someone like Lydia. She's expecting to go on a date with a total player who's probably got as many ex-girlfriends as she has ex-boyfriends."

"It's not like I'm a virgin," Aiden scowled.

"No, you're not," Ethan said patiently. "But you're not hopping into bed with her, you're taking her on an actual date. Something that, again, you have zero experience with. How long do you think it's going to take someone like Lydia to pick up on the fact that you have no clue what you're doing? You think she's not going to find it weird that someone like you is acting like he's on his very first date?"

His brother scratched at his eyebrow. Sighed and stared pensively off into the woods. "Okay fine, it's possible I didn't think this all the way through," he conceded. "All the more reason for you to say yes when Danny asks you. Then all four of us can go together and we can keep an eye on each other and step in with a distraction whenever it smells like they're starting to get suspicious."

"This is exactly what I'm talking about," Ethan exhaled. "How many people do you think go on double dates with their brothers? You think that's not going to weird Lydia and Danny out?"

"Why would that be weird?" Aiden asked, baffled. "It's not like we're all going to end up in the same bed afterwards, we're talking about dinner."

Ethan shrugged. "I'm just saying, I'm pretty sure they're going to think it's weird."

"Well I think that's weird," Aiden huffed. Ethan rolled his eyes. This was getting them nowhere.

"I want this," Aiden said, unexpectedly serious all of a sudden. It was enough to grab his attention. Earnest wasn't a look that his brother wore all that often. "Look, I know it's stupid. I know it's not real and they're faking it and we're faking it and it's all going to be one giant lie-fest. But you're absolutely right, I've never been on a date! Neither of us have. And we don't have to wonder if these two would freak out or be horrified if they knew we were werewolves, because we already know they're friends with werewolves."

Aiden sighed and clasped his hands behind the back of his head.

"It's one date. Even knowing we're all lying about stuff, we at least know they're somewhat into us. We at least know even if they knew the truth, it's not like they'd stop seeing us as human. When are we ever going to get a chance like that again? To try this, even if it's just make believe? I mean, don't you ever just want to pretend? Just to see what it feels like, to be normal for a change?"

"No," Ethan shrugged helplessly. "I don't. Because it's not real, it is just pretend. What's the point of that? I can't make myself believe a lie just because I want to. Even if it's just for a little while."

Aiden set his jaw stubbornly. "Well maybe I can. And I want to."

Goddammit. When did his brother turn into such a dreamer? He blamed Scott, honestly he did. "You know there's no happy ending here, right? There's no scenario where this ends any way but badly."

"No shit," Aiden snorted. "I'm not actually an idiot, you know."

"I know. I just - you're going to get hurt, and I just don't understand why you want to."

His brother shrugged listlessly. "Everything hurts anyway. At least this will be a new kind of hurt."

He shook his head. "Fine. I'll go along with this. Under protest. I still think this is stupid."

"Seriously?" Aiden brightened immediately. Ethan tried not to be as affected by that as he was. See, this was exactly why people were always saying they were codependent. "It's not going to be as bad as you think, just wait. You'll see. Mahealani will thaw your cold, jaded heart with his burning loins."

"Oh my god, stop talking. I'll take it back, I swear to god."

"Too late, no take-backsies," his twin crowed. How was it possible they'd shared a womb?

"You're a child."

"And you're the bestest brother in the whole wide world," Aiden sang in an absolutely infantile voice. He threw his arms around his twin in a bear hug that would have shattered bones in anyone but another werewolf.

"Stop it. Stop it right now. God, you're such a freak."

"I know you are but what am I?"

"I hate everything," Ethan grunted sourly. Aiden just laughed as he stripped and tossed his clothes atop his backpack. "Be careful, alright? Meet me at the hospital as soon as you're done."

"Yes, mother," Aiden rolled his eyes. Rolled his shoulders. Cocked his head from side to side and gave a shudder that wracked his entire body with a single continuous spasm. He fell forward on all fours, his back shivering as coarse gray fur sprouted along its length. Arms and legs slimmed down, hands and feet became paws. His brother's head came back up, a fully lupine face with his tongue hanging happily out the side of his mouth. Fully transformed, the gray wolf darted forward and nipped at his heels before racing off into the dense undergrowth, headed towards the Preserve and the Hale house.

Ethan sighed and retraced his steps back up to the campus, across the quad and to the parking lot where his motorcycle was parked. He tried his best to suppress the discontent that arose any time his brother full-shifted. It dulled their connection, and more than that, it freaked the fuck out of him. He'd never understand how Aiden and Malia could be so cavalier with their full transformations. Neither he nor Scott had gone anywhere near a full shift since that first fateful escape from the Dread Doctors. Almost getting stuck in wolf form once had been more than enough for the both of them, thanks very much.

He clambered atop his bike and revved the engine, peeling out of the parking lot and headed west for Beacon Hills Memorial. Malia and Aiden had too much control for that to ever happen to them now, he was pretty sure. Didn't make it any less disquieting watching his brother transform back into the shape that had almost consumed them. Granted, none of them had any idea what the fuck they were doing that first time. They hadn't even known it was possible. Whatever the Dread Doctors had done that last day that finally pushed Scott over the edge, given his eyes that red True Alpha glow, it hadn't been anything even they'd been expecting. Somehow the things that made them unique, freaks even among freaks, had all become linked when Scott's ascension to Alpha turned the four of them from a collection of omegas into an actual pack. Malia's full shift ability, Ethan and his brother's ability to sense each other, feel each other's pain even over vast distances, Scott's resistance to certain kinds of magic…it'd given them the edge they needed to break free of their cages and escape. It'd only meant losing Theo. Not to mention four months of their lives, wandering the woods as three wolves and a coyote. And if they hadn't been so disoriented, so panicked by their own power and afraid of regressing back into their near feral full-shifts, maybe they wouldn't have been so quick to trust Kali…

The hospital arose on the horizon just in time to distract Ethan from slipping further down Memory Lane. Now was not the time to be revisiting that fucked up period of their lives. Course, the ideal time to be thinking about Kali's pack was Never, but that unfortunately was not a luxury they could afford. Not if they were right about what they'd find in the hospital morgue.

Ethan parked his bike and headed up to the third floor in search of the Nurses' Station. A little light flirting with the cute orderly and he found himself behind an unattended terminal, racing through the steps Tracy had outlined for him over the phone earlier today. He had no idea what the fuck any of the things he was typing meant, but following orders got the job done. One hack later he was in the morgue inventory files, scrolling through the most recent additions. He jotted down the drawer number and exited out of everything just in time to slip out from behind the desk as a slim dark-haired nurse rounded the corner. The world crashed to a halt, time slowing to a crawl, the background beeps of hospital equipment fading into white noise.

"Can I help you with something?" Melissa McCall asked, features tight with wary concern. Ethan could only imagine how he must look, like some kind of addict or brain damaged patient, mouth soundlessly searching for words that refused to come. He'd expected to find Scott's mother at the hospital. He hadn't expected to literally run into her.

"Are you alright?" She pressed when speech continued to elude him. He managed a nod that time, and the creases in her forehead eased slightly as she steered him towards a chair. "Here, let's sit you down for a second."

"I'm fine," Ethan said, panic rebooting his mental faculties as heads started to turn their way. This was not the kind of attention he needed to be drawing. He just had been completely unprepared to have that kind of reaction. The four of them were used to memories bleeding through the strange connection they shared. On more than one occasion, Ethan had found himself dreaming of his Alpha's mother, seen through the lens of one of Scott's childhood memories. Given that he and his brother's memories of anything before they were ten simply didn't exist, Melissa McCall was just about the only image he had of what a loving parent was supposed to look like. Apparently that had left more of an impression on him than he'd realized, the face to face encounter with his Alpha's long-lost mother raising an ache that was half Scott's, half his own yearning for the mother he couldn't remember. Assuming he'd ever had one at all.

"I just got a little dizzy for a second there. Low blood sugar," Ethan lied smoothly. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to freak you out."

"Oh," Melissa's expression cleared up with a relieved laugh. "It's no problem at all, the hospital's probably a good place to be if you're going to have a spell like that."

"Blood sugar problems? Bummer," a voice spoke up from just a few feet behind him. Ethan closed his eyes and silently swore. Of all the times to get distracted. Great, now he was probably going to have to pretend to be diabetic at school too. "It's Ethan right? Or are you the evil twin?"

He opened his eyes to see Stiles standing next to a slightly confused Melissa, looking between her and Ethan with a look of deep suspicion. Danny offered an apologetic wave from a few feet behind him.

"What makes you think Aiden's the evil twin?" Ethan countered. He was in total agreement with his brother on one thing. They really did not see what Scott saw in this guy.

"Don't answer a question with another question, Ethan-or-perhaps-Aiden," Stiles said, eyes narrowing.

"It's Ethan," Danny interjected hastily. "They're not totally identical, Stiles."

"Oh. Well then wasn't there something you wanted to ask Ethan, Danny?"

"I don't think now's really a good time," Danny hissed, face purpling as he shot an embarrassed glance at Ethan. The werewolf bit back an inappropriate smile. It certainly wouldn't make any of this less awkward, even if the normally composed Hawaiian boy looked adorable when embarrassed. For the briefest of moments, Ethan could totally see the appeal of his brother's fantasies of a normal date.

"Oh come on, Danny, don't be shy," Stiles said. "He's just a little nervous about asking if he can take you to dinner sometime."

"Stiles!"

"Depends," Ethan said, his own eyes narrowing in response. He was somehow less amused by this kid's attempts to pimp out his friend than he was by Danny's clearly reluctant attempts to play the seducer. "Will you be there?"

"No he will not," Danny cut in, silencing Stiles with a withering glare. "I'm sorry about Stiles. He has boundary issues."

Ethan smirked. "Get to know my brother a little better. Then we'll compare and contrast."

"Well as long as we can do it over that dinner," Danny smiled back. It really was a nice smile, Ethan decided. Ugh god. Now he was getting the feelings too. This was either Scott or Aiden's fault. Maybe both.

"I'm sure we can come up with something better to talk about at dinner than my brother and your…Stiles."

"I'm optimistic," Danny said. Behind him, Stiles clapped his hands sharply.

"Okay, great, see you guys can flirt. Badly, but everyone's a work in progress. Danny will text you later, Ethan. Now we've gotta get back to that thing we came to ask Melissa about. Remember the thing, Danny?"

"Were you dropped on your head as a baby?" Danny glowered, exasperated.

"It's okay. I should probably get going anyway," Ethan said with a slight smile. Only aimed at one of them. "I'll look forward to your texts."

"Smooth," Stiles told him. "Very smooth. This is the start of an epic love story for the ages, I can already tell."

"I'm going to murder you," Danny announced.

With a final wave, Ethan left them to their bickering and backed down the hallway, ducking behind a corner the second he was out of sight. He focused his hearing.

"Okay what was that all about?" He heard Melissa ask, bewildered.

"New transfer student," Stiles said. "He and his brother are evil. Probably doppelgangers, maybe clones. Not sure yet."

"They're not evil," Danny sighed. "Stiles is just paranoid. As usual."

"Okay, then," Melissa said. That seemed to have cleared up a lot for her. "What are you two doing here anyway?"

"We need an itsy bitsy favor," Stiles said.

"It's about the body brought into the morgue earlier today," Danny said. It was Melissa's turn to sigh.

"This is a werewolf thing, isn't it?"

"Are you kidding me?" Ethan hissed, clapping a hand over his mouth when that came out louder than he intended. What the fuck, was everyone in this goddamn town involved with the Hale pack? This Derek guy had no sense of discretion whatsoever.

And he probably didn't have much time to get to the morgue ahead of Danny and the malignant growth attached to his side. Shaking his head in exasperation at everything, Ethan set off at a quick pace through the maze of hospital corridors. It didn't take much guesswork to figure out the way to the morgue was down, and if his nose couldn't lead him to a bunch of corpses from there, he didn't deserve to be called a werewolf.

He found the nearest stairwell and raced down, clearing several steps at a time. He was midway between the first and second floors when the door to the ground level opened, and the scent of an unfamiliar werewolf hit him full in the face. He swore and backtracked immediately, darting back up to the second floor landing and ducking out into the hallway where he came face to face with his brother.

"What are you wearing?" Was the first thing to pop into his head, because really, that shade of green was not Aiden's color. Which meant it wasn't his either. Good to know.

"Scrubs," Aiden said impatiently. "Duh. I didn't have time to go back for my clothes. Hale's on his way here, he's coming to look at the body."

"He's already here," Ethan said. "Stairwell, ground floor. Couple others with him, but they were all headed upstairs instead of down to the morgue. No idea why."

"Who cares? Gives us a chance to get to the body before they completely fuck it up."

"That bad huh?" They hastened to the elevator, Aiden impatiently jabbing the door close button as an orderly frantically waved for them to hold it. He snorted.

"His cup doth not overfloweth with competence, I'm just saying. You should have heard some of the guesses he and his pack were coming up with for these two murders. They're not even in the ballpark of dark druid sacrifices."

"Not every pack can have our…intimate experience with psycho megalomaniac magic users," Ethan said diplomatically.

"Lucky shits."

He didn't disagree.

The doors chimed open and after a quick sniff to make sure the coast was clear, they hurried down the corridor towards the unmistakable smell formaldehyde.

"Find out anything else useful?"

"Just that he and the Argents pretty much hate each other's guts and I have no idea how they haven't all killed each other yet."

"Probably has something to do with their daughter dating one of Hale's wolves," Ethan mused. Thankfully the morgue was empty. At least something was going their way today, he thought as they hunted for the right drawer.

"One of his wolves? Hah, try two," Aiden snickered. "Lahey and that blonde girl."

"Really? Both of them? Damn. What's it say when the only person I'm starting to like in this fucking town is the hunters' kid?"

"Oh come on, you're really telling me you don't like Danny even a little bit?"

Ethan rolled his eyes. "He's not completely terrible."

"You do like him," Aiden crowed triumphantly. "I knew it. You want to date him. You want Scott to bite him and make him your werewolf lover."

"Please, if he wanted the bite he could have gotten it from Hale already. The guy hands it out like it's a goddamn party favor."

"Maybe Danny just has better taste than to let himself be turned by a Fail Wolf. Get it? Rhymes with Hale wolf?"

"Pretty proud of that one aren't you? And you gave me shit for my spoiler alert thing?"

They finally found the right drawer and Aiden yanked it open with a mighty heave. It rolled out, all humor dying on their lips at the sight of the young man in his mid-twenties, with a high and tight military haircut. Ethan's eyes met his brother's grimly. They'd seen the markings on the body way too many times before. The strangulation, the knife wounds, the pungent sting of mistletoe in their nostrils. A three-fold death. She was probably gunning for warriors, from the looks of it. Sacrifices for strategy, tactics, martial ability.

There was no denying it. Julia was in Beacon Hills, had been even before they got there.

And she was girding herself for battle.

"Well crap," Aiden said succinctly.