“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
It was times like these when Marrin Morrel’s words echoed in Maczysz Stilinski’s head. Well, it was really a Winston Churchill quote, but it was because she could still remember what Ms. Morrel’s voice sounded like that she associated the quote with the woman.
‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’
Purgatory wasn’t Hell, but it was a damn near second. She took the words to heart though and kept moving, never staying in one place at the same time less those that were hunting her for an easy meal ticket actually caught her. Void had not been happy with her to be here, especially not when he realized he couldn’t actually separate from her body anymore, that she had bound them, and his life now tied with hers. He had sensed that magic in her, her Spark, and that, along with all that juicy pain and self-hate, had tempted him to her above the other two.
He was not expecting her to be an Originator, nor to have enough power to bind them after they’d already been separated and send them both to Purgatory. She just kept getting in the way of his revenge. Still, he had to help her just so he could live. That was three human months ago and since he found that Maczysz Stilinski was nothing and everything like he had expected.
Void taught her how to fight, taught her how to kill without remorse - ‘These monsters won’t regret or hesitate to kill you, this is a kill or be killed situation kit. Cry later’. He used his abilities to heal the wounds she got, found comfort when she talked with him - honestly it was probably the only thing keeping them both relatively sane. This place reminded him too much of being trapped in that blasted jar underneath the Nemeton, only here everything was literally trying to end them. Also, this time he wasn’t alone.
Six months in they were, dare he say, friendly with one another, so much so that he gave her his word he wouldn’t hurt her loved ones if they ever got out of Purgatory. Void had wanted revenge, he wanted to kill all those he had been supposed to kill and then those that had used and betrayed him.
He got his fill of killing in purgatory, grew fat on the suffering there, and found himself sick. Maczysz kept that ember of her personality and sanity alive despite everything thrown at her, despite everything she had gone threw. Void taught her about her Spark, taught her what she could do and what her limits as an Originator were - which were few. He showed her how she could shift, to grow small, or slink into the shadows, and to track by smell (which was, admittedly, hard to do considering the whole place smelled of death and decay). He taught her Ancient Latin, Japanese, and she taught him Polish - he didn’t have the heart to tell her knew just about every language on earth (There’s little else to do when you live forever.).
By the year mark they came across a land filled with fog, smelling of despair and fear. They wandered in this fresh, new hell day after day until the hours blended and she began to lose a sense of herself. They wondered and Void hated that she was beginning to wither in this place. They wondered, her so certain that they would be rescued - and he not believing it - until she began desperately hoping for a rescue - or an end, those were the thoughts she’d never acknowledge. She treked on, clinging onto the last strand of hope even as she almost wished the fog would take her. Void kept track of the time, dreading each and every passing day until, at last, an alien yet familiar smell caught on her nose two months later. Void knew the scent to be connected to one of the Hales, he was not expecting the longing that made Max whine low in her throat at the smell.
“MACZYSZ!!” came a distant rumble, echoing like thunder and causing those wandering around her to stiffen and shriek. They knew that voice, they knew who that was, they knew-!
“PETER!!” She roared back, speeding off in the direction of the voice as it echoed not giving any thought to if it were a trick or not, louder and louder, until - at last - they saw him through the fog. How? Void wanted to ask, wanted her to question. She was too far gone and it nearly made Void rage within her that she chose now to give up, to not care if it were a trick.
Max didn’t care about Void’s reaction, all she could focus on the vision that was Peter Hale, even with the black bags under his eyes, the inch-long beard curling around his jawline like a lover’s tongue, and the messy, unkempt hair. Like a magnet attracting magnet, his head snapped to face her, stopping immediately in his shouting to just stare. Relief, disbelief, and then, finally, determination fluttered across his face all in the span of a heartbreaking second.
“Peter-” she whimpered, coveting his name and the sight so that it could be burned into her memory forever. He lunged at her then, crossing the yards between them in seconds so he could wrap the slip of a girl in his arms, nose dug into her temple to try and get her scent amidst her old blood, grime, and dirt that coated her moonglow skin. “Peter!” She sobbed, breaking when his chest rumbled and the air-cooled, then brightened, until, at least, sound erupted around her.
It was almost overwhelming to go from complete silence, to the thundering of Peter’s heartbeat in her ear, to the hardness that was Peter’s body against her own with forest and people and hushed whispers all bombarding her sensitive sensory organs.
“It’s alright,” he whispered against her head, “it’s alright, Maczysz, I’ve got you.” She could hear the crickets as they clamored over dead leaves, could hear the birds as the bent and broke twigs to fit their nests, but all that died away to the steady frantic ‘thu-thump thump, thu-thump thump’ of Peter’s heartbeat. “I’ve got you, you’re not there anymore.”
“It-” she started and shivered when he pulled her closer at hearing her voice. “It took you long enough, zombiewolf.” She felt the hot tears he’d never let anyone see him shed fall against her skull, felt him press her everything closer until she was practically plastered against him. Void was amazed that they didn’t feel trapped, that there was no panic, no frenzied fear to get away. No, Maczysz felt strangely calm, strangely in love, as if there was no safer place for her to be than in Peter’s arms. He had kept how long they’d been in Purgatory from her, kept the year and a half they’d been gone from the outside world a secret so she wouldn’t fall to despair.
'Why do you fight to remain who you are, even through all this? You could hate me, despise me, but you don’t. Why?!’ He had once raged at her on a particularly dreary evening.
'Because, you were abandoned, betrayed. You were just doing things that were in your nature. I bound you so you’d never be lonely again, and also to spite you.’ He hadn’t understood, hadn’t even thought to try until he caught her mumbling to herself a week later. 'If you’re going through hell, keep doing’
It made a sick sort of sense. Maczsyz Stilinski saw what others didn’t, felt what others couldn’t. If she had to be stuck in hell might as well be stuck with a demon. Only she would see that as an enjoyable alternative to being alone.
“Max.” Scott, poor, dear Scotty, whined when she jerked away from him and buried her head further into Peter’s chest. No one but Peter could know what she had been through, he had been in Purgatory before getting young Ms. Martin to revive him. With her being in the middle of a group of people circling around her, boxing her in. He told them that she’d most likely be feral when they got her out - if wasn’t even an option to Peter (he was, surprisingly, the only one with a pack bond to Max) he knew she was alive - that she might see such a big group of people and try to attack them.
They hadn’t listened because 'True Alpha’ Scott McCall had said that Max would never attack them. Not her friends, not her pack.
He had almost attacked Peter when he told them that she very likely wouldn’t recognize them, then he nearly attacked them when he was the only one who had a pack bond with the smart-mouthed Stilinski. Apparently, the traded barbs and brief companionship with him had been more meaningful to both of them than her entire friendship with the McCall Pack Alpha.
He had been flattered and alarmed. A feeling that only increased the longer she was gone, turning that flattery and alarm into a declaration of never letting her go the moment he saved her. He had begun to dream about her then, little tidbits of her meeting him in the forest, running down the hiking path with her hair thrown back and a laugh bubbling from her throat. Those dreams, those memories, helped him through seeing her running past him as if she couldn’t see him, covered from head to toe in black grime and bleeding from wounds he couldn’t see.
Oh, how many times had he dreamed of her bleeding? After a year - it took him, Chris, and Deucalion a whole fucking year to find where she had gone - they made a plan to get her, a plan that only Peter could do. He had been there once, his soul wouldn’t be sucked up, and he was still alive. He has a direct link to her that would take him close to where she was. Then they had to wait until the full moon.
He hated that it seemed to already be noon, that he had spent hours searching for her only to get a brief electric feeling of the air before he caught the slight sweetness of her scent.
And then she had shouted his name, appeared amidst the fog as if it had parted for her, and stared.
“Guys, get back.” Chris ordered, making sure to put his gun’s safety on and locked it in the holster so she couldn’t grab it. He knew that Max was close to feral by the way her eyes seemed to zip around the clearing, as if scoping out the escape routes and the places she could use as an advantage for any attacks.
“Peter,” she whined, trembling in her fight to not go by instinct and kill all the imposing figures - we know some of them, kit, they’re not shape changers - until she and her pack was safe. Shapechangers had been the worst, she’d killed so many that took up Allison or Scott’s face, even the few that dared to take on her mother or fathers faces.
How could she face them, knowing she killed them?
“I’ve got you.” He vowed, holding her firm against him even as she crumbled in relief.
“We need to make sure she’s okay.” Scott mumbled, hurting with how broken his friend, his sister seemed to be. He was not expecting her to latch onto Peter and hiss at him, hated that Peter calmed her down by grabbing the back of her neck and massaging there.
“Peter.” Jeorek ‘John’ Stilinski, her father, eyed his daughter who was alive, thank god, with tears in his eyes. Peter expected him to fight with him on this, expected the proud man to demand time with his daughter. Instead, he got a strangled, “Take care of her.” That was all the permission he needed - not that he actually needed any.
“Maczysz, I’m going to move, okay? Hold onto me.” She nodded once, locked her hands around his neck, and brought her bottom half up for him to bridal carry her, all with an ability and strength he didn’t know she was capable of.
“I trust you.” His heart and his wolf sang. The further they got from the group of people the more she relaxed until, at last, they arrived at the empty, rebuilt Hale Pack home. “Peter.” The fact that she still knew how difficult it must have been for him to take her here spoke paragraphs about her mental state.
“Hush, sweetheart, gonna take care of you, okay?” she nodded and let him take her through each room until, finally, he took her to the bathroom.
He knew she couldn’t help her reaction to the water, knew that her hiss when she grabbed his hand and examined it was purely instinctual. Just as he knew that her dragging her tongue over the flesh of his palm was Max’s way of making sure he was actually okay. It took five minutes of her suspicious glances at the water before she finally let him undress her.
“Little forward here, zombie wolf.” She tiredly snarled though it fell flat.
“Just let me make sure you’re okay.” She sighed and nodded against his chest, relaxing only when he began taking his clothes off too. It was the only way to show her the water was okay, that she could bathe and be clean, that it wasn’t the acid water she was used too. He did keep his boxers on if only because he needed some barrier for all that he was about to break.
He hated how the water came away brown and black the moment she was under it. Hated that her eyes were black and gaunt from lack of sleep, how her cheeks were sunken from lack of proper food. He hated the scars that showed like jagged exclamations on her chest - and arrow or claw wound where someone tried to impale her - hips - someone had grabbed her here, with their claws - and leg. He hated how he had to wash her beautiful mahogany hair three times before he could run his fingers through it, then three more times until the suds came out white. She was practically asleep by the time he’d finished with her hair and only managed a faint hiss at him when he pulled at her hair to rouse her.
“Just a bit longer and then we can sleep.“
"Okay, sleep later.” She confirmed even though her eyes remained closed. “Sleep with Pe'er.” She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so warm, so cared for, so complete.
That night she slept soundly for three hours. Then Peter found something new to hate as she began whimpering and flinching in her sleep. He tried to take her pain but there was none to take, the only thing he could do was hold her when she woke, screaming, and lull her back to comfort.
Neither of them slept well that night, then again they hadn’t slept well in nearly two years. He certainly wasn’t expecting to wake up with Max straddling his hips above the covers, doe-eyed and observing him and still as naked as a J-bird. It didn’t feel predatory, nor like she was thinking of killing him. She seemed… sad, actually. “What’s wrong?” He didn’t think when he reached his hand up, especially not with what she had recently gone through. He didn’t need to worry, honestly, because Maczsyz covered his hand with her own and leaned her face into it, breath running down his skin and marking him as hers forever.
“Real.” She breathed and sank against him, covering his torso with her own and wrapping her arms around his shoulders softly so that her hands rest underneath his pillow. He tried to ignore the way her hands fidgeted every now and then to touch the back of his neck and settled instead for wrapping one arm around her waist while the other rest right between her shoulder blades. “Peter,” and with her sigh, all the tension left her body until she was just resting, purring, on top of him.
“Max,” he started with a sigh, “This is real, you know that, right?”
“I-” he rubbed his thumb over her shoulder blade the moment he feelt every one of her muscles stiffen. “Even, even if it isn’t, even if this is fake, I don’t care.” She rose on her elbows and looked at Peter, letting him see her normal glowing eyes now dulled like dirty gold. “Void says its real, but he gave up a while ago… At least, at least if this is fake we go together.” Her tears were fat with a pain he could not take. “No one should die alone."
"You didn’t die, Maczsyz, you survived.” Peter urged, needing her to understand that this wasn’t an illusion. She needed to break, to cope, she couldn’t do that if she just let herself be defeated. Void, though - that bit made sense. Purgatory was enough to turn anyone to be good or be completely insane and Peter knew from personal experience how hard it was to be insane around Maczsyz Stilinski. The fact that they were companions only meant she could now, at least, heal at the rate werewolves could.
“Found me,” she murmured, hands flexing again as if clutching around an invisible weapon. “knew you would.”
“Oh?” the grin that formed on her lips was a beautiful sight, as was the way her eyes lit up just a little when she nodded her head. “How?” she put one hand over her chest while the other rest on his, ‘connecting’ their heartbeats and relaxing him further at her touch - touch he’d gone so long without.
“Because we’re-” her brows screwed up, unable to come up with a word for what they were, unable to remember a word that perfectly suited what the two of them were. Hikes throughout the forest to secure the land, teasing flirtations and a few heady dreams weren’t a confession, but…
“We just are,” Peter finalized, warm hands enveloping her own. The smile that earned him gave him hope for the future. The chaste, happy kiss she popped onto his lips gave him reassurance that she would be a part of it.
