Alright you two, lets see what my poor sore hand can make for you this evening. I’m fresh off a good cry and ready to go. @clotpolesonly @jacyevans --
In the wake of Scott’s victory against the Anuk-Ite, Chris struggles. He struggles, far from he first time in his life, to decide what to do next, where to go, who to be. He is the last Argent. His body – fragile and human – holds all that is left of a centuries old hunting family. He doesn’t want it anymore. He walked away from the room with a satisfied smile on his face that he couldn’t quite manage anymore. He’d known what he was doing. He knew that leaving that room, leaving Gerard to face the wrath of the monster he’d created. He'd known what he was doing, leaving Kate behind in the room, knew that once she was done her skin would grey and her eyes would fog and she would be gone. And then he would be left. Alone in the world save for a pack of teenagers he loves more than he could ever have imagined, various associated adults, and the hole in his heart torn by the nogitsune’s sword.
Allison was supposed to be his legacy. She was supposed to guide the Argent family into the future. But, like his mother, and his wife, and his father and his sister, she too was struck down by the world and he is alone, left to bear the weight – glee and guilt alike – of the Argent name.
And in Beacon Hills, that burden is too heavy for him to bear alone. There are ghosts in this town that he cannot run from, memories that stain him red; the blood of his wife, the blood of his daughter.
He needs to leave. Melissa understands. There is a part of what they have together that is laced through with the sound of cracking whips and flashes of ghostly green. There is a part of their relationship that will always be tainted with the thrill of fear against their skin, with the knowledge that they may not survive the coming day. They will never be able to extract that from what happened between them. Melissa kisses him before he goes, and they both know it’s goodbye. Chris might return, but what they have will not. He packs up his apartment, sends things to storage, some to donation, some to the place in France where he know Isaac is, and throws the rest in a dumpster. He’s checking his weapons stores in the back of his SUV – he may not intend to hunt, but he can never be too careful – when the hair on the back of his neck prickles and his hand reaches for his gun. A familiar chuckle causes the tension to bleed out of Chris as he turns, his hand falling to his side as he takes in the sight of Derek Hale, hazel eyes shining gold in the bright light of day, hair dark, chin and cheeks covered in a layer of stubble. Chris never met him before the Fire, before Chris’s sister irreparably destroyed his life. His first memories of Derek are from only a few years ago, and yet he looks nothing like the angry young man in Chris’s memory. He’s grown up, he’s changed. Chris knows that he has too. “Where are you going?” Derek asks, his hands tucked in the pockets of a leather jacket. It’s too warm, late spring on the cusp of summer, for him to be wearing it, but it seems right somehow. Chris stills, drawing in a breath, hoping that somewhere between the inhale and the exhale, he’ll have a better answer than the one he finally says; “I don’t know.”
Derek nods slowly, considers something, and then cocks his head slightly as he says, “I’m wanted by the FBI, and I don’t know that my hometown is a particularly good place to hide out. Agent McCall says he’s going to ‘take care of it’ but to keep my head down and stay out of trouble until my name is cleared.”
Chris isn’t entirely sure why he’s being told this. He nods anyway. “Okay.”
“I know a thing or two about running from ghosts,” Derek says, and there’s weight and wisdom behind those words that no twenty-five year old should have. It’s a kind of wisdom that comes with loss and grief and a part of Chris aches with guilt that is not his. “It’s better with company.”
Chris remembers Derek’s face as he and Chris tucked themselves quietly into a hotel room in North Carolina. Chris had plenty of practice extracting bullets, but this was the first time he'd ever felt a werewolf take his pain. It was intense, a prickling sensation at the place where Derek’s palm pressed flat against Chris’s forearm, pain leeching out of him leaving a floating numbness that eased the slide of bullets from his torn flesh. Derek’s face remained passive the entire time, and Chris wasn’t sure if it was practice, or if the young man had endured so much pain that bullet wounds couldn’t make a dent anymore.
There was a gentleness in Derek that had no business belonging inside the body of someone who had endured all that he had. Chris had seen him be far from gentle; seen him turn teenagers into killers, seen him tear enemies to pieces in a spray of blood. But that version of Derek Hale paled in comparison to the passive expression on his face even as his veins were black and heavy with Chris’s pain.
Chris wasn’t a stupid man. He knew that this was a dangerous decision, that they were both broken, both carrying the weight and expectation. There were two (three, though Malia refused the name) other Hales in the world, but Derek had been bearing the burden of the Hale name far longer than any of the other Hales had ever realized. He’d been bearing it since he was a teenager, the target of a cruel game he hadn’t known he was playing.
Chris takes in the broad slope of Derek’s shoulders, the determined expression in his eyes and the soft curve of his smile. Chris can’t help that one side of his own mouth quirks up. “I don’t know when I’ll be coming back.”
Derek’s hands slip from his pockets and lift, palms to the sky, his shoulders shifting upwards. He doesn’t speak, but Chris hears the words anyway; so what? What is there left for him here.
Chris is, after all, not the only one with ghosts in Beacon Hills.
“Okay,” Chris says with a shrug of his own, motioning towards the car. “I guess company can’t hurt.”
As Derek settles into the passenger seat, Chris glances over at him, taking in the satisfied smile. As they leave the town, neither of them look back, Chris’s glances in the rearview mirror only perfunctory checks for traffic before changing lanes.
They’re past the state line when Chris asks, “What were you going to do if I said no?”
Derek turns to Chris with mischievous eyes and one raised eyebrow. “I knew you weren’t going to say no.”
Chris should be more worried that this young man – this werewolf – seems to think he can read Chris so well, but he’s not.
They’re both spiderweb cracked, fragile and sharp-edged. Some of their edges are complimentary; Derek’s family burning, Chris helping Victoria take her own life after Derek’s bite. Some of the edges are unfamiliar; Jennifer’s betrayal, the way it feels to watch your child die.
As they drive, Chris feels his chest begin to loosen. He’s been nervous since he decided to leave, unsure of what the future would hold. Somehow, beside Derek, he’s less afraid.
Perhaps, Derek was right. Maybe running really is better with company.