put on your war paint...
Part 1 * Part 2
Part 3
“'Tricky 'Trick,” Pete crowed as he followed Patrick around his kitchen while Patrick did the dishes and cleaned up the mess from dinner. “Can we go now?”
“Yeah, yeah, give me a second,” Patrick told him absently as he finished putting away the dishes; he took a last look around the kitchen, pointedly ignoring Pete who was almost bouncing, he was so eager to leave.
He walked over to the counter to grab his keys and smiled slightly when Pete cheered and ran out the front door; when he got to the Jeep after locking up, Pete was already in the passenger seat and making lewd gestures at Patrick.
Patrick got in and rolled his eyes at Pete's antics; Pete just chuckled and looked out the window, his gaze on the almost full moon.
The ride out to the reserve was quiet; Pete was too preoccupied to to do more than squirm in his seat and Patrick was content to sit in silence for now.
As they pulled into the parking lot, Patrick could see the Camaro and the Firebird already parked.
“Come on, Patrick,” Pete told him and dragged him toward the trees.
Patrick smiled fondly; Pete loved running around the woods at almost any given time, but he got even worse around the full moon. He didn't mind; the woods were quiet except for the faint noises of the rest of the pack and the local animals, the weather was nice and Pete was happy.
That was good enough for him.
*
The arrow had come out of no where.
One minute Patrick was just standing next to him, laughing at something, and the next there was a muted thud and Patrick had made this surprised grunt and there was an arrow sticking out of his chest.
For a second, Pete just stood there and then Patrick's eyes met his and he collapsed.
“Patrick, no,” Pete said as he caught him. “No, you can't.”
He threw his head back and howled for his pack, his Alpha.
“Pete,” Patrick managed to choke out. “If I die -my mom, please.”
“You're not going to die,” Pete told him fiercely as Andy came tearing up to them in his Alpha form; he changed back and quickly took in the situation. “You'll help me look after her yourself, Stump.”
Andy quickly barked orders for Pepper and Bruce to take cover and sank to his knees next to them.
“Love you,” Patrick mumbled and his whole body shuddered with pain. “Always have. Since..”
He trailed off, his eyelids fluttering close.
Pete let out a sound of misery as he press his face against his mate's. “Patrick, you can't leave me,” he glanced briefly at his Alpha. “Andy, please.”
“Patrick, open your eyes,” Andy ordered, his voice even. “That's it, look at me. Do you want the bite? It could save you or -”
“It could kill me, yeah,” Patrick interrupted breathlessly; his fingers twitched a little and Pete reached over to cover them with his own. “I know...the chances. Go on, then, do it. I don't want...”
“He passed out from the pain,” And said and stopped Pete when he went to wake him up. “Let him go, we still need to get the arrow out of his chest before I bite him. Can you hold him down?”
“Yeah, I can do that,” Pete answered weakly; he kissed Patrick's forehead before he dropped his hand and shifted back enough so he could hold Patrick's shoulders down.
Andy quickly felt around where the arrow had gone through Patrick's chest and then along the entry wound in his back. “Got to break it first,” Andy muttered; there was a loud snap and then Andy tossed a piece of it to the side. “Ready?”
Andy yanked the arrow out fast and made Patrick moan; it was only Pete's hands that kept him from jerking away.
“Alright,” Andy went on and picked up Patrick's wrist.
He shifted enough that his eyes were red and his fangs were out and then after what seemed like forever to Pete, he bit down on Patrick's forearm.
Patrick gasped for breath, his hand grabbed Pete's wrist and he yelled.
*
“Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent,” Pete told the Hunter, his voice cold; there was a hint of a snarl around the edges of the words, restrained and dangerous in a way that Ashlee had never associated with him before. He glanced at Ashlee briefly before he focused his attention back on her father.
Andy stood behind him, silent for now; he was willing to let Pete have his say but he kept a hand on his shoulder, a reminder of pack, of the fact that his Alpha had his back -and a warning to remember that they had a reason for being here.
“That's your family motto -we hunt those who hunt us,” Pete went on and now he spit the words at Simpson, his eyes flashing blue. “Sounds honorable, doesn't it? Just like the Simpsons are supposed to be; you only kill wolves who break the code.”
Pete's control wavered long enough for his teeth to lengthen as he stepped forward; Andy gripped his shoulder tight enough that he felt his bone crack and the brief flare of pain grounded him again.
He took a deep breath and then tossed the remains of the arrow that had hit Patrick onto the concrete in front of Joe; they were black and the light from the Simpson's front porch made the dried blood look almost glossy, dark red on black.
Ashlee looked at the arrow and raised an eyebrow when she caught Pete's eye.
“Five hours ago, someone shot Patrick while we were hiking through the reserve,” Pete stated, his voice caught for a second before he continued. “He was walking in front of me when it hit him.
“He almost died before we got him to the hospital; I had to listen to his heartbeat get weaker with every step we took, his blood on my fucken hands,” Pete shook off Andy's hand and strode forward until he was in Joe's face; he wrapped his hand around Joe's wrist and squeezed when he went for the knife strapped to his side.
“We both know there are only three hunters in town who are not only good enough to make a shot like that in the dark, in the woods, but are also stupid enough to go on pack territory the night before the full moon,” Pete said quietly and nodded when Joe paled. “Patrick's human,” was human, at least; but while Pete would never think to lie to any of his pack, he had no such reservations when it came to almost everyone else, “even if he is pack and my mate; he's never attacked a human for no reason in his life, by your own code, he's exempt from being attacked in the dark like he's a fucken monster. If he dies, I will personally come back here and rip you and the rest of your family apart.”
There was no mistaking the dark promise in the words or the look on Pete's face that made it believable; for the first time, Ashlee was afraid of him and she took an involuntary step backwards.
“If anyone in your family goes near any of my pack or step foot on our lands, we will attack you,” Andy said, his voice hard. “I know Ashlee has school with them and we live in the same town, but they have orders to kill you if you corner them or try to take them any where.
“I already lost my family because of your sister,” and now his voice held remembered pain and anger and the self-loathing that still hadn't gone away even after more than a decade; as Pete slid into his spot to the right of his Alpha, he nudged Andy's shoulder a little, reminding him that he wasn't alone any more. “And I will not lose anyone else to you.”
“Nous touns ceux qui nous chasser,” Pete said over his shoulder as they disappeared into the night.
“We kill those who hunt us,” Ashlee murmured.
*
“But why didn't he change?” Pete asked, his voice a quiet murmur underneath his mate's soft snoring; they were still at the hospital and there were humans in and out of Patrick's room. Most of the nurses stopped in to check on him and to give Pete a hug and words of encouragement; between the fact that Patrick's mother had been an ER nurse for almost ten years and the way the two of them had been in and out of the ER with various injuries over the years, they were on a first name basis with almost all of the nurses at the hospital.
Andy was eyed with suspicion by some and petted by the older nurses who remembered his family and the fire; it was hard to say which made him more uncomfortable, but his face when the nurses brought food to the room for Pete and whoever else was there and made sure to pat his head was enough to make the whole pack laugh.
“It happens sometimes,” Andy told him as he turned to look out the window; Tony and Pepper were getting out of Tony's car and Pepper had the pack's laptop in her arms while Tony was carrying a bag with Patrick's homework in it.
“Not often -my mother told me once that she only heard of it happening a couple times, but it's not impossible. It honestly didn't occur to me that he wouldn't change, especially after he was partially healed by the time we got him here.”
“Stop talking about me,” Patrick said in a pissy voice as he opened his eyes. “I can hear you, you know.”
“But 'Trick, you're too sexy to ignore,” Pete said with a friendly leer; Patrick rolled his eyes but he returned the affectionate kiss Pete gave him before he moved back to the chair beside the hospital bed.
“God, I hate this,” Patrick muttered as he sat up; he waved away Pete, who had jumped back up and was hovering over him, and settled himself against the pillows. His shoulder twinged at him when he reached for the water on the table next to the bed.
“Motherfucker,” he cursed loudly, but without any real heat; a pulled shoulder was annoying but it beat the alternative. There had been a few minutes there where he had thought he was going to bleed to death before Andy had arrived and definitely before they were any where near a hospital.
Pete gave him a sympathetic look and handed him the cup before he turned to their Alpha. “I still don't understand why, though.”
“Neither do I,” Andy said with a shrug; his shoulders were tense and he was even more quiet than was usual for him. “Something in his DNA, maybe; something that made him open to the possibility of the bite, but not let it take, so to speak. I doubt we'll ever find out why.
“It'll be interesting to see what stuck, though,” Andy added thoughtfully. “You healed that chest wound as fast as I think Pete would, but you still have some strained muscles -which would never happen to a wolf; usually, once your body's healed that much, it's only a matter of seconds until the rest of it's finished off.”
Patrick nodded unhappily. “I'm going to get out of here as soon as I can,” he announced, more to distract Andy than anything else. Pete squeezed his hand in understanding before he spoke up.
“I don't know, Patrick, your mom seemed pretty insistent that you stay here at least another night,” Pete reminded him just as the door opened and Tony strode in with Pepper half a step behind him.
Tony had his customary smirk firmly in place, but there was a hardness to his eyes that made it obvious he was mad about something. Pepper brushed a hand over his back as she walked to the bed; she placed the laptop on the bedside table and brushed a kiss across Patrick's cheek before she gave him a long hug.
Patrick hugged her back and smiled when she pulled back and looked at him in disapproval. “I hope you plan on coming back to school soon, dealing with this bunch by myself is driving me crazy.”
Tony dumped the books on the floor and gave Patrick a hug before he rubbed his face across the left side of Patrick's; Patrick rolled his eyes fondly but didn't say anything, he just angled his head to the side and let Tony scent-mark him as pack and reassure himself that he was still alive.
Tony wasn't the only one, either; in the three days he had been in here, there had hardly been ten minutes when one of Patrick's pack-mates weren't petting him or touching him to assure themselves that he had survived, that he was still a part of them. It was always the left side of his face, though; Pete used the right side almost instinctively for some reason that Patrick didn't know or understand. He thought it might have to do with mates and bonds, but he never brought it up with Andy. There was so much that Andy had never gotten a chance to learn about being a werewolf and every time something came up and they had to go searching for answers because he didn't know, it depressed Andy for days; there was no way Patrick was going to put him in that kind of mood for something that probably wasn't even important.
“Everyone else says 'hi' and promised to stop by after they get out of work,” Tony informed them as he leaned against the wall by Andy, his shoulder touching Andy's. “Unless, of course, they let you out of here.”
“I want to,” Patrick bitched. “But my mom is being a hard ass about it. I can't believe they even kept me here this long, I doubt anyone else would have even stayed overnight.”
“Excuse me for being worried when you showed up covered in blood,” his mom told him and arched an eyebrow when he glared at her; none of the wolves jumped or looked startled, so Patrick included them in his glare for not telling him his mother was there.
“I told you, Mom, I got a nosebleed,” Patrick said, his voice even; he rubbed his thumb over the hand Pete had fisted in the sheets on the bed. “And I fell while we were on the way home, that's how I pulled my shoulder.”
“Uh-huh,” Patricia said with the tone of someone who clearly didn't believe a word that was being said. “Why don't we wait and see what the doctor says?”
Almost immediately, Dr. Rogers came into the room with a wide smile; his blond hair and blue eyes were as sighed over by the nurses as his son's were by most of the girls at their high school. “Hello, Patrick, how's the shoulder feeling?”
“I think that's our cue to leave,” Andy said softly; he said goodbye to Patrick and Pete, smiled at Patrick's mother and the doctor before he left.
“Yeah, we'll talk to you guys later,” Tony agreed and he shot Pete a look that made Pete frown before he nodded. “Alright, let us know what's going on.”
“Bye, guys,” Pepper said as she followed Tony out into the hallway. “Bye, Mrs. Stump, Dr. Rogers.”
“Bye, sweetie,” Patricia said with a small smile; out of Patrick's newer friends, Pepper was definitely her favorite. She turned to Pete once they cleared the doorway and were headed down the hall. “Pete, honey, could you wait in the hallway? Or, maybe you should go home; I swear you haven't spent more than ten minutes away from Patrick since he checked in.”
Patrick could feel Pete panicking even if his face wasn't showing anything. “He can stay, Mom,” Patrick told her quietly. “He'll just bug me until I tell him what happens, anyway.”
Pete flashed him a grateful grin while his mom just shook her head and the doctor laughed.
“Alright then, Patrick, can you move down to the end of the bed?” Dr. Rogers asked pleasantly as handed Patrick's medical chart to his mother. “I need to see your range of movement and if the swelling has gone down. Then we can discuss getting you out of here.”
*
“Do you need anything?” Pete asked as Patrick climbed into his bed; the doctor had let him go home with orders to rest his shoulder for a few days. His mother had wanted to take the rest of the night off but Patrick had assured her that he would be fine spending the night at Pete's, she had eventually relented and made him promise to answer his phone when she called.
“I'm fine, Pete,” Patrick said patiently as he arranged himself on the middle of the bed; one of the reasons he had wanted to stay here instead of his house was that Pete's bed was a lot bigger than his -Pete had a queen and Patrick's was only a full- and Patrick wasn't dumb enough to believe that Pete would be the only one who would want to cuddle tonight.
Patrick laid down on his left side, facing the wall and yawned; Pete put his phone down and carefully crawled over to him and laid in between him and the wall. “I let everyone know we were here and that my dad's working third shift,” Pete told him as curled up next to his mate; he kept himself six or seven inches away from him until Patrick opened one eye and said, “I'm not going to break, Pete, you can come closer if you want.” and then smirked when Pete moved over and tucked his face under Patrick's chin so he could inhale his scent, wrapped an arm around Patrick's waist and tangled their legs together.
He was drifting off when he heard the front door open and close and then three different sets of footsteps come up the stairs; the bed dipped down and Pepper pushed Patrick's hair off his forehead and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before she leaned over him and pressed her cheek against Pete's. Pete smiled at her and peered over her shoulder to where Tony and Bruce were taking off their shoes and socks; Pepper smiled back at him and then laid down next to Patrick, so their backs pressed together.
Tony slid in next to Pepper and curled around her, his hand pressed in between her Patrick, so he could feel it every time Patrick took a breath. Bruce hesitated for a brief second before he laid down next to Tony, his arm flung across his best friend's waist.
Patrick blinked his eyes open what felt like a few minutes later, but must have been longer because there wasn't any sunlight filtering through the blinds.
He didn't know what woke him until he heard the tell tale thump of someone dropping from Pete's bedroom window to the floor; there was some scuffling and then the mattress dipped down as someone crawled over to wedge themselves in between Pete and the wall.
“Fuck, Mikey, you're feet are freezing,” Pete complained sleepily as he tried to move closer to his mate.
“Sorry,” Mikey mumbled, but Pete had already dropped off again; Mikey curled into a ball, his arm stretched across Pete's waist so he could fist his hand in Patrick's t-shirt.
Joe made his way to bed and sprawled over everyone's legs, his head resting on Pete's calf.
“Andy?” Patrick called out softly even though his eyes started drifting shut again.
“Right here,” Andy answered from the far side of the bed. “You can go back to bed, I'll keep an ear out.”
When he woke up again, it was morning -early enough that the Sheriff wasn't home yet- and he could smell coffee and bacon cooking from downstairs.
He got up and carefully shuffled his way downstairs, mostly asleep, until he was in the kitchen and zeroed in on the cup of coffee Pete had in his hands; he didn't even say anything, just held out his hands and made 'give me' noises until Pete handed it over with a wide grin.
Patrick gulped down half of it with his eyes still closed so he could enjoy the rush of caffeine properly and slowly began listening to the noises around him. He inhaled deeply and smelled bacon again and waved his hand around in what he hoped was Pete's general direction.
“Here you go, Pattycakes,” Pete said fondly and gave him a piece of the bacon before setting the plate on the counter next to his elbow.
Now that he was marginally more awake, Patrick realized that the only other person in the house besides them was Andy; he chanced cracking open his eyes to glance at the clock and saw that Pete's dad was due home in a half hour.
He closed his eyes again and slowly sipped the rest of his coffee; he punctuated sips with bacon and slowly woke up enough to understand what the other two were talking about.
“Tony said she was happy that Patrick was hurt,” Pete said, the easy affection from a few minutes ago gone. “She was mouthing platitudes at him, but he said she smelled like she just got the best news of her life.”
“I agree it was probably her, but now's not the time,” Andy told him, his voice heavy. “We don't have any proof that a group of Hunters is likely to accept and considering who Ashlee's related to, it would basically have to be a signed confession. There's too many Hunters here right now; Jessica's got ten or so with her.
“Bruce over heard them talking at the diner and most of them are suppose to be leaving soon.”
Pete made an aggravated noise; Patrick put his coffee down and walked over to wrap an arm around Pete's waist. Pete sighed and nuzzled his jaw for a second before he pulled back.
“But if anything else happens, you know what we told Simpson,” Andy went on. “I'm done playing games with them.
“The next time anyone else touches us, we'll take care of it.”
Pa rt 4