hard times for dreamers
Well, Inceptwolf is here. A few days late and dollars short, as they say...and I mostly say that because I feel like there were several times I said 'Inceptwolf is coming! It will be here before the week is out!' only to have Inceptwolf laugh in the face of my, you know, plans and schedules. But it's here now, and that's what counts, right? (Just go along with it.)
As an aside, I'll probably be on kinda-sorta hiatus after this. I'm working on a Lydia-centric fic for Teen Wolf reversebang, and I also have another fic I'd like to get out before January, but otherwise...a bunch of things are happening, or going to be happening, all at once, starting already and not ending until January or possibly later. So, a-yep, just letting you know that there are a lot of WIPs floating around that I have no idea when I'll finish.
But this one is done at least! Hooray, hurrah, and I even gave it a real title. Not that calling it Inceptwolf isn't fun and pithy, just...it's 24k, it probably deserves an actual title and not just a crappy portmanteau. So! Without further ado, etc.
.hard times for dreamers
derek hale's just been hired to perform an extraction. he probably isn't qualified for this.
notes: credit to gollumgollum for (a) the beta read, (b) putting up with my fretting, (c) making sure I do things that make sense, and (d) that plot point.
title from 'amelie.'
r . 24445 words . AO3
It happened when Derek was seventeen, thin as a whip and, he thought, nearly as smart. The skinniness lasted almost as long as the misconception, but they were both gone pretty quick.
It was the first time the family let him do the architecture on his own. God, he was young then, and his designs were, too--he almost couldn’t believe they trusted him, in retrospect, but the job was supposed to be easy. Would’ve been, too, except someone had hired Kate Argent to run security, and she thought that would be a bit easier if she had the architecture. And in exchange for a few well directed compliments, kisses, and a prompt deflowering, Derek was only too happy to oblige.
And Kate, because she was, as Derek would later learn, Kate--she didn’t just take the architecture and give it away, she didn’t just send them all into a job bound to fail. She snuffed the Hale team--the Hale family--out like so many small flames: Derek’s mother, the extractor; his father on point; his Uncle Peter as forge. Only Peter survived, if you could really characterize being stuck in Limbo as surviving. Derek didn’t, but when Laura and Derek couldn’t pull him out they hired Peter a nurse and hooked him up to life support. Still: he was functionally catatonic. Only reason Kate’s thugs spared him was because they wanted him to be awake when they killed him. Only reason they spared Derek was because Kate told them to, so he would have to live with this. Only reason they spared Laura was because, she wasn’t on the job.
Derek’s not prone to reminiscing, but he wants to make one thing clear: he’s not some ingenue. He knows this business down to its sharp, criminal core. He knows what they are, he’s seen people die and stumble into Limbo. He doesn’t think dreamsharing is magic or the next great frontier. Or, if it is a frontier, it’s just another place for people to wander through the desert until they die from lack of water. And Derek--Derek’s been here so long he doesn’t know where else to go. And he had Laura at his side, at least, and she was strong.
So that he’s surprised when Laura dies--that he crumples and cries--there’s really nothing to be said for it, because he should have known better. But she was his sister, she was the only extractor he ever worked with, she was all that was left of his family, save Peter, and Peter was only left inasmuch as his body still had a heartbeat. And Laura--they hadn’t even been on a job. Derek didn’t know who killed her, didn’t know why, and he only stuck around long enough to see her buried with the rest of them (buried with everyone, he thinks but doesn’t say) in California before he caught a flight up to the cabin he kept in the Yukon.
Four wood walls without much else to recommend it, the cabin was the only place he really kept, the only place he really liked, but because he was there he wasn’t around when the accusations started trickling in, the ones that said Derek Hale killed his own sister. Kate Argent, upstanding member of the dreamsharing community that she was, thought they warranted investigation.
Derek wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if he had been around. Probably killed Kate, but part of Derek wondered if he would even be capable, if presented with Kate, of killing her, or if she’d immobilize him with bright eyes and glossy hair, like she had before.
When he heard about the manhunt he stayed in the Yukon. He slept under a pile of wool blankets and furs for no less than three days, possibly more, because he was as safe there as he would be anywhere, and there was no one in the dreamsharing business that Derek could expect to rescue him, now.
So he slept, hunted a little, let the snow roll in. They’d find him here eventually, but better here than anywhere else. And he could always leave, but he had a moose to butcher. Which he knew was a shitty excuse, but his entire family was either dead or catatonic, so it wasn’t like having the feds catch up would be the worst that could happen to Derek Hale. The worst had already happened, so Derek might as well butcher the fucking moose and get it in the freezer before the wolves or bears or whatever show up. Even just ravens, picking at its eyes--Derek hated ravens.
So all that happened, and when the phone finally rings, Derek will be the first to admit that the call he gets is not the one he expects to receive, but he doesn’t expect to receive any calls, because no one knows this number.
Still, if pressed, Derek might’ve expected a call from one of the Cobbs, probably Pippa, maybe from someone he and Laura used to work with--maybe Yamine, they ran a few jobs with her. When the telephone releases a harsh bring, Derek looks at it for a few minutes before answering it, just in case it’s someone worth talking to.
What he gets instead is an unfamiliar voice demanding: “Derek Hale? This is Jackson Whittemore. I want to hire you.”
“No you don’t,” Derek says, and hangs up. He doesn’t know who the fuck Jackson Whittemore is, but he knows he’s not in the industry, and no one outside the business wants to hire an architect without a team. If they do, they’re a moron, and not worth speaking to.
The phone rings again, and Derek stares at it, wondering why he even had a line put in. For emergencies, Laura told him.
“I think you have the wrong Derek Hale,” he says when he answers.
“I seriously doubt that,” comes the reply. “Considering the shit my girlfriend had to go through to get me this number, I seriously doubt I have the wrong Derek Hale.”
“I’m not taking jobs right now,” Derek says, and hangs up again.
He almost doesn’t pick up when the phone rings again. In the end, he’s not sure why he does; maybe because he figures someone he’s already hung up twice isn’t going to just stop calling if he refuses to pick up, maybe because he doesn’t have an answering machine and the phone could, conceivably, ring forever.
Maybe because he’s curious.
“If you hang up again, Hale, I’ll have your balls,” it’s a woman this time. Derek waits.
“Good,” she says. “We’re looking to hire an extractor.”
“Well, mine just died,” Derek says, staring at the wall. “So you might want to consider calling someone else.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I didn’t dig up this phone number just so you could be tragic at me over the phone, Hale,” she says. “We’re looking to hire you as an extractor.” There’s an insult against Derek’s intelligence unspoken but implied at the end of that sentence. Laura used to do that, too.
“I’m not an extractor,” Derek says.
“We need you to be for this job,” she says. “So you might want to think about it, because we can get the Sheriff off your back.”
The Sheriff. Fuck. They have the Sheriff on this case. Of course they do--it shouldn’t even be a surprise. Derek runs a hand through his hair, which has gotten too long--Laura would’ve made him go cut it, or she would’ve gotten the clippers and done it herself. It makes sense, the Sheriff being on the case, but it also means Derek has less time on his own in the cabin than he expected. Perhaps he should’ve bought a cabin in Siberia instead, somewhere only accessible by boat in the summer and snowmobile in the winter.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“Be in Whitehorse on Friday,” she says. “There’s a bar in the Best Western. We’ll find you.”
The connection clicks out. Tomorrow’s Friday.
“Well,” Derek says to his bearskin rug, and then again to the space on the wall above the rug’s head. At least the moose is in the freezer.
Derek doesn’t know why they say they’ll find him, because at the bar in a Best Western in Whitehorse, Jackson Whittemore and his partner stick out like a pair of sore thumbs, left and right hand. She’s wearing a pencil skirt and heels tall enough to make Derek’s feet hurt. He’s wearing a silk scarf. They belong someplace where the bartender makes mojitos on a regular basis.
“Mr. Whittemore, I presume,” Derek says, sliding in beside them at the bar.
“Well,” says the redhead, glancing at her watch. “You’re late, but at least it’s Friday. Lydia Martin.”
Derek waits.
“My client,” Lydia Martin starts, when it becomes apparent no one else is going to speak. Jackson’s looking at his whisky and Derek doesn’t want to be here.
“I thought he was your boyfriend,” Derek says, and Lydia flaps a hand.
“My client,” she repeats coolly. “Has reason to believe that Peter Hale is the only living person in possession of certain information he would very much like to obtain.”
“I’d hardly call my uncle living,” Derek says flatly, looking past Lydia to the photographs behind the bar: wrinkled in their frames, faded black and white.
“He has a heartbeat, doesn’t he?” Lydia asks.
“I thought you called me here about a job,” Derek says. “If you just wanted to talk about my uncle, you could’ve saved us all some time.”
Lydia folds her hands under and perches her head on her wrists.
“I don’t think you’re following, Hale,” she says. “We need some information from Peter Hale. And an extractor.”
Derek’s following now, if he wasn’t before.
“Yeah, I got that,” he says, and shifts to his feet. “No.”
Jackson’s the one who catches him by the arm.
“Hear us out, asshole,” he says, while Derek pulls himself free from his grip. “You do know who the Sheriff is, don’t you?”
Derek isn’t even going to dignify that with a response. Everyone knows who the Sheriff is: they say he was an extractor, once, but now he’s dreamsharing’s own law enforcement officer, in the employ of the CIA, though his employers don’t seem to have much oversight beyond assigning him to any cases associated with dreamsharing and setting him loose like a rabid and extremely efficient dog.
“I do not really care,” Derek says. “I’m not doing this.”
“So you’d rather be strung up for your sister’s murder,” Lydia interjects, inspecting her nails. “Leaving your family’s reputation in tatters.”
Derek pauses, which Lydia apparently takes as permission to continue.
“We’ll pay for your team and anything else you need, in addition to paying you the equivalent of your sister’s extractor’s fee. I think that’s more than fair, don’t you?” Lydia smiles wanly. “Jackson will also use certain connections he has to bring a halt to the Sheriff’s investigation.”
“I want exoneration,” Derek says.
“That might happen,” Lydia says. “If the case follows due process. But do you really want to risk it? Circumstances were quite suspicious, weren’t they? It’s so unusual for someone to die while dreaming.”
“Not in my family,” Derek says flatly, and he’s thinking about leaving again.
Lydia sighs.
“Look, Hale,” she says. “You could use a shave, but self pity looks good on you. I’m still getting sick of it. Jackson holds up his end, gets the Sheriff off your ass. You just need to go into your uncle’s head and figure out if he knows anything about Jackson’s parents. Easy. Hardly invasive at all.”
“You can’t perform an extraction on someone while they’re in Limbo,” Derek says.
“Or maybe you just need to go deeper,” Lydia says. “We have chemistry for you, so stop stalling. You wouldn’t have come here if you weren’t going to take the job. Really, I thought we were going to have to go up to that little cabin of yours and haul you out.”
Derek sighs. Peter’s back down in Beacon Hills, still.
“You got a passport for me, then?” he asks.
“Of course,” Lydia says, smiling crisply and removing one from her purse, clean and new and Canadian. It’s not until she and Jackson are halfway out the door that she turns and says, “Oh, Derek? You’re going to need Scott McCall.”
Of course he is. Fuck.
Derek does some research and learns that McCall just finished a job, but he leaves a trail bulldozer wide, so it’s easy enough to track him to Ecuador, where Derek finds him in a private room in a backpacker’s lodge in Quito. He’s naked in bed with some girl when Derek breaks open the door.
“McCall,” Derek says, sitting down on a chair in the corner.
The brunette with Scott is staring at Derek, and Scott snorts.
“Derek,” he says. “You could’ve just knocked.”
Scott rolls out of the bed and rifles through the bag near the foot of it, eventually pulling on some pants over his ass.
“Sorry, Allison,” he says, tossing her a shirt and turning to face Derek. “Is this your idea of a job offer? Because it sucks.”
“Extraction,” Derek says. “Peter Hale.”
Scott McCall was Peter’s only student, which means he’s not only the only forger who knew everyone Peter knew, he’s also one of the best forgers working today. Which doesn’t change the fact that he’s an annoying little shit.
“Peter’s in Limbo,” Scott says.
“Thanks for reminding me,” Derek says. “Clients say they have a chemist with a new formula.”
The brunette behind Scott raises an eyebrow. She looks familiar, or something about her face looks familiar.
“Who are you?” Derek asks, turning to her and staring.
“Allison,” she says.
“Best point in the business,” Scott says with an offhand grin.
“Allison,” Derek says, narrowing his eyes.
“Argent,” she finishes, and Derek winces involuntarily and studies her, tries to read on her face whether she knows or not. It doesn’t look like she does--her face is clear--but it’s impossible to be sure. Kate was a good liar, and they must be related somehow.
“Scott,” Derek says, because he has neither the time nor the energy to think about Kate. “We’re running an extraction on Peter. Wasn’t there some information you wanted from him?”
Scott blinks, once then twice, and his mouth opens in a silent ‘o,’ which is when Derek knows he has him.
“I want Allison on point,” Scott says.
“You want Allison Argent running point for me,” Derek says flatly, and Scott blinks. Scott knows--Derek knows Scott knows, he was Peter’s apprentice, he was there.
“I’m not my aunt,” Allison says, suddenly, looking Derek in the eye.
“You’re related to her,” Derek says.
“And you’re related to Peter Hale, but you’re still running an extraction on him,” Allison counters easily.
“Not the same,” Derek snaps back, then turns to Scott. “I can’t have someone I don’t trust on point.”
“Well, I trust her,” Scott says. He’s going to be bullheaded about this. Derek can see it in his eyes. “And I’m not doing this job without her. You didn’t have anyone else running point, did you?”
Derek didn’t. Derek used to run point for Laura, and they occasionally worked with other points, but none regularly enough for Derek to have called them yet.
“She doesn’t even want to,” Derek says, turning to Allison. “Do you?”
She can’t possibly want to run point for Derek. Allison shrugs.
“Sure,” she says. “Who else is on the team?”
Derek stares at her, and then at Scott, and rubs his temples.
“You,” he says. “Scott. Me. Whoever the chemist is.”
“Architect?” Allison asks, arching a brow.
“Me,” Derek says.
“But you’re the extractor,” Scott says just as Allison says, “No.”
“I’ve done architecture and point for the same job,” Derek says.
“No,” Allison repeats, shaking her head. “We need an architect who isn’t you.”
Derek doesn’t work with other architects. Most of them he only knows by reputation.
“I’m the extractor--” he starts.
“Exactly,” Allison says. “And you haven’t been extractor before. We can’t have you focusing on maintaining the architecture when we’re in-dream.”
“So, what, Scott, are you sleeping with an architect, too?” Derek asks, and Scott’s expression shifts to something that might be offended.
“No,” Allison interjects smoothly. “But he knows one.”
“Are they related to you?” Derek asks Allison.
“No,” Allison says.
Derek sighs.
“Where can I find them?” he says.
“Just a sec,” Scott says, taking a phone from the bedside table and tapping out a text.
“Huh,” he says, when the phone beeps a a few uncomfortable minutes later. “He says he’ll be here tomorrow.”
“What?” Derek asks. “You didn’t offer him the job, did you? I need to talk to him.”
“No,” Scott snaps back. “He just wrapped up a job in Ulaanbaatar. He was coming to visit.”
“Ulaanbaatar,” Derek echoes. Somewhere in the reaches of his mind there’s still some residual industry gossip-- “Ariadne was running a job in Ulaanbaatar.”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Scott says. “I guess it went well, Stiles says he’s buying drinks.”
Ariadne’s part of the old guard--they say she was on the team that performed the first inception--and she doesn’t hire hacks. Or at least she doesn’t usually hire hacks, especially not for architecture, because she was an architect before she started working as an extractor, and so she knows her shit. It’s possible things have changed, and there’s an exception to every rule, but if this architect really was working with Ariadne he might be serviceable.
“Can I get a room here?” Derek asks, looking around. It looks like a shithole, but he’s kind of used to shitholes.
Scott shrugs and Allison drums her fingers on her own leg like she wants Derek to leave. Which she probably does. Derek’s not the best at reading people, but he certainly wouldn’t blame Allison Argent if she wanted Derek to leave, especially since she’s not wearing a bra. Or, presumably, pants.
“If you want, I guess,” he says. “I mean, you want me to go talk to the owner for you or something?”
“No,” Derek says, and Scott shrugs again.
“Whatever, dude,” he says. “So I guess you want to meet Stiles tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Derek says.
Stiles turns out to be--well, Derek doesn’t know what Stiles turns out to be, but he looks young, and he acts young. This business isn’t an excuse to talk about how cool Mongolia is. If this kid just wanted to travel, he should’ve started writing travel guides. But it turns out Ariadne’s job wasn’t in Ulaanbaatar, it was out in the country, and they had stayed in a yurt and visited with reindeer herders. Stiles won’t shut up about it. Derek wishes he would talk less about reindeer and more about architecture.
They’re in some cramped tourist bar Allison and Scott brought them to when Stiles slides in between Scott and Derek, props his elbows up on the counter, and says, “So I hear you’re looking for an architect.”
Derek looks at him, and Stiles blinks once, lashes brushing his cheeks. His face is very close to Derek’s, and his lashes are thick and spiky in the dim light.
“I asked Scott why you’re here, because you don’t seem very happy about it,” he continues, pressing his fingers against the glass in his hand. “Scott says you’re looking for an architect. I’m an architect.”
“So Scott claims,” Derek says.
Stiles gives Derek a sidelong glance, lingering a little longer than feels entirely necessary, then runs a hand over his cropped hair.
“Alright,” he says. “I get it. Do you want to see some of my levels, or what? Because I’ve got to say: you’re kind of putting a damper on this whole visiting my friends in Ecuador thing.”
“We’re in a bar,” Derek says, because he thinks that’s probably what people do when they visit friends--go to bars. But Allison and Scott are off to the side, engrossed in their own conversation, and Derek’s not sure there would even be space for Stiles in that if Derek were to leave. Stiles follows Derek’s line of vision and shakes his head.
“It’s weird because you’re here,” Stiles says.
“Allison’s running point for me,” Derek says. “And Scott’s forger. I need to get to know them so we can be an effective team.”
“Wow,” Stiles says, drawing the word out for a few syllables and raising his eyebrows. “Could you sound any more like a robot?”
Derek doesn’t have time for this. Not now, not here. The liquor selection in this bar is awful, anyway. He braces his arms against the bar and gets up to leave.
“What the hell, Hale,” he hears Stiles say behind him, and then there’s a hand on his elbow, fingers wrapping around his arm.
“You wanted me to leave,” Derek says. “I’m leaving.”
Stiles stops short.
“Yeah, I wanted you to leave,” Stiles says, voice suddenly low, and fast, and adamant. “Because, among other things, you obviously didn’t want to be here. But I didn’t want you to storm out because I called you a robot, what the hell is wrong with you?”
Derek kind of thought the entire goddamn industry knew what was wrong with him.
“Don’t you know who I am?” he asks.
“I know who you are,” Stiles says. “That’s not an excuse.”
Derek stares at him, and Stiles rubs his head again, squinting at Derek, or at the sun behind his head.
“Look, obviously you don’t want to hear this,” he says. “But, seriously, ‘I need to get to know them so we can be an effective team?’ You weren’t even talking to anyone. That’s not how getting to know people works.”
“So you’re rude, instead,” Derek says flatly.
“If it works,” Stiles spits back. “If it gets you to be more than a cardboard cut-out of a normal human being. Oh my god, I don’t even--” he shakes his head. “I’m going back inside. I’m going to talk with my friends, and maybe tomorrow we’ll like, go for a hike or ride the gondola or something. And then I’ll go visit my dad, and you can take Scott and Allison and go run a job on your uncle or whatever.”
“Scott wasn’t supposed to tell you details,” Derek says.
“Well, then pretend he didn’t,” Stiles says. “Doesn’t matter, my lips are sealed.”
“Good,” Derek says. “You’re our architect.”
Stiles sputters, then regains his composure and frowns. Derek goes back into the bar and orders a shot of aguardiente, then two.
“You haven’t seen my work,” Stiles says. “I might be a shit architect. You don’t even like me. This is a terrible decision.”
And, yeah, Stiles is right on all points except maybe the last one, which Derek’s not ready to contest just yet. Stiles could still be a shit architect, even if Ariadne hired him; this could still be a shit decision, even if it doesn’t feel like one right now, with the sun slanting down and the mountain air light and thin around them.
“What if I don’t take it?” Stiles asks, sitting down besides Derek.
“You’re going to take it,” Derek says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Allison and Scott are your friends. Aren’t they?”
“Fuck you,” Stiles says, and that’s so obviously a ‘yes’ that Derek doesn’t even bother asking.
The shots show up. Derek slides one to Stiles.
“Drink this,” he says. Stiles looks at him like he’s insane, but he does it, and he only winces a little as it goes down. Derek figures it’s a start.
Derek flies to San Francisco in the morning, rents an overwhelmingly nondescript car at the airport and drives up to Beacon Hills. The roads are familiar, but it’s been a long time since Derek has driven them, and there’s some fundamental strangeness to the minor changes, restaurants and shops that have new names and, presumably, owners; houses where there were none before.
The old house is the same, even though the name on the deed has changed to Justin Wolfe, which isn’t Derek’s name but isn’t exactly not Derek’s name. Wolfe was the family name they used when they were masquerading as normal human beings, which was something that mostly happened when they were at the house. The lair, they called it.
Derek figures the Sheriff will find it eventually. There has to be a breadcrumb trail out there, but for now--it’s cheap, and quiet, and full of things from Peter’s past, fragments to build a dream from.
But if it’s full of things from Peter’s past it’s full of things from Derek’s past by extension. He tries not to look at much of anything on the way up the stairs, and he almost sleeps in the bedroom he used to share with Laura before veering back downstairs to sleep on the couch.
He and Laura boxed a lot of things up, and that had been easier when it was the two of them together--but now everything is thick with Derek-and-Laura, just the two of them and all their family’s history reflected and refracted through them. And now Derek’s all that’s left, the entirety of the Hale family legacy, sleeping on the couch with his nose pressed into the corner between the cushions and the back.
It even still smells like Laura, and home, and everything that doesn’t exist any longer.
Lydia Martin calls him in the morning.
“I get into SFO this afternoon,” she says without preamble. “You better be there to pick me up, because I’m not paying for a cab. Be here at 4:10.”
“What?” Derek asks. “Why are you coming out here?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Lydia asks. “I’m your chemist.”
Derek rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand.
“Okay,” he says. “4:10. I’ll be driving a sedan that’s either tan or silver.”
“You aren’t going to come in with a sign?” Lydia asks.
“You didn’t tell me you were the chemist,” Derek counters. “Is Jackson coming, too?”
“Yep,” Lydia says, and he can practically hear her smirking when she hangs up.
Derek drops the phone on the floor and rolls back over. He doubts this is going to go well.
He doubts it more when he picks Lydia and Jackson up from the airport.
“Who do we have on architecture?” Lydia asks.
“You aren’t going to ask about point?” Derek asks, and Lydia hums, a small and annoyed sound.
“If you got Scott, then point is obviously Allison,” she says. “So, architect?”
“Stiles,” Derek says, and Lydia’s face in the rearview mirror does something strange.
“Stilinski,” Jackson says. “Fucking Stilinski.”
“How do you even know him?” Derek asks. Jackson Whittemore, as far as Derek can tell from his handful of industry connections and the internet, is nothing more or less than a professional lacrosse player.
“Lydia brings me to industry parties,” Jackson says, throwing an arm across her shoulders. Derek feels like he’s their chauffeur. They probably think he is.
“Our industry doesn’t have any parties,” Derek says.
“Maybe not that you’re invited to, dude,” Jackson says. “Anyway, Stilinski’s weird.”
“And you sound like you’re in high school,” Derek says.
That’s pretty much how the rest of the drive is. Other than being stiflingly silent and far too long, it goes alright.
“When do McCall and the gang get in?” Jackson asks when they’re sitting around the kitchen table eating Chinese.
“Why are you even here?” Derek asks.
“To make sure shit gets done,” Jackson says, and Derek can’t help glancing across the table at Lydia, who is neatly handling her chopsticks and not looking at either of them.
“He was just bored,” she says after a moment. “It’s the off season.”
“The rest are coming in after the weekend,” Derek says. “You guys can take the car, explore Beacon Hills. There are jogging paths in the park.”
Derek nods towards Jackson, because he seems like the type to be interested in jogging trails in the park. Lydia fixes Derek with a stare.
“You won’t be our tour guide?” she asks.
“Not much to see,” Derek says. “Doubt you need a tour guide.”
“So you’re going to give us the car while you sit around in this house,” Lydia says, raising an eyebrow.
“Don’t take the bedroom at the top of the stairs,” Derek says. “Any of the other ones, though.”
Lydia keeps watching him.
“Are the sheets clean?” Jackson asks.
“There’s a washing machine in the basement,” Derek says, and leaves the room.
He sleeps on the couch again, after Lydia and Jackson go upstairs, and doesn’t wake up until the very edge of morning, before the sun’s quite risen.
He goes out for a run, and wonders if it was a terrible decision to use this house for the job. It makes sense, objectively, but something about it has the character of a terrible decision. Maybe it’s just that Derek has been suspicious of a lot of his decisions, lately. In truth: Derek is suspicious of all of his own decisions, has been, ever since he slept with Kate Argent and his life fell to pieces around him.
So Derek didn’t make the decisions. Laura did. All Derek had to do was trust her, and trusting Laura came as easily to Derek as trusting everyone else didn’t, and sat as lightly on his mind as the act of breathing. Laura made the big decisions, and mostly Derek’s decisions focused on the dream architecture, on holding in place furls of environment and the quick twists of mazes. Besides, Laura was always there to consult when Derek got himself into shit like this, too deep too quickly, and needed an external opinion. She was always there, until she wasn’t.
Running through the woods, which are dusted lightly with the same snow that had laid heavy on the Yukon, Derek wonders how anyone could possibly believe he killed her. But they do, the fucking CIA does, and Derek’s doing what he can about it. He shouldn’t expect anyone to know him, really, not when the only person who did is dead.
When Derek gets home Lydia is sitting on the porch with a cardigan wrapped around her shoulders and a mug of coffee.
“Want to test my Somnacin today?” she asks. “Because we should.”
“Isn’t Somnacin a brand name?” Derek asks, and Lydia stares at him for a minute.
“Don’t be passive aggressive,” she says. “It’s not a good look on anyone.”
“I’m going to make breakfast,” Derek says, and goes inside.
“I don’t eat eggs,” Lydia calls after him.
“I guess you can skip breakfast, then,” Derek says. “Because I do.”
“Now, see, that was just aggression,” Lydia says. “Not quite raw, but we’re getting somewhere, I think. We can test the chemistry after you eat breakfast. And take a shower.”
“We don’t have anyone in Limbo to test it on,” Derek says.
“While, it works for regular jobs, too,” Lydia says. “And we need to make sure you don’t have a weird reaction to it. It’s a different formulation, some people do. Also some of the monkeys I tested it on.”
“I’m not going to have a reaction to it,” Derek says.
“Good.”
Lydia sips her coffee, and Derek feels like he’s being dismissed. Probably because he is, but he’s not going to complain because he’d rather be inside making breakfast than outside talking to Lydia.
Lydia puts a PASIV on the table when Derek’s in the middle of breakfast and a book he selected at random from his father’s bookshelf.
“I was reading,” Derek says.
“You can finish reading,” Lydia replies. “Jackson’s not up yet.”
“Seriously?” Derek asks, and Lydia shrugs.
“It’s the off season.”
“And he doesn’t need to train?”
Lydia narrows her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I take care of Jackson.”
Derek stares at her.
“You think a pro lacrosse player would have as much publicity as he does without a little help?” she asks.
“You have a point,” Derek says. He kind of wonders if Lydia incepts people into liking Jackson. From what he knows of her, he wouldn’t put it past her. Jackson’s hardly what Derek would call likable.
The man himself comes lurching down the stairs shortly.
“What’s for breakfast?” Jackson mutters, looking between Derek and Lydia. “You making a move on my girl?”
Derek can feel his eyebrows creeping towards his hairline.
“Please don’t call me ‘your girl,’ Jackson,” Lydia says, inspecting her nails. “Luckily Hale’s broody shit does nothing for me, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
Jackson sits down next to Lydia and takes a cold pancake from the stack Derek left in the middle of the table.
“Stilinski has a thing for Lydia,” he says, presumably to Derek. Lydia hits him in the shoulder.
“He’s over that,” she says. “We had a talk.”
“He keeps calling you,” Jackson says.
“Because he’s smart, so we’re friends,” Lydia says. “Sometimes I like to talk to people who find chemistry interesting.”
“Because he finds you interesting,” Jackson mumbles.
“As he should,” she counters. “Don’t be an asshole when Stiles gets here.”
“If he leaves me alone,” Jackson says around a mouthful of food. “Why’s the PASIV on the table?”
“Because we’re going under when you finish your breakfast,” Lydia says. “So eat up.”
“Do you have orange juice or something?” Jackson asks. “These pancakes are cold.”
“There’s an oven in the kitchen,” Derek says. “And a microwave oven.”
Jackson scowls and finishes his breakfast, and Derek turns to Lydia.
“There’s a room in the basement,” he says. “We can do this--” he jerks his chin at the PASIV “--down there.”
“Saw it when I washed the sheets,” Lydia says. “That’s quite the set-up.”
It is quite the set-up. But the door should be locked.
“How did you get in?” Derek asks, and he lurches towards her almost involuntary, running on a cocktail of anger, and fear, and confusion, but stops short of grabbing her shoulders to shake her or push her against the wall, get something out of her.
“The door was open,” Lydia says, and there’s a question in her voice Derek hasn’t heard before, but Derek is on his feet and down the stairs before he can really think about it. That door can’t be open, it really shouldn’t be open, the door is hidden and locked, because that room--without that room the house is just an old family home, a bit big, but kind of beautiful, and the Wolfes are a family of wealthy eccentrics. With that room, the house is a dream den, and the Wolfes are the Hales, and the Hales are criminals.
The hatch to the subbasement is normally under a wood chest full of blankets, soft ones that they used to pull out when they were watching movies in the basement and couldn’t shake a chill. When Derek gets downstairs the chest is there, but it’s been pushed to the side, and the door--the door is actually propped open with a pole that’s resting on the top step.
It takes a retina scan to unlock that door. The scanner’s inside the fuse box in another part of the basement, and only people whose eyes are keyed into it are in Limbo, or dead, or Derek.
When Derek gets to the subbasement, to the room where the cots and the PASIVs are, they’re missing a PASIV. Just the one, but to Derek it’s like a gaping hole.
That one was Laura’s. It wasn’t--they didn’t have their own PASIVs, exactly, but that one had a dent in the corner where she dropped it on a job, when they were running, and it sunk to the bottom of the Hudson. She was SCUBA certified, but it was still a miracle that she retrieved it, let alone intact. Derek still didn’t know how she did it. And now--does it matter, that it’s gone? Laura’s dead. Derek saw her, saw her body rent in two, and now someone stole her PASIV. That doesn’t mean she’s alive to use it, because she’s dead.
All it means is that Derek has another potential shitstorm on his brutally underprepared hands. Someone’s been in the house. Someone’s been in the house, and somehow they knew where to go.
Jackson and Lydia are standing behind him, staring, when Derek turns.
“Lydia,” Derek says, pressing his palms against his thighs. “Could a corpse’s eyeball be used for a retinal scan?”
“No,” Lydia responds promptly. “Eyes degrade too quickly.”
“Okay,” Derek nods. “This door shouldn’t be open. And we’re missing a PASIV.”
“How do you misplace a PASIV?” Jackson asks.
“You don’t,” Derek says. “Someone stole it, and no one has access to this room except me.”
“Are you sure?” Lydia asks.
“And Peter,” Derek says. “Unless it’s possible someone recoded the scanner without my knowing.”
“Or maybe you left the door open,” Jackson says.
“You don’t just leave the door open,” Derek says, kicking at it. “Not this door. That chest should be on top of it. I know the last time we were here we locked the door.”
“And you don’t have closed circuit on this shit?” Jackson asks.
“Why would we?” Derek asks, a frisson of unwarranted anger still burning in his veins. “This is our home.”
“Okay,” Lydia interjects. “When Stiles gets here, he can look at the retina scanner and see if it was hacked or anything.” She looks between Jackson and Derek. “We’re going to assume this--person--already took what they wanted. And if they come back, Derek sleeps downstairs on the couch.”
“Yeah, man, that’s a bit creepy,” Jackson says, apparently to Derek. Derek rubs at his face. He’s still--he’s still not quite there, with this. Someone broke into the house, got to the subbasement, and stole Laura’s PASIV. His visceral reaction is that they need to get the hell out of Dodge.
“It could’ve happened ages ago, Derek,” Lydia says. Derek stares at the trapdoor, still ajar.
“But it happened,” he says. “It’s not safe here.”
“This isn’t a safe industry,” Lydia says, almost gently. “You know that.”
Derek knows that. He does. And he’s tempted to tell Lydia not to condescend to him, but he’s also tempted to say that he thinks it’s Kate, somehow, fucking Kate, but he had always felt safe in this house, like its walls were made of something other than wood, and if Kate or anyone could get in and steal Laura’s PASIV--that’s not just the industry, that’s his house. His house isn’t safe anymore, neither is his job, neither is his life.
“I’m going upstairs,” Derek says. “We can test the chemistry tomorrow.”
Derek goes upstairs. Jackson looks like he’s going to protest--Lydia does, too, but then she shakes her head like she’s shaking something off and puts a hand on Jackson’s arm.
It doesn’t matter if her face is colored with pity, or if Derek’s not facing the things he needs to face--it doesn’t matter. Someone stole Laura’s PASIV, and for one gasping moment he thought that meant she might be alive--but that wasn’t what it meant. It just meant that another piece of Derek’s life had been breached and broken into, another piece of his control was stripped away, and Derek was left with the pieces.
Maybe they should test the chemistry now. They can go under, and at least Derek can control the architecture even if his dreams lately have been less than safe, themselves. Besides, Derek’s a good architect--and for this job he’s not even doing that. Fucking Stiles. He’s not even here yet, and Derek is already second guessing hiring him, and Derek is already jealous of him, absurdly, for having the job Derek would much rather do.
Derek does what he’s always done, when his mind overtakes him and the world seems impossible: he focuses on his body, makes his muscles burn. He does push-ups in the living room, ignoring Lydia and Jackson when they walk past. He goes for another run. He does pull-ups with the bar he installed in the basement. He chops firewood, thinking vaguely that they they could use it, have a fire in the fireplace in the living room. And when it hurts, well, this is his body. It’s his, and physical hurt he can handle. After Kate he started working out--push-ups, chin-ups, whatever--like if his body was strong enough nothing like that would happen again.
“We’re testing the chemistry tomorrow,” Lydia says over dinner.
“Okay,” Derek says. He suspects he sounds subdued. He feels subdued. Lydia looks at him strangely, but doesn’t say anything at all.
part 2
As an aside, I'll probably be on kinda-sorta hiatus after this. I'm working on a Lydia-centric fic for Teen Wolf reversebang, and I also have another fic I'd like to get out before January, but otherwise...a bunch of things are happening, or going to be happening, all at once, starting already and not ending until January or possibly later. So, a-yep, just letting you know that there are a lot of WIPs floating around that I have no idea when I'll finish.
But this one is done at least! Hooray, hurrah, and I even gave it a real title. Not that calling it Inceptwolf isn't fun and pithy, just...it's 24k, it probably deserves an actual title and not just a crappy portmanteau. So! Without further ado, etc.
.hard times for dreamers
derek hale's just been hired to perform an extraction. he probably isn't qualified for this.
notes: credit to gollumgollum for (a) the beta read, (b) putting up with my fretting, (c) making sure I do things that make sense, and (d) that plot point.
title from 'amelie.'
r . 24445 words . AO3
It happened when Derek was seventeen, thin as a whip and, he thought, nearly as smart. The skinniness lasted almost as long as the misconception, but they were both gone pretty quick.
It was the first time the family let him do the architecture on his own. God, he was young then, and his designs were, too--he almost couldn’t believe they trusted him, in retrospect, but the job was supposed to be easy. Would’ve been, too, except someone had hired Kate Argent to run security, and she thought that would be a bit easier if she had the architecture. And in exchange for a few well directed compliments, kisses, and a prompt deflowering, Derek was only too happy to oblige.
And Kate, because she was, as Derek would later learn, Kate--she didn’t just take the architecture and give it away, she didn’t just send them all into a job bound to fail. She snuffed the Hale team--the Hale family--out like so many small flames: Derek’s mother, the extractor; his father on point; his Uncle Peter as forge. Only Peter survived, if you could really characterize being stuck in Limbo as surviving. Derek didn’t, but when Laura and Derek couldn’t pull him out they hired Peter a nurse and hooked him up to life support. Still: he was functionally catatonic. Only reason Kate’s thugs spared him was because they wanted him to be awake when they killed him. Only reason they spared Derek was because Kate told them to, so he would have to live with this. Only reason they spared Laura was because, she wasn’t on the job.
Derek’s not prone to reminiscing, but he wants to make one thing clear: he’s not some ingenue. He knows this business down to its sharp, criminal core. He knows what they are, he’s seen people die and stumble into Limbo. He doesn’t think dreamsharing is magic or the next great frontier. Or, if it is a frontier, it’s just another place for people to wander through the desert until they die from lack of water. And Derek--Derek’s been here so long he doesn’t know where else to go. And he had Laura at his side, at least, and she was strong.
So that he’s surprised when Laura dies--that he crumples and cries--there’s really nothing to be said for it, because he should have known better. But she was his sister, she was the only extractor he ever worked with, she was all that was left of his family, save Peter, and Peter was only left inasmuch as his body still had a heartbeat. And Laura--they hadn’t even been on a job. Derek didn’t know who killed her, didn’t know why, and he only stuck around long enough to see her buried with the rest of them (buried with everyone, he thinks but doesn’t say) in California before he caught a flight up to the cabin he kept in the Yukon.
Four wood walls without much else to recommend it, the cabin was the only place he really kept, the only place he really liked, but because he was there he wasn’t around when the accusations started trickling in, the ones that said Derek Hale killed his own sister. Kate Argent, upstanding member of the dreamsharing community that she was, thought they warranted investigation.
Derek wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if he had been around. Probably killed Kate, but part of Derek wondered if he would even be capable, if presented with Kate, of killing her, or if she’d immobilize him with bright eyes and glossy hair, like she had before.
When he heard about the manhunt he stayed in the Yukon. He slept under a pile of wool blankets and furs for no less than three days, possibly more, because he was as safe there as he would be anywhere, and there was no one in the dreamsharing business that Derek could expect to rescue him, now.
So he slept, hunted a little, let the snow roll in. They’d find him here eventually, but better here than anywhere else. And he could always leave, but he had a moose to butcher. Which he knew was a shitty excuse, but his entire family was either dead or catatonic, so it wasn’t like having the feds catch up would be the worst that could happen to Derek Hale. The worst had already happened, so Derek might as well butcher the fucking moose and get it in the freezer before the wolves or bears or whatever show up. Even just ravens, picking at its eyes--Derek hated ravens.
So all that happened, and when the phone finally rings, Derek will be the first to admit that the call he gets is not the one he expects to receive, but he doesn’t expect to receive any calls, because no one knows this number.
Still, if pressed, Derek might’ve expected a call from one of the Cobbs, probably Pippa, maybe from someone he and Laura used to work with--maybe Yamine, they ran a few jobs with her. When the telephone releases a harsh bring, Derek looks at it for a few minutes before answering it, just in case it’s someone worth talking to.
What he gets instead is an unfamiliar voice demanding: “Derek Hale? This is Jackson Whittemore. I want to hire you.”
“No you don’t,” Derek says, and hangs up. He doesn’t know who the fuck Jackson Whittemore is, but he knows he’s not in the industry, and no one outside the business wants to hire an architect without a team. If they do, they’re a moron, and not worth speaking to.
The phone rings again, and Derek stares at it, wondering why he even had a line put in. For emergencies, Laura told him.
“I think you have the wrong Derek Hale,” he says when he answers.
“I seriously doubt that,” comes the reply. “Considering the shit my girlfriend had to go through to get me this number, I seriously doubt I have the wrong Derek Hale.”
“I’m not taking jobs right now,” Derek says, and hangs up again.
He almost doesn’t pick up when the phone rings again. In the end, he’s not sure why he does; maybe because he figures someone he’s already hung up twice isn’t going to just stop calling if he refuses to pick up, maybe because he doesn’t have an answering machine and the phone could, conceivably, ring forever.
Maybe because he’s curious.
“If you hang up again, Hale, I’ll have your balls,” it’s a woman this time. Derek waits.
“Good,” she says. “We’re looking to hire an extractor.”
“Well, mine just died,” Derek says, staring at the wall. “So you might want to consider calling someone else.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I didn’t dig up this phone number just so you could be tragic at me over the phone, Hale,” she says. “We’re looking to hire you as an extractor.” There’s an insult against Derek’s intelligence unspoken but implied at the end of that sentence. Laura used to do that, too.
“I’m not an extractor,” Derek says.
“We need you to be for this job,” she says. “So you might want to think about it, because we can get the Sheriff off your back.”
The Sheriff. Fuck. They have the Sheriff on this case. Of course they do--it shouldn’t even be a surprise. Derek runs a hand through his hair, which has gotten too long--Laura would’ve made him go cut it, or she would’ve gotten the clippers and done it herself. It makes sense, the Sheriff being on the case, but it also means Derek has less time on his own in the cabin than he expected. Perhaps he should’ve bought a cabin in Siberia instead, somewhere only accessible by boat in the summer and snowmobile in the winter.
“What do you want?” he asks.
“Be in Whitehorse on Friday,” she says. “There’s a bar in the Best Western. We’ll find you.”
The connection clicks out. Tomorrow’s Friday.
“Well,” Derek says to his bearskin rug, and then again to the space on the wall above the rug’s head. At least the moose is in the freezer.
Derek doesn’t know why they say they’ll find him, because at the bar in a Best Western in Whitehorse, Jackson Whittemore and his partner stick out like a pair of sore thumbs, left and right hand. She’s wearing a pencil skirt and heels tall enough to make Derek’s feet hurt. He’s wearing a silk scarf. They belong someplace where the bartender makes mojitos on a regular basis.
“Mr. Whittemore, I presume,” Derek says, sliding in beside them at the bar.
“Well,” says the redhead, glancing at her watch. “You’re late, but at least it’s Friday. Lydia Martin.”
Derek waits.
“My client,” Lydia Martin starts, when it becomes apparent no one else is going to speak. Jackson’s looking at his whisky and Derek doesn’t want to be here.
“I thought he was your boyfriend,” Derek says, and Lydia flaps a hand.
“My client,” she repeats coolly. “Has reason to believe that Peter Hale is the only living person in possession of certain information he would very much like to obtain.”
“I’d hardly call my uncle living,” Derek says flatly, looking past Lydia to the photographs behind the bar: wrinkled in their frames, faded black and white.
“He has a heartbeat, doesn’t he?” Lydia asks.
“I thought you called me here about a job,” Derek says. “If you just wanted to talk about my uncle, you could’ve saved us all some time.”
Lydia folds her hands under and perches her head on her wrists.
“I don’t think you’re following, Hale,” she says. “We need some information from Peter Hale. And an extractor.”
Derek’s following now, if he wasn’t before.
“Yeah, I got that,” he says, and shifts to his feet. “No.”
Jackson’s the one who catches him by the arm.
“Hear us out, asshole,” he says, while Derek pulls himself free from his grip. “You do know who the Sheriff is, don’t you?”
Derek isn’t even going to dignify that with a response. Everyone knows who the Sheriff is: they say he was an extractor, once, but now he’s dreamsharing’s own law enforcement officer, in the employ of the CIA, though his employers don’t seem to have much oversight beyond assigning him to any cases associated with dreamsharing and setting him loose like a rabid and extremely efficient dog.
“I do not really care,” Derek says. “I’m not doing this.”
“So you’d rather be strung up for your sister’s murder,” Lydia interjects, inspecting her nails. “Leaving your family’s reputation in tatters.”
Derek pauses, which Lydia apparently takes as permission to continue.
“We’ll pay for your team and anything else you need, in addition to paying you the equivalent of your sister’s extractor’s fee. I think that’s more than fair, don’t you?” Lydia smiles wanly. “Jackson will also use certain connections he has to bring a halt to the Sheriff’s investigation.”
“I want exoneration,” Derek says.
“That might happen,” Lydia says. “If the case follows due process. But do you really want to risk it? Circumstances were quite suspicious, weren’t they? It’s so unusual for someone to die while dreaming.”
“Not in my family,” Derek says flatly, and he’s thinking about leaving again.
Lydia sighs.
“Look, Hale,” she says. “You could use a shave, but self pity looks good on you. I’m still getting sick of it. Jackson holds up his end, gets the Sheriff off your ass. You just need to go into your uncle’s head and figure out if he knows anything about Jackson’s parents. Easy. Hardly invasive at all.”
“You can’t perform an extraction on someone while they’re in Limbo,” Derek says.
“Or maybe you just need to go deeper,” Lydia says. “We have chemistry for you, so stop stalling. You wouldn’t have come here if you weren’t going to take the job. Really, I thought we were going to have to go up to that little cabin of yours and haul you out.”
Derek sighs. Peter’s back down in Beacon Hills, still.
“You got a passport for me, then?” he asks.
“Of course,” Lydia says, smiling crisply and removing one from her purse, clean and new and Canadian. It’s not until she and Jackson are halfway out the door that she turns and says, “Oh, Derek? You’re going to need Scott McCall.”
Of course he is. Fuck.
Derek does some research and learns that McCall just finished a job, but he leaves a trail bulldozer wide, so it’s easy enough to track him to Ecuador, where Derek finds him in a private room in a backpacker’s lodge in Quito. He’s naked in bed with some girl when Derek breaks open the door.
“McCall,” Derek says, sitting down on a chair in the corner.
The brunette with Scott is staring at Derek, and Scott snorts.
“Derek,” he says. “You could’ve just knocked.”
Scott rolls out of the bed and rifles through the bag near the foot of it, eventually pulling on some pants over his ass.
“Sorry, Allison,” he says, tossing her a shirt and turning to face Derek. “Is this your idea of a job offer? Because it sucks.”
“Extraction,” Derek says. “Peter Hale.”
Scott McCall was Peter’s only student, which means he’s not only the only forger who knew everyone Peter knew, he’s also one of the best forgers working today. Which doesn’t change the fact that he’s an annoying little shit.
“Peter’s in Limbo,” Scott says.
“Thanks for reminding me,” Derek says. “Clients say they have a chemist with a new formula.”
The brunette behind Scott raises an eyebrow. She looks familiar, or something about her face looks familiar.
“Who are you?” Derek asks, turning to her and staring.
“Allison,” she says.
“Best point in the business,” Scott says with an offhand grin.
“Allison,” Derek says, narrowing his eyes.
“Argent,” she finishes, and Derek winces involuntarily and studies her, tries to read on her face whether she knows or not. It doesn’t look like she does--her face is clear--but it’s impossible to be sure. Kate was a good liar, and they must be related somehow.
“Scott,” Derek says, because he has neither the time nor the energy to think about Kate. “We’re running an extraction on Peter. Wasn’t there some information you wanted from him?”
Scott blinks, once then twice, and his mouth opens in a silent ‘o,’ which is when Derek knows he has him.
“I want Allison on point,” Scott says.
“You want Allison Argent running point for me,” Derek says flatly, and Scott blinks. Scott knows--Derek knows Scott knows, he was Peter’s apprentice, he was there.
“I’m not my aunt,” Allison says, suddenly, looking Derek in the eye.
“You’re related to her,” Derek says.
“And you’re related to Peter Hale, but you’re still running an extraction on him,” Allison counters easily.
“Not the same,” Derek snaps back, then turns to Scott. “I can’t have someone I don’t trust on point.”
“Well, I trust her,” Scott says. He’s going to be bullheaded about this. Derek can see it in his eyes. “And I’m not doing this job without her. You didn’t have anyone else running point, did you?”
Derek didn’t. Derek used to run point for Laura, and they occasionally worked with other points, but none regularly enough for Derek to have called them yet.
“She doesn’t even want to,” Derek says, turning to Allison. “Do you?”
She can’t possibly want to run point for Derek. Allison shrugs.
“Sure,” she says. “Who else is on the team?”
Derek stares at her, and then at Scott, and rubs his temples.
“You,” he says. “Scott. Me. Whoever the chemist is.”
“Architect?” Allison asks, arching a brow.
“Me,” Derek says.
“But you’re the extractor,” Scott says just as Allison says, “No.”
“I’ve done architecture and point for the same job,” Derek says.
“No,” Allison repeats, shaking her head. “We need an architect who isn’t you.”
Derek doesn’t work with other architects. Most of them he only knows by reputation.
“I’m the extractor--” he starts.
“Exactly,” Allison says. “And you haven’t been extractor before. We can’t have you focusing on maintaining the architecture when we’re in-dream.”
“So, what, Scott, are you sleeping with an architect, too?” Derek asks, and Scott’s expression shifts to something that might be offended.
“No,” Allison interjects smoothly. “But he knows one.”
“Are they related to you?” Derek asks Allison.
“No,” Allison says.
Derek sighs.
“Where can I find them?” he says.
“Just a sec,” Scott says, taking a phone from the bedside table and tapping out a text.
“Huh,” he says, when the phone beeps a a few uncomfortable minutes later. “He says he’ll be here tomorrow.”
“What?” Derek asks. “You didn’t offer him the job, did you? I need to talk to him.”
“No,” Scott snaps back. “He just wrapped up a job in Ulaanbaatar. He was coming to visit.”
“Ulaanbaatar,” Derek echoes. Somewhere in the reaches of his mind there’s still some residual industry gossip-- “Ariadne was running a job in Ulaanbaatar.”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Scott says. “I guess it went well, Stiles says he’s buying drinks.”
Ariadne’s part of the old guard--they say she was on the team that performed the first inception--and she doesn’t hire hacks. Or at least she doesn’t usually hire hacks, especially not for architecture, because she was an architect before she started working as an extractor, and so she knows her shit. It’s possible things have changed, and there’s an exception to every rule, but if this architect really was working with Ariadne he might be serviceable.
“Can I get a room here?” Derek asks, looking around. It looks like a shithole, but he’s kind of used to shitholes.
Scott shrugs and Allison drums her fingers on her own leg like she wants Derek to leave. Which she probably does. Derek’s not the best at reading people, but he certainly wouldn’t blame Allison Argent if she wanted Derek to leave, especially since she’s not wearing a bra. Or, presumably, pants.
“If you want, I guess,” he says. “I mean, you want me to go talk to the owner for you or something?”
“No,” Derek says, and Scott shrugs again.
“Whatever, dude,” he says. “So I guess you want to meet Stiles tomorrow?”
“Yes,” Derek says.
Stiles turns out to be--well, Derek doesn’t know what Stiles turns out to be, but he looks young, and he acts young. This business isn’t an excuse to talk about how cool Mongolia is. If this kid just wanted to travel, he should’ve started writing travel guides. But it turns out Ariadne’s job wasn’t in Ulaanbaatar, it was out in the country, and they had stayed in a yurt and visited with reindeer herders. Stiles won’t shut up about it. Derek wishes he would talk less about reindeer and more about architecture.
They’re in some cramped tourist bar Allison and Scott brought them to when Stiles slides in between Scott and Derek, props his elbows up on the counter, and says, “So I hear you’re looking for an architect.”
Derek looks at him, and Stiles blinks once, lashes brushing his cheeks. His face is very close to Derek’s, and his lashes are thick and spiky in the dim light.
“I asked Scott why you’re here, because you don’t seem very happy about it,” he continues, pressing his fingers against the glass in his hand. “Scott says you’re looking for an architect. I’m an architect.”
“So Scott claims,” Derek says.
Stiles gives Derek a sidelong glance, lingering a little longer than feels entirely necessary, then runs a hand over his cropped hair.
“Alright,” he says. “I get it. Do you want to see some of my levels, or what? Because I’ve got to say: you’re kind of putting a damper on this whole visiting my friends in Ecuador thing.”
“We’re in a bar,” Derek says, because he thinks that’s probably what people do when they visit friends--go to bars. But Allison and Scott are off to the side, engrossed in their own conversation, and Derek’s not sure there would even be space for Stiles in that if Derek were to leave. Stiles follows Derek’s line of vision and shakes his head.
“It’s weird because you’re here,” Stiles says.
“Allison’s running point for me,” Derek says. “And Scott’s forger. I need to get to know them so we can be an effective team.”
“Wow,” Stiles says, drawing the word out for a few syllables and raising his eyebrows. “Could you sound any more like a robot?”
Derek doesn’t have time for this. Not now, not here. The liquor selection in this bar is awful, anyway. He braces his arms against the bar and gets up to leave.
“What the hell, Hale,” he hears Stiles say behind him, and then there’s a hand on his elbow, fingers wrapping around his arm.
“You wanted me to leave,” Derek says. “I’m leaving.”
Stiles stops short.
“Yeah, I wanted you to leave,” Stiles says, voice suddenly low, and fast, and adamant. “Because, among other things, you obviously didn’t want to be here. But I didn’t want you to storm out because I called you a robot, what the hell is wrong with you?”
Derek kind of thought the entire goddamn industry knew what was wrong with him.
“Don’t you know who I am?” he asks.
“I know who you are,” Stiles says. “That’s not an excuse.”
Derek stares at him, and Stiles rubs his head again, squinting at Derek, or at the sun behind his head.
“Look, obviously you don’t want to hear this,” he says. “But, seriously, ‘I need to get to know them so we can be an effective team?’ You weren’t even talking to anyone. That’s not how getting to know people works.”
“So you’re rude, instead,” Derek says flatly.
“If it works,” Stiles spits back. “If it gets you to be more than a cardboard cut-out of a normal human being. Oh my god, I don’t even--” he shakes his head. “I’m going back inside. I’m going to talk with my friends, and maybe tomorrow we’ll like, go for a hike or ride the gondola or something. And then I’ll go visit my dad, and you can take Scott and Allison and go run a job on your uncle or whatever.”
“Scott wasn’t supposed to tell you details,” Derek says.
“Well, then pretend he didn’t,” Stiles says. “Doesn’t matter, my lips are sealed.”
“Good,” Derek says. “You’re our architect.”
Stiles sputters, then regains his composure and frowns. Derek goes back into the bar and orders a shot of aguardiente, then two.
“You haven’t seen my work,” Stiles says. “I might be a shit architect. You don’t even like me. This is a terrible decision.”
And, yeah, Stiles is right on all points except maybe the last one, which Derek’s not ready to contest just yet. Stiles could still be a shit architect, even if Ariadne hired him; this could still be a shit decision, even if it doesn’t feel like one right now, with the sun slanting down and the mountain air light and thin around them.
“What if I don’t take it?” Stiles asks, sitting down besides Derek.
“You’re going to take it,” Derek says, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Allison and Scott are your friends. Aren’t they?”
“Fuck you,” Stiles says, and that’s so obviously a ‘yes’ that Derek doesn’t even bother asking.
The shots show up. Derek slides one to Stiles.
“Drink this,” he says. Stiles looks at him like he’s insane, but he does it, and he only winces a little as it goes down. Derek figures it’s a start.
Derek flies to San Francisco in the morning, rents an overwhelmingly nondescript car at the airport and drives up to Beacon Hills. The roads are familiar, but it’s been a long time since Derek has driven them, and there’s some fundamental strangeness to the minor changes, restaurants and shops that have new names and, presumably, owners; houses where there were none before.
The old house is the same, even though the name on the deed has changed to Justin Wolfe, which isn’t Derek’s name but isn’t exactly not Derek’s name. Wolfe was the family name they used when they were masquerading as normal human beings, which was something that mostly happened when they were at the house. The lair, they called it.
Derek figures the Sheriff will find it eventually. There has to be a breadcrumb trail out there, but for now--it’s cheap, and quiet, and full of things from Peter’s past, fragments to build a dream from.
But if it’s full of things from Peter’s past it’s full of things from Derek’s past by extension. He tries not to look at much of anything on the way up the stairs, and he almost sleeps in the bedroom he used to share with Laura before veering back downstairs to sleep on the couch.
He and Laura boxed a lot of things up, and that had been easier when it was the two of them together--but now everything is thick with Derek-and-Laura, just the two of them and all their family’s history reflected and refracted through them. And now Derek’s all that’s left, the entirety of the Hale family legacy, sleeping on the couch with his nose pressed into the corner between the cushions and the back.
It even still smells like Laura, and home, and everything that doesn’t exist any longer.
Lydia Martin calls him in the morning.
“I get into SFO this afternoon,” she says without preamble. “You better be there to pick me up, because I’m not paying for a cab. Be here at 4:10.”
“What?” Derek asks. “Why are you coming out here?”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Lydia asks. “I’m your chemist.”
Derek rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand.
“Okay,” he says. “4:10. I’ll be driving a sedan that’s either tan or silver.”
“You aren’t going to come in with a sign?” Lydia asks.
“You didn’t tell me you were the chemist,” Derek counters. “Is Jackson coming, too?”
“Yep,” Lydia says, and he can practically hear her smirking when she hangs up.
Derek drops the phone on the floor and rolls back over. He doubts this is going to go well.
He doubts it more when he picks Lydia and Jackson up from the airport.
“Who do we have on architecture?” Lydia asks.
“You aren’t going to ask about point?” Derek asks, and Lydia hums, a small and annoyed sound.
“If you got Scott, then point is obviously Allison,” she says. “So, architect?”
“Stiles,” Derek says, and Lydia’s face in the rearview mirror does something strange.
“Stilinski,” Jackson says. “Fucking Stilinski.”
“How do you even know him?” Derek asks. Jackson Whittemore, as far as Derek can tell from his handful of industry connections and the internet, is nothing more or less than a professional lacrosse player.
“Lydia brings me to industry parties,” Jackson says, throwing an arm across her shoulders. Derek feels like he’s their chauffeur. They probably think he is.
“Our industry doesn’t have any parties,” Derek says.
“Maybe not that you’re invited to, dude,” Jackson says. “Anyway, Stilinski’s weird.”
“And you sound like you’re in high school,” Derek says.
That’s pretty much how the rest of the drive is. Other than being stiflingly silent and far too long, it goes alright.
“When do McCall and the gang get in?” Jackson asks when they’re sitting around the kitchen table eating Chinese.
“Why are you even here?” Derek asks.
“To make sure shit gets done,” Jackson says, and Derek can’t help glancing across the table at Lydia, who is neatly handling her chopsticks and not looking at either of them.
“He was just bored,” she says after a moment. “It’s the off season.”
“The rest are coming in after the weekend,” Derek says. “You guys can take the car, explore Beacon Hills. There are jogging paths in the park.”
Derek nods towards Jackson, because he seems like the type to be interested in jogging trails in the park. Lydia fixes Derek with a stare.
“You won’t be our tour guide?” she asks.
“Not much to see,” Derek says. “Doubt you need a tour guide.”
“So you’re going to give us the car while you sit around in this house,” Lydia says, raising an eyebrow.
“Don’t take the bedroom at the top of the stairs,” Derek says. “Any of the other ones, though.”
Lydia keeps watching him.
“Are the sheets clean?” Jackson asks.
“There’s a washing machine in the basement,” Derek says, and leaves the room.
He sleeps on the couch again, after Lydia and Jackson go upstairs, and doesn’t wake up until the very edge of morning, before the sun’s quite risen.
He goes out for a run, and wonders if it was a terrible decision to use this house for the job. It makes sense, objectively, but something about it has the character of a terrible decision. Maybe it’s just that Derek has been suspicious of a lot of his decisions, lately. In truth: Derek is suspicious of all of his own decisions, has been, ever since he slept with Kate Argent and his life fell to pieces around him.
So Derek didn’t make the decisions. Laura did. All Derek had to do was trust her, and trusting Laura came as easily to Derek as trusting everyone else didn’t, and sat as lightly on his mind as the act of breathing. Laura made the big decisions, and mostly Derek’s decisions focused on the dream architecture, on holding in place furls of environment and the quick twists of mazes. Besides, Laura was always there to consult when Derek got himself into shit like this, too deep too quickly, and needed an external opinion. She was always there, until she wasn’t.
Running through the woods, which are dusted lightly with the same snow that had laid heavy on the Yukon, Derek wonders how anyone could possibly believe he killed her. But they do, the fucking CIA does, and Derek’s doing what he can about it. He shouldn’t expect anyone to know him, really, not when the only person who did is dead.
When Derek gets home Lydia is sitting on the porch with a cardigan wrapped around her shoulders and a mug of coffee.
“Want to test my Somnacin today?” she asks. “Because we should.”
“Isn’t Somnacin a brand name?” Derek asks, and Lydia stares at him for a minute.
“Don’t be passive aggressive,” she says. “It’s not a good look on anyone.”
“I’m going to make breakfast,” Derek says, and goes inside.
“I don’t eat eggs,” Lydia calls after him.
“I guess you can skip breakfast, then,” Derek says. “Because I do.”
“Now, see, that was just aggression,” Lydia says. “Not quite raw, but we’re getting somewhere, I think. We can test the chemistry after you eat breakfast. And take a shower.”
“We don’t have anyone in Limbo to test it on,” Derek says.
“While, it works for regular jobs, too,” Lydia says. “And we need to make sure you don’t have a weird reaction to it. It’s a different formulation, some people do. Also some of the monkeys I tested it on.”
“I’m not going to have a reaction to it,” Derek says.
“Good.”
Lydia sips her coffee, and Derek feels like he’s being dismissed. Probably because he is, but he’s not going to complain because he’d rather be inside making breakfast than outside talking to Lydia.
Lydia puts a PASIV on the table when Derek’s in the middle of breakfast and a book he selected at random from his father’s bookshelf.
“I was reading,” Derek says.
“You can finish reading,” Lydia replies. “Jackson’s not up yet.”
“Seriously?” Derek asks, and Lydia shrugs.
“It’s the off season.”
“And he doesn’t need to train?”
Lydia narrows her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “I take care of Jackson.”
Derek stares at her.
“You think a pro lacrosse player would have as much publicity as he does without a little help?” she asks.
“You have a point,” Derek says. He kind of wonders if Lydia incepts people into liking Jackson. From what he knows of her, he wouldn’t put it past her. Jackson’s hardly what Derek would call likable.
The man himself comes lurching down the stairs shortly.
“What’s for breakfast?” Jackson mutters, looking between Derek and Lydia. “You making a move on my girl?”
Derek can feel his eyebrows creeping towards his hairline.
“Please don’t call me ‘your girl,’ Jackson,” Lydia says, inspecting her nails. “Luckily Hale’s broody shit does nothing for me, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
Jackson sits down next to Lydia and takes a cold pancake from the stack Derek left in the middle of the table.
“Stilinski has a thing for Lydia,” he says, presumably to Derek. Lydia hits him in the shoulder.
“He’s over that,” she says. “We had a talk.”
“He keeps calling you,” Jackson says.
“Because he’s smart, so we’re friends,” Lydia says. “Sometimes I like to talk to people who find chemistry interesting.”
“Because he finds you interesting,” Jackson mumbles.
“As he should,” she counters. “Don’t be an asshole when Stiles gets here.”
“If he leaves me alone,” Jackson says around a mouthful of food. “Why’s the PASIV on the table?”
“Because we’re going under when you finish your breakfast,” Lydia says. “So eat up.”
“Do you have orange juice or something?” Jackson asks. “These pancakes are cold.”
“There’s an oven in the kitchen,” Derek says. “And a microwave oven.”
Jackson scowls and finishes his breakfast, and Derek turns to Lydia.
“There’s a room in the basement,” he says. “We can do this--” he jerks his chin at the PASIV “--down there.”
“Saw it when I washed the sheets,” Lydia says. “That’s quite the set-up.”
It is quite the set-up. But the door should be locked.
“How did you get in?” Derek asks, and he lurches towards her almost involuntary, running on a cocktail of anger, and fear, and confusion, but stops short of grabbing her shoulders to shake her or push her against the wall, get something out of her.
“The door was open,” Lydia says, and there’s a question in her voice Derek hasn’t heard before, but Derek is on his feet and down the stairs before he can really think about it. That door can’t be open, it really shouldn’t be open, the door is hidden and locked, because that room--without that room the house is just an old family home, a bit big, but kind of beautiful, and the Wolfes are a family of wealthy eccentrics. With that room, the house is a dream den, and the Wolfes are the Hales, and the Hales are criminals.
The hatch to the subbasement is normally under a wood chest full of blankets, soft ones that they used to pull out when they were watching movies in the basement and couldn’t shake a chill. When Derek gets downstairs the chest is there, but it’s been pushed to the side, and the door--the door is actually propped open with a pole that’s resting on the top step.
It takes a retina scan to unlock that door. The scanner’s inside the fuse box in another part of the basement, and only people whose eyes are keyed into it are in Limbo, or dead, or Derek.
When Derek gets to the subbasement, to the room where the cots and the PASIVs are, they’re missing a PASIV. Just the one, but to Derek it’s like a gaping hole.
That one was Laura’s. It wasn’t--they didn’t have their own PASIVs, exactly, but that one had a dent in the corner where she dropped it on a job, when they were running, and it sunk to the bottom of the Hudson. She was SCUBA certified, but it was still a miracle that she retrieved it, let alone intact. Derek still didn’t know how she did it. And now--does it matter, that it’s gone? Laura’s dead. Derek saw her, saw her body rent in two, and now someone stole her PASIV. That doesn’t mean she’s alive to use it, because she’s dead.
All it means is that Derek has another potential shitstorm on his brutally underprepared hands. Someone’s been in the house. Someone’s been in the house, and somehow they knew where to go.
Jackson and Lydia are standing behind him, staring, when Derek turns.
“Lydia,” Derek says, pressing his palms against his thighs. “Could a corpse’s eyeball be used for a retinal scan?”
“No,” Lydia responds promptly. “Eyes degrade too quickly.”
“Okay,” Derek nods. “This door shouldn’t be open. And we’re missing a PASIV.”
“How do you misplace a PASIV?” Jackson asks.
“You don’t,” Derek says. “Someone stole it, and no one has access to this room except me.”
“Are you sure?” Lydia asks.
“And Peter,” Derek says. “Unless it’s possible someone recoded the scanner without my knowing.”
“Or maybe you left the door open,” Jackson says.
“You don’t just leave the door open,” Derek says, kicking at it. “Not this door. That chest should be on top of it. I know the last time we were here we locked the door.”
“And you don’t have closed circuit on this shit?” Jackson asks.
“Why would we?” Derek asks, a frisson of unwarranted anger still burning in his veins. “This is our home.”
“Okay,” Lydia interjects. “When Stiles gets here, he can look at the retina scanner and see if it was hacked or anything.” She looks between Jackson and Derek. “We’re going to assume this--person--already took what they wanted. And if they come back, Derek sleeps downstairs on the couch.”
“Yeah, man, that’s a bit creepy,” Jackson says, apparently to Derek. Derek rubs at his face. He’s still--he’s still not quite there, with this. Someone broke into the house, got to the subbasement, and stole Laura’s PASIV. His visceral reaction is that they need to get the hell out of Dodge.
“It could’ve happened ages ago, Derek,” Lydia says. Derek stares at the trapdoor, still ajar.
“But it happened,” he says. “It’s not safe here.”
“This isn’t a safe industry,” Lydia says, almost gently. “You know that.”
Derek knows that. He does. And he’s tempted to tell Lydia not to condescend to him, but he’s also tempted to say that he thinks it’s Kate, somehow, fucking Kate, but he had always felt safe in this house, like its walls were made of something other than wood, and if Kate or anyone could get in and steal Laura’s PASIV--that’s not just the industry, that’s his house. His house isn’t safe anymore, neither is his job, neither is his life.
“I’m going upstairs,” Derek says. “We can test the chemistry tomorrow.”
Derek goes upstairs. Jackson looks like he’s going to protest--Lydia does, too, but then she shakes her head like she’s shaking something off and puts a hand on Jackson’s arm.
It doesn’t matter if her face is colored with pity, or if Derek’s not facing the things he needs to face--it doesn’t matter. Someone stole Laura’s PASIV, and for one gasping moment he thought that meant she might be alive--but that wasn’t what it meant. It just meant that another piece of Derek’s life had been breached and broken into, another piece of his control was stripped away, and Derek was left with the pieces.
Maybe they should test the chemistry now. They can go under, and at least Derek can control the architecture even if his dreams lately have been less than safe, themselves. Besides, Derek’s a good architect--and for this job he’s not even doing that. Fucking Stiles. He’s not even here yet, and Derek is already second guessing hiring him, and Derek is already jealous of him, absurdly, for having the job Derek would much rather do.
Derek does what he’s always done, when his mind overtakes him and the world seems impossible: he focuses on his body, makes his muscles burn. He does push-ups in the living room, ignoring Lydia and Jackson when they walk past. He goes for another run. He does pull-ups with the bar he installed in the basement. He chops firewood, thinking vaguely that they they could use it, have a fire in the fireplace in the living room. And when it hurts, well, this is his body. It’s his, and physical hurt he can handle. After Kate he started working out--push-ups, chin-ups, whatever--like if his body was strong enough nothing like that would happen again.
“We’re testing the chemistry tomorrow,” Lydia says over dinner.
“Okay,” Derek says. He suspects he sounds subdued. He feels subdued. Lydia looks at him strangely, but doesn’t say anything at all.
part 2