Between Epiphany and Epitaph
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Summary: The news sinks in and Derek puts two and two together.
Notes: Sequel to Love is Just a Bloodsport, A Banquet of Consequences, Sweet’s the Air With Curly Smoke (From All My Burning Bridges), and The Smell of Something Burning. AU take on the Hale house fire and its consequences. Title from a David Glaser quote.
Between Epiphany and Epitaph
And then the second boot falls.
And then a third, a fourth, a fifth.
{Boot Theory by Richard Siken}
They caught the late night news about the fire. It was Kate’s idea, considering Derek wasn’t doing much of anything. The wolfsbane side-effects must have worn off by now, but then keeping a werewolf under wasn’t an exact science. Kate sat cross-legged on the single bed with the control remote in her lap, the knife strapped to her ankle digging in uncomfortably.
She chewed on beef jerky and watched Derek. He was sitting hunched over in the arm chair holding a plastic cup of water, head down. He had stopped watching the screen once they started showing images of the fire. Kate could swear she had heard a high-pitched whine when the burnt husk of the house first came on.
Now the only sound in the grimy motel room was the crackle of plastic as she broke into another pack of jerky and the newscasters’ drone. Derek watched the floor and she watched him, was waiting for the little furrow to show up on his brow, for his mouth to frown, or even for his lips pucker under the pressure of nascent fangs.
She wasn’t waiting for his grief to wash over him at the words eight deaths and only one survivor or even teenage daughter and unrelated accident near Beacon Hills High. (Okay, she was hoping for a little reaction at missing teenage son wanted for questioning but she doubted Derek was even listening at that point.)
No. She was waiting for the shoe to drop in that little werewolf head of his.
“How did you know?”
Kate covered her smile by tearing into her jerky. Thump, she thought. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, chewed, and swallowed. “Know what?”
“About the fire.”
“I saw the smoke,” she said, and she knew Derek was listening for the skip in her heartbeat that called out her lie. Problem with that was she was always truthful. Just never completely honest.
“You picked me up from school. You never said why. But you picked me up and that’s when the -“ The cup crackled pitifully in his grip.
Kate almost rolled her eyes. So the shoe hadn’t dropped all the way down yet.
“Think about it, puppy.” You’ll figure it out. And there it was, the flinch.
The first time Kate ever called Derek by that nickname, he had stared at her, horrified. She had smiled and laughed and made reassuring noises about his masculinity and his age. He convinced himself that that was what she meant.
The shoe dropped. Smelling of burnt wolfsbane petals, he knew better now.
Derek looked up at her, and yes, there were the dimples on the corners of his lips. “You know what I am.”
Kate smiled, teeth flashing. They were hunter’s teeth, for all their bluntness.
Then Derek put two and two together, then two more, following the trail to a chorus of falling shoes like a marching band, and Kate was almost proud.