Chapter Text
When Peter came to awareness he knew exactly where he was.
Even without sight, without movement, he knew. After all those years the remnants of the Hale House still smelled of burned wood and betrayal, and each breath brought with it tiny particles of those who had fallen because of his failure.
He didn't often delve into melancholy over the past, that was far more Derek's modus operandi, but there was certainly something about waking from death in the remnants of your family's ashes to bring it on. It wasn't as if there was much else to do, for as astoundingly clear-headed as he was, his body was barely able to move for the weakness in it, and his instincts were very much of a mind to stay there in the darkness where it was safe and he wasn't going to struggle against that without good reason. He hadn't lived as long as he had as left hand to the pack by being incautious.
And yet for all his ruminating, one question remained circling: Why was he alive? And more concerningly: Was he even alive?
Unlike most of his kin who only leant with their strengths, Peter had always been keen to use any and all methods at his disposal. Magic didn't come at all easily to a werewolf, or at all, but as one of the major sources of danger for a pack it had certainly been something Peter had looked into. Enough to find that there had been ways a werewolf could utilise it, with a little aid. He'd had everything necessary for his resurrection set up ahead of time considering how dangerous it was being the left hand; the rituals, the components faithfully taken, and he'd even managed to find and bite that banshee, creating just enough of a bond from doing so that it would have made things a lot easier come the worm moon to make everything work.
But the worm moon was weeks away, his ritual and preparations unused, and yet there he was, awake, aware, and more or less alive as far as he could tell.
He just didn't know how.
Slowly, inch by exhausting inch, he rearranged himself under the broken floorboards as the hours passed. Broken timber and rubble didn't exactly make a comfortable resting place, and it showed a level of anger that they had just dumped him in a hole in the floor, rather than give him a proper burial, even out of sight of the rest of humanity. He had thought Derek at least might afford him that much at least, being family, but perhaps being put under their old home was as much as his nephew could bring himself to offer. He might not have been given that much, and found himself beheaded as he had certainly taught Derek before, if not for his extensive preparations to encourage people not to bother doing that with his body. You never could count on the enemy being lackadaisical with security when it was convenient, after all, and he hadn't gone to all the trouble of those rituals for resurrection only to have them easily countered by something that simple.
Past the smell of the house, he could smell the preserve as he lay there as night turned to day, and then into night again. Tiny sounds from beyond the tree-line; mouse, deer, a couple of squirrels. He hungered, but that was to be expected.
And yet as the days and nights passed, that hunger did not grow significantly worse as he lay there listening to life beyond those derelict walls. He should have been starving by now, especially considering the damage to his body, and yet he merely seemed in a sort of stasis, waiting as each night the moon turned, becoming greater. He couldn't see it from where he was laying, but he could certainly feel it.
The worm moon.
He could always feel a full moon coming, any werewolf could, but it had never felt like this. It used to be like a growing restlessness, an anticipation that only increased as the days got closer, but as the weeks from him waking slowly passed, and then the hours before the sun finally sank, it felt like power.
As the worm moon rose, he didn't burst from his grave like he was sure would have been the most dramatic. He might have attempted something if the pack had been there, but in truth that even with the moon rising in the night sky it was barely enough to get him out from under the floorboards.
Wood crumbled beneath his grip as he dug claws in, to drag himself up onto the wood floor, having to lay there for long moments to regain more power to go further. It was pitiful, but he was alive, and once he pulled himself into the moonlight he could feel the power slowly coming back to his body.
It was just as well the pack weren't there, considering they would have been far more likely to just put him back into his grave, for good, if they had seen them like this. Or laughed. Or both. He wouldn't have blamed them much if they had. He might have laughed himself just then if he wasn't too aware that he was not in a state to be making himself a target of any sort. Who knew what was in the preserve after all this time, after all. It wasn't like he trusted a handful of puppies to take care of an entire territory, though they might be out enjoying the evening nonetheless.
He heard nothing of them though, and he was left alone to lay there, basking in the moon's light, feeling the power in him grow and quicken until it was too much to bear any longer.
He tried to shift, shift like he had been doing all his life, but it didn't take, and honestly he wasn't too surprised. He was far too weakened still, and his instincts were focused but reminding him of his exhaustion. There was, though, something he could do about that. He was disgusting, and beyond weary despite having lain and done nothing for weeks, but so long as he was slow and cautious and stayed downwind, there was a deer out there with his name on it. It wasn't as if he could rely on anyone else to feed him, after all.
The forest felt different around him. It was familiar as any place would be, but it felt less tangible, less solid as he moved, trees curving out of his slow way, his footsteps utterly silent without effort, the smells and sounds more honed. He might be weakened in the aftermath of his death, but his senses certainly hadn't dulled. It was perhaps one of the better surprises since waking, like he still had an alpha spark, though in those final moments he had felt it go to Derek.
It was a slow creep towards that deer, the moon's light there in the shine between the shadows he worked his way between. He'd never managed to get this close, within breathing distance to a deer, before it had noticed before. It was astonishing, but he was too hungry to give it more than a brief thought.
And then he was on it, teeth tearing into flesh with the cruelty of nature, because it was still alive.
It took him a while to notice as he gorged himself, too taken with the urge for survival to care about much else. He liked clean kills, unless he was making a point; no use in wasting energy, and if it was food it tasted better if the fear hadn't seeped into the muscles too deeply. But the deer under his teeth took a long time to die, and the meat still wasn't bitter with fear. He looked, even as he swallowed down another hunk of meat, only to find the life finally ebbing from it. It lay there calmly as he ate it, as if it felt no pain, no fear, nothing.
Somewhat unsettled, he nonetheless returned to his meal, because he wasn't about to waste it.
He thought about it though, as he made his way towards town after burying the remains of the deer where it wouldn't draw attention. The calm he'd seen was hardwired into a lot of prey animals, humans could have it trigger under certain circumstances too and even utilised it for pleasure in BDSM circles, but that deer had reacted far more calmly than was natural, as if once he had pounced it was perfectly pleased to be eaten. Yet one more oddity to add to the growing list post-death. Maybe he should look into starting a luxury assisted suicide business, or hire himself out for pain-free assassination. Either way, sending Derek a post-murder gift basket would be a fun thing to do, when he eventually was in a position to keep more obvious contact again. Dying had done wonders for his sanity, after all.
His apartment, when he got there, was relatively untouched. Nothing was out of place when he eased his way inside in the early hours of the morning except for the unexpected scent of Stiles that permeated the place in a way that told of repeated visits recently. Nothing was trashed, and surprisingly even the small signs of him having been there had been kept to a minimum, and mostly around the bookcases. It didn't take a detective to understand that he'd likely only come in to research the latest threat to Beacon Hills, but wasn't it interesting that he didn't seem to have shared the information about his apartment's location to others.
Although not technically as secure as he would have liked it to be, it was still safer than the burned out shell of his family home. He'd always tried to instil preparedness in his family, and he could only be glad of that trait in himself since he owned the apartment, and all the bills were paid automatically. He doubted that anyone outside the pack knew he was meant to be dead in the first place, considering it would put them all very much in the line of fire for arrest.
So the apartment wasn't safe by any means, not with Stiles not only knowing the location somehow, but having been inside without any visible damage to the lock, but it was safer than elsewhere. It had to be a key that Stiles had used, considering the wards wouldn't have let anyone else in, especially not if they intended damage or harm. How he'd got that key, he honestly didn't know. Perhaps he'd made a copy from the set on his corpse, although why he hadn't just taken the whole set, he didn't know. The way Stiles' mind worked was as close to a delight as was possible in this damned cursed town.
Showering off the dirt, ash, and blood was close to a religious experience after having been trapped with it for weeks. He watched it wash away, the remnants of his death, until only the damage still there on his body remained. Time would heal that, he was sure, although considering the state of it when he looked in the mirror, it might be a while yet. It wasn't like he had pack bonds to pull from, and that was another worrying thought for other reasons.
But sleep, proper sleep on an actual mattress, came first. It was a day of joys, after all, and as he eased himself down onto his own bed he couldn't help but feel like things were once more going his way.