Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Derek likes sex. Yeah, bad things have happened to him because of people he’s dated, and some of those people were also good in bed, but as far as he’s concerned, those are two completely separate things. He still has issues from his exes but none of them involve what happens when his clothes come off for sex. So it’s generally a pretty uncomplicated part of his life, and he likes it that way.

Fine, having sex with two other people is slightly more complicated, but not so much that Derek needs to have his brain turned on for most of it. Especially with Peter’s tendency to alpha it, which is annoying in a fight but which is just fine if he’s doing it to shove Derek to the bottom of the sex pile. So Derek’s good with just sprawling out, hiking his knees back, and letting his eyes roll back into his head every time Peter bottoms out in him.

The thing is, at some point Stiles decided during sex is the best time to make sure they hear very important updates about Stiles’ work. “Well, honestly—” Stiles huffs, trying to regain his handholds on Peter’s shoulders “—can’t—really blame me when the data shows—”

Sweat flicks off from where Stiles is clawing and sprays across the side of Peter’s face, making him duck away from what Derek thinks was an attempt to kiss Stiles into shutting up. Peter’s cock shifts roughly over Derek’s prostate, almost good enough to make Derek drone out Peter’s grunted, “Really, Stiles? Isn’t it immoral to experiment on your—”

“It’s not immoral, it’s ethically dubious, one’s a social construct and the other’s got actual institutional codes of conduct and don’t give me that when you’re definitely into the pointers I got from that Yuggothian biology paper,” Stiles says, jerking up and down against Peter’s back.

From the way that Peter abruptly stills, only to go into a shivery side-to-side spasm a second later, most of the action is actually going on inside Peter and probably involves Stiles’ Dreamlands-enhanced cock. Whatever it is, the way Peter tries to roll his hips isn’t really possible even with werewolf strength and flexibility, but damn, does it feel good in Derek. Who hisses and shoves his hips up into it, half-ignoring Stiles’ startled yelp as he manages to lift all three of them briefly off the bed for a second. He works out, not just for this, but it helps, okay?

And that little increase in angle jolts Peter that fraction deeper into Derek where Peter’s side-shifting finally gets to the spot where Derek can feel himself loosen up all over, right up into his brain which really does not give a fuck about Yuggothian whatever teaching Stiles’ mutant cock whatever so long as—

Peter bites him. On the shoulder, just close enough to the neck to trigger competing fight-or-fuck instincts, and then the asshole glowers at him when Derek holds himself to just an irritated growl. “Pay attention, Derek,” Peter says, like this is actually necessary.

“I’m just saying, I really need you to remember no sex till we’ve got the model all set up,” Stiles is saying. He appears to have given up on Peter’s shoulders and is barely visible behind Peter, mostly tufts of hair and a half-hearted looped arm straggling down Peter’s side, but his mouth is somehow still going. “With Athelstan’s little deal it’s really important to keep that out of the perimeter and I know you’re usually good but you also say stuff like immoral in that voice—”

“Okay, Jesus, we’ll stay outside and Peter’s not gonna talk to you till you’re done,” Derek snaps. His body’s still riding that edge between painful denial and anticipatory burn, but it’s starting to tip towards the denial side of things. And Derek’s actually pretty invested in not making sex into a problem, given the rest of his life to date. “We’ll find something else to do, we’re not gonna jump you, now can someone just—”

Peter rolls his eyes. And also digs his fingers into Derek’s hips, pushing them flat against the bed, and arches the rest of himself so that when he drives into Derek, it rattles the irritation right out of Derek’s head. Fucking finally.

Derek subsides against the bed, vaguely aware that the other two are still talking about things and that it probably involves this day-long string theory test Stiles and Athelstan are doing this weekend at the Nemeton, but mostly, he’s just nice and boneless and fucked. He listens to his own raspy breathing and watches Peter gradually go just as loose-limbed and clumsy, head thrown back and eyes closed so the sweat running off the man’s forehead hangs in drops on his lashes before it finally splats against Derek’s face. And then Peter shudders and slumps over, his face dragging itself into Derek’s throat, and behind him comes one last burst of babbling from Stiles.

Then it’s quiet for a couple seconds. Not silent, not with how hard they’re all breathing, but quiet besides that and the feeling of the world fading back in around them, slowly bringing back things like cooling sweat and tacky patches where Peter’s balls are rubbing up against Derek and they’re annoying but still in a distant enough way that Derek just registers them.

“Okay, great, then I’ll see you for dinner at Melissa’s place,” Stiles says, pushing himself up on one arm and peering over Peter’s shoulder. “I promise I’ll ask for dessert to go so we’re not there another hour and can make up for things afterward.”

“It’s not like we’re even having less sex than we usually do,” Derek can’t help saying. “And Peter doesn’t eat every single meal with you when we’re in Beacon Hills.”

“No, but this is a critical spellcasting parameter and so you need to remember it in case those impulses get the better of you, nephew,” Peter says into Derek’s neck, like Derek’s the one who tried sexing Stiles up in a Miskatonic-affiliated library and got them both stuck in quarantine for twelve hours while Stiles fretted about his access credentials. “So better to know than to not know.”

Stiles is starting to look a little embarrassed. “Yeah, I’m not—not saying I don’t trust you two, but this is just a really delicate thing and I spent twenty minutes on the phone yesterday explaining to Erica that ‘no sex’ really means ‘no sex’ and this isn’t one of those ‘what can I do and still call myself a virgin’ challenges—”

Derek makes a face. “Next time you should just tell Scott and make him deal with her.”

“Well, so, interestingly, Allison had similar questions,” Stiles says. He shifts absently and then pauses as Peter hikes himself half-out of Derek and back into whatever Stiles just did to him; when Derek hisses in protest, Stiles at least has the decency to look like he didn’t mean to do that. “I think she was more coming from a place of intellectual curiosity than setting up contest rules, but…anyway, point is, I’m gonna be busy so I just wanted to make sure you knew if I’m not answering you, it’s not about you. Um, do you want me to push him back in?”

“No, it’d just feel—now I can tell it’s dripping out,” Derek mutters, as he squeezes himself the rest of the way off Peter’s cock and then back up against the headboard. “You push him back in, I’m just going to feel that going in with him.”

“You’re always so squeamish for someone who doesn’t wipe other people’s blood off before he’ll take a potato chip,” Peter says as he lifts his head out of the way. He contemplates Derek for a moment, the sex still partly blurring the contempt in his expression, and then slides his hand up Derek’s thigh. “Fine, if you’re going to complain about it, I’ll take care of it, as usual.”

And then Peter pulls over Derek’s leg and noses under it to lap at the come slicking down Derek’s other thigh. Derek hisses again, banging his elbow against the headboard, and then just manages to twist the leg Peter’s holding so he doesn’t kick Stiles in the face as he slides back down onto the bed. Peter licks up towards Derek’s hole the other way and Derek hikes himself over a little more, getting that a better angle.

“So I was going to say something about siding with Peter on the double standards but you know what, let’s just go with the free porn,” Stiles says, still flushed in the face but very, very interested in this. He rearranges himself against Peter, spurring a low groan from the other man, and then reaches out to help keep Derek’s leg out of the way. “There’s nothing else going on in Beacon Hills, right? Scott said they’re between supervillains at the moment and he didn’t think there’d be much to do—you’re not going to be bored, are you?”

“If we are, we’re not going to bug you,” Derek mutters, as he sinks a little further down against the headboard. Peter’s gotten to his hole now and is lapping around the rim, like the teasing son of a bitch he is, but Derek is admittedly not yet at a place where he’s really ready to go a second round. His body just really wishes it was. “It’s fine, Stiles. Stop worrying about us. Nothing’s going to happen that’ll ruin your thing, and if it does, Peter will make us all murder them first.”

“Well, that’s kind of…what I mean, because…um, insert something about morals,” Stiles says, his eyes clearly tracking something well below the level of Derek’s face. Then he blinks hard and drags his gaze back up. “I mean insert something about ethics. Right. Ethics. The ethics of letting Peter—”

Peter backs off Derek enough to speak. Not enough that he isn’t puffing his breath directly into Derek’s hole with every word, going in warm and then slipping out, cooling in a way that really makes Derek want it to be warm again, when Derek’s body instinctively clenches down. “I’ll be ethical, Stiles,” he purrs. “I give you my word.”

“Oh, God, I really, really didn’t think through how sex as a reward leads to kinking on ethics,” Stiles says, watching Derek and listening to Peter and very clearly starting to get that cock of his moving in Peter again. “Oh, shit. I think I’m going to start having inappropriate responses to the zillion recertifications I have to do, but—”

Derek bucks his hips up and Peter’s tongue is actually there, sliding in immediately, and as Derek gasps and rides down into that, Stiles helpfully pulls his leg forward.

“—you know what, totally worth it,” is the last thing Stiles says for a while.

* * *

Of course, once they get out of bed and are on their way to Beacon Hills, Stiles is back to going on and on about this string theory model that they’re going to do and how they had to adapt it to accommodate Athelstan’s tendency to open up space-time rifts if he doesn’t have enough sex. There’s sort of an obvious alternative but Derek doesn’t want to get into the discussion if he can help it, so he sits on it.

“Can’t he just jerk off before they go to the preserve?” is what Cora immediately says when they meet with Derek’s sisters, because she’s never going to sit on it.

“Well, it’s kind of a little more ritualized than that,” Stiles says.

“Also, Jesus, but this is why you’re not allowed to talk to them without supervision,” Laura mutters, as she wraps her arm around Cora’s head and sticks her hand over Cora’s mouth. When Cora tries to bite her, Laura just twists her wrist to leave Cora chewing on her glove and then wiggles her bared fingers at Derek and Peter. “Hey, so, Parrish actually showed up on time and set up the perimeter tape and everything. So your ‘art installation’ permit doesn’t seem to be raising any eyebrows so far.”

Peter looks skeptical. “Parrish showed up when his official duties called for it and you don’t think that that’s suspicious?”

“Um, so, I don’t think I’ve gotten to that part of your videos yet,” Stiles says under his breath to Derek. “Not that you need to fill me in now, but—”

“I’ll text you some time codes but basically Jordan does his patrols, he’s just never in the part where he’s supposed to be, so if you try to find him, you should look for the smoking police car,” Derek mutters back.

“Yeah, I know, but since his being weirdly off-pattern is useful to us, I figured we’d get the Miskatonic stuff settled before we looked into it,” Laura says, sounding just a little irritated at it. “That work for you?”

So she and Peter are a lot better now that they don’t actually live in the same town and Peter’s generally only visiting after they call ahead, but there’s still the occasional dominance friction between them. Derek doesn’t think that it’s really going anywhere besides the barbed comments, but Stiles clearing his throat and saying that’s cool and he’s gonna go find Athelstan and get out of their hair does get Peter to stop for a second. And by the time they’ve done the usual bye-Stiles-stealth-bellyrub thing and Derek’s taken his turn at gagging Cora to stop her from the unnecessary raspberry noises, Laura seems to have shaken off the attitude.

“Ever since the sheriff came back from his vacation, he’s been kind of lowkey about us, but it sounds like that means he’s been really trying to get his people in line,” Laura explains as she and Cora walk Peter and Derek towards the path to their family home. “Tara keeps bitching about how he never gave a shit about her write-ups before and now they’re coming back marked-up like she’s in high school again. But I don’t know if it’s suspicious suspicious, and anyway, Melissa’s already keeping an eye on it. Well, she asked Braeden to keep an eye on it.”

“Braeden’s in town again?” Peter says. “Isn’t she always talking about getting paid enough to not come back here?”

“Yeah, seriously, even though half the time she ends up crashing with us and it’s not like we charge her,” Cora says. Then she flicks a look at Derek from the safety of the other side of Laura. “Not in your room, okay? Though why you keep getting so territorial over it is beyond me.”

Derek scowls at her. “It’s still my room, unless you’re trying to kick me out of this family. You’ve got your own room, why do you need mine to fuck around in? You should just clean up yours.”

“I think Melissa might’ve figured out a way to get Miskatonic to put Braeden on retainer, or something like that,” Laura says, making a visible effort to pay attention to Peter and not to smack out at either Derek or Cora. “Braeden’s always hanging out with them these days, anyway, and yeah, Peter, I am keeping an eye on that, but I’m not sure what else I can do there. Unless you want me to mess up things with Stiles’ dad.”

“Please do continue to exercise this newfound streak of diplomacy,” Peter says to her, with a smile that’s half-sarcastic but also half-genuinely in favor of this. Then he turns to Cora just as she’s about to shoot a pinecone at Derek. “As for you, do you really think it’s wise to use potentially Cthulhic objects to torment your brother?”

Cora flinches and drops the pinecone. “Okay, fine, then pull up that purifying app and get all the tentacles off me.”

“What tentac—Cora, the Nemeton drops acorns, not pinecones,” Laura says in an exasperated tone.

“Also, I texted you where to download that app yourself enough times, get it yourself and stop hitting one of us up,” Derek says. “Even Erica’s got it at this point. What, are you and she on a break?”

“What, no, I just—hey, Peter’s screwing with my mind again,” Cora says, whipsawing her head between all of them.

“He’s actually not, and you’re actually just being embarrassing right now,” Laura tells her. “Jesus, Cora, way to miss literally every tentacle-related development we’ve had. Look, so anyway, the sheriff.”

Peter had been looking almost pleased about Laura and Derek tag-teaming Cora and some of that good mood carries over as he just shrugs. “Well, I suppose I defer to you and Melissa. Just so long as this doesn’t end up like Sheriff Marconi.”

“Oh, trust me, nobody’s gonna let that happen,” Laura says. She swings ahead on the path, then turns back to look at the rest of them. “Anyway, since your squeeze is tied up all day and we’re trying to not pester the cops, what were you planning to do? Anything we can help with?”

“Are you that bored?” Derek asks Cora.

Who rolls her eyes and scuffs her feet through the leaf-litter and generally is still dodging the current status of her relationship with Erica. “Alpha sis there doesn’t think I’m gonna leave Parrish alone,” she mutters.

“Because you don’t when you’re still trying to figure out why Erica is upset with you,” Peter says without even looking over. “Actually, Laura, since we are in town, I was going to suggest we get the end-of-year burial checks over with. Not that I don’t think you have that calendared—”

“But you’d feel better if you got to stand on the graves and see for yourself that those assholes are still where you leff them, yeah, I get it,” Laura says, with a nod that is maybe a little tight, but that is mostly about sympathy and not about fighting Peter for the right to make a decision they’re going to make anyway. “We should get on that, but I was…kind of wondering how you think we should handle the Lothbroks.”

“What, have they been poking around?” Derek says, stiffening up; Peter isn’t snarling or anything but he also looks a little more concerned.

Laura shakes her head. “Not really. I mean, they are bunking out there, but so far as I can tell, they’re sticking to the parts that we said were on-limits. It’s just…we’re going to be pretty obvious about going around the preserve. Unless you want to tell them to specifically not go to this part during this time, but I felt like that’d really just be putting up a sign saying ‘look here.’”

Peter nods in agreement and then looks like he’s seriously thinking it over for the rest of the way to the house. Not like he’s plotting, that’s an entirely different expression and scent on him, but to be honest, Derek finds it a lot more nerve-wracking when Peter’s not automatically jumping to homicide. At least with bodies Derek pretty much knows when to be pissed off and when to be resigned and when to just grit his teeth and think about the nice long hot shower he’s going to have when it’s all done.

Cora tries to say something smartass a couple times but Laura keeps on top of her, and then gives her the job of sweeping off the dirt they track onto the porch as the rest of them settle around the kitchen table. Laura also tosses Derek a bag of candy canes “from the pack” and then smirks as he scowls and does not immediately trash them (because however stupidly they’re decorated, he does actually like peppermint), but then seems fine to wait Peter out.

“I think we should just invite them over,” Peter finally says. “You’re right, trying to work around them will just attract more attention, and as we all saw last time, their lack of interest in our territory doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t indulge in a little alpha posturing. Let’s not leave that door open to them.”

“Invite them to the grave checks?” Laura says, looking dubiously at Peter.

Who sighs and looks for a moment as if he wishes he was working with better people. This is an expression he’s had for most of Derek’s life but Stiles’ influence shows in how Peter doesn’t expand on his look and just goes straight into the explanation. “No, Laura dear, I meant that we should tell them we need them out of the preserve, but also invite them to some social activity that will legitimately keep them busy and show them we’re not completely devoid of manners. As there are four of us, plus whatever betas you think have at least a baseline level of social skills.”

“Oh, well, then you should really wait till McCall is in town,” Cora says as she bangs in from the porch. She makes a face when Laura snarls at her, but backsteps so that she can shut the door properly. Then she comes up on Derek’s side and tries to swipe some of the candy canes. “We could just send them to help him at Deaton’s with all the puppies and kittens.”

“Scott and Allison are both up in Washington, there’s some Argent thing he’s helping her and Chris with,” Laura says. Then raises her hand when Peter opens his mouth. “No, not another Gerard, or else do you think Melissa would’ve stayed behind? I think it’s just some pack they’re actually trying to negotiate with, and they wanted some alpha muscle to help.”

“Well, why can’t we just take them to the clinic anyway?” Derek asks. “Last I checked, Deaton was our Emissary. We don’t need Scott to go hang out with him.”

“Good point, Derek, and the clinic is nicely out of the way,” Peter says as he relaxes. “I’m glad you’re taking ownership of your assignment.”

Cora snickers as Derek blinks, reviews the last minute or so, and then grimaces.

“You’re helping him,” Laura says to Cora, and then raises her brows when Cora’s expression immediately shifts to pissed-off. “What, seriously? You think Peter and me are gonna let you check a grave, after that Halloween dare with Isaac? Besides, you’re the one who should know all the good local spots these days, with all your side-hustles. Just keep them busy and then come home for dinner—can you just please do that? Both of you?”

Well, to be honest, this isn’t the worst way to spend some time in Beacon Hills, Derek thinks. “Fine, okay, we’ll play tour guide. This just better not end in you trying to get us to spy on Parrish.”

“Look, Derek, I can turn off the stalker when I want to, unlike some people in this room,” Cora scoffs. “You want us to show the out-of-towners how Beacon Hills does it? Fine, consider it done.”

Chapter Text

As Athelstan tightens the ropes, two of them draw up against the folds of Lagertha’s labia, gently stretching them apart and letting a slight touch of air into her. It’s no more than a thought, that touch, but it triggers a slow cascade of pleasant sensations throughout the rest of her body. She rocks herself against the bed, pulling the ropes over her on her own and rumbling in her throat, and Athelstan immediately stops.

“Too much?” he says.

“No, that is a noise to encourage,” Ragnar says to him, from where Ragnar’s half-curled against Athelstan’s back with chin hooked over Athelstan’s shoulder.

Athelstan’s shoulders relax but he still waits for Lagertha to shake off her lazy haze and confirm for herself. “No,” she says, trying not to show too much teeth as she smiles. “Not too much. You can do more.”

“Ah, well, the idea’s actually not to bring you all the way off,” Athelstan mutters, though he doesn’t protest when she reaches down and tugs at the cord he’s holding to keep the tension in it. He flushes but ties the knot off there, then slides his finger under it. “Though if you really do want to wear it outside of the house, you don’t want it chafing…”

“No, that would not encourage things,” Ragnar agrees, as he nuzzles up the side of Athelstan’s neck. His hands start to slide down from Athelstan’s waist, only to jerk back in place as Athelstan clucks his tongue. He looks at Lagertha, restless and hungry, and then closes his eyes as he presses his forehead against the side of Athelstan’s face. “But before we go out, we need to finish bringing you off, yes? So you do not accidentally encourage the tentacles from the sky during your experiment?”

“I’m starting to think you just want to take back what you said,” Athelstan mutters. He pulls his finger out from under the rope, but then runs his hands down a few of the cords, testing tension and tendency to move, even though Lagertha could simply cut them with a claw or snap them by shifting at any time. When he gets to Lagertha’s sex, he slides his fingers on the ropes, not along them as he could, and could so easily dip into her at the same time. “You’re the one who said this looked too complicated and you just wanted to stick with the cage—”

Ragnar smiles, his eyes still closed. “Did I say that?”

“You did,” Lagertha says, and when he slits one eye open to look at her, disgruntled, she smiles back at him. Then pushes herself up on her elbows, letting her knees fall open; the change in position pulls the ropes wide against her labia, opening her even more. “And you do need to begin, Athelstan, or we are going to be late for your appointment.”

Athelstan ducks his head, still shy about his own needs even though he has no shame about tending to those of others. But he wants to stay out of trouble with the locals, their lovely scientist, and so he moves forward as well, letting Lagertha reach for his head with her hands.

She pulls him into a kiss, cradling his head till she can feel him soften into it—a little difficult because Ragnar, overenthusiastic as always, crowds up against him—and then stroking her hands along the tops of his shoulders. Peeling back his shirt a little at a time, till she’s bared him enough for him to shrug out of his sleeves and then crawl over her, hands dropping to cup her breasts. Then to round them against his palms, as ropes tug across her belly and between her thighs and a strange, almost chilly feeling shivers up her back. It’s exciting and yet at the same time it drags at her, like extra hands pushing her down as she tries to rise.

“Oh, is that—did you feel it? What’s it like?” Athelstan asks, sensing something and pulling away from her. He’s concerned till she kisses him again, bringing her knees up to trap Ragnar’s arms against his sides. “I’m told it can be very subtle—”

“I feel it,” Lagertha says, as that sensation goes through her again, pleasant but undeniably a tamping-down of her arousal. She catches Ragnar’s eye again, as he fits his face against the back of Athelstan’s neck, and then glances down between her legs.

Ragnar’s brows arch but he already has his hands dipped between her and Athelstan, and his fingers need only flex out to catch the cords. He hooks them with his fingertips, teasing in a way that Athelstan had not been, and then tugs one, then the other, as Lagertha concentrates on the feeling: the way her clit tightens and tingling streaks try to push down into her thighs, only for them to suddenly dissolve as the cords rub up against her. It is not painful but it is very—firm, she thinks.

“I think it does what the book says it will do,” she says, as Athelstan continues to watch her. One of Ragnar’s fingers brushes at her folds, but as she starts to shiver at the touch, the man pulls a cord and smothers that at the root; he grins at her when her eyes flick to him, grins and then pulls his hands back to dip them into the waist of Athelstan’s pants. “I will not come.”

“Oh, good, I thought this looked much less—well, medieval than the other options they have for women, but—” Athelstan mumbles a few more words as Lagertha kisses him a third time.

This time she lies back down and pulls him with her, so that he doesn’t spend any more time fussing with the ropework. She studied the book alongside him and the pattern is correct, and he has tied it well, and he can stop worrying about her and start taking some satisfaction out of it. In this Ragnar is helpful, leaning on Athelstan from the top and keeping the man from moving away until they’d stripped him of his clothes.

Ragnar is a little less helpful when it comes to Athelstan entering her. That cage on his cock doesn’t stop Ragnar from being too hard and too fast, pushing Athelstan so that he clearly loses his balance and can only rely on them to keep him upright, and whenever Athelstan feels off-balance he immediately digs into place. He knows they’re hard for him to hurt, but even so, he’s always going to choose the option that reduces the risk he will in the first place.

“I don’t know if I should,” Athelstan says as he shakes off Ragnar’s hands and starts to push out from between Lagertha’s legs. “The ropes—”

“Are not in the way, not as you have worked them,” Lagertha says as she twists after him. She gives Ragnar a hard shoulder out of the way, since he can take it and should, and then runs her hand more softly along Athelstan’s side.

When Athelstan stops, she slides up against him, taking his hand and drawing it between her legs. He chews his lip but feels over the cords with her, pushing them aside and then rubbing just his fingertips into her. The knuckle of his thumb nudges up against her clit and Lagertha arches into the resulting spark of pleasure, only to blink when it crests much earlier than she’d expected.

“Oh, it’s catching you,” Athelstan says, reading her face. His fingers slow again. “It—does it bot—”

It does, but not in the way that makes her want to stop this. “No,” she tells him, and pushes his fingers deeper into her. “No, keep—keep—”

“You can ride him till his fingers break, my love, but I do not think you will be able to find satisfaction,” Ragnar says, half-sympathetic, half-gloating, as he sidles up on Lagertha’s other side. He gasps into the elbow she jabs into his gut, then grins up at Athelstan as the other man sighs and pulls his fingers out of Lagertha’s grip.

“He’s right,” Athelstan says. “That—that was the point. Though if you want me to take them off now—”

“No,” Lagertha says. She pauses, holding Athelstan’s gaze, and then shakes her head as she pulls herself a little closer to him. He eyes her but flips onto his back, and then settles against the bed as she straddles him, reaching under herself for his cock. “No, I said I wished to try this and so I will—I will try—try it—”

Athelstan’s brows knit together, but he doesn’t stop her. He also doesn’t let Ragnar distract him, though Ragnar’s licking at his throat again; Athelstan absently slides one hand down Ragnar’s belly and groin and then curls his fingers between the rings of the cock cage, that small motion making Ragnar groan and slump beside him. He watches as Lagertha parts the two ropes and then presses the head of his cock into her, both of them sucking their breath a little. Lagertha rocks herself experimentally and as before, the heat that starts to rise within her reaches an early crest and then dwindles to nothing. Not a sharp rebuke, not the way that the cage on Ragnar is, but it’s no less definitive.

It is frustrating, and keeps her head less clear than she was expecting, her anticipation always distracting her away from the man under her. She has to work to focus on Athelstan, to think about his cock within her and not about her body’s reaction to it, and in the end it’s Ragnar who finds the way, sliding his arm behind Lagertha and then working his hand under her buttocks to tease at Athelstan’s balls. Athelstan bucks sharply into it, then turns his head to kiss Ragnar, and the sight of the two of them makes the edge of Lagertha’s need recede even without the ropes’ magic.

Between them she and Ragnar draw Athelstan into a shuddering climax that way. And then she levers herself off, trembling a surprising amount considering her lack of orgasm, and Ragnar squirms himself down to lap at Athelstan’s cock. Gently at first, even before Lagertha seizes him by the hair, and then with increasing vigor as Athelstan shakes off the first climax and starts to harden for a second.

Lagertha climbs back up Athelstan and lets him mouth her breasts and nipples as Ragnar works him. The ropes take a little longer to cut off her arousal from that, she thinks, perhaps because they’re only crossing around her breasts and not over them.

“Yes, something along those lines,” Athelstan says once he’s caught his breath from their second round. He wipes some sweaty curls out of his face and then pulls over his laptop as if he means to show her. “If you think of sensation like a sound wave, and the ropes like deflectors—but do you honestly want to wear this till I’m done? It’ll be nearly the whole day, you know.”

“I will wear it till I do not want to, and then I will take them off,” Lagertha says.

Athelstan still looks a little uncertain, but he smiles when she snuggles up to him, smiles and nudges away the laptop. She’s about to kiss him when Ragnar snorts and then makes the bed bounce under them, jarring them apart, as he rolls off his legs off the edge.

“Always have to have things under your control, my love,” Ragnar says as he searches on the floor for something. He straightens up, jeans in hand, and then pauses as he looks at something in his lap. Then he takes his cock and pulls it out so that they can see where the precome has thickly coated the first few rings back from the cock head. Ragnar wipes the rings off with his finger as he gives Athelstan a conspiratorial look. “Lagertha never truly lets anyone else rule her.”

“Where you like to pretend that others can rule you, only so that you can trick them into doing what you want,” Lagertha says, kicking a fold of the sheets at Ragnar. “You can take that off if you want, too.”

“Ah, I could, but it’s more fun if I wait for him, hmmm?” Ragnar says, glancing at Athelstan.

“It’s fun if you are having fun, and not if you’re having…some sort of argument,” Athelstan says, eyes flicking between them, uncomfortable but also not showing any signs of leaving them. Not until Ragnar grimaces and Lagertha puts her hand on Athelstan’s shoulder, and even then Athelstan just sighs and flips open his laptop. “Denying yourselves isn’t actually necessary for managing my little issue, I do want that to be clear.”

“It’s clear,” Ragnar says, before Lagertha can. Then he dips his head and tilts it towards her when Athelstan looks up.

She can only nod as well, although when Athelstan looks again at the laptop and then yelps at the time, Lagertha lets the other man hurry off into the shower so she can slide across the bed and grip Ragnar by the shoulder. She is also pressing up against his back and she can see how he enjoys her breasts rubbing up against him, how that sends a little shiver down his torso into his cock that he’s still holding, but it’s not entirely for fun.

“You are being difficult,” she says in Norwegian.

“I am not,” Ragnar says, turning wide blue eyes to her. Then he flicks them down her body, lingering on this and that rope. “You are being very…interesting, finding your way to do what I am doing. I thought you didn’t like to do what others do either.”

“You are not at your best when you are being jealous,” Lagertha tells him. “Are you so bored already? We have an entire day without him, and we will have to keep ourselves busy. Without making trouble.”

Ragnar starts to say something, only to pause and look at her again. His eyes dip to the first rope and then he suddenly smiles at her, not his empty grin but that warm one, the one that cuts so deeply she doesn’t feel the pain until he’s left her. “Oh, I see, this is the sudden interest in ropes. You should have told me, I would have let you tie them over me.”

“And have made it into your game,” Lagertha says. She smiles as she does, because she would have enjoyed it and Ragnar knows that, but then she pushes his head away as she gets off the bed, because if she’d preferred that she would have said so.

He knows that as well, and there is still that slight edge in the way that he looks after her. Two years reunited and the naked blades still lie here and there between them, though these days they at least both see them and don’t pretend that they didn’t put them there themselves.

Ragnar bares his teeth at her, but his feet are already pointed towards the bathroom, where Athelstan is scuffing about in the shower and mumbling to himself, probably trying to find bottles with soap in his eyes again. Lagertha hears a sharper scuff and then a muffled grunt of pain and Ragnar steps across Lagertha’s path, making himself first across the threshold. Which is him, but…it is also in service of someone besides himself, and this is more palatable.

But this is why they will need the distractions, Lagertha thinks as she retrieves her clothing from the floor. Before Athelstan, they had had their pack’s enemies and that had not quite been enough. Now, with him, they do—but they will not have him today. And Lagertha is an alpha and a woman, and both are more than used to fending for themselves, but…

She straightens up, bunching her clothes to her chest, and the whisper of the ropes around her makes her stop for a moment. She brushes one hand down her left side, testing them, and then rolls her shoulders and hips back into their tension. This can work, she thinks.

* * *

It is not so cold in northern California as it is in Norway, but the cold here has a dampness to it that inveigles itself under sweaters and jeans and then settles in a clammy layer against the skin, which is harder to ignore than a dry chill would be. It’s also harder to ignore than the ropes are, as Lagertha and Ragnar walk Athelstan to the meeting point.

“Ah, we have the locals,” Ragnar says, lengthening his stride as the smell of other werewolves floats towards them.

Athelstan frowns. “You mean their pack? I don’t remember getting a message—did you get one? Oh, is this—er, is there some sort of negotiation you need to have?”

“We did not receive any message,” Lagertha says, also frowning. These are the betas, not the alphas, but since the Einar incident both they and the local pack have been very strictly sticking to the rules for visiting in another’s territory, and an advance message would be standard. “But only one is local. The other is Stiles’…is one of his.”

Ragnar flicks a glance at her; they haven’t yet decided how to read the structure of the secondary Hale pack and he likes to think this is some sort of argument they’re having, rather than Lagertha simply wanting more facts before she makes up her mind. “Yes, Derek. The other is his little sister.”

“Oh, right, perhaps we’ve only caught them on their way to something,” Athelstan says, though he’s still trying to check his phone for last-minute messages. “Stiles mentioned he doesn’t have his own car and Derek or Peter usually drives him…”

At that point Stiles hails them, then comes out ahead of his two flanking companions. Stiles is a strange one, with the same skin-tingling trail of eldritch magic around him as Athelstan but with considerably more ease in his manner. He doesn’t seem malevolent and certainly is clearer about his positions than his werewolf partners, by simple virtue of constantly explaining his feelings without being asked, but anyone with that much unconscious confidence is someone to watch.

Not, Lagertha reminds Ragnar with an arched brow, someone to threaten. Ragnar smiles at her and leans back, then turns a glossier version of the same smile upon Derek, who has stepped up between him and Stiles as Stiles and Athelstan, already deeply engaged in work discussions, start to move towards the Nemeton. “Hello,” Ragnar says, with a mocking dip of the head. “We were not expecting you.”

“Yeah, it was kind of a last-minute…anyway, our pack needs to handle some pack matters in the preserve today, and we know they’re going to be busy with their stuff all day,” Derek says, with a hike of his chin over his shoulder to indicate Stiles and Athelstan. His posture is braced in preparation but not nearly as aggressive as that of his sister, all but bouncing on her heels at his shoulder. “So I think your options are either hang out in your cabin or come into town.”

“Are those our only options?” Ragnar says, head still dipped and now tilting to the side as he swings his body around.

“Yeah,” says Cora, only to grab at her ribs and glower at Derek.

Who glowers back at her, then grimaces and cracks his head as he turns back. His eyes go first to Ragnar, but then, interestingly, slide to Lagertha. “Look, we really don’t want to make a big deal out of it, and we know it’ll be boring just sitting around. There’s a couple things in town. Which isn’t an invitation to go kill anybody, it’s not that kind of thing.”

“I think that might be boring as well,” Ragnar mutters, though he’s straightening himself. Then he pauses to lean out and wave as Athelstan calls out to them. He and Lagertha both call back that they’re fine and to go to work, and then he raises his brows at Cora. “Yes?”

“What? Nothing,” Cora says. Then she jerks her head in almost an attempt at her brother’s throat, when he looks at her. “Hey, it’s cool, it’s almost as sickeningly cute as you and Peter and Stiles, and so far seems like at least a fifty percent less chance of tentacles, even with whatever Athelstan’s problem in his pants is.”

Lagertha snarls low in her throat and an echoing rumble comes from Ragnar. The combination is enough to make both Hale werewolves stiffen; Derek also reaches out and shoves Cora behind him, though then his eyes flick to the sky instead of staying on Ragnar and Lagertha. “My sister says asshole things,” he mutters. “Don’t take it personally, she does this to everyone.”

“Yes, she just said so about you too,” Ragnar says.

Derek’s eyes narrow briefly as he looks at Ragnar, and he has to use a visible effort to not respond in kind. “Anyway, we’re saying we’ve got pack matters in the woods and you’re not pack. We’re asking if we can help get you something else to do besides…whatever you usually do when Athelstan’s working.”

“We can go to town,” Lagertha says, before Ragnar is tempted to provoke anything out of this.

Which is not his usual role between them, Ragnar says with an exaggerated little look of astonishment at her. Then he drops his faces and simply shrugs. “The hunting here is not interesting,” he says to Derek. “I think we are willing to hear what you have in town.”

“Not interesting?” Cora mutters.

“If you’re talking about just the deer, he’s right, so shut up,” Derek mutters back to her, and then he gestures towards the carpark. “Okay, so—we never got around to formally introducing our Emissary. Laura’s busy but if you want to just follow me and get that over with—”

“Very fun,” Ragnar says dryly. Then he perks up as something occurs to him. “Are we going to this clinic of his? Will we see the dogs?”

“…so puppies are a thing for him?” Cora says, eyeing him. She’s still sticking close to her brother, but oddly, seems to be addressing Lagertha.

“I do not think we object to puppies,” Lagertha tells her, and then she steps over to Ragnar’s side and takes his arm. He slides a look down his shoulder at her and she smiles up at him, as she digs her fingers into the soft part of his elbow. “We would appreciate meeting Dr. Deaton.”

Cora starts. Derek hits her arm with the back of his hand, then mutters about Miskatonic files and of course they’ve read through them. “Great, so we’ll start there, and if you feel like playing with puppies, I guess we can do that—”

“Puppies are not a thing for Derek,” Cora announces.

Who stares at her in disbelief till they reach the edge of the path and he has to look down to make sure he doesn’t trip stepping off the curb onto the parking lot. “Why not?” Ragnar wonders aloud, and for a second Derek looks like he might just suggest something else.

“Bad experience in high school, let’s leave it at that,” Derek instead says, and then pulls a set of keys out of his coat pocket. “Okay, that’s my car, which one is—”

“We have one rental and it must stay with Athelstan,” Ragnar says. When Derek and Cora look at him, Ragnar gestures with genuine chagrin, though they would not know that. “It is a Miskatonic car and the key only works with him.”

Derek does seem to understand that and he stares for a moment at his car in the parking lot, looking as if he is mentally determining who to fault for this bad luck. But when his sister leans over and tries to whisper to him, he shrugs her off and then resettles his shoulders under his coat. “Okay,” he says. “I guess I can…give you a ride.”

Chapter Text

“I thought you said they made a Costco run,” Cora hisses at Derek. “How do you make a Costco run without a car? Did they really make one or did you and Laura just make that up?”

“Why would I make that—and would you shut up already, they’re alphas, it’s not like they can’t hear you,” Derek says as he jerks open the driver’s side door. He starts to get in, then sighs and pulls his head out and just takes his phone out. “Hang on a second, I need to deactivate some stuff.”

The Lothbroks at least are politely ignoring all of the stupid shit that’s been coming out of Cora’s mouth since Laura and Peter stuck Derek with her—and Derek’s definitely sure that that’s what happened at this point—and they stop a couple yards back from the car. When Derek hits ‘play’ on the video on his phone, they don’t look thrown by the sudden flare of yellow and white sigils all over Derek’s car, but Lagertha does look interested by the phone. “You recorded him unlocking the car?” she asks.

“Yeah, because Derek doesn’t know how to pronounce all that ‘eldritch’ crap and he doesn’t want to accidentally end up in a cosmic horror black hole if he does it wrong,” Cora says.

Lagertha looks bemused by Cora’s equal-opportunity sniping, but still is way more interested in Derek’s phone. She leans over and nudges a furrowed-brow Ragnar. “We should do this. It would not take as long.”

“The words are difficult to say, and the consequences are very unpleasant,” Ragnar says, flashing a grin at Cora when she blinks incredulously at the two of them. Then Ragnar steps forward, nodding to Derek. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Derek says, as Ragnar and Lagertha pile into the backseat.

Cora keeps blinking at them as she pokes Derek in the hip. “You’re really gonna drive with them behind you like that?”

“Just shut up and get into the car,” Derek mutters, and when she makes an irritated noise, he growls at her till she goes around to the other side and gets in.

He’s not going to lie, having two alphas at his back does make his shoulders tense up as he gets behind the wheel, but it’s not like they really have other choices. It’s broad daylight, and anyway, tracking each other as they cross through the town on foot just is going to bring out more territorial instincts and they’re trying to not do that right now. It’s just a ten-minute drive over, and if the Lothbroks try anything, Derek’s going to tell Peter and Laura it was their idea if he has to come back from the grave to do it.

Derek stops for a second, staring at the dashboard as Cora slouches in shotgun, frantically texting probably all her packmates about how her siblings are making her die while babysitting the out-of-towner alphas. He’s not looking in the rearview mirror, but he can hear and smell and the Lothbroks’ heartbeats aren’t ramping up like they should be if they were going to start anything, nor do they smell like that either. And yeah, they’re all werewolves and they all know how this could go, but so far it is not, and if it does…honestly, before Derek can get to Peter and Laura, Stiles probably would have gotten Miskatonic to chew the Lothbroks up and spit them into an actual cosmic horror black hole, no matter how cool Athelstan’s papers on sentient mosses are.

This is still a little weird to realize, Derek has to admit, but at this point, he does know he can count on Stiles. “Okay, put your seatbelts on,” he says, as he pushes himself back and then reaches for the ignition.

“Seatbelts?” Ragnar repeats. “We are…werewolves?”

“Yeah, we know, but the local cops here are kind of on-off about traffic laws and whether they want to cram them down our throats, and I thought you got a bunch of rules about doing what we tell you,” Cora says, her head still buried in her phone.

“Oh, yes,” Ragnar says, and then there’s the zippy noise and the click as he puts his seatbelt on.

Of course that’s what makes Cora look up from her texting and then peer suspiciously into the backseat, as Lagertha also puts her seatbelt on. “This sheriff of yours has very interesting priorities.”

“Yeah, you really want to talk about that, you should sit down with Laura,” Derek says as he backs out of the space.

Lagertha seems to take that literally and lets the conversation drop. When Derek checks the rearview mirror, she and Ragnar are looking out the windows or at each other; they don’t take out their phones, though Derek’s seen them with those. They also don’t seem to mind just not talking to Derek and Cora—that would be fine with Derek but Cora’s getting increasingly antsy, shooting looks over as her texting speeds up. Three minutes in, Derek’s phone dings.

Derek looks at her and Cora makes pointed eyebrow motions. So he does not take his phone out, and then it dings again. He gives her a second look and this time she shrugs and then rolls her eyes, so at the next stop light he slips his phone out to check the lock screen. There’s her texts, but also one from Peter: Are there bodies yet?

If Derek doesn’t text Peter back, Peter’s going to assume Derek fucked up something. So he thumbs away the lock screen, texts no and then puts his phone back in his pocket. “So you checked out the local deer?”

Ragar swivels his head around to meet Derek’s gaze in the rearview mirror. “Yes, we…checked out these deer. They are very…easy.”

“Guess you automatically get difficulty points if you gotta climb a glacier to get your deer?” Cora says.

“We do not spend most of our time hunting anyway,” Lagertha says, before Derek can reach over and smack Cora. She tilts her head in the mirror. “Why do you ask?”

Derek shrugs. “Just wondering if things have been quiet around here. I’m not in all the time.”

“Way to make us look like a pack,” Cora says under her breath, like she hasn’t been deconstructing their relationship for the Lothbroks since the second they rolled up.

Lagertha and Ragnar haven’t missed a single beat of that, judging from the looks they’re giving Derek, but neither of them say anything. Which makes for a very tense last five minutes of driving time, and when Derek pulls into the clinic parking lot, Cora’s basically ready to claw off the door handle to get out of there, but it’s better than continuing to dump dirt into the hole their family rep is currently in.

Deaton’s been alerted to their visit and is standing out front, smiling off a patient carrying a dachshund that must have a death wish, since it wags its tail in Derek’s direction from its owner’s arms. Its owner is a lot smarter and keeps hold of the dog as they walk off to their car—well, aside from the long stare they give Ragnar’s head tattoos. Ragnar turns and stares back till Lagertha gives him a pointed shove in the back, making him step up with her to greet Deaton.

“The Lothbroks,” Deaton says, with a carefully calibrated nod and then, after they’ve returned the gesture, a small paper bag smelling of freshly-ground wolfsbane. “I’m Alan Deaton, and I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance. My apologies for not coming to your doorstep, but as it is leased to Miskatonic and we druids have to be mindful of them, I thought we might waive the usual formalities.”

All of them blink hard, and from where Derek is standing, Ragnar and Lagertha are doing it for the same reason as Derek: it’s taking them a second to remember which formalities Deaton is even talking about. Then Lagertha nods again, her smile warming a little. “Yes, that is sensible,” she says, accepting the bag with a bob of her head. “Besides, we are visitors here, and your alpha already met us in person. We take no offense.”

“Wonderful,” Deaton says, showing them into the clinic. He waves Ragnar and Lagertha through the ash-rail reception desk and then into the back, easily drawing them into conversation on how the ‘Nordic Druid Confederation’ is these days, or something like that.

“Okay, one, why didn’t we just make him do all the entertaining to start with, and two—two, why are you being an asshole?” Cora says, as Derek steps in front of the reception half-door before she can walk through it.

Derek stares at her. Which has never worked, ever, but not having to deal with Cora every day has actually taken a big chunk of pointless arguing out of his life and he’s just now realizing how much. And also how much he’s just not used to her anymore. “You’re the one who’s embarrassing us. What the hell is your problem? If this is another one of your issues with Laura, just work it out with her. Don’t deal with it by talking shit about us when you’re not trying to talk shit at literally the most patient alphas who’ve ever rolled into this town. They do know how to fight, Cora, and if they wanted to start something with you right now, I don’t know how I’m supposed to defend you.”

“Well, did I ask you to?” Cora snaps back at him.

No, but she’s his sister and his pack and he—he just stares at her for another second. Then shakes himself, because he can see where this is going. He always could see, even when it was leading him into some dumb divide-and-conquer tactic by whoever was trying to kill them that week, but for some reason he just never could keep his temper down long enough to do more than see how stupid this is.

Now he can see, and also he can feel it. “Look, you want to be that way, go find Laura,” Derek says, making a decision. “I’ll take care of them without you.”

Then he pulls out his phone and hits the app that shoots out the little metal probe attachment from the top. Derek steps back without taking his eyes off Cora, who’s looking at him like she’s wondering if it’s really her brother in there, and then uses the probe to nudge the half-door shut. And then he thumbs to the possession app Miskatonic’s Office of Student Relations just released, scans himself, and shows her the screen.

“Still me. Still telling you to stop pulling this juvy bullshit if you ever want to actually get some respect in this pack,” Derek says. He waits till Cora finally drags her eyes off his face and onto his phone, then lowers his arm. “Or maybe you don’t. If you’re just pissed we dragged you away from whatever fun you’re having with Erica and Boyd, fine, go do that, I don’t need you to co-babysit with me. Just stop acting like we’re shoving a taser to your head.”

“Well, that’s easy for you to say, you’re the one shacked up with Peter and the weirdo alien boy who actually made him dial back the psycho,” Cora shoots at him, but she’s definitely not putting her usual level of bite into it. She still seems blindsided.

Not that that makes Derek feel like going easy on her. “I don’t know if you noticed, Cora, but I’m also shacking up with Stiles,” he says, and then turns on his heel.

He hears her move around a little. Not towards either of the doors, just in place, and then she lets out a little pissed-off huff. Then she’s swiping on her phone again, but Derek decides he actually doesn’t care what version of the story is making it back to the rest of the pack here. Scott’s so far out of town that he can’t get back before somebody calls him, which either Derek or Stiles could do, and Laura’s as fed up with Cora as Derek is these days.

And yeah, actually, Peter is on Derek’s side these days. He’s not that much less a psycho even with Stiles around, but when it’s working for Derek he doesn’t really mind. Derek can probably just point out to him that keeping Cora with him would’ve been much more embarrassing for their family than telling her to fuck up, and at the very least, he’ll hold Laura off from yelling at Derek about it so he can do it himself, away from the rest of their family.

So Derek keeps on going, and walks into the middle of Deaton and the Lothbroks intently examining a box of cookies. “It’s from that,” Deaton explains, pointing towards a half-dismantled gift basket sitting on the other end of the table. “It appears the sheriff left it this morning. I let Laura know, of course, but since Alphas Ragnar and Lagertha do happen to be from the region—”

“You can drop the titles,” Ragnar says, as he sniffs at one cookie. Then he grins, mostly at Derek. “They sound very awkward in English.”

“The box says that these are made according to a family recipe, but I do not think any Norwegian would put…blackstrap molasses…in this,” Lagertha says, frowning. Then she turns to the basket. “On the other hand, the smoked salmon is Norwegian. The color is right.”

“The sheriff gave you a gift basket,” Derek says, still stuck on that part.

Deaton offers up a politely squeamish expression. “That is what the card says.”

Derek holds his hand out. Deaton flicks his eyes to the other two people in the room, starting to say something, but if he wanted to keep this away from the Lothbroks, he shouldn’t have started them on authenticating the damn food. Anyway, if this actually is a problem, it’s going to be a problem in town and not in the preserve, so Derek figures they’re still staying within Peter and Laura’s directions.

“I did check it over, as well as the basket, and nothing appears to be amiss,” Deaton says as he pulls a card out of the basket and then passes it to Derek. “Although…”

“Oh, are we checking for poisons and curses?” Ragnar says, as he pokes at the cookies. He’s pulled the plastic cylinder of them half-out of their box, though it still looks intact as he sheepishly pushes it back in.

“Not sure yet, and anyway, you want to have to file a report on this?” Derek says.

Ragnar seriously contemplates this for a moment. “Well, the form is very long,” he says, watching Derek sniff at the card. Then he winces, even though Lagertha’s not standing close enough to him to do anything. “But also you are hosts to us, and if there is a problem, of course we will offer help.”

“Yeah, thanks, but…smells like him,” Derek says, giving the card back to Deaton. “Did you see him drop it off?”

“No, but my receptionist was here and it was him,” Deaton says, and then pauses. “She did say that he seemed unusually cheerful. He even told her to let me know he appreciated all the work I’ve done for the town.”

Derek stares at Deaton.

“Are you meeting him in the woods?” Ragnar asks.

“What? No, that’s something else,” Derek says without thinking, and then grimaces.

“We are not trying to pry,” Lagertha says, and now she does move around to where she could elbow or step on a foot. Or stick claws into Ragnar’s thigh, from the way he’s eyeing where her hands are now. “But that is a very concerning expression you have.”

“Yeah…but look, whatever’s going on, it’s not going anywhere near the Nemeton. Trust me, Stiles made it really, really clear how bad it would be if they got interrupted in the middle of it,” Derek says. Although he is contemplating whether he should be interrupting what Peter and Laura are currently doing, because this is just…not what he’s supposed to be letting the Lothbroks see. And not just to keep up the Hale reputation but also just out of general keeping from getting to be a bigger mess principles. “Okay, clinic wasn’t a good idea.”

Deaton sighs. “I apologize, this really wasn’t my intention, but—”

“We saw the basket and we asked about it. We did not know either,” Lagertha says, as if she gets exactly what Derek’s trying to do.

Well, maybe she does. They’re both hard to read, she and Ragnar, but based on Derek’s interactions with them so far, she tends to be the one who appreciates how knowing too much can really fuck things up. “Yeah, look, I…think we should do something else,” Derek says. “I—I’m just going to make a couple calls, and then we’ll go…you have any coffee yet?”

“Yes,” Ragnar says. Then he shrugs, just as Lagertha shifts sharply beside him. “But we can have more. But—so there are no puppies?”

“Oh! No, of course you can still see the puppies,” Deaton says, and then he checks the time. “As a matter of fact, it’s just about feeding time if you’d like to help.”

“Okay, yeah, you do that and then can you maybe come back for a second?” Derek mutters as he takes his phone out. He looks up to see Deaton nodding, then sighs and pulls up Peter’s number. “Great, thanks.”

* * *

Peter’s apparently so deep into something that he’s actually letting Laura manage his phone, which does make Derek wonder for a second if they have two complications going on at the same time. “No, he really is just having a snitfit because this asshole he and Mom buried back in the day isn’t exactly where he left him. The body’s still here, bones just shifted because it’s downhill of where they leveled it out for the jogger path—you know, that curve just after the birdhouse stop?” Laura says. “Your thing’s the one that sounds legit.”

“Great,” Derek mutters.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Deaton says into Derek’s phone. He glances through the window in the closed door to his office at where Ragnar’s squatting ass is just sticking out from the hallway. “I’ve also made a few calls to some other local businesses who have reasons to feel similarly to us, and they’ve received gift baskets from the sheriff as well. They’ve offered to bring them by so that we can compare and do any spellcasting that seems necessary.”

Laura lets out a long, dragging sigh. “Yeah, we probably should. I mean, Melissa did say she was going to keep an eye on this, but that was definitely pre-gift basket…did she get one?”

“I’m not sure. I did call her office, but they told me that she’s actually off today—come to think of it, I believe she mentioned that to us as well,” Deaton says. “She and Braeden were going to go on some sort of girls’ trip to the outlet mall, if I remember correctly.”

“Post-Christmas sales,” Derek says, grimacing as he remembers those dark couple years when Laura was really trying to push the ‘alpha but also normal girl!’ impression on anyone and everyone, including all the people who really didn’t want to get to know her anyway.

“You think Braeden’s into that kind of thing?” Laura says skeptically. Then her voice fades out as she and Peter argue; Peter’s words can’t be made out but the tone comes through loud and clear, and it’s him in a way that no shapeshifter Derek’s ever met has been able to replicate. Something about the sheer relish he takes in being dismissive of their ideas. And then Laura comes back on, sounding huffier. “Okay, whatever, it’s not like I care if Braeden’s suddenly gunning for Most Improved Socialite of the Year award. Anyway, the point is that Melissa’s off, and while I’m going try and call her right after this, we probably have a couple hours before she gets back into town.”

Deaton nods and checks something on his phone. “I might be able to clear some appointments in the afternoon, but I don’t think I’ll be able to completely free myself. That also might attract attention from the sheriff.”

“Whoa, wait, did I say something about stalking him?” Laura says. “Not what I said. Just…just get the baskets and see if there’s any other weird behavior, but don’t actually go after him. He’s still the sheriff, unless Derek wants to get hold of Stiles and work this through Stiles’ dad, and I don’t think he’s in town either.”

Derek’s not about to call Stiles for this even if Stiles wasn’t tied up in an esoteric magic ritual with a guy who accidentally opens wormholes when he’s sexually frustrated and/or flustered, which seems to be most of the time. Thankfully, Peter apparently corrects Laura on that because she lets out an annoyed noise.

“Okay, fine! We’re not going to bother him!” she calls. Then she lets out another annoyed noise. “Derek, Peter and I will drive in after we finish this one and go find the sheriff and see for ourselves. Just keep the Lothbroks away from it and make sure Cora doesn’t sic the rest of the pack on it.”

“Are you and her having another fight?” Derek asks.

Laura’s silent for a second. “What’d she do?”

“She’s being her, just now in front of a couple visiting alphas,” Derek mutters. Just then Deaton notices something and gestures that he’s going to go back out and down the hall to the Lothbroks. Derek nods and then cups his hand over his phone till the door’s shut and the privacy magic spell is back on. “Nothing’s happened, but she probably has already complained about me to everyone else.”

“Well, honestly, so long as she just keeps it to complaining, because I really can’t deal with her bullshit today—no, Peter, you don’t need to talk to her,” Laura snaps. “All that does is make her scared of you, it doesn’t make her listen to me or Derek any more than she was doing before, and you don’t live here now.”

“You’re fighting and you just dumped her on me to get her away from you, so now she’s taking it out on me,” Derek says.

Laura lets out a louder version of her annoyed growl, and then it sounds like she crunches over some leaves. “Derek, listen. I am genuinely happy that you’ve finally moved on from your trauma here and gotten yourself a stable home life. So either you just enjoy that and shut up, or if you’re going to commentate what’s going on here, you actually pitch in, okay? Just keep her busy.”

Derek opens his mouth, then shuts it. If he argues anymore, she’s probably going to realize that Cora’s not even with him. “Fine. Whatever.”

“Thanks,” Laura says tersely, before hanging up.

Derek presses his lips together, looking at his phone. He starts to call Cora, then changes his mind and just texts her to try not to piss anyone off since he and the Lothbroks are going to be leaving the clinic soon. Then he turns his back on the gift basket and braces himself to go back to being the local tour guide.

When Derek leaves Deaton’s office, he hears excited dog noises and Ragnar sort of croon-growling in Norwegian, so he takes a moment to try and straighten out his expression from the scowl he can feel into something marginally more neutral. Which goes to hell the second that Ragnar steps out of the hall, an armful of puppies against his chest, and Derek instinctively growls.

The puppies whine and cringe, while Lagertha gives Derek an oddly motherly look of disapproval. Ragnar looks surprised, but when Deaton offers, he just shrugs and offloads the puppies like they’re so many unwanted boxes, and never mind that they’re all still turning their heads after him. Lagertha looks kind of disapproving of that too, though that flicks to resignation and then to smooth blankness when she realizes she’s seeing.

“You have finished your call?” Ragnar says.

“Yeah, I just—sorry,” Derek says as his phone audibly pings, because he forgot to stick it back on silent. “One second.”

Shrugging, Ragnar hops up onto a nearby examining table. He doesn’t even twitch his head towards the puppies’ continuing whimpers, though Lagertha glances that way. He does twitch when she murmurs something in Norwegian, both of them smiling a bit tensely the whole time; Derek’s Norwegian is not quite good enough to understand what slang term she’s using but it’s something about repeating some kind of relationship and Ragnar clearly doesn’t appreciate the comparison.

Anyway, Derek’s text is from Peter: Watch the alphas, leave your sisters alone. Don’t chew till you choke or it’ll end up in Stiles’ lap.

Which is a little better than Derek usually expects from Peter, but it still sounds like the man’s irritated with him and Derek is actually doing what he’s been told to do. He presses his lips together, then just snaps off a yeah i know before giving the Lothbroks a nod. “Okay, let’s go.”

“If they have Danishes, that would be appreciated,” Lagertha says. Then cocks her head when Derek pauses. “Are we not still finding coffee?”

Actually, for a second there, Derek had completely forgotten where he was supposed to take them. And damn it, but he hasn’t lived here in a while, and his visits back have a pretty limited rotation. He has to take a second to think about where it makes sense to go at this time of day and with the people he doesn’t want to see. “Right, okay, so…wait, we can’t go there this time, cops like to hang out at that one…okay. Food and coffee, right.”

Derek gestures for them to go out ahead of him. Deaton’s already up front, moving the ash-rail half-door, but once the Lothbroks pass through, Deaton taps Derek’s arm. “My nurse just came in, and she says she passed Cora on the sidewalk,” Deaton says. “Your sister said she was going to get something but would be right back. Do you want me to update her on the baskets?”

“What—no. No, just text Laura if you find anything. I let her know and she’ll be watching out for any messages, and I have to stay with them,” Derek says, nodding at the Lothbroks. “Thanks, Alan.”

“Of course,” Deaton says, being probably the least problematic person Derek’s going to deal with today.

All he has to do is get them coffee, Derek tells himself as he walks out to the car. Coffee and Danishes. This isn’t that hard.

Chapter Text

“My love, we are here because they cannot find any better way to keep us out of the way,” Ragnar says under his breath as he props up his legs on one of the two unused chairs of their booth. Their host Derek is still waiting at the counter for their drinks but he glances over, then makes an effort to not curl his lip at them. “But I think this makes them more nervous about us, not less.”

Lagertha tucks her legs neatly under their table, and then suppresses her own sigh when the heavy weight of Ragnar’s arm drapes across her shoulders. It tugs the ropes up her front and although the feeling is not painful, the pull of the cords between her legs makes her squeeze her thighs together without thinking. “I think you are enjoying this more than if they had simply left us in the cabin and patrolled their borders where we could see,” she says.

And then, as Ragnar’s eyes flick down into her lap, Lagertha slides her hand over his thigh and crooks her wrist so she can just press the bend of it against not his cock, but one of the rings binding it. Ragnar’s shirt is not long enough for the tails to hide her hand, but their corner is a quiet corner and aside from Derek, no one else in the coffeeshop should have the senses to notice Ragnar’s low growl.

“Well, if we cannot play together, why do we still chase after one another?” Ragnar says, voice slightly strained, but still cheerful. He grins as across the room, Derek’s nostrils flare out and Derek raises one hand to rub at them. “I did not think you were still so interested in such things, with me.”

Lagertha leans her head against the wall and then tilts it so that she can just see Ragnar as a bright blue eye and the sharp outline of a face. Sometimes she thinks that this is the best way to see him. “He understands Norwegian, my love,” she reminds Ragnar.

“Not all of it,” Ragnar tells her, but he takes his feet off the chair, letting them instead sprawl between the chair’s legs. She nods and moves her hand, only for Ragnar to catch her wrist. He doesn’t close his fingers tightly around it, only enough to keep her from fully withdrawing it; to anyone who’s looking they probably only look as if they’re holding hands against his waist, like lovers would. “Why the temper? Are you really so interested in their local problems?”

“Am I having a temper? Or are you hoping that I will, so that no one notices your moods?” Lagertha asks dryly.

Ragnar cocks his head, but before he can reply, the barista pushes a tray across the counter to Derek. Who hesitates and sets his shoulders, then turns to face them; he’s not the type who Lagertha would have expected to have prudish tendencies, especially in a werewolf with the underlying scents he himself carries. But the American packs are a little strange sometimes, Lagertha remembers Bjorn telling her after he’d returned from his road trip. All the space that they have seems to make them crave more isolation rather than less. This would explain how awkward they sometimes seem about interacting outside of their packmates, even with the rules clearly outlined for all of them.

“Here,” Derek mutters, putting the tray down on the table.

He pulls out his chair and takes his cup before they’ve reached for theirs, but then waits for them to pick up their pastries first. Ragnar stretches out one arm and puts his fingers on his favored one, but then pauses, deliberately waiting till Derek lets out an irritated sigh. Then he lifts his cup. “They have no sugar?”

“It’s over by the—you do it yourself. Usually,” Derek says, as his face creases in irritation again. He pushes himself back in his chair, but then frowns as Ragnar shrugs himself onto his feet and then strolls over to the shelf in the corner where there’s a squeeze bottle of simple syrup alongside tall metal pitchers smelling of cow’s milk and almonds. He starts to relax again, only to catch himself as his eyes cross Lagertha. “Do you—”

“No, I prefer mine without,” Lagertha says, as across the room, Ragnar’s fingers pause on the squeeze bottle. “But I like that you have asked me, before you assume.”

The curve of Ragnar’s smile is charming, over the sharp white teeth that he just allows to be glimpsed. He adds an unhealthy amount of sugar to his coffee, like he always has, and then carries the bottle back with him. He does bring the cow’s milk for Lagertha, setting it down and then picking up his pastry.

“So your sister does not like coffee?” Ragnar asks. And then smiles again, when Lagertha digs her fingers into his thigh.

He likes such things sometimes—likes how he can drive her to them. They are not alone, she thinks, looking at the way Derek is warily studying them, and pulls her hand up to the table so that she can cradle her pastry between them. “I am sorry that she still does not think we will keep our word,” Lagertha says.

Derek blinks hard. Then almost lets a sarcastic chuckle slip out, as he finally picks up the last pastry. “Cora’s not your fault,” he says, and then grimaces. “I mean, don’t worry about her—she just had to go run a last-minute errand.”

“Good. Because we do keep our word, and we are not here for trouble,” Lagertha tells him.

“Great,” Derek mutters.

And then they sit and look at each other. Ragnar eats his pastry, in between gulps of coffee and the occasional toothed smile at someone who is foolish enough to glance over at their table, while Derek continues to frown but does not introduce any more topics of conversation.

Lagertha could do this work for the both of them. Ragnar glances at her twice, once as if he is surprised she is not taking issue with the silence at their table, and once as if he wishes she would. Both times stir a curl of irritation deep within her, enough so that she finds herself deliberately turning away from him, even as a sly half-smile spreads over his face and hints of lust start to tinge his scent.

But when she shifts her position, the ropes beneath her clothing…they are not quite enough to make her forget her frustration with him, but they distract her enough to make her change her mind and hold her tongue. The magic in them doesn’t restrain anything but her arousal and it’s only the friction of the cords, but even so—it’s something to think about that does not have to do with what Ragnar expects of her, and what she has told him she will no longer do for him. Which he knows, but eternally hopeful as he is, he will always wish anyway.

“Look,” Derek finally says, with an oddly constricted tone. When Lagertha and Ragnar look up at him, he is leaning back in his seat, almost as if he’s watching the shop doorway for an expected arrival. This also puts him into the draft that runs the length of the place. “I don’t want to be rude, but…if you need to go back to your place, I can take you.”

“But I thought we were not permitted into the woods today,” Lagertha says.

“Yeah. I mean, you can go, it’s just we’re—in the middle of a pack thing, but—” Derek abruptly wrenches his head around to stare at her “—okay, fine, you smell like—I thought it was Athelstan who had to have sex all the time, not you two.”

“That is true,” Ragnar says, grinning at the other man. “But that is no reason to not want it, no?”

Derek presses his lips together. “Is this a Norwegian pack thing? If you can’t fight, you’re going to drive people crazy with the smell? Because I’m good, thanks. It’s just I’m trying to eat here.”

“So this smell puts your stomach off,” Lagertha says, genuinely surprised. “This is not what we smell on you.”

“Seriously—” Derek does not blush like most would, but only looks more exasperated. He fingers his half-eaten pastry, then shoves it away from him. After a second, he puts his coffee cup next to it; from the strength of the aroma from it, he still has more than two-thirds of a cup. “If we’re going to go there, okay, I am good. Just not with you. And smelling you doesn’t change who I actually want, so don’t waste your time trying to tell me it does. I’m so sick of those kinds of games.”

Ragnar blinks and then slouches down in the booth. He picks up a napkin and absently wipes at his mouth. “This is an American pack thing? This idea that…you should trick someone into sex that they do not want?”

“No, I think it’s just a psycho thing and…okay, maybe it is an American thing,” Derek mutters, looking at them. “Since it doesn’t sound like you’ve run into that kind of psycho.”

“I would not say that,” Lagertha says, and then ignores the way that Ragnar tenses next to her. She drinks more of her coffee, and when the warmth of it begins to spread out from her gut, she concentrates on the bitterness of it on her tongue. “At any rate, this is not a game we are trying to play with you.”

“Only with each other,” Ragnar mutters under his breath, in Norwegian. His scent is starting to clear, and when he slouches he swings his knees so that he isn’t squeezing his caged cock between his thighs. Then he tips his head at their wary host and returns to English. “It has nothing to do with you. But we are—we are rude. It has been a while since we have been guests, and it was not because we were…were intending something. This is a little hard to explain—”

“It is not so hard, I think, only it is hard to swallow your pride,” Lagertha says, and Ragnar shrugs and smiles and then tilts his head to allow her to take over the conversation. “We are alphas. We cannot help feeling as if we should interfere, even if it is truly what we do not want.”

She half-expects Derek to merely continue to scowl and to wrinkle up his nose at the smell of them—and this would be exceedingly polite of him. An alpha admitting weakness is a moment to be seized upon, while two alphas doing so is something laughable, to most of their kind. But Derek, scowling though he is, seems warier than this. He shifts backward in his chair, his body unconsciously turned so that he could slide out of both of their lunging ranges as easily as he could jump over the table at them. And he looks at them as if, confusing as he finds them, he does think there is something here to understand, rather than to mock.

His family is a little strange this way, all of them—even the alpha, Laura, acts as if she’s more used to the failure to understand than the failure to overcome. The Miskatonic files Athelstan’s shared with Lagertha and Ragnar detail a town that was full of unusual happenings even before the Cthulhic exposure drew people like Athelstan to it, but it’s still a rare way to adapt to such things.

“Well, I…appreciate you’re trying not to,” Derek finally says. He presses his lips together again, his hand going to the pocket with his phone and then moving away. “I get we’re not exactly doing a great job of pretending there’s nothing to see here.”

“I did not think you were doing that at all,” Lagertha has to tell him, and she is not flirting with him when she smiles. He’s very young to be showing such caution, she thinks; Bjorn is a decade older than him and is still far less observant. “You told us that there is something going on, and that you do not want to talk about it. You even sent your younger sister away when she wasn’t able to keep her words to herself.”

“Oh, Cora—that was more because she was just being—” Derek grimaces but does not return to his earlier excuse about the errand “—I don’t know what her problem even is. It’s not like we even ask her to do much around here.”

“Maybe that is the problem?” Ragnar says. And then shrugs noncommittally at Derek. “I have children. Some of them hate being left out, and ruin plans for us all so that that way they will have a role.”

“They were not brought up well,” Lagertha cannot resist saying.

Ragnar flicks a sideways glance at her, which is usually all that he does, and then surprises her when he pushes himself up restlessly in the booth. “I am their father as much as she is their mother, you cannot say I have no share in it,” he says sharply. Then he leans in, blue eyes ice-bright, as she frowns at him. “I was not there. I was in the jars, with you.”

“So I kept you from them?” Lagertha says, just as sharply.

“Okay, this doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with me,” Derek says, and when they both glare at him, he stiffens his shoulders but looks less likely to flee than he has since picking them up. “And I’m not the guy in this town who tries to fix people’s problems either. I’m just going to point out that we’re sitting in a public place, and you’re both starting to show.”

They are not, Lagertha almost says, and then Ragnar clucks his tongue. Then looks at her fingers on the table, with their too-elongated nails. Lagertha presses her lips together and blunts her nails, and admits she is embarrassed at the slip. She was a mature alpha when she lost those years to Aelle, and she should not be so careless.

“We are not so good at pretending either,” Ragnar says to Derek.

“Yeah, well…this is a whole town of people like that, so you’re not gonna stick out that much. Just watch the claws because you can’t really miss that,” Derek says. His eyes drop and then snap back up, and then he shrugs and just pulls his phone out. “You want to just agree that we’re not good at sitting around and trying to hang out like normal people?”

“And…this agreement will result in something else?” Lagertha asks, before Ragnar can. “It is awkward, but if this is necessary in order to—”

“I think it’s a little less about what’s necessary and more about what people want to do to keep from being really annoyed at each other,” Derek says, his eyes scanning something on his phone. Then he looks up. “My sister just texted asking if I can go pick her up from the high school. I know we put that on the list of places you can’t go—”

Ragnar flaps his hand at Derek. “We can stay here. The coffee and the food are not bad, and I do not think you have other places to take us, yes?”

“No,” Derek says, after a long look at the two of them.

He thinks if he leaves them, they’re going to return to their argument and as much as he disclaims having a peacemaker role, he is responsible enough to wonder what will happen in his absence. And he is not wrong to do so, Lagertha thinks. She and Ragnar have their good days and their bad days—today is one of the harder ones, where everything Ragnar does and says seems to touch on one old sore or another. And they do not have Athelstan with them, and will not for at least a few more hours.

“I don’t know how long I’m going to be,” Derek adds after a moment. “And this is the middle of town so it’s going to be a long walk back and…look, if you just promise to stay in the car and ignore everything that my sister says—”

“You are breaking your own rules,” Ragnar points out.

Derek grimaces. “Yeah, well, Cora always has to—I’ll get Stiles to fix the report or whatever. I’m not trying to get you into trouble, okay? I just—I need to get her in case—I just need to get her, all right? You can call it a favor if you want.”

“No,” Lagertha says, and then she stands up from her seat as Ragnar runs a slow, silent eye over her. She does this on impulse, but as she goes on she thinks that this is not entirely because she wishes to tweak at Ragnar’s temper. It is also because she genuinely does not want to fight today, no matter how the ghosts of their lives before are surfacing. “No, this will not be a favor. Not for me, at least—but I will go, and stay in the car, while you talk with your sister.”

Derek nods at her, but his eyes drift to Ragnar. “So…you’re staying?” he asks. Then, looking as if it pains him, he adds a sharp hand gesture. “Or is this more of—whatever you two were doing before, because—I’ll just call L—my alpha, never mind. This honestly isn’t worth the trouble.”

“Did we not say we were not going to cause trouble?” Ragnar says, with a glinting glance at Lagertha. Then he picks up his coffee. He drinks the last of it, then gives the cup a careless but accurate toss into the trashcan across the room as Lagertha works not to clench her teeth at him. “We’ll both go. This is the easy way for you, no?”

Chapter Text

Fucking Cora, Derek thinks as he looks at the Lothbroks. His fucking sister and this fucking sheriff who can’t just wait till next week to do his one-eighty on the supernatural, and whatever the hell these two fucking alphas are fighting about that he couldn’t just not notice once he started babysitting them. Dealing with Scott and Scott’s mom suddenly seems so much easier.

But the longer Derek stands here, the more impatient Cora’s going to get, and she’s already texting him from the high school. He doesn’t get the Lothbroks—one second they’re almost laidback, the next they’re smelling like they’d like to strangle each other during sex—but despite all the sarcasm they still are doing what they’ve said they would do. “Okay, fine, come on,” he says.

Derek shoots Laura and Peter both texts while they’re walking out into the parking lot. Laura answers immediately but it’s just a fragment, so Derek waits a second and Peter’s text pops up: Just find her and keep her with you. We’ll meet with Melissa.

Which basically means Peter’s beyond pissed and is calling in the heavy guns and when Stiles gets out of his spellwork they’re not just calling it a day and going home, but honestly, Derek feels a little better. He’s going to have to take the shit for it, but at least somebody else besides him is on this and so it’s a lot less likely things are going to end in the morgue.

“After I get Cora, I’ll just drop you back at your cabin,” Derek says as he backs the car out of the lot. He sees Ragnar’s raised brows on the way to eyeing the curb to his back left and shakes his head. “Never mind about the stuff in the woods, we’ve got some other things.”

“That are now not in the woods?” Ragnar says. He puts his hands up against the car roof as Derek swerves the car down the coffee shop’s ramp and into the street, then drops them enough to show his palms. “I only ask for asking where we are not supposed to go now.”

“I do not think he wants to think about us,” Lagertha mutters in Norwegian.

“It’s the sheriff, it’s not the other thing,” Derek says as he steps on the gas and just makes the yellow light. “I don’t actually think we care if you know about him, and you already know about the baskets and basically my sister thinks he’s still acting weird.”

Lagertha deals with Derek’s driving by clamping her hand down on Ragnar’s knee. Which earns her a look from Ragnar that she’s deliberately ignoring as she watches Derek in the rearview mirror. “He is at the high school?”

“I don’t know, I think Cora’s just—” getting off her ass and doing things the one time that they could use her noping out of family responsibilities, Derek just stops himself from saying. Because fine, they’d almost had a little mutual unloading back at the coffee shop, but that was when Derek didn’t actually think any of his family was at risk. Scott can go on and on about just connecting with each other as people but he actually does that; the rest of them just make awkward chitchat when they pretend not to be werewolves. “—anyway, when I get there I’m getting out for a second to go get her. Just—”

“Wait in the car,” Ragnar and Lagertha say, both sounding very resigned to this, even if it’s lacking the sarcasm Derek gets with the people who usually are in his backseat.

And when they get over to the high school, that’s what the two of them do. Ragnar does crank the window down on his side, but even Derek has to admit that that’s fair. It’s definitely a lot better than some stupid idea that you’re going to go figure out the sheriff’s weird behavior by breaking into the school’s records room and pulling his student file. “Why would you even?” Derek says as he drags Cora outside. “Melissa’s got ins with the school staff for that.”

“Yeah, sure, but we go to her and we’ve got to justify everything and also let her order us around,” Cora says. “What, you’re okay with that now?”

“I’m okay with whatever keeps us alive and with psycho hunters or collectors or whatever off our backs, and you know what? She is better at that than we are,” Derek snaps, turning around. “Look, maybe you don’t see it because you still live in this place, but when you get out and you’re not spending every second wondering who’s coming after you now, it’s actually ni—”

“Oh, my God, then why don’t you just stay there with Stiles and Peter?” Cora snaps back. She jerks her arm free of Derek’s grip, then throws both arms up into the air. “You’re just as bad as Laura, always in my business but the second I try and get into pack business, it’s ‘Cora, you’re the baby, let the adults handle it.’”

Derek stares at her for a second. “I’m pretty sure it’s ‘Cora, you’re being an asshole, that’s not helping.’”

“Yeah, well, look who I had for role models,” Cora says, glaring at him. “Seriously, Derek. I can’t move out, Erica wants to stay here, so I’m trying to help Laura but whenever Laura wants help, she calls Scott or Peter or you. She just calls me so she knows where I am, because she thinks I’m still a dumb kid who needs a babysitter, or did you not notice them dumping me on you?”

“No, I did, and then you spent the whole time being really obvious about it in front of two alphas. And even if they’re playing nice because their boyfriend’s in the Miskatonic system, they’re still alphas and it’s still embarrassing everybody. Including you,” Derek points out. “And I know you noticed me telling you to stop it or get lost, and instead you decided to come here and fuck around and you didn’t tell anybody till after you did it—”

“I found something, by the way,” Cora says, yanking the folder out from under her arm. “You know, Scott’s always breaking in here—”

“So do you want to be Scott?” Derek says, exasperated. “Because these days he actually does call first. Fine, it’s usually still just to Allison, but he grew up, Cora. You don’t have to leave Beacon Hills to do that. You don’t even need to leave Laura to do it.”

Cora slices the folder at Derek like she’s trying to cut his face off with it, if she was about six inches closer. He stares past it at her, as she reaches up towards her left eye and then yanks the hand down; she’s not actually crying but she’s screwing her eyes up tightly enough that it probably feels like she is. “I’m trying!”

“Well, you’re sucking at it,” Derek says. Then he bites back the rest of what he’d been about to say and makes himself take a deep breath. “Jesus, just—fine. What the hell did you find in there? And don’t fucking take it and go be a stupid hero—”

“I don’t want to be Scott, I just want you people to act like I’m not just the pain in your ass you have between your trauma congas,” Cora spits at Derek.

In the process she also swings her arm a little too far and puts the folder within Derek’s reach. He snags it from her, then shifts back as she instinctively claws after it. She stops herself and then stumbles back half a step, looking at him with a mixture of anger and resentment and disappointment, and…she’s his sister, Derek can’t help thinking. Nobody but a Hale looks like that.

Then her shoulders drop. She jerks her chin up but it’s just an act, and nobody knows that better than Derek. She is a pain in the ass, he thinks, and for a second he wants to just take the folder and walk off with it and call Peter or Melissa or hell, even Scott. Just get somebody on whatever’s going on in town and get a lid on it and Derek will take getting yelled at later so long as they’re all fine at the end.

He used to care a little less about that part, and a little more about just—just showing he wasn’t as much of the family fuck-up as he is. Cora’s never messed up as much or as badly as he has; the idea that she’s mad about missing out on that just doesn’t make any sense to him.

But that’s not what she said, maybe. Derek just—needs to deal with the folder and then get somewhere where he can take the time to think through this. “Just tell me why you showed up here anyway,” Derek says.

Cora frowns at him. “What?”

“Why you’re here,” Derek repeats, trying not to just storm off on her. But it’s hard, and it’s hard partly because he actually has something to storm to. He also used to not have an apartment with two other people living in it who get frustrated with him on a regular basis but who do it because they want him to stay in one piece, rather than because Laura ordered it or because of his reputation. Stiles is the one with the reputation these days, and it’s nice. It’s something Derek actively wants to get back to. “What made you think about going to the high school—why is it always this place? I hate this place.”

“Yeah, noticed that,” Cora says. Her eyes drift to the folder and Derek shoves it under his arm, then pointedly waits on her. She frowns again. “Peter training you up on mindgames now? I don’t—”

“Just answer the question, Cora,” Derek says. “Or we can stand here till whatever’s going on finds us and you can bitch at me about your problems while we’re chained up to something. Whichever sounds like a fun time to you.”

“Oh, my God, you’re such a…” Cora starts, but then she lets the rest go in an exhale. She still looks confused, but also like, under that scowl, she’s less afraid of him now. “I was still in the lobby when Deaton mentioned the gift baskets, okay? I wasn’t actually—I was going to come back in once you calmed down, because you were being a dick but I don’t actually run out on things just because of that. But when he said the food was Nordic-themed, the guy’s got a Scandi last name.”

“Henderson,” Derek says skeptically.

Cora rolls her eyes. “I did a report when I was in high school, okay? There was a wagon train whatever straight from there and they settled around here and Henderson is totally a Viking name. In case you care.”

Derek opens his mouth, then closes it. He can’t punch his own sister, he tells himself. “Okay, the sheriff’s descended from Vikings, and…what, he’s suddenly decided to get in touch with his heritage by sending us all gift baskets?”

“Or he’s possessed,” Cora points out. “I mean, seriously, shouldn’t this be the first thing we check around here?”

“You’re right,” Derek says after a moment’s thought, grimacing even as the words come out of his mouth. He raises his hand but Cora’s apparently so stunned by him giving her that one that she doesn’t actually run with it, and just stares at him. “But also, you were a complete asshole about it, and if you want us to not treat you like an asshole, don’t be one. And yeah, I know Laura’s the way she is, but if she can call me or Peter, so can you.”

“I text you all the time,” Cora says after a second. “Half the time you don’t answer and the other half you just tell me to not bother you.”

Derek grits his teeth. “Because it’s usually you trying to make me do stuff for you, Cora! Just—okay, you know what? We can argue about this later. Laura and Peter are already on their way over and you still broke into the high school for what, the sheriff’s transcript?”

“No, actually, it’s his grandfather’s transcript,” Cora says. “Because that report I did? It was on the first class of Beacon Hills High and this guy was in it and I remembered they called him ‘Evil Eye’ Henderson. Because that’s not a significant nickname at all, Derek.”

“Okay,” Derek says. He takes a step back, then looks at her. “What, are you going to keep standing here?”

Cora makes a face at him but comes over and then follows him back to the car. “So now what, you and Laura are going to yell at me for breaking and entering?”

Ragnar and Lagertha are still in the car, and they’re being polite enough to not obviously stare out the windows, but Ragnar’s clearly cocking his head towards them. “Did you trip any alarms?” Derek asks.

“No,” Cora says.

“Do you think any cops drove by, or anyone besides me?” Derek asks.

“No,” Cora says, and then frowns at him. “Did you chop off your nose at some point and stop being a werew—”

“Can you stop it with the sarcasm and just tell me whether someone’s actually going to come after us right now, or if we have time to sit down and think about this?” Derek asks her.

Somebody in the car moves. Derek and Cora both look over and Lagertha pulls her head back through the open window. She gestures to show she’s still staying put but she’s definitely not even pretending to not eavesdrop now; Ragnar is leaning out the other window and inhaling deeply. He pauses, considers what he’s smelling, and then pulls himself inside without looking particularly in a hurry.

“What happened to not letting them in on things? They’re not even pack and they get to know?” Cora says.

“Cora, do you want me to listen to you or do you just want to complain?” Derek says, jerking back around to face her. “What do we have to deal with right now? Possessed sheriff plus what?”

“Well, La—”

“Laura’s not here right now. You are, and you want to get to tell somebody what needs to happen, so here’s your chance,” Derek snaps at her. “Come on. Tell me. Tell me what you think we should do, and just stop saying you don’t get to, all right? No, it doesn’t mean I’m going to just do it, but I don’t do that for Laura or Scott either. But if I need to know, then you should tell me. I’m listening.”

“You look like it’s worse than that time with the kanima and the car battery,” Cora says, because she just doesn’t want to help herself.

Derek presses his lips together and makes himself stare at her. She looks at him, trying to be madder than she is confused, but when he just keeps not saying anything, she starts losing her patience. She makes like she’s going to shove past him towards the car but he grabs her arm and pushes her back. And then gives her the stupid folder while he’s at it.

Cora grabs at it, then stuffs it against her chest as she stares at him again. “Derek?” she half-asks, half-challenges.

Derek tilts his head but still doesn’t say anything. When Cora lets out an irritated exhale and kicks at the pavement, he rolls his eyes and waits.

“You and your silent treatment, like anybody really thinks you’re that okay with people walking out on you all the time,” Cora says, but she’s half-hearted about it. She looks at him for another second. “I actually did get in there and out without triggering any alarms, okay? And nobody’s really driven by either, but they usually send a patrol car around soon and so that’s why I needed a ride, and I figured you’d just yell at me for earlier and not actually care what I was doing in there.”

“Because what, like each of us haven’t gotten dragged into that place to get chained up and tortured?” Derek mutters. He looks around the parking lot, then half-turns and walks the rest of the way back to the car. A third of the way there, Cora catches up and then they get inside at the same time. “Which is why you’re supposed to tell somebody before you go there, Cora, not because we’re just trying to ruin your life.”

“This actually seems like a very reasonable rule, if that is what happens in that building,” Ragnar comments from the backseat.

Derek exhales, then reaches for the ignition. “Don’t,” he says to Cora as she begins to twist around. “Just tell them about the Henderson Viking guy.”

“Well, what, like they weren’t listening the whole time,” Cora mutters.

“Yes and this is a Scandinavian name, although I cannot tell just from that if they were Vikings,” Lagertha chimes in. “But if it is possession, having the name is helpful.”

“If you want us to help,” Ragnar says. “Of course we can continue to sit in the car.”

Cora rolls her eyes and slouches down in her chair, but her scent’s shaded with worry as well as anger. “I can’t believe you brought them. Laura and Peter are going to be so pissed at you.”

“Yeah, well, fine,” Derek mutters. He pulls the car out of its space and then detours out of the lot into the dirt driveway that runs around the janitor’s lawncare shed. The tire tracks are going to be obvious, but you can’t see them from the street and if the patrol car just does a drive-by and nobody checks on foot till at least a couple hours later, that’s enough time. “I’d rather they be mad at me for that than because you got kidnapped because the sheriff’s possessed by a gift-basket-crazy Viking.”

“When did this start to have kidnapping?” Ragnar asks, his voice slightly less amused now. “We only saw the gift baskets.”

“There is no kidnapping, my brother’s just traumatized by all the stuff that happened when we were in school there, so now he’s telling me I need to be more careful,” Cora snaps.

“That seems reasonable enough,” Lagertha points out. And then, just as Cora twists around to try and stick her head between the seats, Lagertha leans forward so Cora flinches back instead. “And this is not our business, of course, but you are acting very immature for someone who wishes to be trusted with matters of life or death.”

“Thanks, I’m so glad to get the opinion of someone who goes around with as many axes as—hey!” Cora yelps, and then claws her arm between the seats.

Derek’s only gotten the car about a street and a half away from the school, but he slews it sharply and then hits the brakes once they’re around the corner. Then he grabs at Cora’s shoulder and hauls her back into her seat. “Cora, alpha,” he says, before sticking his own head between the seats. “And you, if you touch my—”

“I did not touch her, I only touched the folder,” Lagertha says calmly, the car still rocking around her, as she pages through the folder’s contents. Her brows move and she tilts the folder so that Ragnar can see something, and then they both make thoughtful noises in their throats. Then Lagertha looks up. She considers Derek’s expression, snaps the folder shut, and hands it back over. “Here.”

Derek looks at it. Then suppresses his grimace and takes it, giving it back to Cora. He reaches for his phone, then puts his hand back on his seat and looks at Lagertha.

“What is it?” he asks.

Cora shifts sharply in her seat. “Derek, they’re alphas,” she hisses.

“Yeah, fine, so I’ll owe you any favor, okay? Not her and not my other sister. Or Stiles or Peter,” Derek says, continuing to look at Lagertha. “So what is it, and is it going to settle this?”

“I do not think it will ‘settle’ anything,” Lagertha says, blinking a few times. “It is only about the sheriff, and I do not think that that is the problem with you two. But it is a little—”

“It is a little thought we are having,” Ragnar says, stretching his shoulders back so they all remember he’s as tall as Derek is. “And this favor—”

“Is not a favor,” Lagertha says, her tone suddenly flattening. She gets that odd angry and wistful smell she’d had back at the coffee shop, and even though she’s still looking at Derek, he’s pretty sure she’s more talking to Ragnar. “It’s a thought and thoughts are not actions. This name in this file is an interesting name and not common for Norwegians.”

“Oh, great, so you know them and now you’re going to make my brother drag it out of you?” Cora says.

Lagertha flicks her gaze to her. “No, we do not—this person is long-dead, and there are many dead Norwegians in America, I think, which we are only visiting now for the first time,” she says, and Derek has to admit Cora deserves that burn. “But it is an uncommon name so if we asked certain people we know, we might learn something. And since it is a thought only, I will let you ask your alpha if this is what you want to do. I do not want to make your brother do anything. I do not need to, and I do not want anything from him.”

“Okay. Thanks.” Derek hears something from Cora’s side of the car and stops, but when she just scowls at him, he pushes himself back into his seat. He takes his phone out and shoots a text to Laura and Peter that he has Cora. Peter texts back to go to the hospital and Derek puts his phone away. “So—”

They all see the patrol car go down the next street over. It slows as it passes the high school, then turns into the lot to loop back around. Cora sucks her breath as the car goes by the concrete path to the front door, only to glower at Derek when she catches him looking at her. The patrol car picks up a little speed and exits the parking lot, turning back onto the street to disappear in the opposite direction. It’s not Parrish or Tara in it, but one of the newer deputies, one Derek hasn’t interacted with yet.

“See? Told you,” Cora mutters.

“Good for you,” Derek says as he restarts the car. “Now you can go tell Laura and Peter and have them see what they want to do.”

Cora starts sharply. “What? Wait—she just—that was to you—”

“If we don’t owe anything for just knowing that Lagertha might know people who know people—” Derek glances in the rearview mirror and Lagertha nods, as Ragnar frowns at her “—then this is still all yours, Cora. You wanted them to listen to you, well, it’s your idea. You get to tell them.”

Chapter Text

“Do you remember when the boys were always blaming each other like this?” Ragnar muses as he and Lagertha walk down the corridors of the local hospital. It is still too early for them to go back to the woods, it seems, but they are trusted enough to be allowed to take themselves to the cafeteria. “Telling each other and us that if we only listened to them and not to the others, then it would be best.”

“I should, it was only six months ago,” Lagertha says, to which Ragnar gives her a false smile as he stretches his arms above his head. “You are trying to pick at them.”

“I am not, my love,” Ragnar says. He lowers his arms and then pivots around an empty gurney in the hall, allowing his momentum to spin him about so that he is walking backward and facing her. He looks at her expression and then offers up a smaller, truer smile. “I am trying. But they do make it easy to not try, do they not?”

“I think I am more tired of trying to watch you than I am of trying not to watch them,” Lagertha says.

She pushes the door open and then Ragnar extends his arm to hold it once she no longer needs him to. He lingers in the doorway, surveying the cafeteria, as Lagertha lets her nose direct her to the refrigerated cases along the wall; there are only a few people in the room, behind the closed-up hot-foods bar, and they wander through two swinging doors and disappear before Lagertha even has her hand on the case’s handle. Ragnar is looking merely to look, as he always does.

“So today you hate me, you have decided,” he says to her back.

“I never hate you, my love,” Lagertha says, looking over her shoulder at him.

Of course then he cannot resist and comes up behind her, his hand dropping softly to that shoulder. She tenses and he puffs a knowing, brittle chuckle in her ear, his fingers slipping away.

Before she can think, Lagertha puts her hand up and traps his wrist. He stops and she holds him, and they stand together in silence.

“I would have let you tie the ropes, if you had asked,” Ragnar says after a moment.

“It is not about the ropes,” Lagertha bites out of the air. And then she stops and makes herself take a breath, as she pulls his hand so that it lays firmly on her shoulder. No further than that, and when Ragner’s restless fingertips feel out the rope under her shirt and roll teasingly at it, she squeezes his hand until he stops. “Why do you even want them in our debt? Are you not tired of that? Did we come here to try something new or did we come here to have the same lives and the same fights as before?”

Ragnar exhales. His other hand brushes at the back of her thigh, not flirting, only signaling how he leans towards her. “I am trying something new,” he says, and then tentatively rests his chin on her head. “But I am always trying something new, and always falling back into my old ways, as you love to tell me.”

“I love this as much as I hate it,” Lagertha admits, and she feels him press more firmly against her, as she moves her free hand back to the hand he has dangling near her hip. When she catches it, he twists their fingers together but lets her draw them up to her waist. “I would never have asked you, Ragnar. Because it will not work that way, with us.”

“Because your pride cannot let me,” Ragnar tells her, smiling so she can feel it against her hair, even as his voice roughens with exasperation. “But I cannot let you hold the key to my cage—I can be fair, if you are going to be honest.”

“I am always honest, unlike you,” Lagertha says, tilting her head to glimpse the side of his face, the sharp line of the cheekbone and that glint of ice-blue. Then she snorts and pulls her hand from his fingers on her shoulder, reaching for the case. “We are not much better than these young children—a few hours on our own and we cannot stop ourselves either. Athelstan will not always want us with him—”

Ragnar stiffens. “Why not?”

“I mean he will want time to himself once in a while, without us always at his elbow, not that I think he will leave us,” Lagertha says, and when Ragnar lets out an annoyed breath and then pushes his mouth behind her ear, she lets him nuzzle while she picks out a fruit parfait. “Like today. We will have to learn to deal with each other when he is not there, Ragnar.”

“Today is practice,” Ragnar says. Then laughs, letting his beard rub over her ear as he lifts his head back over hers again. “It was not very good practice, but we are still trying, are we not? So you can have your friend, with this cranky beta with the angry little sister—”

“Friend?” Lagertha says.

Ragnar cranes over her to look into her eyes. “Unless this was only to make me jealous? Although he is not blond enough.”

“You are the only blond that I have ever liked,” Lagertha says, pushing him back up by the forehead. Then she turns, keeping hold of his hand but twisting her shoulder out from under his other. “Were you jealous?”

“No,” Ragnar says, coming up to her side as she takes the parfait to the self-checkout machine. Then his reflection on the machine’s screen smiles. “Yes. It is a very long time since you even tried to make friends with me.”

“I love you,” Lagertha says. She pays for the parfait and then turns to face him. “We are never going to be friends for that reason, Ragnar.”

He looks at her. He can be so still, when he decides to stop his japing and smirking, so still that even his heartbeat seems misplaced. And when he is this still, it makes her dizzy, because it is at these times that, no matter what they do and how furious she is at him, she knows that her world will always tilt towards him.

“It is a very long time since I tried to love you without fighting,” Ragnar finally says, as he smiles again. “I am fair, at least.”

“You are being honest right now,” Lagertha says, and when she reaches for his face he stills again and she sees how he marvels at her, like when they were far too young to be as sure of themselves as they were. “You are practicing. But it is easier to remember the difference when we are practicing with someone who never knew us.”

“It’s easier because he is not practice, he is someone who still likes us,” Ragnar points out. He leans into her hand, then, being himself, uses it as a guide to slip down and steal a kiss from her. Then he leans back, grinning at the blow she gives his side. “It is also easier when you are only watching other people be foolish.”

“They are not so bad. Better than your sons,” Lagertha says, and when Ragnar bridles, she pats the place she’d hit. “Bjorn as well—he is never going to understand Ivar. I do not know if he should have to, but I can admit this is their problem.”

Ragnar subsides and then takes the parfait top from her, flicking it into the nearest trashcan. “You do want to help.”

“You want to point out how much you know better than them,” she says. The parfait is a little unbalanced, some of the fruits starchy and underripe, so after the first mouthful she uses the spoon to crush them into the yogurt to make them take on some of its tang. “I don’t think I want a friend. But I would like…I would like him to stop smelling so bitter. It reminds me too much of us, when we first knew how much time we’d lost.”

“Does he smell that bitter?” Ragnar blinks. He considers it as they cross back to the hallway door, then shakes his head. “No, I don’t think so. He is frustrated—even his sister is not so bad. They’re too young. They’re more like our children, asking and asking and asking why it must be this way, when we asked the same questions already and are tired of them. No, my love, you want to help him because he hasn’t given up yet, and whatever you say, you like a man who fights.”

He's right. He’s more often right than he is wrong, and that is a large part of what drives them to fight with each other, Lagertha thinks. And once she thought she had lost Ragnar forever, and yet she survived—and she has him back again, and she remembers what that loss had felt like but still, he irritates her. He knows her too well and not well enough, and they are both old enough at this point to know that this is a choice and not lack of knowledge.

If they don’t try, at any rate. “Perhaps we should introduce Cora to some of your sons. She might get along with Hvitserk or Ubbe,” Lagertha says as they walk back down the hall. She catches the way Ragnar grimaces into a laugh and shakes her head. “I am not trying to cause trouble. I do not dislike your sons only because of their mother—if I dislike one or two of them, it is because of what they themselves have done, not what their parents have done to them.”

Ragnar stops mid-caper and looks at her, and even though he continues to walk, that stillness is in his stare. For a moment, and then he laughs genuinely. “Ubbe, then, if you do not wish to cause trouble,” he says. “Hvitserk will not survive her, from what I have seen.”

“I think she is spoken for, Ragnar,” Lagertha reminds him. “We are speaking of friends.”

“Well, you know, I think I would like a friend,” Ragnar says lightly. He swings his tall body about as if to throw himself into the wall, and then pivots at the last minute so that he only faces her, smiling. “Why do they not want to befriend me, do you think? Am I not as likeable as you?”

“I think they think you are more likely to challenge them,” Lagertha says.

“Then they are stupid, and I will not be friends with them,” Ragnar says, with a flash of white teeth. Then he lingers, looking at her. “It is not about the ropes, but if I like the ropes…can I say so?”

“Are you not saying so now?” Lagertha says, looking back at him.

Ragnar pauses. Then his lips curl upwards, as he steps in towards her. “They are not mine,” he says, as his eyes draw across her body and somehow draw up the heat in her skin so it prickles along the line of one rope. “But I like them all the same.”

“You are generous with your heart in that way,” Lagertha observes.

His smile crooks and part of her crooks with it, even though this is the truth—but she loves him. He took himself away from her as much as Aslaug took him, and still she loves him. And he took himself back to her, Lagertha thinks, and this is the reason, more than him leaving, that she hesitates before she puts her hand on his thigh, just close enough to feel the flex of the muscle in it. She watches the pupils of his eyes dilate, marking when the warmth of her hand reaches high enough to tease him within the cage Athelstan’s put on his cock. They would never have done this before, between only themselves—Athelstan is more than the bridge between them, but he is also a bridge.

“And, I think, I like that you have something to wish after. Before this you were always so sure that you had had your fill of it all,” she says, as she leans into him. “I like that you like the ropes, because I like them myself. I plan to ask Athelstan to do this more often.”

Ragnar snorts, then drops his head. He pauses for her but she does nothing, and then he drops the rest of the way to press his lips not on, but to the side of her mouth. Loose and warm, so that when she turns she need only lick across his lower lip to find her way into his mouth.

“When you’re done,” says Derek from well around the turn in the hall. “My sister would like to talk to you. Laura.”

“Ah,” Ragnar says, and then lets his mouth ride across the top of Lagertha’s hair before he lifts his head. He rumbles low in his throat, amused, as Lagertha curls her fingers around his wrist. “We were finding a snack.”

Derek barely swallows his disbelieving noise. “Yeah, okay, whatever. You can have a couple minutes, but you’re standing near a pediatrics ward and the nurses here do carry tasers.”

“We found the snack,” Lagertha says, pulling Ragnar along as he chuckles to himself. “So what can we do for you and your sister?”

* * *

When Derek pulls up to the hospital, Laura’s waiting outside. For a second he thinks it’s only her, but then Peter steps out from the doors, half-turned as if he’s speaking to someone still inside the lobby.

“Here we go,” Cora says under her breath.

“Should we sit?” Ragnar asks.

“No, you can get out of the car,” Derek says, curling and uncurling his hand against his leg. Then he grits his teeth and turns off the ignition. “We’re all here, so honestly, if you want to just go—I can call you a ride. I have the Miskatonic people’s number, they can probably dig up a driver for you so we don’t have to interrupt Stiles and Athelstan.”

Ragnar shrugs his way out of the car, then stands back and considers the hospital as if he honestly doesn’t mind riding backseat to Derek’s family problems for half the day. “We do have this number,” he says. “But that will cause problems anyway. We can walk.”

“What, across town?” Laura says as she comes towards them. She’s just about keeping her voice from rising into shrieking territory, but her expression says it’s a struggle and if she has to do one more thing, not causing a scene is going dead last on her priorities list. “No, look, I just—we just need to regroup for a couple minutes, and then Derek can go back to showing you…showing you…”

“Coffee?” Ragnar says, with a too-bright grin on his face. “Yes, this is very interesting, the coffee here. We are very appreciative of the tour.”

Laura looks at Derek, who shrugs because how many texts did she want out of him? He sent the important details and then got Cora and himself over, in one piece and without anyone tailing them.

“We can find something to eat inside,” Lagertha says, and when Ragnar twists and gives her a look, she pointedly takes him by the arm and then pulls him towards the doors. “We should wait until they can speak with their alpha about what we said.”

That’s to Ragnar, who looks and smells more irritated with Lagertha than her redirect really should deserve. “They are speaking to their alpha,” Ragnar mutters, and then adds something in Norwegian about her picking odd times to take pity.

Lagertha shoots back, still in Norwegian, that if he wants a favor from someone, he is always free to find his own way, but that in that case he will have to do the Miskatonic form himself. Which shuts Ragnar up, not in a nice way judging from his expression, but at that point Peter gets to Derek and Derek stops caring about strange alpha problems. Well, except for the ones he’s now going to have to explain to his family.

“Cora thinks the sheriff maybe being possessed has something to do with him being descended from Vikings,” Derek says. “She got his grandfather’s school records and showed them to the Lothbroks, and they think if they made a couple calls back home they might find something, but we don’t know for sure. Also they know about the sheriff because Deaton had to show them the gift baskets, but they don’t know what we were doing in the woods—”

“They know we were doing something, you weren’t exactly subtle about it,” Cora mutters.

“None of us were subtle because the point wasn’t to act like we weren’t,” Peter says, pretty mildly for him. Then he raises his brow at Cora, stopping whatever comment she’d been about to make from even getting out of her mouth. “The point was to provide some plausible deniability and light entertainment, so we could demonstrate that we aren’t disrespecting their intelligence.”

“Well, I think we got the entertainment part down,” Derek mutters. He turns away as Peter looks at him and gestures at the folder Cora’s clutching. “I don’t think anything’s really happened yet, aside from gift baskets, but I actually agree with her about ruling out possession before we do anything else. I just don’t want to deal with that, and the sooner we figure out that we don’t have to, the less of an asshole I’m going to be.”

“That—is actually kind of reasonable, Derek, so let me see this folder,” Laura says.

Derek points her to Cora. Laura makes a face at him, then sighs and turns to their sister, who immediately ups her scowling. “Derek, if I can have a word,” Peter says right then, as his hand closes on Derek’s shoulder.

“I know what you’re gonna say already,” Cora’s saying to Laura, not handing over the folder.

That isn’t going to go well, Derek can already see from the way Laura’s shoulders are set, but before he can say anything, Peter suddenly drops the mild act and yanks him up onto the curb. And then yanks him into the hospital, to the point that a passing doctor frowns at them.

“Watch the leather,” Derek snaps out of reflex.

Peter actually pauses. Instead of demolishing Derek’s ego with a return comment, he looks Derek over till the doctor walks off, then sniffs sharply. Then, while Derek is staring at him, Peter pulls his phone out, taps three times at it and then waves it in the direction of Derek’s—

“Oh,” Derek says, and takes his own phone out. He finds that possession app, hits ‘scan’ and then holds his phone towards Peter at the same time that both phones glow a soft blue. “Not me, seriously, just maybe the sheriff.”

“Well, be that as it may, that little idiot should know better,” Peter mutters, glowering not in Derek’s direction but…at Cora? Who actually seems a little bit appalled at whatever Laura’s telling her, which is…that she’s lucky Mom didn’t live long enough to see what a selfish bitch Cora turned out to be? “She’s lucky Laura rejects my ideas on pack discipline out of sheer pigheadedness. I would have talked your mother into dealing with this appropriately.”

“Wait a second,” Derek says. Then he grabs Peter and pulls him around the corner of the lobby, where the combination of a dying houseplant—it’s a little amazing they still don’t have baby Nemetons everywhere—and a couple chairs create a little privacy. More importantly, the rattle of the soda machine on the other side of the chairs should keep Laura and Cora from overhearing, but Derek can still see them out the lobby’s glass wall. “Wait. Are you mad at Cora? For thinking the sheriff’s possessed?”

“No, Derek, we’re furious that the moment she thought possession was on the table, she left you with strange alphas and then went to the high school by herself to verify her theory,” Peter says. He sounds a lot more like his normal self, but he doesn’t smell like it; his scent’s as tinged with lingering worry as it is with irritation. “And yes, we all know how over it you are about your possession experience, but any responsible pack member would have at least called someone to keep you company. As it is, Laura was on the verge of calling Braeden before we heard you at least had the sense to stay in public.”

Derek opens his mouth, then closes it. Then he looks outside, where Laura’s gotten to the stage where she doesn’t yell anymore, just pushes her hand against her face and looks a little too much like tired Mom for comfort. Cora’s still there, surprisingly enough, but she looks like she really would like someone to walk up and shoot her in the head.

“Okay, so…you and Laura ran out of the woods because you thought Cora left me to get possessed again, if I’m following you,” Derek finally says.

“Yes, Derek, because apparently, your younger sister has now assumed McCall’s title as the local hero most likely to land you in a torture basement,” Peter sighs. When Derek turns back, Peter’s doing the same face-rubbing thing. The worry’s leaching out of his scent but the irritation is getting stronger. “All we asked her to do was follow you and a couple alphas around. A mated alpha couple, with distinctive foreign accents, who couldn’t hide themselves in a crowd of high school football fans if we gave them the jerseys and crib notes on PTA feuds. Why is this so difficult?”

“I actually wasn’t thinking about that, I was just trying to keep them busy so they’d stay out of the woods,” Derek says. Then he waves vaguely in the direction that the Lothbroks had gone when Peter looks up at him. “The chances of me getting possessed again, I mean. It sounds weird, but so far gift baskets don’t seem really dangerous, and neither of us ran into him. The sheriff.”

Peter blinks once, slowly enough that Derek wouldn’t put it past the man to be doing one of those literal checking-my-reality spells Stiles has, even though Peter’s lips don’t move and Derek hears nothing from the man’s vocal cords. Then he shakes his head and looks out at Cora and Laura. “Derek, I don’t pretend to understand your attitude towards what happened to you, but regardless of your feelings about it, the rest of us had to live through that too and it was not something any of us want to repeat. Although perhaps I’m assuming wrongly about your sister, given today.”

“I—don’t actually think she was thinking about me getting possessed either,” Derek says. “I think she was just thinking about trying to prove something to Laura, which I don’t totally follow but—”

“Exactly, she wasn’t thinking, she was just trying to show off, and while your high school idiocies might be just barely explainable if not excusable because of the Argents and what happened to our family, it’s been well over a decade since that, we eat Chris Argent’s undercooked Thanksgiving side dishes, and she doesn’t even live with Laura at this point,” Peter spits out. The irritation in his scent has suddenly ratcheted up to real anger and Derek’s honestly not sure how Peter is keeping the glow out of his eyes. “What exactly is she trying to demonstrate? How she really should stay home where someone can root out her bad ideas before they propagate? Except I honestly don’t know that I support burdening Laura with that, she’s been overcompensating so much less lately—”

“Okay. Okay, okay, just…calm down, Peter,” Derek says. Then blinks. Then shakes himself, because he can think about how weird this feels later, when he doesn’t think Peter is going to go on a homicidal rampage against his sister because of him. “I’m fine. I’m not possessed, not trying to be, not actually that interested in figuring out this sheriff thing, honestly—”

“Good, because we don’t live here anymore,” Peter bites out. “This isn’t our problem, and I am not about to tolerate your idiot sister making it one of ours.”

Derek is this close to calling Scott. Not Stiles, because while Stiles would distract Peter and make him feel better and maybe even get him to explain what’s going on in his head without another family fight into the bargain…Stiles would just require so much more background trauma exposition, as he puts it. As it is, Derek lived through all the things that he thinks Peter’s remembering right now, and he barely understands it. He’s more going on instinct at this point. “Peter, Laura and Cora still do and it’s our family territory even if we—look. I’m not saying we jump in on this like we’ve got to save the town. I don’t even know if there’s anything that needs saving, but I definitely don’t need it. I’m fine.”

Which is absolutely not the point, says the cold, hard look Peter turns on him right then. Derek jerks his shoulders out and back and raises his head, using the most of his greater height and weight without even thinking about it, and Peter…flinches. Then freezes and blanks out his face, and not all of Stiles’ comparisons make sense but the one he has about Peter needing to reboot his emotional processing really does.

The other reason why Derek wants to call Scott is that annoying as the man is, when it’s not about trying to defeat some supernatural psycho and it’s just about trying to figure out why people are having irrational feelings, he actually likes sorting through all that. Derek doesn’t, and avoids it as much as possible, and frankly that’s genetic because Peter might express himself more but very little of it has to do with how he genuinely feels under the sarcasm.

“Fortunately for her,” Peter finally says, a politely thin smile on his face, like he’s really put away all those murderous thoughts.

“Don’t kill Cora for just being an idiot,” Derek says. And then he grimaces and reminds himself it’s not just being an asshole if he shoves his family issues off on Scott again, it’s asking Scott to make them better and if that doesn’t guarantee a Peter-led massacre, what Melissa’ll have to say about it will. “Seriously. Yeah, fine, she screwed up a few times, but nobody actually got hurt, and I just wasted a morning embarrassing myself in front of a couple alphas who still owe us more than we owe them. But it sounds like Laura already ripped her a new one, so if you go and do it, Cora’s just going to stop thinking about what she did wrong and start thinking about how we all suck, and that never gets any of us to listen to you, Peter.”

“No, but since you never listen anyway, it does indulge my need to emotionally destroy you,” Peter mutters.

Derek rolls his eyes. “Yeah, like that never made us go get you stuck in a hunter’s trap later. Do you want to get to pick up Stiles in time for dinner or do you want to end up rescuing Cora?”

For a second Peter’s expression teeters towards another reboot. Then he moves his head back, narrowing his eyes and looking at Derek as if he might instead blame his discomfort on Derek, only to keep thinking about it.

“You’re being unusually mature about this,” is what he finally says. “And possibly the only reason why I’m not running another possession check is because in context, this does fit your pattern of failing to care about your own well-being.”

“I’m not being self-destructive just because I’m telling you to lay off Cora,” Derek says. “I am starting to get pissed off at you—”

“Which is actually more reassuring than your intentional attempts to do so,” Peter says dryly.

“—but my point is, I just want to put history like that away. I…get that you were worried,” Derek goes on, doing his best to not growl while he’s at it. “I’m also not big on how she handled things today either, and I told her so back at the high school, but again, not actually possessed. And she might have something on the sheriff, and we should at least rule it out. I’d like to just stop there, because today also reminded me how I really like not living here all the time, and I just want to finish things up. Can you at least try to get that?”

“I can, in fact,” Peter says. He’s smelling a lot calmer, and when he steps towards Derek, Derek doesn’t instinctively check whether the man’s nails have turned to claws before Derek adjusts the way his coat sits on him. Peter stops and watches that, a faintly amused smile on his face, before he sighs and turns so that he can walk past Derek. “I still think you’re being far too easy on your sister, but you have a few well-reasoned points. Given how rarely that happens and that Stiles and I are both somewhat invested in your bodily integrity these days, I suppose I should choose encouraging you over tormenting her.”

“I’m only catching the end of that, but based on what I’m hearing, I have to ask if anyone ran a possession check on you,” Laura says as she comes into the lobby, a very silent and very stiff-faced Cora in tow.

Peter doesn’t even bother to answer, only points his phone towards himself, waits five seconds and then turns it so that Laura can see the blue glow.

“I don’t know what all this means,” Laura says, squinting like she’s actually trying to read through the app’s report breakout. “Is this even in English? Ph’tu gh—”

Derek slaps his hand over his mouth, just as Peter curses and hastily makes some complicated hand-gestures over his phone. “You’re not supposed to read that out loud,” Derek hisses. “It’s all color-coded! Blue is fine!”

“Well, then why don’t they put a warning on all this—Miskatonic tentacle whatever?” Laura snaps once Derek takes his hand off.

They do, but Derek resists the urge to point them out to his sister. When he hears a little suck of breath from Cora’s direction, he shoots her a warning look, only to have Cora abruptly turn on her heel and walk away from them.

“I’m going to Melissa’s office, like you told me to,” Cora says without looking back.

“Laura,” Peter says as Laura opens her mouth. He shakes his head. Then blinks hard when, after a second of glaring, Laura exhales and just lets Cora go. “If Melissa wants to hear about her theory, let her have the chore of explaining it. It won’t override the fact that Cora broke into the high school without telling anyone, not for her.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know, and honestly, at this point I feel like Cora listens to Melissa more than any of us,” Laura mutters. She stares at Cora for a little longer, and when the background noise of the hospital gets loud enough to cover up Cora’s heartbeat, turns a tired face on Derek. “I wasn’t catching every word because of that little brat, but…so you’re okay.”

Derek nods. Laura gives him a brief, relieved smile, then rolls her shoulders under her coat. She smells like the mud that collects around the entrances to the old concrete tunnels, damp and gritty with a trace of acid. She and Peter both look clean, but that just tells Derek how much extra effort she’d been putting into checking their graves before he’d texted them about Cora: they don’t stick their enemies where you can easily get in and out without any signs of what you’d been doing.

“I actually think she might be onto something with the possession idea,” Laura adds. She rubs her face again, then looks over at Derek. “She said something in there, in the middle of going on and on about how we don’t trust her to be smart and responsible so of course she’s going to brat out on us, about the Lothbroks maybe knowing the sheriff’s family?”

“No, they just know people who might know,” Derek says, making a face. Then he looks at Peter as Peter starts to raise a hand. “I don’t think they were saying that to just fuck with us—Lagertha wasn’t, anyway. There was some fucking-with-you going on, but I think it was mostly between them, not with me. I…don’t really want to know more than that. But Lagertha just said they could ask if we wanted them to, and it wouldn’t be a ‘favor.’”

Laura snorts. “They literally all say that.”

“Well, actually, what they’d do is tell Talia they wouldn’t mind doing her a favor, seeing as she was such the leading alpha in the region, and then they’d come back the next week to call it in,” Peter says, with a smile that’s half-nostalgic, half-disgusted. The nostalgia starts to win out as he goes on. “What an incredible waste of leverage. None of them ever did have the patience to wait till we at least could be surprised at what feud they wanted her to involve herself in.”

“Yeah, and based on their insanely detailed disclosures, these people have a lot of those,” Laura says. Then raises her brow at Derek. “What? I can’t remember something from all that paperwork?”

It’s probably spending all the time with Stiles, but for a second Derek’s arms twitch like they’d rather be waving in the air. He holds his breath and he gets over it. “Yeah, true. So you don’t want to.”

“I…” Laura presses her lips together “…don’t want to end up in Norway, swinging an ax at some asshole. But on the other hand, if they know something, it’s the goddamn sheriff. We probably can’t afford to be snobby here, unless we want Melissa to hit up Stiles’ dad.”

“I trust that Melissa has better sense than that,” Peter says, but he drags it out a little. When they look at him, he shakes his head and then lets out a sigh. “Ask them but have them be very clear about their expectations for this. We can have Melissa witness—or better yet, we should call Alan over.”

Laura considers that, then nods once. “We should get Cora out of there first. I’ve had just about all I can deal with from her, and the last thing we need is the Lothbroks seeing that—”

“They kind of already did,” Derek says, to which Laura lets out a frustrated groan. “Look, I’ll go find them and get them over to you, and then I’ll deal with Cora.”

“And here I thought you’d grown out of your self-destructive phase,” Peter snorts. “No, leave Cora to me.”

“Because you’re gonna spare Derek because you want the satisfaction of emotionally kneecapping her yourself,” Laura says before Derek can.

“No, Laura, I’m sparing Derek because currently I value him much more than that brat,” Peter says.

“Okay, she’s been a headache today, but this is why we’ve all ended up as homicide suspects at some point,” Derek says, and when they both start objecting, he steps in between them with his hands up to block their glares from lasering into his cheeks. “Laura, you’re the alpha, you have to talk to the Lothbroks. Peter, you’re the one who knows how alphas try to screw with us, you need to be there, and also you probably need to talk Melissa into going along with it. So that leaves me, and since I hate this kind of thing, I’m going to call Scott—”

Peter sighs. “The entire reason why there’s ever enough evidence left to suspect us in the first place.”

“—and ask him how I can get Erica to go get Cora,” Derek finishes. “Because somebody needs to watch her, but none of us are going to do it, and even if we tried, it wouldn’t end well. So this is exactly what Scott is good for.”

And then Derek stops. He waits, hears nothing, and lowers his hands. Both Peter and Laura are still there, and still looking at him, though it’s actually not like they’re competing to strip the flesh off his bones. If anything, Peter looks…impressed?

“I do appreciate it when one of you reminds me of me,” Peter says, a low, approving rumble in his voice. “And this will keep those hangers-on out of our way as well.”

“They’re actually my betas,” Laura says, glaring at Peter a little. Then she turns to Derek. “But okay, I’m in favor too. But this is probably going to run into dinner and I thought you two were getting back to Stiles.”

“That was the plan, but I already told Stiles it might only be one of us picking him up, and I’ll join as soon as I can extract myself,” Peter says, looking much less pleased. “He understands, it’s more just keeping him from being nervous about it.”

“Yeah, I know, I’ll check for that too,” Derek says. “If anything comes up, we’ll just come back here to meet you. Sound good?”

Neither Peter nor Laura look thrilled about it, but they also don’t look like they’re going to shred a face the second they walk off, which is a lot better than they usually are going into these things. And when Derek goes to find the Lothbroks, they are actually near the cafeteria where they’d said, and they seem…less tense about each other. Ragnar’s still doing that bendy movement thing that is actually frighteningly effective in getting him into your blind spots, but Derek gets the impression that that’s just some kind of habit for the man.

Anyway, they go off to talk to Laura, and Derek texts Scott, who calls him about five minutes later. Scott listens to what’s happened and immediately gets distracted by what’s going on with the sheriff, to the point that Derek has to tell him to get Allison and then tell both of them that Scott’s mom is talking to people about that right now, after which Allison tells Scott to just let Melissa tell them if they’re needed. And then disappears to probably talk up her dad, but since that’s just going to route to Melissa, Derek lets that happen and goes back to explaining about Cora.

“Oh, yeah, she’s been a little short-tempered lately,” Scott says, which is his version of admitting that Cora’s been a raging bitch to everyone. “I was wondering what was going on with that, but Boyd says she and Erica are still together, so it’s not a break-up. So you want someone to help you talk to her?”

“No, I want someone to talk to Erica to go get her,” Derek says. “We’re all too mad at her right now, and she’s just as mad at us. And before you say something about how communication is important, you remember Homecoming from your junior year, right? And how that went down with us?”

Scott makes a sound like if he could just get his little speech out, it might change hearts and sway minds. But these days he sort of understands the concept of people needing to want him to help before he can help them, at least as far as Derek’s family goes, and he just doesn’t talk for a couple seconds.

“I still think you should really talk directly to her, but if now’s not a good time, then yeah, calling Erica is probably the next best thing,” Scott finally says.

“Okay, so can you call her?” Derek asks.

“What, is she not answering you?” Scott says. “Okay, I’ll call her and tell her to call you back.”

“No, that’s not what I—” Derek starts, only for Scott to hang up on him. Probably to genuinely go do what he said, but also this means Derek has to now talk directly to Erica, which Derek hates doing because Erica.

If he calls Scott back, then Scott isn’t going to sit on his urge to try to convert Derek to the joys of communication. So far trying to be the mature one had actually been working out for Derek, but he knew his streak was going to eventually run out, and apparently it’s right now.

“Hey,” says Cora as Derek’s glaring at his phone. Then she rolls her eyes at whatever his face is doing. “Don’t get all excited to see me or anything.”

“Well, it’s not like you want us to be,” Derek says back to her.

Cora starts to growl in her throat and her shoulders and arms move like she’s just going to turn and go back down the hallway. Derek thinks about stopping her and then just stays where he is; this hallway’s relatively empty, and the room right across from him is also empty so he doesn’t think it’s likely that’s going to change any time soon. But they’re still deep enough into the hospital that Cora’s not going to be able to storm out without someone seeing her, or without letting literally everyone in on the whole werewolf thing. And even when she’s mad, she’s not that stupid.

But instead of stalking away, Cora does the same thing as Derek, standing her ground and staring at him. The seconds drag on and he puts his phone away, then tucks his hands into his pockets and keeps watching her. One of her feet scuffs against the floor and she looks down at it, then up at him. Then she lets out an annoyed noise.

“Okay, fine, you’re the king of the silent treatment. You happy?” she asks.

Derek shrugs.

Cora opens her mouth. Closes it. Bulges her eyes and lifts her hands and then drops them. “Oh, my God, just—you called Erica? Seriously?”

“No, I didn’t,” Derek says, entirely truthfully.

“Well, somebody did, because now she’s texting me about my feelings and what the hell did you do to turn my girlfriend into Scott,” Cora demands.

“I literally—” Derek starts, and then he takes a breath. He is never going to understand the cosmic horror aliens, because the idea of just destroying things to destroy things just doesn’t make sense…but he can get the idea of destroying things because you just have nothing left in you. He’s not even angry with her anymore at this point. It’s just…nothing he can do.

But she’s his sister, and maybe he’s forgotten about his possession issues but he hasn’t forgotten that. He’s never going to forget that, not after Kate Argent—never again, no matter what it does to him.

But he does want to just not keep doing certain ways of reminding himself. He likes his life better now, and it’s a weird thing to realize in all of this, but he likes it because the cosmic horror aliens are incomprehensible but that way he just doesn’t get so worked up about them. They’re not fixable in any way, shape, or form, so he just has to know how he can work around them. His family, on the other hand—

They’re not fixable either, is what he realizes. They’re just them.

“At least Laura and Peter,” Derek mutters to himself, and then he shakes his head when he sees how Cora’s going to think about that. “No, it’s not about them, or—look. I’m not going to talk to you about what’s wrong with you, or if there is something wrong, or—whatever. I’m not that person and I already tried anyway and it didn’t work out. Not going to keep trying. But I am your brother, and we’ve gone through enough fucked-up shit to not want to take chances about some things, so Erica’s coming to just make sure you have one person with you. You can go home or stay here or go back to the goddamn high school, so long as she’s with you. And that’s it.”

Cora raises her brows. “Seriously?”

“If I really thought I could make you go straight home, do you think it’d be Erica?” Derek asks her.

“Well, glad at least one of us hasn’t totally lost their mind,” Cora mutters. She’s still frowning at him. “She’s also not gonna put up with any tails.”

“Do I look like I want to follow you around all night?” Derek says. “I have to go pick up Stiles.”

“Oh, my God, so hard,” Cora shoots back.

Derek lets out an exasperated noise and starts to turn. Then he stops, and when he does, he just catches Cora hiding a flash of surprise. Not exactly happy surprise, but not unhappy either. Honestly, he gets the feeling—especially once he inhales—that she just doesn’t know how she feels right now.

“She’s gonna find me now that you’ve put her on me, no matter what I do,” Cora says, like she wanted to make that a complaint but psyched herself out of it at the last moment. She waits for Derek to do something, and when he doesn’t, she rolls her eyes like this is a critical failure on his part. “I just don’t understand you these days. You made way more sense when you were single and picking up secret psychopaths in bars left and right.”

“Yeah, well, was that more fun for you?” Derek asks her.

Cora has some smartass remark ready but at the last second she bites down on it, and then looks angry with Derek about it. Then she just presses her lips together and stares at him.

“Whatever,” she finally says. “I’ll tell Erica when she’s here that you didn’t mean to freak her out, that’s just your default way of screwing with people. Just…keep on not being possessed, Derek.”

“Fine, just stay with her. She gets you better than we do,” Derek says.

This time when he turns away, Cora makes a motion with her hand as if she might call after him. But he doesn’t hear anything that’d indicate she’s about to, so he keeps going. The hallway turns a couple yards down and when he goes around it, she’s still there, frowning at him. Which he guesses is a better sign than her storming off, but once he’s out of hearing range, he does take his phone out.

He texts Erica where Cora is. She texts back immediately, and uncharacteristically it’s just a k thanks. He slows to stare at it and the little dots appear under the text box, and a second later, Erica adds thanks for the heads-up but srsly scott? u possessed?

Derek thumbs out of that thread and texts Laura and Peter to let them know he’s headed out. He’s done here.

Chapter Text

Once Lagertha and Ragnar finish bargaining with the Hales, they call the Miskatonic number for a ride to the Nemeton site, where Athelstan is waiting by their car, frowning at something on his phone. “It’s just Ecbert, wanting an update on my studies and threatening to come visit in person,” Athelstan says as he climbs into the backseat with Lagertha. “How were things—are you—you’re still wearing them?”

Lagertha shares a glance at Ragnar, who’s taken the keys and the driver’s seat. They had discussed whether to text ahead that they were having discussions with the Hales, but it appears that Athelstan hasn’t gotten any word about it yet. And the parking lot is quiet and empty, so Derek must have come for Stiles already. “They were not uncomfortable enough to remove, and I—we wanted to wait for you.”

“Oh,” Athelstan says, color coming into his face. But he leaves his arm pressed against Lagertha’s side, where he’d felt the ropes through her clothes, until she turns into him. Then he curls it tentatively over her back; she has to be the one to pull his hand up against her belly but once there, his fingertips trace along one cord on their own. “I did mean to text you at one of our coffee breaks, but I’m afraid I let those slip by me. It’s just very fascinating what they have here…”

He flushes even more with enthusiasm as he explains what Stiles and he have already discovered, even though their model has barely begun to run. Lagertha is not as interested in such magics as Ragnar, but she likes how Athelstan softens rather than hardens when asked questions, growing his love of knowledge as he explains it to others.

“But here I’ve rattled on, and I haven’t even asked how your day was,” Athelstan says once they’ve returned to their cabin. “What did you do? I think Stiles said something about deer—”

“I see you have let lunch slip as well,” Lagertha notes, as Athelstan’s stomach cuts him off mid-sentence.

“So did we,” Ragnar says under his breath, slipping inside ahead of them. He roots about in the fridge, pushing past the leftovers Athelstan half-heartedly tries to remind them about and then pulls out packages of meat and vegetables. “What did he say about the deer?”

By now Athelstan no longer protests his meals, and simply sits himself on the couch, his laptop on his knee as he watches Lagertha and Ragnar over the couch’s back. “Oh, that they try to return deer bones to the Nemeton for fertilizer. Did something happen?”

Ragnar makes a noncommittal noise. He would have been better off simply making no noise at all, and pretending that he hadn’t heard the other man over the onion he’s chopping, Lagertha thinks as she catches Ragnar’s eye. He shrugs and then turns, just as Athelstan’s voicing a second question.

“Nothing happened to us, only coffee and much talking,” Ragnar says. Then he tips his head. “And there is some business for the Hale pack, but they do not want us to be very involved, so I am not being involved.”

“They have only asked us if we can contact some people for them, who may know a person here,” Lagertha says.

“All right, but…I think I’m coming to recognize this look you two have,” Athelstan says. Then he pushes his laptop onto the table and fully turns to hang over the couch, considering them. “You’re having an argument about how vague to be so that I don’t worry about something I’m now very worried I should be worrying about.”

Ragnar grimaces. Then puts the knife down. He starts to speak, only to pause and look at Lagertha.

“What do you want to say?” he says, instead of simply looking to her to say it. Then, because he can’t help himself, he smiles at her start. “It is your side, as it turns out.”

“The people they want to talk to,” Lagertha explains to Athelstan. She wipes her hands off on a dishcloth and then crosses the room to sit on the couch. “There is someone they think may be possessed—not one of them.”

“The sheriff,” Ragnar supplies as Athelstan starts to ask.

“He may have family in Norway. His grandfather’s name is odd, and it is one that is more likely to come from my area than that of Ragnar’s, so we have given them some people who may know more,” Lagertha says. “That is all, because we and they do not want this to become…a favor, which is formal and complicated, and which we will have to file a report on.”

“I hope you’re not nervous just because of all the rules about what you have to report and don’t,” Athelstan says after a moment. He lets her take his hand on her knee. “I mean, those are important, of course, but you’ve met Ecbert. Clearly not everything is reported.”

“Yes, this is true, but we have met Ecbert,” Lagertha says slowly.

Ragnar puts the lid on the saucepan and then steps back from the stove. “I do not think we were impressed with the way he handles matters,” he says, and then he looks at Lagertha again. “I was not impressed, at least. Although he is a funny man.”

“Well, all right, if it’s only that,” Athelstan says. He pushes himself up on the couch as Ragnar comes over, then frowns when Ragnar slows a few yards from them. “And it’s nice to hear that you can give the Hales a little bit of help…but are you sure nothing happened?”

Ragnar’s looking at Lagertha again, and of course he would make paying more attention to her opinion into something nervy. For a moment Lagertha wants to lose her temper at him, but then something touches her back: Athelstan’s hand, pulling at her shirt where it’s caught under a rope. It’s far too small a thing to have caught her attention otherwise, but since it does, she has a moment to be something besides frustrated, and when that moment ends, she looks up and Ragnar is still looking at her.

He's always interested in her, no matter how he shows it. And he is practicing, as they said—badly, but then, she is not so graceful either, if Athelstan is pointing it out to both of them.

“I think he would like to know when you are planning on taking the ropes off,” Lagertha says.

“I think he will do it whenever you ask him to do it,” Ragnar points out, though his humor is softer than it’d been this morning, tempered with affection rather than steeled with competition. “We did not forget they were on, you know.”

“You weren’t…bothering those poor people with that, were you?” Athelstan asks after a moment, with a little bit of a spark in his eyes, even as he blushes again.

Ragnar shrugs. “They are werewolves. They know this as well as we do.”

“Well, all right, but I don’t—I wasn’t actually thinking about that when I—” Athelstan takes a breath before he can stammer any more, and then looks with clear eyes at both of them “—do you want them off?”

Lagertha looks at him, and then at Ragnar, watching so closely.

“Yes,” she says, and then she lifts her hands to the hem of her shirt. She pauses there, then strokes her fingers above the hem, pressing them down so that they stretch the cloth to show the ropes outlined under them. This is for Ragnar, as Athelstan is not facing that way, but she and Athelstan both can see how Ragnar goes still and focused. “But first, I think he wants to touch them.”

“I do want to,” Ragnar says, a smile starting to slip over his face. But then he looks at Athelstan. “May I?”

“I—” Athelstan blinks, then frowns “—ask h—”

“Ask her to touch them?” Ragnar adds, almost smoothly enough to erase the pause.

“Practicing,” Lagertha says.

Ragnar allows the smile to come, as he dips his head and crosses to stand in front of her without touching, not even her crossed knees. “Trying.”

“Yes,” Athelstan says, with enough firmness that they both look at him. He raises his brows as if this of all things shouldn’t surprise them, even as his hand fidgets under Lagertha’s fingers. “Yes, you can ask her.”

“Well…” Ragnar turns to Lagertha, turns and slips to put his mouth by her ear, his breath coasting warmly down her throat and shoulder “…where can I touch?”

“That is not the question you said you would ask,” Lagertha has to point out, but the flicker of irritation she feels is only a flicker, and dissolves away as she wraps her other hand about Ragnar’s wrist to draw it up to her belly. It’s far faster to disappear than the heat that curls down into her gut when Ragnar’s fingers slide between the cords, cleverly avoiding them until Lagertha’s own shiver twitches the cords over her, and abruptly banishes that heat. “And you are not touching—”

“You didn’t say,” Ragnar murmurs.

Lagertha digs her nails into the underside of his wrist. Ragnar sucks his breath, but then laughs when she pushes his hand so that it splays over two cords at once. “You can touch,” she says.

Then she and Ragnar both look up as Athelstan gets off the couch. “Just going to turn down the stove,” he says, throwing them a quick smile. “And then I’ll take them off.”

“Can you take off the cage, too?” Ragnar asks, and as plaintive as he’s making himself sound, there’s also true hunger in it.

Athelstan is already at the stove and bending over the dials. He swallows hard at Ragnar’s words, then moves one dial and steps back. “Of course,” he says as he returns to them. “This is why leftovers would be so much faster, y—”

“Yes, they would be,” Lagertha says as Athelstan quiets against Ragnar’s mouth. She moves over so Ragnar can push Athelstan between them, then leans against Athelstan’s shoulder. His hands are already searching over her hips, looking for the knots, even as Ragnar makes him groan breathlessly. “But it is better when you wait. Isn’t it, Ragnar?”

“I agree with everything she says,” Ragnar says.

Lagertha squeezes his wrist again. Ragnar laughs anyway, and then curls around both of them, her and Athelstan, as Lagertha pulls his arm around to where Athelstan is unpicking one knot. Ragnar looks at her over Athelstan’s shoulder, then drops his eyes and nestles himself against that, for once following her lead as she lets Athelstan unbind them.

* * *

“So…it was very dead today, and then Peter gave me a call at our last coffee break and explained that there’s a thing going on with the sheriff but it’s not a Cthulhic thing and you’re all on top of it except that you might be having a little flashback trauma and Cora is persona non grata and I need to avoid all law enforcement ever,” Stiles says as he fidgets with a very large, very holiday-themed chocolate bar. “He made it very clear I wasn’t supposed to freak out—”

“So you freaked out,” Derek says.

“So I did not freak out, I asked him some pointed questions about how much he was on purpose misdirecting and how much is just his own Beacon Hills issues, and since he passed the Wilmarth assessment for impersonating humanity, I decided I’d wait on it,” Stiles says. He fidgets with the chocolate bar some more, then slumps. “Okay, and I might have called Scott and he said he’s coming back here but that you’d called him and you’re fine, and you do seem actually not-traumatized but is this a movie-length session we’re going to have here? I mean, because after a certain point you might as well not give me timecodes and I should just marathon it.”

Derek thinks he’s pretty good at translating Stiles these days—it’s actually more helpful to just skip over the Miskatonic references than to try and look them up mid-conversation—but he needs a couple seconds for that one. “Yeah, I’m fine. There’s maybe a possession case running around but it’s not me. But I think everyone else is a lot more freaked out about it.”

“You mean you and not the possession case,” Stiles says, and then nods when Derek sighs. “Yeah, okay, that does go a long way to explaining Peter. So I’m not going to get in line to make you rehash stuff, but just a reminder that I have access to a lot of post-possession psychological studies, and also—um, so, I got this chocolate from one of the on-site techs and I was gonna pass it to you but when I mentioned feeding your foodie cravings to Scott, he started making weird noises at me. So can you just explain if the possession is happening through candy or something like that? Actually, don’t explain, just nod yes or shake no—”

“I’m not—it’s fine, I’m fine, and the possession’s not through food, so far as we know, but there are these…these gift baskets and it’s stupid to even say it out loud and I thought you can just check the chocolate with your phone,” Derek points out.

Stiles blinks. “Well, yeah, and I did, but…cool to mention that? Sorry, I know I keep circling back to the possession thing but Scott just was unusually vague. I mean, he was vague, and actually didn’t blurt out any important details when I poked.”

“Did Allison take the phone away from him?” Derek asks.

“Allison might be arm-twisting her dad into breaking some speed limits on the way back here, so no,” Stiles says. “I think Scott really just didn’t want to accidentally say something about your family.”

“I…yeah. Probably,” Derek mutters. He wonders if he should text Scott and let the man know to back off. But if Allison and Chris are on their way back, Scott’s going to be in transit too, and the less Derek says to him, the less Scott’s going to think he has to meddle in when he does arrive. “Honestly, the sheriff maybe being possessed is not the worst thing going on right now. My family’s just being…them. There’s nothing anyone can do about it, but Scott always wants to anyway.”

“Yeah, he does. He kind of cares about all of you,” Stiles says, smiling a little. Then he wipes that off his face and hastily presents the chocolate bar, even though Derek didn’t actually feel his expression change. “Okay, so…this isn’t therapy chocolate, I promise. It’s just good old-fashioned non-magically-tainted candy, and I happen to have it and may be bribing you since, if we’re rescheduling dinner at Scott’s mom’s place, I’m guessing we’re just bringing carryout to Dad’s and I need you to stay out of his stashes.”

Derek sniffs the bar without thinking—mint and dark chocolate, better-quality than the amount of tinsel in the wrapping would’ve made him think—and then reaches out and takes it. “You didn’t call him, did you?”

“About whatever’s going on? No, I didn’t, but I maybe mentioned to him that Chris is coming back from Washington early and he maybe grunted like this is incentive for him to bounce cross-country one more time before the end of the year,” Stiles says, wincing. “Which was a complete accident on my part.”

“Yeah, I know, you wouldn’t intentionally help him out on a booty call,” Derek says, and then finds himself grinning a little when Stiles makes a pained noise. He sniffs the chocolate again, then unwraps the end and bites off a piece. “I hope you have some ideas for dinner too, because all I’ll say is Peter’s not going to be in a good mood when he gets back.”

“Yeah, a couple,” Stiles says.

He swings his bag onto his shoulder and then follows Derek to the car, tossing around some local restaurant ideas for Derek to react to. Once they settle the dinner order, he calls that in on the way back to his dad’s rental house and then answers Derek’s one question about how the string model went with a good ten minutes of babbling. He does stop every so often to ask if Derek’s following, and Derek sort of is and the parts he’s not, he at least recognizes enough references to have a feeling about what he needs to look up later.

So it’s not until they’re actually sitting down on Stiles’ dad’s couch that Stiles turns to him and says, “Derek, look, not that I want to ruin the calm or anything—and also I really do think that you’re calm and not just repressing—but is there a video I should be watching right now?”

Derek puts down his spoonful of peppermint cheesecake and Stiles’ scent goes from curious and concerned to curious and guilty. “Did Peter text or something?”

“Um, no, but…I might be trying not to think about that,” Stiles admits, as he picks up and puts down his phone for the umpteenth time. Then he grimaces and looks at his hands. They still keep moving around, fiddling with his fork and napkin, but he looks as if this is what’s making him smell guilty. “Okay, so maybe I’m the one repressing here.”

“You don’t really repress, Stiles,” Derek says. Stiles gives him a look but immediately smells less guilty, so Derek shrugs. Then picks up his spoon again, but pauses when Stiles chews at his lip. “You can text him if you want. He probably just wants to make sure you’re not still on—”

“Oh, God, right,” Stiles says, and immediately grabs his phone. He doesn’t have it long enough to have gotten off more than maybe an emoji, but when he drops it this time, his scent is full of relief. And embarrassment, but he just shrugs back at Derek when Derek raises his brows. “Yeah, okay, fully going to admit to the separation anxiety here. I just…feel like I could be doing something. And I know, I know, I totally remember our discussion about this, it’s not my trauma and I’m here to listen to whatever you want to give but not to make you do that, because that’d just be like a literal sixty-seven percent of the psychos you’ve encountered. I’m not going to. I just—I kind of want to, if that makes sense.”

The peppermint cheesecake is really good, and Derek does actually want to finish it, but the more he stares at it, the more he feels stupid about it, and normally he doesn’t have food issues. He doesn’t want food issues anymore than he wants sex issues, and…he’s not going to fix this just by trying to will it away. So he looks at Stiles. “Yeah, it does. But I don’t know if I can give you a video on this. There are…there are a bunch of things that happened, and if I walked you through them, then maybe you’d get it a little, but I don’t even get it and I—it’s the same as I don’t know why the sheriff being possessed isn’t making me freak out. It should.”

“Well, but it’s good that it doesn’t, right? Progress?” Stiles says hopefully.

“I guess,” Derek mutters. He rubs at his face. “I think it’s just my family, Stiles. We’re all kind of—messed up. And you can watch videos about it but that never tells you everything.”

“No, but it’s just context anyway, that’s not the expectation,” Stiles says after a moment’s thought. “You still have to do the work interpreting.”

“That’s the problem,” Derek says before he can help it. He considers stopping there, but Stiles keeps looking at him and for all that Stiles is a talker, he can turn on the listening too. And it doesn’t feel like with Scott sometimes, where Scott’s willing you so hard to bare your soul that it almost feels like the guy’s grabbing at it. Stiles just…waits for it. “My family’s not like an eldritch ritual you can…turn into a set of instructions and a how-to video. They’re…and I thought things were getting better. I think they are, at least for me and Peter, and maybe Laura a little, but every single time I think that, something happens.”

Stiles bites his lip again. “Well, you want a curse check, I’ve got you covered.”

“Yeah, that’d make it easy,” Derek says under his breath, but he tries to make it sound neutral. He’s not trying to go after the other man, not like Cora earlier with him. Stiles is trying to help and Derek can see that for what it is, and not just get wrapped up in his own frustrations. “Maybe it’s just better when we don’t all live in the same town. We might just be that kind of family now.”

Except something about that bothers Derek, as much as he hates having to live with drama. Peter and Laura did need to get some space, so they could each have their area to control, and Derek himself just needed to get out of Beacon Hills and let some things fade, but…they’re still family. And they’ve survived so much that it almost seems like a waste if the way it ends up is they only ever call and text each other. Modern technology’s great and all, but werewolves and things like pack bonds get built out of scents and blood and shared nights under the moon, and you’re never really going to be able to replace that.

What was it that Ragnar had said? Hating to be left out so making trouble to make sure they’re included—but if that’s what Cora really wants, right now Derek doesn’t think he can work up the energy to give that to her. And he’s her brother, and as mad as she can make him, he should want to help her. He’s not that kind of asshole, or at least, he’d thought he wasn’t.

“I’m gonna admit, I don’t have a personal frame of reference for this, seeing as Lydia was my one semi-social regular contact before Scott and I connected again,” Stiles says after nearly a minute of silence. He shifts closer to Derek, so that his shoulder and hip are pressing into Derek’s side. Then stops and lets Derek adjust to that before he turns to put his chin on Derek’s shoulder. “But I could pull up a lot of examples of families that really mindscrew each other. Like they’re not just messing with each other’s PTSD, they’re actively causing that, and also bodyswapping while they’re at it.”

“So we’re cool so long as we don’t possess each other?” Derek says.

Stiles shrugs. “I mean, hey, I am very attracted despite all of my years of counter-conditioning to Peter’s take on ethics, but that’s a line I’m not okay with him crossing. But anyway…you don’t have to figure it out right now, you know.”

Which Derek knew too, and maybe that’s part of it. It’s not like he got over his possession issues overnight, and honestly he probably still has them and they’re just not coming up today. It’s also probably a good sign that he doesn’t feel great about having to leave things like this, since he doesn’t want to be any more psychotic than he currently is, and he’s pretty sure Stiles and Peter would agree (Peter just says he’d like another psycho in the family, but if he ever got one he’d feel threatened, Derek’s positive about this). But he still doesn’t feel great.

But he can’t do anything about it right now, he thinks. He twists the spoon in his hand, then raises it to his mouth and eats the piece of cheesecake. And then he lets himself slouch into Stiles’ warmth, semi-ignoring the excited little noise Stiles doesn’t completely strangle when Derek tilts their heads together. “Maybe that’s what’s wrong with the sheriff,” Derek says. “Got possessed by his family. He really hated all the supernatural stuff but then he went on vacation with some relative of his.”

“Um, so…where, exactly?” Stiles asks after a second. “I mean, that he went?”

“Not New England. Or Scandinavia, actually,” Derek says, stopping halfway through cutting off more cheesecake. “What did Jordan say—something about at least not having to worry about anything weird, let alone Miskatonic weird…craft beer tour in Eastern Europe, that was it.”

“Okay, let’s never ever trust Jordan’s assessment of where to find weird things,” Stiles says, phone already in hand. “Ugh, seriously, that region’s got all the eldritch weird, let me tell you. Or actually, let me tell Peter and Scott’s mom—no, no, I can do that from here, keep eating the cheesecake. I want that gone before Dad comes if he’s gonna fly in.”

So Derek eats the cheesecake and Stiles calls Melissa, and they add that to their checklist. They are really going to need to know the sheriff’s family history now, but Melissa apparently decides it’s not worth waking a bunch of werewolves in Norway in the middle of the night for that, so she puts a tail on the sheriff and then sends Peter home.

“Surprised you let her,” Derek says, once Peter’s eaten, showered, and gotten at least one bellyrub from Stiles. Even so, he makes sure that Peter’s on the opposite side of the bed from him before he asks.

“Oh, if she wants to take charge of rebalancing the entire power structure of this town, Derek, I’ll happily remind her and you that that no longer includes us,” Peter says, stretching his legs out as he taps at his phone. He pauses upon hearing the shower go off, but then looks back at his phone when Stiles just pops the top on some bottle in there. “Absence from certain decisionmaking moments can be just as useful as presence.”

“You’re texting these Norwegians yourself, aren’t you,” Derek says after a moment.

Peter rolls his head against the pillow and looks over, a vague, plausibly denying smile on his face. He actually does smell relaxed, although as Derek snorts and hikes himself against his own pillow, that changes to include a little interest, and not exactly of the sex kind.

“It never hurts to have an additional channel, especially when foreign packs are involved,” Peter says after a moment. He isn’t smiling anymore. “You truly aren’t bothered by today.”

“Today wasn’t my idea of a good time, but I don’t feel like someone else is literally using my body,” Derek says. He shrugs and tosses his phone to the bedside table. “Do you hate Cora now?”

“Derek,” Peter starts, with one of his typical ‘I’m the uncle’ tones. Then he pauses, still looking at Derek. It’s not quite his emotional reboot face but he’s doing something behind that that he doesn’t want Derek to know about, even if he’s not hiding that it’s actually happening. And then he sighs and puts his own phone aside. “Trying to describe my attitude towards you and your sisters would take far longer than a sentence or two, and we both know how allergic you are to long emotional speeches.”

“Yeah, and how you tend to just rip out a heart in the middle of one,” Derek mutters. He pushes himself down the headboard and stares at the ceiling. “She’s just dumb, Peter. She’s not—”

“I’m not seriously interested in murdering her, if that’s where you’re going,” Peter says acidly.

It kind of was, and Derek doesn’t even bother justifying why that’s one, a valid question, or two, an answer that he’s going to accept from Peter; it’s more important that he got it out of the man. Although Peter smells a little disbelieving, and then he actually crawls across the bed so he can look down at Derek.

“I do like you better,” Peter says. He pauses, then leans down. “I’m sharing a mate with you, Derek.”

“You’re also kind of fucking me directly,” Derek points out.

Peter doesn’t even miss a beat. “Yes, exactly, so favoritism is in play and it works in your favor. I know you can have your martyr moments, but I honestly didn’t think this was going to be one of them.”

“I’m not,” Derek says, annoyed. “I just—she’s still my sister, okay?”

“Yes, and my niece, as infuriating as she’s being right now,” Peter says. He stares at Derek for another moment, then rolls to put his back against the headboard. He still stays next to Derek rather than moving to his side of the bed. “I’m not a fair man, Derek. I never have been. I like you better, and if I had to choose between you and your sisters, I would in fact make a choice. But I’m also not in any great hurry to force myself into that kind of position—that said, I have some serious doubts about whether Cora agrees with that.”

“She needs to work things out, and we don’t have to be here for that,” Derek says. Then glances over when he smells surprise on the other man. “I don’t actually think she’s happy like this. And I can want her to be happy, but I don’t need to be the person who makes it happen—I’m not Scott, like you keep warning.”

“Well, thank God,” Peter says. He shifts like he’s going to face Derek again, but when Derek tenses up, Peter just shakes his legs out of the blanket and then stretches them out along the bed again. He does look at Derek, before he turns the other way and retrieves his phone. “I do appreciate that we’re at least down to one ridiculous child. Laura still has that chip on her shoulder but she’s at least self-aware of it these days.”

“So glad we’re not disappointing you,” Derek mutters. He hears Stiles get out of the shower and pull the towel off the curtain rod, so he figures Peter’s going to be on that the second Stiles gets out and turns onto his side so he’s less likely to end up with a flailing Stiles limb to the face when that happens. “Great, then we still get to drive out tomorrow?”

Peter makes an amused noise. “Yes, Derek, we do. I also am going to be preoccupied with some nefarious backchanneling, since as you rightly pointed out, this is still our family’s land and that means something, so I don’t want to hear any complaints about it.”

“Fine, I’ll just complain when you and not me forget about the bloodstain remover under the sink and drip it all over Stiles’ mandala or whatever so we have to call the ghouls again,” Derek says.

Something touches his shoulder. Peter’s hand, flattened so it’s clear he’s not grabbing, and far enough away from Derek’s neck to not come off as aggressive. It’s not flirting either—Peter just holds his palm firmly down for a second, then lifts it before Derek can even grunt at it, and then Peter’s back to doing whatever on his phone. Which Derek doesn’t ask about.

This maybe is not everybody’s idea of a productive way to handle things—Derek’s pretty sure Melissa would disagree, and Scott would be going on and on about communication—but it is working so far. And working doesn’t mean all of it feels settled to Derek, but he knows he doesn’t get to have everything at once, and that trying for it usually just ends up in more slipping through his fingers. So…he’s good with this for now, he thinks, and waits for Stiles to finish up in the bathroom.