Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There's a throbbing behind Isaac's eyes. It feels like his blood is on fire in his veins. His mouth is dry and tastes like metal and ozone. The inside of his skull feels like the crackle in the air during a lightning storm, every muscle in his body aches, and his vision has gone white from the pain so many times he's lost count.

And through it all, the only thought he can complete is, 'I fucking hate magic.'

It turns out that the coven that Ethan and Aiden pissed off were still, in fact, pissed. Apparently, they had bitten two members of the coven just before the leader took their alpha powers. The witches, unable to take the bite, had died. So the coven had been tracking the twins since their arrival in Seattle, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. When they heard about their plans to meet with the pack in California, the witches planned carefully.

The coven got there the day before them and wiped out the pack. There was nothing left of them by the time Peter, Isaac, and their pack arrived.

They were ambushed.

The pack fought hard. Isaac was proud of them, impressed by how well they worked together, but it was short lived. There was little they could do in close-quarters combat against magic. Bruised and beaten, Peter ordered a retreat.

Isaac rolls over, spits a mouthful of blood into the dirt and leaves. His memory is hazy, and he tries to fight through the pain to remember.

He remembers Ethan and Aiden leading Em and Dodger away from the fight, and Peter heading off the coven leader when she tried to give chase. He remembers Peter's angry roar when one of the witches threw Isaac into a tree with a blast of energy, remembers the way his ribs cracked, the way it felt like he was being crushed when he tried to suck in a breath.

The pain is slowly ebbing away, he thinks, or he's becoming more used to it, Isaac isn't actually sure which. He rolls onto his back and sucks in a labored breath, lets it out in a sigh of relief when he feels that his ribs have mostly mended, but that makes him wonder how long he had been lying there on the forest floor. It takes some effort, but he pries his eyes open, groaning when the sunlight filtering through the trees sends a sharp pain through his head. He barely hears his own voice over the ringing in his ears, muffling most of the sounds of the forest around him. Isaac brings a hand to his head and feels sticky wetness at his temple, blood that's been there long enough to cool but not long enough to dry completely.

He lies there for longer than he should, sucking in shallow breaths, taking stock of himself. The ringing in his ears subsides as the crackling of what he assumes is residual magic in his body fades. He's sore all over, but he's alive. His ribs are tender, healing slowly, and the throbbing in his head is persistent, but otherwise, he seems to be uninjured, which he's pretty sure is some kind of miracle.

There's a rustle of leaves somewhere to Isaac's left, and a whine that sounds more animal than human. He tries to sit up too fast and has to close his eyes, a wave of nausea rolling through him at the pain that the sudden motion causes. Isaac makes it to his hands and knees before he retches, nothing more than blood and stomach acid making its way out of him as his body shakes. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand when he's finished and sits back on his heels, fingers digging into the dirt and leaves and tangle of tree roots under him to keep himself steady. There's another whine beside him and he turns slowly, so as not to upset his stomach again.

Six feet away, laying on its side in the dirt and leaves, is a gray wolf. It's facing away from him, and Isaac feels a pit of dread start to form in his stomach.

He glances around the area, but the coven is long since gone, and Peter is nowhere to be seen. The knot of dread twists his stomach, and coupled with the lingering pain, causes a cold sweat to break out over Isaac's brow, stinging the wound on his temple that hasn't quite healed yet. His limbs are still shaking, so he doesn't try to stand, instead crawling slowly and carefully over the uneven ground towards the animal. It's awake enough to hear his approach and it tries to move, but it can't seem to lift itself up and lets out another pitiful whine instead. Isaac can see it's body tense as he moves slowly around it, but it relaxes when he moves into it's line of sight.

The wolf lets out another low whine and rolls onto its belly, but its limbs are trembling the same way Isaac's are, so it settles its chin on its front paws and stares at him as he stares back.

His stomach twists again and Isaac sits heavily in the dirt, lifting a shaking hand toward the wolf. It watches him woefully, and its eyes slide shut when Isaac tangles his fingers into the thick fur at the scruff of it's neck.

“Peter?” Isaac's voice shakes, and the wolf whines again, nuzzling its snout against his knee. He laughs, high pitched and hysterical. It's involuntary, but he can't stop it, he just laughs and laughs and shakes and cries. The wolf – Peter, god, it's Peter – opens its eyes and looks at him, and Isaac thinks he might throw up again when they flash blue instead of red.

“Fuck,” he breathes, removing his hand from Peter's fur to wipe the tears from his face, smearing dirt and blood over his cheeks in the process. He's still shaking as he wipes his hands on his jeans, and then they're back in Peter's fur, stroking over him, checking for injuries. Peter bares his teeth and snarls when Isaac runs a hand over one of his front legs, and Isaac lets out another hysterical laugh. It's hard to tell, and he doesn't know a lot about canine anatomy, but he thinks it's broken.

“Are you,” Isaac swallows when Peter looks at him, attentive as he talks, “Can you heal, like this?”

Maybe it's stupid, talking to him like he can answer, but Peter seems to at least understand what he's saying, and huffs a breath in response. Isaac doesn't know what that means. They're in the middle of a forest, their pack is nowhere to be seen, his boyfriend is a fucking wolf, and if the flash of blue in his eyes is any indication, the witches took Peter's alpha powers, on top of it all.

Isaac wants to cry.

Instead, he forces himself to stand, and wills some steadiness back to his limbs. The magic attacks left him weak, and his head is spinning, but he manages to stay upright. Peter copies him and struggles to his feet. He falls once, on his injured leg, and the yelp of pain that comes from him makes Isaac cringe. It takes a few tries, but he finds balance on three legs instead of four and looks at Isaac, waiting.

“Okay,” Isaac says, more to himself than to Peter, and he looks around the forest, tries to get a handle on where the hell they are. “Okay. Let's...try to find the car, if it's even still here.”

They walk together through the trees in silence for what feels like ages. His sense of time is skewed from the fight and being knocked out, and the whole area smells like residual magic. A few trees are scorched, although from lightning or fire, he can't tell. There's also a disconcerting amount of blood on everything, but Isaac tries not to think of where it came from. The last thing he needs right now is his imagination getting away from him. What he needs is to find the car, get his phone, and call the pack. Find out if they made it away safely, or if the coven caught up with them. He needs to figure out what to do next.

The car is surprisingly intact when they finally reach it, and Isaac opens the back door for Peter, who climbs in carefully and immediately lays across the seats, huffing an exhausted-sounding breath. Isaac laughs breathlessly, so overwhelmed by the situation that laughter seems to be the only thing he has left. He fishes the keys out of his pocket and sits in the drivers seat. The engine starts without a hitch, which is also a surprise; he half expected the coven to have fried the system or turned it into some kind of eldritch horror in their absence.

Peter's phone is sitting in the cup holder where he left it, and Isaac isn't nearly as surprised to see that it's dead. He plugs it into the charger and breathes a sigh of relief when it turns on. He lets it finish loading, and sees several missed calls from Aiden, but no voicemail. Hand shaking, he dials Aiden and puts the phone on speaker, turning sideways in the seat to watch Peter as the phone rings, and rings.

It clicks when Aiden picks up, and before Isaac can say anything, the other beta is talking.

“Peter, where the hell are you?” Isaac laughs again, hysterical and relieved and about a dozen other things that he can't name.

“It's Isaac,” he says, then swallows, “Are you okay? Did you make it out?”

“We're fine, Em's got a concussion and Dodger's got a broken leg, but we're okay,” Aiden explains, and Isaac hears Ethan in the background, but can't make out what he's saying. He breathes another, longer, sigh of relief, and watches Peter do the same. “Are you okay? Where's Peter?”

“He's here,” Isaac says, but Peter can't offer him any help here, and he doesn't know how much he should divulge to the other beta. “We're okay, I think. Something happened, but I'm going to fix it.”

There's silence on the line for longer than Isaac is comfortable with, and finally Aiden asks, “What did they do to him?”

Isaac looks at Peter searchingly, but Peter just rolls his eyes and huffs a breath.

“I'm not sure,” Isaac says honestly, scrubbing a hand through his hair. His head is still throbbing, but it's not as bad now. “He's...a wolf. I don't think he can change back.”

Aiden is quiet for a beat, and then he says, “And what did they do to you?”

Isaac's head seems to throb extra hard in answer, so he closes his eyes and leans his head against the seat. He can sense Peter looking at him from the backseat, but he doesn't want to look back, to see an expression he can't decipher on a canine face. His stomach turns.

“Nothing? I don't know,” he tells Aiden after too long, blowing out a sigh at the end. He looks at the clock on the dash. It's 7:48 in the morning; they must have been lying out in the forest all night. Isaac catches a glimpse of himself in the rear view mirror, sees the blood dried on his face and in his hair, the dirt smeared over his cheeks. There's a leaf in his hair, and he reaches up to pull it out, then rolls down the car window and tosses it out. His head is pounding and he's not sure if it's something that can be fixed by triggering the shift, or if he needs to wait it out. Some food and water probably wouldn't hurt either, he knows, but first he needs a game plan.

“Where are you?” He asks, when Aiden doesn't say anything else, and Isaac tries to focus on the pack, on organizing. He really is the de facto leader now, what with Peter being a wolf, but also apparently no longer an alpha. Isaac doesn't want to deal with this; he wants a fourteen hour nap and a pizza. He hears a shuffle over the phone and then Em is speaking into it.

“We're at my cousin's house in Portland,” she says, and Isaac is relieved to hear her voice, sounding slightly pained but otherwise no worse for wear. That also tells him where the other car went, and he's infinitely more glad to know they still have reliable transportation. “We're trying to regroup, but we were worried about you and Peter. Is he...”

“We're fine,” Isaac insists when she trails off, sounding unsure. “Lay low there until you're all travel fit. There's a credit card in the glove box, use it for gas and head back to Seattle as soon as you can.”

“Are you sure? The coven could be waiting for us there,” Em argues, and Isaac curses softly, dragging a hand over his face.

“They left me and Peter alive, and if they're chasing you, they would have caught up already,” he tries to sound sure, but he's really not. What if the coven is waiting for them in Seattle? What if he's sending his pack to their deaths? “Whatever they wanted, they must have gotten it. Maybe turning Peter into a wolf was all the payback they needed.”

“What are you going to do?” Aiden again. Isaac realizes they must have him on speaker. He chews his lip and looks at Peter, who stares back and sighs through his nose. Isaac sighs as well.

“I have to find a way to change him back,” Isaac says, and it's the only thing he's sure of. The alpha powers are a whole other concern, but they can't deal with that until Peter is in his proper form again. He doesn't even know if that's possible; he had heard of witches, but until yesterday, he had never actually seen one, or what their powers could do. This needs to be handled carefully, he knows, but concentrating is hard.

Isaac closes his eyes and focuses on the shift, and there's a warm, almost tingling pull under his skin that's new. It's not bad, but it startles his eyes open, and he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror again.

His eyes flash red before returning to their normal, human color.

Bile rises in his throat.

“I have to go,” he says, doesn't realize that Em and Aiden have been talking to him until they fall silent.

“Is everything okay?” Aiden asks immediately, but Isaac is staring at himself in the mirror. He sees Peter watching him, but Isaac can't tell what he's thinking. His heart is pounding so hard in his ears he almost doesn't hear the question.

“Yeah, I,” he pauses and swallows, tries to shake some sense into himself. He makes a flash decision, straightens out in the seat, and buckles himself in. “We have some friends in southern Cali, I need to take Peter to them and see if they can help. Head to Seattle. Keep me updated on where you are. If you run into trouble, do not try to fight. Run, and hide. Can you do that?”

Aiden and Em both make noises that aren't words, but Isaac needs an affirmative. He growls softly and repeats himself, “Can you do that?”

“Yeah, we can do that,” Aiden says, and Emily tacks on, “Be safe, Isaac.”

He hangs up the call and drops the phone into the cup holder to let it charge. Peter gives a soft whine from the back seat, an inquisitive sound, and Isaac meets his gaze in the mirror.

“Well,” he says, smiling grimly, “Ready to go back to Beacon Hills?”