Derek Hale Imagines

Amazing

Derek Hale has gotten himself into trouble. Again.

He would like to point out that this isn't entirely his fault, except for the fact that it kind of is. Derek was just trying to mind his own business as a werewolf in a town that strictly hates his type, and of course that was invitation enough for someone to try and kill him. Man, he's sick of this.

Derek briefly ponders the possibility of packing his bags and trying to move towns again, of starting a new life and watching it slide back to Beacon Hills again. Everyone tries to leave, everyone comes back. Maybe it's the thrill of having to fight to survive day in and day out that makes a normal day feel worthless, like Derek is only truly living when he's a few moments from death.

It's dramatic, certainly, but not entirely wrong. Derek has plenty of time to consider his own strange fascination with death now that he's so close to it. He had been heading to his apartment late one night when a pickup truck had pulled up alongside him. Derek had just enough time to see that it was packed with hunters like a clown car before one shot wolfsbane in his face. After that, he was unconscious, so there wasn't a whole lot of time for free thinking.

Derek woke up about half an hour ago. His head is still reeling from the wolfsbane. That, and the fact that he's trapped in some hunter's dingy basement with his hands chained behind his back. It's sweltering down here, one rusty fan trying to do the job of thousands. It creaks and whirs somewhere to Derek's left. He'd almost rather embrace the sheer heat of the place rather than listen to it groan through its cycles for another few hours.

Of course, he's being ridiculous. If he's been kidnapped by hunters, Derek has a lot more pain about to come his way than just the irritation of an overly obnoxious ceiling fan. He can already see the instruments of his suffering laid out on a table to his right: tasers, knives, pliers, and whatnot. He swears the hunters get special pleasure in just reminding him what could happen, all the torture he's about to experience. All that, and then they go about their day jobs like normal men.

How is that fair, he wants to ask? How is it that these people can spend their nights shooting bows and arrows at teenage kids and young men who can't seem to shake their own death wish? They can torture and maim like Bond villains, but the second Derek's eyes start glowing, he's the monster. It makes no sense, but that's just the way things have always been. Around here, legacy is all you need to convince someone of the lines to draw.

A sound from across the room; someone coming down the stairs. They must have noticed that he'd woken up by now. This is where it begins, then. He lets his eyes flicker briefly shut, trying to remember what it's like to stand still with no broken bones, no healing magic racing to sew him shut again.

A bucket of ice cold water splashes against his front. Derek blinks the frigid liquid from his eyes and glares balefully up at the hunter before him.

"I was already awake, you asshole." He spits.

The hunter just chuckles. "I know. I wanted you to be ready for this."

Derek grimaces inwardly. "That's how it's going to be, then?"

The hunter inclines his head. "You're a monster, and that's how we treat vermin around here. We stomp them out."

"If you're going to stomp me out," Derek says cynically, "you might as well just shoot me through the chest and get this over with. You won't believe a word I say, so just save both of us time."

The hunter pretends to think about this. "I don't think so. I won't be robbed of my fun, not for a killer like you."

Derek narrows his eyes. "I'm the killer? Out of curiosity, how many members of your family have I murdered in cold blood? Compare that with how much family I've lost, you don't seem like so much of a saint anymore."