Appetite for Destruction

Dark Oak

Peter's apartment was on the fourth floor of a modern, showy building downtown only fifteen minutes from the loft. The apartment itself was pretty spacious, the furniture brand new and the bookcases filled with a vast collection of supernatural and other strange books, some of which I suspected were from our family's old collection.

I knew Peter wanted to keep an eye on me, like I was going to do something stupid when he wasn't looking and I was pretty sure he was worried about the wrong thing. I'd only accepted the offer to crash at Peter's because it was too hard being at the loft, the building I'd told Derek was a waste of money because we could just get a house like normal people.

I emerged from my temporary bedroom after a long, sleepless night and joined him in the kitchen. He placed a cup of coffee in front of me unprompted and I looked from the cup to my uncle. "I'm convinced it's poisoned." My tone missed the sarcastic edge I'd been aiming for and came out flat and tired instead. Peter picked up the cup, took a sip, and put it back down in front of me. "Now it's definitely poisoned."

Peter rolled his eyes, but there was a smile playing at the corner of his mouth and I knew he was waiting for me to show some spark, some sign that I wasn't ready to give up just yet. "Sleep well?" He asked, offhanded and carefully uninterested.

I reached for the cup, holding it between both hands and staring down into it. I didn't know how to voice how to answer that without sounding completely pathetic. "We need to figure out our next step." I muttered instead, and looked up when Peter sighed heavily.

"Right now there is no next step." Peter said, and I frowned at him. "There's no point in making a plan when half of the pack is out of town."

Peter was patient and calm and making sense - and right now I hated him for that.

"We can't just sit around and wait for them to make the first move." I knew my voice was sharp. I couldn't do fuck all about it. 

"Getting yourself killed isn't exactly going to help, is it?" 

"Then what the hell am I supposed to do?" I demanded. I could feel tears stinging at my eyes and when I blinked they escaped, rolling down my cheeks. "Derek's not here to make decisions anymore so someone has to do it!"

Peter's expression didn't change and my tears felt even more foolish now. "You're right, Derek's not here. Why? Because he didn't want to wait around and come up with a better plan, relied on some ridiculous notion that Deucalion wouldn't figure out what he was doing before he did it, and that's what got him killed." 

And that was it; the reason for the deep, gnawing pit in my stomach that I was trying to ignore. The laugh that tried to make its way out of my throat wasn't actually about any kind of humour and I hated that laughter, because it hurt literally and metaphorically.

I wiped angrily at the tears on my face. "You're right," I limited myself to saying, torn between wanting to throw something at Peter for saying the words that had been eating away at me and relief that he did, that it was out in the open. "We fucked up and it cost us, and despite what you think I'm not actually in denial about that." I rubbed at my eyes, feeling far too exhausted for this particular conversation. "I just... I'm dealing with it, alright?"

"I'm not saying your reaction is wrong," Peter's voice had that special tone that screamed he was trying to be nice and it was hard work. "Just that you're not thinking straight right now."

"I know." I admitted quietly. After a few moments I pushed myself away from the kitchen table and took a deep, steadying breath. 

"What are you going to do?" Peter asked, suspicion colouring his tone like he expected me to ignore everything he'd just said and go running to my death at the hands of the Alphas.