Til The Dawn [Midnights #1] ✓

chapter 26

Derek stood in the kitchen, leaning casually against the counter, all his muscles tensed as he stared at the clock on the wall. He'd been trying to will it to slow down, but nothing was working. No matter what he did, it was still trekking along like Derek's opinion on the matter was irrelevant.

He'd stayed up most of the night worried about Peter, and since he'd been unable to get a hold of him, he had dreamed up all the worst case scenarios. Something that Derek hadn't had to do in such a long time. And given his history and the associated trauma, it wasn't that big of a stretch either.

Or that's what multiple therapists had told him over the years.

Derek took another slow, lingering sip of his steaming coffee as he stared at the door now before turning to his phone and sighing heavily.

When the front door jerked open a few minutes later, he nearly jumped out of his skin. He'd been in such a trance, still trying to figure out his next moves should any of his waking nightmares come true, that he hadn't heard Peter walking up to the house.

"Peter?" he called cautiously.

As the man of the hour walked in, looking a little frustrated himself, the relief was instantaneous for Derek, and all his earlier irritation faded away. Derek was just glad he was okay.

"Coffee?" he asked, motioning toward the machine. "I've been out all night."

"Yeah, just made it," Derek answered, rushing over to make him a cup.

Derek busied himself with the buttons, refusing to look back at his uncle. He didn't want him to see the tears threatening to spill as he let himself fully realize how scared he had been. He knew if Peter had been out, there was a good reason for it. But that didn't make him feel better either.

When the cup filled much quicker than Derek was prepared for, he walked it back over to Peter carefully, placing it on the island where he was laying his head.

"Where, uh, have you been?" Derek asked timidly. "I texted you a ton of times."

Peter nodded. "I was looking into who bit Scott," he answered, blowing across the top of his coffee. "Phone ran out of battery a while ago. I was on foot for most of it. I need one of those, uh..."

He made a motion with his hands to try to illustrate what he meant, but Derek didn't understand at first. Then it hit him.

"Mobile chargers?"

"Yeah, the ones that look like little sticks."

Derek snorted his laughter. "Sure, we'll get one when we go out." He shook his head. "Did you find anything?"

Peter shrugged again. "What's going on that's so important?" he asked, effectively changing the subject. "Scott's all right, isn't he?"

"Yeah, Scott's fine," Derek answered. "I mean, as fine as he gets at the moment, I guess." He shrugged. "It was Stiles who texted me, actually. Something happened at the video store. It set his, uh, wolfy sense off."

He hated it, but he made the air quotes as necessary, not wanting Peter to think those were words he'd ever use seriously in any context.

Peter chuckled low. "That boy is something else," he replied. "What did you find out?"

Derek shrugged again. "Stiles sent me a picture of his dad's preliminary report and it seems like they're agreeing it was an animal attack. The video store clerk is dead, though. Killed by said animal."

"Well, this is Beacon Hills. It could've been an actual animal attack. We back up to a wildlife reserve on one side and a mountain range on the other. It's not that big of a stretch. You know that."

"Yeah, I know," Derek said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. It'd been forever since he'd done that, especially in front of Peter, but there was something about the whole scenario that reminded him of when he was a teenager, and he'd been scared to be honest with him for no reason whatsoever. "It's just that, uh, Jackson Whittemore and Lydia Martin were there. They both saw red eyes. And Jackson insisted that the eyes were too high up to belong to any animal he knew of."

Peter nodded along to Derek's rambling story, but didn't offer anything, so Derek continued. "As much as I hate this phrase, I think Stiles is right. We have a, uh, what'd we used to call them? A furry situation on our hands."

Peter laughed outright at that one, his eyes shining like they always did when he really thought something was funny. Derek was bolstered by the idea that it was him that had caused that reaction too, since they had very little to truly laugh at these days.

"All right," Peter began when he calmed down again. "What about this kid, Jackson? That's the lacrosse star on your team, right?"

Derek nodded and swallowed hard. "Yeah. Super trustworthy kid. Good head on his shoulders. I don't think he's wrong about what he saw, or making anything up. He definitely isn't stupid enough to be drunk or high or anything."

"Agreed," Peter offered.

"And he's been after Scott at school too. Thought he was on drugs. Honestly, I'm a little worried he might be putting too much together."

"Ah. Well. We'll deal with that if we have to," Peter agreed. "Scott's eyes aren't red, at least. So it's not him. And the Sheriff doesn't suspect anything unusual, right?"

"No. He thinks Jackson and Lydia are just freaked out, you know?"

"Still doesn't change that we need to have a good look at the body," Peter conceded. "Is it in the morgue yet?"

Derek took another slow sip. "Got transferred super early this morning. There shouldn't be anyone around it at the moment. They don't have a pathologist on hand at Beacon General since Jenkins left, and it's not a huge priority, so no one's coming until tonight, I think."

"We can go now, then," Peter said, hopping up.

"Don't you need to sleep? You're kinda old now. You can't exactly pull all-nighters like you used to," Derek teased.

Peter put a hand over his heart and staggered dramatically. "You wound me, nephew."

Derek rolled his eyes. "Oh, God. Don't start that nephew shit again," he grumbled.

"You loved it when you were a kid," Peter said, walking around the island and bumping his shoulder playfully as he walked toward the sink with his mug. "You used to make me say it instead of your name, remember?"

"Yeah, a kid. I was, like, five or something."

"Look, we'll go check it out, then we'll have breakfast and I'll go to sleep. All right?"

"Fine," Derek assented. "Just don't fall asleep on me."

"I promise."

Derek nodded for what felt like the millionth time before downing what was left in his own coffee mug and sitting it in the sink next to Peter's as he headed to the key hook and pulled off his own before his uncle had a chance to protest. Peter rolled his eyes at Derek's overprotective behavior as he headed to the car, closing the front door behind both of them as they headed out to greet what was sure to be an interesting day.