CHPT 70: Awake and Awakened

Friday August 18th, Beacon Hills.

No dreams, no nightmares, no memories coming in flashes and flares at the back of his mind.

For an entire day Marco just…. Was.

He lay still. Feeling the old heat linger on one half of his body. His skin felt raw— deeper within something felt even more so. Not just on the surface either. Its entirety.

His soul felt anew. His mind felt like it was placed in a new environment where the caves and sands containing ghosts didn't cast such deep shadows. Allowing for new perspective.

He felt like he was standing on a mountain when he shut his eyes. The horizon laid before him. Just as still. Just as…. Simply existing.

But no living being could do that forever.

Not Marco.

He couldn't waste away in the serenity and profoundness of it.

He had to get up.

So, he did.

The sun wasn't there to welcome him. He'd missed it the previous morning and its patience was only held in hours. Not days.

Beside him, a bedside table topped by a mechanical clock read that it was four-thirty. Friday.

His equilibrium cursed him for rising so quickly and a headache attempted to breach his skull. But it was already at full capacity. Or maybe he was too used to nerve searing migraines to be bothered by grogginess.

He stood up. The bed and floor didn't make a single creak as he got out of bed. The scents of Alison and Victoria wafted from the fabrics as they fell off his back and draped over the mattress.

Marking the place as his land made the scents bothersome. If he listened only to his instinct he would've transformed and started murdering the source of every unwelcome scent as a way of cleaning house. The same way new Alpha Grey Lions kill off the adolescents with scents tied to the old Alpha.

But, he wasn't all instinct.

And all the scents weren't unwelcome.

Some though, were more important than others.

Marco stalked like the hallways like a leopard at midnight. His massive weight under complete and utter control. His nose flaring as he followed the scents of decay. Silver. Pain. Mother.

Every room he passed housed a Shifter or two. All sleeping only barely. After what they enduring adrenaline probably still clogged their veins like grease in fast food plumbing.

Marco made it to the end of a long hallway with white walls full of pictures. Victoria looked happy. Alison looked young. Her father looked militant.

He used to have similar pictures of his family.

Now he had the mental image of what he watched sleep inside the master bedroom.

Laid upon a queen sized bed under quilt and cover as white as snowfall.

His mother slept. Her dark skin contrasted with the light colors of the room like night and day. Her silence blended in perfectly though.

He listened to her breathing. It fell in sync with her nightly nurse, Deaton. Even so he could hear the mucus and congestion. The rawness and damage that couldn't heal over the silver poisoning and trauma.

Like clockwork the discomfort and anxiety slithered into existence beneath his skin. He itched and urged as he looked her over. Angry that he wasn't home. That he didn't know where to look for gauze, and ointments, and….

"She's been properly bandaged and cleaned. I don't have to tell you I'm just a veterinarian so I hope you trust me." Deaton said with closed eyes as he sat beside her bed in a wooden chair.

"Were you waiting for me?" Marco questioned as he stood nearly as wide as the doorway.

"No. You're just not so silent to me anymore….. I don't appreciate that. Id much rather prefer I didn't hear you coming if things go south." Deaton smiled faintly.

"Don't worry, you won't."

"It's good to see you too, Marco. May I call you Menes?" Deaton questioned as he opened his eyes.

Marco looked at him and he dropped his gaze to the floor.

"Who told you that name?"

Deaton looked to Marco's mother. "She says your name…. You and your sisters. She whispers them in her sleep. She speaks of you as if you're still a boy."

"I've never heard that."

Deaton nodded, "I've only known you for a short time… but you are for surely an ultra direct being. I don't think you hear much of anything that doesn't serve your purpose."

"Ouch."

Deaton shrugged, "I'm not so sure that's the case anymore…."

He looked over Marco in the darkness. Despite sleeping for two days without food, he looked even larger. Half of his body a lighter shade of brown from slow healing or simply a new marking of power. Splotches of soul flame-kissed skin beaded with sweat that glowed under even the faintest light. He looked reborn.

"You seemed to have had an existential epiphany, Marco." Deaton said.

Marco ran a hand through his dreads at the memory of it, "I listened…."

"And now you hold the power of an entire race of beings. Marco I was sure it used to be at least four. But now…"

"Too many to count." Marco finished.

"Are you not worried?" Deaton questioned, "I mean for lack of a better term, you've become a god. The power of hundreds— all of whom worship you and make sacrifice to you to varying degrees. You….."

"Why am I worried?" Marco questioned.

Deaton looked mortified but tried to contain it, "Teenage boys are not meant to hold that kind of power. Marco…. You were dying when you held just one extra Alpha Spark. However many it took to make you breathe fire is…. Considerably more than that."

Marco nodded.

"How many years have you thought you'd live?" Deaton questioned.

"Never thought about it. Long enough to kill the Warlocks." Marco shrugged.

"And now?"

"The Warlocks are dead."

Deaton pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I never thought things would end like the American movies so let's cut the shit right there." Marco spoke in the dark room. "I wasn't waiting for a special sunset or forgiveness when I die of old age on my porch. Revenge doesn't work like that. The Darach that gave me this power told me so. I sealed my fate with comfort. Now I live it."

"For how long."

"I don't know….. couple more years."

Deaton sighed and leaned back in his chair, "Christ….—"

"Not my religion."

Deaton side eyed him and continued talking, "So the saying rings true? While seeking revenge did two graves. One for your enemies and…. One for yourself."

"My enemies can't all fit in one grave."

"What about her?" Deaton looked to Marco's mother.

Marco seriously considered that questioned as he looked at her. As he smelled her. As he spent so much time by her side just trying to get an answer out of her delirious pain-riddled ramblings.

"I've kept her from her grave for years….."

It twisted a knot in his chest to say it out loud.

Deaton nodded.

"I have the means to fix that now…" Marco studied his hands.

"What?"

"Nothing. Do you mind staying here a while longer? I need to shower."

"Take as long as you need, Marco." Deaton watched him leave as quietly as he came.

Like a ghost.

***

When Marco finally exited the shower, the sun was up. Bodies were moving. The smell of sizzling meat in seed oils got his stomach roaring louder than himself on a full moon.

He exited the shower with a towel around his waist. It wrapped around his hips and pronounced glutes like a white miniskirt. His cross dressing tendencies usually went as far as nails and earrings but he had no choice. He burned through his clothing.

Which made for an awkward interraction with the woman standing in front of him.

She was tall. Not physically but in stature. She stood with confidence. A casual confidence as if she was used to it. Her dark hair looked red under the sunlight peaking in through the windows inside nearby rooms.

She had that pale-skinned racial ambiguity of Derek where he couldn't fully tell what her nationality was.

But he could smell werewolf beneath the freckles and leather.

"You're…. Naked."

Marco didn't notice his towel fell.

"I am."

"Nice tan."

"Got it from my family."

The woman looked at him oddly, he felt like he could've seen a smile but then again she didn't seem the type.

"I'm Cora." She held out her hand.

"Marco."

"You seem comfortable in your own skin. You must be the Grey Lion Alpha." Cora surmised.

"You seem confident… and grumpy by human standards. You must be the sister Derek told me not to kill."

Cora nodded, "Yep."

The scent of Stiles came up the stairs before he did.

"Hey, uhhhh… Cora if Marco's still asleep I say we just run because I'm not about to be around a hungry we—"

Stiles froze at the top of the steps as he looked down the hallway and spotted them.

"What the fu—"