Broken Family Tree

17 - Discovery [edited]

The next morning, everyone on Derek's bed woke up disoriented, thinking that the other night was nothing more than a dreamish nightmare—that is, until they all saw the large furball lying down on the floor, snoring away a storm. In order to not wake Thomas, they took extra care in untangling themselves from each other and tiptoed all the way to the front door, opening it a bit and sitting outside to mull over the transformation of the abused and mysterious Peter-clone. The group shivered in the slight cold of the morning, waiting for one of them to start the conversation.

"So, what do we think of...all this?" Stiles tried breaking the silence. No one volunteered to answer his question at first, but then Mason started:

"I think we're looking at a mutated version of a werewolf. Or one on steroids—his muscles could be explained as such."

A light chuckle rippled through the group at that comment.

"In all seriousness," Corey jumped in, "he's massive. And I'm pretty sure werewolves aren't supposed to be that massive."

"But he was outside all his life, right?" Theo said. "He was in nature, and probably only had his wolf as his friend all that time. Plenty of time to get to know each other and bond with each other. Plus, if all he did was hunt and explore and even play, it would explain his insane muscle mass—did you notice it's mostly on his legs and arms? His chest isn't actually as defined as the rest of him."

"Been looking at him a lot, haven't you?" Malia teased, smirking with one eyebrow raised.

"If I were gay, I'd want him, so I'd watch out for the actual gays in this group."

"Hey!" Mason and Corey shouted, and Mason protested, "We're both happily together, thank you very much!"

Everyone actually laughed out loud at that, releasing some of the tension in the air.

"Do you think he thinks what he looks like is what all werewolves are supposed to look like?" Lydia jumped in after she stopped laughing. After seeing his form, she had fainted, having gotten a flashback of the first time she had seen Peter—only Thomas was much larger than Peter. Much larger. It had her thinking more on Thomas's situation: what had driven him to push himself as much as he had? Why was he so comfortable with the wilderness but uncomfortable with human society? Could it be that what he told Malia, and everyone else, was the truth? From the little she knew of Corinne, she did whatever she could to adapt to her disability, so why wouldn't she do the same for her son? He said she trained him, but what kind of training exactly? He was severely injured as a result of wolfsbane poisoning not allowing his wounds to heal right, which his scarring showed. Maybe he was too much of a reminder of what Corinne was hunting—that is, Malia—and that's why he turned out the way he did?

WHUFF.

Everyone jumped and looked toward the door. They had forgotten to close it when they went outside, and in the tiny crack of the door was the snout of the werewolf that was sleeping like a log a minute before, his nose twitching as he sniffed the air.

"How the hell did he get there without any of us noticing?!" Liam whisper-screamed, hand on his chest.

"I have no idea," Scott murmured, "but anyone would've heard him standing up and walking around, right?"

The others nodded in agreement, watching as Thomas nosed the door the rest of the way open and crawled outside toward everyone, scraping the top of the door frame with his fur. They moved out of the way to make room for his humongous frame. Once he was completely out, he stood up and stretched himself out, ending with a full-body shake. His fur was a deeper reddish color than what they thought, and the damage he had sustained all his life went much deeper than any of them had thought: old scars long, short, smooth and jagged all over his body, dirty and matted fur, patches of bald spots and mats as mad as sheep's wool revealing irritated skin, overgrown claws, and a colony of ear mites in both ears. When the werewolf yawned, opening his mouth wide to then close it with a snap, they saw the black on his teeth and figured out it was actually rot. For some inexplicable reason, Thomas's wolf was suffering a separate but identical pain to Thomas's state when he was in his human form, only his wolf hadn't healed with the human side of him, baffling them all. Didn't he say once that he had embraced the wolf? Then they should both be healing at the same time, right? When it looked like he was heading over to the woods, Scott stopped him.