Chapter Text
“What the fuck do you mean you have a crush on him?” Scott turned to Stiles, yanking his head out of the book he was so cautiously examining in the passenger seat. Stiles couldn’t help but wonder how his best friend hadn’t gotten motion sickness yet.
He had really turned himself around after almost failing their sophomore year in Beacon Hills high – he was reading every day, he was catching up on everything he had missed in chemistry and bio during a year of, you know, becoming a werewolf, getting a new girlfriend, trying to escape said girlfriend’s psycho hunter family, trying to save his co-captain from an evil reptilian monster taking over his body, all that jazz, he had even gotten a “word of the day” extension on his browser. Although, Stiles assumed it might also partly be because his breakup with Allison was taking up such a huge part of his brain that he used studying as a distraction from it.
Stiles had not been able to stop thinking about someone either. He'd hated himself for it at first. Hell, he'd thought he was going insane in the first few days, but in time, as his sleeplessness caused by constant fear for his life turned into sleeplessness caused by goddamn Derek Hale, he realised something was different.
And he did not like it.
At first it was just a tingly feeling whenever The Alpha was around, and Stiles could not, for the life of him, figure out what the hell was wrong with him, but when he thought back to the last few months, keeping Derek in mind specifically, it all became clear. And so did the fact that he was going insane.
If stiles was completely honest with himself, he knew it first struck when he'd seen Derek flirting with the officer at the front desk of the sheriff’s station, and even though he'd known he was only doing it to distract her, it had made him inexplicably angry. He had not really paid attention to it, though, as just a minute later he was attacked by one of the hunters and then they had kind of had to deal with Isaac on his first full moon. But now? Now he could see the whole situation in a completely different light. Even the part where Derek had roared at Isaac to put him in his place and then turned around with a smirk and announced, “I’m The Alpha.” A smirk that almost looked like he was trying to impress. Damn, had been all Stiles could think at that moment.
Watching him threateningly deflate a basketball by the pool before interrogating Stiles about the Kanima with a single bare hand had definitely terrified Stiles, but once again, it had given him that tingly feeling. Which he did not understand. Therefore – he'd hated it. He knew it had been Derek’s instinct to protect him since Stiles was only human and Derek was the big bad wolf or, well, the big good wolf, at least most of the time, but him pushing Stiles away and telling him to run as The Kanima attacked, had made Stiles feel…nice. And safe. And that was a vibe many people did not get off Derek. So Stiles had felt obligated to keep him afloat in the pool for two hours when Derek had gotten paralyzed. And it had kind of hurt just the tiniest smidgen when Derek had said they didn’t trust each other. Because Stiles did. As much as he hated to admit it.
Of course, getting paralyzed himself and having to fall onto Derek was no walk in the park either. Especially when Derek so venomously had ordered to get Stiles off of him. Now that had hurt. And that was when he knew. Fortunately, the fear for his life was stronger than the natural urge to act weird which would have kicked in in any other situation when stumbling upon such a terrifying revelation.
And then there were the looks. Stiles knew they meant nothing, but every time the man looked at him he thought he was going to spontaneously combust. It didn’t matter if Derek was frowning like the Sourwolf he was or if he was smiling, which was, admittedly, a rare occurrence on the werewolf’s face – either way it was staring to ache hard. In the pit of his stomach. And he hated it. He hated being attracted to an asshole who would never let anyone in. Let alone a teenager who visibly annoyed the shit out of him. And he knew it would never go anywhere, but he just had to tell someone. It was beginning to trump the whole Lydia situation and Stiles had no idea how he’d let that happen.
“Okay, thank you, supportive as ever,” Stiles yelled, annoyed at his best friend’s reaction, but not exactly having expected much better, “I don’t know myself,” he admitted, “It’s freaking me out.”
“Well I’m sorry,” Scott laughed, “but how can you even have a crush on him?” Scott looked confused, putting his book away, “Like…why?”
“Why? Have you seen him?” Stiles exclaimed, pulling up to a tattoo parlor Scott had made him drive to, “The man’s all hunk and ruggedness. And beard, and-”
“Okay, stop, please,” Scott said urgently, getting out of the jeep. Stiles was seriously beginning to regret telling him anything. “What about Lydia?”
“My question exactly,” Stiles sighed, opening the door to the parlor and heading in.
“Well, that sucks,” Stiles stated, looking at the completely empty, healed patch of skin on Scott’s arm, thankful it was less gross than he had thought it would be, especially since his head still ached from, you know, the fainting. And the falling. The tattoo was gone. It had just been created and now it was gone.
“Just drive,” Scott growled, making Stiles smirk at his best friend’s misery.
“Oh, hey, speaking of you being all mopey, how’s Allison?” Stiles pried, the joy of annoying Scott even more pungent than usual, what with the whole disrespecting Stiles’ biggest confession of all time. Their breakup had not been messy, but it had left Scott a bit damaged, nonetheless.
“Don’t know. Haven’t called or texted her all summer. You know, giving her the space we agreed on.”
“So is she coming back to school, then?” Stiles asked, watching the red light above the road.
“Don’t know. After everything that happened I’m not sure she’s coming back at all,” Scott shrugged just as Stiles noticed both Allison and Lydia in the car right next to them, both looking equally bored as they lazily discussed something.
“I think she is,” Stiles sighed, “I’d say pretty definite, like, one hundred percent,” he stated and nodded his head to the car next to theirs.
“Oh, shit, drive, Stiles,” Scott commanded, trying to hide when it was obvious Allison had already seen him.
“I can’t! The light’s red,” he said, taking possibly too much joy in his best friend’s pain, “hey, we should say hi,” he suggested, leaning over Scott to open his window.
“For fuck’s sake, seriously, Stiles, if you do that, I’ll tell Derek,” Scott stated panically.
Stiles just laughed, knowing Scott would never do that to him and opened the window just when Lydia started driving and left them both hanging, “Well, that’s not very nice, is it,” Stiles leaned back over to sit properly in his seat.
As the light turned green and they continued driving, Scott, apparently, decided it looked like they were following the girls and demanded Stiles to stop. Stiles begrudgingly obliged, but the girls seemed to have decided the same.
Stiles assumed they were about to confront them, already getting ready to take it, knowing well enough how easily Lydia can get pissed at him. Not that he had the chance to find out, since Lydia hitting the breaks was immediately followed by a deer running into her windshield. An actual fucking deer. Stiles really should not have been this shocked. His best friend was a werewolf, after all. And so was his mancrush.
Boy, was he fucked.
Stiles had not missed high school one bit, though it had surely not been the worst part of the previous year. He was kind of obligated to attend it either way, but it wasn’t like he was happy about his freedom having been taken away. Doing nothing but hanging out with Scott for three months straight had not, at all, been the worst way to spend the scorching hot California summer.
Besides, Scott was a great distraction from having to think about his sudden, unwelcome, weird-ass feelings. Mostly feelings of constant dread for his own life, his best friend’s life, his father’s life, and now…Derek’s. Which was the other – the lesser – part of ignorable feelings.
The first day of school was never Something Stiles looked forward to. For years it had been a dreaded moment in the academic year. Eventually, a few weeks in, it usually became easier, when he realised time and time again that no one actually cared about his existence. Not even bullies cared enough, especially now that Jackson was gone.
What he did want to do before he left for his first day, was accomplish something other than the Mario Cart personal best of a lifetime, so he tried to explain to his father how weird the deer thing was, even if he wasn’t that convinced of it himself yet. He just had a feeling.
“Stiles, just go to school,” The Sheriff pleaded, rubbing his temples as he listened to his son ramble on about rabid deer, most of whom had run out of the woods, much fewer having run right into a car all by themselves.
“It’s important,” Stiles whined as his father pulled his chair backwards from the desk after trying to bribe and extort him. Which, obviously, would have never worked. Unlike the chair thing. That was good.
“So is your education.”
Stiles sighed and got his backpack from the floor before heading for the door, “Fine, I’ll go get my education,” he mocked and walked down stairs to his jeep, only remembering about breakfast when he’d gotten to his car, but waving it away, deciding to get something from a vending machine.
“Hey, hey, dude,” Scott rushed up to him once he had walked into the building and observed his surroundings. Absolutely nobody had looked at him, “Listen, I was thinking, what if I ask Derek about the tattoo?” he said before Stiles could even say hi, “you know, he could help, right?”
“You wanna ask Derek for help? Why? Why?” Stiles frowned half in fear of the man hurting his best friend, half in fear of seeing him and being all weird in front of him, which was very possible. So very, very possible.
“Well, he’s got the triskelion tattooed on his back, so there has to be a way to do it without healing, right?” Scott wondered hopefully.
“Yeah, but, still…” Stiles started, hoping to find something in his head that could help him postpone seeing Derek for as long as possible, when he noticed two ‘missing’ posters for Boyd and Erica, “doesn’t he have his hands a little full?” he asked, nodding towards the posters.
Scott seemed to think it over for a bit before nodding ruefully, “Are you scared to see him?” he teased nonetheless, “is he gonna break your little heart?” it was obvious Stiles’ best friend still did not believe the possibility of him having even the slightest of feelings towards the hero-complex bearing werewolf. To be perfectly honest, if the roles had been reversed, Stiles would not believe it either.
“Class is about to start,” he changed the subject ever so masterfully and pushed Scott lightly into the direction of their classroom.
He smiled as he had the luck to have Lydia sitting next to him and then turned to watch the definitely-not-at-all-awkward-for-sure-completely-normal exchange between Scott and Allison, since this was the first time they'd talked after their break-up, shooting him a sarcastic thumbs-up when he turned to Stiles, before a new teacher walked in – Jennifer Blake. She was pretty hot, but Stiles had Lydia sitting next to him, so who had the time to care about cougars?
About ten minutes into the lesson, when they had been given a writing assignment, Scott – lucky bastard – was called and excused to leave, as Stiles was forced to remain in the class. He jittered in his seat, the task being too long and boring. He looked around the familiar room, taking notice of the patchy paintjob on the walls, the dusty corners of the windowsills, the fall weather he would never appreciate if he hadn’t been procrastinating, until he looked over to Lydia’s foot, noticing a huge band aid on her ankle.
He asked her if it was from the accident, which he would have found unlikely, as her legs should not have been hurt, but she just shifted uncomfortably, fixing her skirt as she did, and retorted that it was Prada that bit her.
“Your dog?” Stiles asked, unable to believe that the tiny ball of fur could hurt anyone.
“No, my designer handbag,” she said as if it had been obvious, “yes, my dog,” her tone had something about it that made Stiles feel like he was an idiot. Actually it made most people feel that way. When Stiles asked if Prada had ever bitten her before, which was, you know, his original intention, she just looked at him uncomfortably, as if not wanting to admit it, and shook her head.
“Okay, what if it’s like the same thing as the deer?” he suggested, making her look up from her work again, “like how animals start acting weird right before an earthquake or something?”, but Lydia just retorted something dismissing his idea that something bad was going to happen.
“What’s that thing you say about threes?” she asked rhetorically, most probably to make him leave her alone, but it made Stiles perk up a bit at her remembering something so specific about him. He appreciated it a lot, even though she definitely didn’t mean anything by it.
But before Stiles had a moment to internally gloat about it, or to get back to the task he’d been given and was doing his best to avoid, a crow flew into the window right behind Lydia with a loud thud, leaving a bloody stain on the glass as he fell to the ground.
Everyone watched the stained spot on the glass in confusion, unsure as to what had just happened. If stiles hadn’t been looking out the window he wouldn’t have known what hit them either. And once it was gone, another one came. Then another. And another. Until eventually the glass broke and shuttered onto the students, and the birds started flying into the classroom, as the new teacher yelled at everyone to get down. Stiles obliged, scramming over to Lydia to grab her head in a deadlock and protect her, as the rabid birds pecked angrily at anyone and everyone in their way.
It took a solid twenty minutes, although it seemed like an infinity, for the crows to be gone and all to seem oddly quiet. Some of the birds were lying lifeless on the ground, but most were gone. Either out the window or God knows where. Stiles didn’t care. He was just glad Lydia was safe. The students started getting up from their make-shift shelters built in a hurry out of desks and Stiles could hear sirens in the distance. Someone had called an ambulance.
Even the police had been informed, as his father was standing in the corner of the room ten minutes later, trying to make sense of what had happened, before heading over to Allison’s dad to ask if he’d something like this before. He was not sure why Mr. Argent had even come here, but he assumed that because of everything that had happened last spring to his family, he was surely going to be more protective and, hopefully, more caring towards his daughter. Not that he had not been protective before. With all the shit Scott had to go through…
Scott.
He didn’t know. Stiles dialled his number immediately, knowing it by heart, “We got a serious problem at school,” Stiles informed his best friend without even waiting for him to say hello, “Ms. Blake’s class…”
“Can you tell me about it later?” Scott asked, making Stiles very conscious of how more often than not Scott was too busy to talk to him.
“Uh, well, nope, pretty sure this qualifies for immediate discussion,” Stiles said and Scott suggested they meet at Derek’s then. “Derek’s house? What? What the hell are you doi-“
“Just meet us here,” Scott said and ended the call. Derek’s house. Great. That meant Derek. Fantastic. Just mother fucking fabulous.
“What’s up?” Stiles said monotony and stepped into Derek’s house without an invite as soon as the werewolf opened the door. He heard his best friend call out his name and followed the voice into what used to be the living room of the house. Scott was sitting on a bench in the middle of the room, having just traced out what he wanted his tattoo to look like in the dust on the floor, presumably to show Derek, as Stiles already knew what he wanted it to look like. In fact, he’d already seen it. It had just disappeared moments after.
The Alpha followed Stiles into the room with a small, smirk playing on his lips as he watched the only human in the house for the shortest of moments, before coming to a stop in front of Scott, and crouched down to examine his shoulder, his eyes switching to red swiftly and then back to his gorgeous human green with the help of a couple of blinks. He understood what Scott wanted and asked what it meant, waiting patiently as Scott explained it was more about the tattoo itself and less about what the two bands meant.
Stiles shuffled on his feet in the corner, listening to Scott and taking the opportunity to shine in front of Derek, answering to Scott’s question about the meaning of the word ‘tattoo’ with “to mark something,” and smiling proudly at himself and the usefulness of his random knowledge, and making Derek turn to him with a raised eyebrow, before Scott provided another translation of the word he was surprised to hear – open wound.
Scott explained he wanted to get the tattoo as a reward for not talking to Allison all summer just like she had wanted, but it still had felt like… “An open wound,” Stiles said, finishing his best friend’s sentence.
Derek seemed satisfied with Scott’s answer and Stiles noted he might have never seen the older wolf look so understanding. So nice. So human. “Pain’s gonna be the worst thing you’ve ever felt,” Derek warned, shrugging and pulling something from the floor next to him.
Was it a torch?
Oh, God, it was a torch.
“Oh! Yeah, nice,” Stiles shrugged to himself, already dreading what he was about to witness. The anticipation became slightly, if not endlessly, more unbearable once Scott told Derek to do it and he lit the torch, complying. “Oh! Wow. That’s, uh…That’s a lot…for me, so…” he trailed off, hoping to escape the situation, already taking his first steps to back out of the room, “I’m gonna take that as my que, I’m just gonna wait outside,” he rambled, turning on his heel and starting to walk off, when Derek’s hand grabbed at his arm (and the idea alone of Derek touching him was almost too much) so he stopped immediately.
“Nope,” Derek said simply, his grasp on Stiles’ arm tightening, “you’re gonna help hold him down,” he ordered and pushed the human back towards Scott, watching as he walked over to stand behind his best friend and then surveying his long fingers on the other werewolf’s shoulders for a moment longer – a gaze that did not go unnoticed by Stiles, but he was also not sure whether he’d imagined it – before The Alpha brought the flame straight to Scott’s arm, burning the flesh and ignoring the teen’s screams and grunts, just reminding Stiles to hold him.
“He’s gonna pass out,” Stiles warned, using more of his strength than he though would be necessary. Man, Scott really was strong. Even knowing his best friend was definitely holding himself back, wanting that tattoo badly enough, Stiles still had trouble keeping him in place.
“So hold him,” Derek reminded through gritted teeth.
“Easy for you to say,” Stiles scoffed, feeling Scott go more and more numb every few moments.
It took what seemed like an infinity before it was done, Stiles barely managing not to throw up. Twice. But it was finally done and everything was calm, even after Scott had gone unconscious at one point. “Done,” Derek informed Stiles, stepping away from Scott’s limp, sweaty body.
“Oooh, thank God,” Stiles winced, looking down to see two perfect black bands decorating his best friend’s bicep, “Wow, that’s so good.”
“You sound surprised,” Derek teased.
“You should do this professionally,” Stiles ignored the mocking tone of the wolf’s voice.
“What? Torch people’s flesh?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t want to, Sourwolf,” Stiles smiled smugly, ignoring Derek’s pointed look, “You’re an aggressive guy. Surely causing pain is what you truly want,” he grinned crookedly at the man giving him a death glare just as Scott came back to consciousness, Derek’s eyes still on Stiles and he couldn’t help but notice the small smirk that tugged on his lips the second Stiles turned to Scott.
“It worked,” Scott sounded surprised, “thanks, man,” he said, getting up from the chair and patting The Alpha’s shoulder as he bypassed him on his way out, Stiles following suit.
“Well, looks pretty damn permanent now,” Stiles informed as they headed for the door, listening to Scott’s sappy little monologue about everything changing too fast, even using a fancy word Stiles only knew the meaning of from the context of the conversation. “Studying for the PSATs? Nice,” he shrugged proudly.
As they opened the door to head out, the forest outside the house revealed a splattering of dead rabbits decorating Derek’s front yard, and The Alpha looked over to the two teens in obvious panic.
It was strange to see Derek worried, Stiles noted, but at least the guy had something along the lines of feelings.
“What the hell?” Scott whispered.
“Four just continues to be a pattern,” Stiles said, looking out into the near distance in awe. The small animals were lying on the ground for as far as he could see into the woods. “All of them dead?” Stiles asked, looking at Derek who appeared to be listening for the small heartbeats. He nodded at the human.
“Jesus Christ,” was all Stiles could answer as he looked back out the door, feeling Derek’s gaze still on his back. They left soon after, when Derek told them to go so he could get the small animals away from his house. Or, you know, shell of a house.
“What are you gonna do with those?” Stiles had asked before getting in his jeep with Scott and laughed nervously when Derek said he’d eat them, only calming down slightly when Scott promised Derek wouldn’t eat the dead rabbits.
“Stiles it’s just dead animals,” The Sheriff repeated for maybe the fifth time as Stiles just kept on talking, standing in front of his father’s desk at the sheriff’s station, “my question is,” Sheriff Stilinski raised his voice in order to stop his son’s rambling, “why were you even at Derek Hale’s house?”
“I-I-I…”
“He’s an accused murderer,” his father reminded him.
“Not anymore. And innocent until proven guilty.”
“And the Hale house is falling apart.”
“Can’t blame a man for holding the memory of his dead family close.”
“Stiles,” The Sheriff rubbed his temples.
“Dad, can we just stick to the matter at hand?”
“It’s dead animals,” Stiles’ father said again, “there’s nothing I can do,” he sat back in his chair and realised that it’s true, but there was someone who could do something. Or, at the least, know something, “where are you going now?” The Sheriff asked as Stiles hurriedly rushed out of his father’s office.
“Just remembered something. See you at dinner. Salad, dad,” he reminded and ran back to his jeep to drive to The Vet’s, rushing through the streets of the small town slightly above speed limit. It’s okay, he thought, my dad’s the Sheriff.
“Doctor Deaton!” he called out, opening the glass door, the little bell chiming loudly and announcing a client’s arrival. Without waiting for an invite, he headed right to the small room in the back of the office, “Doctor…”
“Hello, Stiles,” Deaton smiled politely just as Stiles noticed Scott leaned against a brick wall, looking at him quizzically.
“Al…right,” Stiles stopped immediately, “since when are you the clever one?” he turned to Scott who pretended to be offended.
“Stiles, Scott was just about to tell me about…some dead animals?” Deaton looked to Scott questioningly.
“Yeah, the deer, the birds and now this,” Scott said and handed Deaton his phone, revealing the ground outside Derek’s house covered in yellow leaves and dead rabbits. Stiles hadn’t even noticed Scott take a picture, but it surely was a smart move. Something in that boy’s brain had finally started moving.
“And Lydia’s dog,” Stiles pointed out, the two other men in the room looking at him in confusion. “It…bit her and…it doesn’t…really… do that. Ever,” Stiles rambled, “maybe that’s not as impressive as the rest. She might have just annoyed it,” Stiles waved it off as Deaton turned back to Scott.
“This sort of behaviour is definitely strange,” the doctor admitted, looking at the picture in Scott’s phone again, “I can’t say I’ve ever really seen anything like this.”
“Does that mean you don’t know what this means?” Stiles asked, “because, if you ask me, it looks like mass suicide.”
Deaton didn’t say anything to approve or dismiss the theory, but he did look concerned and Stiles knew he would be. He was a vet. He was the one in the town to know about animals and, judging by everything they’d been through during the past year, the supernatural, as well, but a confused Deaton meant something to worry about and neither Stiles nor, by the looks of it, Scott really liked that.
“I’ve never heard about animals committing mass suicide,” Scott said as they were walking to lunch the next day, “I mean pain so bad you gotta put it to an end, sure, but all of them together? Sounds…insane.”
“Insane like Lydia roaming the woods naked for two days or insane like you being a werewolf?” Stiles raised an eyebrow as his best friend sat down on a bench outside.
“Alright, sure, weirder things have happened,” Scott shrugged with a laugh.
“But what if this is different? What if this is something bigger?” Stiles asked, leaning forwards and bouncing his leg nervously.
“That’s always a possibility,” Scott admitted and bit into his sandwich, noticing Stiles’ questioning look, “Ok, look, dude,” he sighed, “it might be something bigger. Sure. But until we know what or how to fight it, what’s the point of worrying?”
Stiles looked at him as if admitting he’s right and plopped his feet up on the bench to sit more comfortably.
“Scott!” someone yelled just as Stiles had finished his lunch and was now enjoying the September sun.
Can’t they have a moment of calmness? Just a bit? Stiles looked up, adjusting his eyes to the bright sun before seeing Isaac running to them, everyone’s eyes following him as he yelled Scott’s name throughout the courtyard, “Derek,” he managed to say while attempting to catch his breath, but Scott and Stiles were already on his feet, ready to run, dread filling Stiles’ entire being as he imagined every bad scenario possible.
“I’ll drive,” Stiles announced quickly and started for the parking lot, noting that they had about twenty minutes until the end of the lunch period. That should do to see if the idiot’s alive. Scott and Isaac followed Stiles to his car and barely managed to close the doors before Stiles was already speeding towards the Preserve. He better fucking be alive. He better be in one fucking piece. Because Stiles wasn’t sure what he’d do if he wasn’t.
He was first to run into the scorched house, the other two werewolves following suit and Stiles knew Scott was worried about his best friend more than Derek. Peter was waiting outside, putting his phone away, looking at Isaac like he’d just been about to call the boy.
“Derek?” Stiles called out and saw him crouched on the floor over a body. At least he was alive. But looking like he’d just killed someone wasn’t super great either. “Derek,” Stiles repeated his name, as if asking what he’d done.
“She’s not dead,” a familiar voice said from the further end of the room.
“Boyd?” Isaac asked and looked stunned for a moment before walking across the room over to his ex-packmate to swiftly punch him in the face.
“Jesus, Isaac,” Scott ran over to the boy, grabbing his arm, although it didn’t look like he had even wanted to do any more damage than just the one punch. He stepped back, watching Boyd carefully instead for a moment, then turned to Derek.
“What happened?” Isaac asked his Alpha. Derek looked scared and confused and refused to look up from the girl laying on the floor. “Where’s Erica?” Isaac then demanded, turning back to Boyd. Stiles didn’t have to be a werewolf to see he was pissed and worried, and, above all, already grieving, without having heard the answer. Expectedly, Boyd looked to the ground, knowing a verbal confirmation wasn’t necessary.
“Derek,” Stiles said again, making the man flinch slightly, but never look up, only holding on to the unconscious girl tighter, as if Stiles would hurt her, “who is she?” he asked cautiously.
“Her name,” Peter said from the doorway, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, watching the whole spectacle play out, “is Cora.” Great, Stiles thought, that totally makes everything clear. “Cora Hale,” he sighed, seeing no one knew what he was talking about, “my niece, Derek’s sister.”
Holy shit.
Stiles knew Derek had two sisters, but he also knew they were both dead. One burned to death in the Hale fire and the other ripped apart by her uncle. The same uncle that was now looking at them all in slight amusement. Seriously, the guy had no empathy or shame whatsoever.
“Your sister?” Scott said in more like a statement than a question.
“Yes,” Derek growled.
“But how-“
“I don’t know, Scott!” he dismissed loudly, looking up to him and flashing his red eyes warningly. Not that Scott seemed to care, since Derek wasn’t his Alpha, but the anger was noticeable either way.
“Our little omega friend here brought her back,” Peter announced and Stiles couldn’t tell whether he was pissed or just making fun of everyone freaking out. The Hales weren’t the easiest to read at times. Or ever.
“From the dead?” Isaac asked, earning a pointed look from Derek, “well, sorry, but what the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Derek said calmly and took Cora in his arms, staring for the stairs, “but we need a better place to stay than here,” he stated and looked to Boyd, “all of us.”
“Congrats,” Peter said to Boyd, having followed Derek up the stairs with his eyes just like everyone else in the room, “looks like you’re forgiven.”
“I shouldn’t be,” Boyd admitted, “I couldn’t save Erica. He’s only forgiven me because I brought Cora back.”
They all knew he was right, but no one wanted to actually point it out. They knew Boyd felt like shit and salting up his wounds wouldn’t do any good to anyone. Stiles wanted oh so badly to just follow Derek upstairs and make sure he was alright, but he didn’t exactly feel like getting punched right at the moment, so Stiles just took Isaac and Scott back to school, only late for the class about five minutes.
“Do you think she’s okay?” Stiles asked Scott after school, catching up to him in the hall.
“She’s Derek’s sister. She’s a Hale. They can literally come back from the dead, of course she’s okay,” Scott said pointedly, possibly trying to convince himself of it.
“Right, but then how is she back? She didn’t have a Lydia to bring her back, did she?”
“Who doesn’t have a Lydia?” a melodic yet slightly mocking voice of the redhead prom queen rang from behind the two boys.
“No one,” they both said in unison, making her narrow her eyes in disbelief.
“Right,” she agreed mockingly and rolled her eyes, “Scott, Allison needs to talk to you.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing, but you two need to work this mess out, I can’t keep dealing with it alone.”
“Yes!” Stiles said possibly too loudly and excitedly. “Yeah, no, I agree, you two annoy me,” Stiles nodded, having seen Lydia’s annoyed face and calmed down, and slapped Scott’s back before heading to his jeep and home, hoping his best friend would finally take the not so subtle hint and deal with their bullshit break. They’re Scott and Allison. They wouldn’t stay away from each other for long anyway.
Fine. It was fine. For three days everything was fine. No suicidal animals, no zombie little sisters. Cora actually seemed to be getting better, at least according to Isaac’s not-so-detailed reports. Derek had found a loft downtown, which, again, Isaac had very thoroughly described as “Cool, I guess.” Life seemed to have calmed down.
Until one evening Stiles received a call. From Lydia. At nearly midnight. He was confused as to why the hell she’d call him so late. Or at all. But she sounded scared, she’d found something and she sounded absolutely terrified. Why she’d been at the public pool in the middle of the night was unclear to Stiles, but he drove to meet her nonetheless.
“Lydia? What’s going on?” he asked, jumping over the locked gate, ignoring the “closed” sign. She was standing there, just standing alone, holding herself in her tiny dress in the chilly night as Stiles ran up to her.
“I was…driving to the store and…” she licked her lips and looked up, focusing on something behind Stiles.
“What?” he asked, turning around to see a boy, about their age, sitting in the lifeguard post, blood dripping down his neck, shoulders and the rest of his body, piling up in a puddle of blood right beneath him, “holy shit,” he gasped and stepped back, protectively reaching out behind him for Lydia.
“I don’t know why I’m here, Stiles,” she admitted in a whisper.
“What do you mean?” he asked, “you called me.”
“Yes, but I don’t remember driving here. I was going to the store for painkillers and then…I was just here. And he was just dead,” she looked at Stiles and the fear he had heard earlier on the phone was now very visible in her eyes, “I don’t know why I found him,” she whispered again and Stiles heard sirens in the distance.
“You called the police before you called me?”
“I’m supposed to call you first when I find a dead body?” she asked mockingly, apparently never losing her temperament even when terrified.
“Yes!” Stiles yelled as if it was obvious. Which it should have been by now. He might only be human, but that’s precisely what made him the brains. Everyone else were the doers. He was the thinker. “Okay, shit, fine,” he said, trying to compose himself, “my dad’s coming, so, stay calm.”
“I’m trying, but you’re freaking me out,” Lydia pointed out.
“And we’re gonna tell him that…what are we telling him?” Stiles asked.
“We were on a date,” Lydia answers simply and Stiles nods with squinted eyes. As if that’s gonna work.
“You? Were on a date with Lydia Martin?” The Sheriff stated, looking to Stiles through narrowed eyes. Yep, Stiles had known there was no way he’d believe him about this.
“Yes, dad,” he kept lying anyway, knowing he had nothing to lose, “I’m very charming and funny,” he said angrily, just the slightest bit offended by his father’s disbelief in Stiles’ ability to ask out Lydia Martin and have her actually agree.
“Uh huh,” his dad hadn't written a single thing down on his little pad, “and you came on your date here.”
“Breaking and entering has always been super romantic?” he shrugged and it might have come out as more of a question than an explanation of their whereabouts.
“Son, you’re telling me you were on a date with the girl you’ve had a crush on since first grade and as the grand romantic gesture that you surely would make on an occasion as such you brought her to a closed public pool.”
“I also bought her fries beforehand.”
“And then you just stumbled upon a dead boy.”
“Are you suggesting we killed him?” Stiles asked defensively, knowing that was not at all what his father was saying, but it could potentially lead him away from not believing the date story.
“No, he killed himself,” his dad sighed.
“What? It was a suicide?” Stiles asked hurriedly, as his father closed the pad and patted the boy’s back.
“None of your business, take her home and then go home yourself. Straight home.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, but dad-“
“Later, Stiles,” he said warningly and Stiles knew there would be no later, but it was probably pointless to argue.
“Another suicide?” Scott asked silently, even though no one around them would listen to their conversation, since there were no people within at least ten feet radius from them in the otherwise busy school hallway.
“Human this time,” he specified.
“I got that from your dad being involved. How’s Lydia?” Scott looked worried.
“Bit shaken up, but, come on, it’s Lydia. If anyone’s gonna be fine after something like that, it’s Lydia Martin.”
“Okay, yeah, but what do we do about the body?”
“We?” Stiles asked, “Hold up, when did you become me? It’s a dead guy, we don’t approach him. Like, at all.”
“Fine,” Scott laughed.
“I’m serious, this is none of our business,” Stiles said warningly.
“What’s up with you, man? You’re always the one who wants to investigate everything,” Scott pointed out, walking down the stairs.
“You didn’t see him, Scotty,” Stiles let his head fall back in exaggeration, “the guy was covered in blood and now that I think about it he had a knife in his hand. Have you ever seen someone who’s killed themselves, Scott?"
His best friend looked at him with concern, “You…okay, dude?”
“Yeah,” Stiles said absently, “yeah, yeah, I am,” he slapped the back of Scott’s shoulder, “Can we just not go into dealing with dead people? At least until we know something for sure?” he felt as if he was begging, his breathing hitched, he couldn’t unsee the dead boy looking down upon him from the lifeguard post, the blood still dripping from the soles of his shoes. A person who’d taken their own life. By choice. When so many died without one. Like his mother. Or Derek’s whole family. It had kept him up all night, he was barely functioning.
“Okay, Stiles,” Scott looked almost scared for his best friend, “are you sure you’re-“
“I’m fine, Scott,” he insisted perhaps a bit too loud, making Scott shut right up, “Sorry,” he whispered, looking down and shaking out his trembling hands, “Damn it.”
“Stiles, do you need some water? What’s happening?” Scott asked calmly, placing his hand firmly on Stiles’ arm. Somehow, oddly, it was helping, as if Scott was holding him down to earth.
“I don’t know,” he said and closed his eyes, breathing in as deep as he could. It took him a couple of tries to get it right – to get all the air in and then out his lungs. It felt like they were burning for a while and he hadn’t noticed leaning against a wall or drinking from Scott’s water bottle, or Lydia and Allison having approached them, now watching Stiles with horror in their eyes.
“I’m fine,” Stiles repeated when he was sure he could speak again.
“Stiles, you're having a panic attack,” Lydia said cautiously. The staircase was empty apart from the four of them, so was the rest of the hallway. Thinking about it, Stiles was sure he could remember the bell distantly ringing for class.
“I’ll call your dad,” Scott announced once Stiles had failed to answer Lydia’s proposal. He could only shake his head. He couldn’t have his dad worry.
He was bending over, hands on his knees, someone was rubbing his back. He could hear Scott’s voice somewhere in the distance and when he lifted his head to look forward he could see Lydia looking out the window, everything outside of it bright and blurred, he obviously couldn’t focus yet.
Allison’s voice was whispering something comforting as her hand moved up and down Stiles’ back rhythmically, her sweet perfume finally reaching his nose and bringing him closer back to reality.
“Guys,” Lydia’s voice sounded unsure. Stiles was still afraid to stand up straight in fear of his legs not being able to hold him up properly and giving in.
“Stiles, your dad said he couldn’t get anywhere,” Scott sounded confused, walking towards them from the windowless hallway.
“Guys,” Lydia repeated more prominently.
“Why the hell not?” Allison sounded angry.
“He said there was…”
“A blizzard,” Lydia was pointing at the window when Stiles looked up to check if he’d heard her right. Allison’s hand stopped moving along Stiles’ spine and Scott’s phone fell out of his hand.
“It’s September,” Scott whispered.
“In California,” Allison chipped in.
Stiles released a breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding and suddenly felt almost fine. Only in lieu of celebrating the life hack he’d just discovered of how to stop himself from dying, he forced himself to look out into the wall of bright white outside the window.
“Cars are prohibited to move,” Scott said and Stiles assumed his father had told him so on the phone, “because there’s a blizzard.”
“In September,” Allison stated.
“In California,” Lydia was the most confused Stiles had ever seen her.
People were piling out of the classrooms by now, confused as to what the hell was happening. It truly was insane, as if all of them had gone mad at once. It looked absolutely crazy outside as well. They literally couldn’t see anything but snow. Not even the outline of the closest cars in the parking lot. Just a wall of white.
“I don’t know,” Isaac approached them, his phone held up to his ear. He was probably talking to Derek. Or Peter. God, let it be Derek, “What do we do?” he asked and Stiles assumed it was Derek, as he was Isaac’s Alpha and he wouldn’t expect orders from Peter.
“Is that Derek?” Scott asked and Isaac nodded before putting his phone on speaker.
“You do nothing. It’s snow and you’re werewolves not wizards, you can’t intervene in meteorology,” Derek sounded annoyed and hurried.
“Fine,” Scott said, “but don’t you think it might have something to do with the animals? I mean that’s nature, too, right?”
“Scott, I’m not the king of the world, I know as much of what’s happening as you do. Now excuse me,” The Alpha said pointedly, “I have to go.”
“Derek,” Stiles called quickly, before he could hang up, hearing the werewolf on the other end of the line breathe instead of the beeps announcing an ended call, he continued, “how’s Cora?”
“She’s…” Derek sounded almost taken aback to hear someone care, “better. Talks and shit.”
“Great, so can we talk to her some time?” Stiles asked.
“Why?” The Alpha almost growled back.
“Maybe…” Stiles wasn’t sure how to put it delicately.
“Stiles,” Derek urged the human impatiently.
“Well shit started going down when she came back, right?” he said carefully, eying his confused friends all around him. To be fair, he wasn’t sure where this all was coming from either, “maybe she just knows something.”
“My little sister is not magic,” Derek stated angrily.
“Maybe she’s something,” Stiles said absently, looking right into Lydia’s eyes, thinking the same about the strawberry blonde in front of him.
They were forced to end the call when the teachers were instructed to guide everyone to the gym and await further instructions, probably just killing time and potential panic until they figure out what to do. After all, a blizzard meant cold. And the building was not being heated in September.
“We’re gonna die here,” Stiles stated, laying on the floor of the gym next to Scott and throwing him the football they’d been passing each other for at least an hour, “I have literally never been more bored.”
“You’re at school, you realize that this is the least boring institution in town,” Lydia’s eye rolling was practically audible. Stiles was glad she was done hiding her genius. He was even gladder that he’d known about it when she was still pretending to be the dumb pretty girl, but it was nice to see her owning it.
They’d been asked to remain in the gym and only leave with a teacher’s supervision. No one knew how long they’d have to stay, mostly because there had never been a fucking blizzard in September, at least not one either of them could remember.
Allison was eating an apple and carefully studying an old book, probably another family heirloom, Lydia was reading chemistry and algebra textbooks at the same time, scribbling something down in a notebook, the corner of the page sporting a hand-drawn tree, and Isaac looked like he’d fallen asleep next to Allison on the floor with his face buried into the side of her thigh, not that she seemed to have noticed one bit.
“When is this GONNA END?” Stiles finished his question in a yell, earning a few pissed looks from the teachers, sitting in the corner of the large room all together as if plotting something. The newbie – Jennifer Blake – looked especially concerned.
Suddenly Scott sat up, letting Stiles’ thrown football hit the back of his head instead of catching it. When Stiles asked what was happening, he received no answer. Instead, Scott just stood up and started walking. No ‘going to the bathroom, be back soon’. Just up and left. Somehow none of the teachers seemed to notice him exiting the gym and Stiles took his chance to follow his best friend, watching the circle of school staff hurriedly talk amongst themselves, not paying the slightest bit of attention to what was happening around them until anyone walked up to them.
The hallways were cold, dark and dreary, just as Stiles had expected. The blizzard had seemed to have calmed down at some point, leaving a heavy snow fall where there had been a wall of white before, but it had sucked all life and soul out of the building, leaving it freezing and unwelcoming. Stiles could see the streetlights shining though the huge, lazy flakes as he called out his best friend’s name to no answer.
“Scotty, you okay?” he asked cautiously, following a faint sound of water running. Man, he wished he had werewolf hearing sometimes.
He kept walking to what he thought would be the boys’ locker room, listening intently as he called out Scott’s name once again. It seemed so ominous, for a moment he actually thought Scott was just playing a prank on him. He barely touched the door when it creaked open, revealing his best friend standing under the running shower, fully clothed, staring right ahead, warm yellow eyes glistening brightly into the dark room.
“Scotty?” Stiles wasn’t sure if approaching him was a good idea. He’d never seen Scott this weird apart from full moons, and, as the best friend of a werewolf and the self-proclaimed human brain of the pack, he had made sure to memorise each and every full moon to come for at least six months ahead. And tonight was still about fourteen days away from a full moon.
He walked up to his best friend, reaching out a hand towards him slowly to see how Scott would react. He didn’t. he didn’t even seem to acknowledge Stiles’ presence, so he moved his hand closer to his best friend, until it reached under the streaming water, making Stiles flinch and pull his hand back, feeling how ice cold it was.
“Stiles?” he heard Lydia call out for him from the doorway and only once he looked back and saw Lydia holding herself, trying her best not to tremble, he noticed how freezing cold the air was throughout the school.
Stiles turned back around to face Scott and reached forward again, this time reaching him. He was half expecting Scott to wolf out and attack him, but the second the human’s hand touched him, he came back to his normal self, yelping and rushing to the other side of the room to get away from the freezing water.
“What the fuck?” Scott demanded.
“You wanna tell us that? Lydia spat back, “we had to follow you down here to find you taking a goddamn shower, what’s wrong with you?”
“It’s ice cold,” Stiles informed and turned off the water, “what the hell happened to you?”
“What are you talking about? I was in the gym, throwing you a football and the next second I’m under this freezing monstrosity.”
“Scott, you walked here yourself,” Lydia said quietly.
“And now you’re gonna freeze,” Stiles raked a hand through his hair, nodding to Scott’s drenched clothes and walking over to his locker to grab a dry hoodie and gym shorts to lend his wet buddy.
“Thanks,” Scott said, shaking slightly and Stiles hummed as he escorted Lydia out into the hallway to wait for Scott to change.
“What the hell was that?” Lydia still looked pissed, but kept her voice hushed, although Stiles saw no point in this, what with Scott’s perfect werewolf hearing.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”
“Stiles, it’s a bunch of animals and some snow. Where does Scott come into all of this?”
“Werewolves are animals, aren’t they? The fauna of nature? What if his human side was holding him back while his animal side tried to do something stupid to himself? Like the suicidal fucking rabbits and deer and birds and…”
“And Scott?” Lydia rolled her eyes, “He’s demented that’s all. A little full moon stuck on him?”
“The last one was fifteen days ago, something’s very clearly wron-“ his rant was interrupted by a loud scream somewhere far away, possibly on the other side of the school. This was getting weirder and weirder by the second, but Stiles didn’t have any time to think about it as Scott opened the door hurriedly, still pulling the hoodie on and Stiles was already running, blatantly ignoring Lydia’s attempts to stop him by calling out his name. He could hear two sets of footsteps behind him – one of them being Lydia’s high heels – and knew they’re both following him.
He ended up back near the gym where The Coach angrily tried to shove people back into the large room, yelling profanities at them as they tried to get out again, before turning to see the three of them rushing towards him and turning almost purple with rage.
“Coach! What was that scream?” Stiles barely managed to get out before Coach grabbed the back of his shirt harshly.
“Stilinski, McCall,” he yelled through gritted teeth, “what are you two knuckleheads doing running around when all of your lovely teachers are trying to keep you safe and sound in the Goddamn gym?”
“With all due respect, Coach,” Lydia started, but was never given the chance to finish.
“Shut it, princess. Gym, now,” she looked offended as hell at that, but didn’t dare arguing, and he pushed the two boys in, avoiding hurting or even touching Lydia. Lucky girls, Stiles thought.
“Fuck,” Stiles rubbed the back of his neck, trying to get rid of what would surely become a bruise, “Hey, Allison, what’s going on?” he asked when they were in earshot. She looked stressed and rushed over to hug Scott, whispering something along the lines of “thank God”.
“What happened?” Scott asked instantly.
“They found a dead body in one of the bathrooms. Someone…someone cut their throat in the boys’ bathroom.”
Stiles couldn’t help but look at Lydia as if by instinct, knowing they were both thinking about the dead boy by the pool.
“That’s why I followed you, the bathroom’s right next to the locker room,” Lydia whispered in horror, “I was supposed to find it. Again.” It really must have been terrifying, knowing there was something pulling you to dead bodies without you even knowing it.
“Miss Blake went to look for you and returned all pale and with actual blood on her hands,” Allison shifted uncomfortably. Seeing someone’s blood on your teacher’s hands must not have been too much of a fun time.
“That explains the screaming,” Stiles quirked an eyebrow.
“Uh, Allison?” Scott said, looking around carefully, “Where’s Isaac?”
Stiles looked around as well, unable to see the other werewolf. “What do you mean where?” she said, “He followed you guys.”
The few seconds it took them to realise the most awful of scenarios seemed like an infinity, but Stiles and Scott got to the conclusion together.
“No, wait,” Lydia grabbed the back of both Stiles’ and Scott’s arms as they turned to run, “he left the gym after us, idiots, he couldn’t have gotten into the bathroom without us noticing him.”
“Yeah, unless he did,” Scott said silently, making it sound almost scary, “we’re going.”
“Your parents have been notified,” Coach said
“There’s no signal, the blizzard’s messing with the towers,” Stiles smiled smugly.
“Your detention slips have been filled in,” Coach said in a testy tone.
“It’s after hours, you can’t give us detention anymore,” Stiles informed as-a-matter-of-factly as Scott snickered next to him.
“You think you’re funny, Stilinski? Is he funny, McCall?”
“Uh, no, sir, not at all, but he kinda has a point,” Scott shrugged, looking far too amused to not think Stiles was being funny.
“Next time you decide to go looking for corpses, make sure I’m not the killer and you’re not looking for each other,” there was a vein sticking out on The Coach’s forehead, threatening to burst seemingly any moment.
“Yes, sir,” Stiles saluted dramatically before leaving The Coach’s office with Scott by his side. Isaac had not been the one that had killed himself in the bathroom, it had been another boy from the lacrosse team. A freshman. Miss Blake had found him and was in slight shock, although Stiles was more concerned about Miss Blake’s being in the boys’ locker room in the first place. She’d hurried back to the gym to tell someone, blood covering her hands as she rushed in the large room, stumbling before fainting. It had apparently been terrifying.
The problem was – they still had no idea where Isaac had gone. He’d disappeared, and if all the wolves were going crazy just like Scott had, then they had potential problems. Not only finding Isaac, but also Derek, Peter, Cora and Boyd, plus, Stiles was keeping a close eye on Scott in case he decided to take another ice shower.
Since Lydia was so good at finding dead people and Isaac was possibly trying to kill himself or someone right now, they asked the strawberry blonde to try and figure out where he was. Logically, he couldn’t have left the building, but, then again, there were many things that weren’t logical, yet made sense, like, oh, I don’t know, werewolves?
She just rolled her eyes and asked how they imagined that would work and Stiles handed her Isaac’s backpack that he’d left behind before departing on his mystery route. “What am I?” Lydia asked with an annoyed tone and looked to Scott, “A dog?”
“Lydia, please, this is serious,” Stiles informed as if that wasn’t clear already.
“I know, Stiles,” she said venomously, “but I’m not psychic, okay?”
“You’re something, aren’t you?” he pointed out and she grabbed the backpack with a look that could kill Stiles if she wanted it to. Maybe that’s what Stiles found so attractive in both Lydia and Derek – aggression.
She opened the zipper and started digging through his things, pulling out a couple of notebooks and a pen, a set of keys – probably to Derek’s place – which Stiles eyed longingly, and a pack of gum. “Fascinating,” Lydia rolled her eyes and opened a smaller compartment, pulling out a phone.
She looked up at Stiles and Scott sitting across from her on the gym floor and Stiles knew they both looked confused. Why wouldn’t Isaac have taken his phone, if he was leaving? Allison snatched it out of her best friend’s hand impatiently and tried unlocking it, only to have it demand a password. Which she knew. Instantly.
“How did you-“ Scott started.
“There are about a dozen texts from Peter, asking him to get to the Hale house,” Allison informed, ignoring Scott completely. It might have been Stiles’ imagination, but her fingers were shaking. And, possibly, so was her voice. “He wouldn’t just go there because Peter wanted him to. We have to look for him, right?”
Scott was visibly confused at her sudden Isaac knowledge. And so were the other two. There was something strange about Allison’s despair about Isaac, it didn’t seem like a reaction of just an acquaintance which she, as far as they knew, was to him. More than even a friend, perhaps, but for Scott’s sake Stiles didn’t want to think about the next step on that ladder.
“Yeah, we do,” Stiles said, knowing it was the right thing to do. Even if his brain automatically went to he’s Derek’s pack. Derek’s.
“Great,” Lydia said casually and got up, heading straight for the door as her other three friends watched her walk into her doom, knowing for sure that someone was about to stop her. Surely enough, their math teacher walked right up to her and she began a dramatic explanation of exactly why she needs to get out of the gym right now. There might have even been tears involved. The teacher placed her hand on the strawberry blonde’s shoulder sympathetically and let her walk right out, shooting the three of them a glance as if saying to follow her. They exchanged a look and quickly jumped up to follow her, trying not to attract attention and failing miserably, although no one called them out on it.
“What did you tell her?” Scott asked.
“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” she shot back and headed for the stairs, leaving the others to wonder why she’s heading upstairs, but not question it, as she was the one to find the bodies, so she must have a reason. A feeling or something.
Stiles… A sickly sweet voice called out to him. He had never heard it before, it was loud and rang in his ears, even though it sounded like a whisper. Stiles… The voice insisted and laughed as he turned around abruptly to find no one there.
“What was that?” he asked, stopping in the exact same spot where he’d had a panic attack just a few hours prior.
“What was what?” Scott turned around to look at his best friend, obviously not having heard the voice. Great, now he was going insane, lovely.
See you soon… the voice whispered again with the tiniest hint of amusement and everything was silent again.
“Stiles?” Scott said carefully, mimicking the voice perfectly. It had been a girl. Or a woman, he couldn’t tell. He could’ve sworn it sounded like his mother for a second, if not for the mockery undertones.
“Yeah, no, I’m good,” he promised and headed up the steps, following Allison and Lydia into the chemistry classroom to which the doors were swung open, moving ever so slightly in the draft they felt as soon as they came closer to it. The window was left wide open, the sudden winter outside making itself very noticeable as Stiles shivered in the sudden breeze.
“He jumped out the second floor window?” Stiles asked, trying to seem as normal as possible after having heard a ghost or whatever it had been. To be honest, he wouldn’t even be surprised anymore. Werewolves? Teenage girls finding dead bodies? Insane climate changes? Ghosts would not be the weirdest thing to happen today.
“Oh God,” Allison sighed, running over to it and leaning over the windowsill. Stiles noticed that the snow had stopped falling, leaving an at least a couple feet thick, white blanket on the ground. There was no blood in the snow, no twisted, Isaac-shaped body lying in it. Not even footprints leading away from the school, although those might have been blown away or snowed over.
“He’s probably fine,” Lydia stated, possibly having figured out the same thing Stiles just had.
“Probably isn’t good enough, though,” Allison stated and pushed everyone aside, heading back out the classroom, Scott following her like a lost puppy.
“We’re going after them, aren’t we?” Lydia pursed her lips.
“Yep,” Stiles sighed.
“And then out the window?” the question came out more as a statement.
“Probably,” Stiles shrugged.
“And then to the Hale house.”
“Sounds about right.”
“In the snow.”
“In September,” Stiles agreed and placed his hand on Lydia’s back before coaxing her down the stairs.
They found their two friends the second Allison swiftly jumped out the window. Stiles couldn’t help but notice she was wearing boots, while the rest of them would have to crawl through the woods with snow in their shoes – heels, in Lydia’s case.
Scott headed after her without a question, though his face looked an odd mixture of heart-broken and angry. “Here goes nothing,” Stiles winced, plopping himself onto the windowsill, “ladies first?” he offered.
“Shut up and jump out the Goddamn window,” Lydia commanded, then turned to leave before Stiles could even ask where she was going.
“Yes, ma’am,” he shivered, feeling another breeze hit him and jumped out with a grunt. It wasn’t a long jump, the snow made a pretty nice landing, but the idea of sneaking out of the school while they were being protectively looked after by all faculty members just seemed a little too ‘last year’ to Stiles. Not that he’d ever thought their lives would go back to normal now that his best friend was a fucking werewolf.
He had to make his friends wait for Lydia, Allison growing more impatient by the second until eventually she couldn’t take it anymore and said she’s leaving, but Scott wouldn’t let her go alone, so they left Stiles to wait for Lydia all on his own.
“Where the fuck did you go?” he asked as she finally approached the window several minutes later. She didn’t answer, just crawled out the window, having obvious difficulty with it since she was wearing a skirt, and jumped out. “You got boots,” Stiles noticed, although they were heeled, too.
“And a jacket. I’m not stupid, I don’t wanna freeze to death. I always have backups in my locker.”
“That’s…clever,” Stiles praised.
“No, that’s genius,” she mused and started walking across the snowy parking lot, obviously trying to seem like she wasn’t cold.
“So…” Stiles started after a few minutes of walking alone through the woods, “what’s up with Allison and Isaac?” he hoped his curiosity would distract him from not being able to feel his toes or fingers.
“Wish I knew,” she said after hesitating. As Allison’s best friend, she would surely have expected to be told about things like these. And the Isaac thing seemed big.
“You’d never heard her talk about him?” he asked.
“Not really, I didn’t even know she knew him better than ‘hi I’m Allison, hi, I’m Isaac’,” she seemed disappointed.
“Maybe they wanted to keep it secret,” Stiles said, trying to make her feel better, “whatever it is.”
“Yeah,” Lydia sighed, “maybe,” she said just as the Hale house came into view. For a second there Stiles was glad he’d have at least a bit of sanctuary, before remembering the house had no heating and the roof probably had enough holes to have parts of the house filled with snow.
The door creaked open, revealing…nothing. There was no one there and there were no sounds anywhere. Of course, Stiles had no super human hearing, but it seemed empty.
“They’re downstairs,” Lydia informed and Stiles didn’t question it, heading straight for the basement.
“…not happening, you’re fine, you’re fine, it’s me, please, it’s me,” Allison’s voice sounded tear-soaked and desperate.
“Isaac,” Scott said moving closer to where something huge was holding Allison up against a wall.
“Scott?” Stiles called out, earning a snarl from a dark corner which he couldn’t see, “okay, staying right here,” he raised one hand in defeat and keeping Lydia behind him with the other.
“He grabbed her as soon as we walked down here, he won’t let her go,” Scott sounded almost as desperate as Allison. Now that his eyes had gotten used to the darkness, Stiles could see Isaac holding Allison’s hands tightly behind her back and his sharp fangs were trailing against her neck. Looking into the direction where the snarl had come from, he saw Peter, perfectly human, watching the whole spectacle with only a slightly wary expression.
“Isaac,” Allison pleaded in a whisper with her eyes closed. Something changed in him, he tensed and looked up to her face and Stiles could hear the faintest of whines. Allison opened her eyes cautiously and took her chance to take Isaac, and everyone else in the room, by surprise and kiss him, bringing him back almost instantly, having him realise what he’d almost done and start apologising immediately, letting go of her and stepping back. He wouldn’t even look in her eyes.
Needless to say Stiles gawked open-mouthed, unable to look at anyone but Scott who looked as if he’d been shattered into a million pieces. Allison rubbed her wrists, turning to Scott herself and saying his name softly a second before he turned and stormed out.
She had broken up with him. That Stiles had to give to her.
But Scott had waited. And he’d never looked this heart-broken before.
”Scotty,” Stiles knocked on his best friend’s bedroom door again. Isaac had offered to come along, but Stiles had advised him to remain as far as possible, if he wanted to keep his limbs attached to the rest of his body.
According to Melissa, Scott hadn’t left his room and hadn’t eaten since he got home, rushed upstairs and locked his door. She had been very thankful when Stiles had explained what was wrong, as her own son wouldn’t speak a word and she’d almost worried herself to insanity. In her defence, he was a werewolf and not speaking, eating or even making a single sound for three days might have seemed like he’d dropped dead.
“You’re acting like a drama queen, man,” Stiles said, growing impatient. He’d been out here knocking for half an hour, trying to get Scott to come out of his room. He sighed, knowing that seeming like he was annoyed at him would never get him out, “We’re worried about you, buddy,” he admitted, sliding along the wall until his ass reached the floor.
The Sheriff had said the same thing to him in the car, driving home, after he, Lydia, Isaac and Allison had returned to the school that night. It had stopped sowing and parents were allowed to collect their children, only Sheriff Stilinski, Mr. Argent and Mrs. Martin had been told that their children were nowhere to be found, before they emerged from the forest, shaking and in shock – Allison more than the others. When asked where Scott was, Allison and Isaac perked up, but didn’t say anything, leaving Stiles to try and explain not only where they had disappeared to, but also why his best friend and usual partner in crime was nowhere to be found. “I’m not causing trouble,” he’d promised in return, but his father had retorted that that somehow didn’t calm him down. He’d texted Derek asking him where he’d been, but received no response.
“I’m not gonna make you talk about it,” Stiles promised the unresponsive door.
Allison had called Stiles in tears, saying she’d been texting Scott, but he wouldn’t answer or pick up when she called. He had no choice but to answer the same and listen to her cry for a couple of seconds. She sounded sorry. God, she’d looked it too that night. This obviously hadn’t been the way she’d meant for Scott to find out. “What exactly is this between you two?” Stiles had asked, but she hadn’t known how to explain. It had started during the summer with Isaac just making sure she was alright, and in time it grew and she couldn’t keep away from him anymore. She didn’t know what it was. It just was. Somehow, that made sense to Stiles and he sympathised.
“Just please let us know you’re still alive in there. I know you can hear me. Don’t do this to your mom, at least,” he said and saw an opportunity for guilt tripping, “some of us don’t have those anymore, you know.”
He only had to wait a few seconds and the door opened, “That was a dick move,” Scott said lowly.
“Dick move like locking yourself away and trying to starve to death?” Stiles jumped up from his position on the floor and hit Scott’s shoulder, watching his best friend not so much as even flinch, “You ass.”
“What happened to the nice Stiles from a minute ago?” Scott said monotony, making Stiles realise he was in no mood to speak and only came out because some part of him felt sorry for his best friend. Not that he minded. If it got Scott out of his room, he was fine with seeming a little pathetic.
“He’s still worried about you, buddy,” Stiles sighed.
“Sorry,” the werewolf admitted and headed for the stairs, “but I’m fine. Go home, Stiles.”
“Not before you go downstairs and eat. Maybe talk to your worried mother, be, you know, a normally functioning human.”
Not that he’d wanted to, but he did go home, knowing Scott and Melissa needed to talk and he had homework to do anyway. Homework that he’d probably have to give to Scott to copy off of, since the guy’s been moping in his room instead of coming to school.
The weather had gone back to normal almost immediately after it stopped snowing. It was warm again, melting the snow in a couple of hours, leaving the streets drenched and flowing with water, causing severe damage in a few basements.
Mayor Hexley hadn’t issued any sort of warning or damage control, insisting everything’s fine and would surely go back to normal soon. Stiles had never really liked the mayor, but he did a somewhat decent job, although Stiles had always thought there was something sketchy about him, but he was nice to the Sheriff and almost respectful towards women, so Stiles just tried to ignore the man as much as possible.
That being said, his father wasn’t too big of a fan of the mayor either, though his position in the town’s hierarchy permitted him of fucking with the other most important person in Beacon Hills other than himself. Yet dealing with the weird meteorological shit alone was putting him in an extra anti-mayor mode.
“How bad’s the damage?” Stiles asked when they were eating dinner in a diner not too far from the sheriff’s station, Sheriff Stilinski unable to leave his post for too long.
“A couple of flooded neighbourhoods, mostly basements and ground floors,” Stiles’ dad rubbed his eyes and Stiles noticed how tired and miserable his father looked, “Could’ve been worse.”
“Dad, you need to sleep,” Stiles admitted, suddenly feeling worried for his dad’s well-being. He knew he’d had a rough couple of days at work, so he’d let him eat something less healthy than a salad for once, hoping it would provide some sort of comfort, if just the slightest.
“I’d love to, trust me, son,” the Sheriff said, finishing his meal and calling a waiter to bring them the check, “but there’s just too much I still have to deal with.”
“Nothing that can’t wait a few hours,” Stiles said convincingly. He knew his dad was about to break and let him drive him home to sleep for at least a little while, “You need to sleep,” Stiles repeated, “self-care is important,” he insisted dramatically, making his dad laugh.
“Fine, you got to me,” he said and left a twenty on the table before getting up and leading Stiles outside by placing his hand on the back of his neck – a motion Stiles found comforting and safe.
Stiles had hoped getting Scott back to the real world and making his dad actually care for himself would stop the strange wave of insomnia that had hit him ever since the night of the blizzard. He hadn’t been able to sleep for more than twenty minutes at a time for almost a week now. It couldn’t have been the full moon, since that was still ten days away. But it definitely had something to do with his weird dreams. This was different from when he’d first realised his feelings for Derek. Back then he couldn’t sleep because he thought falling for the douche-wolf of the century made him insane. Now that he was used to feeling this way, his new genre of nightmare was less Sleepless in Seattle and more Paranormal Activity.
He would often see the forest, not much different from Derek’s backyard, which, at first, made him think he was still dreaming about the werewolf. But every time he woke up and fell asleep again, he would see something new. Sometimes it was a girl. Sometimes it was a strange, huge tree. Once it had been Mayor Hexley, once it had been Deaton. Most of the dreams featured Cora, but he refused taking it as a sign he liked the girl. Her brother? Anytime. Her? That just sounded like over-protective Derek time and he had no intention to feel his wrath upon him. He had no idea why his brain suddenly felt like mush, feeding him nonsense and making him reconsider his sanity for the millionth time in a year.
He sat up in his bed after seeing another montage of the woods and the mystery girl, only this time she’d looked right at him before he woke up and had said his name. For the first time she’d spoken to him. He was startled awake by her voice and he could’ve sworn it sounded like someone in his room had deliberately woken him up.
The theory of ghosts he’d offered himself as a joke suddenly seemed very possible, and he didn’t want to be alone in his house anymore, his father having left for night shift once again. He grabbed a hoodie and his car keys and headed out without really thinking about where he would go. Scott would be asleep and the Hale house, though empty and available for killing a few hours, was even scarier than his own and he did not feel compelled to go there at all.
So he drove. Aimlessly, but seemingly somewhere, the night chilly, but refreshing and still kind of scary under its dark veil. And only when he’d reached one of the old factory buildings in downtown Beacon Hills did he realise where his subconscious sleep-deprived brain had lead him to. Isaac had given him the address at school for emergencies, but Stiles had assumed he wouldn’t need it much. Little had he known that he’d be the one having an emergency.
He wasn’t even sure Isaac was who he wanted to speak with, but he’d already knocked and there was pretty much no going back, ding, dong, ditch not really an option, so he just stood and waited, surprisingly, just a few seconds.
“Stiles?” Derek looked confused, still wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, he looked just as sleep-deprived as Stiles felt, but not exactly like he’d just been woken up.
“Sorry, if I woke you up,” Stiles feeling jittery and odd in the werewolf’s company alone, realising he was still extremely easily frightened by him, his odd feelings having lessened that effect only slightly.
“You didn’t,” Derek said, but it sounded more like a question.
“It’s 2 a.m., though.”
“Stiles, did you just come all this way over here to tell me what time it is?” Derek sighed, having regained his usual asshole-ness.
“No, I…guess I didn’t know where else to go,” he admitted, “and Isaac gave me your address.”
“Isaac’s asleep,” Derek informed, “why aren’t you?”
“I’m…not sure,” Stiles looked down at his worn down pair of Converse, very well aware they’re still in the doorway and the not-so-comfortable-in-the-first-place conversation had turned even more awkward. The couch further into the apartment sure looked inviting and soft, even if Stiles knew he couldn’t sleep.
“Jesus, Stilinski, just come in,” Derek rolled his eyes and stepped away to let Stiles walk in the loft.
Saying the apartment wasn’t very furnished would be like saying McDonald’s isn’t very healthy. Other than the staircase that probably lead to Boyd, Cora and Isaac’s rooms, there was a couch, a few chairs, a desk and a bed. Stiles wasn’t even sure there was a kitchen anywhere, though he doubted someone as socially inept as Derek would go out for every single meal instead of finding an apartment with a kitchen.
“Why are you up so late?” Stiles asked, but Derek had disappeared, only to emerge about half a minute later with a glass of water. A well-raised host, Stiles noted. So the loft did have a kitchen. Or, at least, a tap.
“I think you were right,” Derek confessed unwillingly.
“About what?” Stiles was genuinely bewildered.
“It’s not a coincidence. The animals, the weather. The fucking suicides,” he said and headed for his desk, “did you know two more people have killed themselves?”
“What?” Stiles stood up from the surprisingly comfortable couch and walked over to Derek, regretting the decision as soon as he could smell his cologne in such close proximity. The man smelled like the most beautiful mix of musky and sweet, and the slightest bit spicy. It did strange things to the pit of his stomach, but he tried to push past it, focusing his attention on the papers in front of him that looked like police files, “Where the hell did you get these?”
“Probably don’t ask that,” Derek said, making Stiles scoff and look at the older man, just to find him smiling back at him which did the opposite of helping that stomach thing that was happening. “Anyway,” Derek turned serious suspiciously quickly and turned back to his desk. There was something about the darkness of the place and the light only shining on the desk that created this spy-esque ambiance, making Stiles feel like the Bond girl. Except he wasn’t getting any from the Bond. And he wanted some from the Bond.
“Who are they?” Stiles asked, distracting himself from Derek’s strong, elegant hands skimming over the pages, God knew Stiles had imagined those fingers doing things no one had ever done to him, running over his pale skin instead of the cold paper, shoving, pulling, pressing, intruding…
“A couple of teens,” Derek passed him the files as the younger one of the two kept his eyes locked on the other’s hands, “know them?”
“Uh, no, I think,” he said shakily before clearing his throat, looking at the first boy. He had never seen him before, must be going to the other school in town. Though, even if he had been going to the same school as Stiles, there was no guarantee he’d know him, being just one piece in the grey mass, not really stretching out his friend group beyond necessity. He thought about how he should pay more attention to the people he goes to school with as he turned the page, “Oh my God,” he said the second he saw the picture of the second victim.
“What?” Derek looked uncharacteristically alarmed.
He couldn’t believe it. There was no way his eyes were showing the truth. He was already in denial and it had only been a second. There was a knot forming in his mouth and he found it difficult to find words. Any words. “Heather,” he sighed, tears already rushing to his eyes. He didn’t care how whimpery and pathetic he’d get. Derek already thought as little as humanly possible of him, he had nothing to hide. And he had a friend to mourn.
“You knew her,” Derek stated, putting away the file and his hand firmly on Stiles’ shoulder, the grief mixing with an oddly comfortable, almost pain-relieving gesture as Derek pressed his palm into Stiles’ shoulder blade. Well, soothing in theory. In reality, his touch was burning hot and tingly, as if filled with electricity, but he didn’t pull away. It was confusing, and he felt guilty as a part of him was obviously mourning Heather.
“We grew up together,” Stiles leaned into Derek’s touch, letting a tear roll down his face and land on his childhood best friend’s picture. “When was this? When did she do it?”
Derek hesitated, almost affectionately, “Two days ago.”
“Fuck,” Stiles said after a sob escaped, “fuck,” he repeated, throwing the file back onto the desk. So that’s why he hadn’t seen his dad once in the past 48 hours. He’d been avoiding him, so he wouldn’t have to be the bearer of bad news. He hadn't known how to tell him. God knows telling Stiles his mother died had been the most painful thing the Sheriff had ever endured. And the man’s been shot twice.
“I’m fine,” Stiles insisted, knowing full well that he wasn’t. But something was happening and this wasn’t all just by accident. Derek’s grip on the human’s shoulder never faltered.
“They’re bringing in the FBI tomorrow,” Derek said suddenly, after about a minute of Stiles just leaning against the desk, trying his best not to break into another panic attack.
“Feds in a town full of werewolves and God knows what else. That sounds like it’s gonna end well,” Stiles rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, well, unless you wanna tell your dad about Scott, Isaac and, well, my entire family,” Derek moved to the other side of the desk to put away the case files, revealing printed out pages of research – something that looked a lot like it could be Stiles’ doing, “I don’t really see a way out other than keep away from them as much as possible.” As soon as he stepped away, Stiles’ shoulder felt cold and the space empty, and he just wanted the hand back, since that was all he would ever get from the gorgeous man in front of him.
“They’re suicides, Derek,” Stiles reminded, “haven’t you seen 13 Reasons Why? They’re gonna question everyone possible. She used to be my best friend,” he reminded, feeling something stab at his chest.
“I obviously haven’t,” Derek scoffed as if Stiles implying he ever would was the most demeaning thing he’d ever heard.
People were killing themselves. He knew Heather very well. She would never do that to her family. She would never do that to herself, she was nothing like that, all smiley and bubbly, and never fucking depressed. He knew this was no coincidence, so many people killing themselves. Neither was the blizzard thing. Or Scott and Isaac acting so weird. He needed to figure this out. God knows the police and the FBI are never going to get anywhere, and he was the human. The smart one. The brains. He needed to get to the bottom of this. If not for the sake of his own sanity, then for Heather.
“Hey, where were you the night I texted you?” Stiles asked, suddenly interrupting the silence.
“Night of the blizzard? Here. I didn’t feel like chatting.”
“Yeah, you never do, big guy,” Stiles slapped the werewolf’s bicep twice before reaching for his phone, “Only that night all the werewolves went crazy. And you weren’t there.”
“Because I was here. And I didn’t go crazy. Neither did Cora. Or Peter.”
“Wait, but Peter was at your house,” Stiles’ eyebrows knitted together.
“He said he’d been fine,” Derek looked a bit confused now, too, “Why does it matter anyway?”
“Because Isaac almost killed his fucking girlfriend and Scott tried to freeze himself to death,” Stiles stood up straight and winced at himself for calling Allison Isaac’s girlfriend. But fuck the bro code, this wasn’t his fault, it was Allison’s.
“And Boyd wasn’t fun to be around either,” Derek’s eyebrows knotted together again.
“So why were the Hales fine?” Stiles pointed out what they were both already thinking.
“It was new moon that night.”
“So?”
Derek shrugged. Stiles had never seen him shrug. “Just though that might mean something,” he said and headed back into the dark, towards his couch,” you’re the brains, you should know.”
“You’re the werewolf,” Stiles felt himself growing tired and annoyed, but mostly tired, “you should know.”
“Right,” Derek huffed, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his palms, suddenly looking adorably sleepy. Stiles didn’t know whether he should leave or not, so he just stood uncomfortably, letting the silence take over the room.
He imagined staying. He imagined climbing onto Derek’s lap and attacking his lips, leaving a mark on his neck that would surely disappear as soon as it had appeared thanks to his supernatural healing abilities. Then he remembered he’d probably be skinned alive if he attempted anything near as insane.
“I’m sorry,” Derek said, making Stiles jump, “about Heather. I forgot to say that.”
Stiles almost wanted to laugh. If he hadn’t been worried about the crotch of his jeans feeling awfully tight all of a sudden, he might’ve done just that.
“You’re not obligated to,” Stiles pointed out quite stupidly, wincing at himself for it.
“Isn’t it common courtesy?” Derek smirked and Stiles really, really, really wanted to jump him.
“I, uh, guess,” Stiles felt heat creeping up his neck and he was glad it was mostly dark in the loft, “but it’s not like you’re the biggest gentleman in the world, dude,” he laughed.
“Hey, you little shit, don’t speak to me like that when I’m giving you a place to sleep,” Derek was actually full-on smiling.
“Oh, I’m staying, am I?” Stiles snorted a laugh.
“Like I’m letting your fragile little human body drive home sleep-deprived,” Derek rolled his eyes and got up from the couch, moving towards his bed in the far corner of the room, his returned smirk indicating he knew Stiles was watching his every move with his mouth agape and in full-on awe.
“I’m not fucking fragile,” was the only comeback Stiles could think of and he cringed at himself mentally hard enough to almost give himself a headache just as Derek threw him a blanket with an audible, but silent laugh. Sure, the comebacks were a bit of a stretch, but he did feel slightly proud of himself for keeping it in his pants, and that was probably more important to his sense of pride, if he even had any left by this point, than getting a boner. Focus, Stilinski, he’d murder you, he told himself.
So now he was apparently staying over at Derek’s. He mulled this single thought over as he laid down on the slightly-too-short-for-his-body couch and sighed loudly as he covered himself with the thin material that looked far too fancy to belong to Derek. Then again, Cora was a teenage girl whose tastes probably reached beyond Derek’s interior design abilities. Anyone’s taste was better than broody old Derek’s. He’d probably rather live out in the woods, running around naked in his wolf form all day, if given the choice.
How the hell was he on his couch now? Fuck, how the hell was he so attracted to him? No, scratch that, the man was a Greek god, attraction wasn’t the weird thing here. It was that Derek seemed almost tolerable. All nice – or at least less rude – considerate and smiling? The man was smiling now. What’s next? Gerard Argent will start donating to charities and handing out free lollipops?
The weirdest part of the night was realizing that the slight Derek musk left on the couch was calming him, making him sleepy, his eyelids heavy as he breathed in as deep as he could just to sense the slightest remains of Derek.
“Nigh, night, Sourwolf,” he yawned, before he could stop himself, the sleep he’d missed out on was catching up to him all at once and anything seemed like a good idea.
“Shut up, Stiles,” Derek said casually and it might have been Stiles’ already half-dreaming state of mind, but Derek didn’t sound snide or annoyed, he sounded like he was smiling and, if Stiles hadn’t suddenly become almost inexplicably tired, he would’ve been thrown off by it.
You think he likes you, huh?
The girl’s voice was in his head as he was about to slip into unconsciousness.
You? The ordinary one? The human? She laughed. Sure, why not. Weirder things have happened in this town, right, Stiles?
He wasn’t able to answer. He couldn’t. He felt like there was something heavy inside his skull and it was pressing down on him until he fell into a dull, dreamless sleep.
He was startled awake by something. He couldn’t see or hear anything that could’ve done that, and he couldn’t, for the life of him, remember if it was something he dreamed of – he was sure he hadn’t dreamed at all, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of something or someone waking him.
The greyness of the morning looked dull and depressing and suddenly he remembered Heather. She was gone. Forever. Never to be spoken to again. Never to be joked with again. She had tried to kiss Stiles once in a drunken blur of a birthday party, so he’d felt too awkward afterwards to talk to her for a while, but that just had turned out to be the biggest regret he could think of. His last memory of her will forever be leaning away from her on her couch, on her birthday. Well, that and the picture of her pale, lifeless face on the autopsy report.
He ran his fingers through his hair and looked over to the far, dark corner of Derek’s loft. The werewolf was still in his bed, an arm spread over his face to hide it from the single ray of grey, cloudy light trying to intrude his closed eyes. It was a beautiful arm. And those were some beautiful eyes, but getting caught sleeping on the couch of a man who had hated his guts just a few months ago and couldn’t stand to be around him was not something he wanted to deal with. The death of his childhood best friend seemed like enough for one day.
So he got up. And he put his shoes on to leave. He looked back before heading for the door to catch one final glance of the gorgeous man sleeping merely a couple steps away, but a door creaking open upstairs was reason enough to hurry and leave the loft without finding out which of the teenagers had gotten up so early on a Saturday morning. Right into the rain. Well, at least it wasn’t another blizzard.
He felt oddly rested, even though his slumber had only lasted for a few hours, but he was very aware of how mopey the weather was and how much difficulty the puddles created in getting home. The flood hadn’t stopped and the rain didn’t look like it was going to seize any time soon, so he just focused on getting himself home as safely as possible.
“Stiles!” his father yelled as soon as he came through the door, “Where the hell have you been?”
“Dad,” Stiles tried to keep calm, his drowsiness catching up to him now that he was home and warm.
“No, you listen to me, young man,” the Sheriff said sternly and paused, as if pondering what to say next, “Look, I don’t know what is going on with you lately, but I really don’t understand it. You used to barely leave the house just a year ago and now you’re going around at nights, wondering the woods and disappear for hours without a notice? What is up with you?”
“Dad, why didn’t you tell me about Heather?” Stiles looked up to him to see all anger fade and turn to guilt. Stiles didn’t feel bad about using this as a way to get out of trouble. He didn’t care about getting grounded. He wanted to mourn in peace without his dad threatening to lock him in his room for the rest of the year.
“Stiles, I…”
“I’m gonna take a shower. And then I’m gonna call her parents,” Stiles cleared his throat to get rid of the tears that were about to break out, and walked past his father and up the stairs, “if I may.”
He didn’t wait for his father to respond. Sure, the man wasn’t to blame for her death. He wasn’t even to blame for not wanting to tell Stiles after everything they’d been through. And the yelling was very much justified. Stiles was just not really in the mood to be lectured.
So he took a shower in which he cried his eyes out, letting flow what he had been keeping inside him for the last 6 hours. He called Heather’s mom and expressed his condolences, she invited him to the funeral, he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to go, but he supposed that Heather deserved the respect of him at least showing up, and he was exhausted. He felt so weak and useless. His limbs felt heavy, his head seemed made of lead and his eyes were drifting shut before he even made it to his bed.
Oh, Stiles…
The voice. It was back.
Sorry she had to die. A shame, really.
He could barely focus, but he wanted to hear more.
But you had to realise the stakes, Stiles, I had to make her do it.
“What are y…” he whispered into his pillow, his eyelids seemingly glued together, “Who are you?”
Beacon Hills’ doom, she answered sickeningly sweetly.
Stiles slept through the day and the following night, dreaming about the owner of the mysterious voice making Heather do things. Stupid, reckless things. He didn’t know how she’d done it, he didn’t want to look at the autopsy report. All he knew was that she would never do that herself. Ever.
He crept down the stairs, the heavy crying and overly long sleep pounding at his head. He wanted something to drink, that much he could make out. He downed a tall glass of water before noticing his dad sitting by the kitchen table.
“I made an omelet,” the Sheriff informed quietly, folding his newspaper and placing it on the table next to him. He was wearing a sweater which meant he wasn’t going to work today, or, at least, not yet. It hadn’t stopped raining, so Stiles assumed the Sheriff still had a lot of work to do since Mayor Hexley didn’t give a damn, but for the sake of his heartbroken son he’d probably left it all to poor Parrish.
Stiles grabbed a plate and scooped some tomato-infused egg onto it. His father wasn’t much of a chef, but the gesture was much appreciated, especially since it was still warm. He sat down opposite of his father who watched him patiently. “What?” he finally asked.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Heather,” his dad still sounded guilty, “I didn’t know…”
“Didn’t know how, yeah, I get that,” Stiles took another bite, “Still, would’ve been nicer to hear it from you than Derek Hale,” he said without thinking.
“Hale?” the Sheriff raised his eyebrows, “What is it with you and that Hale kid?”
“Nothing!” Stiles shot back way too quickly, “Nothing,” he repeated more calmly.
“Stiles, I’m sorry about Heather. And I’m sorry about yelling at you, but you must understand how I feel, don’t you? If this is you rebelling because…”
“Jesus, I’m not rebelling, dad,” Stiles shouted, knowing that was a bit over the line, “Not everything has to be about me and you.”
“Then what is this about?” his father sat up, placing his elbows on the table, “Because there is so much I don’t understand at the station. I don’t want to be clueless about you, too.”
“Dad…” he wanted to tell him. Tell him everything. Call up Scott and ask him to turn his eyes yellow or show his fangs or grow that ugly ass beard. Anything. He just wanted his father to know.
“Yeah?” he asked hopefully. He would understand. He’d get used to it eventually. Melissa did and it was her son that was the werewolf. The sheriff of the town surely deserved to know all there was to know, right?
“I’ve been having these nightmares,” Stiles blurted out, scared he was about to tell his very human father about his very supernatural friends, “they’re insane and…” his dad looked genuinely interested, “Never mind.”
“No, Stiles, come on. It’s me. You can tell me this stuff. Any stuff, kiddo.”
Stiles watched the newspaper sitting by his dad’s right arm, thinking of what to do. He’d never understood why his dad loved the whole drinking coffee and reading the paper every morning spiel. It wasn’t like he needed to read the newspaper, he was the sheriff, after all, if anyone knew everything going on in this town, it was him.
Well, not everything, obviously.
“Okay, look,” Stiles said suddenly, “I’ll tell you everything. But I need Scott for that, is that okay?”
“Stiles, what are you talking about?” the Sheriff asked as Stiles got up from the table to run upstairs and get his phone.
“You’ll understand, just…just give him a few minutes to get here.”
So this was happening. Stiles was about to tell his dad. Alright, no worries, staying calm is the key. The sheriff, of all people, deserved to know what was going on in the town he was supposed to be protecting. And blaming the weird stuff happening on the supernatural would be easier, even if no one still knew what the cause of it all was.
“What’s up? Why did you need me to come so quick?” Scott’s oblivious puppy face looked concerned, seeing Stiles just the slightest bit stressed about telling his human father a fairytale that he himself wouldn’t have believed before Scott was turned.
“It’s time,” Stiles said as Scott waved to the Sheriff now standing in the doorway.
“Yellow protocol?” Scott asked casually, as if telling a human was no big deal.
The yellow protocol was something they came up with before even Allison knew about werewolves and her family’s part in their existence. It was the yellow protocol because of the colour Scott’s eyes turned when he, well, turned. They came up with it for situations just like these – when they needed someone to know. And, by God, Stiles’ dad needed to know.
“Yellow protocol,” Stiles affirmed and watched Scott take his shoes off out of politeness and walk into the kitchen before returning with one of the larger knives in the Stilinski collection.
“Scott, what the hell are you doing with that?” the Sheriff looked wary. The knife was just for the proof part of the whole thing. They needed to explain first, but there was no way in hell the rational Sheriff would ever believe a story about wolves, hunters, kanimas and whatever Lydia was.
“Okay, dad,” Stiles’ voice forced the Sheriff to pay attention to him now, “you know how there are all these inexplicable things happening all over the town and you don’t really know what’s happening and no one can get to the bottom of it?”
“Stiles, the last thing I need right now is a performance review from my own son,” Stiles knew this tone, it was the ‘I’m getting pissed, Stiles’ tone.
“No, listen, dad. It’s not your fault. You just don’t know everything that’s going on here,” he said and looked to Scott for help.
“Sheriff,” Scot came over to stand next to Stiles.
“Are you about to tell me you two are gay?”
“What?” Stiles asked in an uncharacteristically high-pitched voice.
“Because that’s fine with me,” the Sheriff added quickly.
“Oh no,” Scott laughed, “trust me I’m not the one who Sti-“ he was interrupted by Stiles’ elbow striking his rib with the most force Stiles was able to conjure, “No, sir, that’s not at all what we’re trying to tell you here,” Scott laughed.
“Scott is a werewolf,” Stiles panicked, earning a pointed look from his best friend.
“Uhhh, what?” the Sheriff asked as the two teenagers shared a short mental conversation scolding each other with just looks.
“Ok, look,” Stiles tried again, “last year before school started you got a call about a dead body in the woods sliced in half.”
“Yes, and I found you there, as well, if I recall correctly,” his dad did not look amused by the memory.
“Right, but I told you Scott wasn’t there, right?”
“Even though I was,” Scott chimed in.
“I went home all fine and dandy, but Scott got bitten by…something,” Stiles tried to seem calm as Scott lifted up his shirt, revealing the slightest hint of a scar on his hip.
“Jesus Christ, Scott,” the Sheriff got up to examine it, “what was that?”
“A wolf,” Scott said.
The Sheriff looked up in annoyance, “There haven’t been any wolves in California for-“
“Sixty years, yeah, we know, dad,” Stiles crossed his arms, “except this wasn’t just a wolf.”
“Let me guess, it was a werewolf,” his dad said in a tone that for a second sounded like he was starting to believe them, but no, of course not, they weren’t about to get out of this that easily.
“But it was,” Stiles promised as he watched his father press his fingers to his temples as if fighting a headache.
“Why are you two doing this?” the Sheriff sounded increasingly annoyed by the second.
“Scott?” Stiles was staring to panic again. They needed to get his dad’s attention back. He needed to understand everything.
“Right, yeah,” Scott said and swiftly wiped the blade of the knife against his palm, resulting in a seemingly deep cut.
“Scott!” the Sheriff yelled, taking the teen’s hand in his own, probably to turn it up and slow down the extensive bleeding. It was taking longer than usual to heal, but, then again, Scott had probably just gotten a bit carried away and cut too deep.
“Dad, it’s okay,” Stiles said calmly.
“Stiles, for God’s sake, he’s bleeding out in our living room, what of all this is okay? Are you two insane?” his dad looked up to him bringing out the stern father figure Stiles did not like. At all.
“Is he, though?” Stiles yelled back just as loud.
“Yes, he…” the Sheriff looked back at Scott’s hand to see the cut growing smaller and smaller until it left a completely healthy hand with some blood drying on it, “What the hell?”
“He has these really cool healing abilities,” Stiles said calmly, “because he’s not human, dad.”
The Sheriff looked into Scott’s eyes with a bewildered expression. He didn’t look as scared as Melissa had when she found out, but his child wasn’t the werewolf in this scenario.
“Scott,” the Sheriff said cautiously, letting go of the teen’s hand.
“Dad, please promise not to freak out right now,” Stiles said as calmly as he possible could.
“Why?” his dad looked at him with the tiniest bit of actual fear in his eyes before turning his attention back to Scott – his son’s best friend, the boy who had a knack for getting in trouble for just about anything, the boy that had eaten countless dinners with them and had slept under his roof about a thousand times – growing a beard, fangs and switching his eyes to yellow.
“What the absolute fuck?” the Sheriff said under his breath and Stiles noted the cursing which he rarely heard from his father, but absolutely loved for that exact reason.
“Now do you believe us?” Stiles asked as Scott came back down to his human form.
“Who else is like that?” the Sheriff asked, “Are you?” he suddenly got panicked, looking at his son.
“No, no, I’m just human, Dad.”
“Thank God,” he sighed in relief.
“But others include, oh god, where do I start?” Stiles huffed.
“Isaac Lahey,” Scott said, looking shocked at himself, probably having uttered the name for the first time since the night of the blizzard with the whole Allison thing, “Uh, Derek Hale.”
“His whole family actually,” Stiles added.
“His family’s dead,” the Sheriff reminded.
“Yeah, except his little sister and uncle. Who are, you know, werewolves.”
“Right, great,” his dad really seemed like he was trying to make sense of all of this and was having difficulty following along the mind map he was probably in the process of developing.
“Actually Peter died for a while, but Lydia brought him back.”
“Wait what?” that had really taken him aback, “Is Lydia…”
“No, no, no, no, no! She’s something different, we haven’t figured her out yet, she just finds dead bodies,” Stiles said simply, making his father’s eyes go wide, “But Jackson Whittemore is,” Stiles explained.
“Actually he was a Kanima for a while, ‘cause he sucks, but now he’s a werewolf,” Scott added.
“Yeah, but he’s in London, so who cares about that jackass,” Stiles rolled his eyes.
“What is a Kanima?” the Sheriff asked, looking as if he wasn’t sure if he wanted to know.
“Oh, that’s when the shape you take reflects the person you truly are,” Stiles explained as if that was no biggie.
“So Scott is a wolf on the inside?”
“No, no, Scott’s just a werewolf. He’s not a Kanima.”
“Right,” his father pondered over this, looking over to Scott and then back to his son again, “Is there anyone else I should know about?”
“I think it would be easier if we just told you when one of them came into play,” Scott said, stopping Stiles who was about to list a bunch of more names, some of which his dad has never even heard of.
“Oh, but the Argents are hunters, though, that’s’ kinda important,” Stiles remembered and Scott nodded in agreement.
“The argents? You dated a hunter?” the Sheriff turned to Scott.
“I didn’t know she was a hunter at first. And she didn’t know I was a werewolf. She actually didn’t know her family were hunters either. She was kinda oblivious to that whole side of this town.”
“That makes two of us,” the Sheriff sighed, “What else?”
“Deaton’s like this walking supernatural encyclopedia,” Stiles informed.
“Deaton? My friend the veterinarian, Deaton?”
“That’s the one,” Stiles snapped his fingers lazily.
“What does a werewolf hunter do?” his dad looked like he didn’t actually want to know.
“Besides killing werewolves?” Stiles raised an eyebrow, “well, Kate Argent took the liberty of burning Derek’s house down with his whole family inside, for example.”
“Jesus, seriously?”
“Ooh, yeah, big time.”
“Allison’s parents tried to kill me a bunch of times,” Scott shrugged, “but then her mom got bitten by…” he looked to Stiles who had a warning look on his face, “…someone, and had to kill herself to stop her from turning.”
“Because they’re insane,” Stiles added.
“Bitten by whom?”
“Not important,” the both said in unison.
“Okay,” the Sheriff sighed and rubbed his eyes, “and why are you suddenly telling me all of this?”
“Because you’re the sheriff. You need to know what’s happening in this town. And lately something weird’s been going on. With the weather and the…suicides. And the animals, remember when I told you about the animals?”
“Yeah, yeah, right…how about this. I go to work now and try to wrap my brain around this whole…situation and you two just stay out of trouble for as long as possible, sound like something you can do?”
“Yes sir,” Scott and Stiles said at the same time.
“Good boys,” the Sheriff said and headed upstairs to change, and Stiles was sure he heard him murmur something about Goddamn werewolves under his breath.
“Well, he took that surprisingly well,” Scott stated.
“Yeah,” Stiles was almost confused by exactly how well his father had responded. Sure, he’d gotten used to the whole thing, but his father was another story. He’d lived decades, believing one thing, and was now told something that turned his life upside down, not to mention only added difficulties at work and potential worries for his son’s wellbeing.
“Why the sudden change of heart?” Scott asked, plopping himself onto the Stilinskis’ couch.
“What?”
“Well I offered telling your dad when this all started, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, well, Derek might have changed my mind,” Stiles murmured, heading for the kitchen, expectedly hearing his best friend’s footsteps behind him.
“What? When?” Scott demanded, “What?”
“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” Stiles tried to laugh it off, but knew it was already too late. He wouldn’t let it go, if it was the other way around, so why should Scott?
“Tell me, you minx,” Scott teased.
“What?” Stiles laughed back, “Don’t be an idiot, there’s nothing to tell,” he rolled his eyes.
“When was this?” Scott didn’t stand down. They sounded like thirteen year old girls gossiping about their crushes. Stiles did not like that.
“Will you leave it?” Stiles snapped, growing impatient. There was too much happening at once, the last thing he needed right now was someone pestering him about his already complicated love interest.
“Fine,” Scott raised his hands in defeat, a smile still playing on his lips. Stiles didn’t want to tell him about Heather. He didn’t want to be pitied. Derek seeing him cry was enough for the rest of his life, “Got any Pop tarts?”
“Check the pantry,” Stiles sagged into his chair, pulling up the newspaper his dad had left out on the table.
“Oh, nice, chocolate fudge,” Scott exclaimed and ripped open the silver packaging just as his phone started ringing, “Hey, mom,” he greeted her, biting down on the cheap pastry, before his face went blank and grey.
“What’s up?” Stiles mouthed.
“Yeah, I’ll be home in ten. No, mom, it’s fine, I’ll…yeah, yeah, I’ll be fine, just don’t worry. Yeah, bye.”
Stiles raised his eyebrows in question as Scott shoved his phone back in his pocket and the rest of the Pop tart into his mouth, “Apparently,” Scott sighed, “my dad’s in town.”
“Right, the feds,” Stiles nodded slowly, remembering Derek mentioning the sheriff’s department bringing in the FBI to help with the cases.
“Yeah,” Scott sounded confused, “the feds.”
“Derek,” Stiles felt the need to clarify, judging by his best friend’s tone.
“Stole police files?”
“Not sure I wanted to know,” Stiles looked down to hide his smile. He still wasn’t sure why the rule-breaking asshole had such a distinct effect on him, but he had to admit – even when Derek did illegal shit, he made Stiles absolutely smitten.
“God, you’re whipped,” Scott snorted and put his jacket back on.
“You’re gonna be okay, dude?” Stiles asked before Scott had reached the door, following him and leaning against the kitchen doorway.
“Are you?” Scott turned around and looked at him as if staring into his soul. He knew that look. That was the ‘I know you better than anyone else in the world and I know something’s wrong’ look.
“What are you talking about?” Stiles avoided eye contact and failed to sound normal.
“You tell me,” Scott demanded.
Stiles shrugged and shook his head slightly. He should tell Scott. He’d find out eventually. He’d tell him eventually. But he didn’t want to deal with it today, besides Scott had more pressing matters to deal with than feeling bad for Stiles, “Your dad is waiting.”
Scott nodded unsurely and his hand twitched over the doorknob before he visibly changed his mind and crossed the room to hug Stiles who, without thinking, sank into the embrace thankfully and hugged his best friend back tightly, ignoring the stinging in his eyes as he realised how glad he was to have Scott.
“Are you sure you two don’t wanna tell me something?” the Sheriff came downstairs, ready to go the station and obviously having noticed them.
Scott just laughed and placed a dramatically loud smooch on Stiles’ cheek to irritate his best friend, causing the opposite reaction instead and making him feel better. “Okay, enough, go,” Stiles pulled apart and shoved a laughing Scott out the door, followed by his father leaving for work, “Good luck, both of you,” he added before closing the door.
Finally, Stiles.
The voice. The weird spooky-ass voice. It was back.
We’re alone.
“Who are you?” Stiles looked around the room before locking the door. There were no Bluetooth speakers in their house that someone could be pranking him though, and there was no chance in hell someone could be in their house.
Oh, Stiles, dear, I’m not here, you can stop freaking out.
The eye-roll in her voice was audible, but it disappeared immediately.
“How the hell do I not freak out?”
Oooh, Stiles, sweetie, you don’t have to be afraid of anything. Trust me, I’m your friend.
“Odd for a friend to make my other friends try and kill themselves,” Stiles growled, all the other conversations of theirs springing to mind instantly. He wasn’t surprised there were ghosts in this town. The fact that they were causing nature to go wild and people commit suicides was no shock either.
Oh, but you’ll see it’s all a much needed sacrifice in the end. You just can’t see the big picture yet. And, no I’m no ghost, I’m very much alive
“Who are you?” Stiles demanded angrily, realising that the owner of the voice, whoever she was, could tell what he was thinking, but he knew there was no point in throwing a tantrum, “What do you want?”
Stiles, let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was a little girl in a happy family. Her mother was the sweetest woman on Earth and her father would do anything to protect them. Until she found out her mother was ill.
Stiles’ heart shrunk. He knew this story, only it wasn’t about a little girl. It was about him.
Oh, honey, no, I’m not talking about you. See, this girl’s mother had done well to hide her depression from her family, until one day she couldn’t hide anymore. Her perfect husband brought her perfect daughter home from school and found his perfect wife in their perfect living room with her throat slit open, blood still oozing from the wound…
“Jesus Christ, what the he-“
That little girl lived with the image of her dead mother pressed into the back of her eyelids for years. Her father grew neglectful, hateful, spiteful. He did horrible things to innocent people. He made his daughter into a monster and sent her away.
“Who are you talking about,” Stiles asked silently, fearing he knew the answer already.
Her only friend died in a fire, her father hated the sight of her because of how much she looked like her mother, the whole town though she was crazy, they were eager to see her locked away, out of harm’s way where she couldn’t hurt their children. But she hadn’t touched a hair on another person’s head. See, Stiles, her father took everything he did and pointed the blame to her. Then locked her away and lived happily alone. The king of the little kingdom that you call Beacon Hills.
The name of the town had never sounded more poisonous on anyone’s tongue as it did on hers. She despised it, she despised that man. Her father.
“Jackaline Hexley,” Stiles stated.
There you go, Stiles. You truly are the brains of the operation, aren’t you? The human, the outcast, the one that sits on the bleachers while the werewolf jock stars do all the work and get all the praise, huh?
That hit hard. Right below the belt. Everything Stiles thought of himself in contrast to Scott. Right there. Then again, if she could really see inside his head, that wasn’t an unexpected comment, was it?
We’re the same, Stiles, you and I. We’re the neglected little things that no one really needs. We’re smart, sure, but useless.
“Your friend who died in the fire,” Stiles needed to change the subject.
She loved me. For who I am. She was there for me when everyone else turned their backs on me. Her family took me in like one of their own. She was my sister. My fucking savior. And she’s gone and I’m alone.
Her tone was angry again as the ground started shaking, a low rumble like a small earthquake breaking out.
“Was it Cora?” Stiles asked quickly before she could cause another natural catastrophe, but she didn’t answer, he’d obviously taken her by surprise, “Cause, she’s alive, you know. Feisty as ever, just like her brother.”
Jackaline didn’t answer after that, but Stiles knew she’d heard, because the ground had stopped shaking. He hoped that would mean her calming down, at least for a while. He could use a calm funeral to say goodbye to Heather with the respect she deserved.
He shook Jackaline off, leaving worrying about her for later and focusing on getting into a suit and out the door without a breakdown.
He was looking in the mirror at his red eyes. He’d cried again in the shower. He had to pull it together. There was a low thud of his own blood flowing in his ears, like he was about to pass out. He barely heard the doorbell ring, but it managed to scare him anyway. He looked himself over once more in the mirror. He had outgrown his suit a bit, but he was sure no one would notice, it wasn’t like he was going to be the center of attention.
“Lydia,” he was surprised to say upon opening the door. She didn’t say anything, just hugged him. “Okay?”
“Are you ready? I’m coming with you,” she stated, obviously leaving Stiles no choice. “Lydia, wha-“ his eyebrows knitted together before realisation struck him, “Scott.”
“He’s a good, friend, Stiles,” she placed her hand on his shoulder. She was already wearing all black, although the whole honouring a dead person thing didn’t seem to matter to that short skirt of hers.
“I know,” he nodded, “okay, fine, we can go, I guess.”
The drive was silent. Stiles didn’t want to talk and Lydia felt awkward to the point that Stiles could sense it. It felt like she wanted to say something the whole time, but wasn’t sure what. Or how. “Are you okay?” she finally blurted out.
Stiles stretched out his neck as a reason to delay his answer, but he knew Lydia was smarter than to believe his “Yeah, sure,” right as it came out of his mouth.
She was polite enough not to comment on the fact that he was lying. Apparently compassion played a role in how often she had to be right about everything.
“No,” Stiles admitted, taking the turn for the church’s small parking lot, “obviously not.”
They sat in silence, but Lydia’s eyes never left Stiles, it felt as if she was trying to read him. Hell, the girl was a radar for dead people and she was about to go to a funeral, if anything, Stiles was sure her powers, whatever they were, were at their peak and she absolutely, unmistakably was reading him.
“We can-“
“No,” Stiles stopped her before she could finish her suggestion and he would hear the option out loud, “I can’t bail.”
It took him a few deep, shaky breaths before he started feeling annoyed at himself. He hated funerals, absolutely detested them. The last one he had gone to, he’d had to say goodbye to the greatest person he knew, the person he loved the most in the world. Listening to his relatives and his dad’s friends’ condolences had made him almost sick, but the thought of never seeing his mother again had destroyed him. He hated, hated, hated funerals.
He hated that he had to go to another one. He hated himself for not being able to get out of the car and face it. And he hated Lydia for looking at him with those big, sorry eyes, pitying him, feeling sorry for him. So he suck it up and he got out of the car, only pausing momentarily when seeing Heather’s dad leading her mother into the church, but he wouldn’t let himself turn back now, and neither would Lydia, since she wrapped her arm around his elbow and lead the way. His legs carried him along and he only barely registered Lydia’s steps next to him.
“Stiles?” Lydia asked with her hand on his shoulder after he stopped in the doorway. Her casket was there. It was just…there, its light wood the polar opposite of the church and of everyone who’s come to mourn the girl. It was closed and Stiles couldn’t help but wonder if she was actually in there, her self-sliced body already slowly decomposing on its own, her cold, lifeless limbs laying stiff on the upholstered silk lining, her face painted to look like she’s just sleeping, yet somehow ending up looking horrifying and wrong as if something wasn’t quite right, but you can’t put your finger on it…. “Stiles?” Lydia repeated, snapping him out of it.
“Sorry, yeah,” he shook his head and noticed, for the first time, how many people were actually there. He felt as if he was intruding already, so he just slipped into the last row of the wooden benches, closely followed by Lydia, her hand still hooked on his elbow as if to make sure he doesn’t lose consciousness and fall.
He sat down and forced himself to look at Heather’s picture in the very front, surrounded by lit candles and white lilies. He knew she would’ve appreciated the gesture, she’d loved learning about other cultures and traditions.
He didn’t hear the pastor speaking, he tuned him out, tuned out Heather’s parents and friends’ speeches, tuned out Lydia’s hand on his knee, tuned out the muffled gasps of in-held cries escaping family members’ mouths, the snuffling, the sounds of people existing, he heard none of it. It wasn’t right, he thought, it wasn’t their time to make sounds and shed tears. It wasn’t about everyone here losing Heather as if she was theirs to lose. It was about Heather, about remembering her, about finding the force that made her put an end like this to her life, because she never would have out of free will, because it was her that lost everything, not these people.
“I have to go,” Stiles whispered eagerly and got up without waiting for Lydia’s response. He was angry and sad and desperate for something, anything, in his life to stay solid and safe, without best friends turning into werewolves, animals behaving insanely or childhood friends killing themselves because a ghost told them to. He wanted vengeance and redemption without the slightest idea of how to get it.
He was glad he had sat down in the very end of the chapel, but upon leaving he realised no one would notice him leaving either way, everyone was too pre-occupied with mourning the grossly prematurely dead teenager.
He wasn’t thinking straight, that he knew. He wasn’t worrying about Lydia getting home or Heather’s parents thinking ill of him for leaving early. He wasn’t thinking at all. There was no actual destination he had planned as he got into his jeep, but it was seemingly taking him somewhere. He was heading somewhere and he wasn’t sure whether the directions were truly muttered to him by Jackaline or if he was just imagining it because he currently couldn’t think of anyone else than her. She was his current biggest problem, and he needed to figure her out, he needed to talk to her.
“JACKALIIIINE!” he yelled almost monstrously as soon as he got out of his jeep. He found himself in the woods, the rotting leaves in all shades between yellow and brown crunching beneath his feet as he strut angrily further into the tree-covered area. “Jackaline,” he repeated warningly.
Stiles, she answered calmly, her sickly sweet voice echoing between the trees, scaring away a few birds that had previously been sitting on the branches. Stiles wasn’t the only one that could hear them. Every animal in a hundred feet radius could, Stiles was certain.
As soon as she answered, he had no clue what to say next. He was raging mad, his hands shaking, face burning, but he did not, for the life of him, know what to say next. He couldn’t yell at a ghost, he couldn’t throw a rampage at seemingly nothing. He hoped it was just a stage of grief, but it felt different when you had someone to blame.
I didn’t do anything to her, Stiles.
“You made her kill herself,” he screamed, “She was happy. She was the nicest person in the world!” he let rage take over him, he couldn’t even control himself. He wished Jackaline was here and in physical form. He needed someone to scream at instead of empty air and trees, he needed someone to look at and blame.
You loved her, didn’t you, Stiles?
“Of course I did, she was my friend!”
No, but did you love her?
He took a moment to understand what she was implying, but he got there eventually, almost calming down thanks to how outrageously wrong she was.
“No, what? No, she was my…my friend,” he said, shaking his head, hoping that this wasn’t denial. The last thing he needed was to fall in love with a dead person. And he though there was no way he could ever be attracted to someone even more unreachable than Derek Hale or Lydia Martin.
Ah, yes, of course, she’s not the one. No, it’s…something else, I can’t tell, but it’s so familiar, I just don’t quite see through it, she laughed. Laughed. There he was blaming her for murder and she was laughing and asking about his crushes? Someone else, she repeated.
“Stop that!” he demanded, “stop looking inside me and analysing me. You have no right to do that!”
I can’t help it, Stiles, we’re connected.
”And why is that, huh? I never asked to be connected to you,” he was exhausted. Not even as much physically as just mentally. He was drained. He hated having to talk to emptiness, spinning around as his subconscious mind tried to find someone to look at, someone to converse with.
It wasn’t my choice, you are just so alike me.
“We’re nothing alike. You’re cold-blooded and evil.”
I’m not evil, Stiles, she sounded angry, finally, she had emotions again, I’m vengeful.
“Killing innocent people won’t hurt your father,” Stiles reminded.
No, but making this town enough of a mess will make him desperate and show how horrible he is. Maybe then people will finally hate him. Like they hate me.
Stiles tried not to think about her sounding insane and desperately clinging to a crazy plan.
“No one hates you…”
No, they’re just terrified of me and think I’m insane. But I’m not insane, Stiles. I have a clearer view of the world than anyone else.
“Jackaline,” Stiles started…
Tell me who you love, so I don’t kill anyone dear to you again. I want to be your friend, Stiles, but there are means to come to an end, she said calmly again, but her tone wasn’t the same sickly sweet as before, it was genuine.
“Just stop killing people altogether,” Stiles suggested, trying his best to stay calm as well.
Derek, she said and Stiles froze. He was never going to tell her about anyone dear to him, in case she suddenly changed her mind and decided to make Stiles’ life a living hell, but hearing Derek’s name made him sure he couldn’t stop her. She could see inside him and he was terrified.
He opened his mouth and inhaled to say something, but his lips just bobbed open and closed again like that of a fish. He had no way of stopping her anymore. None.
It’s okay, Stiles, there’s no reason to be terrified, she assured, I told you I wouldn’t hurt you again and I meant it.
“Leave him alone,” Stiles ordered, “leave my family and my friends alone, too, just stay away from me!” he was back to yelling.
I will, Stiles, I promise, her tone was heated, as well, but he could hear she was trying to keep herself in check for his sake.
“Because you will never be my friend if you do that to me,” he announced. He hated the idea of someone like that thinking they could be his friend or that he could ever even stand them. But she had given him an idea. If he brought down her father she would be gone from his life. Forever. Hopefully.
Exactly.
“Good,” Stiles said more to himself than her, as if she had just affirmed his plan. Then, without another word, he turned around and started back towards his car. ”What do you mean it’s familiar?” he asked, half-expecting her to not respond as if she was just as done with the conversation as he was, “You said it feels familiar. Why? Do you love someone?”
His sister, she said after a moment of hesitation, I love Cora more than life.
He stopped himself from saying more. As much as he felt for her and knew how painful falling for a Hale could be, he still despised her, or, at least, he thought he did, and he didn’t want to let her become too familiar. He didn’t want to become too familiar, he needed his distance from her. For now.
Without another word, he walked back to his car and drove home, hoping the sandy road would lead him to the main road and back to Beacon Hills, since driving here was more instinct than conscious thought.
Stiles woke up with his alarm the next morning, dazed and unaware of where he was. For the first time in weeks he couldn’t remember what he’d dreamed about. Neither could he remember how he’d gone to sleep, but he just assumed he was too preoccupied with thinking over his conversation with Jackaline. The girl he hated and felt sorry for simultaneously.
He sat up, ignoring the pounding in his head he couldn’t understand why he even had and took a shower, got dressed and walked downstairs.
“Hey, buddy,” his father greeted him cautiously.
“I’m fine, dad,” Stiles promised and headed out the door without a breakfast. He didn’t feel like discussing the funeral or his outburst. He was surprised his dad looked so normal in the first place, especially the day after finding out about werewolves.
“Have a good day, Stiles,” the Sheriff said quickly before his son had the chance to slam the door shut.
“Love you, dad,” he said and closed the door, fumbling with his backpack on the way to his jeep, “Lydia?” he stated the girl’s presence. She was there. Again. Surprising him for the second day in a row.
“Stiles, I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” she seemed confused at her own words.
“I am,” Stiles’ lip caught between his teeth, “I’m really sorry I bailed on you yesterday.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she said quickly and they looked at each other for a moment in awkward silence, “Buuuut,” she said suddenly, “if you do feel sorry enough, you could drive me to school.”
“Yeah! Yeah, of course,” Stiles felt excited and tried his best no to show it, even though he failed miserably, “Hop in! Or, you know, climb in super lady-like, whatever you want.”
“Stiles,” Lydia said almost warningly.
“Right, sorry, let’s go,” he said and opened the passenger door for Lydia.
She fumbled with the radio the whole way there, none of the stations seemed to satisfy her, “just let it be,” Stiles laughed and Lydia looked at him with a surprised smile as if glad she was able to make Stiles anything else than mopey, “Aren’t you worried about your reputation?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Showing up to school first thing in the morning in my car.”
“No one knows who you are,” she shrugged and Stiles could hear that good old I’m-better-than-everybody-else vibe in her voice.
“Oh, wow, thanks,” he couldn’t help but laugh again as he pulled up in an empty parking spot.
“Anytime,” Lydia said as if she’d been the one to just have done the favor and not Stiles, letting him drive her here, flipped her strawberry blonde hair and walked to school without waiting for him.
“Alright then,” Stiles shook his head and got out. It shouldn’t have really been that surprising that he was driving Lydia to school, she had, after all, been hanging out with him, Scott and Allison for about a year now, but the surprised looks he got from his peers that happened to also be in the parking lot at that moment were like a fuel to him. His face immediately turned snarky, even though he couldn’t pull it off one bit.
“Stop that,” Scott advised, Stiles hadn’t seen him come up to him, but his hand was on his best friend’s shoulder a second later, “You look stupid.”
“Hey, thanks for that Lydia thing yesterday,” Stiles ignored his comment.
“No problem. Your dad told me, I’m sorry I couldn’t come, man.”
“That’s okay, really,” Stiles squeezed his shoulder again before retrieving his hand and starting towards the building.
“So…” Scott smirked, “dare I ask why you were driving her to school this morning?”
Stiles looked at him with a raised eyebrow and rolled his eyes at the smug smile his best friend was sporting, “Stop that,” he mimicked Scott, “She showed up on my front door this morning. I think she might have a thing for me.”
“Oh, yeah,” Scott said sarcastically, “girls are super into the whole pity thing. The sadder the hotter.”
“Alright, fuck you,” Stiles slammed the front door of the school in Scott’s face as he laughed, “Hey, how were things with your dad?” he asked once his best friend had caught up to him again.
“Oh,” Scott’s smile disappeared momentarily, “well, he took us to dinner and tried to reconnect. Which he’s really bad at, by the way.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t know, dude, he’s just…”he paused and Stiles followed his gaze to the other end of the hallway where Allison and Isaac were standing by her locker and laughing without a care in the world, “…not my priority.”
“You gonna beat him up?” it was Stiles’ turn to smirk. Scott scoffed and turned into a different hallway. “Oh I see, so you’re just gonna avoid them,” Stiles stated, nodding his head, “sure, that’s healthy.” Scott didn’t respond, just headed into a classroom, “Okay, cool, I’ll see you at lunch then,” Stiles said to himself more than Scott and headed to his English class.
He couldn’t help but notice there was something different about Miss Blake that morning. She was almost…glowing?
“Did you hear?” Isaac asked, slipping into the chair next to him.
“What?” Stiles asked, genuinely confused.
“You’re just looking at her like… I just thought you…”
“What?” Stiles asked again, much more impatiently this time.
“Oh, shit, okay, to put it politely, Derek’s taping that,” Isaac smiled like a frat douche would smile when proud of his bro for landing a hottie.
“Right,” Stiles dragged, feeling his heart sink well into his stomach and the fall into a bottomless pit and smash into a million pieces, “How-how do you know that exactly?” He asked, fully aware he couldn’t look more disappointed than he did, but he didn’t have the amount of brain power to try and hide it. He was absolutely disappointed. It was worse than Lydia dating Jackson, because he was an obvious choice for her as the jock star to the prom queen, but he could not, for the life of him, see Derek with a high school teacher.
”She was in the loft this morning, Boyd and I had to hide so it wouldn’t be awkward,” Isaac sat back relaxed, looking at Stiles from the corner of his eye. Stiles knew Isaac could hear his heartbeat and he wasn’t sure what to make of the smugness in the other boy’s behaviour, “we had to walk since he drove her to school.”
“Very cool, Isaac,” Stiles turned to him possibly too angrily for a normal conversation, but Isaac didn’t falter and just kept smiling at Stiles knowingly, “So cool,” he sat back in his chair and pulled out a notebook as Isaac kept sniggering. His Smile didn’t disappear for the rest of the lesson and Stiles hated it. He was sure Isaac knew. He must have. And Stiles didn’t like people knowing his secrets. He also wasn’t sure if Isaac was just lying and testing him, but he hated it nonetheless. He kind of, almost hated Isaac, too, just for this.
“Hey, maybe keep the flirting with Allison down around Scott,” Stiles mentioned nonchalantly when the bell rang, announcing the end of the lesson and the first students jumped out of their chairs and left the classroom, “just FYI, you know, so Scott doesn’t rip you limb from limb,” he shrugged, wiping the smile right off Isaac’s face, “but that’s just a suggestion, I don’t really care too much.”
That made him slightly more satisfied, but the last forty minutes were filled with enough ignoring Shakespeare and thinking about Derek and the woman in front of him talking about The Bard to last him the rest of the day with the idea stomping him down. Scott didn’t ask what was wrong when they met again later, Stiles knew his best friend just assumed he was still thinking about Heather and Stiles was fine with that. He knew Scott wasn’t too fond of the idea of him being so attracted to Derek, so putting the blame on another problem seemed like a solution. He could also feel Isaac’s gaze on him throughout lunch, but he ignored it, sitting in the cafeteria and stabbing at his suspicious-looking meatloaf.
“You know,” Stiles cleared his throat, grabbing Scott’s attention, “staring at them might just make it worse,” he advised, having noticed Scott’s gaze slip over to Isaac and Allison once in a while who were having lunch a few tables over with Boyd and Lydia. A strange group, Stiles noted.
“Yeah,” Scott said absently, turning to his plate of untouched food, “it’s just…” he suddenly said, zapping Stiles out of the few seconds in which he had already managed to imagine Derek with someone else, “how has everything in my life become such a shit show?”
“Hey,” Stiles said in the most reassuring tone he could master, “you’ve still got me,” he winked as Scott looked up to him with a scoff.
Stiles hadn’t even really thought about Scott’s side of the last few days. He’d tried to freeze himself in a locker room shower, his first love, who he assumed would go back to being his girlfriend after the time they spent apart, was apparently dating another werewolf, his abandoning father had turned up again out of thin air and he just had to tell the father of his best friend who also just happens to be the sheriff that he’s a werewolf. And on top of all that he’d managed to take care of Stiles when he was down.
“I guess I will always have you no matter what.”
“Hey, that’s the spirit!”
“You’re like a tumor, never really leaving me,” Scott laughed to bring Stiles back down to earth.
“Alright, fucking uncalled for,” Stiles pursed his lips in dissatisfaction as his best friend kept giggling.
“Hey, you wanna hang out tonight? I’m not really in the mood for father-son time,” Scott winced at the idea.
“Uh, sure,” Stiles shrugged, but then a plan emerged in his mind, “You wanna help me do some research?”
“What exactly are we looking for?” Scott asked, having joined Stiles in the Beacon Hills public library. They had driven there separately since Scott hadn’t wanted to leave his bike at school. He found Stiles skimming through five years’ worth of old newspapers.
“Do you remember the mayor’s daughter?” Stiles asked, never letting his eyes run over the lines of text whenever an interesting enough article.
“Uh, I don’t know, I guess?” Scott sounded understandably confused, “Why?”
“Okay, this might sound insane,” Stiles sighed and finally looked the werewolf in the eyes, “but she’s been talking to me.”
Nothing in Scott’s face changed, he still looked interested, as if asking Stiles to continue, but there was no sight of ‘alright, my best friend’s insane, that’s a thing now’.
“In my dreams at first,” he said, testing out the water to see if Scott’s understanding look would shift to something more condescending, “and then when I’m awake.”
“How?” Scott sounded genuinely interested, and Stiles couldn’t be happier to have such a great friend.
“Just her voice. I can talk to her whenever I want,” Stiles whispered carefully.
“Like right now?” the other teen seemed excited.
“Maybe,” Stiles admitted, “but the thing is,” he drew in a deep breath, “I think she’s the one responsible for all the weird bullshit happening in the town.”
“Okay, how? And why?”
“Well, remember when there was the whole thing about mayor Hexley sending his ‘insane’ daughter off to some ward somewhere?” he used finger quotes around the word insane just in case he could offend Jackaline, and offending a ghost, or whatever she was, was not another problem he wanted to have to deal with, “Well, apparently, she’s not actually crazy, she just has a horrible father.”
“Can relate,” Scott laughed, “besides, I’ve never really liked the guy, he seems kind of…” he seemed to struggle with finishing the sentence.
“Off?” Stiles offered and Scott nodded, “Right, well Jackaline seems to think so, too,” he said, noticing Scott mouth her name to feel it on his tongue and remember it for later, “in fact, she thinks he’s so off she wants to destroy the town to get her revenge.”
“Alright…that’s not good.”
“No, not too great,” Stiles agreed.
“But why is she telling you all of this?” Stiles couldn’t help but feel slightly offended by the disbelief in him. Sure, he was only an honorary member of the local supernatural teen fight club, but he was around. Either way, he let it go by without a sarcastic remark since Scott had been so understanding about the whole there’s-a-voice-talking-to-me-and-I-don’t-even-know-her-and-I-literally-sound-insane-but-please-believe-me thing. Besides, he had no wish to tell Scott about his deepest worry which just so happens to be the reason Jackaline was even talking to him, which was his painfully ordinary humanity. “I don’t know,” he said instead and ignored the way Scott’s eyes narrowed as he surely heard Stiles’ heartbeat falter at the lie, “she just said she feels connected to me,” he shrugged and turned back to the newspaper stack.
“Wait,” Scott’s hand was on his shoulder now, “does that mean she’s responsible for the weird suicides, as well?” Stiles just sighed and looked at his best friend sadly before averting his gaze again, “Heather?” his voice was close to a whisper now and Stiles just gave him a nod, not too eager to look into his pitying face.
“And she promised to never hurt anyone I love again, because,” he paused, prepared to sound stupider than ever, “she wants to be my friend.”
“Your friend?” Scott exclaimed, earning a few pointed looks from others in the silent library and a shooshing from the seemingly hundred-year-old librarian, “Is that what this is all about? You’re being friendly and taking down her father?” Scott asked in an accusing whisper while Stiles tried to shut him up, looking around at all the people that hadn’t turned away yet.
“No, okay? No, calm down,” he said as angrily as whispering allowed it, “but if I take down her father then maybe she’ll stop trying to destroy the town, huh?”
Scott seemed satisfied with that answer and calmed down almost instantly, “Okay,” he nodded, “fine. What can I do to help?”
“Find dirt on him,” Stiles smiled and handed the werewolf a heavy pile of old newspapers.
“Great.”
“I’m home,” Stiles announced, taking his shoes off in the doorway. He had spent three late afternoons in the library and had absolutely nothing to show for it. Scott would join him after lacrosse practice which Stiles would bail on, and then they would research any article in the local newspaper from the past five years. What they hadn’t taken into account until this afternoon, is that the only newspaper in the small town would not be the first in line to dish on its mayor. They had nothing but three wasted days filled with Jackaline’s rainstorms that started the second the sun set until exactly dawn each night.
Stiles was not one to stay too determined on tasks such as homework, so it was unusual for him to realise he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about this for days. On the other hand, he tended to be hyper-focused on things that were important, like the occasional investigation or two that came with having a werewolf for a best friend, so maybe it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise that this wouldn’t leave his mind.
“Where have you been?” his father called out from the kitchen. There was no added tone of worry in his voice, but Stiles did know the sound of it being hidden for dramatic effect, and this was that.
“Library with Scott,” he said as innocently as he could, ignoring the mountain of spaghetti his father had boiled in order to not make him even angrier.
“Every night this week?” The Sheriff raised a skeptical eyebrow, ready to accuse him of something, not knowing what it may be, but having Stiles as a son had proved enough times to be ready for the worst of mischief, so who could really blame the man?
“We have a project.”
“A project.”
“In history.”
“In history?”
Stiles watched his father quizzically, ready to throw a sarcastic remark about copying him, but deciding against it for his own good, “It’s on the mayor.”
That took his dad by surprise, “Hexley?”
“That is our mayor,” Stiles stated carefully, unsure of the origins of his father’s odd reaction, “why?”
“I might have something on him,” The Sheriff said nonchalantly.
“What do you have?” Stiles asked, his whole body leaning forward as his curiosity gets the best of him.
“What do you have?” his dad sat back in the chair he’d been occupying during this conversation.
“I asked you first,” Stiles might not have been a cop, but he knew how to negotiate in a second grader level.
“I have a gun.”
“Real mature,” the teenager rolled his eyes dramatically and turned to go upstairs.
“Hold it,” his father called out before he had the chance to get out of earshot. He seemed to be debating whether or not to say whatever he wanted to say. “How is Scott?”
“He’s…” Stiles was about to say he was okay and ask why, but he realised what his dad had meant.
There was a teenage werewolf hanging out with his son every single day. There had been for over a year now. It was no wonder he was worried, the way he saw it, Stiles was in mortal danger at all times, but there was nothing he could do to keep them apart. Scott had never given him any reason to worry. And Stiles knew his dad loved Scott, he really did, and his views might be different if it was stiles that grew fangs and a beard every month, but he also understood the sentiment. The Sheriff just wanted to keep his son safe.
“He’s great, dad,” he said, implying with his eyes that there was nothing to worry about, throwing in a “same old” for good measure.
“Right,” The Sheriff smiled unsurely and went back to studying case files splattered across the kitchen table, “I’ll put these away and you’ll come eat some dinner with your old man, how does that sound?”
“Only if you tell me about Hexley,” Stiles tried to play it off as a joke, but actually did hope his dad would take it as a hint.
“Nice try, smart guy,” the older Stilinski scoffed and rested his chin on the palm of his hands as Stiles ascended the stairs to put his backpack away, but upon entering his rom, he sensed something was off. The atmosphere had shifted. It didn’t feel like his room. I didn’t smell like his room. It smelled like…
Derek.
Stiles hoped he was just being paranoid and possibly a bit insane as he switched the light on as quickly as possible, angling his body to his right, but when the room came alight, the tall, dark, broody man was practically breathing into Stiles’ face, making him jump, only barely stifling the unmanly scream that threatened to break free.
“Fuck’s sake, Derek,” he hoped he sounded more threatening, or at least annoyed, than terrified as he whisper-yelled at the beautiful, beautiful werewolf to avoid his father hearing, “Why are you in my bedroom? Why are you even in my house, you maniac?”
“Why has news reached me that you’re involved in all the shit that’s been happening in the town?” Derek demanded, ignoring Stiles’ questions and stepping further, which Stiles didn’t think possible, but being so close to his crush – who, at this point, he realised he might possibly be head over heels for, that stupid, hot, incredible idiot – was physically painful.
“What are you talking about?” Stiles managed without stuttering. Surprisingly. Though it wasn’t too convincing.
Derek didn’t answer, instead growling in the back of his throat, making Stiles turned on, scared and uncomfortable at the same time. And he was sure Derek could easily smell all of those from a mile away, let alone half an inch. “Damn it, Scott,” Stiles sighed admitingly, if only to step away. It was becoming unbearable to be around the wolf and he was scared of losing his control around him.
“I’m not responsible for anything, just FYI,” Stiles commented, “but, yeah, alright,” he sighed after a few seconds’ hesitation, checked the hallway for his dad and continued, “There’s a girl. In my dreams,” he looked at Derek and saw him confused. Not only confused, but also about to punch Stiles. An odd mix of emotions, the human thought, “And not just my dreams,” he added quickly.
“The fuck,” Derek narrowed his eyes, “are you talking about?”
“Hexley,” Stiles quaked, taking a step backwards to avoid actually getting punched by an actual werewolf. But Derek froze, surveying Stiles carefully.
“What about Hexley?” he stepped forward to fill the space between them Stiles had enlarged, his words impatient and demanding.
“Jackaline Hexley,” Stiles licked his lips, enjoying the emotions mixing in Derek’s face, knowing he had managed to take the werewolf aback and was likely not about to be kicked or hit.
“Jack?”
“Yeah, your baby sister’s best friend,” he quirked an eyebrow, trying to feel like he had taken the control over the conversation, but knew, in reality, that was out of the question.
“How do you know that?” the werewolf marvelled.
“She told me, genius,” Stiles rolled his eyes, “try and follow along, won’t you?” he insisted, doing his best to ignore Derek’s warning growl and his smile when he surely heard Stiles’ heartbeat stutter in fear. Even in utter confusion, the man managed to be absolutely terrifying.
“She told you.”
“That she did.”
“In your dream.”
“Uh, no, not in my dream,” Stiles mocked. “In the woods.”
“You met her? Is she okay?” Derek demanded hastily, practically jumping forward, making Stiles slightly jealous of the worry.
“I did not meet her,” Stiles leaned back, scrunching up his face in distaste, as if watching a madman trying to chew his own hand off, “I only heard her,” he admitted, “I’ve only ever seen her in my dreams.”
Derek seemed to think that over. It’s not like it was too hard to understand, Stiles thought, she’s passive aggressive in his dreams and simply aggressive in his head when he’s awake. Doesn’t take a genius.
“So where was she when you heard her?” Derek pondered.
“You’re trying to bring logic into this?” Stiles belted, remembering his dad right downstairs, “You’re a fucking werewolf!” he retorted to whisper-screaming.
“So?”
“So? So? So, you’re not exactly the most mundane of creatures, are ya?” the human acknowledged and exhaled forcefully, trying his best to contain his annoyance at the gorgeous Greek god in front of him, “You, of all people, have to believe me,” he said calmly and saw Derek’s face shift. He was no longer irritated and resentful. It almost looked like he felt for Stiles, “You know her. She said you were always kind to her,” he couldn’t help but express his admiration, as much as he fought it, “She’s not like me. Not human. You can help, can’t you?”
Stiles could see Derek was currently looking for reasons against it, but he could also see that he was about to agree. He wasn’t even sure why he’d told Derek. Was he afraid of him? Of course. Was he unconditionally and possibly a bit too infatuated by him? Absolutely. Did he actually need his help? Debatable. Did he have any idea how Derek would even be able to help? None, whatsoever.
“Fine, you moron, I’ll help you.”
Stiles let out a sigh of relief and nodded, trying to come up with a plan as fast as possible while pretending Derek, of all people, agreeing to help didn’t make him insanely happy. “So? What do we do?” Derek asked. Which was what Stiles had been dreading.
Thankfully, he was saved by the smell of something frying downstairs and his name being called to dinner. Knowing he had a police sheriff a floor below made him feel somehow calmer, even though there probably wasn’t much his dad could do against another werewolf. Not that Stiles was even scared of Derek anymore.
“I’m going downstairs to manipulate my father into giving me dirt on Jackaline’s father. You’re getting the fuck out of my room,” Stiles stated, pushing Derek towards the open window he assumed he’d crawled in through. There was no way Stiles could have been able to push him anywhere, if Derek wasn’t already willing. Which, for some reason, made Stiles incredibly content with himself.
“And then what?” Derek demanded, leaning against the windowsill. There was something about the guy in moonlight and the mysterious darkness of Stiles’ room that made him want to kiss him so bad, but the unwillingness to have his limbs ripped from him one by one managed to win against it, making Stiles stand still and watch him.
“And then…” he stalled, “then we’ll see,” he shrugged for no better answer.
Derek’s eyes narrowed slightly as he searched Stiles’ face for any sign of what that meant for him before leaning back and nodding. “Let me know,” he said finally and leapt out the window, the words making the familiar Derek knot in Stiles’ stomach tighten as he watched the werewolf sprint across his backyard. Through all of the confusion in his life, one thing was for sure – in this domain, the Derek one, he was absolutely, completely and utterly screwed.
Stiles shook himself out of it and started walking downstairs, tripping on the backpack he had dropped in the doorway when Derek had startled him. “Spaghetti, meatballs and salad. Am I a chef or what?” the Sheriff looked pleased with himself.
“Dad,” said from the stairs.
“Okay, fine, I bought frozen meatballs, happy?”
“Dad,” Stiles said more persistently.
“Alright, fine, I bought the salad already made, but I did boil the pasta myself.”
“Dad!” Stiles almost yelled. Now, that made his father turn around, watching his son carefully, not sure of the sudden change of mood.
Stiles noted the change of scent around him. It was no longer musk and cologne, and sweet spice, and sweat. It was artificial and wrong. Food smelled wrong after being close to Derek for just minutes. Derek’s loft had been too new to have the smell stuck to it. The walls weren’t soaked in him yet, but they would be soon and Stiles won’t need superhuman sense of smell to feel it, to bask in it. He missed it already and hoped that he had remembered to close the window so it wouldn’t have aired out.
“What is it?” the Sheriff looked worried as Stiles tried to figure out how to ask this.
“What’s up with Hexley?” he spat out before he had the chance to lose his confidence. There was no time to spare. Jackaline was destroying the city, a new creative way every day and if he wanted to save everyone before she figured she can stop playing and kill them instead, he needed to do something. Do anything.
His dad sighed as if asking him to not start this again. He was really good at expressing his annoyance with a single sound or facial expression. Not that Stiles ever acknowledged it. “What is it with you and Hexley?”
“Dad,” Stiles started, but had no clue what to say next, so he left the doorway he’d been leaning on and came to sit at the table, “You’re the Sheriff. And your duty is to protect the city, right?”
“That is what the contract said,” the Sheriff mused with a smirk and crossed arms.
“And now that you know…about Scott,” he winced, trying to be as careful as possible. He only had one chance. His father immediately straightened up and looked weary. “Well, you get that there’s more happening than you know. And we’ve been dealing with it just fine for the past year.”
“What’s that now?” the Sheriff demanded, sounding like a strict dad punishing his son for missed homework.
“Dad, focus. I’m fine, aren’t I?” Stiles sighed, “But, dad, there’s more supernatural crap happening every day and I can’t sit on my ass and wait for it to resolve itself.”
The Sheriff sighed,“Alright, Stiles," he said, rubbing tiredness out of his eyes, "but why you?”
“Because someone has to!” he yelled, unable to stop himself as the words spilt off his tongue and left a loud echoing silence. His hands were shaking and it was obvious neither of them had expected anything like that. “And if that someone is me and maybe Derek then why don’t I just try?”
“Because you don’t turn into a beast with inhuman abilities and you can’t fight back!” his father fought back. He did have a great point and it did make a lot of sense, but Stiles was too riled up to agree. Or to think about what came out his mouth.
“Well, that’s why I’ll have Derek.”
“Hale?” the Sheriff looked puzzled, “Why are you even friends with him? And with so many werewolves?”
“What?” Stiles perked up, realising what he had just said. “No, we’re not friends, he’s just strong,” was his weak attempt at gathering up the spilt water.
“Oh, Christ, of course he is,” his dad rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms again, “Why are you even hanging out with him?”
“Because it’s safer that way!” Stiles shrugged, glad his father didn’t have a supernatural ability to tell when he’s lying. Unlike Derek, who, at this point, probably knew everything, and for some insane, bizarre reason still hung around. And hadn't skinned Stiles.
“Jesus, Stiles,” his father was pacing now. “Well the…at least…” he looked at a loss for words, “at least tell me how Hexley comes into all of this.”
“It’s…hard to explain,” he admitted. It was hard to lie to his dad and he really hated hiding things from him. Especially things that concerned the whole town. What was even worse, was the look on his father’s face as he realised he can’t help the town he was supposed to protect. It was a very specific look. It seemed similar to the one Scott had these days every time he saw Allison. “I just need you to trust me, dad.”
“If you make me regret this, I’ll feed you to Scott,” he pointed his finger dramatically before walking out of the room to get something, but Stiles just stood there smiling. Joking about Scott being a werewolf meant acceptance. Or, at least, the beginning of acceptance. Besides, if his dad accepted his best friend being a shape-shifting wolf, maybe he’d accept Stiles dating one. Not that Derek would ever sign off on something like that on his own free will – that was one thing Stiles was sure of.
The Sheriff returned with two folders, stuffed with papers, excerpts and newspaper clippings. Stiles recognised some of the headlines from his excessive trips to the library, only his father had pieced together things he and Scott had not been able to notice from just skimming through the papers once. There were accusations and questions written in pen on the sides of the articles and highlighters of different colours marking parts of the text, and Stiles assumed each colour corresponded to something else, creating a sort of organised chaos.
“Dad,” he mused airily, “this is incredible.”
“Not really,” the Sheriff sighed and placed a plate of food in front of his awestruck son, “nothing in there is solid enough to incriminate him,” he explained just as Stiles found a series of photos taken from a large distance of the Mayor making an obviously shady deal with a person whose back is turned to the camera.
“Are you sure none of this is good?” Stiles asked absently, turning his head to try and see what the Mayor was being handed.
“I know the law pretty well, son,” Mr. Stilinski dug into his own portion, “now eat, kid,” he ordered and Stiles put away the photo he had been holding, since his dad’s orders were authoritative enough to create a reflex in Stiles’ brain to do as told. “Anyway,” his father said after a minute of silent contemplation from both sides of the table, “some people get away with whatever sketchy crap they do. You just have to be influential enough,” the Sheriff said without lifting his gaze from his food, even though Stiles waited for him to, in surprise. “Some people just never go behind bars. Police deals with that every day, Stiles.”
“Yeah,” Stiles suspired, “sounds about right.” He couldn’t help but think about Allison’s creepy grandfather Gerard. It was no secret that the Argents were rich and powerful, not to mention a centuries old dynasty of werewolf murderers. So if it ever came to light that Gerard had taken part in something, anything illegal, it would come as no surprise to Stiles. Apparently, the same could be said about Mayor Hexley.
He wondered what he had done to Jackaline after her mother had died. He found himself worried for the girl. No one deserved to be abandoned by their parent, especially after losing one. Stiles knew he was lucky he had the father he did, because without each other they would’ve never gotten through the death of his mom.
“Do you,” Stiles started, feeling a lump in his throat forcing him to pause and clear his throat, “do you remember his wife?” he asked, hoping the question about the dead wife won’t swell up the same feelings his own thoughts just had to him.
“Yeah, sure,” his father shrugged, “she was a lovely woman. A shame, really, what happened.”
“What happened?” Stiles sat up straight, hoping, praying that the story adds up with the one Jackaline had told him and he hadn’t actually gone insane and imagined the girl he’d never even heard of before.
“Killed herself. She had a history of depression, apparently. Although she hid it very well, I had no idea.”
“So you do think she did it?” Stiles’ eyes narrowed involuntarily.
“Yes? Why?”
“No reason,” Stiles slouched back into his chair, acting as nonchalantly as possible.
“Saddest thing, really, was the kid,” the Sheriff seemed to suddenly remember, “Little Jackie, I think. According to Hexley she saw her mother’s dead body and went a bit bonkers, so he sent her off to a private institution somewhere in New York.”
LIES!
Jackaline. Stiles wished he could tell her to calm down, but, unless he wanted to risk his dad thinking he’d gone a bit bonkers, too, he could only sit and hope. She needed to calm down soon, though, since Stiles could now hear the wind outside through the closed window.
ALL LIES, STILES!
I know, I know, I know, he kept thinking, hoping she could read his mind once again as she had before. I believe you, Jackaline, I know. There was no answer from her, but the wind only stilled in a few minutes. Not that Sheriff Stilinski had noticed. Thank God.
“Can I have these?” Stiles asked carefully, reaching for the folder in front of him.
“Absolutely not, Stiles, no one can know I’m doing this, Hexley could jeopardise my whole carrier,” the Sheriff snitched the folder out of his son’s hand, “there’s no denying it, that man is a scary son of a bitch.”
“Wow, dad,” Stiles chuckled, but, seeing his father’s stern face, got serious himself and raised his hands in defeat, “yeah, yeah, no, of course, no taking the files, got it, for sure.”
“Right. I’m going to bed now,” the Sheriff informed, “and taking these with me,” he said as if explaining it to a complete idiot as Stiles watched him curiously, “to place them in the very secure third drawer on the left in my dresser,” he winked and walked away without another word, making Stiles smile in excitement.
“Love you, dad!” he called out after him and finally turned to the plate in front of him, only now realising how hungry he actually was, what with all the long hours in the library and Derek invading his bedroom. Great. Now he was thinking about Derek again.
“You’re gonna love this,” Lydia fumed, throwing a stack of books onto the table in front of Scott and Stiles, barely avoiding catapulting Stiles’ lunch across the room. The bindings looked ancient and the dust cloud from the impact reminded Stiles of a mushroom cloud of an explosion. She sat down in front of them and opened the book on the top of the pile, skimming through the open page with the help of her perfectly manicured finger as Allison sat down next to her, closely followed by Isaac.
Stiles felt Scott tense up and sit straighter without even having to look at him, but Isaac didn’t look at Scott. Instead, his challenging, calculating smirk was aimed at Stiles. Like a reminder that he knew his secret. Even though he didn’t, right? Stiles was just paranoid, right?
“Allison’s dad let me borrow a few books…”
“A few?” Stiles interrupted Lydia with a scoff, trying to distract himself from Isaac, but it only earned him a warning, deadly look from the strawberry blonde. “Alright, sorry. Hermione Granger much?”
If that last comment did bother Lydia, she ignored it and kept talking, “Since you have been so persistent that there is something wrong with me,” she kept looking at Stiles, mimicking Isaak’s challenge, and everyone else shot him a questioning look as well.
“Well, that’s completely taken out of con-“
“I decided,” Lydia continued insistently, “to ask the hunters of the supernatural for information. Someone in this town must know something, after all,” she sighed dramatically.
“Deaton would be my first choice, but okay,” Scott shrugged and both Lydia and Stiles turned to him slowly. Stiles couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. Deaton was the fucking walking encyclopedia of supernatural shit and he was trying to find a way to incriminate Hexley to calm down Jackaline? When all he needed to do was ask the werewolf doctor for advice. And judging by Lydia’s face, she was thinking the same thing.
“Damn it,” Lydia scolded under her breath, admitting her defeat, “okay, let’s go now.”
“I still have two periods, I can’t afford to skip them,” Scott had a point.
“This can surely wait two hours,” Allison said, pointedly avoiding Scott, even though her upper body was rested against Isaac’s.
Lydia seemed to think it over for a moment. Stiles knew how she felt. There really was something about her and wanting to find out as much as possible was the natural reaction. Especially with her determination and unsatisfiable thirst for knowledge. “Fine,” she decided and sat deeper into her chair.
“What did you find, though?” Stiles nodded to the books in front of his lunch tray.
“Banshees,” she said simply.
Saying that Stiles was confused was understatement. Not only had he never heard of the word, it gave him nothing to go on in figuring out what it meant, so he just sat and looked at the smartest girl he knew, hoping she would explain, but the rest of the group around the table looking equally confused did make him feel better. At least a bit.
“God, do you people ever read?” she rolled her eyes and proceeded to turn the heavy-looking book around towards Stiles and Scott, so they could see the drawing of an old cloaked woman sitting under a tree in the night.
“It’s an Irish witch?” Stiles asked, seeing the word ‘Irish’ in the second line of the text and assuming the first thing that came to mind.
“It’s not a witch, Stiles,” Lydia said defensively, “they do come from an Irish origin, though, but they are known to be prone to locating lost things and…death,” she looked away from Stiles’ eyes.
“It says here they scream. You don’t scream,” Scott was squinting to read the text as Stiles’ attention was drawn back to the creepy picture, “do you?”
“Not that I’m aware,” she looked down, which Stiles found suspicious. Upon looking back up, she caught Stiles’ questioning gaze and sighed, “Fine, I screamed once.”
“What?” Allison’s eyebrows drew together as both Stiles’ and Scott’s jaws dropped.
“It’s not a big deal, I had a bad dream,” Lydia was obviously lying and everyone was obviously not buying it, “fine, it was different, and I can’t explain it, and now I’m terrified, happy?” she whisper-yelled just as the bell rang, “now, if you will excuse me, I’m taking these books to my locker before I’m late for English.
At the mention of English, Isaac seemed to come back to life after silently following the conversation and smirked at Stiles again, as if knowing Stiles was already fuming at the thought of the young teacher and the man he loved. “Oh, fuck off,” he told Isaac before heading to his biology class.
“What, no Cora?” Stiles asked, seeing the empty passenger seat.
“Keeping her away from this, remember? Now get in,” Derek demanded.
“You know you’re being a douche about this, I have a car,” Stiles scoffed at Derek who had requested he get in his Camaro.
“No, you have a tin can on wheels,” Derek stated, sounding perfectly logical to Stiles, for some reason, “Get in,” he repeated.
“For fuck’s sake,” Stiles took off his backpack angrily and got into the passenger seat of the shiny black car he wished the werewolf would let him drive one day, hugging the bag broodily and refusing to look anywhere but at the road as he heard Derek snicker.
Stiles had called Derek as soon as he got out of the classroom after last period, Scott right by his side instantly, to tell him to meet them at the vet’s, but Derek had insisted they meet at school so he could drive.
“What’s so bad about getting a ride in this?” Derek sounded like he was smiling, but as beautiful and unbelievable as that sounded, Stiles still refused to look at the man, “It’s a good car.”
“Overcompensating?” Stiles ridiculed, knowing perfectly well that there was no way Derek wasn’t packing something impressive.
“I think we both know that’s not true,” Derek was smirking when Stiles finally turned to him, if only in shock of the werewolf’s statement.
“I think we both know there is no way I could know that,” Stiles winced at how bitter he sounded, but once it was out, there was no point trying to suck it back up, “that would be my English teacher you’re thinking of.”
“Jealous?” Derek asked casually, pulling up next to Allison’s car where she was getting out and chatting to Lydia, as Isaac, like a lovesick were-puppy, runs up to hold her hand.
“What?” Stiles could feel his heartbeat rise rapidly and see something tug at the corner of Derek’s mouth, “I’m not jealous. What?”
“Don’t teenage boys have some forbidden teacher kink or something?” Derek raised an eyebrow and his eyes flicked to Stiles’ chest for a split second as if checking his pulse, even though he could hear it nonetheless, as it slowed down when Stiles realised Derek meant jealous of him, not Jennifer fucking Blake.
“Weren’t you my age just a few years ago?” Stiles teased, “Did you have a teacher kink?”
“No, I had a girlfriend, Stiles,” he said as if blaming the teenager for no one being attracted to him, opening the car door, “and then I had other shit to worry about,” he sighed and got out, leaving Stiles feeling guilty for asking. Bringing up anything relating to Derek’s teen years and dead family had been an incredibly stupid accident that must be avoided until the day he dies.
Stiles ignored Isaac’s surprised look when he saw Derek, which turned into a knowing smile when he saw Stiles get out of the Alpha’s car. Scott was getting off his bike which meant all teenage awkwardness could end and they could go in and talk to Deaton and get back to saving the world, which now Stiles would take over all of the human bullshit going on in his head.
“Doctor Deaton?” Scott called out as the little bell above the door resonated throughout the empty vet clinic, announcing their arrival as they all piled into the small waiting room, “Doctor Deaton, are you here?” Scott ignored the silence and walked into the back of the store, used to working there.
“Scott, I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow,” Deaton’s calm voice rang from the back and Stiles followed his best friend into the backroom, “Oh, hello, Stiles,” he smiled, wiping his hands after placing what looked like a recently washed extremely sharp surgical instrument onto a towel to dry, “and Derek, Isaac, Miss Argent, Miss Martin,” he looked confused, “this isn’t an ambush, is it?”
“No, Doc,” Scott laughed, “we just had a couple of questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Well,” Scott started, looking back to the rest of his friends as if asking what to do, but everyone just stared at him, waiting for him to do the talking, “we were just wondering,” he seemed unsure of where to go next, “if you, maybe, possibly, have come up with anything more than us? Concerning all the weird stuff that has been happening” Scott stumbled over his words unsurely. It was obvious he had no clue how to avoid telling the doc what they already knew and ask for more information simultaneously.
“Well, unfortunately I haven’t managed to solve that mystery yet, I’m sorry you had to come all this way t-“
“Do you know anything about the mayor’s daughter?” the question shot out of Stiles’ mouth before he was able to stop himself. Allison, along with her boyfriend and best friend watched him in complete and utter confusion, while Scott and Derek were sporting more of a ‘dude, what are you doing?’ look.
“Uh, yes, I believe she was institutionalised years ago, but I don’t see the relevancy.”
Stiles didn’t know how to answer to not look like an idiot. Saying he didn’t know what he’d meant by that would make him look crazy. Saying she’d been talking to him in his head would make him look batshit insane. The only thing to help him decide was knowing that the full moon was only a day away and if they didn’t do something quick, the town might spiral right into hell. “It’s her.”
“Stiles,” Derek warned, but he didn’t sound angry. More just…worried.
“She’s back. I don’t know how or where, but she is.”
“Has she been talking to you?” Deaton asked so calmly it made Stiles feel like there was a doctor trying to distinguish how insane exactly a mental patient was, “Establishing a connection? Making you empathic towards her?”
“Yes,” Stiles admitted quietly. “Why? Does that mean something?”
The doc thought it over for a second, “It might, actually,” Deaton pondered, “See, it’s no secret to any of you that this town is supernatural,” he said, “but it’s also magical. And Mayor Hexley’s wife was an amazing woman. And an incredibly magical one. She hid it well from the mundane folk, but to creatures such as you three young men here, she was the first one to turn to.”
“So she was basically you?” Allison asked.
“I guess you could say that,” Deaton chuckled. “She was my mentor. I’m something called a druid. We're basically healers and information sources. I would never fail to help you, if it was in my power to do so. But her strength, her magic…it was something godlike. And the kindness she carried herself with was absolutely unbelievable. So, when her daughter Jackaline was born, it was clear she would inherit the same power. That she would be the new age of magic. And she was. And by the sound of it – still is.”
“She sure is something,” Stiles murmured and caught, in his peripheral vision, Derek watching him curiously.
“If it is true, what you say, we should all be careful on this full moon,” Deaton advised, “possibly even have the police take extra measures?” he suggested, looking at Stiles.
“Yeah, not a problem, I already told my dad. Well, the werewolf part, not the part about the girl in my head destroying the town.”
“Jesus Christ,” Derek said in disbelief.
“Moron,” Isaac added.
“That’s one place to start,” Deaton nodded, ignoring the comments, “I will try to think about what else can be done, but nothing springs to mind at the moment. The most important thing is for you all to stay extra careful tomorrow night. More than on your previous full moons. Especially you, Stiles. She has formed a bond with you. You care for her now. You need to be careful of letting her get too close. She has been hurt by the people in this town and she will not hesitate to hurt back, if that is indeed her plan.”
“It’s not the town,” Stiles stated, “it’s her dad. He’s the one she wants to get revenge on,” Stiles winced at how much like a low budget thriller that sounded. “Honestly, I just think she needs some human comfort. She still hasn’t gotten that since her mom died,” Stiles found great interest in looking at his hands instead of anyone else’s eyes and he knew they understood. Because no one gets over their mother dying. And finding Derek’s knowing eyes already on his, when he does look up, just approved his point.
“Still, being careful won’t do any bad,” Deaton said sternly. “Now if that is all, I have a road kill call to attend to.”
Just as they piled out of the room, Stiles heard Lydia softly saying something to Deaton about ‘another question’ and was glad she was getting closure on her self-investigation.
“You know, you should probably tie up Isaac and Boyd tomorrow night,” Stiles advised Derek as they headed to the Camaro.
“I’ll figure it out,” Derek’s answer was pointed and unwilling, like he used to talk to Stiles when they first met. Like he was a piece of lint under his fingernail he couldn’t wait to flick away at the first convenience.
“Worried, are we?” Stiles teased, testing his luck.
“You said she wouldn’t do anything to me, didn’t you?” he spat back.
“That’s what she said, but you know I can’t control her, right?” Stiles said seriously, “Just be careful, okay?”
“I don’t need you to worry about me,” Derek was almost poisonous now.
“What the fuck’s gotten into you?” Stiles talked back just as loud.
“Nothing!” Derek was louder.
“Good!” Stiles was even louder and then there was silence. Stiles wasn’t sure why Derek was suddenly so pissed at him. He assumed neither did Derek himself, judging solely by how untempted this temper tantrum was. It made no sense whatsoever. Just a few minutes prior they were bantering like old friends, and now Derek was being an actual fucking prick.
He got out in the parking lot of Beacon Hills High without another word to get back to his jeep. With no rhyme or reason for Derek’s unexpected change of heart, he didn’t feel like he needed to say anything along the lines of a goodbye. Or, for that matter, anything at all. No ‘stay safe tomorrow’ which he had actually planned to say, no ‘good luck’, no ‘I love you Derek hale, let’s get married and run off into the sunset together’. Even though, as potentially disastrous as that last one would’ve been, Stiles felt like it wouldn’t change Derek’s mood by much. Something had happened and there was no telling what to do now.
It only occurred to Stiles that it was raining when he was in his car. He looked up as if thanking Jackaline for mourning along with him. At least, he assumed that’s what was happening. She did seem to care for him a great deal, or, at least, she was good at pretending, in order to get what she wanted. He drove off, noticing the Camaro still standing where Stiles had gotten out of it. As if checking up on him to make sure he gets to his car safely. As if debating whether or not to get out and make things right. Stiles knew this, because he felt the same way. He wanted to walk back to the werewolf himself.
The Sheriff had offered to take the night shift upon Stiles’ request. Having an officer who had at least some understanding of the supernatural manning the desk was safer for everyone. Especially on a full moon night in a town controlled by an all-powerful magical druid teenage girl. There was no telling what she would do. And the fact that she had taken on the habit of not talking to Stiles at all for two whole days did not make him any less nervous about the whole thing.
There was a strange sort of grey covering the sky that morning. It didn’t feel like clouds. It felt like a heavy blob of nothingness threatening to crush them at the snap of Jackaline’s fingers. Stiles assumed it would clear in time for the moon to appear on the night sky. He had a feeling Jackaline wouldn’t waste a second of dramatic destruction.
Stiles never saw Isaac and Boyd at school. He assumed Derek had already tied them up somewhere in the loft or beaten them up senseless to keep them from doing something stupid. Allison looked worried, and Stiles was sure she knew what was going to happen. And she might have even been scared of Isaac doing what he had done on the night of the new moon. The night of the blizzard. The night he hadn’t been able to control himself around her.
Stiles was watching Scott like a hawk all day, but the guy showed no sign of having trouble dealing with the oncoming moon phase. He was his usual, casual self. If anything, he just seemed more relaxed. He didn’t seem to be worried about having to survive just a few hours later.
“Trust me, I’ll be fine,” Scott assured Stiles for what seemed to be about the hundredth time, “I know what to do with myself on full moons, man.”
“This is different and you know it,” Stiles rolled his eyes, “dude, you can’t know what’s gonna happen.”
“Stiles, you don’t even know if anything will happen,” Scott reminded his best friend. Lydia looked unwell, coming out of the school along with a very distant looking Allison, and when she saw the pair of them, she rushed over instantly, yelling at people to move out the way and having obvious trouble coping with the stilettos she was wearing.
“Oh, but it will,” she promised, “I can feel it. It doesn’t feel good.”
“Lydia, you don’t even know what you are, you might not have any powers. For all we know, you’ve imagined all of this,” Scott reasoned, sounding annoyed as he got on his bike, “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going home and eating three large steaks, so I don’t feel like eating my mom tonight,” he said and drove off.
“And so it begins,” Stiles whispers, watching his best friend drive off.
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” Allison asks, having followed Lydia and watching the road, even though Scott’s gone.
Stiles nods slowly. Everything was crushing down on him. His best friend angry at him, his crush, whom he had almost seemed to be progressing with, despised him as much as he used to, and the girl who was supposed to be his dangerous, magical, freaky friend was no longer speaking to him. Plus they were all about to die in a couple of hours. “Yeah,” he admitted, “we’re fucked.”
He tried not to think about it too much as he drove home. Scott didn’t want his help? Fine, the dumbass could scratch through his own wall for all he cared, then run into the woods and eat a mountain lion. He had offered, all Scott had to do was not pretend to be a hero and let his best friend feel useful once in a while.
His attempt at cooking himself dinner failed miserably, probably since he was too distracted by mentally scolding Derek for being a dick for no reason. Stiles could imagine him sitting in the darkness of his apartment, watching Isaac and Boyd tied up to each other on the floor, yanking at the ropes and duct tape to get them looser and failing miserably because Derek is too strong and smart to tie them up wrong, and, damn it, Stiles was thinking about Derek’s muscles again.
And Jackaline? Jackaline could burn the forest down for all he cared, not letting him focus on Law & Order because he was too busy worrying if she was okay, if she was still alive. He almost wanted her to do something insane, just so he could know for sure she was still out there.
“Fuck’s sake,” Stiles growled, trying to stop worrying, since, apparently, he was the only one that cared about tonight. He turned on his back on the sofa aggressively, angry at the world and angry he could do nothing about it, when his phone buzzed. ‘need help come quick’. Scott.
There was water on the floor, streaming from the bathroom into Scott’s dark room, illuminated only by a strip of fluorescent light emitted from the on-suite. Stiles could hear heavy breathing mixed with a snarl or two once in a while. Stiles approached with caution, knowing Scott could hear him even without having to call out his name.
Stiles was glad Scott’s dad had had the brain to stay in a hotel as opposed to Melissa’s couch, successfully avoiding being here right now.
There was no danger of attacking per se, but Stiles couldn’t trust him. Not tonight. He opened the door wider, letting it creek open, and heard Scott’s breathing increase. “It’s okay, Scotty, it’s just me,” Stiles promised, taking a step further into the small room.
He could now see where the water was coming from the overflowing bathtub and still raining down from the shower-head. He would worry about his wet feet another day. Scott was hugging his knees, his claws digging into his own calves, leaving tiny trails of blood dripping into the bath water Stiles hoped was warm this time. “Help me,” Scott whispered helplessly, but there was something else to his voice. It sounded like he was trying to stop himself from doing…something bad.
“What do I do?” Stiles asked quietly, too scared by the answer.
“Wolfsbane,” Scott grunted.
“Where the fuck am I supposed to get wolfsbane, Scott?” Stiles panicked, looking around the room as his first instinct, only later realising that a werewolf wouldn’t keep any in a jar in his medicine cabinet. Scott’s answer was another long grunt.
“Alright, how about this?” Stiles could feel his fingers tremble. He was terrified of touching Scott, in case that triggered some primal urge to kill, but he held his breath and put his hand on the back of his best friend’s shoulder, ready to react, if Scott decides to attack, “I tie you up and lock the door.”
“What? Are you crazy?” Scott yelled monstrously.
“It’ll work, Scott, you’ll see,” Stiles assured and rushed out the room and downstairs, pretty certain he’d seen some duct tape in their kitchen before. Only when he’d dug it out of the drawer and celebrated in his head did he realise that maybe, just maybe, tying up Scott would infuriate his inner wolf. And maybe, just maybe, that wolf would break free from tape. Right after having this epiphany, hearing a creak from the stairs and turning around to see what that had been, he received a punch right in the face from the wolfed-out form of his best friend.
Driving with a bag of frozen peas wrapped in a kitchen towel, pressed up to his bleeding nose, turned out to be much more difficult than expected. Deciding to go to Derek for help was not much easier. But with a werewolf roaming the streets and the temperature dropping to almost a wintery low, much thanks to Jackaline, surely, he did not seem to have much choice. Besides, the night was still young and things had a tendency to develop and escalate quickly in Beacon Hills.
The old factory building district in which Derek lived looked especially ominous in the glow of the plump moon. Stiles had been right – the thick clouds had all disappeared, leaving the moonlight bright and cold, shining down on Beacon Hills.
His knock on the door seemed loud and invasive. It sounded wrong in the almost ringing silence of the night, but he soldiered on, even when Derek’s pained face appeared in the open doorway. “Stiles, get out,” he growled, and Stiles was about to feel offended by the rude greeting, but then he noticed the trouble Derek appeared to have breathing, the veins mapping his skin like black rivers, his eyes bloodshot, red and…dangerous.
He was warning Stiles. Because something was wrong and he couldn’t control himself. He was keeping Stiles safe. Only problem was, and Derek should know that by now, Stiles was terrible at keeping himself safe, or, in fact, letting others do it for him. So he stepped inside, ignoring Derek’s request completely and walking past him into the broody, dark loft.
“Stiles, leave!”
“Where are Isaac and Boyd?” Stiles asked, looking around, finding no sign of the two teenagers, not even the sound of them barking somewhere upstairs, “Derek, where’s your sister?” he asked carefully, turning around to face the werewolf.
“Stiles, I can’t control myself, you have to leave, now!” Derek yelled, “Your bloody-ass face isn’t helping either!”
Stiles touched his nose, sending a jolt of pain through his skull, “Right, that happened,” he winced, “but that’s actually why I’m here. It’s Scott. He…ran away,” Stiles explained, “after, you know, kicking my face in with his werewolf paw.”
He looked at Derek again, but he didn’t seem to be listening. He was pressed up against the wall, as if steadying himself, stopping himself from attacking Stiles. Only Stiles wasn’t afraid. “No,” Stiles said steadily after Derek repeated his order for Stiles to leave, “I’m not going anywhere.” He had no idea where this sudden surge of courage had come from, but there was something tugging at his gut, telling him Derek wouldn’t hurt him.
“Why can’t you control it? You’ve never had trouble controlling it on full moon,” Stiles was starting to feel a bit panicky.
“I DON’T KNOW!” Derek yelled impatiently, making Stiles take a step back. Sure the man had been angry at him the day before, but this was a new lever of rage. This was a supernatural, I-can’t-keep-my-own-body-in-check lever of rage.
“Stiles,” Derek sounded almost sad, “Please go, just…please” he begged, taking uneven breaths and squeezing his eyes shut to block out the reality around him. Stiles imagined Derek’s heart rate. It had to be going through the roof. That couldn’t possibly be good, even for a werewolf.
So Stiles remembered what he did when he had a panic attack, and he knew there was no scenario in which asking Derek to hold his breath would work, so he took all the courage he still had and moved his feet across the room before it all had a chance to disappear into the ground, and he held his own breath as he grabbed a hold of Derek’s jaw…
And he kissed Derek.
And Derek froze.
And Stiles couldn’t stop it, because he was kissing Derek Hale, and the full moon and the missing best friend, and the magical teenage maniac didn’t matter anymore. Nothing in the whole entire fucking world mattered anymore, because Derek Hale was kissing him back.
What was probably seconds turned into hours, years, eons. Stiles had no intention of ever leaving the roughness of Derek’s hand on his neck and the slight tang of iron in their mouths. He could grow old right here in this loft, if it meant Derek would keep his tongue in Stiles’ mouth forever. Or his other hand on Stiles’ ass.
Eventually – and Stiles had no way of telling how long after, all he had to go on was sore lips and potential stubble burn – his memory had rebooted and was giving out signals. Something about wolves. Or was it wizards? No, it was definitely werewolves.
“Derek,” Stiles sighed, but breaking the kiss just gave Derek the opportunity to move to Stiles’ pulse point. Which was in no way helpful to Stiles’ critical thinking, or the part of his brain that established priorities. “Derek, where are…” he couldn’t remember the names. There were no names. There were just Derek and Stiles. “Isaac? And Boyd?” he wasn’t sure, because Derek was sucking on his skin now and it was enough to make him forget everything prior to this moment.
“Ran away,” Derek sounded hungry, and Stiles got scared for a moment, but then Derek’s teeth grazed his jawline lightly and all was forgotten again. Who cared about them running away, right? With them here, there would be none of this happening.
“Where’s your sister?” Stiles asked breathlessly, unable to believe his willingness to go unkissed by Derek another second.
“Put her down for a few hours,” Derek’s hot breath sent a shiver down Stiles’ spine.
“How?” Stiles was confused, “She’s a wolf, what did you use? A tranquilizer?”
“No,” Derek explained, “wolfsbane.”
“What?” Stiles pulled apart, seeing Derek’s heavy-lidded, lustful eyes for the first time, and scolding himself for pulling away from that, “so you just have wolfsbane lying around?”
“I live with three teenage werewolves, of course I have wolfsbane,” Derek laughed, the calmness in his voice almost foreign as he retrieved his hand from where it had been resting on Stiles’ neck, letting Stiles see the last of his blackened veins disappearing.
“Where do you keep it?” Stiles watched Derek’s arm.
“In a jar in my medicine cabinet,” Derek shrugged and went to the kitchen to get Stiles a rag for his bleeding face.
“Did you just fix my broken nose?” Stiles followed him into the kitchen, confused by the lack of pain in his face.
“I’m not a druid, I just took the pain away,” Derek said, pushing Stiles down onto a chair and wiping away at his face.
“Why?” Stiles asked softly, picking off a loose eyelash on Derek’s cheekbone.
“Well, you stopped me from murdering you. Even though I did feel like murdering you for the first second there during the stopping part,” Derek admitted, pointedly looking only at the bloodstains on Stiles’ skin instead of his eyes.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t like that, Sourwolf,” Stiles teased. He would’ve been scared to do so, but now the water was spilled and Stiles could see Derek’s tiny, satisfied smirk, sense the tender skin where Derek’s stubble had rubbed against it, and feel the werewolf’s hand on his thigh, he knew the flirting was just beginning.
“Never said I didn’t,” Derek quirked an eyebrow and looked into Stiles’ eyes right before his phone started buzzing in his pocket.
“Damn it,” Stiles whispered, making Derek laugh.
“Take it,” Derek ordered and went to wash out the rag.
“Hello,” he greeted unwillingly, hoping that whoever was calling had the decency to keep it short.
“Stiles! It’s Doctor Deaton, there is something you need to know.”
Deaton’s ‘something you need to know’ turned into a drive to the woods to look for a mysterious magical tree that no one had stumbled upon for a thousand years. Apparently, it was the source of all the weird supernatural power Beacon Hills emitted. At least that’s as much as Stiles understood from everything Deaton had told him. The only thing he knew for sure was that it was a big tree and looked funky enough to unmistakably be the one.
“What exactly are we looking for?” Derek asked walking into the Preserve side by side with Stiles, not needing a flashlight unlike his new partner in…well, not crime, more like supernatural crime solving.
“A big tree,” Stiles said.
“How big?”
“Don’t know,” Stiles shrugged, shining the flashlight in random directions.
“Do you know where it is?”
“No, dude, that’s why we’re searching for it.”
“How is it gonna help with Jackaline?”
“No clue.”
“Good to know you’ve got it all figured out,” Derek said surprisingly calmly, as if he’d gained a new patience for the human.
“I know right?” Styles snorted a laugh and kept walking, trying to not make it obvious that the small hill they were climbing made him breathless. “First,” he was about to announce his plan when he got to the top of it and didn’t see Derek next to him yet. “Derek?” he turned around to find the werewolf looking at his phone screen.
“We have to go back,” he said.
“What? Why?” Stiles’ eyebrows drew together.
“Because Boyd just sent me a suicide note.”
“WHAT?” Stiles yelled and ran back down the leaf-covered hill to see Derek’s phone.
There was far too much happening all at once, and Stiles realised that looking for a magical tree is not what they should have been doing in the first place. They should have looked for Scott, Boyd and Isaac. And once Stiles had skimmed through the text, he threw the phone back to Derek and ran back to his jeep.
“Step on it, Stiles,” Derek demanded.
“He wouldn’t actually do that, right?” Stiles asked, unsure whether he was really wondering or trying to convince the both of them.
“He’s been feeling incredibly guilty about Erica. If he’s lost control, just like I had, I can’t say what he could do.”
“It’ll be fine,” Stiles promised, once again unsure if he was trying to convince himself in order to calm down.
“Stiles, calm down,” Derek suddenly advised.
“What?”
“Calm down, your heart beat’s insane,” Derek’s voice was far too calm for the situation.
“I can’t calm down, what, are you insane?” Stiles panicked.
Derek didn’t answer, just placed his hand on Stiles’ leg, “Don’t drive us off the road, that won’t get us there any faster.”
Stiles took a deep, shaky breath, then another one, until it seemed he’d be fine breathing normally, “Yeah, yeah, okay.”
Derek had no clue where Boyd could be, but, luckily, Stiles remembered they had a secret weapon. A death-sniffing dog, A Lydia.
“The banshee’s gonna find Boyd?” Derek asked.
“You know she’s a banshee?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Derek shrugged.
“Alright, we’re discussing that later, hold that thought,” Stiles said, waiting for Lydia to pick up, which didn’t take her much more than three seconds.
“What is it? What happened?” Lydia practically screamed into the phone.
“We need you to find som-“
“Good, because I have a strong urge to go to school,” Lydia sounded remorseful.
“Is it, by any chance, because you want to learn in the middle of the night?”
“Nope, it’s the other thing,” she sounded like she’d put the phone on speaker and was zipping something up, “I’ll meet you there, be quick, Stiles.”
Derek looked at him with a worrisome gaze, probably because he’d just heard the whole conversation, and Stiles didn’t need to elaborate more than “She’s got it.”
The dreary darkness of the empty school building, Stiles was reluctant to admit, had an oddly familiar quality to it. The moonlight coming through the windows was cold and unwelcoming, and waiting for Lydia to decide where to go seemed to take ages, but, just when Stiles was about to yell at her to make up her mind, Derek’s hand found Stiles’ shoulder as he whispered, “Don’t. Just let her.”
He slowed his breathing reluctantly, feeling his pulse stabilise, and whispered a quick “Thanks,” to Derek.
“Basement,” Lydia sounded disgusted and didn’t seem to be too keen on following the two of them as they ran through the halls with her walking quickly behind.
There was something dripping onto the walls, tubes mounted to the ceiling so low that Derek had to duck while running, and a growing heat, as if they were getting closer towards the center of the earth.
“Boyd!” Derek called out, hoping that he would still be alive somewhere.
“Derek,” Lydia said softly and Stiles noticed she had slowed down and was now looking at them empathetically, and when Stiles turned to her, she shook her head.
“Two heart beats,” Derek said, pointing to the end of the hallway and ignoring Lydia’s sad face, but Stiles knew. Stiles knew it was over.
“Come on,” Stiles took Lydia’s hand and lead her into the large room at the end of the hall where the large heater and water tank were located. And so were Isaac and Allison. And the presumably dead body of Boyd. Derek was crouching beside him already, trying to slap him awake, but there was too much blood. Allison was crying, Isaac was holding her head pressed up against his chest, Boyd wasn’t healing.
Stiles didn’t think much when Derek started crying. He had no idea the man cared so much for Boyd, but seeing him this way broke Styles’ heart. And that’s when he knew for sure. So he walked up to Derek and put his hand on his shoulder, hoping it would do, until Derek’s body sagged into Stiles’ and it was clear it was finally enough. They had each other. And they were enough.
Derek never asked Isaac and Allison what had happened. He never blamed them, Stiles knew, but his hand rested on the top of Derek’s spine, hoping it would comfort him, as they drove around, looking for Scott, hoping he wasn’t running around, wolfed out, naked and howling.
“I can drive you home,” Stiles suggested.
“Is there a possibility you’d give up on Scott and Jackaline and come with me?” Derek smiled sadly.
Stiles thought it over, and knew Scott and Jackaline were a priority, “Yeah…” he said nonetheless, “of course I would.”
“Liar,” Derek huffed a laugh.
“Damn it,” Stiles laughed, too. “We’ll find them and then.”
“No, we’ll find them and go get your face fixed,” Derek sighed and took Stiles’ hand from his shoulder into his hands.
“You’re just a big softie, aren’t you,” Stiles grinned.
Derek hummed in agreement and kissed Stiles’ knuckles, “If you ever tell anyone I’ll rip your throat out.”
“With your teeth, yeah, I’m aware,” Stiles remembered and felt relieved when Derek actually chuckled in response.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, lightning struck somewhere in the middle of the woods. A bright flash of white light and then complete silence as Stiles stopped his car and the two of them watched the forest, waiting for something new to happen. But nothing happened. That is, until they saw the smoke.
“Shit,” Stiles whispered and started the car again, turning it around and heading down the road that leads to the Preserve, “Did you see where it hit?”
“No, but I’m guessing following the smoke might help,” Derek commented.
“Yeah, sure, smartass, but it was deep,” Stiles rolled his eyes.
“If only one of us had supernatural sense of smell,” Derek smirked.
“Alright, you win that one,” Stiles huffed and rolled down the passenger side window.
“Stop here!” Derek barked after a good ten minutes of silent driving.
“Jesus, Hale,” Stiles hit the brakes and jumped out, willing to admit Derek had startled him.
They walked back into the Preserve and up the small, steep hill, stopping in the place where they had received Boyd’s text, but neither of them commented on it. They just stood there, letting Derek focus and the scent lead them in.
Stiles checked his phone after thinking he felt it buzz in his pocket ‘found Scott, where do we go?’ Lydia’s text asked.
‘Looking for a magical tree in the preserve’ Stiles shot back, not knowing how to elaborate any more thoroughly.
‘Be right there’ Lydia answered after about two minutes of typing and deleting, re-typing and re-deleting her message. Stiles was confused, there was no way Lydia could know where to come looking for them, if they didn’t even know where to go themselves. Was she really so powerful she could locate a tree? Dead bodies must have a stronger supernatural footprint than herbs. Then again, the tree was ancient, magical and all-powerful.
“Stiles,” Derek was looking into the distance, and, if he really squinted, he could distinguish orange light coming throughout the trees. There was no doubt, Jackaline had set the trees on fire. If not for the heavy rain yesterday evening, Stiles would be very concerned about his and Derek’s safety, but he just ran towards it without thinking instead. “Stiles!” he heard Derek’s protest, but he didn’t stop. What if Jackaline was there? What if she was in danger?
“Jesus, what am I? A phone central?” Stiles asked the Universe, feeling his phone buzz in his pocket again, “What?” he asked without even looking at the caller ID.
“Stiles, are you okay?” It was his father. His father, who he’d have to explain all of this to. Explain the weather and the lightning, and now, apparently, the fire.
“Yes, of course,” he said, trying to hide the fact that he was breathless from the running, “I’m always fine, dad, when have I not been fine?”
“You’re rambling,” the Sheriff noticed, “You ramble when you lie.”
“That’s not true, I never ramble, I’m very good with words, and-“
“Yeah, I’m gonna stop you there,” his father said, “and I’m gonna tell you what’s gonna happen right now. You’ll get out of the woods and drive away, capisce?”
“What? How did you-“ he looked at his phone, dawning on a realisation, “you trackered me?”
“Of course I trackered you, your best friend is a werewolf,” the Sheriff reminded, speaking the last word in an angry whisper. “Now get out of those woods before you burn alive.”
“Yeah, sorry, dad, can’t do that,” he said and hung up, turning to see Derek watching his curiously before he handed him his phone, “Throw that away as far as you can?” Derek didn’t say anything, just kept watching Stiles, “Oh, come on, we both know you’re stronger than me, pretty please?”
Derek shook his head in disbelief and sighed before actually catapulting the phone away into the opposite direction. “Wow,” Stiles was impressed, “thanks.”
“I’m not going looking for it tomorrow,” Derek pointed his finger into Stiles’ face and walked past him and towards the fire.
“I bet I can make you change your mind,” Stiles teased silently and followed suit.
The was no doubt his father was on his way now, just as it was pretty clear the fire brigades from the nearest three towns were coming. Getting this cleared out and everyone away in a couple of minutes would be the perfect solution, but knowing Stiles’ luck, as well as their pack's, that was not happening.
Lydia, Isaac, Allison and a slightly confused Scott showed up a few minutes later, to Stiles’ surprise, having picked up Deaton on their way. The seven of them forming a very odd, supernatural version of ghost busters.
“How did you find him?” Stiles asked Lydia, watching Scott’s dubious face look around in confusion.
“Screamed,” Lydia shrugged.
“That helped?” Stiles was impressed.
“Well, his supernatural hearing made him freak out, but eventually we got him into the car.”
“I heard that scream, I just thought I’d imagined it,” Derek raised an eyebrow.
“Stiles,” Lydia started as the group of them stood around without moving, “That's the tree.”
“How do you know?” Allison asked her.
“I’ve been drawing… I just do,” Lydia looked perplexed, as not knowing what to answer was a rare occurrence.
“It doesn’t matter, we have to go,” Stiles was losing his patience, so he moved towards the radiating heat and the bright orange glow deeper into the forest.
He heard footsteps behind him, those of Derek being the closest. Derek… Stiles couldn’t wait for this all to be over and to just spend time with him. Talk about whatever the hell was happening with the two of them. Or, better yet, make out and leave the talking for later. Either way, both of them were finally within reach of each other and Stiles couldn’t be more stoked.
What neither of them were ready for was the sight of a teenage girl in the middle of the fire, steadying herself on the thick stem of the strange, giant tree. She was wearing a white hospital gown and looked as if fighting for air, about to collapse, and completely and utterly exhausted, but it wasn’t from the fire. In fact, the fire didn’t appear to be harming her at all. She did, however, look like she was on the verge of losing consciousness and it was terrifying. Because, if he was completely honest with himself, Stiles had grown fond of the girl. And seeing her this weak, knowing how powerful she was, was terrifying.
“Jack?” a girl’s voice said from behind them in disbelief, “JACKALINE!” she resorted to yelling, but Stiles couldn’t make out who it was. The girl then ran past them and towards the fire, and only then did Stiles see that it was Cora.
Derek raced after her in unbelievable speed, picking her up as she kicked and screamed, and dragging her away before she had the chance to run into the open flame. “What the hell are you doing here?!” he yelled at his sister.
Isaac held Allison protectively behind him and Lydia just stood and watched the forest ablaze. Deaton mouthed something in utter shock that looked like ‘emerald dawn’ and Scott finally seemed to come back from his full moon trance.
“What do we do?” Stiles yelled to Deaton, the flames strangely loud, mixing with the wind that had picked up to hazardous speeds.
“You need to stop her!” Deaton yelled back, making Derek look at him worriedly and Cora, whose back was still pressed to her brother’s chest, - confusedly, “Otherwise she’ll set the whole town on fire!”
Shit, Stiles though, “Jackaline, it’s me,” he said quietly, hoping she’d hear him, “It’s Stiles. You’re okay, I found you, you’re safe now. Just, please, let me get to you.” The wind didn’t slow down, the fire didn’t seem to be halting, and there was no answer from the girl losing herself right in front of him.
“She draws her power from the Nemeton,” Deaton explained. Ah, so that was the name, “It looks like she can’t control it, Stiles, you need to try again.”
“I don’t think she’s conscious,” Stiles yelled, feeling it in his gut more than knowing it for a fact. He needed to do something, though. He needed to help her, to help the town. There just was nothing he could do.
Until Lydia popped into his mind and he rushed over to her, her bewildered expression framed by long, wind-swept locks, flying in every direction, “Lydia, scream,” he demanded, cupping her jaw.
“What?” She sound terrified.
“Now, really, focus and scream the fire away or something,” he instructed, not having a clue of what that meant, but he figured it might be worth a shot. And, to his surprise, Lydia nodded and steadied herself against the hot wind as Stiles stepped behind her to block himself from the sound, “Scream, baby, scream!”
It was a hauling, horrifying sound. It was beyond unimaginable. Full of pain and sorrow and pure, hot terror. It was almost tangible, as Stiles watched it blow the flames away into nothingness, knowing that if she didn’t stop soon, it would de-leaf every tree around them. It cut through the night like broken glass through skin. It was truly and inexplicably haunting.
She almost collapsed, when she did finally cease to scream, but Allison and Scott were by her side in a second. He noticed Cora watching Lydia in amazement while Derek was still covering her ears, but Stiles running past her seemed to snap her out of it and a second later both Stiles and Cora were both running to reach the Nemeton and Jackaline. She was still alive, that was a win, but she was pale and her chest rose and fell slowly as Cora held her childhood best friend in her arms.
“Get her out of here before the police arrives,” Stiles told Cora and, when they both looked over to Derek, they knew he had heard it and was coming over to take Jackaline and carry her away. Stiles assumed they would go to their old house, as it was close and at least some kind of a shelter, though, returning there would probably be far too painful for either of them.
It didn’t take more than a few minutes longer before the police showed up, Stiles’ father at the forefront, walking towards his son with the most dangerous look Stiles had ever seen on the man’s face.
“Before you yell at me, notice that we extinguished the fire, see?” Stiles said in a rush, taking steps backwards to avoid his father, and pointed towards where the large tree had only just stood, but was now left with only its roots, surrounded by a large, thick, black circle of smouldering leaves on the ground. There was no time to marvel at the disappearance of the Nemeton, or how it was left with a clean cut instead of scorch marks.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re in huge trouble,” The Sheriff warned through gritted teeth. “And what was that scream?” he demanded angrily, obviously trying, and failing, to conceal his rage.
“I don’t recall a scream,” Stiles answered stiffly before involuntarily looking over at Lydia and wincing, as his father followed his gaze to her, as well.
He saw his father jotting down ‘Lydia Martin’ on his notepad before going back to his squad to do whatever police reports they had to do after forest fires. “Doctor Deaton, a word,” he heard his father say.
Lydia seemed fine now, or at least pretending to not be magically or banshee-ically drained. At least one revelation had come out of all of this. Lydia was whatever a banshee was.
“Can you go check up on them?” Stiles asked once the five of them had reached talking distance from each other. “I don’t want Jackaline to do anything else tonight, and I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to leave my dad’s sight for the next ten years. They should be in the old Hale house”
“We should tell all of this to Allison’s dad,” Isaac suggested.
“Okay, we can do that now,” Allison looked worried and calm at the same time, soldiering on, no matter what.
“Scott and I can go to the Hale house,” Lydia looked almost fine already.
“Hey!” the Sheriff shouted, “No plotting! You five are in enough trouble already,” he yelled and returned to talking to Deaton who had winked at Stiles during the five seconds it had taken the Sheriff to warn them and was now positioning himself so that the Sheriff, while talking to him, would have his back turned towards the group of them.
“Okay, now, go, go, go,” Stiles whispered and kept standing there as his four friends ran in both directions from him, taking a seat on the ground to wait for his father to finish with Deaton and yell at him once they were gone.
He got quite a stern talking-to afterwards, but it was obvious his dad was tired of this all. Besides, taking Stiles to the hospital, once he’d realised his son had gotten his nose beaten into his skull, was more of a priority, plus the way to the hospital was, thankfully, not long enough for the yelling Stiles was sure his father had intended.
Melissa McCall fixed Stiles right up. It turned out it wasn’t as bad as Stiles had thought. It wasn’t even broken, theoretically, so he was surprised to discover Scott’s were-rage really hadn’t been strong enough. Either way, it hurt like a bitch, but it did get him out of immediate trouble from his dad. So you win some, you lose some.
She looked over to the out of the room to the hallway where Stiles knew his dad was standing out of earshot, waiting for him, and he knew what was coming, “So you wanna tell me how you got that punched face?” his best friend’s mom asked with a smirk on her face.
“I fell,” Stiles shrugged and looked to his right to check on his dad who was talking to someone on the walky-talky.
“Onto a fist?” Melissa smirked, “Was it Scott?” She looked as if it was no big deal. So Stiles assumed she was either certain her son would never do anything like that to Stiles, or she had gone insane.
“It was not Scott,” Stiles lied, “I promise.”
“Well alright,” she quirked an eyebrow and took her medical gloves off to toss them away before standing up and kissing Stiles’ head. “Just keep hard surfaces away from your face for a while, okay?”
“Yeah,” Stiles touched his nose as carefully as he physically could, “I’ll try my best.”
“Kay, go home,” she stepped away to let Stiles get up from the bed he was sitting on.
“Thank you so much,” Stiles couldn’t resist touching his nose in different spots, but Melissa batted his hand away.
“Don’t touch it,” she warned with a pointed finger, “now go home,” she repeated and waved to the Sheriff that they were done, “good night, Stiles.”
“Bye, bye.”
His dad took him home and made him go straight to bed as he returned to the station himself. Stiles finally regretted throwing his phone away, since he couldn’t call Derek or Scott and ask what was happening. Why had he done that anyway? It was clear his dad had figured out where he was even without the phone. All he now had to defend that decision was the thought that maybe it had bought Derek, Jackaline and Cora a bit of time to get away.
About three seconds after hearing his father’s car leave the driveway to head back to work, there was a loud thump outside his window, and then scratching, before his window was pulled open carefully and the intruder landed softly on Stiles’ bedroom floor.
“So that’s how you got in here,” Stiles chuckled, putting the baseball bat he’d grabbed in panic back down on the floor.
“That bat wouldn’t have stopped me,” Derek informed, not moving a step and sitting down on the windowsill instead, “just FYI.”
“It would have, if you had been a robber,” Stiles defended his point, afraid to approach the werewolf on the other side of the room.
There was a strange sort of emptiness between them. Like a black hole had ripped open in the middle of Stiles’ bedroom, and both of them were too scared to cross it, in case they fall and burn. In case it was a mistake. It felt cold, but there was a heat pulling Stiles towards the open window opposite him. And that heat was watching Stiles like he was prey. And it felt magnificent.
“I just thought you might want to know what happened, since you lost your phone,” Derek stood up from the windowsill and Stiles took a step towards him by instinct.
“You threw it away,” stiles smiled.
“You asked me to,” Derek reminded, sitting back down and putting his hands on the back Stiles thighs to scoot him closer, making Stiles notice he’d crossed the room without quite meaning to. He had wanted to make Derek wait and suffer like Stiles had for months beforehand, but this wasn’t too bad, either.
“I did ask, yeah,” Stiles remembered absently, watching Derek’s smirk change his face differently to anything ever before. He still looked dangerous, more than ever, in fact, but he also looked kind as he watched Stiles, which made him unsure of how he felt. But then the Werewolf’s hands had moved up to Stiles’ ass and it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered, again. Apparently, Derek had that effect on Stiles now.
“Jackaline’s fine, by the way,” Derek whispered.
“Oh, good,” Stiles registered that somewhere in the back of his brain, in a box labeled ‘things to think about while Derek Hale isn’t grabbing your ass’.
“She’ll be staying with us tonight,” Derek’s eyes were on Stiles' lips as he licked his own.
“Good,” Stiles couldn’t take it anymore and leaned in until he was mere millimeters away from Derek’s lips.
But Derek pulled away, “You wanna see her?” he asked, “You know, in human form.”
“Listen, buddy,” Stiles stepped away, rubbing his eyes, “I know what you’re doing, I’m not falling for that.”
“Doing what?” he asked innocently, letting his arms fall down to his sides.
Stiles laughed, “You think you’re smart.”
“I am,” Derek shrugged and pulled Stiles back towards him by the arm, “I’m also making you crazy.”
“You flatter yourself,” Stiles snorts a laugh, complying and letting his body be dragged into Derek’s embrace.
“I can smell it,” Derek let his head fall against the window frame as he laughed. Stiles loved the way he looked so relaxed with his guard down, “Come on, let’s go.”
“Oh, what, you’re gonna lift me up and jump out the window with me on your back?” Stiles chuckled.
“No, this isn’t Twilight, Stiles,” Derek rolled his eyes and took Stiles’ hand to drag him out of his room, “We’re taking the stairs, you know, like normal people.”
“I’m actually supposed to be asleep. And I’m pretty sure I’m grounded for, well, at least until college,” Stiles objected, but didn’t even attempt to make Derek slow down. “You’ve really seen Twilight?”
“Shut up,” Derek rolled his eyes, but it was affirmation enough for Stiles to giggle as he followed Derek downstairs.
Stiles heard his name being called out as soon as he came into Derek’s loft. The voice was familiar. So familiar. He could never mistake it for anyone else anymore. Nightmares and dark nights in the woods had been soundtracked by that voice. He walked further into the apartment and found Cora and a girl their age on the couch he had slept on not that long ago, thinking about Derek. Derek who now shamelessly drove him around in his Camaro, snuck into his bedroom and grabbed his freaking ass.
The other girl got up and Stiles knew who she was. He could never see her clearly enough in his dreams, but it was her. Her light hair shimmered in the moonlight, cascading down her shoulders as she rushed towards Stiles like an old friend. And Stiles was already waiting with open arms. She had kept him and his close ones safe from her powers, Stiles knew it must have been hard as hell. And it was fine, because this was her safe haven now.
Now that voice had a face.
“I’m glad you’re okay, Jackaline,” Stiles whispered, sighing into her hair and closing his eyes in relief. He had reasons to hate her, but none of them seemed logical at the moment.
“I’m glad you’re okay, too,” she answered.
“All thanks to you,” he let his eyes open and saw Cora looking at them with a genuine smile. “Aren’t you exhausted?”
“Barely standing,” Cora answered for her and came over to them, “let’s get you to bed.”
“Yeah, alright,” Jackaline agreed and followed her best friend up the stairs.
He was wondering if she still felt the same way for Cora as she had told him. If she was still in love with her childhood best friend the same way Stiles was with Derek. And whether Cora would reciprocate if she were to ever find out. It was scary being in love with a Hale, hell, Stiles knew that better than anyone, but the excitement made it all the better.
A chin rested on his shoulder as complete silence took over the apartment. Stiles drank in the serenity of the insane night coming to an end along with the smell of Derek, barely noticing the werewolf was resting most of his upper body weight on Stiles’ shoulder. It was obvious Derek was as tired as Stiles felt.
“Feel like going to bed?” Stiles suggested and Derek chuckled knowingly directly into his ear as Stiles pretended his insides weren’t going batshit at the sound, “That’s not what I meant, asshole.”
“Asshole, huh?” Derek stepped away and smirked at Stiles as he turned to him. It was obvious what Derek meant, and just as obvious that he was joking.
“Oh, God,” Stiles rolled his eyes.
“Come on, Sourpuss,” Derek laughed, copying Stiles’ nickname for him. Only now did Stiles realise how annoying it was. Not that it would ever make him stop calling Derek Sourwolf, “let’s get you home before your dad finds out you’re a rebel.”
Stiles noticed Derek focusing as hard as he could on not falling asleep as he drove Stiles home, yet Stiles still watched the road attentively, ready to grab the steering wheel if necessary. Derek got them both to Stiles’ safely enough and even followed him upstairs, like a guard dog watching over his shoulder, which Stiles couldn’t help but smile at.
“Okay, you’re all set?” Derek asked, standing in Stiles’ bedroom doorway, as if afraid to come in through the door like a normal person.
“You do know I’m not letting you drive back, right?” Stiles snorted, “You barely avoided driving us off the road.”
“What else am I supposed to do?” Derek laughed, taking a cautious step back.
“Cuddle me, ya big softie,” Stiles suggested, “we both know you want to,” he shrugged.
“Uh huh, sure, I’ll see you around,” Derek saluted lazily and turned to go.
“Not a chance,” Stiles insisted and dragged Derek over to his bed, which he knew he’d never be able to do unless Derek wanted him to. “Just sleep, you stubborn prick.”
“Jesus Christ, Stilinski,” Derek rolled his eyes and let himself be pushed into the teenager’s bed.
“I’ll just brush my teeth, but I fully expect you to still be here when I get back,” Stiles pointed his finger warningly.
“Sure boss,” he heard as he left his bedroom. Derek already sounded sleepy and done with the night, and, honestly, Stiles felt the exact same. There was absolutely nothing he wanted now but to get back to his bed and to Derek. And for now, not having his phone was a blessing.
Derek already looked close to asleep, when Stiles returned to his room, hogging most of the blanket and two pillows. Stiles just huffed a tired laugh and changed into sweatpants quickly before lying next to Derek and getting enveloped into his arms as if by instinct.
“Night,” Stiles sighed and heard the quietest of hums directly in his ear in response as Derek lazily shared some of the blanket with Stiles and left a sleepy peck on the back of his neck.
It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep, as well. Sure, the idea of Derek fucking Hale cuddling him to sleep seemed impossible and made his heart race, but there was something about his breathing and his arms holding him that just made Stiles involuntarily relaxed. And for the first time in almost a month, he didn’t dream about a girl in the woods – Beacon Hills’ doom.