Chapter Text
Stiles sighs out slowly, and not for the first time, when Scott once more goes on a tangent when he should be telling the Pack the importance of how they portray themselves during the upcoming meeting with the Hale Pack. Instead, Scott focuses on letting them pull him into petty squabbles and unimportant plans, like where they’re going once the summer starts.
It shouldn’t surprise him, really, that the Pack isn’t as unified as they should be; Scott rarely trains them, rarely even pays attention to his own werewolfiness - unless it’s to help him in lacrosse or something else of the sort - and it shows in their barely controlled flashing eyes, bared fangs, and swiping claws.
More than once, Stiles has tried to get Scott to focus on helping the others find their anchors, trying to get them in some semblance of order. He pressed that they need at least a little fighting prowess, after pointing out that it was only through sheer dumb luck that they managed to make it through things so far.
To start off, Scott and Stiles barely managed to survive a feral alpha attack, and that was only by the skin of their teeth. Stiles never told Scott that he was also slashed, that the alpha had nicked him when they were running away, more focused on Scott becoming a werewolf than Stiles being left to turn into... something.
He didn’t seem like he was turning, if he was anything at all, with no change of his form or his attitude like Scott and the other Weres since. But there was something that was constantly bubbling under his skin. It felt like it was waiting for something, something that had yet to happen, that was just over the horizon...
Which is strange in itself; considering all the things that have gone bump in the night that they have dealt with, Stiles was sure that this feeling would have broken free at some point during all of that, if it ever was going to. He’s constantly fighting with himself now, if there is actually something to this feeling, or if he’s just trying to grasp a reason for his own non-transformation.
Beacon Hills was starting to feel like it was cursed, at this point.
When Liam Dunbar - one of Scott’s first Betas - snaps at Mason - one of their few humans - once more, a sure sign of the boy’s fraying control considering how close they normally are, Stiles is just about to explode and can’t help the rush of relief he feels at the sudden knocking at Scott’s door.
It’s effective in a way that nothing else had been all evening; the wolves and humans all turn towards the door, and Stiles can see more than one surprised look across the room, telling him that they had all been so wrapped up in their own petty squabbles that no one had heard whoever it was that approached...
“Stiles!”
Pulled out of his observation, Stiles looks over to Scott to see him looking back in exasperation. Blinking in confusion, it isn’t until Scott gestures behind him that Stiles realizes that he’s the closest and that Scott expects him to open it.
Biting down on everything that he wants to say at this moment - because it would really undermine his efforts to appear a united front if whoever was at the door heard him laying into his Alpha - Stiles turns sharply on his heel and makes his way to the door, one hand carelessly, or so it would seem to a casual observer, tucked into his pocket and hiding the way he wraps it around the vial of wolfsbane that he has there.
In between the fights, running for his life, and keeping up with his grades while dealing with the supernatural, Stiles had looked up ways to protect himself while being a human that ran with wolves.
He had been given a bit of a leg-up by Christopher Argent, a Hunter that had passed through Beacon Hills a few years ago; Argent had caught on pretty quickly that Scott was a werewolf - mainly because Scott had been ignoring Stiles’ almost daily warnings to stop showing off his new athleticism, after living most of his life with crippling asthma - and had given Stiles a few weapons and strains of wolfsbane ‘just in case’.
At the time, Stiles hadn’t appreciated the insinuation that Scott would ever try to hurt him, but he had appreciated it when Scott had come after him when Stiles had tried to get in between the budding romance of Scott and the apparent paradigm of perfection; Chris Argent’s daughter, Allison.
(That had been one of the few times that Stiles had truly believed he was something; he knows that he threw the mountain ash at Scott, in a desperate wish to either knock him out or waylay him long enough to get somewhere safe, but the ash had swirled in a circle around Scott and kept him contained long enough for Scott to gain some semblance of control.)
The feral Alpha had still been around at that time, seemingly with a personal vendetta against the Argents, and his next attack had almost killed Allison, causing her family to immediately move back out of Beacon Hills only a few months after arriving.
Stiles had privately thought it was better for everyone that way, while Scott had bemoaned the fact that the only contact he had with the ‘love of his life’ was reduced to random texts and Facebook posts.
Scott pointedly clearing his throat brings Stiles back to the present, making him pull the door open almost instinctively, before anyone can say anything else and highlight how unprepared they are.
He’s immediately introduced to, in rapid order, a leopard print corset, leather skirt, leather jacket, blonde hair and a ruby red grin being directed his way.
“Oh, hello there, Bambi.”
Jerking his attention more fully under his control, Stiles opens his mouth to begin the customary greeting that he managed to squeeze out of Deaton when he managed to talk to the Emissary-turned-vet about something other than Scott...
...only to choke out a startled, “Erica Reyes??” when he finally recognized the girl standing on the front porch.
She seems just as flummoxed as he is, squinting at him a little bit before a much less catty smile stretches across her face, “Stiles? Stiles Stilinski? How the hell did you get wrapped up in this supernatural shit?”
He’s about to launch into a slightly edited version of the memories that had just hit him, but there’s another very pointed throat being cleared behind him, followed by Scott’s voice asking Stiles if he was going to let their guest in or just have them stand on the porch all day.
The tone of the question, as well as the snickers that he can hear from the other occupants, has Stiles immediately shutting down and stepping to the side, gesturing for Erica to enter the house before moving back to his original spot.
Erica’s features pinch for a second before she follows his lead, pulling the friendly expression that she gave him back behind her catty smile as she takes a few steps into the house, stopping just at the entrance of the living room.
Stiles can see it for the attempt to assert her control over the conversation to follow that it is, but the fact that a chorus of growls greet her shows that she didn’t even need to bother.
He can also see the way that her grin grows at his not at all quiet sigh of frustration, perhaps lending her enough confidence to cut across whatever it was that Scott was going to say.
“Greetings, Beacon Hills Pack. I am here as a representative of the Hale Pack, to speak with your Alpha about the time and location of where we shall hold our meeting. It is also to make evident that we have entered the territory and have plans to stay for a while.”
Not for the first time that evening - nor for the first time since Scott had been bitten - does Stiles find himself wondering if there’s something that he’s missing when it comes to werewolf politics, forced to depend on the bits and pieces that Deaton doles out.
Because he’s got a sneaking suspicion that Erica is leaving information out, both on the Hale Pack arrival, as well as the duration of how long they were going to stay.
Shouldn’t something like that be requested, instead of simply stated? Even going by human standards, it was considered good manners to let your host know when you were going to show up before it happened, and ask if you could stay longer than expected.
However, before he could bring up these very justifiable concerns, Scott is puffing up and flashing his Alpha eyes at Erica.
“I’m the Alpha of this Pack, Scott Rafael McCall. I'll accept you coming here and setting up this meeting. I would think the Alpha of your Pack would speak with me themselves, but I guess this will do.”
There’s a brief muttering at that as Scott lets his frustration at not being approached by her Alpha show in both his tone and face, but Erica continues to show that she has better control by not letting the dig get to her, or the whispering that follows.
Stiles can’t help but feel a little bit of admiration for her, especially since he tried to tell Scott that it was common practice for an Alpha to send a valued Beta in to set up meetings, as it showed trust - leaving a packmate in a vulnerable position - but also wisdom as to not just hand over the lynchpin of the entire Pack.
Taking a moment to look over the Pack as Erica reiterates that almost word for word to Scott, Stiles wonders what she might see when observing them; aside from the slips of control, they aren’t really showing a formal Pack structure here, as the majority of them are still sprawled around the room despite the fact that there’s a strange wolf in the house.
And yes, Erica does qualify as a strange wolf, no matter that Stiles had known her in middle school. Her parents had moved them out of Beacon Hills when Erica had a rather bad seizure in the middle of the school day, hoping that they would find someone that could help her in the larger cities.
As well as to get ahead of a video that they heard about of the seizure itself, not knowing that Stiles had already taken care of it (with a little help from Danny), along with the asshat that had initially posted it under a demeaning title.
Pushing aside the little sliver of vindictive pride that memory always gives him, Stiles watches as Scott and Erica hash out where the meeting between the two Packs is going to take place, one hand still gripped tight on the vial in his pocket.
Seeing the ease and confidence that Erice portrays, and remembering the quiet, almost invisible shell that she had been, Stiles finds himself wondering how her werewolf healing affects the seizures; does it fully heal the issue, or just makes it less likely that they happen?
What other ailments could be either fully cured or brought to a manageable level by an Alpha bite?
Muscle atrophy?
Skeletal issues?
Mental deficiencies?
...cancer?
Was there a way to calculate whether or not it was worth the possibility of bite rejection?
Shivering as he remembers how he had found out that tidbit of knowledge, Stiles finds his gaze pulled over to where Lydia, Jackson, and Danny are sitting.
Lydia is sitting on an armchair, poised perfectly and her gaze steady on Erica, even though she’s having an entire conversation with both Danny and Jackson. Her introduction to the supernatural world had been pretty traumatic, as she had been part of the attack that the feral Alpha had made on Allison, since Lydia had snapped her up as soon as the girl had walked through Beacon High’s doors.
While Jackson and Danny had also been there, since the lot of them were making a stop at a video store to get some movies for a marathon that Lydia had planned to end in a sleepover so she could get to know Allison better, Lydia was the only one aside from Allison that had ended up hospitalized.
If it had been any other time in Stiles’ life, he was pretty sure that he would have needed some kind of subterfuge to check to see if Lydia was healing too fast for hospitals to understand. However, due to Scott’s overnight prowess in lacrosse, and the sudden introduction of a creature that goes bump in the night, Stiles really didn’t need to do much more than tell the truth to get to check on Lydia’s healing factor.
Scott was - what else? - more focused on Allison’s health, even going so far as to try and sneak around Chris Argent to get into her room. Thankfully, Scott’s Mom had been working at the time and Melissa had intercepted him before he was discovered, before Argent decided not to worry about all the Mundanes finding out about the supernatural side of things.
Thankfully, Lydia was healing as normal as one could be in Beacon Hills, and had started leaking black ooze as they had checked on it. Jackson had, in a rare moment of helpfulness, stopped Stiles from falling into a panic attack by also bleeding black ooze, only just from his nose.
After a moment of them all flailing at each other, no matter what Jackson says, they manage to come to a decision to see Deaton - who Stiles had figured out by then knew more than anyone claiming to be ‘just a vet’ should after one too many cryptic comments - and see if there was anything that he could tell them about what was going on.
Turns out that you don’t always turn into a werewolf when an Alpha bites you; there are ‘other things’ that one could turn into, or you could just flat out reject the bite and die from it.
Needless to say, there was a lot of shouting at that, with Jackson full on hissing and starting to grow scales, and might even have done his own kind of transformation if not for Danny being there to kind of calm him down, grabbing Jackson’s shoulders and helping the guy get a grip on himself.
Which led to - surprise! - Deaton saying that Danny was apparently some kind of supernatural creature - Hawaiian spirit? That part was still a mystery to Stiles - and he could help other supernatural creatures keep a hold of their humanity.
And really, when Stiles thought about it, the guy’s last name meant ‘Under Heaven's Protection’ in Hawaiian; was it really all that shocking that he was able to calm Jackson down enough to make him hear Deaton tell them Lydia’s condition meant that she could also be a kind of supernatural creature?
He’s still kicking himself for not thinking of it sooner.
It had taken a lot of weird interactions - like even for Beacon Hills weird - an almost kidnapping, and a traumatic will reading that had Lydia out of commission for a few weeks, before they found out that she was a banshee.
It certainly explained her sudden affinity for finding dead bodies.
And that had been a trip and a half the first time it had happened; Stiles and Lydia had been in Lydia’s car, arguing about what could have possibly caused her immunity, Jackson’s Jackson-ness, and whether or not Danny had any other abilities than supernatural Prozac.
They had ended up at one of Beacon’s public pools, not where they had intended to go, and Stiles had been asking why they were there, trying to get Lydia to start back on the road, but had cut off when he had seen the far away look in her eyes.
He had followed her, hovering a little bit because he didn’t want her to fall while she was in this kind of fugue state, and had been thrown when it had led to a body sitting in the lifeguard’s chair...
...completely headless.
“Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, Alpha McCall.” Stiles isn’t the only one that startles when Erica’s voice cuts through the general muttering in the room, something that she notices and grins at. “We look forward to formally meeting with your Pack tomorrow and seeing what the future holds.”
Scott also states that he’s looking forward to finally speaking with the Hale Alpha, causing a flicker of emotion to cross Erica’s face before she nods and makes her way back out of the house.
“Hope to see you soon, Stilinski!”
Completing the farewell with a wink, Erica laughs out loud at the startled expression on Stiles’ face before the door slams shut behind her.
“Stiles-”
“Not now, Scott.” Stiles hisses, sure that whatever Scott is going to say will just be more ammunition for Erica to take back to her Alpha. He even cuts off Scott puffing up and opening his mouth to rebut by reiterating, “Scott, not now.”
Closing his mouth with a click amid low growls amongst the assembly, Scott nonetheless listens to Stiles’ warning, but not without a mulish expression on his face that tells Stiles that he’s going to have to deal with a tantrum once he gives the all clear.
And speaking of the all clear, Stiles turns to point at where Liam is now sprawled across Mason, nuzzling the boy in apology for his earlier attitude. “Can you hear anything?”
Stilling in surprise at being singled out, Liam however takes the time to focus and get the answer to Stiles’ request. There’s a furrow on his brow, but Stiles doesn’t try to rush him to an answer, knowing that it isn’t Liam’s fault that Stiles can see him struggling to push his senses past the room they’re in.
A few minutes have passed before the furrow on his brow smoothes out and Liam shakes his head, muttering, “No, just the regular dogs and people that are usually around.”
Stiles barely gets a thank you out before Scott is stepping into his field of vision, hands on his hips and a frown that showcases the crookedness of his jaw even more.
“What was that, Stiles? From the moment that Beta showed up, it was like you were trying to undermine my authority as Alpha! We’re already on edge having strange wolves on our land, sniffing around our Pack! You sighing and huffing in the corner isn’t helping things!”
“Maybe if you had actually listened to me, and made sure that we gave off the right impression to a Pack that is well known in ‘wolf circles, a Pack that even has ties to Beacon Hills due to some of their members coming from here, I wouldn’t be so inclined to be frustrated and ‘sigh and huff’ in the corner!”
Which was another thing that Stiles had somehow managed to wrangle from Deaton; the Hale Pack had originally been a part of Beacon Hills until a fire had broken out one night, burning down the mansion the family lived in, and almost killing everyone inside.
But of course, Scott doesn’t care about all that.
All Scott cares about is that the Beta is probably telling her Alpha how undisciplined they are if one of them couldn’t keep their discomfort to themselves until the stranger had left.
Stiles’ rejoinder of the Pack already looking undisciplined due to growling and completely ignoring the proper protocols when it came to greeting and hosting a strange Pack on their land - again using the opportunity to try to impress how much training would be a good thing to have in the future - is completely brushed off by Scott before he reiterates that Stiles needs to watch himself the next time they speak with the Hale Pack.
At that point, Stiles is glad that Scott gets pulled away from the conversation, because he’s about a second away from punching him in the face, and - considering that he’s still gripping the vial of wolfsbane - Stiles is pretty sure he would make Scott’s nose as crooked as his jaw.
His frustration is evident enough that someone else can tell that he needs to get out of there, and he’s so grateful when she makes an excuse to leave that he doesn’t really care what people start muttering as he happily follows Lydia out of the house and into her car, Jackson and Danny right behind him.
Yes, Stiles knows that most of them think that he’s still in love with her; just another note in the ‘everybody needs more training’ column, if they can’t smell how his chemosignals have changed, but Stiles has been Lydia’s friend (and happy to stay there) for a good long while now.
The change had taken a fair bit of time for Stiles to come to grips with, finding himself more often looking to her for advice and assistance when it came to all the supernatural shit that they went through, than any of his usual plots to get her to see him as more than Scott’s nerdy best friend.
Part of Stiles had felt like a piece of shit, spending so much time trying to get someone who would never look at him that way to see him differently, but another part of himself is grateful that, while his actions were more than creepy at some points, he finally stopped projecting a dream version of his future on her and realized how unfair that was.
For both him and her.
It, understandably, had taken a while for Lydia to believe him, but Stiles thinks it was when he offered to get Jackson for her after she was upset by finding another body that finally convinced her that he was legitimate when he said that he wanted to be her friend.
And that it wasn’t just a long con to get in her pants.
He still winces when he thinks about that being her first impression, her first thought, because it’s really telling just how much of a creep he had been before his change of heart...
“So, are we going to ignore the fact that Scott is an idiot and that we’re going to have to work extra hard to make sure that the Hale Pack doesn’t think we’re a bunch of incompetent morons that can’t find our ass with both hands?”
Bursting out in surprised laughter, while catching the way that Jackson smirks and Danny shakes his head out of the corner of his eye, Stiles is once again really glad that he became friends with Lydia Martin.
The ‘Ice Queen’ of Beacon High, focused so much on what other people thought of her and keeping to the schoolyard status quo, would never be so low brow as to curse when speaking to someone.
“Considering that no one even heard Erica come up to the house, I’d say that we have our work cut out for ourselves.” Stiles twitches his own lips up to a grin at the huff that Lydia lets out. “And we all know that the only reason that you’re going to spend the effort into whipping this Pack into shape is because there’s no way Lydia Martin is going to be attached to a Pack that’s implied to be incompetent.”
The huff that Lydia lets out at this time has more of an implied ‘well, of course’ tone to it, before her face gets a bit more serious. “So, Erica Reyes, huh? Looks like she finally found something to help with her seizures...”
Stiles hums in answer, not surprised that Lydia noticed what he did; that one of the Hale Pack happened to be someone that they knew, which meant that they could use that familiarity to throw them off their game.
But that may just be Stiles’ paranoia rearing its head, something that he’s been told off for time and time again by Scott, but had been proven to save their asses more than once:
Matt. The Alpha.
Creepy Argents making creepy comments.
Random Omegas and supernatural creatures...
Glancing over at the rest of the car, where Lydia is explaining to Jackson and Danny just who Erica is, Stiles is reassured by the fact that he isn’t alone in his worry this time and has people on his side.
They'll figure this out like they have everything else:
Together.