Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Wolf.
Author's note: The picture that inspired this chapter is linked in my profile.
Read on, oh faithful ones...
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Stiles doesn't really know when it started (okay, it was probably sometime after the incident with the troll under the bridge; don't ask), but he's found that his trusty baseball bat isn't enough anymore. (Yes, he know's it's technically Melissa McCall's bat, but he had to replace hers after it broke on the back of Aiden and Ethan's Terrible Transformation's giant head, so it's kind of half his too!) Anyway, the wooden ones weren't doing much, the metal ones were far too conducive to electricity which he found out the very hard fucking way after Kira almost electrocuted him one day. So, Stiles went and made his own. The first four attempts ... well, let's just say they weren't good. Attempts five to twelve were somewhat better, but there was a whole solid month where Liam refused to go near Stiles, no matter if he had a bat in his hand or not. Now, after quite a few years, and attempt thirty-three and a half (there was a thing with fairies shrinking attempt number thirty-two), Stiles has finally perfected his weapons.
He's stuck with baseball bats because he likes the swing, the feel of the bat in his hand; they're wooden because that that way he can choose the wood they're crafted from (he usually keeps the rowan one wrapped up in a loose linen so it won't aggravate the pack quite so much); the nails are pure iron (it helps against fae folk; there's no fucking way he's letting himself get kidnapped by the fairy queen again - she's insane and has tried to kill/kidnap him with her fairies at least three times since he was last rescued by his pack); and he adds his own grip to the handle, and a symbol on the bat so he can immediately see at a glance which bat is which. Admittedly, it's harder to tell when they're covered in goop and monster blood, but Stiles is still pretty proud of them, and he actually sets time aside after any monster defeating to clean them properly.
He does have a set of metal bats for anything that's thick skinned and likely to break his wooden bats, but they're all in the back of his Jeep, rolling around and clunking hard whenever he turns a corner too sharp. The noise is kind of nice, really, and keeps him grounded in what he does and why. The why has changed quite dramatically over the years, just like Stiles himself has. The only human member of a pack, and now, only one of three left.
Peter's attack had come by surprise - while the older werewolf still hadn't been trusted, none of them had known or even suspected the lengths he would go to in order to become an Alpha again. They should have known though; Stiles should have known - he'd killed his own niece, after all - there was no way Peter would have thought twice about using his own daughter to kill their pack. Lydia survived because she was immune; Derek survived because he was already bleeding out and left for dead; Stiles still doesn't know why he survived.
He hears the unmistakable sound of high heels against wooden floors, but barely turns his attention away from the map on the wall, even when Lydia strides in, papers tucked under her arms.
"Stiles, we've got reports of an Alpha in Colorado," Lydia informs him. "If it's the same Alpha that was reported in South Dakota last week, that means he's definitely moving south."
Stiles pins a red pin to Colorado, both of them silent as he continues the red string from South Dakota and ties it around the new pin gently. It's been leading from Ontario for the last few months, and it's clear that this Alpha - whether or not it's Peter - is definitely heading towards California.
"So, this is it, then. Peter's finally coming back," Stiles murmurs, and he grabs one of his baseball bats off the wall, using it as an impromptu walking cane so he can walk properly.
He might have been left alive, but it certainly wasn't without his own fair share of scars, and Stiles had been told by doctors that he'd never be able to walk straight again. He didn't care about that - all he cared about was his friends, his family, and he refused to let what was left of his pack be slaughtered by Peter yet again.
"Time to wake Derek up," Stiles calls over his shoulder, and Lydia nods as she sets down the papers on the work table and follows him to their room.
Derek tended to sleep during the day now and run at night, and there was once a time when Stiles might have joked about vampires, but he hasn't felt like joking for some time now. Derek's spent so much time tracking Peter, going to other packs throughout the US for information, begging and pleading for them to be their eyes, to report anything about a wild and misshapen Alpha; it had been hard, especially with their own problems still to deal with in Beacon Hills itself - the fae folk weren't the worst that the Nemeton could produce, it seemed - but still, wolf packs remembered Talia, remembered the Hales, and they all acquiesced to Derek's request eventually.
The reports had been slow at first, and surprisingly, it had been Deucalion who had sent the first report in about the Alpha. None of them really trusted Deucalion much, not even Derek, despite his initial encouragement of Scott's decision to let him go all of those years ago, and they treated the information sceptically. Then another report came in from a pack that had nothing to do with the former Demon Wolf, and Stiles was able to access police reports of similar sightings between the two states, so they believed what Deucalion had said, however reluctantly that belief was. The map went up that weekend, and Lydia and Derek both helped Stiles put it up so he could pin and string as much as he wanted to.
It was harder than ever for them to trust anyone outside of their pack; it was difficult for the three pack members to even trust the Sheriff at times. After everything that had happened to them, what they'd been through, they needed to be trusted just as implicitly as they reciprocated that trust, and after the year of Stiles lying to his father, it was clear that the Sheriff still didn't quite trust everything Stiles said unless Lydia or Derek backed it up. The trust issue definitely wasn't as big as it once had been, both Stiles and his father still working back towards the mutual trust they'd once had, but it was still present. (Speaking of trust, they don't even mention Chris Argent's name unless it's absolutely necessary, and even then it's usually related in a way to Allison instead. What he had done while with the Calaveras was unforgivable, even though Chris had said it was to protect Beacon Hills, a façade needed in order to continue receiving information from other hunters.)
Knowing that Derek likes to be woken up rather than surprised - they all do, now - Stiles doesn't bother to quiet his footsteps and the heavy fall of his baseball bat on the wooden floors. (Lydia made them redecorate after they'd come back, stating that the concrete was destroying her heels, but they both knew it was to stamp down on the memories, the blood, the death, and if wooden floors would do that for her, then that's what they would do. Derek had spent a whole weekend boarding the loft's floor from the front door to their bedroom, and Stiles liked to think that it helped all of them.)
By the time he and Lydia both male it to the bedroom, Derek's completely awake and waiting for them in the bed. The room is dark so Derek can sleep easier, and the light spilling out of the hallway is like a beacon directly towards their bed and lover's body. It's a king-sized bed, big enough to fit the three of them sprawled, but they can't sleep like that, not anymore. There's too much space when they need contact, to know they're still alive, their memories and nightmares haunting them if they're not wrapped tightly around each other. It had taken some getting used to, limbs and legs uncoordinated in the beginning, until Lydia had huffed in annoyance and told both men where to lie and position themselves so that she would be comfortable, and it had worked. They usually slept with Lydia in the middle, Stiles' back pressed to her chest and Derek's arm curled around the both of them, but there would be nights when Stiles or Derek needed to be in the middle, and no one said a word as they moved around to accommodate the other. The anniversary of the Hale fire, the date of Stiles' mother's death, the day Lydia's parents had divorced; smaller events like the day Laura left to return to Beacon Hills, a particular scent that reminded Stiles of his mother, a scathing remark from Lydia's father that she refuses to acknowledge, but still clings to them a little tighter that night. (Derek and Stiles have both threatened to disembowel him for hurting her, but Lydia refuses to let them, stating that the man is not worth their time or effort.)
"Everything okay?" Derek asks softly, looking between them with a slight frown, probably picking up a scent that they'd never recognise.
"Peter's coming back," Stiles replies, moving over to the bed, setting his bat aside before crawling into Derek's lap.
"We think," Lydia adds quickly. "Reports of an Alpha heading this way."
Derek nuzzles Stiles' neck and uses a free hand to tug Lydia next to them. Then he stops and looks at her, his eyes bleeding blue. "There's something else, isn't there?"
Stiles looks at her, frowning slightly, and in the thin stripe of light from the hall, he can see Lydia nod in response.
"He's not alone," she says, and there's a heavy implication that Peter's not just bringing one person back, but several.
Derek sighs heavily, shifting Stiles in his lap before tugging Lydia onto the bed with them completely. She murmurs something low and obscene under her breath, undoing her heels and placing them beside Stiles' bat before she returns to her position next to him, her arm wrapped around Stiles' waist as they both face Derek.
"He's not alone, but neither are we. We have each other, and that will never change, understood?" Derek asks, cupping their cheeks and drawing them both in for long, languid kisses in turn.
Stiles rests his forehead against Derek's shoulder, trying to remember just how to breathe, and eventually he nods in return. "Understood."
Lydia's draped across Stiles' back, her fingers carding through his short hair gently, and she presses a kiss between his shoulder blades before turning to kiss Derek again. "Understood."
Despite the awkward positioning, Stiles manages to slide his hands over theirs, threading their fingers together, and squeezes firmly. They have each other, they're pack, and he's not going anywhere. He gets two firm squeezes in return, and Stiles knows that they feel the same.
Now, they just have to wait for Peter and his pack to arrive.
Stiles' eyes filter to white, and he smirks a little as he sees his wooden bat rise off the floor and towards the brackets on the wall.
Bring it on.
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End of the first chapter.
Thanks for reading!
