Author's Notes: I live in England so I really don't know a lot about California, hence the ambiguity about the location. What is the US equivalent of a doctorate?! Okay Americans probably don't eat cottage pie but it's what I would feed a wolf pack. Unbetaed- I'm a grammar nazi so please let me know if you spot any mistakes.
Chapter 1
It's a Sunday. There are muffins in the oven, rising, respiring, exhaling lemony fumes. Sunday, the day before Monday, before work, school, life continues. Citrus washing-up liquid picks at his hands as he cleans. It's the perfect calm before the storm, but nobody is aware that right now Stiles is scratching his armpit absentmindedly while laying the table- hot coffee, orange juice, fruit- and it's an inconspicuous movement that garners no attention. Just a little scratch that Stiles doesn't notice now and won't notice when he scratches it another three times today.
A crash breaks the sunshine silence as a baseball smashes through the window, sending glass into the sink; the scattered fragments throw rainbows dancing across the walls.
Two irresponsible teenaged werewolves burst through the door, becoming a rolling mass of muscle as they wrestle each other to the ground.
"Dude, seriously, what did the window do to you?" Stiles admonishes them as one as they stood up, one guilty-faced, the other barely holding back a smile.
"It's not my fault somebody can't catch" mutters Scott sheepishly.
"It's not my fault somebody can't aim" laughs Isaac, a grin twisting his face with glee.
Stiles bestows a withering look upon the reprobate wolves and turns back to the oven just as the timer bleats. By the time he turns around with a tray of steaming muffins, the entire pack has piled into their kitchen.
After college, the pack rejoined and bought a house together in the suburbs of Redwood city, close enough to Beacon Hills that they could visit home and Stiles could keep an eye on his dad, and close enough to Stanford for Lydia to complete her doctorate in Math at Stanford. It was a two-storey, five-bedroom house, painted yolk-yellow. Stiles had fallen in love with it when he had visited with Derek and an annoyingly perky estate agent six months ago:
"Best behaviour, alright?" demanded Stiles as they drove to the house. They were meeting the estate agent there, and he was worried that Derek might scare the poor woman. A red-eyed glare confirmed his suspicions. Derek had had a phone conversation with her a few days previously; she had assumed that Stiles and Derek were a couple and had gone on to 'insult' him repeatedly.
Stiles recognised the house immediately from the photos online as it drew into sight.
"Oh." he breathed, "it's perfect. I can just imagine-"
Derek, perceiving that Stiles was about to embark on a ramble, interrupted with a growl, "it's a monstrosity. We'll have to repaint."
With a sigh, Stiles resigned himself to the fact that Sourwolf was going to be difficult as they parked and got out. A blonde in an alarming fuchsia suit greeted them with enthusiasm. ...
It was their domestic haven, removed from the bloodshed of their tumultuous high-school years. The pack had depended on Stiles to research the packs local to the area; the swathes of national parks along California's coast allowed for many packs to coexist with only the occasional conflict, mostly they left each other alone and even had complex truces between various parts of each pack: they had interbred and evolved over the years. Stiles had been worried that all the existing packs were so tangled and interwoven like a child's messy knitting project that they may turn against any newcomer in the area. However, further research had exposed an ancient truce between the Hale family and several of the other California packs. Thus, it was safe and quiet.
Until now. The pack are gathered around the marble worktop: Scott, Isaac, Lydia, Jackson and Allison, all smiling and laughing together, except Derek, whose grim face is the only shadow in the glowing kitchen.
"What's wrong, Derek?" asks Stiles.
"It's nothing, really," says Scott, dismissively.
Derek growls quietly and the pack collectively rolls their eyes. Derek fills Stiles in: "there are tracks in the woods that aren't human and aren't werewolf; the Gage clan reported some odd kills in their territory and the creature seems to have migrated closer to us."
"Is it a threat?" Stiles queries.
"The kills were pretty small but they were all drained of blood. They never saw what it was so it's more unfamiliar than dangerous."
"So what, it's a vampire rabbit or something?"
The pack laughs, the rich sound it expelling any gloom from the room. As they do so, Stiles scratches his armpit again, again without noticing.
After breakfast, Lydia joins Stiles in the kitchen to prepare a gargantuan cottage pie for that evening, alternately cooking and translating some skeletal fragments of text from ancient tomes found in the Hale library. The rest of the pack heads outside to sunbathe, relax, fight and play.
"Why would they even write these in Latin," mutters Stiles, "who would bother taking all that time with a dictionary to put this into this goddamn language when English would have been perfectly good? I mean I get it, it looks cool and we know Hales are into the whole mysterious creepy werewolf shit but-"
"Because it would take all that time for anyone else to translate it. What if a human found it? Besides, Latin is a wonderful language," Lydia retorts.
"What human in their right mind would go anywhere near that place?" Stiles snickers, moving to stir the vat of mince; as he does so, his clothes ruche uncomfortably under his arm, prompting him once more to scratch at it. Lydia's eyes track the motion but she thinks nothing of it.
"Well, you and Scott for starters, and generations of other idiotic boys daring each other. That house is as creepy as any cemetery."
The day continues without incident. In the evening, the pack gathers in their living room with bowls of cottage pie; Stiles, Scott and Allison sat on the central sofa, Lydia and Jackson on the smaller sofa to their left and Derek and Isaac on separate beanbags. They settle in to watch a film. Stiles chooses: Star Wars: A New Hope, ignoring the groans of the less nerdy members of the pack (all of them but Scott).
"C'mon guys this movie is epic." Stiles attempts to defend himself but to no avail. He throws his arm behind Scott, scratching at his underarm again as the credits roll.
By the time the film finishes, the pack is half asleep and decides unanimously to sleep on the floor, dragging down blankets and cushions. They do this often, just curl up together in a warm tangle of arms and legs, heads on torsos, their aggregate body heat making their communal bed an inferno. Stiles is back to back with Scott, who is curled around Allison, whose head is resting on Lydia's stomach, who is using Derek as a pillow. Jackson has nestled against Lydia and Isaac is encircled by Derek. Together, they feel safe and fall asleep almost immediately, ignorant of the small nub under Stiles' arm that may be the beginning of something much more sinister...