Skinny, Defenseless, Lil' Red
Stiles always had an agenda when he brought food to his dad as he worked the late night shifts at the Sheriff's department. It was mostly to make sure his dad didn't eat anything bad for his heart and cholesterol but recently he had heard some interesting calls that his dad had gotten over the past few days. Apparently animals had begun to act a little weird, just a little. Deaton, Scott's boss was even approached about the odd animal behavior but since he mostly dealt with cats and dogs he couldn't help the Sheriff as much as he would have liked. Luckily since it wasn't a murder or anything confidential his dad wasn't tight lipped about the information he acquired so far. Apparently, birds were seen flying away in flocks and it wasn't getting cold, even the birds seen year round were disappearing from Beacon Hills. Deaton even had a report of his own, the cats were more alert and even slightly hostile while the dogs acted calm as could be. Stiles found it all strange just like his father but since it was just animal behavior all they could do was wait it out and see what was causing the animals to act odd. His dad also told him he was going to call some professionals the next day and see if he can get one to come to Beacon Hills.
"Be careful getting home Stiles, some hunters have complained about the deer acting strange." he said as he finished up his meal and tomorrow was also the first day back to school.
"I'll be careful dad, don't worry." he assured him because he never had an accident since he started driving, it didn't matter he just turned sixteen in April. "Don't come home too late either, you need a full night's rest as well." The concern for each other was always there since Claudia, Stiles' mother passed away years ago and it never waned. Neither of them wanted to see the other hurt and for a little town there were very little life threatening cases which helped put Stiles at ease about his dad being the Sheriff. It was also the same thought the Sheriff had because the less murders and robberies that happened the safer the town was for his son. They both didn't want to lose what they had left of their family. "See you dad." smiled Stiles before leaving his office to go home.
Stiles' plan when he got home was to do some research on animal behavior and see if he could help out his dad. The roads were lit up very well by just the light of the moon, it wasn't full but in a few days it would be and with the extra light he was able to spot something run across the road farther up ahead. He furrowed his eyebrows and began to slow down since the road was on the edge of the forest and there were deer so the last thing he needed was to have a head on collision with one of them. He would have pat himself on the back about following his instincts because when he began to slow down a whole group of deer darted out in front of him. His jeep came to quick stop, his eyes wide as he watched deer after deer sprint in front of him.
Stiles followed the last one as it disappeared before he slowly let out his breath. "What the hell was that…?" he asked looking around to see what could have spooked them. He didn't expect to see two red dots from where the deer came from and when he quickly shifted into park ready to go find out what it was they were gone. He closed his eyes tightly counting to ten before opening them again and finding no red dots. "I'm probably seeing things." he said to himself even though he didn't fully believe that statement as he put his jeep back into drive and took off to get home to rest. After Stiles drove away a figure stepped out from the forest, eyes glowing red.
After school Stiles had decided to drag Scott with him to the area he saw the deer run across and try to find out what had spooked them. It wouldn't help that it was nearly half a day after it happened but he still wanted to try, he had to try. Scott didn't mind tagging along with his best friend since he didn't start work for a little while and he understood why Stiles wanted to figure it out. "So…how many deer do you think it was?" he asked.
"I don't know ten or something, it was a whole pack of them." answered Stiles as he looked at the ground. He had no idea what to look for, he wasn't a hunter, tracker or anything, just a teenager with a large capacity for curiosity. "There has to be something that we can see, some kind of clue."
"Did you at least tell your dad about the new animal incident?"
Stiles sighed a little as he glanced back at Scott. "I haven't…I didn't want the cops to come here and check it out before we did." He knew it wasn't the right way to go about this and it didn't stop him from looking along the forest line trying to determine a track. The ground wasn't soft so there would be no footprints for him to even guess what kind of animal it was but maybe there would be some kind of clue? He had his hopes up because what little research he was able to do about strange animal behavior landed him with a couple hundred explanations as to why and that didn't help. It was more frustrating dealing with animals than humans since he had an idea of what humans think.
Scott was looking at the ground trying to help but it was the same situation as Stiles, he had no idea how to track. The only animal contact he got was helping out at the animal clinic and there he dealt with sick, injured cats and dogs, not wildlife. "Stiles I have no idea what to look for." he groaned feeling a headache coming on from staring at the ground so intently. When he didn't hear a reply right away he glanced behind him to see how far Stiles had gotten and at first he didn't see him, making his heart speed up.
Before he could try yelling for Stiles the other teen leaned out from behind a tree. "Scott, come look at this." Scott took a deep breath happy that nothing was wrong as he went over to the tree. "There's claw marks."
Scott furrowed his eyebrows and stood beside Stiles studying the tree. Those were definitely claw marks, which animal they came from would be a mystery because there were a lot of animals that had claws. "Do we have bears in the forest?' he asked suddenly concerned about it returning and trying to attack them.
"I'm not sure…" he said softly moving to put his fingers on the claw marks spreading them out and his fingers were a little short but it looked like even a human hand could have done it. "Do you think Deaton would know?"
"No Stiles, your dad has already tried multiple times to ask him, he works with household pets, not wildlife." he explained quickly before Stiles could even continue on that thought.
"What are you two doing here?" asked a voice coming up behind them.
The two teens jumped slightly not expecting someone else to be there and especially with no vehicle. When they turned around a guy not too much older than them was walking up to them. He was wearing a leather jacket, black shirt, and blue jeans. Stiles recognized him after a few seconds and tried to keep his surprise to himself as he scratched his head. "We were just walking around." he answered.
"Even though it's at the edge of it, this is private property." he pointed out stopping when he was sure he had the attention from both of them.
"We didn't know." defended Scott because he really didn't know and at the moment being on the edge of private property wasn't his main concern.
The answer seemed to satisfy the guy because he stared at them for a little longer before turning around to head back into the forest. After Stiles was sure he had left their earshot he looked over at Scott. "That was Derek Hale…I can't believe he's back."
Scott's face turned into confusion, "Derek?"
Stiles stared at him trying to read if he was serious and it didn't take long for him to answer that. "Derek, his family burned in a house ten years ago."
"Well we're going to have to go anyway I need to get to work."
Stiles nodded and lead him back to his jeep so he could drive to the animal clinic. When he got home he began to do a little more research, some of it on human nails since it looked like a human could have made those claw marks.
As Friday came up, Stiles' dad was working late again and it gave him the opportunity to go out at night without his dad worrying about him. Stiles would have asked Scott if he wanted to come with to check out the forest but he had a date with Allison Argent. He had never seen Scott so enamored with someone before so he didn't blame him for actually getting her attention. There was no denying he was a little jealous because things were working out a lot better for Scott than it was for him and Lydia. He parked his jeep at the beginning of the reserve and got out with his flashlight. Stiles pulled on the hood of his lacrosse jacket since the wind had a bit of a chill to it. He was looking around slowly and trying to listen for animals that sounded in distress, whatever that would sound like.
It didn't take long before Stiles began to get tired since he was out here all by himself and yawned, shaking his head to try to stay awake. Noises of branches snapping not too far from where he stood made him freeze and his eyes widened. Stiles tried to stay quiet and even turned off his flashlight so that whatever it was wouldn't find him. He slowly began to look to the side trying to see anything with what moonlight was getting through the trees but all he got was trees. He slowly turned his head the other way and when he didn't spot anything he closed his eyes tightly trying not to imagine whatever made the noise could possibly be behind him.
A loud growl pulled him out of his thoughts and he jumped back nearly falling onto the ground. He yelped flailing his arms trying to fend off the animal but nothing was attacking him. Stiles slowly calmed down as he opened his eyes again to see Derek of all people come walking out of the shadows and pulled his hood off. "I told you this was private property." he reminded the teen.
Stiles smiled at that trying to act like the guy didn't just almost make him piss himself. "Yeah, no, I totally got it, don't worry." he assured him.
"Then why are you out here?"
"Wanted to take a stroll, by himself, alone, in the woods…" he rambled a little pretty sure the excuse wasn't the best he could have come up with but his heart was still racing from the growl. "Wait, didn't you hear that growl?" he asked.
"No I didn't." answered Derek without hesitation. He didn't hear a growl and wanted the teen to hurry up and go back home. "It's late, you should be home."
Stiles frowned at that not needing to be babysat. "I know it's late and if you haven't noticed since you've been back animals have been acting pretty damn weird." he pointed out to him tired of this whole bad guy thing he had going.
Derek was pretty sure the kid was stupid because if he actually saw the claw marks on the tree, he would have stayed out of the forest instead of walking through it alone. "You shouldn't walk through the forest alone, especially at night." he warned.
"Right now the only threat I've run into is you." he stated finding it annoying how Derek always just showed up. He didn't care if it was his property, he didn't need to keep scaring the shit out of him and magically appearing.
"Go home."
Stiles shook his head and thought about just walking around until Derek left before he would continue his search, "Fine." He turned to head back to his car and after a few minutes he looked behind him not seeing Derek so he decided to just continue walking around the forest.
After what felt like hours but in reality it was only thirty minutes he was starting to feel tired and actually began to head back to his jeep. He yawned trying to stay awake but the sound of something running close by him did the trick. Stiles looked around quickly trying to make sure it wasn't an animal and kind of hoped that it would just be Derek again. His hopes were quickly crushed though when he spotted a large black figure walking off in the distance. He could feel his heart racing a little and as if the figure could hear it, it turned its head toward Stiles. The eyes of the figure were red and his eyes widened realizing that it was probably the animal that he saw a couple nights back. The animal soon tilted its head back and howled. That got Stiles moving as he ran to his jeep and it wasn't that far away but he wasn't the athletic type. He didn't sugarcoat the reasons he was always on the bench, he wasn't fast, he wasn't that great at it, and he hoped that some of the things he had seen on the internet about fear making you run faster actually applied to real life. He wasn't a hundred percent sure the animal was chasing after him though because he actually made it to his jeep and inside it. Stiles had to take a couple of breaths to calm himself but once he did, he took a few minutes to look around outside. He wanted to get a better look at the animal but it was obvious it didn't follow him. The animal looked like it wanted to hunt him down when it howled so why didn't it chase him? He wasn't a hundred percent sure what kind of animal it was and finally put his jeep into gear to head home.
Stiles may have been tired walking around the woods yet when he got home he felt like he had an endless supply of energy. He got onto his computer and began to look up all the animals he knew that howled. It started with wolves of course and that made his search quickly come to an end. The wolves that he looked up didn't have red eyes like the one he saw but everything else he had noticed about the animal looked like a wolf. He ran his hand across his open mouth, mostly rubbing his jaw as he thought but the one thing that was pointing to it not being a wolf was how there have been no wolves in California for sixty years. Stiles groaned and leaned back in his chair looking up at the ceiling. He was so sure he was onto something and now he had to make sure there was evidence tying a wolf to the forest. He didn't want to think that he could have been seeing things since he was tired.
Stiles went out to the forest during the weekend but since he really didn't have too much of a plan or any idea what to do he ended up not finding anything. He did see it going like this before he began the whole ordeal and the only thing he was wrong about was seeing Derek again. He only expected it because the last few times he was in the forest he ran into Derek so he might have been a little distracted watching out for him to keep himself from being so surprised. When he went back to school he acted like he didn't spend the whole weekend trying to find a wolf and decided not to trouble Scott. Scott was a little down that he didn't make it to first line but he couldn't do much when he had severe asthma. The plus side to not making the team was he apparently got Allison and they could be dating really soon.
Between Lacrosse and school he managed to keep busy enough to forget about the wolf situation and the animals in Beacon Hills began to act normal again so that helped his worry disappear. Which was good since their first game was this weekend and even though he was on the bench he still had to be prepared for the possibility he could be in the game so he took every practice seriously. Scott was a few people in front of him as he stood in line waiting for his turn to try to get past Jackson to score and he glanced around the field before doing a double take. Derek was there, standing next to the bleachers and there was absolutely no reason for him to be there. His family was dead and he has been gone for so long he didn't think he had any friends to visit or at least friends his age to visit. The coach's whistle didn't get his attention but coach's voice did.
"Stilinski!" he yelled and Stiles looked at him with widened eyes. The coach didn't even say anything blowing his whistle again and Stiles realized he was in the front of the line. As tempting as it was to look back where Derek was he picked up one of the balls and ran toward Jackson. He never could get past him to the goal so when he found himself on his back he wasn't surprised. Stiles sighed as he looked up at the sky wondering why he had absolutely no skill in Lacrosse but still wanted to play. He got up from the ground and went to the back of the line. It would be a little bit before he would have to try again and looked back at the bleachers. Derek was still there and this time it felt like he was staring right at him. He definitely didn't think he could get any creepier than he already was but stalking him at school was a new level. Stiles looked forward trying to pretend like he didn't know he was there and eventually he would have to go away.
When practice was over the only thing that reminded him of Derek being there was that he was still standing in the same spot when he first noticed him. He almost wanted to believe that he hadn't moved and shivered a little at the idea. Why would Derek be here? That was the lingering and persistent question as he began walking over to Derek but before he could reach him Derek began to leave. "Hey!" he tried yelling and he was pretty sure he didn't want to talk since he ignored him. Stiles frowned and Scott was soon at his side.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Derek was here…"
Scott furrowed his eyebrows and looked around. "Why would he be here?"
"I don't know, I tried to talk to him but he left."
Scott gave Stiles a little push so they could go to the locker room and Stiles went with him. Derek really left because he saw an Argent vehicle and the last thing he needed was to have them corner him. He had hoped that they wouldn't have come back to Beacon Hills since the werewolf threat was gone all except him and he had moved far away. Derek would have to be careful and avoid them at all cost so they wouldn't realize it was him. He needed to find a way to talk to Stiles and he honestly thought waiting for practice to be over with would be good but that was quickly ruined. It would be so much easier if he could take care of the Argents and never have to worry about them again but he wasn't a killer and he wouldn't start now.
A few days later Stiles' curiosity got the better of him so he brought food for his dad to the station and the lady up front explained he was out at the moment. He assured her he could wait in his dad's office and she eyed him suspiciously because Stiles was known to be mischievous. Stiles smiled sweetly at her trying to look innocent and it worked. He walked to his dad's office and made sure no one was around to see him start looking up files on his computer. He needed to find more information on Derek to try to figure out why he would be here. What he didn't know was that an Argent pretended to be an officer to keep an eye on Derek's activity with the police and he was sitting at his own desk. He had put a program on the computers so that when someone began researching Derek Hale he would get an alert so when Stiles began looking him up the Argent was confused. He knew the Sheriff was out and he got up so he could go take a peek at who was in his office. Stiles had no idea he could be in danger by having the Argent spy on him because he normally did this type of thing without consequence, well some consequence. The Argent narrowed his eyes and he remembered Chris mentioning that Derek was at a Lacrosse practice today.
Argent didn't know why the Stilisnki kid was looking up Derek but the only reason he would is that he knew he was in town so there was a chance he knew more than they did. He glanced toward the front hoping that he would be quiet enough to get the kid toward the holding cells and be able to interrogate him. He opened the door smiling a little as Stiles jumped in his seat. "Hello, I don't believe we've met yet."
"Uh, yeah we haven't, I'm Stiles, the Sheriff's kid so it's totally okay for me to be in here. I even brought him food, just waiting for him to show up you know." he quickly rambled as his eyes darted toward the computer and hoped he didn't see him looking up files.
"That's very nice of you to bring him food." he pointed out and walked around the desk so he could see what he was doing and Stiles knew he was going to be screwed. The guy would tell on him and his dad would be upset.
While Stiles was worried about getting caught Derek had showed up to the station and smiled at the officer. "Hi." he greeted.
The officer smiled a little back not expecting to see anyone come in since the town was usually quiet but she was ready to fill out a report if needed. "Hi, is there something you need?" she asked.
"I'm looking for a friend actually, Stiles."
"He's in the Sheriff's office." she motioned back glad that there wasn't anything wrong.
Argent glanced at the computer before the teenager and Stiles couldn't help his fingers from twitching. "You should probably leave. You don't have the authorization to look up files."
"Yeah I know." he said moving to get up so he wouldn't make it any worse and if he complied maybe he wouldn't tell his dad. Stiles got outside the door and since the officer didn't say anything else he figured he was home free until there was a hand around his mouth. His arms shot out trying to grab onto something but he was in the hallway with nothing to help him as the officer began dragging him toward the back.
"What do you know about Derek Hale?" he asked as he continued to drag Stiles keeping him from yelling out and Stiles didn't know that much about him other than he was in town. He continued to struggle though giving the officer a hell of a time and his arm hit the wall as they began to turn the corner and felt something to grab onto. He held on for dear life and when he was jerked back he pulled down making the fire alarm go off. Stiles felt relief because then the officer up front would have to check to make sure everyone was getting out safely. The fire alarm didn't deter Argent though as he got him back into the holding cell. "Tell me what you know about Derek!" he demanded as he removed his hand.
Derek had begun to walk to the office when he heard Stiles' heart racing and he acted like nothing was wrong but when the fire alarm went off he ran toward the heartbeat. He got there just in time to pull Stiles away from Argent and push him away. Stiles scrambled quickly hiding behind the desk that was in the holding cells trying to calm down as Derek shifted to threaten the officer. He growled eyes flashing red and fangs coming down. Argent grabbed for his gun but before he could get a shot off Derek stepped closer slamming his head against the wall to make him pass out. He shifted back looking toward Stiles who was peeking around the desk on the floor.
"What was that?" he asked his voice a little higher from everything that went on and he was surprised he didn't squeak, happy but surprised.
"You have to be more careful Stiles." he warned not giving him an answer and quickly left out the back door because he didn't need to talk with the cops.
Stiles had more questions but he didn't follow, someone would have to explain everything. He knew something was up with Derek though, that growl sounded like an animal, the animal he heard in the woods and it obviously came from Derek. He got up from the floor and his dad and the rest of the force got there a lot faster than he expected. His eyes widened a little as his dad glared at him and he glanced at the officer on the floor. "Uh…he did it." he accused looking back at his dad whose glare softened slightly as he sighed.