It all started mere minutes after the battle with Jennifer Blake and the Alpha Pack.
The Beacon Hills Pack, as Stiles tended to think of it (no matter that several of them were hunters and banshees and sheriffs and other various non-wolfy types) had bunched together, milling about in a daze as though unsure of what to do with themselves next. Stiles had retreated a bit from the group, needing space and air, and had leaned back against his Jeep, taking in the sight of them - his father and Melissa orbiting each other like planetoids, caught in each other's gravitational pull as they spoke in low, serious tones; Cora and Derek leaning tiredly against one another with Peter lurking over their shoulders, all of them looking drained; Chris Argent brushing his fingers through Allison's hair as he embraced her thankfully; Scott watching them all carefully, Isaac at his elbow, both wearing small, tired smiles; Lydia picking leaves from her hair absently, staring up at the stars with a contemplative expression. Something loosened in Stiles' chest, and he couldn't help but grin to himself.
Carefully, he slipped his phone out of his pocket and snapped a quick picture, the flash startling everyone out of their post-battle haze.
"Really, Stiles?" His father approached him, concern written across his face, as though he thought Stiles might have hit his head or something.
The teen shrugged. "Just seemed like a good opportunity for a family photo," he said easily, and the warm, affectionate bubble in his chest grew when everyone suddenly found something else to look at, shifting awkwardly where they stood. Dorks, the lot of them, Stiles thought as he pocketed his camera, though not before snapping a quick picture of himself and his dad.
It would be a couple of days later that Stiles would sit at his desk, clicking through the images he'd uploaded from his phone, that he'd linger on that group photo and contemplate his offhand words.
It had been an odd time to snap a pic, he could concede that, but there had been something about the pack in that moment that had demanded it. His eyes traced over his friends and allies and family members (and Peter, who was in his own creepy-bad-touch-vibe category) carefully. They were gathered close, frozen in time, bruised and torn, sweat and tears and shaking knuckles smearing dirt and blood across their faces like war paint. Arms were curled around waists, fingers tangled in fingers, heads leaned against shoulders. There were tired eyes full of questions and lips curling in slight, wary smiles. Miraculously (perhaps because none of them were even glancing his way), there were none of the usual werewolf-eye-flares to obscure the shot.
It looked, Stiles realized, like the moment at the end of a song, after the build and the crescendo and the adrenaline, when everything slowed, just before the fade-out. The moment before the pause between tracks. It was the acknowledgement of an ending, the acceptance that after the pause there would be a new intro and a new song, and the anticipation of the silence in between, no matter how brief. And it was definitely, as he'd said, a family photo.
Smiling with just a twinge of surprise, Stiles locked his computer and grabbed his car keys.
He had an errand to run.
xxx
He'd contemplated a scrapbook for a moment, but he was pretty sure he'd be terrible at it. His mother had loved it, he remembered, but he hadn't seen much of a point in adding stickers and things to the pages, and he always glued things too quickly, off-center and wrinkled. Besides which, he reasoned, the pictures were the whole point of it. They didn't need anything more than a caption, because when taken right, the photos themselves would say what needed to be said.
So he'd opted for a thick, three-ring binder in plain white and several packages of page protectors, along with a set of felt-micro-tip pens in different colors. As soon as he got home, he locked himself back in his room and tore open the packages of protectors and hooked them into the binder. He then opened up the image file again, staring at it for a moment longer and contemplating his sanity. Then he clicked 'Print'.
"'The moment before the pause between tracks'," he murmured as he wrote the words, as legibly as possible, in the blank space beneath the picture. "'The Beacon Hills Pack (minus their brilliant photographer)'." Then, after a brief pause, he scrawled the date the picture was taken and his name in the lower right corner and slipped the page into the very first sleeve. He smoothed his fingers over it for a second, grinning at the slick coolness of the plastic under his hand.
Then, after debating with himself for a second, he printed out the second picture he'd taken, the one of himself and his dad.
'Super-photographer Stiles Stilinski and Super-Sheriff John Stilinski,' he wrote. Then, just underneath, he added, 'Making it to the outro like BAMFs.' He put his name and the date in the corner again, and slipped that page in behind the first, facing out. He closed the book, fingers tapping out an absent sort of rhythm on the cover as he peered at it critically.
The cover page he slid into the front of the cover a few minutes later was simple enough; big, rainbow-striped block letters surrounded by Clipart wolves and trees and things, reading, 'Beacon Hills Pack Family Photo Album'.
When he'd finished, he sighed a little and set it to the side, leaning it up against the computer monitor. He had other things to do besides arts and crafts, he remembered as his stomach rumbled a bit. Tracing a finger down the blank white spine of the book, he hummed to himself and shuffled off to throw dinner together.
xxx
"If you could have any superpower," he asked Scott as they duked it out via Wii boxing, "what would it be?"
"Dude. I'm a werewolf. I have superpowers."
"No, I mean, like...something not wolfy." He winced in sympathy-pain when Scott's uppercut connected.
"I dunno. Maybe flying?"
Stiles snorted long and hard, trying not to laugh.
Scott rolled his eyes as Stiles was k.o.'d. "What? That's a legit superpower, Stiles. Superman flies. And it kinda..." he trailed off, blushing as he tossed his controllers onto the couch.
Stiles copied him, grinning. "It kinda what?"
Scott didn't answer.
"Oh, come on, dude. You can tell me all about your unimaginative sex life, but you can't tell me this? We're bros," he added, punching the werewolf lightly on the shoulder.
Shrugging, Scott rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "Just, sometimes, when I'm...like, jumping from one roof to another, or whatever, it...sometimes it kinda feels like I'm flying for a second. And it's kind of cool." He stared down at his toes, curling and uncurling them, flushed to the ears as though he was expecting Stiles to laugh.
Stiles didn't. Instead, he grabbed Scott by the sleeve and dragged him outside. "Take your shirt off," he ordered when his best friend frowned at him, confused. When Scott didn't comply immediately, Stiles rolled his eyes and yanked up the hem of the longsleeve tee. "Just do it, you baby."
When he had the shirt in hand, he quickly wrapped the sleeves around Scott's neck and tied them in front so that the body of the tee was draped over his back like a (fairly short) cape. Then he scrambled back and slid his phone from his pocket. "Okay, now jump as high as you can, like you're taking off."
"Are you serious right now?" Scott tugged at the knotted sleeves with a scowl. "I didn't share that so you could make fun of me."
"I'm not," Stiles reassured him with a half-smile. "Promise. Just trust me."
Sighing, Scott complied.
They spent about fifteen minutes in Stiles' backyard, Scott hopping around like a cat trying to catch a butterfly, arms grasping high above his head, his shirt flapping out behind him as Stiles snapped picture after picture, finally resorting to filming for a few minutes to see if he could get a good screenshot.
Then he stole the shirt away from Scott and handed him the phone. "My turn," he chirped, tying on the makeshit cape and striking a heroic pose.
Scott laughed and pulled up the video camera. "Aaand...action!"
xxx
'It's a bird! It's a plane! It's...WereDude!' he scrawled in the space beneath the first picture, the one he'd selected of Scott mid-"flight".
'And his most-trusted compatriot, The BAMF!' he wrote out underneath the second picture on the page, one of him in his hero stance, legs planted firmly, chest thrown out, hands on his hips.
He slipped it into the album and grinned.
xxx
Lydia frowned at him from where she was crouched in front of the couch, pausing in the act of dragging the nail polish applicator over Allison's toenail. "Did you just take a picture?"
Stiles shrugged, leaning back to snap a quick one of Scott and Isaac fighting over the popcorn bowl to his left. "Maybe."
"Why?"
He shrugged again. "Why not?" He squirmed, shifting until his was sitting sideways in his armchair, trying to work out in his head what kind of angle he'd need to get himself into the picture as Cora crept up behind Scott and Isaac. He hit the shutter button as soon as he heard the indignant shouts of the bickering duo.
"No, seriously," Derek cut in, doing his best to ignore the lot of them as Cora led Scott and Isaac on a merry chase around his living room, scattering popcorn everywhere (including into Lydia's hair, which she did not appreciate, apparently). "Cut it out with the camera, Stiles."
"Aww, are you photo-shy?" Stiles winked at Cora as Derek turned back to his book determinedly.
She winked back, tiptoing up behind Derek in much the same way that she had with Scott and Isaac. Lifting the bowl high overhead, she prepared to pour in over Derek. The elder Hale was too wuick for her, though, grabbing Scott without looking and flinging him at Cora so that they both tumbled backwards, the plastic bowl upending over them.
Stiles howled with laughter, snapping photos all the while. Standing (and casting a very unimpressed look at the camera-happy teen), Derek snapped his book closed. "You guys are cleaning this up," he growled, storming from the room like a diva.
Stiles laughed harder.
xxx
'Pack Movie Night!' he wrote, letter tiny in the margins of the first photoset page. 'Makeovers! World War Popcorn! Derek Being A Were-Weenie!' He snickered to himself as he labelled each picture.
He should probably ease up on the exclamation points, he thought as he inspected his three favorite pictures, which took up the whole of the second page.
The first was of Allison sitting on Scott's back, knees on his shoulders as Cora and Lydia worked on manicuring a hand each. 'Scott Goes Glam!' he wrote.
The second was of Cora standing victorious, the bowl of popcorn raised like a trophy in both hands, Scott and Isaac at her feet looking very put out. Grinning, he labelled it, 'The Queen Reigns Victorious!'
The third was of Cora's defeat at Derek's hands (with some unwitting help from Scott), both of them burred a bit as they fell, popcorn scattering about in a buttery arc while Derek side-eyed them in exaspiration. 'Sourwolf Strikes Again!'
He was really enjoying this project, he thought as he tucked the book away again.
xxx
Stiles became quite good at managing to get pictures without the weird JJ Abrams lens flares the wolves often threw off, even when he used his flash. Angles, he'd learned, were very important when it came to that. He had a whole page of quick snaps of Derek purposefully thwarting his attempts at taking candids of him by turning quickly and staring into the lens (labelled 'Derek's just jealous because photography is a cooler hobby than brooding').
Stiles got very good at avoiding it.
Within three months, he'd ended up with quite a collection. He especially loved the Christmas party pictures, partly because Melissa had managed to get everyone (including Derek) into Santa hats('Santa's Grumpiest Elf!'), and partly because everyone was so blissed out on pie and White Christmas that there was hardly a single photo where anyone wasn't smiling.
Yes, including Derek.
He'd especially liked the one of Allison managing to finagle the sheriff and Melissa under the mistletoe. Weird as it had been to see his dad kissing someone (especially Melissa, because it was just as weird seeing her kiss someone, too), they'd both ended up with such silly, crooked grins that he hadn't been able to help taking the picture. ('Two Turtledoves!')
His father had scraped up funds for a state-of-the-art digital camera that Christmas, for which Stiles had thanked him by taking a picture of Melissa hovering over the pies, serving up slices with a wide, probably-eggnog-induced grin, and framing it for him a few days later. That had pretty much been the extent of their discussion of his father's thing with Melissa, and Stiles felt it settled things nicely.
xxx
When Jackson had come to visit after the New Year, Stiles had expected his usual moody dickbag behavior. It had come as a pleasant surprise to find the guy much more mellow than he'd been before his move, although the rampant self-interest hadn't altogether been lost. He hadn't objected to Stiles taking photos at random times, though he did give the human a couple of bewildered looks.
The first thing Jackson did was invite Danny over, which meant that Ethan was, by extention, invited. And man, had that been a fun introduction. If, by introduction, one meant 'Jackson didn't even wait to hear an explanation for why his best friend smelled like this werewolf, and the idiot full-body tackled Ethan to the ground and put him in a headlock like some kind of were-knight fighting for Danny's honor, until Danny made him stop'.
Which was, incidentally, the caption he put on the page depicting the epic, three-part slideshow of machismo, which started with Jackson flying through the air towards Ethan, followed up with a shot of Jackson's arm cutting off Ethan's breathing, and ending with Stiles' favorite ever picture, which was of Ethan sprawling on the ground in a daze, and Jackson kneeling at Danny's feet, his ear pinched firmly between Danny's fingers as the human berated him for being a douche.
There was nothing about that entire afternoon that Stiles hadn't loved.
xxx
"Don't even think about saying anything," Isaac mumbled, though the threatening tone was somewhat diminished by the layers of scarf wound around his face.
Stiles grinned at him. "Why would I say anything?"
Honestly, for all his jealousy where Scott and Isaac's weird bromance was concerned, he couldn't deny that watching Melissa mother the hell out of the curly-headed wolf was equal parts endearing and amusing. Like this morning, for instance, when they'd announced their plans to have a snow war in the woods, and Melissa had practically manhandled Isaac into layer after layer of sweater, parka, scarf and hat until the teen resembled the Stay-Puft marshmallow man and pretty much had to waddle everywhere.
Even Derek cracked a smile (and ha! Stiles had caught it on camera without Derek knowing) at the sight of Scott having to help keep Isaac upright as he practically rolled out of the car in front of the Hale house. He hadn't been smiling when Peter had tackled him into the snow and shoved a handful of the stuff down the back of his jeans, though. Werewolf or not, that had to have been uncomfortable.
'Abominable Snow-Pup Attacks!' he writes later underneath a photo of Isaac, half-buried face-up in a drift, Lydia's feet kicking out between his, her hair fanned out around his head like a strawberry-blond halo, his eyes (pretty much the only bit of him visible) wide and apologetic. It had taken a helping hand from Scott to haul him up again.
Stiles snorted as he slid the page into the binder. "Werewolf balance, my adorable ass."
xxx
Stiles grinned to himself as he flipped through the heavy album, page after page of memories spread before him. He'd gotten really good, actually, which he didn't think was blowing his own horn. He'd even taken to photographing things other than the family that had been stitched together around him out of so many scraps. They were still his favorite thing to shoot, though, and he felt it showed.
Here was a picture of Chris Argent leaning over the engine of Scott's car, pointing something out to the young wolf, both of them looking more at ease than Stiles had ever seen them together. Allison stood in the background, fuzzy, but recognizable, arms crossed with what Stiles remembered to be a fairly suspicious look on her face. She'd stood there the entire time, and Stiles could never figure out if they'd behaved because of her vicious glare, or if they had genuinely just been really relaxed that day.
One that always made him laugh was one he'd taken in the middle of a food fight during a barbeque Derek had hosted near the end of the school year. It had been pretty tame, mostly just chips and carrot sticks being tossed back and forth, until Peter had made the mistake of dumping his soda over the sheriff's head, to which Melissa had responded with a genuine pie to the face. Well, a bowl of pudding to the face, really, but it had been close enough for Stiles, and he'd made sure to immortalize that moment, even as he'd mourned the loss of good pudding. He'd never forget the satisfied expression on her face, as though she'd been itching to do that for ages. Which, thinking about it, she probably had. He had tried to creep-date her just to get to Scott, after all.
A little ways further was a picture of Derek, fast asleep on Scott's couch with Isaac curled up against his side, Cora leaning on him, the three of them making a little werewolf sandwich as they snoozed. There were papers scattered everywhere, which Stiles recalled as being due to Cora flinging Isaac's small stack of college acceptance letters around in celebration. There had been ice cream and a lot of raucous laughter that evening, and Stiles couldn't remember a time (since Christmas, anyway) that Derek had looked more at ease. There was a sort of pride in his smile, as though he was sending his own son to school, which Stiles found endlessly endearing.
One of Stiles' favorites was the one of him and Scott in their graduation robes, grinning like mad with their cheeks pressed together as Stiles snapped the photo on his phone (something he hadn't done much lately). He wasn't sure why it was his favorite. Because they were ending school the way they'd started? Because their smiles were so big and so hopeful, in spite of their impending separation for college? Because they'd managed to make it that far in (relatively) one piece? Whatever a reason, it got a place of honor at the top of the page, the rest of the graduation pics filling in the spaces underneath.
Stiles shut the book and placed to on top of his clothes in his duffel as his father knocked on the door.
"Stiles? Time to go, kiddo, you've got a plane to catch."
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Zipping the bag and shouldering it, he took a last look around his room. Not that he wouldn't be back, of course, but it would never be the same. Not like it had been for the last eighteen years of his life. It would never be his room again - it would be his old room, his childhood room. He swallowed hard against the sudden tightness in his throat and breathed deeply.
He wasn't leaving forever. He snapped a picture anyway. Just in case.
xxx
Lydia was sat by his bedside flipping through a magazine when he woke up in the hospital. He frowned, fingers twitching as he tried to get his body under some semblance of control, but everything was heavy and fuzzy, and his eyes started to slip shut again.
She was still there the next time he woke up, head a bit clearer. She was curled up in the chair, dozing lightly, hands curled up under her cheek, and he felt an old, familiar pang of affection.
"She was the first to get here," a soft voice spoke up from the other side of the room. Stiles blinked, peering over at Derek, who was sat in an uncomfortable-looking plastic chair, styrofoam cup in one hand, other being used to flip through the pages of Stiles' photo album. "She hasn't left since she got here. She was the one who let us know you were in danger," he added, brow furrowing as he glanced up to glower at Stiles reproachfully.
"H'gs," Stiles rasped, tongue feeling sticky and too-large. "G'ne?"
"Yes, Stiles, the hags are gone." Snapping the album shut, Derek drummed his fingers on the cover, expression tight. "They could have been gotten rid of a while ago, had you actually bothered to call us to let us know there was a problem."
If he hadn't felt so stiff, Stiles might have shrugged. As though he'd read his mind, Derek's scowl deepened. Standing, he set down his cup and stalked over to Stiles' bedside, voice a low hiss to avoid waking Lydia.
"Stiles, do you see this?" He held up the binder, jabbing a finger at the word 'family'. "Did you think that was a joke? Or that it somehow didn't apply to you? You have dragged the pack, the entire pack, by the way, including the Argents," which was not a sentence Stiles had ever imagined hearing from Derek, "to New York to rescue you. You had this entire family in a panic, Stiles. You can't..." Huffing through his nose in a distinctly canid manner, Derek stared over at Lydia. Then, slowly, in a calmer tone, he continued. "There is no one in this pack that hasn't lost people, Stiles. We've all lost far too much. None of us want to add you to the list, okay?" Setting the album down on the bedside table, Derek cleared his throat. "I'm going to go get a nurse."
As he reached the door, though, Stiles had a thought. "Wait," he hissed, trying in vain to get his voice to work properly. Derek stopped, though, half-turning to gaze at Stiles steadily over his shoulder. "P'ct're," Stiles finished, trying to nod at Lydia.
Derek gaped at him. "Are you fucking kidding me, Stiles? I'm not taking a picture of you in a hospital bed-"
But Stiles was already shaking his head, partly because Derek was an idiot. "No. Lydia," he clarified.
Confusion still reigned in the werewolf's expression, but he dug through Stiles' bag for his cell phone and took a picture of Lydia sleeping. He turned it for Stiles to inspect and approve, which he did with an achey smile.
"So I don' f'rget," he explained, and Derek's expression cleared, eyes darting to the album where it lay.
"Okay," the older man said softly, setting Stiles' phone down on top of the album and heading for the door again.
The room flooded with people shortly thereafter, word of his awakening apparently spreading like wildfire, all of them looking fairly exaspirated with him, but Stiles didn't mind. They all gathered close, talking in hushed voices about hags, school, dating, and other terrifying things. When they were sure he wasn't going to pass out again, Stiles managed to get Melissa to raised the head of his bed, and he reclined there, watching his stitched-together quilt of a family interact.
Derek moved his uncomfortable chair to Stiles' bedside, picking up Stiles' phone with a questioning glance, and Stiles grinned back as best his could, warmth bursting inside him as the werewolf snapped pictures for him so that he would never, ever forget.
xxx
It's all dust and memories/I realized today/But it's all we'll carry/As time slips away/There's peace in the valley/Just give it some time/And I do all I can/To try and understand/Before it's over and done