Not Robin All the Time
New Verse Series
Love. Be Afraid.
Chapter One: Young 'Wolf Moon'
Stiles curled up in the chair at his father's desk and held the receiver to his ear, listening into the conversation between his dad and the deputy. He couldn't help it, his Dad's job was bound to get him the most interesting gossip of the town and he'd noticed his father's worried and 'sheriff' tone very quickly even from upstairs, and when one was listening in on conversations to see which ones he should poke his nose into: tone was everything. Most of the time he wasn't around when his dad got the good calls because he was asleep or at school and most likely his dad would already be at the Sheriff's Station. He just got lucky this time and if they were calling the Sheriff then whatever happened was big and undoubtedly all hands on deck and he wanted to know what it was.
So like any good little troublemaking son of the Sheriff would do, Stiles snuck into his dad's office to see if he could listening in on one of the other lines to figure out what was happening. He figured the curiosity was without a doubt his father's fault, the man was the Sheriff and he'd been taking Stiles to the station since he was a little kid, especially after the death of his mother. Now it was really not surprising that such an upstanding and intelligent man as Sheriff Noah Jonathon Stilinski (NJ or Johnny to a few select people though Stiles didn't think his father had adult friendships with anyone. Being the Sheriff sometimes must suck beyond the telling of it) would raise a brainy and curious kid like Stiles.
On that particular day in the study Stiles learned about the joggers finding the body and he found out that they were calling in everyone to find the rest of it and he was going to be out there as well because the anniversary had just happened and he loathed to think about it. The time after she died, all these years later still was the hardest. One of Stiles' coping mechanisms were adventure and mayhem. He'd been coping in this particular brand of insanity for years now, constantly getting into just enough trouble that he wouldn't be carted off to military school or sent to juvie and just enough to keep his mind busy and away from thoughts of her.
Stiles could never imagine what the night in the woods would look like and the idea of one of his schemes having a permanent shift in his life wasn't a worry because it never had been. Nothing was going to stop him from this so he headed for the door, grabbing his jacket and running out the door and heading to Scott's house as soon as he heard his father leaving the driveway. It hadn't taken long which Stiles appreciated, he'd only taken his Adderall about ten minutes before the call but it could work quickly in his system and he wanted to use the hyper focus to his advantage as long as he could. Scott would undoubtedly be bothered by the interruption and the chaos that Stiles invited him into but he probably wouldn't say no because he was easy and Stiles always wanted to have back up if possible plus, he didn't do too much without Scott McCall.
Thinking about the consequences if they get caught comes up as he's driving so Stiles starts making his argument. This really wasn't any worse than that time he convinced Scott to run away to Mexico a couple months ago and their parents had found them broken down on the side of the road about twenty-five miles outside of Beacon Hills. He figured at this point, anything was better than doing that again. He hadn't even known if he had been going in the right direction for Mexico but it was because Melissa had tried to keep Scott and Stiles away from each other for one weekend, was it an overreaction?
Maybe.
They were Scott and Stiles, and their parents weren't stubborn enough to keep them apart.
That was just one of the many adventures they had been on over the years and all because he consistently thought it was a great idea to go tearing off into the night without a second thought to his safety or Scott's either. He didn't want either of them to get hurt, he just didn't think about it. He didn't ever really have exit strategies most of the time. And all because he didn't know how to stand still and deal with the problems in his head. Plus, all of these adventures were good for his future as a bad ass detective like his dad, despite the Sheriff badge. Then there was his mother, someone he tried not to think about but couldn't help it sometimes, especially this time of year.
So he did what he always does, squashed down the thoughts and went back to contemplating this new adventure instead. Taking Scott with him had been a habit since they were in diapers and their mothers had spent some time together. Scott McCall might be a little whiny these days but Stiles would always stick by him, the same way the other teen had for him. When Stiles' mom got sick, Scott had spent a lot of time in the hospital with them. When he was held back in school, Scott stuck close even when people started joking around that he must be slow. Scott had even gotten into a fight with a couple of them and he didn't win. Stiles hadn't cared that he'd been held back because of what happened to his family, because it meant he would still be with Scott.
As the story went from that first play date, Melissa McCall and Claudia Stilinski were best friends, it was actually Mrs. McCall that discovered some of Stiles' mom's symptoms, not that it mattered since she died from an incurable disease, something that took her away from them a little at a time and all at once. Scott had been there through the hospital visits, when his mom started staying at the hospital, Melissa would stay with her and Stiles would sleep at the bottom of her hospital bed, Scott bringing him toys and games from time to time. Then when Stiles' mom finally passed away Stiles had stayed with the McCall's constantly only to return the favor when Mr. McCall could no longer be trusted with his son's safety. They had history and a lot of it so it really was to be expected that Stiles would find himself climbing the outside of Scott's house when he didn't get an answer on Scott's cell. Nothing could keep Stiles from dragging his best friend out on this adventure with him.
Despite Scott's plan to kill Stiles with a bat (Why did he even have a bat? He played lacrosse, not baseball!), it didn't take very long to convince Scott to go out to the preserve with him though he enjoyed a good opportunity to whine about it the whole way. Stiles rolled his eyes, stating that if he didn't want to come then maybe he should be at home doing nothing like they always did and Scott continued to whine, "This is stupid Stiles, I have practice tomorrow and I don't wanna be a bench warmer anymore."
"Then maybe you should consider a sport that doesn't rely so heavily on running back and forth across a field not to mention the eye-hand coordination that you so severely lack. Hey what about chess?" Stiles asked excitedly just so Scott would glare at the side of his head, which he promptly did Stiles noticed smugly. Stiles had played chess for years, and had squashed his best friend every time, it was a thought process and a planning game something that his doctor's prescribed for when Stiles had trouble focusing in the beginning. He would play a couple rounds of chess and suddenly he would get into his homework and it would get done and he still played with a couple people or his dad everyone once in a while. For now he waited two pout-filled moments then spoke again, cajoling as he'd been doing with his best friend for years, "Come on Scott, how often Beacon Hills has something like this happen? Don't you want to see it? Aren't you curious?"
"Nope," Scott muttered, pressing his head against the passenger window as he sighed over the fate he had by being friends with Stiles, "I leave ridiculous curiosity to you. It's your thing."
"And what's yours exactly? Living your life as less than a blip on the radar, never taking a chance on anything? And now the best thing you can come up with is First Line in lacrosse, a sport you are sorely lacking skill in?" Stiles questioned acerbically starting to get exasperated with Scott's lack of excitement about this opportunity to do something other than sit at home. He worshiped adventures and the sleepy town of Beacon Hills was not normally the place for them, there were whispers here and there about mystical things but Stiles didn't put a lot of weight to those whisperings, such as this place really being a beacon for energy (what a load of bull). Though he remembered a time when he was younger and naive, believing those kinds of stories and sharing them with someone—maybe his mom? Though he couldn't remember very well. A lot of his memories around the time of her death were fuzzy, except the one…
Stiles mentally squashed that thought into the ground and refocused, thinking about Beacon Hills as a source of intrigue. The last big thing that had happened here had been the Hale house fire and that had been about six years ago, maybe there was also a girl who died before the fire but events like this were few and far between which was good for the market and the town but then again it meant that they spent a lot of time doing nothing. This was not nothing; this wasn't warming the bench. This was living and for a budding detective like Stiles, it was an opportunity to stick his nose where it didn't belong and solve something just like his father.
He knew that any other kid in the world would be sneaking into R-Rated films though he was almost legal to watch them but there were so few things he could get away with, being the Sherriff's kid because everyone knew who he was. The preppy kids called him a narc and the geeks were nervous about authority figures and they assumed he was one because of his father. At least he would have a freaky story to tell… well he wouldn't have anyone to tell it to but at least Scott and he would have something new to discuss. Besides being completely incapable of getting away with anything in town he also had very few friends. For some reason people were not interested in his spastic, ADHD conversations and interests though Stiles didn't understand why not and mostly Scott wasn't interested either though they had enough things that they both enjoyed that Stiles could deal with that.
And he was glad to have Scott but there were times, like right now when Scott was being whiny and stick-in-the-mud like that Stiles couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to have another friend, though he had no intention of giving up Scott anytime soon of course (Because come on, they were awesome together mostly because of Stiles but Scott had the cute puppy dog thing down… which seemed to work on the parents more so than Stiles' insane intellect and bracing sarcasm). But he wondered what it would be like to have someone a little wilder, someone who instead going along for the ride, maybe helped Stiles figure things out or found adventures for them or enjoyed a little bit of mystery and intrigue in life, what they would be capable of? Or maybe he would be like his dad, destined to be alone when he wasn't working but that was too depressing to think about when he was pulling up to the edge of the Preserve and looking forward to something happening out there, scrubbing his hands together at the thought and also to keep his fingers warm. It was January after all, California wasn't really a desperately cold place but still got chilly at night.
He opened the door and jumped down from the driver's seat quickly, listening as Scott continued to complain about being out here and sucking on his inhaler after shaking it a little bit but Stiles didn't stop. He did slow down a little bit in deference to Scott's lungs but then he sees the search party and excitement takes over, making it impossible for him to wait for Scott or stay out of trouble, stumbling closer and closer before coming face to face with a cop dog and a deputy. Then before he could even begin to imagine an excuse he was being grabbed by his angry father. Luckily he was able to convince his dad that Scott wasn't with him though it almost looked like the Sherriff was going to keep pushing before his father just sighs and drags him away to his vehicle after scolding him in front of the deputy about invasion of privacy though Stiles didn't understand his reasoning for having an audience since it wouldn't deter Stiles' escapades. Ever since his mother died, the whole Sheriff's department of Beacon Hills were constantly involved in his misadventures and the punishments that came soon after, he knew the deputies better than some of his classmates, they didn't scare Stiles into behaving so that probably wasn't the Sheriff's idea, he probably just couldn't wait to start telling his son how much of a bad idea this was.
"What am I going to do with you Stiles?" his father demanded and he didn't sound angry just resigned which was somehow worse, it crawled inside Stiles' head and he stalled out. He couldn't think for a second while he wrapped his head around his father's response. "This isn't just about invasion of privacy; do you know what happened out here? Some poor girl was cut in half and we haven't found her other half and we don't have any idea who could have done such a thing. Being out here is stupid and dangerous Stiles and I can't protect you if you choose to be willfully ignorant of the possibility that you could get hurt out here! I won't survive it if you get hurt, don't you get that? I have a job to do and I won't be able to do it if I am worried you could be next. I need to be able to do my job, to protect this town!"
Stiles couldn't help his pat response, "Dad, I just live for the mystery, can you blame me? You're my dad, I got it from you." He said excitedly, rubbing his hands together again and grinning at his dad.
The Sheriff just groans and rubs his face and Stiles stopped and looked around a little bit and figured this wasn't fair to his father, it was January for him too and they both dealt this time of year differently. For someone reason Stiles' struggled from September to about February on some years and this seemed to be one of them, making him more prone to walking in the woods stupidly. The Sheriff tended more to workaholic behavior which was a far sight better than the alcoholism when Stiles was younger but still, not good for either of them.
He didn't know where Scott was but this was going to take precedence at the moment. The real problem was that he didn't know what to do or say really, they didn't talk about her or what happened to her. Stiles had found out everything after the fact, talking incessantly to doctors and looking it up online. He'd even convinced Mrs. McCall to take him and Scott to a hospital that had a specialist in Los Angeles. His dad didn't even know about that trip as far as Stiles knew. All of it was to try to understand how it was fair that they lost her and how it was possible to move on from it. Stiles didn't understand what he could do, what they could do to keep making it through another year without her, all the while Stiles and his dad fell farther and farther away from each other. The Sheriff was just not his mother; the Sheriff didn't know what to do with Stiles sometimes even though the man loved him desperately. His mother had told him stories about the mystical parts of the world, talked to Stiles about the random topics that bounced through his mind like a ping-pong balls on crack and Stiles missed her desperately, missed the way she wrote down his questions and answered them either minutes or hours later but she always answered them. A lot of times the Sheriff just rolled his eyes or sighed, figuring that Stiles wasn't serious or it wasn't important and in the grand scheme of things it wasn't important except to one teenage spaz who just wanted his father to pay attention to him.
"Stiles?" his dad asked, even as he shook his head.
"Dad, I'm sorry about causing you so much trouble." He blurted the words, his father's gaze focusing on him, narrowing in confusion and distrust. "I'll go home, I'll stay out of the woods. I'll stay safe," he muttered the words but he meant them, mostly for night time anyway, it would be less likely for someone to attack in broad daylight but he needed his dad to know he wasn't going to get cut in half. Stiles wasn't going to make his dad lose someone else, he couldn't let that happen.
His dad nodded then took him by the back of the neck again, shoving him in the direction of his vehicle. Stiles is sure that at some point his dad is going to have to stop grabbing him like that but he gets it. Stiles is a constant pain in his father's ass, and a problem when it comes to his deputies and the Sherriff's department so he doesn't argue with the grip on his neck.
Stiles would just have to figure out another way to get back to the mystery. He needed something to focus on other than the thoughts and feelings that came with the memories of white rooms, nurse check ins, disinfectant and sick moms. He just needed it to shut down so he was going to find this body and focus on figuring out what happened no matter what his Dad said instead but for now he was going home and call it a night. He was just lucky his dad hadn't put any sort of tracer on him yet.
He hoped that Scott was okay, since there was no way he was going to be able to stick around and wait for the other teen, not with his dad watching as he drove the Jeep away from the Preserve. It was a tight squeeze to turn the Jeep around but a maneuver he'd done more than a few times. There was no way he could take the chance of getting caught again, he would just have to text his buddy later and see what happened or see him at school in the morning.
He still took it slowly all the way home and he heard something that sounded vaguely like a howl, slamming on the brakes at the sound Stiles shoved his head out the window to see if it would happen again but there was nothing, just the normal silence of Beacon Hills and nothing else. He scanned the trees along the side of the road, hoping for something out of the ordinary but there was nothing so he started forward again and headed home, shaking off the weird feeling of unease and thought that the howl must have been his over active imagination. There was nothing more he could do in the meantime but wait.
He did send Scott a text before falling into bed but there was no immediate reply like there was usually. He sat there in bed and wondered about his dad, thinking about all the time he spent at the office and almost none of it at home with Stiles, how much of that was that Beacon Hills needed him and how much was the man's need to not be in the house where Stiles' mother was still all over the place. She was in the pictures, the furniture and the décor. The Sheriff must have prescribed to the theory that living with a ghost was better than talking about her. He could never understand why the weeks after the anniversary were always just as bad as the months preceding it, though he had learned what to do in those cases and he'd learned that time wasn't enough. There was never going to be enough time for it to be okay that she was gone. Sometimes, Stiles was left wondering what his dad really thought about he son, he seemed to have no clue what to do with him and when he'd lost the woman he loved and the mother to their son all the patient and loving parts him were just hidden away behind the shouting and the sarcastic banter. And Stiles knew that it wasn't just that, his dad had lost all the time they had promised to each other when they got married, the promise of a bigger family and a house full of kids which Stiles remembered his mother talking about when he was little, especially with her friends who had more than one child.
About a month before she was diagnosed, the sheriff and his wife had sat their son down to talk to him about having a sibling then it had come to a shocking and awful halt. Then he shook off the thought and went back to wondering if Scott was okay. He slept fitfully, wondering what would have the strength to cut a girl in half, or maybe she'd been ripped in half by something but what could do that? He was sinking into something akin to sleep when his phone pinged and he scrambled over to his desk and grabbed it to see the message from Scott: 'I'm home, something bit me but I'm alive. Thanks for abandoning me.'
Stiles sighed in relief though he didn't respond and finally drifted into sleep in time to get a couple of hours of sleep before he got up and got ready for school. Scott was riding his bike so Stiles was stuck waiting outside the school for his best friend to arrive. He was glad Scott thought to text him the night before because even now Stiles was prone to panicking about things when he didn't have all the information, especially with people close to him like Scott and his dad.
It just brought back to many memories about his mom and he didn't need that at all at the moment. Thankfully this was very different, Scott was young and he knew the Preserve and though there was apparently something dangerous out there Scott had made it out. He said he'd been bitten by something though Stiles just assumed a bug or a small animal since Scott didn't say anything else and he was very good at exaggerating things. He was still grateful for the text, knowing he wouldn't have gotten any sleep without it. Scott was used to playing along with Stiles' coping mechanisms.
Stiles watched as Jackson bumped Scott with his Porsche's car door and barked something at Scott and he just rolled his eyes. Jackson Whittmore, the amazing douchebag of their grade who had been like that since he was in diapers across from them in the sand box so this was nothing new. He wondered sometimes why pretty people felt they had to be such assholes, especially to their peers. Then Scott was walking over and he forgot all about Whittmore as he scrubbed his hands together and waited for Scott to show him some itty bitty bite so he could commence with the mocking.
"Good morning, show me the goods," he demanded and Scott dropped his bag so he could lift his shirt and Stiles saw the bandage with a little blood staining the white in a semi oval shape that was larger than Stiles' hand and his mouth dropped open in surprise before he blurted out. "Wow, sorry bro, I didn't think you meant something big bit you, you weren't specific. Did you disinfect it and everything?"
Scott nodded and whispered as he dropped his shirt and grabbed his bag so they could start walking, the warning bell was going to go off soon, "I think it was a wolf that bit me last night, it was super weird and why did you just leave me there?" Scott whined, dragging his hands at his sides with exaggerated dejection.
"That's so weird because I thought I heard a wolf howl but it's impossible, there hasn't been wolves in California for a long time, something like fifty years."
Scott shrugged, "Well you heard something and I saw something so I don't know what to say. Maybe there is a reason for wolves to be back. Do you think I should go get a rabies treatment or something? Do wolves attack people?"
"I'll look into Scott, I don't know everything but apparently, rabies treatment is something they won't give you unless they had due cause and without a wolf to prove that you got bit, they might not administer it. Hey, sorry about not sticking around though; my dad walked me back to the Jeep and forced me to leave. I didn't want to but I figured if he saw you then your mom was going to get called which is why I'm guessing you didn't show your mom the bloody wound on your side for an actual nurse to care for it. I figured the walk home was better than your mother getting involved," Stiles responded and Scott paused with slack-jawed realization then nodded gratefully. Melissa McCall may have been a working mom but she was scary when her little boy was in trouble, hence the bat that Scott had in his room.
Then Stiles watched as Lydia walked by and ignored his desperate cry for attention yet again, saying stupid obsessive things to Lydia Martin was basically a habit after all these years. Another comforting distraction, something that he held onto so he could be 'normal'. He wondered sometimes how much his obsession with Lydia was because he really liked her or if it was a comforting rejection and kept him from actually laying his heart on the line with anyone else. He'd always treated her like one of his ADHD topics, looking up all the information, maybe a little bit of polite stalking as well. He knew everything about her, he knew what kind of person she was and all the reasons why she and Jackson were a 'great' couple but also knew about how smart she was and that made him like her even more. She was probably the only other person in this school that could keep up with him and surpass him in intelligence. Though he also knew how cold and ridiculously cruel she could be and the fact that someone's opinion of her and her boyfriend was more important than being herself. So he didn't know if he should like her or not, just that it was there for him to be obsessed with.
"Thanks for not getting my mom called," Scott said after Stiles accused him of keeping in in forever nerddom and away from his Strawberry Blonde goddess, his response like a happy puppy so Stiles gave him a nod figuring that at least Scott wasn't going to punish him for leaving the other teen out there all alone and continued walking up the steps and into the building. "By the way I found the body during all the weirdness and the not-wolf attack."
"You're going to call it the not-wolf attack?" Stiles asked with a chuckle.
"Yup," Scott returned.
"Wait the body, you found it? Tell me everything!" Stiles said as he rubbed his hands together. Scott stared at him like he might need to have his head examined for enjoying the idea of a dead body. Stiles shrugged and motioned for Scott to start.
So he did. Stiles listened as Scott talked about the spooked herd of deer and being thrown to the ground, his inhaler flying ("I need to get that back Stiles!") and his light flashing over the top half of the body while he'd been searching for the lost inhaler. "I am going to need therapy Stiles; intestines were sticking out of her. Her eyes were open but you could tell there was nothing behind it, super creepy. It's just not enough to see it in movies man."
"Calm down, we'll get you some therapy later, any distinguishing marks or features?"
"Dark eyes and hair, her eyes Stiles, I could see them! God that was awful!"
Stiles nodded and gave Scott a kind noise of agreement and when Scott mentioned his inhaler again Stiles jumped at the chance to go back out, wanting to see the body for himself, see if there was anything that could help with figuring out what happened. He wondered who she was and how quickly someone would file missing person's reports since no one knew who it was and of course it took time to get DNA testing from the county.
As Stiles and Scott walked they settled into silence since the crush of students would make talking about this impossible. They settled down for class and Stiles jerked his book out of his bag, the legal lined notebook where his prewritten notes already were, in case the teacher said something about the book that he hadn't already looked into which seemed impossible. That was the odd thing about how his ADHD presented, it was pretty well under control but when he got it into his head to find information about something, he looked until he was exhausted. He'd learned that sometimes the teachers didn't care about every single book or topic like he did.
He looked back up and started looking around to see if they had added or subtracted any students, sometimes that happened mid-way through the year as the town lost and gained residents. He'd never thought about why it seemed to happen in January, maybe there was something there but it could also be the blessing/curse of a small town. He caught Scott flinching at something and frowned, watching as his friend looked around and then focused on something outside. Stiles looked out the window as well and caught sight of a beautiful brunette as she walked into the school with the VP and disappeared when they got inside the door but Scott was still watching the wall like he knew something or could hear something. Stiles frowned, wondering how Scott knew to look out there in the first place. Stiles watched his best friend stare at her with slack-jawed awe as she settled down in the seat behind Scott who turned around with that sappy puppy look in his eyes and handed her a pen and she said thanks. Stiles frowned again as Scott turned around and looked at Stiles who shot a confused glare at him, he tugged his cell phone out and snapped out a quick text: 'Dude, don't be a stalker!'
Thankfully Scott had his phone on vibrate and he looked at it when the teacher had his head turned before shooting Stiles a confused and hurt look before they were forced to listen to the teacher talk about Kafke and his short story. Stiles didn't really listen since he read the story, did the homework and turned it in before the break. It was something that happened a lot for him, he got bored and couldn't sleep sometimes when he got hopped up on Adderall so he would finish all of his assignments then again there were times when he couldn't focus enough to get one assignment done, one of the many joys of his attention disorder.
So he went back to thinking about the dead body in the woods and wondering if it made him a bad person because he was glad Scott dropped his inhaler otherwise there was no way he would have gotten Scott out there again. They would have to sit through lacrosse, he didn't know why he was even on the team except that Coach took most of the kids who tried out, kept them out of the illustrious First Line but it was a sport and a team to look okay on Stiles' transcript, next to all the A's.
The day started sneaking by at a snail's pace and Stiles hated it, though he knew he could have never survived home school which made this a necessary evil. He liked seeing Scott every day, sitting on the bench with his best friend but the rest of it was tough. Due to his obsessive searches and studying there had always been plenty of time to get the homework done and think of five different ways to screw with the teacher.
He knew his father was going to be crazy pissed at the next parent-teacher conference because he'd turned in a paper on the wrong subject in Finstock's class and when the teacher questioned Stiles about it, the teen hadn't said anything besides wondering about his grade as if he'd done it on purpose. Then there was the male circumcision on the Economics final, which he had no good reason for besides having done all the other questions as well as the bonuses that Finstock had all throughout the semester so he'd been releasing his inner smart ass.
He knew how smart he was; he knew he had 'potential' and how he hated that word. So he wrote notes about Lydia Martin instead of the subject matter of whatever class he was in at the moment until it was time to move on to the next class because it was what he did and sadly without his laptop and the Internet he couldn't start looking up stuff about wolves in California or rabies or any other interesting thing in the world.
During the rest of the day, Stiles watched as his best friend as Scott kept watching the new girl, Allison, and wondered what the hell he was thinking! Did Scott suddenly forget they were bench warming nerds and outcasts at school and all of a sudden the other teenager had decided to aim for the stars especially when it became clear that she was going to be tapped to be Lydia's newest groupie-sidekick. Not to mention, what the hell was with the pen thing in English and the window?
He tried to ignore it, wondering about going back out into the woods after lacrosse, he wrote notes for class and ate lunch with Scott and suffered through chemistry with the awful Mr. Harris then finally he was heading out for the lacrosse field for tryouts, wondering what he was going to do if Scott actually did get first line, asking his best friend who he was going to talk to if Scott was playing.
Then groaned when Finstock gave Scott the goalie gear, Scott had never played goalie and Stiles sat down and got ready to watch the disaster that was about to happen and it started off great with Scott getting hit in the head with the ball and landing on his back. Stiles scrubbed his face in frustration and looked up again, incapable of not watching. He would have to see how bad it got so he could comfort and poke fun at him later. Stiles didn't really understand why they were even in lacrosse, Scott was better off doing something that didn't aggravate his awful asthma and Stiles was better at other things, sports without teams and the ability to walk without tripping on one's own feet but when Scott wanted to join Stiles followed. Then as he was watching the subtle weirdness of that morning just got worse. Stiles frowning as the fluke turned into a pattern as Scott suddenly caught one of the balls chucked in his direction and stared at it in confusion. Then another and another. Stiles watched in wonder as his best friend turned into an actual athlete before his eyes and though the others on the field and in the stands didn't understand the impossibility of this, Stiles did.
This wasn't about a good night sleep or Scott practicing in the off-season, there was something happening here that he couldn't explain and Stiles was desperate to explain it, wondering if this was a good enough mystery to keep him out of trouble for a little while and how was it connected to the body? Was it connected to the body?
Then Jackson was pushing his way to the front of the line, anger vibrating in his body at the way the 'nerd' was showing them all up. Scott caught that one as well, making Stiles leap to his feet and looked around in astonishment, because mystery or not watching Jackson be bested was always a pleasure especially since it rarely happened. The guy put the 'over' in overachiever. He noticed that Lydia and the new girl (he knew her name just mostly didn't care) are both cheering as well but despite the excitement of showing up Jackson, getting notice by girls and so on this was still weird and Stiles was going to figure out what was going on here.
Stiles loved Scott, he was his best friend but lacrosse, or any sort of physical ability had never been his strong suit even after all the pull ups and extra exercise he did, even after the constant weekend practices which had been going on for months! Scott hated goalie and they had never practiced that position at all because he wasn't anywhere good enough for such a defensive position. There was no logical reason he should have known how to do that but now Scott could catch the ball coming at his face perfectly? That just sent Stiles' mind into the other moments that day when Scott had been acting weird and some people might wonder why he was so attuned to the guy but then again they had never had to watch Scott McCall have an asthma attack because of some inane reason. Stiles was hyperaware of his dad in the same way so this was nothing strange really… To him anyway.
So how did he know to look out the window? How had he caught the balls? What had happened between Saturday when they practiced last and now to make him so different? He was left with more questions than answers and waited for the end of the practice because he hated not having answers and he needed to go find them but couldn't do that here. The last half hour of practice droned on in exercises and Coach Finstock working with Scott, rubbing his hands in desperate glee that was frightening to behold.
Finally, they changed and wandered out to the parking lot, strained silence between them, something Stiles wasn't used to or prepared for. Without prompting, Stiles climbed into the Jeep and waited for Scott to get into the passenger seat and they headed back out to the edge of the Preserve where they stopped the night before, Stiles figured there might be deputies out there but not as many as last night. They had work to do in the day time, other citizens to protect. Though Stiles knew that it would totally be his luck to get caught by his dad out there two days in a row. They got out and started walking and Stiles just exploded.
"What the hell man!"
Scott frowned at him, "What?" he asked all broken fractured innocence though he did it better than Stiles did these days. Scott lead them back towards the same area, wondering if they were going to be able to find it now, though Scott really only wanted to find his inhaler, Stiles knew that Melissa and Scott were holding on by a thread financially and the inhalers aren't cheap. Stiles could give Scott the one in his bag but his mom would figure it out and then they would be in trouble and then Stiles wouldn't have the spare and it had saved them trips to the ER more than once, it was just better to go back out and find the damn thing though he wondered now if that was going to be a problem after the crazy display on the field today. Something was up for sure.
"Seriously, how did you get so good at goalie all of a sudden?" Stiles asked as they walked, eyes downcast towards the ground so they wouldn't trip in the underbrush as they moved through the forest.
"I don't know, it was like I had all the time in the world to catch the ball. Maybe I caught something from the bite and this is like adrenaline rushing through me before I collapse and die."
Stiles joked about Lycanthropy though they were in Beacon Hills and maybe it wasn't a joke. Stiles knew that once upon a time his mother had told him not to stop believing, never stop asking questions no matter how silly it seemed to ask them. He'd had more than a couple years without her to confuse him but he never forgot what she tried to teach him. This was a time when it seemed to ridiculous to be true but for now he refocused on looking for the scene where Scott found the body though while they wandered Stiles started losing hope that they would find the same patch during daylight hours. Maybe it was too different and Scott had been scared and excited when it happened.
Scott leaned down and moved the leaves and stuff around, searching for his inhaler as he recounted again what happened and he was sure this was the place. Stiles looked up and around, seeing the dark-haired man and slapping Scott on the shoulder to get his attention. They both look up as the older guy walks over and Stiles wonders why he looked so familiar to him. The young adult in the leather jacket tossed something to Scott who caught it easily and looked to see his inhaler then just as quickly with the barked command that they should leave since this was private property, he was gone.
Then it snapped into his mind and he exclaimed, "That's Derek Hale. He's a couple years older than us."
"I think you are underselling the years between us a little bit, we were never in the same school at the same time. How do you even remember him?"
"Do you remember who my dad is Scott? I used to dig around in my dad's case files any chance I got and the fire happened about a year after my mom died when I was always at the police station so I had a running tally of what was happening as it happened," Stiles asked thinking about all the newspaper clippings and case files he'd stuck his nose into over the years. The fire, the Hale house burning down and taking family members with, it had been a while now and he was surprised to see Derek here back in town but he was interested to see what brought him back or if he'd been hidden away for a while and no one had seen him around.
"You didn't answer Stiles, why do you even know that's Derek Hale? I can't imagine they had a lot of pictures of him from back then even in the case files, that would be horrible after a fire." Scott asked as they walked back out of the forest and towards the Jeep.
"How do you not know?" Stiles asked with a snort, trying to take the pressure off of him at the moment. He didn't want to talk about why one of the few survivors of a fire was so intriguing to Stiles or the feeling when he saw what the house looked like before the fire that he'd been there or something. He wasn't sure and he hated that, he wondered sometimes how trustworthy his memory was after his mom died, it seemed like it had been compromised by the loss and grief, but it was a question for another day or possibly a therapist.
"Maybe because I don't stick my nose into other people's business whenever I get the chance," Scott returned quickly.
"Dude, his whole family! How do you not think about that? It was one of the biggest tragedies to ever happen in Beacon Hills! His siblings, his parents and so on all gone in a fiery death and they didn't even know if it was really an accident, they thought there was a possibility that someone set the fire with all of them in there, he's been alone ever since, I think one other sister survived but they both left after it happened. Actually it's kind of weird that he's back."
"Why would you want to think about that?" Scott demanded as they edged up close to the side of the Jeep.
"Because I lost my mother and it almost destroyed me and my dad only a year and two days after he lost everything and he's still standing. He's kind of scary and grouchy but he's standing, not to mention he's back in Beacon Hills where it happened," Stiles whispered and Scott stopped and stared at him in shock. Stiles continued before he could stop himself, "Mom was in the hospital for a while and even at the young age I was, I understood that she was going to die and I had some time to say goodbye but for him, Derek came home one day and they were all gone. I couldn't deal with my mother being gone and I was there, I said my goodbyes and he didn't. I can't not think about that sometimes but I never met him, just knew of him, kept an eye out for him in the reports and papers until they left town. I knew the Hale house on the Preserve pretty well though that has to be from the years of us prowling around out here and the files."
Scott stared at him then looked away in that awkward way that said he wanted to say something to be helpful and supportive but Stiles knew he wouldn't because Scott thankfully didn't know what it was like to have lost a parent even though his dad wasn't in the picture anymore, the man was still alive. He didn't know what it was like to lose someone like that and Stiles just had to open his big mouth and now they were both stewing in discomfort so he chuckled and waved at Scott though his laugh sounded a lot more hysterical than anything.
"Don't worry about it, not something we need to talk about."
Scott frowned at him but let it go, some days they talked about the tough stuff but most of the time, they stuck to the simplicity of life because it was Stiles' favorite thing about Scott, he was there for the tough stuff but he didn't really get into it with Stiles. It was no surprise to his best friend that one of Stiles' favored ways of dealing with things was to ignore it until it went away. Plus he didn't think talking about some surly emotionally scarred dude in the woods really was something they needed to do at the moment, Stiles would just wonder about it in his copious amount of free time.
"Didn't see the body but who knows, there's always tomorrow," Stiles said in a sing-song voice, meant to distract and defend his vulnerability.
Scott just groaned in Scott-like fashion like being Stiles' friend was legitimately the worst! But Stiles was either dumb enough to ignore it or misinterpret it, "I am not going to keep coming out here with you, I have things to do. You go by yourself and get bit by not-a-werewolf because I don't care what you say, that's some crazy talk."
Stiles smiled and nodded knowing the denial from Scott was a bluff. No matter how much sleep or anything else Scott wanted, he always came and did stupid adventurous things with Stiles, "Sure sure, I still think you're cursed, just you wait for the full moon then we'll probably both be sorry, though I am going to see if I can get my hands on something silver just in case. Melt it down bullets and just wait for you to turn since it's this Friday."
Scott laughed sardonically and they started driving back home, first to Scott's to drop him off, he would still have enough time to head over to the vet clinic for his afternoon job. Stiles knew that Scott took that job to help his mom around the house and he wondered if he should get some legitimate business ventures but shook off the thought for now, he had ways of having money without bothering his dad about it. Stiles left the thought in the back of his mind with the rest of the errant thoughts that seemed to breed like rabbits in his mind, it would have to wait.
Stiles arrived at home and booted up his computer and started looking up information about lycanthropy, he had said it in jest but maybe there was something there, all he had at the moment was Google and he looked up everything he could think of, finding the mythology about werewolves and popped a couple of Adderall to keep himself focused, completely forgetting about his homework, thankfully nothing important was going on tomorrow but if this was real then Stiles needed to do at least have as much information as he could get at the moment. He also looked up rabies and the symptoms, as well as the process for the Beacon Hills hospital and he figured that if Scott did have it, their night out in the woods was going to come out with Mrs. McCall since they would have to do the rabies treatment at the hospital and the woman clearly lived there.
Most of the information came from less than reputable sources, though there were a few of the lycanthropy legends that mentioned some of the things that Scott was dealing with so far, he'd been bitten and there was a wolf howling, and though wolves were known to not live in places such as California anymore, werewolves were humans most of the time so they went where they wanted plus it said that sometimes instinct could bring them into a strange territory without any other reason. Stiles wondered why this one had decided, if it were true, to attack Scott out there. If there was such a thing as a werewolf, then why did it kill the girl?
To make him even more suspicious, Scott texted him from work and told him that the bite on his side was mysteriously gone and it came with a picture of Scott's unblemished skin that made Stiles hate his friend a little as he thought of all the moles and his pale and scrawny body compared to the slim and muscular physique of his friend. Stiles went into high gear and kept searching, knowing that the library was going to be his next place because Google was letting him down.
When he learned about the wolf hairs on the body and tried to tell Scott before the scrimmage Scott wouldn't listen and he was left floundering in a way to tell his friend about this. He found out about Allison and Scott having a date that night and as he watched Scott make first line with his incredible moves, Stiles took off early without even speaking to Scott and went to the library and checked out some old books and as soon as he was home he popped another Adderall and started working. The books he found were from the mythology section but Stiles knew from many conversations with his mother and a couple of his history professors who tended to be a little more patient with him, that sometimes mythology was rooted in history and these books were at least from the viewpoints of those historical leaders of different cultures. There was a werewolf/Lycan/Loup Garou mythology in every single native culture, across the board and there were many similarities and now he had no choice but to tell Scott.
This wasn't just a joke anymore. Scott was a werewolf.
Stiles scrambled around his room, righting everything after Scott left because he didn't want his dad to worry about something he couldn't talk to him about. He shook his hands, strangely to settle the slight shudder slipping through his body causing the uncontrollable shivers in him. He wondered for a few seconds how many of his pills he'd actually taken but it slipped away in the wake of another thought. He was scared of Scott, never in a hundred years had he imagined being scared of Scott McCall.
This was his best friend in the whole world and for a second, when he was just trying to keep the guy from doing something stupid, Scott was gone and in his place was a beast that was okay with hurting Stiles. Scott had barely pulled back, hitting the chair instead of Stiles and just the thought of it was enough to send Stiles to his knees, breathing to quickly to actually utilize any of it and he wondered when was the last time he'd had a panic attack. He struggled over to the desk on his shaking hands and knees, grabbing his pill bottle and shaking one of the pills out and popping it into his mouth, knowing that he shouldn't but it was enough to calm him down within a few minutes and he didn't care if it was psychosomatic or not. He looked into the pill bottle, wincing because there was only about eight little pills left and he was going to have to get it refilled early again, thankfully no one had noticed the increase in refills—they never did this time of year. Stiles figured it was the blessing/curse of a small town, they knew this time of year was hard for Stiles and so no one told his father about the rampant refills from October to March and kept giving him the pills. On the other hand, he figured it was probably a malpractice suit waiting to happen. He made a note to call his doctor either way and vowed to slow down on the pills for a couple days.
When he was emotionally calm again his brain immediately slipped into research mode since worrying about his best friend killing him wasn't doing anyone any good. Scott was going to that party and he was capable of hurting someone which meant that no matter what happened Stiles needed to be at that party, to protect Scott from himself and others from Scott. Lydia wouldn't notice and as long as he stayed on the peripheral of the party then he could get away with it, she was undoubtedly going to be busy making out with Jackson anyway.
He showered and got ready, dressing in a tie and a tan jacket and thought for a second that if he had a little bit of muscle definition he would look far more appealing in clothes but that wasn't going to happen anytime soon so he would just dress up instead of dress down becomingly like Scott was planning on doing or Jackson was going to do. He drove over to the strawberry-blonde's house and slipped in with a group of people, catching sight of Allison and Scott dancing and wondered again if this was a good idea. Well he knew this wasn't a good idea but his best friend was here and he was going to do what he wanted without any indication of caring that he could get someone hurt or killed then that meant that Stiles needed to be here no matter the consequences.
Part of him wondered why he was here caring about the people who had been treating him like nothing for most of his life, including Lydia but then again all Allison had done was like Scott and she didn't deserve to get hurt for that. He picked up a conversation with some of the outliers of the party and chilled, keeping an eye on Scott and wondered when it was going to strike. When it did it was still a surprise to see Scott walking past him and away from a very confused Allison, he asked if Scott was okay but his friend didn't answer at all then Allison followed and Stiles followed them both towards the front door. He watched from a distance as Derek Hale walked up to her and asked her something before they took off as well. Pleased that she was safely on her way despite her date driving away without her, Stiles knew it was up to him to make sure that Scott made it through the evening, figuring that his hunch and his research proved to be more fact then fantasy. Scott needed him, even if that did put him in danger.
He headed to Scott's house and ignored the bad feeling he had about this but he couldn't stop. Scott was depending on him to help him figure this out. He couldn't help but feel the spine tingling shudder as he thought about that afternoon when his supposed best friend pushed him up against a wall and acted as though he was going to kill him, ripping through his desk chair instead because he'd had just enough self-control to shift his attention to something inanimate instead of Stiles. Then again there was nothing he wouldn't do for Scott so it didn't cost him a thing to rush inside and up the stairs at the McCall house and demand that Scott let him in then after hearing Scott's theory about Derek, he took off again just as quickly, wanting to be sure that she was safe but knowing as he heard the distant thud that Scott was outside and he wasn't completely human anymore though he wanted to know what that would look like he needed to make sure Allison was safe.
He hoped that Scott wasn't heading straight for Allison and though he felt the pull to follow Scott either way he had to do as he friend asked him, to check on her and make sure Allison was safe. Stiles fumbled back into his jeep and headed for her address, he shouldn't technically know where she lived but in the midst of searching for werewolf information, Stiles had made easy work of her files online which included a Driver's License with their new Beacon Hills address on it. He waited until the door opened to show Mrs. Argent who called out to Allison and she appeared, leaving Stiles weak with relief and thankfully silent, he needed another pill to keep him calm but didn't have any on him so he was glad the blathering stupidly on and on was stopped by Allison's arrival. There was nothing more to say or do as Mrs. Argent walked away and Allison walked down the stairs frowning at him in confusion.
"What the hell happened back there Stiles? Where did Scott run off to?" she demanded and he couldn't help but be surprised that she knew his name but tried to stay on point. She might have been conscious of him at school or Scott said something, either way it made no bearing on the current issues at hand.
He shrugged but said, "Look he wanted to make sure that you got home safely but Scott wasn't feeling well and he'll explain when he sees you next. Hopefully. He will. Sure he will, I swear. I mean it, for sure…" Stiles paused and took a deep breath, trying to shut down the stammering again then spoke, "I just wanted to make sure you made it home safely. Here you are and I gotta go, busy night and all."
Allison crossed her arms and her face scrunched becomingly in confusion and he figured that life really was stupidly unfair when even then she looked like a beautiful doll who heard something she didn't like. Everything about her was beautiful and also angry, "Okay, see you around Stiles," she responded and closed the door as he turned and rushed back to his jeep wondering where Scott could be if he wasn't here, maybe he went after Derek. With that in mind, Stiles headed out to the Preserve, hammering his palms rhythmically on the steering wheel thinking that if Derek really was the werewolf then how was he completely human during the full moon? Stiles had seen him at the party, when Scott was losing his mind—Derek had been normal and polite and seemingly harmless when Allison got into the car with him.
Why would he take Allison home and not do anything to her at all unless the thing with the body was more complicated than that? As he got closer to the preserve he hoped they weren't going to have to clean up anything bigger than dead game, he hoped the dead girl cut in half wasn't going to be something that Scott had to live with because he did it too for some weird reason. If Derek Hale was a werewolf, if he was the one that bit Scott, then what other things went bump in the night? What other things would Stiles see before the night was over?
He searched the edges of the Preserve, not wanting to go into the forest for more than just the promise he made to his father, there were cars parked close to the entrance and there were flashlights pinging off in the distance and he knew that wouldn't be Scott, who was probably not thinking about the night anymore, Stiles needed to remember to ask him about his abilities, like night vision and the like. His fingers drummed the steering wheel in a comforting rhythm, something he could follow and sink into when he so desperately wanted one of his pills. He could start to feel in encroaching need to fly off the handle because of his friend's disappearance. He could feel the way the edges of his vision started to blur, not because he was going to faint or go to sleep but because it was getting harder to focus on what was in front of him. This was the problem with using too much Adderall sometimes, the crashes were legendary and he hated them, which is why he normally just doubled the daily dose and then tapered off during this time of year, instead this time he'd been throwing everything into the new mysteries of Beacon Hills.
He didn't find Scott until early the next morning, picking him up on the side of the road after multiple strangled calls to the sheriff's station, hoping there wasn't anyone out in the forest who would shoot Scott. Mrs. McCall called him in the middle of the night, wondering where Scott was and the sheriff called to find out where Stiles was. He'd lied to so many people in the last six hours he should get some sort of trophy all for the sake of protecting Scott. So when he got into the car, Stiles reached over and punched him in the shoulder, Scott whimpered at the pain for a second, scrubbing at the bare and tanned skin of his shoulder, "What was that for?"
"For all the lies I just told for you. Your mother thinks you are at my house, my dad thinks I am at yours and I hope they are too busy with god knows what that they can't call each other otherwise we are screwed. Let's see, Allison needs an explanation and you tried to kill me yesterday! Also, Derek didn't do anything to Allison despite what you thought."
Scott just shifted back towards the window and Stiles sighed as he started the car and threw his suit jacket at Scott to wrap around his shoulders since he could see the subtle shiver in his friend. Then he told Stiles that Derek is a werewolf for sure, that the older guy believes and told Scott that the bite was a gift and Scott should be grateful. Then he told Stiles about the hunters.
"There are hunters out there, hunters looking for werewolves?" Stiles asked.
"Yeah," Scott whispered, pressing against the glass of the passenger side window. "They don't know what I am, what I look like because they didn't get close enough before Derek stopped them but they're out there and because of Derek, I am going to be hunted by them. I can't believe he tried to convince me that this is a good thing, a 'gift'. What a joke!"
"Isn't it though?" Stiles asked, thinking about the reflexes and the senses, the fact that Scott's life went from zero to hero with a little werewolf bite to the side. "You heard Allison out in front of the school on her first day? You knew about the party and how to ask Allison out because of the werewolf senses right? The flirting in the clinic that you told me about in excruciating detail and all that stuff, wouldn't have happened without the bite."
Scott looked at him, frowning, "What are you talking about man?"
"You wouldn't have a chance with Allison without the bite, you used your new supernatural abilities to get the girl. You used it to get on first line for lacrosse, you couldn't have done those things before you were bit so how can you see this as anything but a gift?"
"Because I don't want to be this!"
"Then stop using your senses in lacrosse, force yourself to be the normal gawky muggle you were before all of this, do you really think Finstock is going to keep you on first line if you aren't making goals, running them to the ground and getting us wins in the end? You really think you can ignore the senses that got you the in with Allison? Are you going to stop using it?"
Scott glared at him, "Why are you doing this to me man?" he demanded.
"Because you were going to hurt me yesterday, actually that's not even true. I saw the desire to kill in you because I tried to keep you from doing harm to yourself or Allison, you looked me in the eyes and I didn't know who was looking back, my best friend or the wolf. I am glad that you are first line and you have this great girl who's into you but don't be a hypocrite about this. Love or hate it, pick one but you can't keep both. You can't use the abilities and play the victim card about this!"
"He said I would like it, that I would want it," Scott said, voice small and weak, barely louder than the rumble of the jeep.
Stiles shrugged as he answered, "That's bull because you want it now, you just don't like the cost that comes with the gift. Come on, Derek dropped her off and said that he only took her to protect her from you, he said he was going to help you, why won't you at least consider it?"
"Because he did this to me against my will!" Scott snapped and Stiles sighed thinking that it wouldn't matter soon enough. He would just keep asking questions, he would keep reading everything he could so he could help his friend get through this. And now he had another reason to find out as much about Derek Hale as he possibly could, if he was a werewolf then he really wondered about the rest of the man's family, he was left wondering about the possible arson of the Hale house and the hunters because Derek knew about them?
He looked forward to the mystery of it all, he would just have to make sure he would have enough Adderall to keep going with all the research he had now. It was fine, he'd already called in the next refill and he had a couple of other options to get more. He dropped Scott off at home and headed to his house to get some sleep. Thankfully it was Saturday so he could sleep as long as he needed to.
Stiles fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow and for once it was a deep dreamless sleep of the exhausted. He didn't have to dream of white walls and nurses with blue scrubs on and weak smiles, just trying to look happy in the face of his mother dying before all of their eyes.
For once, he dreamt of nothing and when he woke up he was rejuvenated enough to get down to business of finding out some information about hunters and the supernatural. Sadly he didn't find as much as he was hoping for so it meant that the supernatural world did what it had to so it remained a secret but if normal people knew about it, enough to become hunters then there was going to be evidence. This was the twenty-first century so there had to be something.
Scott didn't say anything about who the hunters were but there was a good chance that about the time the werewolf came to town and the death happened, if that had to do with the supernatural then there was a chance that the hunters were new to town or possibly returnees to Beacon Hills so he started checking as many open to the public sources for newcomers and the first thing he thought was that Allison and her family were new in town and it seemed strange that Mr. Argent already had work here. Beacon Hills wasn't a place where there were jobs abounding, and from what he could tell from the online information for Argent's business, her father sold guns to law enforcement as well as people who were looking for a little bit of home protection, actually offering courses on the use of lethal force in defensive situations. He frowned, thinking that his father hadn't said anything about a new contact in town for the Sheriff's station and as far as Stiles knew, they didn't need anyone knew to get firearms, they were all taken care of by the county so what was Mr. Argent really doing here in such a small town with a shit-ton of guns at his disposal. Of course, all he had was conjecture, so there was no reason he would be opening his mouth about any of this until he had a little bit more proof but he was definitely going to pay a little more attention to Beacon Hills' newest pretty little Princess because with a father like that it seemed silly to believe that was all there was to her.
Saturday was spent lounging around the house, finishing his assignments for Monday and working on a couple of his money-making ventures before hitting the sack and wondering what Scott was up to. He texted his best friend that night. 'How you feeling Scott? You wanna play some video games tomorrow?'
He didn't know if he was going to have to wait or not but when his phone vibrated, he looked down to open the message. 'You sure you want to be around me?'
Stiles frowned and wondered about the last week. There was really no contest or question, he had made a joke in the care about having a boa and he could make it through this with Scott so he tapped out a quick answer, 'Of course, I already told you. You're my best friend and sure your different now but that doesn't change that fact.'
There was an interminable wait, wondering if Scott was going to be stupidly self-sacrificing and that would totally be like his best friend to do and Stiles didn't really like the idea for trying to fight through that so he could stick by his best friend but honestly he would if he had to. His phone buzzed and he took a deep breath and opened the message; 'You wouldn't leave me even if it was for your own good.'
Stiles chuckled, 'It's like you know me.'
'I'll come over tomorrow morning then, I have a late shift at the clinic.'
'Cool' Stiles answered and fell asleep, glad that they were going to have a chance to talk it out, play games and pretend at normalcy for a day before they went back to school and started trying to get a handle on this thing. Scott was in for a long road with this, there was one thing that stayed pretty similar in all the stories and that was the fact that the wolf was stronger than the human around the full moon and it would kill if not contained and the only hope that Stiles had for his friend was wrapped up in a surly traumatized Derek Hale. He was guessing the man didn't make friends very often after what happened but he did try with Scott so there was a chance. Sleep came again, a little slower but still good without the disinfectant and the blinding white of the hospital and the scream of his that rent the air when his mother stopped breathing and his father started drinking.
Derek walked back towards the remains of the Hale house, pressing a hand into the burned walls of the building with a sigh, sometimes he wished he could still smell his family members, that it wasn't just the old scent of decay and death here. His memory of their scents had been burned out by time and decimation. He missed them with an agony that burned through him, as if the fire that had taken them all stayed inside of him in all the years since.
And now his sister was gone too.
He walked through the front door and wondered who would be stupid enough to bite Scott McCall and turn him into a werewolf. Since he was born a wolf, it would be interesting trying to train the kid because he hadn't been out of control since he was a fifteen-year-old douche-jock and that was more than a few years ago. He had always been taught that the bite was a gift that an Alpha could offer to someone but Scott had been attacked and Laura had been killed and he didn't understand what had brought her back here in the first place. When they were done burying their family in the back yard she had taken him and left this place with the plan to never return. In New York they had attempted to carve out a life together, thankfully with the financial support that had been brought on by the death of the pack. And now there would be one more life insurance pay out, if he allowed them to find her body which he didn't want to. Why would he want her trapped in the morgue, under the watchful eyes of the cops when he knew she wanted to be buried as a wolf.
He could still hear her on his voicemail, "Derek, I'm back in Beacon Hills and there is something going on here. I went to see Peter, he's the same but something brought me back here and I need you here. You need to come home."
He couldn't argue with her, she'd used that tone that demanded he as a beta listen to her as his Alpha even from miles away and through a phone line. They had been the only surviving Hales after the fire and they had run to save themselves from the hunter's fate for them. Too bad she didn't know what he'd done but he couldn't have his only remaining family know what he'd done. Now she was gone too. He'd stayed away as long as possible, but she came here and maybe his fear of returning had left her alone to fight and die. Laura had never been a fighter, neither of them were. They'd been running for so long and hadn't trained for combat and she died because of it. There was no one left, no family and maybe Scott could be a part of a pack and Derek could help him but first he needed to know why he'd been bitten and who was the Alpha that did it. He didn't even realize until much later that Scott apparently believed he was the one that bit him and Derek didn't correct him and he didn't know why. He knew it was possible that he'd been alone for so long that he would take in a teenage whiny misfit just to have pack close again but he didn't want to think about that for now. Especially knowing that trust would be part and parcel of the relationship of pack and Derek didn't know if he was capable of such things anymore.
The friend was going to be a problem, he was a loudmouthed idiot but he was also the Sheriff's kid so it wasn't like he could get rid of him (not that he would, he wouldn't do that to another family especially someone like the Sheriff who had seen enough in his life), Derek remembered him from when the fire happened and even before then. The man had been there in a crucial moment of his life, they had both been so lost in that moment and when the time came the Sheriff chose to protect Derek and he would repay that anyway he could now. He remembered a woman at this home with his mother more than once and a bouncy rambunctious child that could have been Stiles but that didn't make any sense so he let go of the idea, the Hales were pretty particular about the humans they let into the pack and he didn't ever remember the names Stilinski on any invitations to the house so maybe he was just misremembering. His mother had spent most of her time with the Emissaries and other alphas but it was a possibility, Derek just didn't remember enough from before the fire to know for sure.
Sheriff Stilinski was a good man and the kid had been around a lot because his mother had become ill and died about a year before the fire. He remembered his mother talking about the strange disease she was suffering from and wondered if the Bite would heal the woman, speaking to Deaton about it and maybe that was proof enough, the Bite wasn't something his mother would have offered without due cause but then again he didn't know if she'd actually offered it to her. Derek wondered how much the kid really knew about the past, the fire and everything. His heightened senses and hearing allowed him the opportunity to learn that the Stilinski kid remembered who he was, he knew about the fire and he was the reason that Scott even learned what he was, he was going to be too clever by half and Derek didn't think he had the mental capability to curtail the scrawny teen so here they were.
He didn't know what to do with Stilinski, Derek needed Scott to learn so he wouldn't put them all in danger while Stilinski had purposefully chosen to shield Scott and that wasn't something Derek had been prepared to deal with. He didn't know what it was like to have a friend like that, it had been so long, his sisters and brothers, and even his Uncle Peter had been his friends, not the people at school. He wondered what it was like to have that kind of loyalty and not have it because of blood, but because of honest to god love and loyalty.
Stilinski was like that for McCall and he wondered if it would be easier if he just found a way to get the Stilinski kid the Bite because he figured he was going to be stuck with him whether he was a werewolf or not and even in the last week the teen had proven to care more about Scott than his own safety so being a werewolf could be better but Derek didn't have the ability to offer the choice let alone the right to take it away from him.
When he'd heard the commotion in the woods, seeing McCall run off and finding Laura's body had forced Derek to his knees next to his sister's battered body, tears attempting to fall despite years of shutting down his emotions at every turn. He forced himself to hide her body in the guts of the Hale house and would wait until the police search quieted down and he would give her a burial. With his senses, he could already smell the decomposition on her and it would have to be done soon but he hadn't felt it was safe yet.
Laura.
Derek took a moment and thought about his overbearing sister and wished beyond any other thing in the world that she wasn't gone. He missed his family so much, hated to see Peter the way he was in that hospital even after all these years. Somehow being a wolf had kept him alive but it wasn't enough to bring him back. He wished he could have seen what kind of students his younger siblings were going to be like, then there was his mother and father, his grandfather and Peter's wife and unborn child. All the family members who traveled from the nearby towns for the Wolf Moon. He wondered if they'd been stupidly naïve to think that the hunters had a code they would follow, that they would never hurt the people in the house without proof of wrongdoing. His younger brother hadn't been a werewolf, neither had his uncle's wife. They had been innocent and that didn't stop the hunters so of course it wasn't going to stop them from taking out McCall and him if they got him alone, if they had proof of wrongdoing but then again what had his Uncle's human wife ever done to warrant being burned to death? The only reason that Derek and Laura had survived was because they'd been at a basketball game, most of the family had been getting ready while Derek prepared to go out on the court and Laura was there because she'd been fooling around with one of the players and she was flirting as hard as she possibly could. Derek's mother, one of the strongest alphas in the area had been in the house, their matriarch and alpha—one of the first to reclaim the pure wolf form, much like Laura could.
And now he was alone because he'd had a girlfriend, the first since Paige, not even one he could really say that he'd loved anymore because of what she'd done to him before the fire. He'd been too young to know any better and he'd trusted her with just enough to destroy them all and to this day he figured it wasn't love that she allowed him to live. It was more probable that she wanted him to live with the fact that he'd made their deaths possible. And he had, desperate to kill himself for the first six months after the fire, Laura had him on suicide watch with a couple Emissaries and friends before they could move on and then one day he figured he was going to keep living for her. And now she was gone too.
Derek sighed, thinking again that he should have never come back here.
