this is an entirely self-indulgent wank in the teen wolf universe, and was my entry in their fic contest. if you couldn't already tell, stiles is just about my favorite thing in the realm of creation. i'm not surprised in the least that this didn't win.
In the woods on the outskirts of the old towne of Beacon hills, there lived a great bear. People who had seen it said it stood more than ten feet tall, that its shaggy mane was as black as the night, that grown men would look upon it and lose the fortitude of their bowels. It was greatly feared, and rumors flew wild about it. Some said that it had been hurt once when it was a young thing, its leg caught in a vicious steel trap, stuck for days on end roaring for it's mother, for its freedom, for the pain in its limb where metal cut to the bone. They said that no one knew how it had gotten free, but that when it did, it had waited until the hunter who trapped it returned, and killed him and ate his remains. Supposedly its rage simmered white-hot, and it hated people so much that it killed anyone that came anywhere near it or it's small cave. Now whether or not any of the rumors were true, the people of Beacon Hills knew well enough not to disturb the bear, and so apart from the occasional stray dogs and drunken louts, the towne was safe from it. It had its territory and they had theirs.
Alas there was one young townesperson who always seemed to stand apart from the others. The sheriff grew more and more weary over the years as his boy seemed to become the butt of every joke, the cause of every mishap, the source of each fresh embarrassment. He was lanky and awkward and never knew when to let things rest, let a nice good quiet build up, take a deep breath and relax. The boy was brutally clever, but he was equally so high strung and rambunctious that he seemed to always be getting into some sort of trouble. On a morning too warm and humid for the boy's odd sense of humor to be anything other than grating, his father sent him off into the woods to pick mushrooms and blow off a little steam and frantic-energy (which he swore his boy ran on sometimes). So of course being the klutz, the putz, the towne clown that he was, Stiles the Sheriff's son marched into the woods with his trusty mushroom basket, wearing his bright red hoodie, and deviated almost immediately from the Safely-Marked-Path and into the Deep-Foreboding-Wood.
Now no one could say that Stiles was stupid, but they could heavily imply that his attention span was severely lacking. And they would be right. He was lost almost as soon as he strayed from the path, trees blurring together and any sense of direction tossed wildly to the wind. But that was fine, he didn't need to know where he was to be able to expertly track and follow the small winding mushroom trail he'd found. Crouched low to the ground, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, crawling slowly through the wood, he collected dozens of mushrooms, easily spotting the Hedgehogs and Shaggy Manes and the bright Chanterelles. Eventually he came across an immense boulder that completely blocked his mushroom trail. Sure that his trail continued on the other side, he made to climb over it, continuing his slouched crawl up it and across the rock. The slowness of his movements gave his mind time to wander, and he stared at the vegetation down along the sides of the boulder. He did a double take – was that a Horn of Plenty?
Stumbling closer to the edge, he looked down and he recognized the black trumpet shaped fungus as a true craterellus cornucopiodes, and his mouth watered. He bemoaned the fact that there was only one small mushroom growing up from the forest floor amidst the leaf litter. But as he made to lean from the boulder and pull it from the ground, he noticed that at the base of the boulder was an opening into a small dark cavern. And that several more mushrooms were sprouted up at the mouth of the cave. Common sense abandoned long ago, Stiles shimmied down the edge of the boulder and (surprising even himself) landed somewhat gracefully on his feet. One more mistake in a chain of many, he blindly followed the mushroom trail into the cave.
The first clue that something had gone horribly wrong was perhaps the mound of human bones strewn non-decoratively about the far edges of the cave. Really not that tasteful, and yet effective, Stiles thought as his heart dropped somewhere into the realm of his colon, beginning to pound and causing him to break into a nervous sweat. Dropping to his knees, he rushed to pull out as many of the mushrooms as he could find, practically ripping them roots and all from the ground. In a mad scramble he made for the entrance, only to come face to face with a dark, furry, slightly damp nose. Later he would insist that his shriek had definitely been at a normal register, and hadn't been at all girlish (he would be incontrovertibly wrong on both accounts). In that bumbling way he had, he managed to knock or bump all his important joints on the way to falling on his ass.
Dragging his eyes across the creature he felt less terrified, but still incredibly terrified. So it wasn't exactly the legendary Forest Bear that hated and at people. It was just a friendly man-eating wolf, twice his size with glowing eyes and limbs that looked more like arms and legs and hands than canine 4-wheel-drive style. And oh wow. Okay so maybe one of the mushrooms sent him into a psychedelic hallucination, because that wolf was definitely changing it's shape. It was slowly, painfully slowly, morphing into a man, and Stiles was so completely and utterly terrified that he was barely lucid. He gripped the handle of his mushroom basket for dear life, pushing himself backwards and leaning heavily against the cave wall.
The beast tracked his motion with it's eyes, which shone red and then fluorescent blue, and then weren't glowing at all as they faded into a very human shade of dark blue. As gnashing fangs in a wide elongated snout folded softly into a pert nose and a strong somewhat square totally human jawline, and thick black body hair rapidly disappeared into smooth olive skin layered over rippling muscle, the man-beast made his way over to Stiles, still huddled against the wall, breathing laboriously and eyes comically wide. The man-beast, now technically all man, grabbed Stiles' arm and roughly dragged him to his feet, pulling him towards the mouth of the cave. Stiles snapped back to attention and dug in his feet, pulling his arm away "Okay so, ignoring the obvious who are you-what are you-why are you in a cave, can I, uh...at least get the last couple of mushrooms I missed?" he held out his basket, hoping that it would come across as incontrovertible proof that he was simply an innocent fungus gatherer, aimlessly lost in the woods.
The man looked at him with pure incredulity, mouth gaping slightly. He closed it, then opened it, then closed it again, sighing with an air of hostility and a deep frown, eyebrows lower than should be possible. Maybe it was a beast thing. But he waved towards the few that were left, and Stiles hurried to dig them up. They were barely in his basket when his arm was once again nearly yanked from its socket, and he was being propelled outside. The man-beast shoved him against the outer wall of the cave "Listen, you've got to get back to town, now. Do you even know where you are?" Stiles looked up at the face inches from his own, then towards the sky, then behind him, then back at the angry face "I'm in front of a cave. A rather large boulder is what I mistook it for." My, uh, my mistake of course. You have a lovely home"
The man-beast gave a somewhat aggravated and yet equally amused scoff "You're telling me you've lived in Beacon Hills your whole life and you don't know where you are right now? You can't possibly-" whatever Stiles couldn't possibly, was cut off by a crashing through the underbrush and a loud roar. Man-beast's eyes widened in shock and, panic? – and he shoved Stiles with incredible strength "Don't try and run, just get up a tree and climb as high as you can!"
Stiles, though more distracted than ever by waves upon crashing waves of over stimulus from his surroundings, briefly thought to himself that bears often climbed trees, so he instead quickly made his way back up the boulder, laying himself out flat on the top of it at it's highest point. He covered himself in some of the moss and leaves scattered across the top, then turned so that he could see what was happening below.
It was a veritable clash of two titans; the man-beast had transformed fully back into his wolfish form, and the bear stood raging with it's wrath and its fury, hulking over him even though he too had grown and stretched and bulked up immensely. They growled and roared and gnashed their terrible teeth at one another, and the bear, defending it's home from gross invasion by a human, struck the first blow. Its wideset claws raked across man-beast's snout, leaving wide gashes down his muzzle, and he roared in pain as he thrust his own claws towards its sensitive and exposed belly. His strike was true and unexpected, and he sunk his arm in deep deep, twisting viciously before pulling out and jumping away. The bear's wound was grievous, and it would surely die within the hour from it. It had a little time though before paralysis and death set in, and it lunged towards him with a final burst of energy, slashing across his chest before falling to the ground and letting out low whimpers, feud forgotten.
Stiles again shimmied down to where man-beast had fallen to his knees on the forest floor and begun to transform back into a man. He had his hand on the bear's large back, fingers curled tightly in the fur. What was indeed a large surface wound on his chest was relatively shallow, and Stiles could see his skin slowly weaving itself back together. It was closed up and almost completely undetectable within about a minute. The man looked at Stiles, who had moved to sit next to him, huddled up in his hoodie and still clutching his basket for comfort, and again sighed heavily "The bear was my uncle. A family tragedy left him so heartbroken and enraged that he became dead to the world. His fury changed him, and he became no longer a wolf but a ravenous beast. I think the last time I saw him human was...I don't even know - years ago. Many years ago"
Stiles shifted, fiddling with the handle of his basket, "So do I get to escape from this merry little jaunt with my life or what? I mean, sorry, but that's kinda my primary concern right now" wide dark blue eyes met his "You think I'd kill my uncle protecting you, only to off you shortly after? Really?" it was Stiles' turn to scoff "Yes I'm really asking you that, just because you saved me doesn't mean you might not have ulterior motives or be a total- ...whatwhatwhat is that look for?"
What could only be described as a leer spread it's way across man-beast's face "Ulterior motives? Such as?" and he leapt onto his knees and crawled over to Stiles, who again clutched his basket in trepidation. He wound up somehow flat on his back, supported by his elbows, with man-beast hulking over him, arms on either side of his shoulders and one knee between his legs. Man-beast's face was inches from the skin of his neck and his breath was hot in the cool of the wood "Do you think I would do anything other than lead you back to town? Or were you maybe hoping, little red, that I would do something more...untoward?"
And then they had deliciously steamy bumsex in the woods and it was fantastic, and the man-beast (who he later learned was named Derek) had the stamina of absolute animal, and they both had so many orgasms that night that it was ridiculous. Afterwards they built a fire and cooked and ate some of the mushrooms, and Stiles taught Derek how to identify them. Now whenever Stiles finds a one waiting for him on his windowsill he smiles knowingly and keeps his latch undone that night, and they just have sex all the time. It's actually kinda crazy how much sex they have, it's like they're making up for lost seasons time or something. And they're totally in love too, no doubt about it; there's something about slaying your uncle who was a giant bear monster that's just incredibly romantic. And so, after many years of happy copulating in stealth mode in Stiles' bedroom, and going freestyle in the woods (which led once to a nasty tickbite and a period of about a week where they absolutely couldn't look each other in the eye from the sheer embarrassment of it), they finally got gay-werewolf-married. Or something like that, Derek had just muttered something about mates and lifebonds and Stiles took it upon himself to assume that meant that he was there to stay. And they were super duper happy. Like seriously it was the best thing ever.
can you tell why it didn't win? i can