This is a fic I've had an idea to write for a while. It's been half-written for the longest, but I finished it. Please enjoy.
-JD
Disclaimer: I get no cash. Only the gratification of being noticed for a second.
"Hmm, glad we took the detour through this place. Knew all these flowers were weird for the middle of the forest," a young red-haired man whispered as he crept closer, looking around from his hiding spot.
The space was a quiet a few feet long and full of flowers and grasses of different kinds, some put in places where more light touched, others hidden off in the shade of the tall trees. The place looked a little like something out of a magazine. There were even two small chairs sitting within the main circle of them. The group of three, all in their early to mid-twenties, looked on from behind a flowery bush, watching as a red-hooded boy watered some bright orange blossoms not too far from his rather large toolshed, a calm smile on his face.
"You'd think they'd protect their 'Little Red' more than this instead of leaving him all alone," the tan-haired one muttered.
"Well, it's better for us anyway," their leader, a black haired man whispered back.
They watched carefully as the oblivious boy shifted from those buds to some other ones.
"When do we move from here? I think I'm getting pollen stuck in my nose," the redhead rubbed at said body part.
"Soon. Just wait till he goes back into the toolshed. Knocking him out will be quieter and easier. When he moves, Three, you stay to my side. Two, you corner him from the other." The two nodded in reply.
They waited, their boots crushing the flowers beneath them without care. The boy had settled on his knees, a little hunched over to water those buds, but then stood to his feet, stretching his back and moaning at the relief that flooded his body. After stretching a little longer, he sighed, picking up his water jug, and walked over to the large shed, entering it silently.
They had to subdue him before he came out again.
Silently, they walked over the plants as they headed for the toolshed's door, guns cocked and knives ready. Sure, it would be easy to take the scrawny kid into custody and use him against his own pack, but they kind of wanted to scare him just for the heck of it. The leader and red-haired one went to the right side of the front of the shed, the other going to the other side. He kind of wanted to be the first person that the boy saw anyway.
The redhead peeked into a window to see his location, but…
"Hey, guys. I don't see him."
"What?" the leader growled, not looking at him, still watching the door.
"I mean I don't see him. Ro—I mean, Two, you check your side."
He did, "…Uh, yeah. I'm not getting him either."
"C'mon, maybe he's by the door. Maybe he's in the corners."
"If that's so, then he already knows we're here," the leader grumbled.
The three looked at each other in confusion and mild irritation, opening the door cautiously. Two entered first, then the others.
Just as Three had said, there was no one there.
It was a fairly large shed, almost barn sized had it not only been one story high. Only a portion of the shed was actually dedicated to gardening, with small clippers and different kinds of soil and such off to the side. The rest of it was...a little odd. There was a whole side at the back and a little to the left dedicated to nothing but holding column after column of jars filled with different salves, oils, powders, and flowers. There was even a place for teas and jams. On the right wall near a back door, there was a shelf where…wait, a back door?
"Shit, he must've noticed us and high-tailed it out of here!" Three muttered, holstering his gun.
"Hmmh, damn shame. I guess we'll have to visit the Hale house after all," Two replied, looking around, though not as cautiously as before.
"Oh well. They finished building that thing up again, didn't they?"
The leader smirked, "Yep. Well, there's no harm in having to rebuild it again, don't you think?"
Before Two could laugh, there was a flash of red and the young man crumpled to the ground like a doll.
The leader reached out for him as he heard Two pull his gun out before he cried out in pain and fell down as well.
"Shit! Shit!"
He took out his knife and looked around, twirling constantly to make sure that no one was behind him. What was that? Where had it come from? As he frantically looked around the room, he noticed strange, dusty circles on the ground in the darker corners of the shed. What was that again? He'd heard of it before…
"Mountain ash."
The man jolted, turning around with his knife poised, but he barely saw the whiskey brown of Little Red's eyes before his head snapped to the side and his sight faded out.
The leader groaned lightly as he came to his senses, his muscles tensing as he slowly blinked his eyes open. He couldn't quite tell where he was yet in the low light, but he could hear something shuffling ahead of him. He tried to move his head, but it gave him a jolt of pain he wasn't ready for, the man groaning as it shot through him, his eyes shutting.
"Don't move too much. I'm preeeetty sure you have a concussion. You've surely been out long enough to have one."
The man squinted his eyes again, and noticed someone not too far from him, sitting in his chair backwards. As his eyes adjusted to area, he finally noted that it was a basement somewhere. There was a tiny window up near the top of whatever building they were under, and it shed light on the bright red hoodie the person in front of him wore.
He swore under his breath, his eyes clearing more.
'Little Red' smiled at him, the back of his chair facing one of his comrades, who was markedly more awake than he was. Three had a small trail of blood coming from the side of his head, but he appeared to be alright, though his hands were tied behind the back of the chair, his legs tied to the front legs of his chair. He could sort of see Two further away, though he was sort of blocked by the hooded young man before him. He presumed he and Two were in the same condition as Three.
"Nice of you to join in!" 'Little Red' cheered, standing with a minimal amount of stumbling as he pulled the chair back, allowing Two to look straight at him, "I was hoping I didn't knock you out too well, y'know?"
"W…" his jaw felt a little slack, but he mustered his strength, "Where…wh…"
'Little Red' frowned at him, "Where…what? Where are we? Where was I? You've got to clarify, man, use your words," he chuckled, "I tell the same thing to Derek all the time, too."
He grumbled under his breath at being compared to that monster.
"All…all of those."
"Hmm…now, usually, I wouldn't humor you guys, but since I'm in a pretty shitty mood, I guess I'll monologue a little," he settled his head into his arms, smiling lightly, "You're under my gardening shed. Basements are pretty cool, so I thought I'd have one. As to where I was, well, I'd never left."
"Impossible," Two muttered, "You weren't in there. We checked."
"Nope, I was definitely there," he grinned, "Mountain ash is a wonder when you get the hang of it."
His eyes twitched, his head hurting more as he thought. So…he'd used the mountain ash to make himself invisible to them? That's what those circles were for? But even that was impossible. From what he knew, it simply blocked out the supernatural, and they certainly weren't that. They should've seen him standing there.
'Little Red' turned to him, his amusement growing, "Dude, I can almost feel how impossible you think that is. But really, why would you try to tell me how mountain ash works? I mean, out of all four of us, I'm the expert with it. The ash feeds off of belief," he shrugged, "It's just that many ash-users don't have a big enough imagination."
He decidedly filed that information away.
"Aaaaaanyway," he clapped his hands together, his gardening gloves still on, "since this is a bit of a meet-and-greet, let's introduce ourselves, shall we?"
He leaned back in his chair, nearly toppling over before he caught his balance, laughing the incident off. Three groaned, upset that he'd been caught by such a klutz. The leader shared the sentiment. 'Little Red' grinned at them, holding onto the back of the chair as he leaned back this time, waving an open palm at him.
"Here sits Jacob Marley! He's been hunting since he was 24—which, at 26, makes you a greenhorn, really—and has just recently fucked up really badly! He's also very uncreative when it comes to codenames. I'm guessing from your brand of codenames, yours is 'One' or something? You could've at least pulled a Codename: Kids Next Door and tried to spice it up a little."
The leader, Jacob, tried to look shocked, but pain shuddered through his body when he tried to move his head up.
The boy pointed at the young man in front of him, "This is Austin Cadence, aka 'Three'. He's been hunting for two years alongside Jacob, but he acts like he's been hunting for only five minutes."
Austin frowned irritatedly at the insult.
"Right here's my man Rodrick Johnson, or 'Two'…" he laughed, "My god, I'm never getting over those nicknames. Anyway, he's been hunting for three years, though really, he acts like it's been an hour. Shouldn't you have been the leader? Eh, whatever, I guess that happens with the on-and-off approach to hunting. It wouldn't have changed the fact you guys were weak." He seemed to think for a second, "Or maybe I'm just stronger than I thought. Combination of both? Huh, how 'bout them apples."
Jacob frowned, "And what do we call you, Red?"
The boy blinked at him curiously, "So the 'Little Red' thing is actually a thing? Oh wow, that's just as sweet as it is embarrassing," he patted himself on the chest, "Feel free to call me Stiles."
"…What even is a 'Stiles'?" Austin grumbled.
"Me. I'm a Stiles." It took a second, but he snorted at a joke he thought of, but then his face hardened, "Actually no, Mario's kind of a piece of shit."
"What?" Rodrick shook his head lightly, eyes squinting in confusion.
Stiles waved his hand at him absently, "It's nothing. Just thinking about video games and their horrible main protags. I mean really, Luigi's much cooler. He's such a sweetheart, and he tries so hard even when he's scared," he leaned to the side, swooning.
"I can't make sense of what you're saying," Austin said, trying to move his wrists.
"Yeah, that's what the pack says most of the time, too," he shrugged, taking out one of their phones as he filed through it.
"Rude…"
Stiles snorted, "Me, rude? Yes. You were more rude, though…" he trailed of, seeming to remember something as his mood darkened, "Ah, yeah. Pretty damn rude."
For some reason, this worried them.
"I-it doesn't matter. There are other hunters on their way," Austin said, glaring at Stiles.
The boy blinked at him, but didn't seem too phased.
"Quick question, have you contacted Chris Argent?"
Austin smirked at him, "Yeah. We contacted him, and he's gonna kick you're a—"
Stiles scratched at his head, smiling, his chest shifting with laughter that never left his mouth, "You're a really bad liar, you know? I mean, I literally have your phone in my hand."
"I deleted it from the call list."
"It's very easy to pull those back up if you know what you're doing," he shrugged, "and even if I didn't, I still know you haven't contacted him."
The group glared at him, expecting an explanation. Stiles obliged.
"The Hale Pack is in really strange but," he waved his hand absently, "simple solidarity with the Argents. Our pack, as well as the Argents, serve to protect the citizens of Beacon Hills from the dangers of those who really don't mean well on the other side of the 'natural' spectrum. Meaning, me? I'm a good guy. I work with Chris whenever there's a new baddy in town. We give him intel, and he gives us some in return. And if you guys had really let him know that you were paying a visit, he would've told us. Since you didn't and you attacked one of the good guys, that makes you…well, bad."
"Maybe he just didn't want to let you know!"
"Or you're digging for lies that you can't make up," he showed them Austin's dial screen, the number pad waiting for anything to be typed in, "I could ask him right now. Send him a quick text, make a quick phone call."
Rodrick straightened his neck, "You should." It seemed to come out strong to him, but instead it landed in the realm of a little hopeful. Stiles grinned, promptly shutting Austin's phone off.
"Then again, I don't want to bother him by asking about things I already know."
He picked himself off of his chair, turning around to face the counters against the wall. There was something on top of it, though they couldn't really see what it was.
"For an experienced were-bitch, you sure are giving us a lot of information," Jacob smiled falsely, his hands still twitching around to find a loose end in his ties.
Stiles didn't bother turning around to answer, "To be honest, I'm just speaking to the air for the most part."
The three could hear the ominous tone his statement had, even if he'd said it as if it were normal conversation. The red-hooded boy hummed in appreciation of something before he turned toward Jacob and walked forward to him, his hands behind his back. The man twitched and pulled at his ties as the boy came to stand in front of him. He flinched a little as he brought his hands from behind him.
"Hey, do you know what this is?"
Jacob stared wide-eyed at the small flowers. They looked a little like a child's wedding bouquet, but where there should've been pretty, small, baby blue petals with bright green stems, there were lightly browning and bent petals, the stems bent off different ways. They were the flowers from a small shrub that he'd stepped in.
"That wasn't a rhetorical question," Stiles said a little stiffly, startling the man out of his thoughts.
"N—no, I don't know."
He seemed to brighten a little at the answer, pleased to explain, "This flower is called a hydrangea. They're very pretty aren't they? I have seen quite a few wedding pictures with them in it," he laughed a little, "In fact, I donated some to a wedding this new couple had. You should've seen the look on their faces, they were so happy."
He flinched when Stiles looked at him from under his eyelashes, "You trampled all over them while you were waiting to attack me. That's all sorts of rude. You should always respect other people's territory."
He snapped back, "I have no need to respect some were-bitch's garden!"
Stiles blinked at him before looking back down at the withering flower, "Is that so? That's a real shame, man. Like, what's even up with this generation and their manners? Someone could've taught you something, perhaps a mother or a father, maybe even a mentor…"
"I do have respect for decent humans, but yo—"
"Decent humans? Really? You think you're…" Stiles laughed, "Man, you have a lot to learn."
It was clear he wasn't really looking for an answer as he approached, Jacob beginning to squirm in his bonds a little more while Rodrick and Austin began to fuss as well, attempting to escape. For a young, fairly thin, pale boy, he knew how to tie knots entirely too well. He apparently also knew how to carry the three grown men into a basement without too much trouble. He was a lot more dangerous than they thought. When Stiles rose his hand toward Jacob, he flinched and closed his eyes, expecting a punch. Instead, he got a laugh.
"You know, when I was a little kid, I was taught that I should clean up my messes. I didn't always follow through, but I began getting better as I got older. You're a grown man, aren't you?"
Jacob opened his eyes again, Stiles holding the flowers out to him.
"You should clean up your mess. Here."
He moved his hand even closer, the cloying scent of crushed bouquet flowers flooding his nostrils.
"Eat it."
"Why the hell should I e—mmphh!"
Stiles suddenly grabbed his jaw, pressing his fingers in just the right places in his cheeks to keep him from closing his mouth as he stuffed the flowers in. He couldn't describe the taste. It most certainly wasn't delicious, and it felt absolutely gross as it rubbed against his tongue. There was something acid to it, and he knew something bad was going to happen.
Stiles kept impassively pressing the flowers down into the man's mouth, his comrades fussing and struggling behind him. He knew he was pretty quick in decided on the guy's fate, but like he said, he was in a bad mood. Besides, he'd gotten most of the information he wanted while the guy was still knocked out. Considering the guy's track record, he really didn't matter anymore.
"What the fuck are you doing?! Stop!" Austin yelled, trying to move his chair.
"Naaaah, don't think I will," Stiles called back, casually pushing his hand forward more, the stems entering Jacob's mouth. When he noticed that Jacob wasn't chewing like he wanted, he frowned, releasing his jaw. Instead, he reached up and closed the man's nose, forcing his only breathing avenue to be his mouth. Jacob knew this, too, and despite his better judgement, he began to chew, the acidic taste of the flowers flooding his taste buds.
For some reason, Jacob could feel his heart clenching. His lungs began work a bit harder as he kept chewing the plant that was constantly being forced down his throat. It was becoming harder and harder to do so, but he kept going, feeling dizzy as he did.
"Hey…h-hey…wait—" But before he could get it all out, Stiles shoved the last of the flowers into his open mouth. Jacob choked on it, trying to gasp around it, the faded blue of the petals and Stiles' gloved hand obscuring his sight again.
"Stop! Stop, you monster fucker!" Austin screamed, feeling angry tears well in his eyes. Rodrick struggled against his binds as well, but was less vocal about his distress.
"What are you doing to him?" Rodrick grunted, pulling more at his arms.
"Nothin' much," Stiles sighed, pushing the stems into his mouth as well, "Just making him clean up his mess is all. To be honest, he's kind of lucky."
"How?"
Stiles smiled at them knowingly, and they shuddered.
When the boy felt the man's lips against his hand, he pulled it back, adjusting the rest of the stems in his hand before shoving them in his mouth. The man choked around it, his face red with his struggling, but he began to chew it as well. Stiles covered his mouth with his gloved hand, nodding.
"There you go. Be sure you swallow it," his face flushed a little, "Oh wow, that sounded dirty."
Once he noticed Jacob's throat bob, he moved off of his lap, brushing his gloved hands off, "Well, that's that."
"What the fuck did you do to him?! Jacob! Jacob, look at me!" Austin screamed, staring at his friend, who's whole body was turning bright red. He seemed disoriented as he looked around, swallowing, trying to get the taste off of his tongue.
"Calm down, calm down. He'll be fine soon," Stiles sighed, waving his hand absently.
"What did you give him?" Rodrick growled, his expression turning dark.
"Oooh, scary! Ah, anyway, you don't have to worry. It's hydrangea, nothing more, nothing less. I mean, I just wanted him to clean up what he destroyed—a lot more then you guys have cleaned up in the past years of your hunting stint, anyway," he sighed, folding his arms, "I kind of hope he ate earlier today, though…"
"Why?"
"Then it takes longer."
"What takes longer?" Austin practically hissed, still trying to undo his bindings.
Stiles glanced back over toward Jacob, pointing his thumb at him.
"That."
Austin noticed then that he could hear Jacob grunting and gasping. When he glanced over at Jacob and gasped with shock. Rodrick looked over, too, tearing his eyes away from Stiles.
Jacob was convulsing, his fingers twitching as he jerked around in his ties. His entire body had turned a bright red, his eyes bulging, bloody saliva trailing from his mouth. They were beginning to smell an acrid wave of ammonia, the crotch of his pants and little trails down his legs darkening. The only reason he was still upright was because he was tied up and sitting.
He was having a seizure.
"Oh, he's already bitten his tongue," Stiles said, wincing.
"W…what the hell kind of flower was that?" Austin whispered airily, shocked at the condition his friend was in, the man still trying to gasp, unable to breathe.
He huffed indignantly, "Didn't you hear me? I've said it twice already. It was hydrangea. Anyway, he's just cleaning up his mess, don't mind him."
The other guy spoke up, "…Did you poison him? Di—"
"Yes and no. Yes, I poisoned him, and no, I didn't do it without him knowing it."
"Liar! You didn't tell him shit!" Austin screamed, watching as Stiles tilted his head a little, almost confused if not amused, "If you told him that you'd poisoned the thing, he wouldn't have opened his mouth at all! He would've been spitting that shit out! You fuckin' cunt!"
He cried out again as Jacob bent forward as much as he could, throwing up, his bile littered with undigested flower petals and trails of blood.
"Oh, but I did."
He righted his head.
"Like I said, I gave him hydrangea."
The two stilled upon hearing the loudest gasp since he started seizing. Then, blood still trailing from his mouth, Jacob slumped over in his ties, his eyes wide and unseeing, acrid puke bubbling from the corner of his mouth.
"…J—…Jacob?" Austin whispered.
Moments later, while they watched, his chest stopped moving, and his body went slack.
"Cyanogenic glycosides…I'm not going to guess that you guys know what that is. There's a long story to go with this, but let me make it a bit shorter: you attack certain plants, it releases cyanide. Now, our blood has oxyhemoglobin, which has to be unstable to catch and release oxygen where it needs to go, but when cyanide comes in contact with it, it makes cyano-hemoglobin, a stable compound."
"Your blood stops catch-releasing oxygen because it's all happy and shit from being stable, and you suffocate. And, y'know, you are what you eat. It gets digested easily if your stomach's acidic enough," he grinned, "I thought hunters knew about all sorts of plants, but are you guys seriously stuck only on wolfsbane? You on-and-off hunters are something else. But hey, don't worry, the chemistry lesson isn't over. He wasn't the only one to step on my plants."
They turned their eyes back to the red-hooded boy before them, fright spreading across their faces. Stiles simply smiled back clinically before he moved back to the drawers, holding up a different flower. Rodrick began twitching, recognizing its purple petals.
"Now, you went and stepped on parts of my foxglove patch. You at least know something about this plant, right?"
"W-wait, hold up, that's just a regular flower, right?" Austin squeaked.
Stiles looked at him, unamused, "Most flowers are regular flowers, dude. Unless they're, like, supernatural or something. But these guys? Nah, natural as ever. Mother Nature just knows how to make some deadly shit."
Rodrick began to try to kick his feet as Stiles approached, "Now, the thing with foxglove is that it's also pretty toxic to people. Contains digitoxin, digitonin, and digitalin, all of which don't sound nice at all, like a virus or something. And believe me, it's pretty darn nasty man. Just nibbling on it will give you nausea, make you vomit, and give you worse diarrhea than a gas station burrito after about twenty minutes. The lucky thing with you is, well, you stepped on more than a nibble."
"O-okay, please, wait a second!" Austin struggled in his seat, "J-just wait! We're sorry! W-we're sorry, okay?"
Stiles went from unamused to downright cold, "If you're so sorry, do me a favor and bring the Harrison pack back."
Austin and Rodrick went stock still.
"How about the Irving pack? You'd only have to bring back a father and his three cubs, so it shouldn't be that hard. What about the Kato fox shifters? No? The Aarle Kabouters?"
"They were beginning to cause a disturbance," Rodrick said quietly, watching as Stiles' cold expression landed on him.
"What disturbance were they causing? The Harrison pack had been in their territory for a long time before a bunch of part-time vigilante hunters, including you three, went over and killed their children. The rest of them tried to get vengeance on you guys, and then were killed by Coded hunters because they really did do harm to normal people."
Stiles came closer to him, his flowers wielded like deadly weapons, even as they swayed from where they'd been stepped on.
"The Irving pack was small, not even big enough to have territory or anything. The father wasn't feral because he had his cubs to take care of. He was travelling to his new home when you guys just happened to see his eye flash before he could get to the pack he was going to join. Killed him and his kids."
"He…the pack…they—"
"The Kato family was well adjusted where they lived. They weren't even fox spirits, like your intel had apparently told you. One of your people attacked them, and they attacked back. Then a group of you guys trapped them in their house and set your dogs on them."
"You…don't understand," Rodrick said.
"The Aarles were gnomes. Their ancestor's home tree had been cut down and moved here a long, long time ago and they adapted anyway. They start getting pushed out of the forest because of construction and they start pushing back. And you know, even after you twits killed them, the place turned out to be unfit for building anything on it because it was too close to the wetlands," Stiles outright snarled, "And those guys? They're only a part of the list. Because while you murderers were knocked out, I did my fucking research, and you've got nothing better to do with your time than spill innocent blood."
"Shut up! You just don't understand! Those fuckers were monsters!" Austin yelled, tugging on his bindings, "Dumbasses like you get involved with these freaks and suddenly they're angels!"
"No, they aren't suddenly angels. I just recognize when someone is innocent when I see the situation."
"The Harrisons weren't innocent!"
"They decided to stop being innocent after you killed their children. And what gave you the right to do that, exactly?"
"They were weres. Just monsters!" he yelled.
"Yeah, and those weres were living peacefully with humans before you came. All of them had been living peacefully until you arrived and killed. This planet wasn't given just to us, and a lot of hunters just don't realize that. Humans aren't the only ones here, never were, and never will be," Stiles' whiskey brown eyes narrowed coldly at him, "And, hey…you don't sound very sorry right now."
He wasted no time in their silence, grabbing Rodrick by the neck as he began to squeeze the life out of him. Rodrick's mouth opened in a gasp, and the next thing he knew, instead of air, it was filled with foxglove.
"No!" Austin cried, tugging at his binds.
Stiles was decidedly less gentle with Rodrick as he crushed the flower and stuffed it in his mouth, closing his nose to make sure he'd be forced to swallow, "Now, the thing you've got to worry about, Roddy-boy, is the fact this flower doesn't have cyanogenic glycosides. No, these babies have cardiac glycosides, so they'll be shooting straight for your heart. They'll make you feel like you're running too many miles in too few minutes…well, usually. Sometimes it slows the heart, which is kind of weird, but whatever."
Rodrick choked desperately on the flowers, but being unable to breathe, he recognized that he'd either die at that moment from suffocation or from whatever effects the foxglove would bring about. Despite knowing it would kill him, he began to chew on the foxglove, swallowing it in gulps of saliva and plant.
"Stop! Stop! Okay, they weren't monsters! We were wrong!"
Stiles hummed absently, waiting until Rodrick stopped swallowing to release his nose and mouth, backing away from the young man. Rodrick coughed and gagged for a few minutes, Austin crying out and cursing, before his eyes began to widen out of panic, his heart speeding up faster than it should. Within moments, he began to gag, his stomach beginning to force out what little was in it.
"Fuck, man! Stop! We're sorry!" Austin cried, looking away.
Stiles stared at the man as he finally threw up, leaking bile all over his pants and shirt. He didn't stop there, his diaphragm still convulsing as he kept coughing up whatever his body could. He kept on heaving even after he'd gotten rid of everything, only able to spurt out clear bile. He rose his head, gasping as his tried to curl his legs up.
"Your chest bothering you?" Stiles asked, his hands in his hoodie pocket.
Rodrick couldn't answer, his head beginning to hang as his heart fluttered all too quickly in his chest, unable to beat properly.
"Fuuuuuck…" Austin groaned in despair, "Fuck you…fuck you and your wolves, you were-bitch…"
"You know, I'm not even a werewolf, so I only half understand why you guys insisted on calling me that."
"That's…" he sobbed, "that's the only reason…those fuckers would…want you around…you piece of shit! What, you liked the way their dicks felt in your ass?! You fucking faggot!"
Stiles' eyebrows rose, "Oh, now you're pulling out the big guns. Amazing."
"You're fuckin' sick! You're a fuckin' sick person! Nah…no, you're not even a person anymore! What the fuck are you doing, running with these monsters?! You're one, too!"
He shrugged at the accusation, turning around to face the counter, "Nope, not a monster, I'm just good at using my resources."
"Fuck you."
"Not even in a fever dream, dude," he sighed, turning around to face Austin, "Now, you stepped in a particularly shady spot in my garden, so you hit an interesting one."
Rather than holding a flower, he held a large pile of berries in his gloves. Some were a little smooshed, some green, others black, and some changing in between. Austin recognized them well.
"Guess…I was lucky…" he muttered, glaring angrily and red-eyed at Stiles.
"Hmm…you would be. These are black nightshade berries. When ripe, they aren't harmful at all. They've been edible for centuries, actually."
Austin held onto a slight bit of hope, until he watched Stiles smile down at the berries.
"These guys, though…they're a different kind of nightshade than what you're used to. The kind you're thinking of is solanum americanum, which isn't toxic if the berries are ripe. What I have in my hand, though, is atropa belladonna," he clicked his tongue, "If you had entered the garden on a different side, you might have gotten lucky and hit the common berries. Too bad you guys trampled all through my poisonous plants. It doesn't make sense, either. I mean, I specifically made pathways for people to walk through."
"B…bella…"
"Do you know it?" he began walking forward, "the two flowers get mixed up sometimes, but while one is only deadly sometimes, this beautiful lady is deadly 24/7. I'm pissed off at you even more right now, to be honest. It's my first time trying to grow them, and now half of them are as good as gone because of you."
"W…what will it do?"
Stiles shrugged, "I'll leave that to your imagination. Rather," he leaned in, "how about you find out for yourself?"
Austin clamped his mouth shut, refusing to open it, his gaze firm.
"Oh, c'mon, that's not nice!"
Stiles punched him in the stomach with a surprising amount of force. He felt all of his air rush out of him, his mouth open wide. The next thing he knew, bittersweet berries were running down his mouth to the back of his throat. He swallowed some before he could stop himself, and Stiles covered his mouth and nose to force him to swallow the rest.
He groaned and cried as he tried to resist, but he knew he'd swallowed some already. Stiles was just waiting patiently for him to do the rest. He tried to kick but was still completely unable to move. Realizing that he was running out of oxygen, with tears running down his cheeks, he swallowed the rest as commanded, coughing for air once Stiles let go of his mouth.
"Good, good. Weren't those delicious?"
He didn't do anything but cry at that point, tears running down his face. Stiles sighed, shaking his head.
"You know, usually I'd let greenhorns off easy with a warning, a 'don't mess with the supernatural…or at least be careful about it, you dipshits'. Something. But no, you guys were beyond that. You were off killing innocent creatures without a care in the world. You know how I know you didn't care?"
He grabbed Austin's face, looking straight into the older young man's eyes.
"You were a part-timer. You weren't even a full-time, dedicated hunter. It was just that you spilled innocent blood in your free time. I actually hate part-timers more than I do those who work full-time. You want to know why? Because if you take it as your full-time duty to be a keeper of the balance between the natural and the supernatural, you do your homework. You investigate. You make sure you aren't doing wrong and kill relentlessly. Well," he shrugged, "most of the time. If you have an earnest Code, like the Argents do now, you don't."
He released his jaw, turning back to walk to the counter, "You and your troop would spend months at a time not looking at anything supernatural, then jump back in the game like you're starting back from your last save point. That's just not how it works. The supernatural are alive, too, and they deserve respect. They at least deserved enough respect to be investigated accurately and not just killed off because of who they were."
Austin choked on another sob, finding that his voice couldn't quite get out as much anymore. The world had started looking hazy a while ago, the bodies of his dead companions morphing into lifeless blobs in his eyes. Drowsily, he shifted his head over to Stiles, eyes squinting as the light in the room began to hurt his eyes.
Stiles was normal at first, if not hazy, but then vines slowly curled their way out of the ground and up his legs. The light became brighter in his vision and he winced at its force, a small glow surrounding Stiles' body as well. He was silent for a few minutes as the berries' effect settled in, the only sound being some chopping on a board on the counter top.
"You know, I'm at least being a bit merciful to you. The roots are more powerful than the rest of the plant. You'll be done with quicker."
Stiles' voice turned sickly sweet and oddly otherworldly as he talked, the vines curling their ways around his waist and past his shoulders to his gloves. When he turned around, Austin gasped lowly, though he was unable to move away from the monster in front of him, his heartbeat too sluggish for that.
His skin was green now, his moles purple as the light shined on him. The vines that moved up his neck formed a strange crown on his head, sort of like the leafy ones that the Greeks wore, but it contained a considerable amount of thorns and flowers of different kinds. His eyes were completely purple, covered only when his brown-as-wood eyelashes would meet his cheeks.
"I'm not excessively cruel as to let you suffer so long. Well…I am, actually, but the pack will be back in a few hours and I'll need to have the smell of piss and vomit out of here and out of my clothes, ASAP," his mouth opened, showing sharp, sharp white teeth, his saliva translucent yellow and dripping with poison, "Here, open your mouth."
He couldn't quite get himself to move, not to obey the creature before him, and not to back away. It laughed at him, gloved hands taking a hold of his face as it revealed the root in its other hand. It was actually a dust, the root ground up into it as it sat on the glove. The longer he looked at it, the more it shimmered, a golden sand.
He didn't resist as his head was tilted upwards and the sand fell into his mouth and down his already parched throat. He felt himself sink deeper into whatever was happening, his chest beginning to feel a tad cold. As he sank, the monster before him morphed again.
The vines traveled down his arms in droves as it covered them, his gloved hands covered by thorny claws that he could swear he felt poking into his skin. His brown hair became wilder, the thorn crown growing bigger and just as much more dangerous as it was beautiful. It blinked its eyes, and it revealed ones that were definitively more foxlike, the iris a golden brown, flecks in it alight with magic, the pupil a slit that expanded and constricted from the difference in light as it looked about his body.
"M…on…s…ter…"
It blinked at him for a moment before it opened its mouth again, rows of sharp white teeth gleaming as poison dripped along its teeth.
"I can be beastly, yes. I can be cruel, crude, willing to kill. I can be unrestrained, but I am no monster."
It let go of his face, backing away from him as the light brightened too much for him to handle.
"The only monster I see in here is you."
Chris felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and sighed. He wasn't quite sure who it was, especially since no one had the need to call him as of recent. Beacon Hills had been fairly peaceful for the past few weeks. "Guess that time's up already," he mumbled. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he watched and narrowed his eyes upon seeing Stiles' name blink as the phone continued ringing.
Maybe he wasn't right after all. He flipped the phone open, answering it.
"Stiles, wha—"
"Haven't I told you to keep your friends off of our lawn?"
Chris froze. So Stiles was in that kind of mood.
"Right. What happened?" he asked, already knowing the answer as he pulled his laptop onto his lap, opening it and starting it up.
"Three of your friends came over. Wanted a hostage?" he heard a laugh.
"How many are alive?" he opened a browser, logging into the hunter intel website.
"You know you can answer that."
"I see," his shoulders slumped a little, noticing that he had not received a notification that any other hunters were visiting the area. He already knew it wouldn't be there, but he'd been hopeful.
Hunters claimed territory to watch over just like weres did. Coming to hunt on another hunter's territory without viable reason or notification was just as wrong as it would be if an Alpha came to claim territory on another Alpha's land. They were against the Code, of course they were. Their murder, though sudden, was just.
It wasn't that he had wanted Stiles to be against the Code. In fact, he was relieved that the boy was such a stickler for the rules he set for himself, including the rule he made that he would not kill a hunter who followed the Code…well, as he saw fit. It was strange really. He was a hunter, but every time he got a call from Stiles, he felt hunted.
"Are you listening to me, Chris?"
"I told you not to call me by my first name."
"I'll take that into account when I don't have to regrow my babies again."
Ah, they were pretty unlucky, huh. Stiles had a bad habit of being very efficient with his plants. Whatever flower they crushed, he'd use on them if it had negative effects. Out of all the gardens in Beacon Hills, his was the most dangerous.
"Duly noted."
He heard Stiles sigh on the other side of the phone, "Need their names?"
"If you'd be so kind."
"Jacob Marley, Rodrick Johnson, and Austin Cadence. They're members of that kind of odd amateur group…what was it called? Uhm…The Silence, I think it was."
Chris' eyes narrowed. The Silence was anything but. Many hunters had had trouble with their local supernatural creatures because of their influence. Sometimes, they would even publicly list up where they were going and who they were targeting, though the practice lessened once other hunters actually started objecting to their methods. There was also the fact that they were often under-experienced, and so, so under-informed.
Chris admitted that he wasn't too proud of how his family had handled the Hale family and other supernatural creatures even a mere four years ago. Looking at how The Silence worked made him feel like that's what the Argents had been, only more obscure and much better prepared.
"I see. Should I let them know that the need to watch their step?" Their main contact information was also on their website, the gits.
"No, I'll be sending them a more personal message."
Chris could hear the smile in Stiles' voice, and he wondered at the small blessing that the boy hadn't been born supernatural.
"I'm going to make some rose tea once I'm done with the mess and freshen the place up. Would you like some?"
The mess, huh…so that's all they were now, "I'll be fine for today."
He heard a laugh, "Alright, take care then."
Stiles hung up.
The pack returned as he finished his cup of tea. He felt lax and happy, something he was sure a few select people would notice. He listened silently as Scott's boisterous laughing echoed outside, he and Isaac going back and forth jokingly about something. He could vaguely hear Jackson growl at them in that weird lizard-like manner of his. Erica joined in with the boys, though, and Stiles could tell that he gave up whatever argument was going on.
The front door opened, and an irritated Jackson rushed in, mumbling under his breath as he headed upstairs, perhaps going to wait until dinner.
"Wait, Jackson, we're just kidding around! It freaked us out a bit, but it's funny! You're a whole new person!" Erica called up, getting a hiss in reply.
When Isaac entered, he made a bee-line for the kitchen and smiled as he hugged Stiles around the neck, the boy patting Isaac's arm in reply, "Hey, bud. What's all the laughing about?"
The boy laughed for a moment, "Jackson shed his skin suddenly today."
"Whoa, shit. I was wondering why I was starting to see dead scales sitting around the house," he muttered as Scott waved at him before walking into the living room to call the rest of the pack.
"Oh my God, Batman, you should've seen it! It was so gross! But also interesting."
"C'mon guys, you know he's sensitive about lizard things. Cut him some slack, okay?"
Erica groaned, "Fiiiiine…" she sniffed the air, "What is that smell?"
"Flowers, Catwoman," he smiled, sipping at his nearly finished cup.
"I know. You always smell like flowers nowadays. It's just…stronger for some reason."
"Is it bothering you?" Stiles asked, genuine concern on his face.
"Nah, I'd just prefer you smelling like steak. Or deer. Whichever one, really," she grinned.
"Or tacos, like I asked for yesterday!" Scott called from the living room.
"Oh no you don't, Scott McCall!" she rushed out of the kitchen, "You did the food order three days ago!"
"I did not!" he replied, sounding extremely offended.
Isaac shook his head, "I'll go dispel that."
Stiles grinned around his cup, "That's why you're my favorite."
The other wolves entered the house shortly, holding bags of food for Stiles to use, which he took gratefully as he began to work on the lasagna he decided to make (since, when it had extra cilantro in it, it was Jackson's absolute favorite). Boyd had given him a nod, which he returned lightly, getting his kitchen in order. Kira had waved at him kindly from the kitchen door before she moved into the living room, trying to see what movie they were picking.
Lydia and Allison entered hand-in-hand and very close together, giggling about something until Allison went over to break up a dispute between Erica and Scott again, Isaac having given up. Lydia had given him a look when she entered, which he smiled sagely at, knowing he wouldn't fool her about his afternoon activities. She huffed at him.
"I better get extra ice cream today."
"Will do, will do."
Derek had entered not long after, giving him a hug around his waist, nuzzling into his neck with his cheek to replace some of the flower scent with his own. Stiles humored him for a while, nuzzling back lightly as he prepared the ingredients. Once he had to move around more, he shooed his mate out, playfully saying that he was taking up too much space. Derek obliged and left him to be busy.
Peter had entered last, closing the door and locking it up, not bothering to go into the living room with everyone else. Instead, in his typical creeper fashion, he leaned against the open doorway and watched Stiles work.
Once he'd put the third serving of lasagna in, Peter smirked at him.
"You clean up well," he said, looking around the nearly clean kitchen.
Stiles wiped his hands against a paper towel, smiling, "I try."
He peeked out of the window that looked over the patio and into the front yard, where a much smaller garden was.
"Anything interesting happen today?" pointedly noticing a few flowers missing.
"Not really. Just stayed around the back garden. What about you? Did you guys find those hunters Derek was trailing?" Stiles asked, turning the stove top on again as he reheated the water for his tea, waiting for it to steam, but not to boil.
"No. Despite them being under-experienced and obvious in many aspects, they were very good at covering their tracks, even if the methods used were obvious. They poured ammonia over everything. I'm just glad I don't have to smell it anymore."
Stiles hummed absently, watching his water carefully.
"Should we keep looking for them?"
He didn't answer immediately. He took his water off of the stove before it boiled, the teapot steaming just enough. He poured it over his self-made rose teabag, smiling as the smell of roses began to float faintly into the air. He glanced up from his now filled cup, giving Peter a look.
"You can if you want to."
"Would it amount to anything?"
Stiles gave him a smile.
"I doubt it, honestly. They're probably long gone by now."
Peter sighed, hanging his head.
"Sometimes, I really wish I'd bitten you."
"But then I'd be angry at you, and you'd never hear of my hot fudge brownies."
"Good thing I didn't then."
Stiles laughed, finally shooing Peter away as well so he could wait for the lasagna in silence.
A few minutes later, once dinner was ready, everyone piled into the kitchen, Boyd taking the plates out of the cabinet to hand to everyone. After Derek and Stiles got their serving, they let Jackson get the next once, since it was his favorite. He mumbled a quiet thanks as he received it, Stiles nodding at him as he served the next person. Once everyone was served, they all settled down into the living room to watch the movie they'd decided on, being careful to not topple the plates or anything.
Stiles settled against Derek's side with his plate, sighing warmly as Derek nudged him back. He could feel his eyes on him and looked up. Derek gazed down at him knowingly, his eyebrow quirked. Stiles shrugged, though it wasn't nearly as apologetic as it should've been, and Derek huffed, relaxing more.
They'd talk about it later, just not right then. They were entirely too comfortable, the smell of rose buds and good food filling the house.