we are the choices we make (part 1)
The first major turning point changes. It's not as simple as a change in who was bitten. Maybe it would have been easier that way, if one of them was still human. As it is, neither Scott nor Stiles are human after being attacked by the alpha. With hunters and werewolves, battle lines are being drawn.
And Stiles and Scott are finding themselves on opposite sides.
[or: in which Stiles and Scott both get bitten, and Stiles picks the alpha's side.]
"Are you okay?" Scott asks Liam. The full moon is approaching again, and it's only Liam's second full moon. The Deadpool is over, and they're all, miraculously, still alive. The young teenager sits in a chair by the lake house, fingers twitching with nerves as they share and discuss and make sure they've cleaned up after themselves.
Liam nods, hesitantly. "I'm still… I still see the Berserkers but… I think that'll leave."
"Berserkers?" Scott and Liam turn around at Stiles' snort from the doorway. He has his arms crossed and as he leans sideways against the doorframe, his eyes flash the cold steel blue of a werewolf, unlike Liam's own golden or Scott's red, but so, so similar to Malia, Derek and Peter's own ice-blue. "What's so scary about them?" Stiles looks scornful.
Liam nervously ducks his head to the ground, "Nothing hurt them. Nothing… it just kept coming." They were still out there, and that's another constant threat that Liam must feel.
Stiles offers no words of comfort. He just sneers, "There are worse things to have in your head," he snaps, stepping backwards and away rather sharply.
"There's nothing wrong," Scott grabs one of Liam's hands, "There is nothing wrong with being scared of the Berserkers."
He receives a shaky nod, "What did Stiles mean? What did Stiles mean about worse things to have in your head?"
Scott glances up at the doorway where Stiles had lingered and his gaze drifted through to the table where Stiles and Malia now sat, Lydia occasionally making a comment or two. "We mentioned the nogitsune to you." he whispered, voice dropping, "About how it was in Stiles' head. I mean… it possessed Allison, but it used Stiles. It used him like some sort of puppet. And it… it chose Stiles… for a reason. He'd already… We've told you about Peter, right? About how he came back to life by haunting Lydia?"
"Yeah. You told Malia too… and then he turned out to be her father…"
"We don't trust Peter. Because he's killed people. He was an alpha for a bit, and he killed a lot of people. Derek killed Peter, but he came back, using Lydia. The way he used her to resurrect him… it was basically like rape. He was in her head, talking to her, telling her what to do."
Liam's eyes are pools of horror. "That's terrible. But what… what does that have to do with Stiles? I mean… he's your beta, isn't he? You bit him..." It's something nobody talks about, the pack dynamics between the rest of them. Despite the banshee, kitsune and werecoyote not being your typical pack, they just seem to fit, while the sole werewolf who was around just… didn't. Liam hasn't asked before. He just sort of went along with it. But now...
Scott shakes his head, "When Peter was still an alpha; he bit both me and Stiles. We were out in the woods; looking for a dead body and he… he attacked us. Turned us into werewolves."
"Oh." Liam frowns, "Okay."
"It's not," Scott laughs bitterly, "We ended up in different packs."
"Is that a bad thing?" Liam frowns, because Derek isn't exactly in Scott's pack, but he helps out all the time despite being an asshole. A really smug asshole.
"Not usually." Scott shakes his head, "But Peter was the alpha. Derek and I… we sided against what he was doing. The killing… the murders… but Stiles… he joined Peter's pack.
"Oh," Liam stares at him. "Did Stiles know…?"
"Yeah," Scott interrupts, "Stiles knew. Stiles agreed. Stiles helped." he tries not to remember the time Stiles leant over him, hands deep in his intestines as he tried to reassure his friend that everything was okay. "We killed Peter." he says, weakly, "Stiles' alpha. It left Stiles omega. Neither of us joined Derek's pack and Stiles just sort of…" he waves a hand.
"Is that why his eyes… you said blue eyes were the eyes of…"
"Yes." Scott says sharply. "Half of it was Stiles, deciding to join Peter. And Peter… he could help Stiles with the shift in a way we couldn't but… the rest of it… the rest of it was entirely Peter; worming his way into Stiles' head. Even after Peter died, Stiles still acted like he could hear him there… whispering… talking to him… there is a reason we didn't want to tell Malia about her father, and a reason the nogitsune took over Stiles' so easily. Peter broke him and afterwards…. we weren't the same… but he was still with me. Still there." He looks up to where Stiles sits next to Malia, explaining math to her. He'll hear every word Scott is saying. Scott knows, and a small bitter part of him doesn't care. "We're not the same though."
They never would be again.
This isn't the worst plan Stiles has come up with. It's definitely the most exciting, and should keep Scott 'nothing interesting ever happens in this town' McCall satisfied. It's a body. A dead body. It's disgusting and gruesome and suitably horror movie-esque enough to warrant them being out here, even if there is school tomorrow.
His friend tromps through the woods behind Stiles, complaining bitterly. Leaves crunch beneath his feet and his breath smokes in the air. The forest is damp with yesterday's rain, and there is just that edge of anticipation or excitement that may be entirely in Stiles' imagination, but it still allows him to walk with a spring in his step, just in front of Scott, leading the way.
"I wanted to get some extra rest before try outs," Scott whines, "C'mon dude, you know how important lacrosse is to me."
"Me too, buddy." Stiles lags behind half a step so that Scott can take the lead and he can fall into step behind him, reaching out one hand and patting Scott's shoulder comfortingly, "We'll make it off the bench this year as well, I promise you."
"We better!" Scott says, determined but doubtful, "I worked my ass off for this." He looks around, scanning the dark forest, while taking a puff of his inhaler.
Stiles pauses behind Scott, listening to the rasping breathing. He doesn't mind. He's spent the whole time he's known Scott having to slow down and wait for the asthmatic to catch up with him. It had been an odd balance, the hyperactive kid with wild plans and the asthmatic who had to take things slow, but it was a perfect one in Stiles' opinion. He wouldn't try to swap Scott's friendship for anything.
Scott flails slightly, breath puffing out in the cold January night. He looks cold in just a hoodie and jeans, hands shoved in his pockets and shivering slightly.
"We can go back," Stiles suggests, because they can. Scott's learnt though to just speak up when he wants something, and Stiles usually complies. "Hey, y'know, maybe you were right," he shivers himself, cold suddenly. "Wanna head baaa-" he walks into the back of Scott, and his hands find Scott's shoulders to steady himself. "What is it?" he tries to ask, but Scott's shoved his hand over Stiles' mouth and shoved him backwards, just as a flashlight sweeps across the forest.
Stiles' arms pinwheel backwards and his eyes widen because crap. That's the search team which will no doubt be led by his dad.
Scott presses himself to a tree, flattening himself down. "Uh Stiles?" he asks.
Stiles makes a muffled noise, trying to pull away. Scott realises his hand is still pressed to Stiles' mouth and pulls his hand away suddenly. "Definitely time to go?" Stiles offers up a half grin, ducking as another flashlight sweeps over the area. There is the bark of a dog and it startles him, "Come on!" he stage-whispers, throwing himself away from the search party and back into the forest.
He hears more than sees Scott take a wheeze of his inhaler before following. The dogs of the search party begin to bark and Stiles slows down half a pace to allow Scott to catch up.
Scott passes him and doesn't stop. Stiles glares at him back but speeds up running, feet pounding on the ground as he ducks through foliage. Branches claw at his clothing and the ground lurches away unexpectedly beneath him as a tree root wraps around his ankle.
He hears a sharp snap and then he's flying over and rolling along the damp ground. He hears Scott's cry of shock as he rolls over and over, earth sky and trees merging together as he crashes down the slope.
"Stiles!"
He blinks open his eyes. His body is bruised and tired, and he can barely see the faint silhouette of his friend standing on the bank above him. The flashlight lies on the ground nearby, broken.
"You okay?" Scott grabs onto a tree branch, trying to slide down towards him. "Answer me…"
"I'm alive." he sticks one hand in the air, "Go me!" His body hurts through and there is a throb from his ankle. "I think I've broken my ankle. Definitely sprained…" he tries to move it, "Potentially broken."
"Oh my god," Scott curses, and fumbles for something. "I dropped my inhaler," his voice drifts down to Stiles, "Damn, those things are worth like eighty bucks…" there is a sudden yelp and a crash, and suddenly the forest is alive around them.
Something falls on top of Stiles, scrambling legs and sharp hooves crashing down. He curls up, trying to keep his limbs from being trampled on. He sees wide panicked eyes that catch the moonlight, sharp horns and thundering feet as they leap over him and then as quickly as they appear they're gone.
"Oh deer," Stiles says, and grins smugly at his pun. Arms pushing off against the earth he sits up, scanning the darkness for Scott. "Did you hear that, Scotty? Oh deer, because there were deer and…" he stops talking unable to see his friend's shape anywhere. He moves his leg - his left one - and there is a twinge of pain. Wincing, he uses his right leg instead to stand lopsidedly, arms outstretched to try and maintain his balance. "Scott?" he calls.
"Up here…"
He looks back up the slope to the top of the bank where there is not even a fuzzy shape. "I can't see you," Stiles squints, "You okay?" he calls.
He's suddenly aware that the woods are silent. He can't even hear the barking of dogs in the distance. He can just hear his own rasping breath.
"No," Scott's voice is strangled and Stiles limps forwards, hands grabbing for roots on the bank to help him up. "No, Stiles, I think I found the other half of the body."
Stiles' pulse races, thudding in his chest. He squints upwards, but still can't see Scott. It's pitch black, with the exception of the little bit of moonlight trickling down through the trees. "Talk to me, dude," he says, moaning in pain as he manages another pace up the hill, "I can't see you and I need encouragement while I climb out of this ditch."
"It's… it's a girl," Scott chokes out, "Oh god… I should call your dad. We should so call your dad. We should…"
The silence is unnerving. Stiles needs something, anything to fill it. "What?" he asks, "You know how long we'll be grounded if our parents find out we're out here?" He waits. Scott is silent. "Scott? You there?"
This time when Scott talks, Stiles can actually place the black object as his friend, because it's the only still think in the forest. All the bushes and trees are rustling slightly. "Stiles." Scott's voice is hesitant, uncertain. It's fearful and trembles slightly. "Stiles, I think there's something else out there…"
And that's when Stiles hears the growl, and that's when he sees the fuzzy shape of his friend fall sideways, as if his legs have been yanked out from under him.
And Stiles grits his teeth, ignoring the pain and scrambles at the bank, clawing his way up. "Scott!" he calls out, because if there is a dead body, then naturally there must be a killer and why hadn't Stiles thought of that. "Scott!" the ground flattens and Stiles slides a little bit in the mud. He sees what must be Scott, limbs flying and a dark shape over him. There is a snarl, and Stiles is thinking mountain lion or rabid dog right up until he sees the humanoid shape sprawled over his friend. "Hey!" he shouts, stepping forwards, and that's when the world once again tips.
He's tripped over something, and he rolls over, looking up, straight into the dead eyes of a young woman.
He falls over backwards in his mad scramble to get away, but he can't help but see the dead gaze, the shocked way the face twists and the outstretched hands that end in long curving claws.
Her hands end in claws.
There is hot breath on the back of his neck and Stiles freezes. He hears his own heart racing. He hears Scott choking and gasping. He hears the rhythmic breathing as a shadow shifts over him to cover up the moonlight pouring down.
Slowly, Stiles' head turns. He gets the impression of red eyes, and has a moment for fear to overwhelm him completely, before the shape descends upon him. His hands come up to protect himself, and something sharp catches his arm and just tears. Stiles swears he can hear the flesh ripping.
He's going to die. He smells rotting breath and hears a low growl, but then suddenly there is nothing. The weight pinning him down is gone and his arm stings like hell but the thing is gone.
A dark shape looms over him and he flinches. "Dude," Scott shifts into view, pale faced and shaking. "Come on, we have to go, we have to run…"
"I can't…" Stiles only realises he's finding it hard to breath when he can't speak properly. He sucks in air, trying to calm his racing heart, and then Scott is there, tugging him up and moving. Stiles tries to keep up, but ends up half leaning on Scott. "What was that?" he wheezes, "Why'd it leave?"
"You think I know?" Scott's shaking too. "It went for my throat. I thought I was going to die!"
"It bit me," The fear is melting away, leaving only indignation and adrenaline, "It bit me."
"Yeah?" Scott laughs, "I think it tried to take a chunk out of my side. I feel like a chew toy."
"Maybe you didn't taste nice?" Stiles suggests as they limp along.
"Maybe," Scott frowns, "But it was almost like it didn't want me dead."
"Oh yeah?" Stiles snorts, "It seemed to want me dead pretty badly. That's was terrifying. Cool, but terrifying. Dude, promise me, next time I want to look for a dead body in the woods, you're saying 'no' okay?"
"Oh trust me," Scott complains as they finally arrive at Stiles' jeep. "I'm never listening to any of your ideas again."
"Ugh," Scott pulls up his top, showing off the impressive bandage to Stiles. "Do you think girls will like it?" he asks, and Stiles leans back to take in the side of the bandage.
"That thing was monstrous," he whistled.
"Could it have been a wolf?" Scott drops his top down.
"Nah," Stiles shakes his head, "No wolves in California for sixty years. That was just one verrry biiiig doooog- Hello Lydia!" he grinned stupidly, sentence trailing off as he spun around to the strawberry blonde that walked past, "You look… like you're going to ignore me again." His shoulders sagged and Scott patted his friend reassuringly.
"One day," he says, "You just have to go up there and talk to her. When she's not with Jackson."
"Are you scared of Jackson, Scott?" Stiles falls into line next to him as they headed into school. "Big scary, terrifying Jackson?" he sounds amused, but Scott can't tell with Stiles. It could be scorn easily.
"Shut up," Scott shoves Stiles' shoulder, and Stiles actually stumbles two metres down the corridor, rubbing at his arm. "Woah, dude, I didn't shove you that hard!"
"Yes you did!" Stiles protests, "You had like super strength."
"You're kidding me," Scott rolls his eyes, "This is like the time you tried to convince me you were psychic."
"What? No, no, would I lie to you? Don't answer that. And you nearly sent me careening into a freshman, you owe me, so much." Stiles rubs at his arm again, mouthing an over exaggerated 'ow'.
Scott snorts, "You nearly got me eaten by a wild dog. Consider us even, now and forever."
Stiles is already half way into their classroom. "Sure," he waves a hand, "You'll forget about that sooner or later." He calls over his shoulder.
"Whatever," Scott slips into the classroom, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen; pulling the syllabus towards him to look at.
A phone rings right in his ear and he jumps, looking around, startled.
"Mom, I'm not even at school yet. Seriously, stop calling."
Scott looks up, because wow, just wow, that person sounds beautiful. He hasn't even seen them. His head turns, gaze drifting around the classroom, but everyone has their heads down, making notes.
He should probably be doing that, but all he can hear is that person, talking.
"I'm late now, I would have gotten here on time if you'd just let me drive myself. And… oh crap, I've forgotten a pen. Who the hell forgets a pen? What? No, no, I'll be fine. Yes. Love you."
"Mr McCall," the teacher looks up, "What's your opinion?"
He blinks, "On what?" his head ducks slightly in embarrassment.
The teacher sighs, and she looks like she's about to snap out an answer when the door opens and Scott is right, she is as beautiful as her voice sounds. Her eyes are a soft brown and her hair curls around her shoulder. She smiles shyly at everyone, looking down in embarrassment as she tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.
The teacher examines a piece of paper, "Take a seat. This is Allison Argent," she says to everyone, and Scott turns as Allison slips past. She sinks into a seat right behind him and digs into her bag for paper. She chews on her lip and Scott hurries to grab his pen and offer it to her.
She blinks, focussing first on the pen, then on him, smiling at her. "Thanks," she mouths, taking it and her shoulders slump slightly in relief. Scott wants to keep staring at her, but instead he turns back to his desk, grinning at his non-existent notes in joy.
"You look totally smitten," Stiles stops besides him as Scott leans against his locker.
"Someone please tell me how she's been here all of five minutes and is already part of Lydia's clique." One of the few people who actually bother to talk to them slam their locker closed as they turn around to talk to Stiles.
Stiles however flinches, hands flying to his ears and wincing. "Yee-owwch," he shakes his head, "Don't do that right in my ear."
"She is so hot," Scott admits, and he thinks they're probably having separate conversations, and Scott's only half paying attention because he's listening as Jackson and Lydia play nice with the new girl.
"Wha-" Stiles is clutching his head, and for a moment Scott's attention wavers. Lydia grabs Allison's hand and tugs her away, vanishing into the throng of students. "Stop shouting," Stiles clenches his eyes closed.
"Are you okay?" Scott turns to examine his friend, who looks like the world is exploding around him.
Stiles shakes his head, and squints at Scott, "No?" he asks, and it's more like a question, "No, I mean… I've just got this most awful migraine that literally just hit out of nowhere and everything is so loud…"
"You don't look so good," Scott frowns, "You need to go to the nurse's office?"
"But dude," Stiles' eyes widened, "There's lacrosse tryouts…" a locker slams down the hallway and Stiles jumps half a mile.
"He's right," the girl who had been talking to Stiles says, "You really don't look so good. Do you have a fever?"
Stiles doesn't answer, his eyes are drifting in and out of focus.
"Stiles?" Scott grabs his arm and shakes, "Stiles, are you okay?"
His best friend startles again, wrinkling his nose, "Oh second thoughts, I should probably head home."
"Are you okay driving?" the girl asks, as Stiles grabs his bag and - still clutching his ears - stumbles towards the door outside, "Dude, you look like you're about to pass out."
"m'not going to pass out."
Scott takes a couple of steps after his friend, "I can drive you back," he offers.
"No way. You. Lacrosse. You woo that girl, Scottie," Stiles blinks several times in rapid succession, "I'm going to go and die at home." Stiles waves a hand at Scott when he attempted to follow after him. "Go." He insists, pausing only to moan and shake his head as if there was a fly buzzing around his head, "God, why is everything so damn loud?"
Scott's smile falls as he watches Stiles stumble away, "I'll tell Coach where you are!" he calls.
Stiles is mumbling, half-way down the stairs to the car park, "Like it matters, I'm gonna be benched anyway."
"Dude," Scott sighs, shaking his head, "We were totally going to be first line this year."
Stiles snorts.
It occurs to Scott only later that they should not have been able to hear each other from over fifty metres away.
Stiles trips into his jeep and slams the door shut on the drumming noise in his head. It muffles it slightly, and he squeezes his eyes closed.
And what the hell is that smell? He wrinkles his nose, before burying his head into his arm that still smells faintly of Scott.
How does he even know what Scott smells like? Stiles has no clue, and he just lets his head slide down until his forehead rests on his arm. There is the soft padding of a bandage underneath, but it doesn't hurt.
A bell rings in the school building and he flinches, the sound reverberating in his head. There are a thousand voice whispering and chatting and a loud drumming that must be his head as it threatens to explode.
He can't focus either. He's meant to be driving home, isn't he? He shouldn't be driving in the first place because he bust up his leg last night, and it's not broken, but he had an ice pack on it for an hour and it went numb and hasn't hurt since. He hasn't looked at it properly, and isn't keen to examine the mess of bruises there.
Stiles debates over calling his dad to pick him up, or waiting for Scott to finish tryouts. Another wave of loud-noise-talking-who'sthat-heyyouwannameetupfriday-somuchhomework decides it for him and he just wants to get out.
Stiles isn't sure how he manages to get home in one piece. The multiple voices fade as he heads away from school, and that's only one relief because he should probably not be driving like this. Especially not after he misses the second green traffic light in two minutes because he's too busy listening to the creak and jars of his jeep, trying to figure out what parts aren't working.
A car horn behind him gets him into gear and moving again, and by the time he gets home he just wants it to go away. The noise, the sounds, the smells…
He leaves his jeep parked haphazardly across the driveway. His dad is going to chew him out for it later, but Stiles doesn't care. He inside and in his room before he realises, comforting scents around him, swathing him in a blanket of safety.
There's still a pounding in his head, and the lights are too bright and everything is just too much.
Stiles closes his eyes, curls into a ball and waits for it all to go away.
Scott is bouncing with energy, hopping up and down on the balls of his feet as Coach directs them to do laps around the field. "And McCall!" he shouts, before Scott can even move, "You have another asthma attack and you're benched for the rest of the season!"
"But Coach!" Scott whines, "You can't do that!"
Finstock waves his whistle around emphatically, "Your mother is a scary woman," he glares, "I let you die and she's not going to let me have children! Understood!"
"Yes, Coach."
"Good. Now try and catch up with those idiots. Greenberg! I told you to run! Run like your non-existent girlfriends are on your heels!"
Scott spins around, jogging past where Greenberg is tying up tie up his shoe laces, and breaking into a sprint towards the other lacrosse players.
He hopes Stiles is okay, he thinks, as his feet pound on the dirt. He reaches the stragglers of the main group, waiting for his lungs to begin to close up at the expectant feeling of his asthma.
His lungs feel fine. Great even, and he sucks in clean air and runs faster.
Next to him, Danny glances sideways with a frown, "Are you on steroids?" he asks, as for a moment they run side by side.
"Just got a good night's sleep," Scott says, even though that's a lie and there is a bite mark in his side. Which funnily enough, it doesn't even hurt. He speeds up, leaving Danny behind and skidding to a stop next to Finstock. "Hey!" he says, not even breathing heavily, "So where do you want me for practise?"
Coach has his mouth open. He closes it, and turns to glare as Jackson arrives, panting. "A severe asthmatic made it before you losers! Hurry it up!" he screams helpfully. "If that's all you have to offer then first line will have to be filled with my grandmother's neighbors! And let me tell you something; my grandmother's dead."
"What the hell, McCall?" Jackson is staring at him, and Scott just grins back. In the stands he spots Allison, and she smiles at him.
"Who is that?" she asks Lydia. Lydia turns, focussing on him.
"I don't know who that is," she says, and wow, Stiles is going to be so disappointed that Lydia doesn't even know their names.
"McCall!" Coach shouts, "I want you in goal!" he thrusts a stick at Scott, "It raises moral if they can score now and again." He confides in Scott with a low voice.
Scott feels like he's on an adrenaline high, so he just nods and bounces to the goal, just in time to get hit in the head by a lacrosse ball.
"That's what I'm talking about!" Coach shouts out encouragement, "Go! Next person."
He blows his whistle and another ball hurtles towards Scott. He ducks his stick a bit and waits. And waits.
Coach is staring at him with an open mouth. Scott blinks because why - oh. He stares at the lacrosse ball sitting in his net.
"He's good," he hears Allison say as if she was right next to him.
"Really good."
He chucks the lacrosse ball back to Coach and waits for the next one. Again he watches the throw, spins his stick around and blinks. He's caught it again. Time just seems to slow and he can move easily and just catch it. It seems almost too easy, now that he doesn't have to catch his breath all the time, doesn't have to fumble for his stick and concentrate on getting air to his lungs.
It's almost as if there is too much time as he catches another shot and then catches up to see Jackson glare at him. In the stands Lydia cheers and Allison jumps up to. Scott breaks out into a smile.
Coach is still looking at him dumbfounded.
Scott stops his bike off at the Stilinski household before work. He looks up at the large, empty house. The Sheriff is probably working, and judging by the jeep parked haphazardly across the driveway Stiles is home.
He rings the doorbell and waits a little bit before shouting, "Stiles! You in?"
There is a muffled thump from upstairs and Scott waits patiently.
It seems to take Stiles agonisingly long to make his way downstairs and when, after five minutes, there are no more noises, Scott heads around the side of the house. If Stiles can climb up his balcony and roof, then so can Scott.
It's almost ridiculously easy to hoist himself up onto the slate patio roof and walk along to Stiles' window. The window itself is slammed closed, but not locked, so Scott slips his nails under and inches it open before ducking down and clambering in.
Stiles' room is dark, and Scott has a brief and losing battle with the drawn curtains. The door is shut and clothes are wedged by the gap in the door.
There is a lump on the bed that may or may not be Stiles, because it keeps shaking and letting out the occasional moan. "Stiles?" Scott asks, reaching out one hand towards what he hopes is Stiles' shoulder and shakes gently.
"Wha?" he hears in reply, and he pries away the bed sheets from Stiles' head. His friend looks terrible, pale skinned and dark eyed. Stiles' hair is a mess, and for a short buzzcut that's saying something. Stiles clutches a pillow over his head, blinking blearily at Scott. "Scott?" he asks, eyes flitting in and out of focus and his nose wrinkling. "You stink." He says, and then proceeds to bury his nose in his duvet.
"Thanks," Scott sighs, sitting down next to his friend, "How are you feeling?"
"Terrible." Stiles mumbles, "I can't focus on anything."
"I'm going to look for my inhaler in the woods," Scott says, "I was going to see if you want to come but…"
Stiles shakes his head, clenching his eyes closed. "It's too loud," he mumbles. "Your heart's too loud. It's like a drum."
Scott pauses, and he focusses in on the sound of his heartbeat. It's louder than usual, but not that loud. "Wow," he says instead, "You're really sick, aren't you?"
The bed sheets move as Stiles raises his head and blinks at Scott. "You just cycled here. You're sweaty, smell like the locker rooms, wood, pencil lead and a leaked pen, since you gave the new girl your good one. You've stepped in chewing gum in the last two hours and had some crappy cafeteria food that you barely ate because you still smell hungry."
Scott stares, and he thinks he feels his mouth drop open, "I thought you went home before third period?" he is baffled, and Stiles just looks fed up.
"I did. Because everything was so loud. Everyone was talking, the teachers and their lectures and the students all chatting about dates and the formal and lacrosse and there were too many smells and everything was too bright and…" Stiles moans again, "Everything's spinning," he murmurs, and his head falls back into the blanket pile. This time Scott doesn't think he's going to manage to rescue his friend.
"You stay here and sleep off whatever bug this is," Scott pats the pile of blankets. "I'm just going to go find my inhaler. If you find my dead body ripped up in the woods, look after my mom, will you?"
It's a credit to how out of it Stiles is that he doesn't even respond. Scott makes for the window, leaving it slightly open because it's not good to be locked in like Stiles has done. Fresh air does a sick person good.
She's crying. She can feel her eyes watering and her hands are shaking as she pulls the car to a stop, wrenching the door open and stumbling out into the rain.
God, she's such an idiot. She looked away from the road for one second and…
She knocks on the door. The sign says closed but there are lights on and please, someone has to be here.
"I didn't see it!" she blurts out as soon as the door opens, "I swear, I didn't see it, it came out of nowhere." No wonder her parents didn't let her drive herself to school, she's a mess.
"Hit what?" and she looks up at brown eyes and it's the boy from earlier, the one who offered her a pen and has been smiling at her all day like she's the best thing that happened to the world.
"It's a dog, and I looked away for one second and I'm sorry, god…"
"Hey, hey, it's okay! Do you know where you hit it so I can send animal control?"
"No, I mean… yes, I know where I hit it, but it's…"
"It's where?"
"It's in my car." Oh god, was she not meant to take it? Was she meant to leave it there? She feels bad enough about hitting it, and now she might have kidnapped it? That's it. First week in new town and Allison had already managed to kidnap a dog.
The boy smiles at her, "Okay, that's fine. I'll go bring it in and I can look at it."
His tone is calm and steady and she nods, wet hair clinging to her face. She wraps her arms around herself as she leads him to where the car is parked, crossing over two parking spaces messily and the door still open. He closes the door for her as she opens the boot, flinching away at the growling.
"It's okay," the boy says, "It's just scared," and he reaches out a hand towards the growling dog.
She's half expecting it to bite him, but instead it whimpers and is silent, letting his hand rub through the fur.
"Thank you," she breathes, as the boy carries the dog in and puts her - it's a she apparently - on the table. The dog lies down there limply as Scott - that's his name, Scott - runs his hands over her.
"I think her leg is broken," he says, "I've seen my boss fix this - I can get a splint and a painkiller." He turns just as she shivers. "I have a shirt in my bag," he offers.
Allison shakes her head, embarrassed, "I don't want to trouble you," she protests, fully prepared to freeze her way home, but Scott is already turning, pulling out a thin sweatshirt and passing it to her. She gratefully accepts it and slips away to change as Scott begins to bandage the dog's leg.
"I feel really stupid," she admits. "I was crying and acting like a girly girl, and I'm not a girly girl." She runs a hand through her wet hair, untangling knots.
"Oh I'd freak out too," Scott glances at her, and just that makes her smile, "And not a manly freak out, a girly sobbing heart-wrenching mess, that's me." He grins, and she laughs.
The dog whines and looks over to her, and it's almost like the dog is giving her a knowing stare vibe. Allison glances up at Scott, and she's so happy, and god, she had not planned on a boyfriend. Not like this. Not this person who just by looking at her made her feel lit up inside.
She sinks her hand into the dog's fur against her better judgement, and the dog just lies there, and Scott's still smiling at her, still making her feel like a warm bubble of goo.
She's totally pathetic. She lied; she's not tough at all.
She is the most girly girl ever and she thinks she might be in love.
Scott goes to sleep thinking about Allison, and he wakes up in the woods.
Cold, damp leaves dig into his back and he's startled into full reality and full confusion. He looks around, and pulls himself up and stands, peering out from the rocky overhang he's lying under. He and Stiles used to play there as kids, and now he's there, half-naked, when he should be in his bed.
It's cold, but Scott doesn't really feel it as he stands, making his way hesitantly through the trees.
A twig cracks to one side and he pauses, turning with a frown. There is a shape through the trees, and as he steps forwards it moves with him, uncurling into a lanky, twisted shape. It looks almost like a dog, but the limbs are shaped weirdly.
He steps forwards and the thing lets out a growl, matching the step.
And Scott's heart starts racing, and he remembers teeth and claws and fur and the shadow in the distance snarls.
Ah. Crap.
He begins walking, but for each step it matches him, and his pace speeds up until he's running, breath heavy as he tries to get away. It bursts into a run, strange limbs moving to keep up at an easy lope and so Scott changes direction just slightly and throws himself over the fence and into deep water.
He chokes, splutters and tries to tread water. The trees wave around his head, and there's a white bricked house and…
Scott blinks, spitting water out of his mouth as he observes a man watering plants, hose hanging loosely in his hands as he stares at Scott, open-mouthed.
"Morning," Scott splutters.
And if wasn't awake before, then he definitely is now.
"I woke up half-naked in the woods."
"Wow," Stiles blinks at him through blurry eyes, "That beats the top of my list of 'weirdest shit I have ever done' and believe me, you don't want to know what's at the top of my list."
Scott peers at his friend, "Are you sure you should be at school? You feeling better?" He ducks his head to check Harris isn't looking at them, and then looks back to see Stiles is glaring with determination at the chemistry board.
"I will be," he mumbles, pulling a small containing out of his pocket, unscrewing it and downing the contents. Scott snatches it out of Stiles' hands, and Stiles freezes mid-swallow, cheeks bulging.
"How many did you take?" Scott hisses, "Dude, no overdosing!"
Stiles swallows, "It's not. I took my usual but it was like eating chalk. I think I need a new medication because that…" his finger points viciously at the bottle in Scott's hands, "That is doing shit. I just swallowed about eleven tablets and I'm pretty sure that much Adderall should kill you, and I'm pretty sure I researched it once, but I can't think because everyone's breathing too loudly and their hearts are like thump thump thump in my head…" Stiles groans, clutching his head in his hands.
"I found my inhaler," Scott informs him, "This guy turfed me off his property with it. Also, I've got a date with Allison."
Stiles isn't listening, his eyes are drifting in and out of focus.
"Stiles," Scott hisses.
He jerks, gaze jumping to Scott's face.
"Wow," Scott breathes, "It's like your medication isn't working at all." He peers at the bottle in his hands.
"Lydia's perfume smells horrible," Stiles wrinkles his nose, "I never noticed before, but it's like… really fake."
Scott glances around, "Lydia isn't even in here?" he asks, frowning, "Class hasn't started yet."
Stiles is still blinking, train of thought going somewhere Scott's can't follow. "Wait… dude on preserve?"
"He said it was private property," Scott pointed out, clicking his fingers in front of Stiles' face, "Pay attention. "Allison is going to the party with me Friday."
"That's Hale property," Stiles says, obstinately. "But they all burned to death in a fire six years ago. Except two kids who were at school." He pauses, "Fire was at night. Some weird nightly school event. Eight bodies. The uncle got out but is in a coma. Laura and Derek weren't there. Younger sister missing. One was found cut up in the woods."
Scott paused, "Cut up?" he asked.
"Yeah," Stiles nods his head, "Wait, so how did lacrosse go?"
"Can you focus?" Scott snaps, frustrated.
Stiles winces, "God, don't shout. Just…" he shakes his head.
"It's elimination today," Scott adds, more quietly, "You going to try?"
Stiles winces, "Can I claim sick?"
As it turns out, Stiles can claim sick. All he has to do was stand there, gaze drifting in and out of focus as he attempted to explain to coach why he wasn't around yesterday and that he'd love to play but did you know that the principal listens to classical music? Really loudly as well, and his secretary would complain but she has a crush on him as evidenced by the pheromones and the box of chocolates she's already got wrapped up in her desk for Valentine's Day, but they are melting because they are too near the radiator.
Coach waves a hand, "Okay, okay, shut up. Here." He shoves papers at Stiles, "You not playing so do something useful and help me out. You're my personal assistant."
Stiles staggers backwards, trying not to drop anything. "I didn't sign up for this," he protests, eyes darting over the paper about strategies and the various people who can play which position, "And Coach, if you don't make Danny goalie that's a crime."
He gets a pen in the face for his troubles. "Make a note of people I say make first line. Don't let me go over the allotted number of slots."
Stiles sticks the pen in his mouth and then spits it out, because it tastes like smoke and mint and saliva. He hadn't even known saliva had a taste, but apparently it does.
He dumps everything on the bench next to number 14 who is sitting there. "Dude," Stiles complains, sorting stuff into piles, "You not playing?" it's a stupid question, because the kid just stinks of bruises and hurt, "Or you hurt too?" Stiles pulls a face as plops down besides the kid, listening to Lydia's heartbeat as she and Allison slip into the stands.
He examines the papers, and fishes in his pocket for his medication. He's going to have to get more at this rate, and he downs the last of them, not counting how many tablets he's swallowed.
"Is that…?"
He turns to the kid, who stops when he stares. "No," he answers, "It's probably not healthy, but I think my pills have been swapped out for something else because this?" he waves the bottle about, "This is doing nothing." He flicks it away, and it lands neatly in Scott's lacrosse net.
"Dude," Scott complains, and he throws it back, and Stiles catches the bottle neatly in one hand. He stares, because there is no way his reflexes are that good.
"Wow," Number 14 looks impressed. "Why aren't you playing?"
Stiles shrugs, and only succeeds in sending paper flying everywhere. "Because I can't focus and I have this killer migraine that hit yesterday and hasn't gone away. Also I'm ill, because all my senses are out of whack and I can't focus because my stupid Adderall isn't working." He drops the bottle into his bag.
14 looks at him as if he's considering how infectious Stiles' disease might be. Stiles finally remembers his name, and he pats the kid on one shoulder, noting the flinch and then shoves papers at him.
"Don't worry, I'm not rabid." He teases, frowning because hey - that might be a possibility but right now… "Help me organise, Isaac," he asks, "Because I'm currently debating how much my life is worth in telling Lydia to change her perfume and also, did you know they found wolf hairs on that body in the woods? Well… half a body, I tripped over the other half and she had freaking claws…"
"Okay," Isaac ducks his head, "Just… Stilinski, Stiles… just… stop talking? Maybe…" He was a shy thing, Stiles thought, listening to the beat beat beat of the wet, thumping heartbeat.
"Sure," he said, distractedly. "Pen?" he held out the foul tasting piece of plastic and Isaac took it, angling his body as he began to give Stiles some of the paper that had ended up all over the bench to sort through.
Try as he might Stiles can't shake the thought. His brain keeps cycling back to that one comment he had made to Isaac, and then in one fit of distraction he's lost to the research.
Dogs could transfer any number of diseases through their saliva, but there were only a limited number that could pass to humans. Then there was that whole idea of biting, what with vampires and werewolves and the way people used to get infected and blame it on the supernatural. There's a possibility and Stiles delves deeper looking at different diseases.
"Okay, so what if the dog was rabid?" Stiles poses his theory to Scott when his friend finally stops talking about lacrosse. "And it had rabies or some horrible dog disease that is killing us slowly, sending our senses out of whack before we die?"
Scott looks apprehensive. He pulls his top up, examining the bite at his side beneath its bandage, "I don't know, man. I mean… it doesn't even hurt anymore."
Stiles lunges for it, "Let's see." And Scott pulls away. Stiles' fingers catch in the material and with a rip it comes away in Stiles' fingers. Scott looks like he's about to protest, but something in Stiles' face must stop him because he looks down at the patch of skin beneath the bite.
Scott swears.
"I know," Stiles blinks, and the skin is still smooth, unblemished, "Well that healed fast."
"Really fast." Scott whispers, "I had half my side missing the other night and now it's as if I was never even bitten."
Stiles nods his head slowly, "New idea. Someone genetically engineered a virus that this dog transmitted to us and it gives us super senses."
"That's basically the plot of spider man." Scott points out, "Except it's like dog man. Or wolf man."
"There are no wolves in California," Stiles corrects, irritably. He's barely slept at all since crawling into bed after the incident in the woods. That's two days without sleep. No sleep for Stiles, just jumping at every single creak and whisper.
"Yeah, but what sort of dog looks like that?" Scott asks, doubtfully, and he grabs a piece of paper, trying to sketch some lanky looking thing with large legs that twist underneath it and it looks almost like a human in imitation of an animal. "That's what I saw this morning, I swear. And it didn't look like any breed of dog I've ever seen."
Stiles grabs the piece of paper, stares at it for a few seconds and then tears it up, "That's wolfman you idiot. You just drew a crappy werewolf drawing. We got bitten by a werewolf." He proposes, "And now we're werewolves too. Awwoo."
"When did you last sleep?"
"Not since before I decided it was a good idea to look for a dead body. Have you any idea how loud the water in the pipes can be when you're trying to sleep. And I can hear my neighbours having sex."
Scott pulls a face, "I didn't need to know that. I really didn't need to know that."
Stiles sighs, running a hand over his hair, "Maybe we should see your mom?"
"What? And tell her we were out in the woods at night?! Are you mad?!" Scott protests, "Dude, no. Look, whatever it is - we're not dying, okay? It's nothing bad, so we just leave it. It should go away, right? It's just shock or hyper awareness because we got attacked and almost mauled to death by a rabid dog."
Stiles sighs, "You're right." He agrees, because after the body incident he's decided listening to Scott was probably for the best.
It's only when he's home already and trying to find something healthy for his dad to eat that he looks up and notices the moon in the sky. Waxing gibbous, he thinks, nearly full. Tomorrow.
And that's also when he remembers the body, the girl cut in half and the way her hands had ended in claws.
He frowns, and he leaves dinner in the oven to grab his laptop and open it. He listens to the hum of the fan and click of electronics as it processes his search requests, sending whole webpages to the printer. Half-way through he stops because he can smell the dinner is cooked, even from his room, and he goes downstairs still in a daze to take it out, dish up some for him and the rest to be covered over for his dad and left on the tablet along with a carefully chopped salad.
Stiles cuts his finger with the chopping knife and winces, watching the bright red blood swell up. The smell is tangy and it makes his stomach swirl and for some reason he is overcome by an instinct to lick it up.
He doesn't get the chance. He blinks and before his eyes the blood is drawn back into the cut as the skin melds back together.
He blinks. It's unblemished, perfect. Stiles rubs his thumb over the finger, but there's nothing wrong with it.
Feeling reckless and impulsive because his medication hasn't worked in three days he grips the knife and slices it across the back of his palm.
He instantly regrets it. It hurts; smarts and stings and he yelps, dropping the knife. He wants to dab at it, and he does so and then flinches back because - ow. He grabs for a cloth but he's still reaching out when the skin begins to knit together.
Oh, he thinks, stupidly. Well that's new.
Back upstairs there is a pile of paper flowing out his printer about Lycaon and Werewolves and the Beast of Gévaudan and Wolf Packs and Stiles thinks he and Scott are so, so screwed.
The next morning Stiles wakes blearily and there is dirt under his fingernails and there are rips in his sheets. He doesn't remember how they got there, knows how, but doesn't remember…
Has he told Scott yet? He's not even sure about that, and he needs to call Scott…
Stiles is half-way out of bed when the sounds hit him. He can hear the electricity humming from where the power to his computer is still turned on. There is a whine of the light bulb above him and a gurgling of water in the pipes. It drips and trickles and it echoes along the houses nearby. Downstairs he hears the message tone of his dad's phone signalling he's received a text and his dad will probably miss it because he never checks his phone and it's on silent anyway.
Then there are the smells. Stiles can smell not only the food his dad is cooking, but the bacon roasting five houses down. There is a crash of the frying pan and the squeak of shoes on linoleum. A dog barks and its claws scratch on woodwork and a door creaks. Every single thump is audible to Stiles' ears and it pounds down on him all at once.
He flicks his light off, and draws the curtains, closes the window. It doesn't even muffle the sounds and Stiles finds himself sinking back into bed, pulling on his favourite hoodie and tugging the hood up and over his ears.
Go away, he murmurs in his head, Go away.
He just wants it to "Shut up," he mouths, "Make it stop make it stop Make It STOP!"
He's not aware he's shouting until the door opens and his dad is looking in, and Stiles can't see that but he knows from the scent and the sound and the rush of air whistling through the doorway. "Stiles?" his dad asks, and he's moving forwards to grab Stiles' hands, tugging them down from where they are clenched over his ears. "Stiles!" he says again, sharply, and Stiles relaxes, suddenly aware that he's curled his nails so hard into his own palm that he's drawn blood.
They'll heal, he thinks stupidly.
"Are you okay?" his dad asks, concerned as Stiles blinks up at him in the gloom. It's near pitch black, but Stiles can see perfectly. "You're not sick again, are you? You didn't eat dinner last night."
He didn't? Stiles remembers serving himself some, but then he got distracted by the blood and the-the-
His head swims and echoes with noise. He moans, head in his pillow. It's like there's a voice, whispering in his ear, tugging him and pulling him closer and Stiles shudders, skin crawling.
"Oh, son…" the Sheriff had slipped in without Stiles noticing. "I'll call work, ask for the day off."
Stiles half-unburies himself from the pillow, "You can't do that," he says, but his throat is dry so it comes out sounding like 'Y'cn't d'tt."
"My son is sick," the Sheriff says, "This is the second day you've spent off school in three days. I'm staying at home in case this is something serious."
Yeah, Stiles wants to say, Lycanthropy, and no matter what he tries he can't turn the super senses off. But he's distracted listening to the pounding beat of his dad's heart and he tastes blood and realises he's probably bitten his lip.
Or not, he thinks, running his tongue over his teeth. He has fangs. The full moon hasn't even risen yet and already Stiles is freaking out.
"I'll get you some water," he dad pulls away and Stiles falls back limply, hearing the thud thud thud of the wet heart and the pulse of blood and in his head something encourages him to lunge and kill kill kill and Stiles wonders where the hell he was last night.
He needs to tell Scott, he thinks, he needs to tell Scott.
He makes a grab for his phone and dials Scott.
His friend picks up. "We're werewolves," Stiles spits out, and that probably wasn't the best opening line.
"Dude, what?"
"We're…" the phone is too loud next to Stiles' ears, "Werewolves. Bitten by a werewolf. S'only explanation and oh god make it stop." He clenches his eyes closed as a car roars by outside but it is in his head and screaming and so so loud and…
"Are you sick again?" Scott asks, worried, "Need me to come over?"
Tonight was the full moon and something was happening but Stiles couldn't think, remember, "No," he grounds out, because it's bad enough having one hot wet beating heart nearby, he couldn't deal with another. He doesn't want to hurt anyone. "No." Stiles shakes his head.
"Okay, I'll tell the teachers. See you later, dude." And Scott hangs up. The phone squeaks in his hand and Stiles drops it, clenching his eyes closed.
There is the sound of running water and creak thump pad as his dad makes his way upstairs. Stiles listens to the thud thud thud and the soft breathing and his fingers twitch and he breathes out with him, matching his heart rate.
That's almost calming, and he feels calm enough to look up when he dad enters to drop off the water. "You rest," his dad says, "Sleep. You look terrible."
"Thks," Stiles slurs as the door closes, and sips at the water. It tastes of minerals and fluorine - they put that in the water to help teeth - and little gritty iron bits that probably shouldn't be in there and make the whole thing taste metallic on his tongue. He drinks it though because his throat is dry as if he's been howling all night.
Maybe he has, he thinks, he just has more sense than Scott to avoid staying out there until the next morning.
Downstairs the television has turned on and his dad is watching it. Stiles hears the crackle as the channel changes and his dad's breathing eases. He himself lie back, room dark and head under the blankets, listening to his dad's breathing. The heart makes him think of food and blood and hunger and so he listens to the rush of air and matches his breaths, the same way he did when he was having a panic attack.
There is a soft grumble and Stiles realises his dad's fallen asleep, snoring even though he'd deny it emphatically afterwards.
Stiles closes his eyes and listens to the rumble, feeling it reverberate in his own chest, and he falls asleep finally listening to the sound of his dad's snores downstairs.
There's a beta.
It's one thing Derek is aware of. He'd met the kid in the woods, the idiot looking for his inhaler. Derek tossed it at him and stalked away. The damn medicine smelt like female and the teenager who definitely no longer had asthma. His breathing was clear and easy, and his scent stunk of wolf.
Newly turned, Derek realises. And it hadn't been Laura.
Laura was dead. Her body was ripped in half and left in the woods to be found by police men and teenage boys.
There was a new alpha in town.
Derek feels a pang of regret. He should have gone with Laura, when she had insisted on going back to Beacon Hills. But the place held memories and he had wanted to stay away. She hadn't forced him, not the way he had forced himself when she didn't check in.
He found her Camaro, parked outside her motel. Laura herself wasn't there.
Laura herself was dead.
Derek had buried half of her body already, given it the honour his family proclaimed. He was grief stricken, and he didn't know what else to do. There was no one else to turn to and all his family were now either dead or as good as.
Derek is alone. Completely and utterly alone.
But there is a new beta in town and an alpha and Derek will avenge his sister. If he needs to do so by helping the teenager and avoiding the hunters in town then so be it, he can manage that.
He lurks in the shadows of the house on the edge of the preserve, scenting the air. The wolf is here, he can smell the kid. It doesn't take long before he spots him in the crowd of bodies.
The kid has no idea. He's at a party of all things, dancing with a girl. An Argent, even, and Derek wants to laugh at the irony. The full moon blazes and if Scott isn't feeling it now he will be soon.
Derek can feel it, even after all these years. It crawls up his spine and makes him want to run screaming. He remembers endless nights with the moon blazing full struggling not to give into the overwhelming lust for the hunt.
In the throng of bodies a heartbeat speeds up and Derek waits. He listens to staggered footsteps and muttered apologies as the teenager clumsily exits. At least he's got the sense to get away from people, but it might not be enough. Derek slips into the party and pushes his way through the drunken teenagers. Nobody notices him, and by the time he's fought his way to the front there is a car door slamming.
The engine revs and the girl stops, staring at the car that races away. Allison, Derek thinks her name is. He steps up to her and she turns and jumps, startled to find him right behind her.
"Sorry," he smiles, trying to reassure her, "I just… Scott's gone off, huh?"
She nods, chewing on her lip, "He just left… I hope he's okay."
Derek nods, as if he's genuinely Scott's friend, "Hey, he asked if I could give you a lift home," his hand angles towards where the car is parked. "Do you need a ride?"
"I…" she opens her mouth and looks around, but she's new and in a party of veritable strangers, "Thank you," she nods, "That'd be great. I don't really know anyone…" she glances around, looking lost.
"I'm Derek," he introduces himself, and then heads over to his car, "Here, let me take that," he says, reaching out for where her jacket is held loosely in one hand.
"Thanks," she says, as he unlocks it and she climbs into the passenger seat, "Were you at the party? I don't think I saw you?"
Thank god the Argent house is close, Derek thinks, he can't keep making small talk for long. "Scott called." He says with a shrug, "I live nearby."
"Oh, okay." Allison nods, as if that is the most interesting thing in the world and angles her head to look out the window. Her jacket sits tucked onto the back seat, and Derek has no intention of giving it back. At least not yet. This girl is like a scent beacon for the newly turned wolf and so when Scott finally gives into the moon's pull, he'll need everything he can use to pin the beta down.
He smiles as he pulls up the car outside the Argent house, ducking his head so as not to be seen by Victoria who is already at the door, waiting for her daughter. Derek considers how easy it would be to reach out and snag claws through her heart.
But she slips out of the car with a "thanks" and is gone, and Derek is left with a churning stomach as he shifts the car into gear and takes off for the preserve.
The woods are dark when he gets there. He's expecting the hunters to arrive later, and that's why he needs to find Scott, quickly.
He drapes the jacket over a tree branch and slips into the shadows to wait.
As predicted Scott comes barrelling out of the dark, eyes blazing yellow and snarling. He skids to a halt, staring at the jacket then whirling around as if he expects to see Allison standing there. He spins around in a whole circle and Derek steps forwards.
"Where is she?" Scott snarls at him, single-minded and one raging ball of anger and full moon blazing in his veins.
"Safe." Derek steps down towards Scott, "From you."
The jacket had been such good bait, the kid didn't even realise it was bait and the girl wasn't here. Love-addled, Derek realises, and that might be a problem. He throws himself through the leaf litter, trying to pin Scott down. The beta's loud and wolfed out, instinct ruling him. Teenagers have a higher chance of surviving the bite, but they also have a harder time learning control. Derek remembers his own problems with that and he's not going to be much help at teaching Scott. Peter taught him, and Peter is comatose.
So Derek uses his own methods. He attacks Scott and lets the beta attack him, shouting angrily. It's not the best method, but it works, right up until the hunters show up.
He hears the arrow whistling through the trees and backs off, ducking on instinct. Scott doesn't though and it slices cleanly through his arms and pins him to the tree. It's a good shot, Derek notes, as he darts forwards to yank out the arrow.
"Run!" he shouts and they both leg it. The pain brings Scott back to humanity, and the darkness and forest helps them stay out of sight from the hunters. They know Derek already, but Scott should remain anonymous.
At least for now.
"Who was that?" Scott bends over, gasping.
"Hunters," Derek says darkly, "This is why you can't do this on your own. You need help."
"From you?" Scott looks disgusted.
Derek grabs Scott's shoulders, forcing the teen to look at him, "Scott, we're brothers now." He says, and it's true, because Scott's the only one he has now, "The bite is a gift, but it's also a curse. You have to learn how to control it or you're a danger to everyone around you."
Scott glares at him, and later in hindsight Derek thinks he could have explained it all a lot better. "I'm a werewolf," he snaps, "How is that good?"
"You have something that most people would die for!" Derek is angry suddenly. He's never understood how people would refuse the bite. He's always been a wolf; he'd be at loss without his extra senses. "Super hearing, your sight, your strength, everything is better. It cured your asthma, Scott, and it will keep you healthy for longer."
"I didn't ask for it."
Derek pats Scott on his shoulder, "That's why they call it a gift," he says, and Laura always said he was snarky. "You and I," he said, "We have to stick together."
There was a beta, Derek knew that. He'd made sure to track him down and everything. Now Scott stands before him, glaring and looking like Derek is the worst thing that happened to him.
That was why when Scott looked up at him with confused eyes and said "But what about Stiles? He got bitten too." Derek's heart just dropped.
Well fuck.
"Dude, stop looking at me like that!"
"Like what?"
"Like you're pissed at me."
"Well yeah, you broke into my house with a guy who has now been arrested for potentially killing that girl and startled the hell out of my dad, almost giving him a heart attack."
"We were worried you'd lost control. Did I tell you I ran out into the woods…?"
"Only a million times."
"Well…" Scott clears his throat uncomfortably. He and Derek had burst into Stiles' house… well… climbed in through his window to find the room empty. Everything seemed quiet and when they got downstairs they had found Stiles curled up next to his dad, shivering on the sofa. His eyes had opened when they got there, a stunning gold, and then closed again with a whimper as he curled into his father as much as he could.
That had been the point the Sheriff had woken up.
"I'm grounded," Stiles glares at Scott, "Why am I grounded? You're the one who snuck into my house with a creepy older guy."
"You mean Derek? God, tell me about it." Scott groans, "He had the audacity to bite me and then to tell me I'm his brother and pack and we have to work together! Work together to do what?!"
"He looked like he wanted to strangle me," Stiles frowns, "But I don't really remember…" a locker slams closed down the hall and Stiles jumps half a mile, rubbing at his ears. "Gah," he shudders.
"Your senses still overloaded?" Scott asks.
"Derek called me hypersensitive," Stiles curls his lip in disgust, "But mostly he just seemed to really confused as to why I wasn't mauling anyone."
"You didn't look like you were in a state to be mauling anyone," Scott says, like the good best friend that he is. "You were half buried under your dad wrapped in blankets."
"Well apparently while you go on a blood rage and wander around looking for your girlfriend, my senses just amp up from super senses to mega I can hear everything from this part of Beacon Hills in beautiful detail from my neighbours having sex to the thousand odd heartbeats in this school." Stiles grumbles, pulling out a pair of headphones from his bag. They're noise cancelling.
"Can you still hear me?" Scott asks. Stiles glares at him and Scott will take that as a 'yes'. "Well talking about Allison, I haven't seen her since Friday." He ignores Stiles' groan, "Do you think she is going to kill me?"
"Just talk to her, dude," It is weird talking to Stiles while he's wearing headphones. His friend had put them on at the start of school and hadn't taken them off. At the moment Scott is too busy worrying about Allison. "Seriously, say you were sick or something. Now, while you go to lacrosse, I need to go find Isaac Lahey and then go to explain to Coach what a filing cabinet is."
Stiles wanders off, just as the bell rings and Scott's friend flinches and changes direction so he's not walking under the ringing metal. Scott watches him go with a sigh.
Stiles wishes people could lower the sound of their freaking heartbeat. Seriously. Who the hell needs a heart to beat that loudly anyway?
Thump-thud-thumpa-thump-thud is Isaac approaching. Danny's got more of a soft bump-a-bump while Scott's changes tempo from thud thud thud to thud thump thud thump depending on whether he's thinking about Allison or not.
Right now it's alternating, and so Stiles takes a deep breath and braces himself.
There is the warning drumdrumdrum of someone else as so he turns, catching Jackson with his hand outstretched towards Stiles. Recovering, Jackson sneers at Stiles, "What the hell is that thing on your head Stilinski?" he asks, louder than need be.
"Headphones," Stiles says back, not even bothering to remove them. True, they don't really work with his buzzcut, but he's been considering growing his hair out anyway. Since apparently he's now a werewolf and liable to suffer from a squashed nose and loss of eyebrows, Stiles thinks growing his hair out might improve his look to any hunters considering shooting him.
"You look like a dork," Jackson is already thrown by Stiles' attitude, and so he just sort of glares at Stiles and sidesteps around him. His heart beat drums threateningly, but Stiles isn't afraid, not now he can smell the emotions rolling of Jackson like an open book. Fear, abandonment, grief, rage, in satisfaction, jealousy…
It comforts Stiles to know that he can tell what the jock's weak spots are, and combined with what he already knows about Jackson, he can play him easily. Maybe, just maybe, he might eventually get used to the hyper senses.
He slips the headphones down until they rest around his neck and is immediately assaulted by noise. He clenches his eyes closed, trying to sort through it to what is needed.
He grabs onto the bench, tries to focus on the cool wood underneath his hand, but he honestly can't concentrate on any one thing anymore. He hears a dozen heartbeats, a dozen sets of lungs, smells twelve different kinds of shampoo and deodorant. It's cloying, and infuriating, and Stiles finds himself actually hating every person in the room. Even Scott, who has turned to look at him, eyes wide like a puppy's and brows furrowed in concern.
"Hey," Scott drops down right beside him on the locker bench and Stiles flinches, "I saw Allison, oh my god, dude, you won't believe it!"
"She dumped you?" Stiles asks, squinting.
"Her dad. He's the hunter in the woods. The one who shot me."
Stiles processes this, "Naturally," he hums, "Argent."
Scott stares at him blankly, "What?"
"Argent," Stiles says, "It's silver in French. You know all those myths about silver bullets? Well silver is actually too weak to be used as a bullet, unless it's silver coated and even that's pretty expensive, but a family? It makes more sense. It's French as well and did you know the werewolf, also known as loup garou, is actually French?"
"Do you think Allison knows?" Scott asks, having not listened to a word Stiles has said. "Oh my god, what if she knows… she'll kill me dead…"
Stiles shrugs. It's hard enough to try to drown out the sounds around him and to try and focus. He slips the headphones back up. "She wasn't out hunting on the full moon," he points out.
Scott relaxes only marginally, "What if her dad finds out?" he gasps, panicked. "He'll shoot me. He'll shoot me. With a crossbow." He sucks in air, almost as if he's having an asthma attack.
Scott sure knows how to pick them, Stiles thinks, as he tries to locate Isaac with a pile of paper for Coach. He's not sure if he'd rather be playing or if he's actually happy being Coach's personal assistant, but at least Isaac is useful in helping him out. He drops the headphones back around his neck to try and locate Isaac's heartbeat, and manages to time it just as Coach blows his whistle. Hands over his ears, Stiles stumbles out to the bench, because just the scent and sound of pounding heart beats and warm bodies in the locker room is overwhelming. He can't imagine what it would be like trying to concentrate on the lacrosse field.
Scott has an easier time. As much as he seems to hate his new powers they have been nothing but beneficial for him. He's better at lacrosse, he has no asthma, he's got himself the girl…
Then again, he might have got the girl anyway just from being his cute awkward self.
Lacrosse is a nightmare. Even sitting on the sides Stiles' ears hurt with the sheer amount of times Coach blows his whistle.
"Take a lap, Greenberg," he grumbles out, "Seriously! Start moving!" Stiles rubs at his ears and pulls faces while Isaac looks at him strangely. "Your turn McCall! Stop daydreaming!"
"He's got a girlfriend," Stiles confides with Isaac. The other boy ducks his head.
"Allison? Uh… I mean… the new girl…" he seems nervous. Stiles just ducks his head in a nod as if he can't smell the attraction on the other boy. Because that would be weird. That would be werewolf-y, as if the super hearing wasn't bad enough.
"What was that McCall?" Coach shouts out as Scott goes flying. Stiles' attention focuses on the game, taking in Jackson's smug attitude, Scott on the ground and Coach's annoyance. "My grandmother can move fast than that. And let me tell you: my grandmother's dead. Do you think you can move faster than a rotting corpse?"
It makes Stiles thinks of zombie movies and the dead girl whose hands ended in claws and she didn't move fast enough, couldn't run quickly enough before something ripped her apart, be it hunters or something worse. The same something that bit into Stiles and Scott and changed them from the inside out.
"McCall's going to do it again! McCall's going to do it again!" Finstock taunts and that's when Stiles feels something. It's like a tug but it's nothing physical. It's the flare of scent and anger and the golden eyes on Scott's face.
"Ow," Isaac comments, as Scott doesn't even bother trying to dart around Jackson, he just throws himself at full force into the jock. Stiles hears the click and grinding of bones and he wants to throw up. Jackson falls down from the force and he can hear Scott's growl as his friend falls to his knees and lets out a ragged breath, a tenuous thread of control left.
Stiles shoves everything off his lap and towards Isaac, "I've gotta go… I uh… see if Scott's…" he never finishes, up and towards his friend. He knew lacrosse was a bad idea and now he's just got proof in the fangs that are what Scott's canines are becoming. "Come on," he grabs Scott by the shoulder, steering him around, "We need to get you off the field. Someone could see…"
Someone, like Derek Hale, standing and watching them.
That's freaky, Stiles thinks, and he'd go to see Scott's werewolf buddy but Hale pisses Scott off, and Stiles hasn't even met the guy, the time when he broke into Stiles' house to check he hadn't gone on a bloodlust aside. So he meets Derek's stony gaze and drags Scott past the bleachers towards the changing rooms.
"Get away from me!" They're barely through the doors than Stiles is shoved away, Scott growling at him and his eyes a golden wolf yellow. Stiles falls backwards, back hitting the bench and he winces, because he's going to have bruises. Scott - when he looks up again - is gone, leaping up to the top of the lockers. Stiles can hear the crash as he scrambles up, headphones sliding around his neck as he spins around.
"Scott!" Stiles calls out, listening to the thud-thump of his friend's heartbeat, loud in his ears even through the headphones. He steps forwards, locating the other teenager as Scott jumps across a gap between two lockers. He spins around in time to see Scott throw himself forwards, eyes blazing yellow.
Stiles snarls. Like, actually snarls, baring his teeth. His fingers feel weird, heavier, but he's sure of his movements as he steps backwards, avoiding Scott's hand as he swipes across.
Scott's hands end in claws…
Like the girl. Like the girl, oh my god, Stiles thinks. The girl was a werewolf. The girl in the woods, the body…
Scott snarls at him and Stiles feels his blood crawl in his veins. He feels Scott's heart pounding in his head as if it is right next to him, beating with him, and he throws himself forwards.
One hand wraps around Scott's shoulder and the other fists in his t-shirt as Stiles lifts Scott up and throws him down to the floor. Scott lands, back first and Stiles sinks to his one knee, pinning him there and growling in the back of his throat.
Scott gasps, winded and blinks, eyes switching back to brown. The hair begins to recede from his face and Stiles shifts until he's in Scott's field of vision.
"What…" Scott frowns, "What happened?"
Stiles tries to talk and only then is aware that his mouth has extra teeth in it. He runs his tongue over them, frowning. No extra teeth, he decides, but his two canines have sharpened into little fangs on both top and bottom jaw.
"Your eyes are glowing," Scott hisses, "Stop it, someone will see!"
"My eyes?" Stiles laughs, feeling the bugs in his veins stop moving and the feeling fades. "What about you, leaping off the lockers? If I was human you would have ripped me into little bloody shreds, dude." He lets go of Scott's t-shirt and leans back, "As it is," he sticks out a hand to help Scott up, "As it is it turns out I'm a pretty badass werewolf." He grins, flashing his teeth and he just knows that his smile is a little fanged.
"Well I'm glad you're happy," Scott shoves Stiles off him; "I'm not. How am I meant to control this?"
"Don't get angry," Stiles rocks back, letting Scott sit upright, "It's your pulse, it triggers the shift."
"But lacrosse… it's a pretty violent game. I can't help it."
"There's a simple answer. You don't play."
"How the hell am I going to tell my dad?" Stiles sighs over Skype. "How are we going to tell your mom?"
"We're not telling my mom," Scott shakes his head, "And dude, your dad is the Sheriff."
Stiles nods, "Which means he might just shoot me, unless I persuade him I'm harmless, in which case he'll shoot the Argents."
"We can't tell them," Scott says. His mom just went out, and she seemed worried about him. Drugs, she'd assumed, not a mythical beast bite.
Hoe the hell was he meant to explain that?
Stiles frowns, "I know," he says, "He wouldn't believe me anyway. Dad, I'm a werewolf, isn't exactly the weirdest thing he's heard over the years."
"How's Jackson?"
"Why are you asking me?" Stiles looks indignant.
"Because you know everything."
Stiles opens his mouth and then closes it, frowning, "Separated shoulder," he shrugs, "He can't play Saturday. Hey Derek."
Scott's still processing the news about the game that it takes longer than it shoulder for him to spin around. "What the…" Derek looks murderous, but Stiles doesn't seem worried. "What are you doing…?"
"I saw you on the field." Derek growls. "You shifted in front of them. If Stiles hadn't got you out…"
"It was fine," Stiles' voice can be heard over the laptop, "It got sorted…" he sounds tense.
"He's not playing Saturday," Derek snaps to the screen, "Neither are you."
"I didn't make the team," Stiles shrugs, "I was too busy hiding at home trying to keep the world silent. I'm Stiles, by the way. It's nice to meet you."
Derek just levels an unimpressed stare at the computer.
"Derek said no lacrosse."
"I don't care what Derek says," Scott growls, diligently rethreading his lacrosse stick "And you shouldn't either."
"Am I literally the only one out of the two of us who is worried about hurting someone?" Stiles asks, with a frown. "And then everyone will find out about us. Including the hunters! And after they've chopped us in half and left us in the woods they're going to go after Derek and then we're all going to be dead!"
"I've already been threatened by Coach that I'll be taken off the team if I don't play at all. Lydia has threatened me because I damaged her boyfriend. My mom has the night off, Allison is going to be there… I can't not play."
"I'll break your leg; then you can claim a sporting injury."
Scott blanches.
"Don't worry," Stiles just shrugs dismissively. "It will heal. Then when it does, you can say it must have been a strain."
"Are you serious?" Scott stares in alarm at Stiles, "First Derek and now you? Derek already ruined my stick!"
"What? The other night?"
"No! I went to his place! He dropped off Allison's jacket… I don't… he could hurt her!"
"You could hurt her! And what the hell were you thinking of going over to his place? It's a burnt out wreck. Wait… do you think he lives there?"
"His car was there." Scott squints dubiously at the wall, "And he buried something there. Something bloody."
"Really? That's awesome. I mean… that's terrible."
Scott examines his lacrosse stick, "I don't know. But if we find a body, then we can nail Derek for the murder. And then your dad can get him arrested, and I can play lacrosse. Everyone's happy."
"Uh… no." Stiles is shaking his head, and Scott takes in the worry in his gaze, "No, no… I think you playing lacrosse is a bad idea. This whole idea actually… is really selfish. What if you shift? What if you hurt someone?"
Scott tosses his lacrosse stick on the bed, standing to meet Stiles' gaze, "Are you worried about me hurting someone?" he snaps, "Or you? Now help me find this body or don't, either way I don't care." He pushes past Stiles, marching towards the door. He hears an exasperated sigh and then footsteps. Stiles is following him.
For now.
"Really?" Stiles just stares down at the body. He doesn't want to be here, and he's left his headphones in the car. He can hear everything in the night, and it's dizzying but reassuring someone. He's not scared of the dark, because now he knows exactly what's out there. "I wasted all that time at the hospital, listened to Lydia and Jackson make out and read three pages on the menstrual cycle just to dig up the body of a wolf?"
"I don't… the scent was the same."
"And apparently Derek lives here. Here?" Stiles rocks back, staring at the wolf body and he places his hands behind him for support. Something burns underneath and he yanks his hand away sharply. "What the…" he reaches out, grabbing at the rope in the soil.
It's got something wrapped around and it is buried in the dirt and leaves, spreading outwards. He gives it a tug and it comes loose, unravelling.
"Stiles," Scott whispers, staring at something. Stiles' hands burn and he drops the rope, turning to look at what Scott can see.
It's a girl. The same girl from the woods. The one with claws and fangs and the girl who was cut in half.
Stiles' hands burn and he glances at the rope, at the purple petals attached and the plant buried at the end of the chain.
It's wolfsbane.
At some point Stiles and Scott really need to sit down with Derek to get a proper lessons on werewolves.
Which is probably why when Derek is arrested on Saturday morning, Stiles wanders into the Sheriff's car while Hale sits in the back seat and spins around. "Okay, so we haven't really met, and we don't really know each other…" Derek is glaring at him, "But tell me something. That girl… the one in the woods…" Stiles stops, because he's about to say 'the girl you killed' but Derek isn't the same thing that bit him. "Who was she?"
"Why are you so interested in me when it's your friend and yourself you should be worried for. Scott's unstable. And you… you just need one trigger and you'll be the same." Derek's defensive, and Stiles has noticed how his question went unanswered.
The door is open and Stiles doesn't get to ask any more, because his dad is dragging him out of the car. "You stand, right here… and how about you tell me what you're doing?"
"Trying to help?" it turns into a question.
His dad squints in suspicion. "And you just happened to find the other half of the body. How did you even know about… you were listening in on my calls again, weren't you?"
"No!" Stiles protests.
"Are you lying to me?" his dad is angry. Angry and worse of all, he's disappointed. "Were you sneaking through the woods looking through dead bodies?"
"No!" Stiles protests, "We were looking for Scott's inhaler," Stiles sighs, stuffing his hands in his pockets.
"Which he dropped…" the Sheriff prompted.
"He was out here the other day, after school." Stiles shrugs.
"Alone?"
"He took a walk in the woods, running for lacrosse tryouts. I wasn't with him, I was sick, remember?" Stiles should feel guilty using himself as a weapon against his dad, but it works.
His dad nods, with a sigh and shoves him away. "Fine. You go… go…"
"Going…" Stiles turns his back, wondering if his chance to admit to his dad that he was a werewolf has just come and gone.
"I want to go out with Allison, I want to play lacrosse, I want to live my friggin' normal life!"
Yeah, as if it could be that simple.
Stiles is almost jealous when it all turns out okay. Which is stupid. Because surely Scott should be allowed this. He and Allison are kissing in the locker room, and he back tracks, and then realises he has nowhere else to go.
He has nobody else to go to. He's a werewolf, and the only other werewolves around either want him dead or maimed, or are snogging with girlfriends.
He lingers, gritting his teeth and waiting for them to finish. It's awkward, but the pair are in their own little world. It's sickeningly sweet and Stiles can't even be angry at Scott.
He's just disappointed.
"I kissed her," Scott's in some sort of love daze. Allison wanders out, trying not to be freaked out by Stiles spying on them.
"I saw," Stiles says, chewing on his lip.
"She kissed me."
"I saw that too."
"I don't know how… but somehow… I controlled it."
Stiles is starting to think his werewolf bite was defunct. Scott's been the only one having anger issues, while Stiles still walks around with a pair of headphones on. It's gotten to the point where nobody is even bothering to ask questions, not even Coach as he comments about 'did the opposing team just pass us the ball?'.
He needs to talk to Derek. It's just as well Derek's out of jail, and so he tells Scott as much.
"And the kicker?" he adds, "They ID-ed the dead girl. Laura Hale."
"Hale?"
"Derek's sister."
He can still feel it. Even hours later, the hairs at the back of his neck are still standing up, and he still thinks he can smell the blood that should cling to his claws.
Scott's had nightmares, but nothing ever quite matched up to the realism of this dream. "And I just woke up. And I was sweating like crazy and I couldn't breathe. I've never had a dream when I woke up like that before."
"Really? I have. It usually ends a little differently." Stiles grins slightly, and then proceeds to walk into the door. He shoves it out of the way, wincing a little and fiddling with the headphones that are becoming a familiar sight on his head. His hair is growing out, and his brown eyes are bright for a change. He's the most relaxed Scott has seen him since the bite, which considering Hale is out of jail is odd enough in itself.
"A: I've never had a dream that felt that real and B: never give me that much detail about you in bed again."
"Noted."
It was a wolf-dream. This much Scott knows, that the dream was linked to the bite. "Have you had any similar dreams?" he asks.
Stiles just shrugs, "Nope." He's dealing with everything so much more easily than Scott. He's almost jealous. But then Stiles isn't even playing lacrosse, he's been benched for pretty much the whole season as Coach's assistant. And Stiles doesn't have a girlfriend. Stiles has nothing to worry about except being a werewolf. And unlike Scott where everything is just piling up and he can't deal, Stiles is still waiting for his own breaking point.
If it hadn't been for the incident at the locker room where Stiles had pinned Scott down with golden eyes and fangs bared then Scott would have doubted Stiles was even a werewolf.
Stiles was the best werewolf ever.
Well… if it wasn't for his senses being out of whack.
Scott feels almost guilty. He can't imagine what it's like to hear everything all at once layered on top of each other. "We need someone to help us," he finally admits, "Some expert in werewolves."
"You mean like Derek."
Scott reluctantly sighs, "Yeah, I mean Derek."
"You remember the part when we got him tossed in jail?"
"We still don't know that he didn't kill his sister."
"We got him tossed in jail." Stiles repeats. "So you could go to a lacrosse game."
"Do you know any other options?" Scott snaps angrily, just as they push out of the corridor and turn to the outside, and the yellow police tape catches his eyes.
Seconds after the splash of red on the yellow tape comes into focus and his stomach lurches.
It had been real, he thinks, numbly. His dream was real.
Allison.
He needs to find Allison.
Is that her blood spread out over the bus? Is her body lying in there, the throat ripped open by a pair of animal jaws?
"Scott! Scott, wait!" Stiles stumbles after him, but Scott is already vanishing back into the crowd of students, turning this way and that, searching and trying to catch a scent…
"She's two corridors down, wearing perfume and has her I-pod plugged in playing some heavy metal." Stiles' hand closes onto Scott's shoulder, dragging him back, "Do you hear me? Scott? Scott! She's okay!"
"What?" Scott stares at Stiles, who just rolls his eyes.
"Down the corridor and around the corner down the stairs," Stiles instructs, "She's walking along quickly, just left maths and has music playing. I can hear her heartbeat."
Scott releases a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "Really?"
"Yeah," Stiles nods, "I swear. She's okay."
And Scott just relaxes. He trusts Stiles, will always trust Stiles, and he believes him now. "Thank you," he whispers, "Thank you." He's still edgy, and Stiles just gives him a little push.
"Go and check," he grins weakly, "Go on. Reassure yourself."
Scott casts a grateful glance behind him, and then spins around. He has no idea how Stiles was able to pick out Allison among the other pupils in the school, but he'll be eternally grateful for it.
Once he's reassured himself that Allison is alive and safe in her French class, he sits down next to Stiles in chemistry and allows his mind to wander back to the bus and the dream.
"So what was the blood from?"
"Maybe it was yours?"
Scott pales, "Then what if they ID it as me?"
"Do they have your genetic data in the system?" Stiles squints at him. "I know your mom is a nurse and all, but unlike me who insisted that my dad finger print and get a genetic ID for me when I was eight, you shouldn't be in the system. Oh woe is me," he sighs, head dropping to the desk, "You can get away with crimes and I can't."
"Wouldn't it come back as wolf, though?" Scott considers, "The hairs on the girl's body were wolf."
"She turned into a wolf though…" Stiles frowns, "Hey, maybe you just killed a rabbit or something."
"And did what?" Scott asks, horror-struck, "Gutted it?"
"Ate it."
"Raw?"
"No, you stopped to bake it in a little werewolf oven."
Harris is glaring at them from the front of the classroom so Scott reluctantly turns around. Stiles glares at Harris, angry probably at the teacher's personal vendetta against him.
"Hey!" a girl stands up, staring out of the window, "They've found something."
"That's not a rabbit," Stiles whispers in Scott's ear as they move to the window, staring at the bloody body of the man on the stretcher.
He's covered in blood, and beneath that razor sharp lines that look like exactly what they are.
Claw marks.
"We'll figure it out." Allison has no idea what Stiles and Scott are conspiring about, but then that friend of Scott's is weird enough as it is, without the conspiring and his habit of looking at crime scene photos in the middle of econ class.
"Figure what out." Lydia announces her presence airily, sliding into a seat next to Scott. Allison claims the other side as Stiles gapes at Lydia.
"Why is she sitting with us?" he asks, in a loud whisper. Lydia turns up her nose and huffs, while Allison just grabs her knife and fork and examines the school meal in front of her.
"You think I know?"
Allison has no idea how Stiles can even hear anything through the headphones that read to be noise-dampening. They look like a mix between music headphones and something her dad would use on the shooting range.
"They're saying it's a mountain lion," Allison tunes back into the conversation to listen to Danny's input.
"Probably cougar," Jackson corrects, as if he has to be right.
"A cougar is a mountain lion." Lydia sniffs, and then looks up to see everyone's eyes on her. She's clever, Allison's noticed. Really clever. But she'd rather pretend otherwise. "Isn't it?"
Who cares?" Jackson scoffs, "Probably some homeless guy,"
"No." Stiles actually pulls down his headphones and winces as if the action pains him. His hair stands messily, mid-way between the short cut it had been before and the fresh growth that is ruffled by the headphones. He's got his phone out and is staring at something on screen. "He's a bus driver. Garrison Myers." He flips his phone around to show everyone the video.
"Let's talk about something more cheerful," Lydia changes the topic. She's skilled and it's almost too easy for her to play with everyone. Allison finds herself admiring Lydia more and more. "We should hang out together," she decides, and Allison notes how she is talking only about her, Jackson, Allison and Scott, excluding Stiles and Danny.
Stiles just leans back, tugging his headphones back on. He's nervous, fingers tapping on the table and he keeps shooting her nervous glances. Allison's not had a proper conversation with him, and she really needs to get to know Scott's best friend.
I have to do something more fun that watching lacrosse videos."
"Stabbing myself with a fork sounds fun." Jackson snarks dryly.
"How about bowling?" Lydia ignores Jackson. Allison has no idea how she manages it. "There's a new bowling alley that's opened up. Do you bowl?" she asks Allison and Scott.
"I can try," Allison shrugs.
"How about we hang out with people who are actual competition?" Jackson scoffs. Rude. Allison levels a glare at him.
"How do you know we're not actual competition?" she parrots his words back to him.
"Well, McCall?" Jackson just uses the opportunity to bait Scott. Allison leans into his slightly in reassurance and watches as Stiles winces as if in anticipation at what's coming. Stiles knows Scott better than anyone, and so she waits for the words to come.
"I'm a great bowler."
Allison regrets the idea of a double date already.
"How come you dreamt about it and I didn't?" Stiles asks, waving his hand between them, "If it's this alpha that bit both of us."
"I don't know!" Scott hisses, "I'm new to this whole thing. And how the hell am I meant to survive the weekend?"
"I know," Stiles sighs, "You're a terrible bowler."
"And Lydia and Jackson will be there." Scott moans, "I'm going to die!"
Stiles frowns, thinking back to what must have been the most awkward lunch ever, and not just because he spent half of it listening to Lydia lie through her teeth about how clever she was, but Danny had really nice aftershave - Armani, Stiles thinks. "I don't think Danny likes me," he muses, "Am I not attractive to gay guys?"
Scott isn't listening.
"Dude, you didn't answer my question! Am I attractive to gay guys?!"
Derek lurks in the burnt remains of his old house.
Naturally that's where Scott finds him. Derek is beginning to think that he should stop being so damn obvious. If a teenage, newly bitten werewolf could find him, then so could the hunters.
He reluctantly opens his door to confront Scott. He's alone, and Derek still needs to meet Stiles properly. The other kid had amazing control on the full moon, even if he still has no understanding of why. That will come with time. Maybe.
"We're sorry," Scott says, "About your sister. Unless you killed her, in which case I'm not sorry at all. But sorry for getting you in jail, unless you did hurt that guy on the bus. Because I had this dream and it was so real… and it was like I was on the bus, hurting that guy. Could I have done that?"
"Yes."
"How can I know?"
"Do you want to know if you hurt the bus driver?" Derek asks, frowning, "Or do you want to know if you'll hurt her?"
Scott's silence is his answer. He's enamoured with Allison Argent, and Derek can't help but see the parallel. At least the Stiles-kid is sensible. He's not playing lacrosse, he's keeping his head down, unlike Scott.
"We need a teacher," Scott says, reluctantly, "We don't know everything?"
"What? Did your little friend Stiles, finally find something he couldn't just google?"
Scott looks slightly hurt. Derek doesn't care. "I can show you how to remember. I can show you how to control he shift even on the full moon. But it's not going to come for free."
The little beta looks sick, as if he's expecting Derek to name something ridiculous like a price or nefarious favour. "What do you want?"
"I'll tell you later," Derek waves it off, "But right now, go back to the bus. Use your senses. What can you see? Smell? Hear? It will trigger the memories."
He watches Scott leaves and considers everything. The little betas know nothing. Not about Laura, about the fire, not about the other wolf that is in the area. They still think it's Derek. He should probably correct that assumption, but for now it's safer the less they know.
"That's it," Stiles decides, upon hearing of Scott's meeting with Derek. "You're going to the bus."
"What? No!" Scott protests.
"Yes," Stiles nods vigorously, "We need to find out what happened with the bus driver. We need to know if this will happen again."
"But…" and Scott is scared. He doesn't want to know what happened. What if he was the one that had injured that guy?
What if he was a monster? What if the Argents were right and he needed to be put down?
"It will be okay," Stiles mistakes his apprehension for nervousness, "I have an idea."
"I hate this idea," Scott hisses, staring at the fence from the car. Stiles shrugs.
"It's the only thing we've got. Derek says to go back to the place and try to remember."
"Why didn't you have the dream as well?" Scott asks, puzzled, "Otherwise you could have gone!"
Stiles frowns, "I was with my dad. I mean… he was downstairs with the TV on and the only way I can sleep nowadays in listening to him breathing and his heartbeat."
Scott pauses, "Is that why you look so terrible all the time?"
"I do not look terrible. As if you'd look better with the amount of hours I manage to sleep! My dad works nights far too often!"
Scott takes a moment to examine Stiles, how twitchy his friend is. He tries to imagine what it must be like to be aware of every little sound and unable to just tune it out the way Scott is doing right now. "I'll go," he says, opening the jeep door, "Do lookout?"
"I'm starting to feel like Robin," Stiles sighs.
Scott stares at him through the open door, "Nobody is Batman and Robin in this!" he hisses, before closing the door and heading to the fence.
It's a chain thing, and it's flimsy and clatters when he puts his hands to it. Glancing around and seeing nobody about, he backs up and takes a running jump at it.
His fingers hook through the metal and he pulls himself up and over before he's really aware of what he's doing. He sees Stiles gaping at him through the windscreen and so Scott just hopes he looked impressive.
"So maybe it's like an initiation thing," Stiles says once Scott has visited the bus, been assaulted by memories and narrowly escaped being caught by a police officer, "Kill together, and join the pack."
"That is sick," Scott pulls a face, "But at least I didn't kill him. You know what that means?" he perks up slightly, glancing at Stiles.
"We're not going to keep sleepwalking and go around killing people?" Stiles grins.
"I can go out with Allison!"
"Oh." Stiles' face drops, "Yeah, that too." He rolls his eyes, as if Scott's priorities are a little bit skew at the moment.
And to be fair, they probably are. After all, Scott is a werewolf.
But he's not going to let it affect his life. He's not.
He can be a werewolf and a normal teenager too.
He can.
Derek had been hoping to avoid the Argent clan knowing he was even here entirely.
Then Scott McCall had to go and get him arrested.
And now… well there was no avoiding it really. He stood by the side of his car uncomfortably as the two cars drew up. He eyed the security camera in the corner of the gas station, but wasn't surprised at all when the green light switched itself off.
"And personally," Chris washes the windows of Derek's car with vigour. Derek wants to rip him apart for even touching Laura's car, but he can't. He has to stand there and listen. "Personally I'm very protective over the things I love."
The threat actually makes Derek relax slightly. Because Chris's family are in the area. This meeting is as much as a warning to Derek to not do anything stupid as it is a warning to avoid the Argent family.
Specifically the Argent daughter.
Once again, Derek curses Scott McCall. The assurance that Chris wants to assure his family's safety gives Derek the confidence to point out, "You forgot to check the oil."
Chris stiffens and Derek knows he's pushed too.
"Well?" the hunter asks, icily, "You heard him. Check the man's oil."
One of the other hunters, brutal and vicious doesn't listen. Derek's uncertain if Chris actually wanted the oil to be checked or if he wanted the window smashed in, but either way that was what Derek gets. Shards of glass scatter at his feet and Chris sighs, imperceptibly.
Derek just stares at the broken glass, reflecting a thousand different images and considers how his life has shattered around him. How Laura is dead and had been torn into pieces, just as easily as her car window had shattered.
And he's alone. He's well and truly alone.
And like it or not, Scott McCall and his friend may be the only people he has to rely on.
Well in that case he should probably inform them about the alpha.
Stiles wakes up in the woods.
He can't quite beat Scott's record of waking up naked, but he is instead covered in the blood of a mountain lion. Said mountain lion is lying nearby, blood smeared around in a spiral with the lion and Stiles at the centre.
He rolls away from the corpse and gags, but there is nothing but bile in his mouth and stomach. His hands are sticky with blood and he scrambles upright, pushing himself up and away, staring at the horror and carnage. His pulse races and a dozen scents him, least of all the scent of his own fear barely there under a strong sense of satisfaction.
Stiles is in some sort of daze as he walks forwards again, hand reaching out to the body and burying itself into where the fur meets claw marks. His fingers twist in the flesh and he shudders in revulsion.
He did this, he thinks, and then he flinches away, snatching his hand back and wondering what the hell he's doing.
The blood is drying on his hand, and his skin feels trapped. He himself feels trapped, longing to fly and run free, to howl and snarl and fight and…
Stiles shakes his head, dizzy suddenly. Run, something urges him, Run and come find me.
Again he's moving before he realises it, stumbling forwards past the body and to the woods beyond before he stops, staring. His pulse races and in the shadows of the forest beyond something moves.
There is something out there, Stiles knows. Something waiting.
Waiting for him.
He tears himself backwards and grabs his phone.
Scott McCall is a liar, Lydia thinks. He's terrible at bowling.
Jackson laughs, openly and brashly, as Allison stands up and makes a spare. Lydia follows and just for his benefit she misses the first one, and then gets a strike.
Jackson gapes at her as she spins smugly around and flounces back to them, "I must be getting the hang of it," she says with a smile. He puffs out his chest, pleased for her, with just a slight frown at her performance. Lydia's whole life is a performance though, and this is just another act on top of that.
Allison sees right through her though, and Lydia is going to have to keep this girl close as her new best friend. Not best friend of Lydia Martin the queen of the school, but a best friend of Lydia who understands who she is really.
"Maybe," Allison leans over towards her, "You should stop pretending to suck, just for his benefit."
Lydia smiles thinly, "Trust me," she says, "I do plenty of sucking just for his benefit."
Nearby Scott's face twists in disgust and Lydia checks herself. She hadn't realised she'd said that so loudly. She listens to the clatter of pins falling and turns to watch as Jackson misses his spare.
She puts on an appropriate face of sympathy as Jackson stalks back. Scott stands, grabbing the bowling ball. "You should go help him." Lydia says, as the shot which is going to be terrible - she can tell just from the angle - rolls down the alley. As predicted it rolls into the gutter.
With a sigh and a smug grin Allison skips up to Scott. Lydia can't hear what she says, but Scott blinks, dazed. He's stupidly in love, in a way Lydia doesn't think she'll ever be. She loves Jackson, but it's something strong, deeper than friendship, but not quite romantic, despite all their pretences and the key to his house. She's turned up in the evenings just to sit listening to him talk, much in the way he turns up with a bottle of some fancy wine after an argument. They're best friends and they're boyfriend and girlfriend and that's all Lydia, queen of the school, needs.
A phone rings in the pocket of the hoodie on the bench next to her. Scott is still standing with Allison and so Lydia ignores it.
It keeps ringing. It stops, and then rings again. With a sigh, Lydia reaches forwards, plucking it up with manicured fingernails.
"Want any food?" Jackson is wandering off, still pissed. She shakes her head, flipping the phone right side up and looking at the caller details. Stiles.
Scott is still busy, because now Allison is having her shot. Lydia makes a decision and answers the call.
Instantly Stiles is talking on the other side, words slurred together and he sounds drunk, "Scott, thank god. So you know that dream you had about werewolf pack bonding with the bus driver that wasn't a dream? I… I j...just had one too and I… I don't … I don't know where I am and… and… he... he's inside my head… Scott… he's… god Scott he's our alpha…" Lydia's mouth is open, frowning, and that's when the phone is plucked out her hand.
"Stiles!" Scott hisses, "Lydia just answered my phone."
She can't hear the reply, she just purses her lips, "It kept ringing." she shrugs, "Is Stiles okay? He sounds…" Ill. Scared. Freaked out. She replays the words through her head.
Werewolf pack bonding with the bus driver.
The bus driver that had been injured?
Alpha. Werewolf.
Scott's staring at her, listening to Stiles and then spluttering, "He says he's fine," Scott is obviously relaying whatever Stiles is saying, "He says that he was talking about a role playing game… an online gaming community…" It's a lie, what Lydia might have assumed left to her own devices.
But if the obvious answer was a lie then that left only the least obvious answer as the solution. Occam's razor.
Werewolves, she muses, stomach churning and she's scared. She's scared and disbelieving because barely a minute later, Scott is running off, making excuses to Allison about his friend, and she looks sad but understanding and Scott is going, Scott is leaving, after his best friend phoned him up talking about werewolves and alphas.
"Are you okay?" Allison drops down next to her, "Scott had to go. He says Stiles had a panic attack over something…" her face falls slightly, "I got his number though." she says, waving her phone about.
Lydia just stares at her new friend.
Allison Argent.
Argent. Silver.
That is the last time Lydia answers somebody's phone for them.
"What do you mean he's our alpha?" Scott repeats in disbelief. "Derek? And by alpha you mean like it's a pack thing?"
"I don't know," Stiles hisses back. Scott and Stiles are sneaking back in after curfew. Allison is going to get a lift back with Lydia and Jackson, and Scott had run off to fetch Stiles from where he was sitting by the side of the road, hands still covered in blood.
"Oh god," Scott had said, and then hurried Stiles into the car. "Don't touch anything." He instructed, "Here," he threw a cloth at Stiles, "Clean up. What the hell…?"
"I don't know," Stiles shook his head, "I don't… I just woke up. I was dreaming… I had to go find something. I was looking for something and then I was there and there was a mountain lion and it's insides were scattered around in a freakin' spiral and…" he shuddered and fell silent.
Scott drops the car off in the driveway, eyes the door and then gestured to the window. "Let's avoid my mom," he says, and shoves Stiles towards climbing to the window. Stiles had managed fine without enhanced reflexes, and now he just sort of hops up in a daze, not even thinking about it. He eases the window open and slips through.
Scott follows, and blinks at the sight of his mom wielding a baseball bat. "Mom!" he cries out, seconds before Melissa hits out at his best friend.
Stiles has already rolled to the side and somehow managed the pull the sleeves of his hoodie down to hide the blood he hadn't managed to clean off with spit and a cloth. "Hi Mrs McCall," he says weakly, but he looks shaky and about to keel over.
"Stiles!" Scott's mom hisses, then turns to Scott, "Would you please tell your friend to use the front door?"
"But we lock the front door," Scott blinks, confused, "He wouldn't be able to get in."
Melissa rolls her eyes, as if that is the point, but Scott can't imagine having a house barred from Stiles' entry. They've been sneaking into each other's houses since Stiles' mom died and Scott's dad left. It's their thing that they do, and Scott doesn't want to lose that. Not ever.
"Do either of you even care there is a police enforced curfew?"
"No." they chorus in sync.
"Fine." Mellissa looks pained, "That is enough parenting for me for one night." She props the bat back up in Stiles' room, and Scott tried not to notice how Stiles is eyeing it speculatively. That's twice within two weeks he's almost been brained by it, and Scott wouldn't be surprised if it ends up living in the Stilinski household from now on.
"Oh," Melissa pauses and the doorway, "I just thought you might want to know that the bus driver who was attacked…" she pauses and winces, "He's dead. He succumbed to his wounds." She vanishes, and Scott swallows, because he knows he didn't kill the guy, but the guy is now dead anyway and…
"Scott."
Stiles looks at his best friend.
"We need to see Derek." Stiles says, "We need to talk to him… see if he was there…"
Scott just nods, but he's losing control of everything too fast. Werewolves were bad enough, but now werewolves and murders and hunters and he and Stiles are still stuck right in the middle of things. He's angry too, because Derek isn't talking. And Derek knows stuff. Derek knows everything too well. He's hiding stuff and he can't be trusted.
He still doesn't believe that Derek didn't kill anyone.
He sighs. "Let's go talk to Derek then."
The Hale House is dark and gloomy, looming over the forest. Stiles can only imagine what it used to look like in its glory, large and imposing and screaming wealth.
It must have been wonderful to watch burn, he thinks. Wonderful and terrible.
"Derek!" Scott doesn't even pause to admire the ruined building, bounding up the stairs and into the house. Stiles follows at a more sedate pace, testing out the old wooden structure so that he won't go tumbling down into the basement or cellar.
There are growls from inside and Stiles walks through the door, just in time for Scott to crash into the wall next to him. Stiles flinches, ducking down and his arms flying up to protect himself. "What the hell?"
"I came back," Derek leaps down the stairs, "To find my sister in pieces being used as bait!"
"What?" Stiles' gaze switches from where Scott is angry and his eyes are glowing gold to where Derek is stalking forwards, "Are you guys fighting? Seriously?"
"I think you killed them," Scott bites out, "You killed your sister. And you killed the bus driver."
Stiles thinks Derek has every right to throw Scott through another wall. He doesn't complain, just flinches away from the flying shards of wood and squints after them. Great, he mentally sighs, before following after.
Scott and Derek have both shifted. Derek's lost all his eyebrows and his eyes are an ice blue. Scott's eyes are gold and he's got the worst sideburns ever.
"I." Derek punches Scott, "Didn't." Another hit, "Kill. Anyone." Scott coughs out blood and Stiles bristles, unaware that he's growling until Derek turns to him.
"Let go of him." He says, feeling his claws extend, a slight ache in his finger tips and a point of pressure where his canines are curling out. "Let go of him and let's talk this through. Can't we discuss who killed who like civilised people?"
"He ruined my life," Scott's sounding frustrated. Frustrated and bitter and that's probably what triggered the shift. Stiles had mistakenly assumed Scott was calm going into this, but he's not. He's worried and scared and he's lashing out.
Derek turns back to Scott, looking like he's going to rip Scott into shreds. Before he even realises it, Stiles is moving forwards, latching claws into Derek's shirt and tearing him backwards off Scott. Derek slashes out but Stiles lets go, darting out of range. Beneath Derek, Scott rolls out of the way, baring his teeth like an animal.
"Why do you want to trust him?" Scott snarls at Stiles, "He's the one who bit us!"
"No. I'm not." Derek whirls around, not knowing who to attack. Stiles backs away, letting the shift slide away. He can't keep it up and quite honestly has no desire to. Not with the way the world had gone from magnified to screaming in his ears.
"What?" Scott blinks.
"I didn't bite you."
But someone did. Someone was in the woods that night. Someone had mauled the bus driver. Someone had been out there with Stiles and the mountain lion.
"There's another," Derek blinked his eyes back to green. "It's called an alpha. It's the most dangerous of our kind."
'He's our alpha, Scott.' Stiles had said to his friend, mind-numb and confused. Something had been calling to him, calling for pack and protection and the hunt…
"And us?" Derek looked from Scott to Stiles wearily, almost defeated, "We're betas. This thing is more powerful, more animal that any of us. The shift turns you into something that reflects the person you are. This thing isn't shifting into a wolf. It's shifting into a monster." He sighs, looking so lonely for a moment, "My sister came here, now me, but I need your help. He bit you." he glanced between then again, "You're part of his pack."
"What does that mean?" Scott whispers, mournfully.
"It means he wants you to join him," Derek speaks it like a death sentence, "The pair of you… he'll wants you in his pack, or he'll want you dead. And one way or another he'll get what he wants."
He spends his nights wandering the town. The alpha has to strike again, and when it does, Derek will be ready. He envisions tearing the rogue wolf's throat out in various ways, avenging Laura's death.
Previous nights he has found nothing, but now he can hear the howls, along with the sharp retort of a shotgun. Derek runs straight for it, leaping along the rooftops to avoid the road and traffic cameras dotted through town.
His claws ache for blood but all he can feel is a churning pit of nausea and illness. If he kills the rogue alpha, he'll become an alpha. Derek wasn't made to be an alpha, but he'll take up the mantle and try to be an alpha that Laura will be proud of. He'll get Stiles and Scott into his pack, bite another teenager and then settle down in Beacon Hills.
It would all be fine.
A car screeched to a halt and a familiar scent hit him on the breeze. Derek froze, heart pounding because no no no it wasn't meant to come to this.
Not her. Not now.
There is a growl and the flash of a shape. It's the rogue and it's going after the woman stepping out of the stopped car.
The rogue werewolf is going after the hunters trying to kill it.
Kate doesn't care though. Why should she? She's a hunter. Derek tastes bile and slips along in the shadows. There is another flash of movement and the alpha is bounding up to the rooftops. Derek grits his teeth, ignores the proximity to the huntress and takes his own running leap off the building he had been stalking along.
He lands on the opposite rooftop, claws grating on the tiles as he steadies himself. He shoves himself upwards, running towards the next rooftop and where a large, furred shape is vanishing over the next sloping roof.
Derek leaps after it, without even thinking. He can cross the gap easily, should cross it easily, if it wasn't for the crack that split the air and the sharp pain that catches him in the arm.
He misses the rooftop, tumbling down the alleyway. His left arm is burning, and he rights himself, blinking in a daze.
He's been shot, he realises. Kate shot him.
He wants to laugh. It's almost ironic. His arm is burning and trying to heal and he squints down at the blue smoking wound.
It's burning him from the inside out, and Derek can't help but think it's perfect. He got his family burnt into ashes, and now he'll burn to death, poisoned by wolfsbane. It's a fitting sort of punishment for his sins.
"This is such a bad idea."
Stiles slips along the darkened streets, looking around for any sign of… well… anything. "Dude, it was your idea." He complains to where Scott is leading, poking his head around corners just as another gunshot rings out.
"Since when is sneaking out at night my idea? It's usually your department."
"Since I got us bitten by a werewolf," Stiles chews on a lip. "You think they're shooting at Derek? Or the alpha?"
"You think I know?" Scott hisses a response. "Woah!" he sticks out a hand, holding Stiles back from rounding a corner, "There's a woman there…"
Stiles freezes, and he has a brief zone out of listening, hearing the voices.
"There were two of them," the woman says, scoffing in the back of her throat in disgust.
"One will lead us to the other." That voice is definitely Chris Argent. The woman smells of blood and gun oil and fire but there's that same baseline scent that marks the pair out as being related.
"You said Allison has an aunt, right?" Stiles whispers. Scott shushes him, because unlike Stiles his hearing isn't as strong.
"Get off the streets with that rifle over your shoulder."
"Excuse me. I needed this to stop it killing me!"
"Did you use one of those bullets? You know how expensive they are… I hope you hit it."
"I hit something alright. When do you ever know me to miss, Chris?"
"How long?"
"48 hours."
"Who did they shoot?" Stiles can only listen for so long. "Derek or the alpha?"
"The alpha, I hope," Scott says viciously. Derek telling them he hadn't been the one that bit them had transferred Scott's entire resident anger straight over to the new rogue werewolf.
"We should check…" Stiles listened to the car doors slam, "If he only has 48 hours before the bullet kills him…"
"And we only have four hours left before we should be at school," Scott hisses, "Come on." He drags Stiles away as the cars start up.
He wonders what it means that his life has come to this: to sneaking around in dark alleys listening to hunters plotting about how to kill him and hang his werewolf-y pelt on a wall.
Scott's eyes are sad and frustrated and Stiles thinks that is just how he should be feeling. Not this strange thrill of exhilaration and the tiny, little voice that whispers that he was made for this. He's a better werewolf than Scott, has better control even if it's not perfect yet. His senses tingle and it's too much sometimes but there are rare times like now when everything is clear, and he can map the surrounding area with perfect knowledge.
It is at times like these that Stiles remembers that wolves are hunters too.
And if Stiles was made to be a werewolf, then Stiles was made to be a hunter. A predator.
Something inside him howls for blood, for flesh to rip at and shred, but Stiles squashes it down.
He just needs to keep his head down and look out for Scott.
It should be simple.
Right?
Allison bounces into her aunt's room in the morning, grins and laughter ringing in the air. "Look at you," Kate whistles, eyeing her and stepping back. Kate's her father's sister, but she's always been more like Allison's sister. "I bet the boys must be lining up after you."
Allison's grin is shy and she ducks her head, slipping down onto the bed. "Just one." She shares, and Kate looks genuinely happy for her as she presses for details.
So Allison babbles on, opening up about Scott. About how kind he is, how he just stood out to her, not just because he's a nice person, but he's a nice person who is interested in her. He looks at her as if she hung the moon and she loves that. She loves him, she thinks, but she doesn't want to think too much about that because she doesn't really know what to think.
"Do you need help unpacking?" she offers Kate, "I don't have to go to school quite yet." She reaches out, grabbing at one of the duffel bags that clanks as she drags it towards her.
"No," Kate's sharp and stern tone have her freezing, but it's the hand that closes on her wrist that actually scares Allison into flinching back, staring at Kate's face.
Because for a moment he aunt isn't smiles and laughter. For a moment Kate isn't the soft, gentle aunt she knows. She's ice and jagged blades and gun powder that just ignited in an explosion.
Then it all melts away and Kate lets go, grinning. There's something fake about it though, something that makes Allison uneasy even though her aunt is leaning back, standing. "Look at me. You get the beauty, and I get the kung fu death grip." She laughs it off, standing and moving the bag Allison had been looking at to the cupboard.
"It's okay," Allison says weakly, feeling anything but. "Hey, is your car okay?"
"My car?" It takes Kate a few seconds too long to work out what Allison is talking about. Her stomach rolls with doubt. "Oh, yeah. It just needed a jump start."
And that's the last thing. Jump start.
Last night he dad had said it was a flat tyre.
Which means either they were both really confused, which Allison doubts, because both her aunt and her dad understand enough about cars to know the difference between a jump start and a flat tyre. Maybe the car needed both, but then why not say that?
A fraction of fear shoots through her. "You know what?" she says, "I need to get ready for school. I'll see you later!" she forces a smile and heads out of the room, trying not to think about what this could mean.
Her family is lying to her. They're lying about something.
Allison is going to find out what.
He thinks McCall is on drugs.
It's the only way to explain the kid's sudden skills in lacrosse.
Well… Lydia had been considering that Scott was always this good and it's only now he's got a cure for his asthma that he can actually play properly, but Jackson doesn't believe it. You can't just cure asthma. Especially not like Scott's asthma which had him almost banned from the team when he had an attack last year and they couldn't find his inhaler because Stilinski wasn't around.
And Jackson's already asked McCall where he was getting his juice. 'His mom did the grocery shopping' was all that Jackson had leant.
Huh. Maybe McCall really didn't know. Maybe Stilinski was dosing his friend with illegal steroids. Jackson wouldn't put it past the Sheriff's kid to do that. Stilinski was weird.
Or, he considered, walking along the corridor, there might be another dealer. Leather jacket, dark hair, handsome, not as pretty as Jackson of course, but a looker. Also a creepy stalker hanging out behind the lacrosse bleachers and watching the games.
So he must be there for Scott. He must be the dealer.
"What are you giving them?" Jackson leans on his locker and asks the guy. He frowns, looking at at where Jackson stands in his way, "Steroids, right? What kind?"
The guy just sort of glares in a confused manner as if he has no idea what Jackson is talking about. "Where can I find Scott McCall?" he asks, "Or Stiles. Now." He can't form full sentences either.
"Are you on that stuff?" Jackson flinches back in case it's contagious. "Don't sample to good, you look wrecked."
Derek appears to be losing interest, sighing and stepping around to the side of him. Jackson grabs the volar of his jacket, pulling him back.
"Don't walk away! I want to…"
His face meets his locker with a slam. There is something digging into the back of his neck and a low growl. "Don't touch me." The guy snarls in his ear, then tears away from Jackson. One hand flies to his neck immediately, and when he brings it away it is red with blood.
"He scratched me," Jackson says to himself in disbelief, looking up the corridor to see where Leather Jacket had gone.
The corridor is filled with bustling students, but there is no sign of the guy.
Jackson winces and on his hand are crimson droplets of blood.
He doesn't notice the blue tinge to it.
"So you and Scott are studying then." Lydia smirks, rolling the word around in her mouth.
"Why do you say it like that?" Allison asks warily, trailing after her.
Lydia scoffs in the back of her throat, "Because it's never just 'studying' you know. So are you prepared?"
Allison looks so alarmed it's almost cute, "Prepared? For what? I've got some of my old notes, because I know Scott failed a history test, so I thought maybe giving him some more material to go through would help…"
"That's not what I meant," Lydia says snidely, "You know…" she smiles slyly, gesturing with her hands.
"No…" Allison frowns, "I don't know what you mean…" but realisation is dawning in her voice.
"Condoms," she announces, enjoying watching as Allison's face pales. "Just think about it, sweetie," she pats Allison on the shoulder, "Enjoy French." She says, stepping backwards, "Maybe you could learn something there too," she enjoys watching Allison's expression cycle through various emotions before she finally ducks her head, letting her hair slide in front of her eyes in embarassment. "I'm joking," she leaned forwards, before pulling away, "See you later."
She spins around and flaunts down the corridor in a way that only Lydia Martin can. People move aside and let her pass without even realising what they are doing. It's power in her hands and Lydia loves it.
The bell rings and a locker slams closed, someone stumbling away from the ringing bell. They look sick, dark shadows under their eyes and their skin pale and clammy.
He's wearing a leather jacket and Lydia pauses, because she's seen the guy before. He picked up Allison from her party. He's also been hanging around the lacrosse field in a creepy manner.
He's also been seen talking to Stiles and Lydia. Jackson seems to think Hale is their dealer for steroids.
Maybe not steroids, Lydia thinks, watching Hale straighten and focus on something along the corridor. He was beginning to move towards it when Lydia made her decision, slipping neatly into his path.
He pulls to a halt sharply, pupils wide and blown as he struggled to refocus on her.
"You," Lydia stalks up to the guy in a leather jacket. "You're Derek Hale."
He blinks at her, skin pale and clammy. "Yes," he whispers, and he sways where he stands, "Who are you?"
Lydia pauses, "Lydia Martin," she says, "You're a werewolf."
Derek stares at her for one long moment, and Lydia wonders if she should have done something else. He looks at her as if he's contemplating killing her, and it's a long pause before his eyes flutter shut and his weight drops to the ground in front of her.
Lydia Martin is used to boys getting flustered around her, but having one faint on her is a new experience for her. "Huh," she says, and then glances around to check nobody has seen. The corridor is empty, which is probably why a twenty something year old man has succeeded in walking around half-dead with nobody calling him out on it.
She's afraid he'll laugh. She's told others before, girls mostly, about what she does. "Trying to be the new Katniss?" they joke, not taking her seriously. But Allison has been doing archery since before those books were even published, and she was better too. She has medals and trophies and certificates and all the equipment packed away, even though she hasn't touched it for almost two years.
But she pulls it out anyway and shows it to him. Scott is different, she thinks, and she's never been happier to be proved right. He flinches a little at the weapon, eyes widening. "So?" she asks with a shrug, "I used to do archery when I was younger. I'm out of practise, but…"
"Wow," he looks almost relieved, "That's so cool."
"You think?" she asks.
"Yeah," he nods, "It's awesome… uh… provided you don't go shooting little furry critters… you don't, do you?" he's acting strangely.
She laughs, "Of course not." She turns around to put the compound bow back in the box and when she looks back Scott is staring at her dad's store of weapons.
"Does your dad shoot furry critters?" Scott looks slightly scared.
"My dad sells ammunition and weapons to the police." She explains. "He doesn't shoot anyone." She doesn't miss the way Scott's face goes pale at the thought. She grabs one of Scott's hands, tugging him towards her, "He's not going to shoot you." she reassures him.
"He might," Scott swallows. It's more of a gulp. "He's got pretty good aim… I mean… he must have a good aim, right?"
She silences him with a kiss, trying to keep in mind what Lydia had said. She's still not sure if Lydia was joking or not, but she still tries to make the kiss as good as possible. There is definitely tongue and Scott lets out something that may or not be a moan, but Allison can't explore that further because the garage door slams open.
Allison has pulled away and tugged Scott to the side, behind the nearby car. They crouch down and Scott winces at the voices that drift in. Allison notices his subtle glance at the guns and she emphatically shakes her head.
"She's right you know," Chris shifts his weight marginally so that he's in view, looming over them, "I'm not going to shoot you, Scott." He smiles, but he's trying to psych Scott out. Allison feels frustrated at him, "Maybe you two could help out with the groceries. I might feel less inclined to shoot you then."
Scott just nods numbly and the pair stand, looking sheepish.
"I should get going," Scott admits as he brings one of the last bags in. Allison takes it from him and shakes her head.
"You don't have to…"
"Actually, Victoria was just making dinner. That's a good idea, Scott." Chris appears behind her like an overprotective dad.
Scott looks suitably cowed and Allison tries to look apologetic as he backs away, turning around only to almost walk into Kate carrying the last bag. "Hey there! You must be Scott!" she smiles, teeth gleaming white, "I've heard so much about you and your cute puppy dog eyes!"
"Scott was just leaving," Chris says between clenched teeth. Allison decides she really needs a talk with him.
"What? No!" Kate shakes her head, "I want to meet this young man that has captured Allison's heart. Stay for dinner."
"What." Her dad doesn't sound impressed. Allison doesn't know what to say, because she doesn't really want Scott to endure a family dinner. Not with her dad acting like he is.
"Come on Scott! There's plenty to share!" Kate grins again, and it's almost predatory. "It's okay, isn't it Chris?"
"Of course," her dad sounds strained, almost pained in saying the words.
"Great," Kate says, "That's okay with you, right?"
"O-of course," Scott nods, and then looks at Allison for help. She just offers him a weak and guilty smile.
Lydia has no idea how she managed to get Derek Hale to her car, let alone into the lakehouse where she drapes him on the sofa and considers him for a moment. He's sort of hot, she thinks, at least when he's not dying.
"Wake up," she slaps him across the face and Derek startles awake, blinking and looking really ill.
"Where am I?"
"Lakehouse," Lydia is still trying to work out what to do now, "You passed out."
"I need…" Derek - the idiot - is trying to stand up. "I need… get Scott. Scott…"
"Scott?" Lydia frowns, "Scott McCall?"
"Yes," Derek grabs onto her wrist and she carefully detaches his clinging fingers and pulls out her phone. "I need… bullet…" he says, "Got shot."
"I can see that," Lydia blinks at his pale, clammy skin and the arm bleeding black blood, "What with though? It looks like your arm is infected with some sort of poison but…"
"Wolfsbane," Derek groans, keeling backwards slightly onto the couch, "I need the bullet… need to know what type…"
Lydia understands suddenly in a flash of inspiration. Like a snake when you need the venom to make an anti-venom, Derek needs a bullet with the same poison in before he can make an antidote. "And why do you need Scott?" she asks, and then pauses, "Is Scott a werewolf?" she asks, eyes wide, because that lacrosse ability makes terrible sense suddenly. "He's not on steroids, is he?"
The man's only answer is to groan again, and so Lydia hurriedly scrolls through her contacts. "Please pick up," she prays, listening to the phone ring and ring and ring. There's not reply and she tries again and again and then looks up at Derek. "He's not answering. Anyone else?"
Derek's head is drooping and she scrolls through her contacts, finding a second number. This better work, she prays.
The werewolf in her house closes his eyes and she thinks he's unconscious again.
Great.
"Hello?" Stiles picks up his ringing phone with a mixture of joy and wariness. Because why would Lydia Martin be calling him. He didn't even know she had his number. He didn't even know she knew he existed, unless this was about the waking up in the woods the other night thing, because that would be awkward.
"Stiles?" Lydia's voice asks, "It's Lydia."
"I know. I have caller id," he says.
There's a pause. "You have my number." It's not even a question, and she sighs and moves on quickly, "I have Derek Hale sitting on my sofa unconscious bleeding black blood. Tell me: is that normal for a werewolf?"
"Derek Hale is on a sofa?" Stiles may do a double take, looking up from his laptop screen to stare at his wall. "A sofa?"
"That's the part of the sentence you take away?" Lydia snipes, dryly.
Stiles runs it through in his head and decides that yeah - more important things to focus on. "You know about werewolves?"
"They're real?" she asks, "I… no but I'm not an idiot and I can put things together. And I need help, okay? Can you come over here… I really don't want to have to do this over the phone?"
Stiles scrambles upright, "Uh… sure… what address…?"
Lydia sounds surprised that he doesn't know where she lives, but it's just as well because she's out of town near the lake at the south of the preserve anyway. "Hurry," she tells him, "He won't stop bleeding."
Stiles winces, because even though he's a creature of the night now, blood still makes him squeamish. Maybe that's why he hasn't yet fallen under blood lust.
Well not all werewolves can be perfect.
"Is that infected?" is the first thing Stiles says, closely followed by, "Did you get shot with a silver bullet?"
Derek groans, eyes opening and glaring at Stiles, "I asked for Scott." He says.
"Hey, I'm your wolfy brethren too!" Stiles retorts.
"It's aconite poisoning." Lydia says, "I recognise the symptoms. What?" she says defensively when Stiles and Derek both turn to look at her, "I read," she sniffs.
"Aconite. You mean wolfsbane?" Stiles whistles, "Oh man…"
"I need another one. Kate Argent. I need another bullet from her. One of the ones she shot me with. To make it better." Derek grits out, and then pauses to attempt to tie something around his arm to stop the poison spreading.
"We can't keep him here," Lydia complains, "What if my mom visits!?"
"Then we'll take him to his house."
"No." Derek groans, "If you take me there they'll find me. And I can't defend myself."
"We'll lock you in the basement," Stiles suggests with a shrug.
"If you take me there I'll rip your throat out. With my teeth."
"Okay." Stiles winces, because Derek still scares him. A little.
He and Lydia move away a little bit to talk in private, leaving Derek weak and pale on the couch.
"So he really is a werewolf?" Lydia asks, "And Scott? Is he a werewolf too?"
"Yes, yes and me." Stiles nods.
"You?" Lydia sniffs, "You're not a werewolf."
"Hey!" Stiles protests, "Don't judge a book by its cover. I got bitten with Scott. Now I've got super senses…" he waves at his ears, "And super healing and…" Lydia still looks doubtful.
"Prove it." She declares.
Stiles splutters, "I… I can't just…" he shakes his head, "It doesn't work like that!" he protests.
"So you're not a werewolf?" Lydia baits him, "Come on then. Shift."
"It might be dangerous."
"And? I've got Derek Hale sitting on my sofa dying from aconite poisoning. Try me."
He glares at her angrily, but finally after a bit of deliberation gives up. He closes his eyes, trying to count his breaths, trying to remember what it feels like to have his claws curling outwards, have his eyes burn with wolf sight and the fangs in his mouth. He tries to remember the feeling of skin knitting together and power in his muscles and the sounds echoing across from over a mile away and…
It hits him just like that and it's like the full moon. His hearing is bad enough normally without the amplification the extra power from the moon brings. His eyes fly open and his hands fly to his ears, because he hasn't shifted, he's just pressed the button that starts the world screaming in his ears.
Lydia steps backwards, alarmed, "Stiles?" she asks, "Stiles!" he sinks to his knees, breathing erratic and panicked. "What is it?"
Her words echo a hundred times layered over each other. He can hear her heart beat, blood in the veins, Derek's weak pulse and the house creaking, the lake lapping, leaves rustling… "I can't make it stop," he says, between gasps of air, "I can't…" he sobs, because it's overwhelming. It's a maelstrom and he's stuck in the centre.
"Breathe," Lydia drops to the floor next to him, "Stiles, breathe. Control it. Stiles."
But he can't. He's having a panic attack right here and now because his senses are out of focus. Or in focus, everything blaring at him at once.
Then he's not breathing, there is something warm against his mouth and he blinks, seeing Lydia right in front of him, one hand cupping his cheek and something in him just settles, seconds before she pulls back.
Her eyes find his. "Your eyes are gold." She whispers.
Stiles swallows, finding he can breathe, "They turn that way when I… with the wolf." He says. "You just kissed me."
"It made you hold your breath." She shrugs, "Stopped the panic attack."
Stiles nods slowly. "Believe in werewolves now?"
She nods unwillingly. "What happened?"
"My hearing is over sensitive. Hyper sensitive." Stiles shrugs, "Smells too but it's all… just overwhelming. It's usually bearable with… y'know… the headphones… but on the full moon it's like that. Ever present. Constant. And school… a thousand heart beats all at once, the bells, the pencils on paper and teachers all talking and books rustling…" he shudders, "It's like Clark Kent - and don't get me wrong, I'm a Batman fan - but it's like when Clark gets his superhearing and eyesight and can't cope. Basically: Not good."
Lydia shoots him a deadpan expression.
"Ah," Stiles coughs, "Not a Superhero fan, then?"
"There is a werewolf sitting on my sofa." She says snidely, "I think you're in the wrong genre. I've tried to phone Scott, but Scott's not answering. You don't know what to do… Derek looks like he's dying…"
Stiles tries Scott, but Lydia's right. "Scott could get into the Argent house," he says, chewing a lip.
"Why the Argents, anyway?" Lydia frowns.
"They're werewolf hunters."
"You're joking."
"Unfortunately, no."
"Well then," Lydia smiles, "That means there is another option.
Stiles just stares. "No. No no…"
"Yes." Lydia pulls out her phone and dials the number, "Allison."
"You want me to what?" Allison frowns, "A bullet?"
"Yes. For a school project." Lydia smiles. Allison can hear it even over the phone.
"But…" the phone clunks a bit and then Stiles' voice can be heard, "We need a specific bullet. I was… uh… your dad… he mentioned to my dad, who's the Sheriff, that your aunt had special bullets made for… uh… hunting. And she has a box of these, and we could ask for one, but we know how expensive they are and…"
"And…" Lydia snatches the phone back, "We need it. Please, Allison. Please."
Allison frowns, "I… do I have to steal it? I can't just ask…"
"No!" there is a symphony from both of them, "No." Stiles says again, "Kate can't know it's gone. She'll get suspicious…"
"She'll get worried." Lydia interrupts and takes over, "But this experiment… uh… project… I know what I'm doing. I'm a genius."
"She really is…"
Allison feels twisted with guilt inside. She can't just steal… not from her aunt…
But then again her aunt has been lying to her. Her aunt and father and a spark of rebellion lights within her. "Okay." She agrees. "Okay."
"Great. And if Scott phones, tell him to call me!"
"Scott?" she frowns, "Scott is over here, with me."
"Still?"
"Yeah, he's staying for dinner."
One of the pair on the other end of the phone swears. Allison thinks it might be Lydia, but she's not sure. "Get Scott to help. Or distract and work together. You can tell Scott. But nobody else."
"Alright." Allison nods, treating this like a mission. Mission 'steal a bullet from her aunt's stuff'.
There have been weirder things she's done.
"Mr. Argent," Scott says as they sit down. "Thank you for having me for dinner."
"Don't be ridiculous," Chris replies, smoothing his lips out so that he's not even close to smiling. "We'd never have you for dinner. Victoria hunted something up for us at the supermarket instead."
Scott gulps. "Uh… right."
Allison wants to hit her head against the table.
It's okay though. Things can't exactly get much worse.
Except then they can. Scott begins talking about how he works at the animal clinic, Allison chimes in with how he helped her with a dog, leaving off the bit of information about how she almost ran it down. She talks about how good Scott is with animals, and how the dog didn't bark with him.
But it's just an opportunity for her dad to start talking about rabid dogs. "Something that out of control is better off dead," he says and for some reason Scott looks like he thinks her dad might want to shoot him personally, and so she tries to save the last five minutes of dinner.
"Maybe we could talk about something more cheerful. This isn't exactly dinner conversation and I swear, Scott, we don't usually talk about stuff like this." She shoots him an apologetic look.
"My daughter's right," Victoria admits. She offers Scott an apologetic head nod. To be more accurate it is a very, very discreet nod. Barely a tilt of the head really. Allison wouldn't be surprised if Scott didn't get the apology.
"She's what?" Chris asks, looking utterly betrayed.
"I'm what?" Allison asks at the same time as her father before quickly covering up her surprise with a determined, "I mean that's right I am." She shoves her chair out backwards, "I'm going to show Scott some of my shooting. See how good he is and how bad I've gotten." She makes her grin mischievous. "Coming, Scott?"
"Wait…" Kate leans forwards, looking like she's disappointed that the conversation about blood and killing is over, "What about dessert?"
"I'm not really hungry," Allison shrugs, "Are you, Scott?"
"No," he shakes his head, "Thank you for dinner, Mrs Argent, Mr Argent…" he blinks at Kate, unsure of how to address her.
"Call me Kate," her aunt laughs, "None of that Ms Argent stuff." She laughs, but her eyes spark with something that makes Allison want to protect Scott.
She's being ridiculous. Her parents lie to her once and now she's seeing stuff where there isn't anything.
"I don't think I'll be that good at shooting," Scott admits to her as she pulls him out into the corridor.
Allison grabs onto his jumper, letting the door closed and being sure that her parents can't hear her, she tugs him down the corridor. "We're not going to try archery. Maybe another time." She tries not to think about the implication that there is going to be another time and a time after that. "Stiles and Lydia phoned."
"What?" Scott's face falls, then twists in confusion, "Stiles and Lydia?"
Allison frowns, because apparently Scott didn't know they were hanging out doing 'projects' together. "Yeah, they said they're doing this experiment thing and they asked me to steal a bullet. From my aunt."
"A bullet." Scott's face is pale, "From your aunt."
"Stop repeating everything I just said," Allison chides.
"And you're doing it?" Scott sounds disbelieving.
She's still doubting that herself, but she nods, "Yes," she says, slipping the door to her aunt's room open and dragging Scott in with her. "Yes. I think they're lying through their teeth but…"
But I think my parents and aunt are lying to me.
But I think you and Lydia and Stiles are lying to me.
But I want to go through my aunt's bags anyway.
But I want to do something reckless.
She closes the door behind them.
There are weapons.
That's the first thing she realises. Her aunt has lots of weapons.
Worse: all of them are cleaned and look well used. Each have a stock of ammunition and are neatly packed away with care.
Her dad sells weapons, but her aunt…? She's not in that business. She has no reason to have all these guns and rifles and if that a crossbow?
"What if they catch us?" Scott frets, "What if your aunt comes back?"
It's a good point, and Allison sorts it out by opening a side packet and slipping out a box. Scott's eyes widen dramatically as Allison retrieves a small square foil package. "What?" he asks, short of breath.
She grins, slightly embarrassed, "Just in case," she teases him, but slips it into a pocket. "As a cover," she says, "Looking at how dinner went, they wouldn't be surprised."
"Your dad will castrate me," Scott hisses.
Allison is about to reply but is interrupted by the sound of a phone vibrating. It's not Scott's. His is still off from their make out session earlier. It's hers and she tugs it out, seeing an unknown number. She answers it anyway and Stiles' voice can be heard on the other end.
"Allison? Have you found it yet? I mean… we don't want to rush you but we need it kind of urgently." His voice sounds strained and then his voice goes quiet as he holds the phone away from his mouth. "Oh god," Allison hears weakly, "Are you serious? You have your serious face on, but with those eyebrows, I can't really tell and…"
"I think when Derek says 'it's going to spread to his heart and kill him' he means it," Lydia's voice drifts over. Scott grabs the phone from Allison's puzzled grasp.
"Stiles?" he asks, "What… what is it?" he casts a nervous glance at Allison.
"Uh… we need a bullet. Remember last night and the 48 hour thing, yeah, well we're got… uh… you know who here and he's… injured… so we need another. Should be special… wolfsbane…"
"You mean Monkshood?" Allison tugs out a box with a flower carved on the side. She opens the box and there are bullets, lined neatly.
Except for the spot where there is one missing.
"Hurry, Scott!" Stiles says, "His arm is almost purple and the wound looks infected."
"He's dying, you idiot," Lydia hisses, and Allison freezes.
"It's their project," Scott offers her a weak smile, "Aconite for healing… and this species… Nordic… Blue Monkshood…" he looks at the box, "It has healing properties."
He's lying. Allison knows it. First her dad, then Kate, then Lydia and Stiles and Scott and she just nods. "Grab one then." She gestures.
Scott's words from earlier come back to her. 'Provided you don't go shooting little furry critters'.
She's stealing a bullet from her aunt's bag that looks hand crafted and expensive. There's one missing before they've even stolen one, which means one must have been used.
And on the phone Stiles and Lydia are talking about a 'wound' and 'how bad it looks' and there is a bullet missing and soon there will be another one gone and Allison knows what it means.
Her aunt has shot someone.
Not something.
Someone.
'Little furry critter' Scott had said, when he really meant 'someone'.
Her aunt has shot someone.
Which only raises the question… does he dad know?
Has her dad shot people as well?
They get off the phone with Scott and Allison, and Lydia has no idea how they are going to explain this to Allison. Maybe with a sentence that doesn't have werewolves in, but that makes things difficult.
Derek is still shifting around, trying and failing to pace. He grabs onto Lydia's mantelpiece to steady himself and Stiles steps forwards, looking concerned. "What are you doing? Dude you should be resting! Moving around will only make the poison spread faster…"
"Do you have any tools? Knives… chain saws…"
"Chain saws?" Stiles squawks, "What for?"
"If the poison spreads any further, one of you two is going to have to cut off my arm."
Lydia blinks, because yeah, if Scott doesn't get here in time then that will work too. Especially if werewolves have magic healing powers.
"Positivity just isn't in your vocabulary, is it?" Stiles sighs, and that's when the rest of the phrase 'cut of arm' hits her.
That's going to be messy, she thinks.
Really messy.
It almost all fails. For all Allison has helped them, not even knowing what she is doing, she helps them once more when Kate clears her throat and leans on the door. "Uh uh. Before you go… Scott… I'd like you to admit what you took from my room?"
"What?" Scott blinks, a deer in the spotlights.
And that's when Allison pulls out the condom she'd taken. "It wasn't Scott who took something from your bag. It was me."
Her dad looks pale and Kate looks almost impressed. Scott's had enough of the Argents for the day (except for Allison). He gets out of there as soon as possible, grabbing his bicycle and thankful for the werewolf stamina as he peddles to Lydia's lakehouse.
He's never been to the house at the south of the town but he finds his way there easily enough. Nobody is outside, but he sees Stiles' jeep and another car which must be Lydia's, since it still has a learner's sign stuck in the window.
He opens the door. It's unlocked.
Inside the sound of voices drift towards him.
"You faint at the sight of blood."
"No, but I might at the sight of a chopped off arm."
"How about nobody chops off any arms," Scott says, eyeing up Lydia who just rolls her eyes at his timely arrival.
"Thank god," she breathes, "The blood stains would have never come out."
Stiles looks traumatised and he gestures at Derek, as if Scott hasn't already seen the werewolf standing pale and ill looking, his arm a funny black colour that it definitely should not be. "He got shot by Kate last night. A wolfsbane bullet. We needed another one and you weren't answering your phone…"
"So you phoned Allison?" a fragment of resentment makes itself known, "What am I going to tell her? How the hell am I going to explain why you guys needed her to steal a bullet and I needed to take it to you. Urgently?"
Stiles curls his lip a little, and it's a small step away from a snarl, "I'm sorry if I ruined things with your little girlfriend, but we had bigger things to worry about!"
"Don't worry about Allison," Lydia interrupts, snidely, "I'll talk things through with her. Maybe not in as many words as necessary, but I'll make her understand."
Scott turns away, but Stiles is still glaring at him. Scott feels like he's made a wrong move somewhere. "What do we do wth it?" he waves the bullet around.
Derek snatches it from him. "We need to…" he waves it about, but Scott can see his eyes growing out of focus, and he can predict that he's going to fall before he does.
What he doesn't predict is the way the bullet slips from numb fingers towards the floor.
Stiles catches it, almost without thinking. "Huh." He considers. "Maye I should consider playing lacrosse," he blinks, and that's when Derek finally goes down, hard, to the floor. His claws are out and they scratch against the floorboards as the werewolf's green eyes flutter closed.
"I hope he doesn't scratch the floor."
Scott doesn't quite know how to deal with this. Lydia knows… Lydia knows and she's worried about the floor, while Stiles is still contemplating the bullet.
Scott drops to his knees, because they have no idea what to do. But Derek does, and so Scott punches Derek in the face. It's satisfying in a way. It makes Scott feel better about all of this, the werewolf issue, the fact that Allison knows something is going on, the fact the Argents want to kill him and the fact that Lydia now knows too. And Stiles is standing there arguing with Lydia about blood stains as if nothing else matters.
His fist collides with a warm hand before he can punch the other werewolf for a third time. Derek is blinking up at him. "Lighter," he croaks out, gaze drifting out of focus. Stiles and Lydia stop arguing long enough to crouch down and help Derek into a sitting position as Lydia produces a lighter from somewhere.
"What do we do?" she asks, eyes bright, "You need to use it as an antidote, right, but how…?"
Derek grabs the bullet from Stiles and snaps it open with a twist of his fingers. Black powder pours out and Stiles flinches back and Derek just lets it fall through his fingers.
Then he flicks the lighter and the stuff ignites like gunpowder. Scott is pretty sure it's not meant to do that but there is a sharp smell of ozone in the air, and Stiles is moving even further back and that suggests that he can smell it too.
The black powder burns and crumples into ash, which Derek smears onto his fingertips. Scott is sceptical, hell even Lydia is sceptical, but then Derek is smearing it like some sort of paste over the wound with clumsy fingers.
He's barely done that than he's sinking down, and Scott and Lydia have to support his full weight. Derek's face crumples in pain and Scott can literally see the moment the black spreading through his veins changes its mind and decides to retreat back to the wound, burning off in a hiss of smoke.
"Holy fu-" Stiles whistles.
"Are you okay?" Scott asks.
"Apart from the agonising pain."
"I guess the ability to use sarcasm is a good sign of health."
"Oh god," Now the imminent threat of Derek dying is over, Scott's worries about Allison knowing come back to hit him. "What am I going to tell Allison?"
"You can't tell her anything," Derek growls, "She's an Argent. They can't be trusted."
"Oh yeah?" Scott snaps back, "What's to stop me going back to that house and telling them all about you?"
Stiles hisses and Lydia glances between Scott and Derek, sensing the distrust. Derek just glares right back at Scott. "You trust them? I'll show you exactly how nice they are."
That's how Scott meets Peter Hale.
"Hi, it's me… just to apologise for that terrible dinner… and my aunt and my dad and basically sorry…" It's cold outside, and it bites at her fingers but she won't be out here long. "Also I hope everything went okay with the bullet. I… don't worry about it and… well…Look, I know you're into something but I'm… I'm not going to ask. You can tell me when you're ready. I'll see you soon. Lo-" the voice mail cuts off and it's just as well, because her last words sit heavy on her tongue.
Had she really been about to-?
No- Allison isn't that sort of girl. Not really.
She is about to turn to go back inside when the streetlight catches something in a glint. She pauses and turns back to where her aunt's car is parked from the grocery shopping. At least… they'd come home with groceries, but…
She steps forwards, and something crunches underfoot. Stepping back she crouches, picking out the spots of shining crystals on the concrete.
No, not crystals. Glass. It's small pieces of shattered glass. They are scattered around the driver's door and when Allison stands, there are a few fragile crystals along the left door window.
The window itself is new. Unbroken.
Shiny new.
She doesn't stay; she backs away towards the warmth and safety of her house. She slips in, the door clinking shut and she freezes, trying to control her breathing.
Voices drift in through from where her dad and aunt sit in the living room. She wants to go to them, wants to know the truth but at the same time she wants to forget about all of this.
It's the indecision that has her lingering just long enough for the words to become clear in her mind.
"The code is there for a reason," her dad is saying, and Allison wonders what this code is she's never heard about. She stands near to the doorway just close enough to see her aunt standing with her back to the fire place, and her father sitting on the sofa.
"Of course." Kate's smile scares her, and she flinches back as her aunt's face becomes illuminated with firelight. Her aunt's eyes dance in the flare from the match, and her lips curl a little too gleefully as she throws the flame into the fireplace.
Allison thinks again about wolfsbane bullets and guns and broken glass and Derek Hale and her aunt smiling at the fire that burnt in her hand.
Allison doesn't sleep well that night.
"Lydia, I swear to god you're going to like it."
"No."
She may now know about werewolves and the concept that there are other things that go bump in the night now exist, but some things never change. She sits in the driver's seat outside Video 2*C and Jackson is looking furiously at her from the passenger's seat.
"I am not watching 'The Notebook' again!"
She just shoots him a smirk. She's got him so well trained.
With a sigh he slams open the car door and stalks towards the store. Triumphantly Lydia pulls out her phone and dials a number in idle boredom while she waits. "So only alpha werewolves can turn people." She begins, "What does that make you?"
"Jesus, Lydia, hello to you too," Stiles grumbles on the other end of the phone, "And…" he clears his throat, "Beta." He replies, curtly.
In the background Lydia can hear another voice, "That's Lydia on the phone? Wait… Lydia Martin? That Lydia?"
Ignoring this, Lydia nods to herself, "And the power to pass on the bite also manifests in red eyes? What about the shift? Do you ever turn into proper wolves or do you just have a change in hair."
"I don't know," Stiles bites out, "I can't see myself. But the big guy loses his eyebrows. Like. Entirely. I don't know where they go."
"You mean Derek?"
"My dad is sitting right here, Lydia." And oh, Lydia thinks, that explains Stiles' avoidance of certain terms. "Where are you anyway?"
"Video rental store." She eyes the store which has just gone dark in front of her. She wonders if they're having power problems or something. "Hanging out with Jackson. Don't say anything."
"Well I'm not the one who has to date him and no- dad - you are not allowed the curly fries." Lydia hears Stiles' dad' talking. Stiles scoffs back to his father. "If you think getting rid of contractions in your sentences makes your argument any more legitimate then you ARE wrong."
There is a crash from the building in front of her.
"What was that?" Stiles asks into the phone.
Lydia frowns, "I don't know," she peers at the dark store, "Uh… you mind holding on. I'm just going to take a look."
"You know in movies leaving your car never ends well."
"I'm not living in a movie, Stiles." She says, and she pushes her door open, just as the glass of the store shatters.
Something explodes outwards with fur and red eyes and snarling teeth and it crashes past, not even swerving around the door and Lydia snatches her hand back, eyes closing and her body tensing as whatever it is just rips the door right off the hinges.
"What the hell-" she hears over the phone, but something is snarling and glaring red eyes and dark fur and Lydia just gives into instinct.
She screams.
Derek sits with Scott on the roof, eyeing the scene below them. Stiles and the Sheriff turn up almost immediately, and Derek sees the beta talking with the girl - Lydia - who they had been with the other day. She's waving her hands around angrily and snapping at him in hushed tones. The pair shut up instantly when Jackson approaches, and Lydia shoots Stiles a meaningful looks and allows herself to be coddled by the other boy, while Stiles backs off for his father to step forwards.
Derek's weight shifts uneasily. "Starting to get it?"
Scott clears his throat as they wheel the body out, and his nose wrinkles from the scent of blood, "He's killing people. I don't understand why? I mean… do all alphas go out murdering everyone? Is that a thing? I mean I woke up in the woods naked, and Stiles woke up having killed a mountain lion, but this? Do we do this?"
The older beta glances down at where Stiles is eyeing the crime scene. He glances up at them, shooting the pair a weird look. Scott waves. Derek shouldn't be surprised that the kid know they're there considering his hypersensitive senses, but somehow he is. Stiles is pale and dorky and not exactly the prime of anything, let alone being a werewolf. Yet he and Scott are equally matched, even if Derek keeps forgetting that.
"We're predators," Derek says, quoting what Talia used to tell him, "Not killers."
Stiles looks back up at them at that.
"Then why is he killing?" Scott asks, and Derek sees Stiles begin to slip away, the young beta moving around to meet up with them. Derek pulls Scott away, so he can talk to the pair of them somewhere more preferable.
"That's what we're going to find out."
Derek's old house is cold and far too empty. He rounds on Stiles and Scott, but feeling like he might be too threatening, he ends up taking a seat on the stairs.
"Seriously, dude," Stiles wrinkles his nose, "Do you live here?"
He doesn't bother answering the beta. He's got a motel booked for showering and eating, but he honestly prefers to camp out here. It's unhealthy, but he thinks he kind of deserves it. To sleep in the ashes of what he had wrought.
"How do you cook?" Scott frowns.
"I eat all my meals raw," Derek snaps back. Stiles gapes at him, startled at the joke.
"Well I don't." Scott snaps, "And I don't want to! I want to be normal!"
Stiles scoffs, "I think normal flew out of the window pretty long ago."
"Well it's okay for you!" Scott whines, clawing at his hair, "You don't have to meet up with the Argents every time you want to see your girlfriend."
"That's because I don't have a girlfriend." Stiles pats his friend's back. "But otherwise I'm in the same predicament as you. You think they'll care which of us they get to put a bullet in next time, as long as we're dead?"
Scott turns to look at Derek, "And the alpha? He wants us too… as some sort of pet or…"
"Pack." Derek corrects. "Part of his pack. You kill with him, you join his pack. Or he kills you."
Scott looks traumatised, while his friend just looks contemplative. "Seriously, who made up these rules?" he asks, "It's like some sort of sick rite of passage."
"Can't you track his scent?" Scott asks.
"The scent changes from human to wolf. Our best way to find him is to use your link to him, but to use that you need to learn to control your abilities."
He hears Stiles' breathing pick up and the teenager steps back, eyes flashing gold with the sudden rush of emotion. "No way. I don't like feeling him there inside my head. It feels… it's like standing on a cliff about to fall. Or a panic attack waiting to happen. Or…" Scott grabs onto Stiles' bicep, and the physical anchor seems to calm Stiles down.
"So you're going to teach us?" Scott asks. "Teach us what?"
"First lesson?" Derek asks, and then he stands fluidly in one swift motion, grabs onto the hand Scott has on Stiles' upper arm and twists the wrist. It achieves the purpose of breaking Scott's wrist and digging the one boy's fingers into Stiles' arm. Both hiss and pull back.
"What the hell?" Stiles snaps.
"It will heal." Derek says, simply. "But what's the lesson? Remember when you were shot in the arm, Scott? That first night? What happened?"
"I changed back," Scott cradles his wrist shooting Derek a betrayed glare.
"Pain," Stiles is far too clever for his own good, "Pain keeps you human." He realises.
Derek smiles in satisfaction, stepping back up the stairs as he turns to leave, "Maybe you will survive."
The necklack around her neck feels heavier than it should. Which is stupid. It's just a necklace. A family heirloom, Kate had said, and encouraged her to look up about it.
'Some mysteries are worth the effort' Kate had said, but Allison couldn't stop thinking about how some secrets did nothing but hurt.
She loves the necklace, and she loves the gesture. It's her birthday and she's smiling, even though it might not last through school.
It doesn't make the niggling feeling in the back of her mind go away, nor does fact the symbol on the pendant is a large dog.
But to Allison it looks just a bit like a wolf.
She's still thinking about it when she reaches her locker, about wolves and wolfsbane bullets and she's not thinking at all, which is why she's so startled when balloons burst out of her locker.
"Is it your birthday?" Scott appears out of nowhere, smiling at her attempts to stuff the balloons back in the locker out of sight.
"No, no, uh no - I mean - uh - yespleasedon'ttellanybody." She takes a deep breath and shoves the card with Lydia's neat cursive writing on it back in the locker. "I don't even know how Lydia found out."
"Why wouldn't you tell me?"
She glances around before whispering her answer. "Because I'm seventeen."
"You're seventeen."
"That's the reaction I'm trying to avoid." She narrows her eyes at him. He doesn't get it. He's no different from any of the other students and their whispers. 'What - Did you get held back ?' 'Did you ride the short bus?' 'Did you have a baby?' She's sick of it, and now she gets to hear it from Scott as well. She doesn't need that.
But then he continues eyes wide and looking like a lost puppy. "Why? I mean I totally get it. You had to repeat a year because of all the moving around, right?"
She kisses him because he does get it. Because maybe for the first time ever, she's found someone who gets her.
She just wishes it was as easy for her to do the same.
"Everyone, start reading Chapter Nine. Mr. Stilinski. Try putting the highlighter down between paragraphs. It's chemistry, not a colouring book."
Stiles chews disgustedly on the highlighter lid and spits it into the air, catching it and capping his pen as he looks around. No Scott, but he's not surprised. His headphones are in his bag because Harris absolutely hates them, and so Stiles heard their conversation about skipping class. It means Scott is going to be out with Allison all day, and come back with stars in his eyes.
It would be cute if it wasn't so ridiculously sappy.
"Where is Scott?" Lydia turns around from two desks forwards from him.
"It's Allison's birthday."
"I know that," she sniffs, but leans back and looks back to her text book. She's already read chapter 9, Stiles notices, and is currently on a later chapter near the end of the whole book. It's the section on genetics and he just knows she's going to start asking him about what his DNA now looks like considering he's no longer completely human.
"Hey, Danny," he asks instead, leaning forwards, "Can I ask you a question?"
Danny doesn't even turn around. "No." he says and Stiles wants to bare his fangs in frustration to maybe threaten him but-
No, no, that's not good. That's the kind of thing a killer alpha would do.
"Well I'm going to anyway," he shrugs, "Did Jackson tell you what happened last night?"
"No."
Stiles takes a moment to work out if this is an answer or a refutation to answer the question. He assumes the first and continues. "Can I ask you another question?"
"The answer is still 'no'."
"Did he see anything?"
"I don't know…"
"But you're his best friend."
"He won't tell me."
"One more question."
"What?"
"Do you find me attractive?"
Stiles likes to think that Danny had lifted his head up to quietly contemplate the answer and maybe even Stiles in general, and not to frown in confusion at the board as if he doubts what he just heard, but while Lydia claims the latter, Stiles will never quite be sure because for all his werewolf skills, he still manages to slip off his stool and almost face plant into the floor.
"My dad will kill me if he finds out." Allison admits to him.
"You always follow your dad's rules?"
"Not lately." She says, and there is doubt in her voice. She looks out of the window as she pulls up the car by the side of the woods, slipping the hand brake on and cutting the engine. "Look, I know you were lying about the bullet." She says, suddenly, "But I'm not going to ask what it was really for. Just know that… I'm here…" she looks to him, "I'm here when you want to finally tell me. Okay?"
"It's not that simple," Scott says gravely, "It's dangerous and more complicated and…"
"I don't care," she whispers, and she leans across to kiss him. "Now let's not talk about this anymore."
Scott can get behind that, as he slides out of the car and they head up to the woods. This will be just a day for the two of them. Just him and Allison having fun, to make her birthday the best day ever.
He can do that.
No werewolves, no alphas, no Derek Hale, just him and Allison.
He smiles and lets all his worries fall away.
"So what am I doing here again?"
Danny looks out of place in Stiles' bedroom, sitting at the desk chair and staring at the computer because he doesn't want to see where Lydia and Stiles are staring at him expectantly.
"We." Lydia grins, "Need you to hack into the security camera feed for the whole town."
"Unless you can't do it," Stiles shrugs.
"What makes you think I can do it in the first place?" Danny turns to them, Lydia on the bed and Stiles standing with his arms crossed. Stiles looks nervously at Lydia and then shrugs.
"I looked up your arrest record."
Danny looks alarmed. "I was thirteen. They dropped the charges."
"Point still stands," Lydia shrugs, "You can do it. So do it." Stiles admires her poker face as she glares Danny into sighing, throwing up his hands and turning back to the computer. With a huff he gets to work, keys tapping away merrily beneath his fingers. Lydia turns to Stiles, voice barely a whisper but Stiles hears it perfectly of course. "You said your father had some shots?"
Stiles unobtrusively taps on a folder he's got sitting on his desk, and Lydia nods. The pair stay silent, letting Danny work. He finishes up after a long period of typing and clicking away. "Okay, so there they all are," he gestures at the screen, "Every camera in Beacon Hills. You two owe me so much for this."
"Of course," Lydia says, but she's already distracted by the images on the screen. She slides into the seat almost as soon as Danny vacates it, leaving Stiles standing and peering over her shoulder. Danny looks between the two of them and the screen.
"I take it we're not going to get any chemistry done?" he asks with a sigh, "We'll meet up another time, then."
"Later," Stiles mumbles as his door closes, video already playing as Lydia flicks through several clips.
"There has to be at least hours of footage to watch." She mumbles, "With all the cameras and the time frame that's at least…"
Stiles stops her before she can calculate the math, "A lot," he says, nodding, "So." He rubs his hands together. "We better get started then. But we'll find him. We'll find something." He tosses open the folder on the desk, "This is our starting point. Frames from this camera," he opens the camera record in question. And then pushes the pictures towards Lydia.
She looks through them. "It looks like a bear," she frowns. "But bears drop from two legs to four, not rise up."
"So it's our alpha," Stiles says, and then wrinkles his nose at his words, "I mean… it's the alpha werewolf, I guess. He turns into…" he flicks out the first image, "That." He gestures to the large black shape, shuddering.
He can't see the red eyes on the picture but he knows they're there.
Lydia shivers a little bit too, and the second picture shows how far the door was wrenched of the car, shows the impact as the shape just blurs up and around, straightening into a human like form and then vanishing out of the shot.
She opens a file, "Right, so this is the footage from the street…"
Derek runs through the woods away from the Hale house, hearing Kate's laugh in the distance. It chases him, and he runs faster, alone and on his own. Derek knows his sister was killed by the alpha now. Killed and ripped in half. Which means it wasn't a rogue alpha.
It was planned. It was planned and carried out to stop Laura coming back.
He's angry. Angry at himself for letting Laura come back to Beacon Hills alone, angry at Laura for coming back in the first place, and angry at Kate for being able to goad him so easily, even after all these years.
Laura was killed, undoubtable for the alpha power. Maybe even bait as Kate seemed to think. The hunters are looking for the new alpha, just as much as Derek is. In some ludicrous story plots, this would be the point in which they teamed up.
This isn't a story. This is real life and Kate would sooner shoot Derek than work with him.
Derek would sooner rip out her throat than do anything that even involves Kate's name or presence.
"Jackson's a highly motivated student. In fact, I'd describe him as "unusually driven.""
"Yeah, we were hoping he might ease up on himself a little. He's always been real hard on himself. It's just, you know, something we assumed was an effect of him being adopted."
"I think I understand. He's never met his biological parents."
"Yeah, that's right. It's the need to please, the overachieving, the desire to make someone proud - Someone he's never even met."
"Something certainly seems to have recalibrated his desire for achievement several notches higher. Not to be too blunt about it, but he seems almost obsessed."
There is something going on with Scott McCall and Jackson is going to figure out what. He has to, there must be a reason that idiot became so good at lacrosse. It doesn't just happen overnight.
The lacrosse ball hits the top of the tin and falls down and Jackson snarls in frustration. He can get this. He's better than this. He's brilliant.
Jackson is seriously starting to suspect that some weird shit is going on here. Not to mention Derek's Hale's stalking abilities are beginning to scare him, especially when he finds him in the locker room. At the very least, Jackson was dressed.
This time at least. Maybe not next time.
Derek and Scott and whatever Lydia has now gotten into, hanging around with Stilinski all the time, it's all connected. There must be a link.
And Jackson is going to find it.
"Let me tell you, there's plenty to say about Lydia."
"What is it? Is it her grades, concentration issues, erratic behaviour? Just tell us what the problem is."
"I wasn't aware that there was a problem. Academically, Lydia's one of the finest students I've ever had. Her A.P. classes push her GPA above a 5.0. I'd actually like to have her I.Q. tested. And socially, she displays outstanding leadership qualities. I mean, she's a real leader."
Werewolves are fascinating. Lydia can't apply science to them and that makes them even more interesting.
They're also dangerous. Lydia realised that when one broke out of a crime scene and took her car door clean off its hinges. She worked that out when Stiles snarled at her with gold eyes and honest to god fangs while Derek Hale lay dying on her sofa.
It's not just the werewolves though. It's the hunters and everything else.
Lydia shouldn't be here. She's sensible. She wants to pass all her exams with the highest grades possible, go off to college or university and get out of here.
But there are werewolves here.
And honestly, where else could she find that?
Maybe there are more, she considers, but she glances at Stiles who has his face glued to the laptop screen, but where else are there going to be werewolves and hunters and puzzles and friends and family all together wrapped up in one package?
Lydia used to pride herself on not getting close to anyone.
She's broken her own rules, and yet she can't find herself regretting it.
"So, Stiles. Great kid. Zero ability to focus. Super smart. Never takes advantage of his talents."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, for his final question on his midterm exam, he detailed the entire history of the male circumcision."
"Well, I mean, it does have - historical significance, right? I mean -"
"I teach economics."
Lydia watches one video slowly and in great detail. On another laptop, Stiles opens four windows and plays them simultaneously, eyes darting from one to another as he tracks the progress of events. They've picked up movement that is definitely the same guy on another camera, but all you can see is his back and the corner of his head as it passes by the shot.
This is going to take time. And maybe they won't find anything this evening, but they'll persevere. They'll find the alpha.
Stiles wonders what they're going to do when they find him. Are they going to kill him? That would be best, logically. It would stop the murders and ensure their safety. It would end all of this. It wouldn't change him and Scott from being werewolves, but it would stop the murders.
It wouldn't stop the hunters though. It wouldn't stop the fact there are other monsters of the night out there.
Maybe they should just persuade him to stop killing. Talk to the guy. And then sit down and stop the hunters.
Stiles doesn't know. He has no idea and he's so out of his depths it scares him. He's sitting here with Lydia freaking Martin looking for the identity of an alpha werewolf who turned Stiles and Scott into werewolves.
The videos on the screen fade and with a sigh, Stiles opens four new ones, finds the correct time slot and starts them up, settling back for a long night.
"Lately Scott's mind has been somewhere else, as has his body. Personally, I think it may have something to do with his home situation. Uh, specifically the lack of an authority figure. Allow me to clarify. I mean the lack of a male authority figure."
"Oh. Well, trust me, we're much better off without him in the picture."
"Well, does Scott feel the same way ?"
"Yes. I think so. I hope so."
"But he's going through some difficult changes. He just needs a - little extra attention, a guiding hand through this crucial stage of his development."
His eyes flare in from the head lights of cars passing by. He only notices when he sees it in the mirror, and then he's ducking down, hiding his face.
Everything is just too far out of his control for his liking anymore. He can't cope, can't deal. He's relying on Stiles and Lydia to work everything out, for Derek to train and teach him, for Allison to just be there, to be normal for him.
Scott isn't doing anything. He's sitting on an island letting the sea wash around him.
He needs to take action. He needs to do something.
Especially when sitting around doing nothing might get somebody else killed.
"Allison Argent. An incredibly sweet girl. And quick to adjust, despite all the moving around."
"We know it's hard on her, but, uh, it's a necessary evil."
"Necessary or not, I'd be prepared for some - How do I put this?"
"Rebelliousness?"
"We appreciate the concern, but we have a great relationship with our daughter. Very open and honest."
She sees her dad's face when he shoots the cougar and is almost wary to approach him after that. The parking lot had been chaotic and she had clung to Scott and Melissa, hanging back while her dad had calmly walked forwards and drawn his gun.
He didn't look sorry. He looked used to it, as if he'd seen plenty of animals die.
She thinks of her aunt and wolfsbane bullets. She thinks of her dad and the cougar dying from his gun shot.
Allison is so, so close she can almost grasp it. But everything is still out of reach, still not quite there. So she hangs onto Scott and doesn't let go. She listens to her parents and aunt talk and she phones up Lydia, listening to the dial tone.
She's on the wrong side of this, but not for long.
There is a necklace around her neck and on it is a symbol. Family history.
And for the first time Allison thinks that maybe it's all connected. Her family with Scott's secrets and Lydia and Stiles and wolfsbane bullets.
Her thumb brushes over the engraving of the wolf and she thinks, at least she has somewhere to start.
Stiles is having a panic attack.
He's not sure exactly what brought it on.
Actually, he knows exactly what brought it on, but it currently feels like he's drowning, lungs bursting for air and he just can't breathe. His chest is tight like there are steel clamps over his chest and his claws scratch bloody lines into his skin as he doubles over, trying to suck in oxygen.
The pull of the alpha has faded, the tug and the urge to run through the forest and howl at the moon… or whatever else they should be doing. It's the call of pack though, of family, and Stiles was half-way in the process of climbing out of his window before he realised it.
That hadn't been what set off the panic attack though.
That had been caused by the knowledge that Stiles wanted to go. He wanted to have a pack.
He wanted all of this.
Stiles feels his teeth pierce his lip, and a whine escapes his throat. He stumbles, half trips into the bathroom and grabs onto the sink for support.
His eyes catch in the mirror and he freezes, staring at the blazing gold colour in them. He's seen Scott, when wolfed out, but not himself.
The first thing he actually notices is that thank god he's growing his buzzcut out, because if so he'd look very weird. Possible because his sideburns have extended slightly. Not as much as Scott's did, and it actually doesn't look bad. There's something about his face, maybe the angle or maybe the light that makes his features look elongated, as if they're almost bestial. Almost wolf-like. His ears have twisted in shape, becoming pointed at the tips but beyond that the only visible difference is the glowing eyes and way his mouth has twisted into a snarl, showing his fangs.
He hears the growl in his throat and it chokes out into a desperate attempt for air.
Downstairs a door slams open and Stiles can hear his heartbeat splutter.
His dad's home.
"Stiles!" comes the expected call and then the creak of floorboards.
Stiles panics. His dad can't see him like this. He can't.
"Stiles? You home?"
"One minute!" Stiles shouts, but he's shouting around fangs and still trying to breath and it's a weak spluttering shout that does the opposite of intended.
"Are you okay?"
His dad is on the stairs now, and Stiles can hear his father's heartbeat, quiet breaths and he clenches his eyes closed, trying to force the shift down, trying to breath, trying to listen to his father…
It's too much but not enough. The door opens. Stiles listens to the reassuring heartbeat, the soft rise and fall of his dad's chest as he crosses the few metres to where Stiles is. One hand falls onto Stiles' shoulder and he opens his eyes.
First he sees his father's concerned gaze, and then his eyes dart to the mirror.
His eyes are brown.
His breath still comes out in little pants, and his dad is talking, telling him to breath, and Stiles knows it's all going to be okay, because his father is here now.
The Sheriff looks worried when Stiles crashes into his arms. It's safety and security and most of all, it's humanity. The tug and feeling of pack is gone now, and Stiles is human and his eyes are brown and that's good enough for him.
He just needs to remember that.
"So I can control the shift," Stiles corners Scott before school. He stops Scott in the car park when he's barely put his bike on the rack, dragging him over to his jeep and blurting it out.
Scott pauses for a moment, trying to work out what he's talking about, and then he breaks into a grin, "Really? How?!"
Stiles taps Scott's chest, "Your heartbeat." he says, "Listen to it. Keep it low. The higher it is, the more likely you are to wolf out."
Scott sighs, "So stay away from lacrosse and Allison?" he asks.
"No," Stiles shakes his head, "Don't get angry. And find something to focus on. Something to anchor you."
Scott frowns, "What is it for you?"
"My dad." Stiles look nervous, chewing his lip, "I wolfed out last night, and I thought… I thought he'd see, but then he was there and I was human and it… it keeps the sounds at bay too, did you know? Everything is muted around him. He makes it all better. You do too, and Lydia. I'm just so focussed on you, I don't think about the other stuff, y'know? So you need to find something to focus on. Something, someone…"
Scott's mind races. A focus point. It could be anything. Family, friends… he listens to Stiles' heartbeat, loud and erratic, and it just puts him on edge. "How are we going to do that?"
He hates the grin that spreads over Stiles' face. "That…" he says, "…is where I have a plan. Stand there." He positions Scott into a potion, standing on the tarmac. Eyeing Scott, Stiles nods appreciatively and then hands him something.
"What?" Scott stares at Stiles as he positions his one hand in the air, "What am I doing?"
"Stay there, hold that and don't move." Stiles smirks, and then he pulls out his car keys and runs them down the side of a nearby car.
Scott gapes at him. Stiles turns to look at him in shock, "Dude!" he shouts, louder than necessary, "What the hell was that? What do you think you're doing to that truck, bro?"
"Hey!" someone calls and Scott spins around. "What the hell?" They're staring at him. "What did you do to my car?!" Scott gapes, and then glances at his hand where he's holding keys.
He's going to kill Stiles.
She pages through old books, looking up French legends. The old books don't have that much, so she's got her laptop open in front of her with google up on the screen. She probably would have found it by herself eventually, but Kate seems to be eager for her to find out everything for herself anyway, so Allison doesn't complain. She fakes an apology, acts the teenager girl and takes what she is given.
La Bete du Gevaudan.
It looks like a giant wolf. Allison leaves one tab open on her laptop and types into google 'wolf' + 'wolfsbane'.
There are links to gaming sites, fonts, pages about how wolfsbane is poisonous. Then she finds a dictionary site which gives the etymology of the word, how it comes from the Ancient Greek λυκοκτόνον (lukoktonon), from λύκος (lukos, "wolf") + κτείνω (kteinō, "I kill"). Influenced by Latin lycoctonum. She browses through several wiki sites, closing the ones that are to do with a book series and pausing at the bottom of one.
In the section where the site gives links to other pages, there are two words. Two links, and it's stupid, it really is, but Allison clicks on one. It turns out it doesn't really matter which one she selects, because they both link to the same page.
A werewolf, also known as a lycanthrope (from the Greek λυκάνθρωπος: λύκος, lykos, "wolf", and ἄνθρωπος, anthrōpos, "man")…
She clicks control and f, typing in wolfsbane. There is only one match on the entire page.
In medieval Europe, traditionally, there are three methods one can use to cure a victim of werewolfism; medicinally (usually via the use of wolfsbane)…
Allison tries to think of what reason someone might use wolfsbane bullets, tries to think of a logical answer. She clicks the tabs close and stares at the picture of the Beast for a long moment. Decisively, Allison spins the laptop around towards Lydia, with the picture of the Beast enlarged for her. "What does this look like to you?"
Lydia looks up and doesn't flinch. She just studies the image and presses her lips together in a thin line. "What is that?"
"The beast of Gevaudan. Listen. "A quadruped dog - like monster, prowling the Auvergne and south Dordogne areas of France during the year 1764 to 1767. La Bete killed over a hundred people, becoming so infamous that the King Louie the 15th sent one of his best hunters to try and kill it. Even the church eventually declared the monster a messenger of Satan. Cryptozoologists believe it may have been a subspecies of hoofed predator, possibly a mesonychid. While others believe it was a powerful sorcerer who could shape - shift into a man - eating monster. It is believed that la Bete was finally trapped and killed by a renown hunter who claimed his wife and four children were the first to fall prey to the creature."
"And?" Lydia looks unimpressed.
Allison smiles, "His name was Argent."
She watches Lydia's smile thin throughout her reading. Allison's heart is racing, but she pretends not to notice Lydia's reaction. She pushes the laptop screen towards her friend. "What does it look like?"
"It looks like a big. Dog." She says, smiling blithely. "See you in history."
That's Allison's answer. That's her truth, that's what she's been searching for.
The secrets were almost easier to believe.
"I hate you."
"But it worked."
"I still hate you."
"Hey, other option was stealing a heart monitor and Coach's phone and chucking lacrosse balls at you."
"Derek said to use anger," Scott says mournfully, "Then he broke my phone and said 'no Allison'."
Stiles looks like he's trying not to laugh. "I think he likes you. But then again he appeared in my room shirtless looking to borrow a shirt. Lydia wasn't impressed. It's almost a shame Danny left, he would have loved it."
"Oh yeah? Well at least you don't have Derek, creeping up on you, in a freaking parking lot!"
"Derek creeps up on everyone. Doesn't mean you're special," Stiles grumbles.
"But it's getting bad! I mean… he… the alpha scrawled a spiral into the condensation on my car window. What does that even mean? A freaking spiral? And it was when I was visiting Allison… oh god… what if it went and got her?"
"Calm down," Stiles instructs. "Have you asked Derek?"
"He was lurking in my room."
"As well? Dude."
"Not like that. He wanted to ask about the alpha. But I… I didn't know anything and Derek wouldn't tell me."
Stiles mutters something that sounds like a swear word under his breath. "We're idiots for trusting him," he says to the ceiling.
"Well at least," Scott reflects, "I don't have to stay away from Allison anymore. I was worried I'd end up like Derek. I mean, have you seen the guy? He's totally alone. What if I had ended up like that?"
"That's just depressing," Stiles muses.
Harris hasn't heard a word they've said, marking papers during the course of their detention.
"I don't know why I have detention," Stiles mumbles, "I didn't even do anything."
Scott shoots him a glare.
"And it smells like something is dying. Or rotting." Stiles wrinkles his nose. "Considering I am probably smelling the boy's locker room. That is disgusting."
He doesn't think he's friends with Allison. Not like best buddies sharing everything. Not even someone he'd smile at when walking down the corridor and discuss homework with at lunch time.
But he thinks… they might be on the way to it. At least to being close acquaintances who respect each other.
Okay, so Jackson has an ulterior motive. He wants to know what's going on with McCall, he wants to manipulate McCall and have something he can hold over the other boy. Something precious that he can damage or steal away.
He's not meant to like her so much dammit.
She's not Lydia. She's not brilliant or beautiful (she's hot and pretty but not Lydia beautiful) or even much of a leader.
She's strong though, strong but shy and unsure of herself.
And she reminds Jackson of himself.
"Okay." She says, firmly, "I - I believe you're being serious, but I'm not so sure I believe you're being sincere." Jackson isn't either. He doesn't do apologies. He certainly doesn't apologise for his own behaviour, for being a jerk to her and Scott.
Jackson Whittemore doesn't do apologies.
Except apparently he does.
And Allison is giving him that little half smile as if in understanding. And so he ends up trying to explain how he feels.
"…like something's been stolen from you. And then you start to feel like you'd do - anything. Anything in the world to get it back." It's not working. He's sweating and he feels sick, but last time he tried to puke there were claws coming out of his mouth and flowers scattered around him and he doesn't think he can even face seeing what he looks like in a mirror right now.
And she's still got that stupid little half smile as if she knows he's not talking about lacrosse or captaincy or even the popularity.
"You must really hate me," he reflects.
"Not at all," she shakes her head, and it's just a little thing, just a few reassuring words, but it encourages him to lean forwards and ask. To show an interest in someone other than himself for a change.
"So what are you reading?"
Derek thinks it must be Peter.
He's convinced it's Peter right up until he marches into Beacons Crossing Home and stands in front of the man. It has to be Peter, he's a werewolf already and he's going after people connected to the fire and…
And Peter is sitting in a coma, staring into space.
Derek slumps, because it can't be Peter. Peter is a beta. Peter is near dead. Peter is lost to him. His uncle can't even stand, let alone rip apart three people. Derek reaches out, fingers so close to touching the comatose man but he flinches away, knowing the pain he'll feel there. Not just physical pain, but the pain of abandonment from where Laura dragged herself and Derek away.
"If you can hear me…" Derek says, cautiously, "I need you to give me a sign."
He watches the man's expression carefully but nothing changes.
"Blink. Raise a finger. Anything!"
Derek thinks it's pointless. He thinks he's been an idiot, connecting the man in front of him with the bloodthirsty, powerful alpha. He's made a mistake. Peter's been rotting in here for six years, and he might as well rot in here for six years more. Laura hadn't even visited, Derek knows, he checked the visitor book. Nobody knew Laura was even back in town, not Peter, not the Argents…
There is a piece of paper crumpled in Derek's pocket and he stiffens, because that's not entirely true. Laura had come back into town for a reason after all.
And after that, there had been someone she had sought for advice.
Scott arrives late for work, frustrated and annoyed at his detention with Stiles. He shoves the door open, shouting out an apology to Deaton.
There is no response.
Scott cautiously steps forwards towards the operating room, freezing at the sight in front of him. Deaton is standing, hands raised defensively. Derek is stalking around, snarling angry accusations at him. "The key to the drug locker is in my pocket." Deaton is saying, wide eyes, as if he doesn't know what's going on.
But he's not afraid, Scott notes. He's calm and his heart beat is steady.
Derek doesn't notice in his anger, stepping forwards, "Who are you protecting?" he growls.
"What are you doing?" Scott announces his presence, "Derek!"
"Scott!" Deaton blinks at him, "Get out of here! Go!" he waves at Scott violently, just as Derek steps forwards and grabs him, bodily throwing the man into the wall. He slumps and Scott lurches forwards.
"Stop!" he protests, "Stop it! What are you doing?"
"If he's conscious, he can keep himself from healing," Derek explains.
"You think he's the alpha?" Scott snaps, "He's my boss!" there is a piece of paper on the floor and Scott bends over, picking it up. There's a picture there. It's a dead deer, but there is a spiral drawn in its side with a knife or…
Or claws.
A spiral.
"It's a symbol of revenge. Of a vendetta," Derek explains, "Three months ago someone left that deer to lure Laura back into town."
And it had worked. It had worked and Laura was dead.
"Don't hit him again," Scott instructs, "Look, there must be a way to tell if he really is the alpha. So give me an hour and meet me at the school."
"Have you got a plan?" Derek asks shrewdly, casting a glance at the unconscious Deaton on the floor.
Scott bites his lip, "An idea."
"Will it work?"
"I don't know."
"Will I like it?"
"No."
"This is a terrible idea." Lydia is doing nothing but voicing Stiles' own opinions. Plus from what she told Stiles, Allison knows. Allison has worked out about werewolves and none of them have yet to talk to her about it. Or explain.
And now here they are standing outside the school and Scott looks a little less confident than when he called Stiles and said 'come over'. Lydia had tagged along from where the pair had been watching through the camera footage, searching for another flash of human or beast moving along. Their search had produced nothing so far.
"We're still gonna do it though, aren't we?" Stiles just closes his eyes, "Because I'm personally a fan of just ignoring the problem until it eventually just…" he waves his hands, "Goes away."
He can feel Derek's glare even though his eyes are closed. Scott is talking, worrying about his boss and so Stiles blinks his eyes open, observing Deaton's unconscious form in the back seat.
"Looks comfortable," he shrugs.
"I don't like it," Lydia shakes her head, "Why can't we just ask him? Talk to him? Lock him down and drug him with wolfsbane?"
"He doesn't smell like a werewolf." Stiles points out.
"Werewolves can hide their scents," Derek grunts, and yeah, that's convenient. "You haven't learnt yet," Derek adds, "I smelt Scott the day I met him looking for his inhaler in the woods."
"You regularly wander through the woods?" Lydia scoffs, "No wonder you two got bitten."
Stiles is a bit offended at that, but he decides to ignore it. "I vote Lydia stays here while Scott goes to call the Alpha."
Lydia puts her foot down at that, "You are not leaving me with sourwolf over here." She casts an accessing glance over Derek who just eyebrow glares her. She is completely unperturbed and Stiles only wishes he had Lydia's bravery.
"Come with us then," Scott sighs, "Just let's go and do it now. Before he wakes up."
If the screaming cat noise Scott makes the first time through the speakers is painful to Stiles' super hearing, he can only hope that the alpha decides that Scott makes a pathetic werewolf and gives up on them.
But then Lydia starts talking about "Call the alpha! Shout at him!" and so Stiles adds in his own two cents.
"Be a man," he thumps Scott hard on the back, almost sending his friend head first into the speaker, "Be a werewolf, not a teen wolf. Be a werewolf. Do it."
"You try and see how freaking easy it is!" Scott snarls angrily, and then he just opens his mouth and roars.
It's like a roar. Not a howl of a wolf, but the roar of a lion. The roar of a werewolf. It's loud and Stiles feels it in some hidden part of him, and he trembles, all instinct and animal and wolf. Lydia is staring at his eyes and she turns to Scott. "That." She says triumphantly, "Was perfect. But I still hate this plan."
"I'm gonna kill both of you." Derek obviously doesn't like the plan either. He's frowning at them, stalking over and giving them a piece of his mind when Lydia clears her throat.
The sound is so out of place that they all freeze and turn to Lydia. She's not even looking at them. She's looking at where Deaton should be sitting. "Uh… Scott, where's your boss?"
Scott lurches to one side, staring at the back of the car, "Oh cra-" he's still speaking when Stiles hears this horrible wrenching noise, grating and squelch.
He smells the blood first. It doesn't smell like rust or metal, it smelt like blood, thick and tangy. Then he smells the soft musky wood smell, that was comforting and made him want to curl up and relax. But on top of the scent is smoke and acid and detergent and a deeper smell of injury.
Then Stiles turns and sees the shadows looming over Derek. He sees the way Derek is choking, and how his chest is red with blood, the same colour of the eyes of the large, black furred beast standing behind him as with a snarl, it rips it's paw to the side, Derek still impaled on it.
The Hale is thrown away like a piece of trash, and Stiles should probably be concerned about him, but he's staring at the alpha - because fuck - that his alpha. That's the monster that bit him. That black furred red eyed thing…
Stiles doesn't know what he was planning on doing. He doesn't know what he would have ended up doing, had Lydia not grabbed him backwards and dragged him, stumbling towards the school, Scott next to him.
"I told you this plan sucked."
