Hey lovelies!

So, this fic might be a teensy bit cracky in some places but it's utterly self-indulgent and I kind of adore it. Updates will be staggered and unscheduled but they'll be there as long as there's interest :)

As always: If you need me to tag something please, please, please DO NOT hesitate to let me know!


"This is the sixth murder in eight days, Oliver." Felicity sat at her desk in the Foundry, fingertips tapping away at her keyboard as she sorted through the file on who the police had quietly dubbed the Ribbon Killer.

The name made the murders sound a whole lot less gruesome and violent than they were, but if you knew the meaning behind it... Well, not so much. The special task force created to hunt the Ribbon Killer named the psycho as such because each body had been found with its flesh torn to ribbons, entire stretches and strips of skin and flesh missing. The SCPD had yet to disclose any information to the general public but, thanks to Felicity's nearly unrivaled skills, Team Arrow had all the information they needed. Well, more than they wanted, really. Felicity would never get the crime scene photographs out of her head. There was something about a dead body with its face torn off that had a way of sticking with you.

"I know." Oliver came up behind her chair, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring at the screen of her computer. "Have you found anything that might help us find this guy?"

"First of all, we don't know for sure it's a man. Women can be crazy serial killers, too." Felicity chided, squinting up at Oliver for a beat, before returning her attention to her monitors. "And Second... No. I'm still sorting through the new evidence, though."

"Whoever this is, they're escalating." Digg tossed over his shoulder at them from where he was sparring on a mat with Roy.

"Three kills in two days?" Roy snorted, trying to sweep Digg's legs out from beneath him while he wasn't paying attention and failing spectacularly. "Yeah, I'd say that's an escalation."

"Sara asked Nyssa about it." Oliver volunteered. "She said she's never seen anything like this, either."

"Huh." Felicity frowned, "You'd think that, as an assassin trained in all the ways to kill you and make it as painful as possible, Nyssa would have some insight."

"These aren't typical kills, Felicity." Oliver leaned against the edge of her desk with his hip, legs crossed at the ankles. "These murders are brutal. Savage, even. I don't think anyone with a shred of sanity could have insight into this."

"Fair enough." Felicity nodded, ignoring the thwack of skin on vinyl when Digg knocked Roy flat on his back. "Look, why don't you guys head home for the night. I'll stay here and see what I can come up with. If I find anything, I'll call you."

Oliver shook his head immediately. "I'll stay here with you. We can order in, work on figuring this out together."

"You don't have to do that." Felicity tried to protest.

"I know that I don't have to." Oliver dropped a hand to her shoulder, smiling down at her when she leaned her head back onto the headrest. "I want to. I don't feel comfortable leaving you here, alone. Not with what's going on out there."

"Okay." Felicity conceded. "I'm going to have to take a rain check on dinner, though. I'm not sure I'm ever going to be able to eat food again." She made a face, her nose crinkling in disgust as she tipped her head at the screen, still showing images of crime scenes.

Oliver chuckled, unable to help himself. "No dinner, then. Coffee is still allowed, right?"

Felicity grinned, her painted lips turning up. "Coffee is always allowed. Hell, it's a basic requirement."


The pack laid around the living room of the long ago rebuilt Hale house, all of them sprawled out in random positions, some of which really shouldn't be comfortable but somehow seemed to be. Scott was asleep on the floor, smooshed in between Isaac and Allison, his legs in a messy tangle with Isaac's, his arms wrapped around Allison's waist and his head in her lap. Lydia and Jackson were curled together on the recliner in one corner of the room, Lydia fast asleep with her face buried in Jackson's neck. Erica was laying on her back on the floor, her legs hooked over the front of the loveseat so that her feet rested in Boyd's lap. Danny sat cross-legged on the couch, his laptop open and resting on his thighs while Peter sat at the opposite end, engrossed in a book. Stiles stood in the doorway between the living room and the foyer, leaning against the door frame and watching his pack with a calm, settled feeling coiled warmly in his belly.

"Hey." Derek's gentle voice reached Stiles' ears and sent a shiver down his spine.

"Hey." Stiles smiled, leaning back into Derek's chest as the other man's arms came around his waist. "How'd it go?"

"Good. Your dad wanted me to remind you that we're supposed to show up for dinner tomorrow night." Derek hooked his chin over Stiles' shoulder so that he could look in on his pack.

Lydia snuffled in her sleep, shifting against Jackson's throat and dragging a soft smile to his lips.

"That man has no faith in me. He texted me the exact same thing this morning." Stiles huffed, threading his fingers through Derek's where they lay just above his belt. "So, you found the kid?"

"Yeah. She was wandering around one of the paths up by the river. She's shaken up but Melissa said she was physically fine." Derek turned Stiles in his arms, capturing his lips in a hello kiss.

Stiles hummed contentedly into the kiss, his tongue darting out to flick at Derek's bottom lip where his teeth had nipped. "I'll take a werewolf over a bloodhound, any day of the week." Stiles grinned, pulling back to meet Derek's pale green eyes, temporarily ensnared by the ring of almost-red around his pupils.

Derek chuffed a laugh. "One wolf in particular, I hope."

"Shh." Stiles pressed a finger to Derek's lips. "Don't let the pups hear you say that. Erica will rip out my spleen if you make me choose a favorite."

"He's not wrong." Erica called from the floor, her voice carrying enough for Stiles to hear it.

"Come on, guys. We all know McCall is Stiles' favorite." Jackson threw in, quietly enough to not startle Lydia.

"Wrong." Danny shook his head, eyes still fixed on his laptop. "Totally Derek."

Peter hummed his agreement with Danny, his eyes never leaving the pages of his book.

"It's obviously Erica." Boyd shrugged, making Erica preen.

"Isaac." Allison smiled sweetly, running her fingers through a softly snoring Scott's hair. "It's definitely Isaac."

"See what you started?" Stiles sighed, jabbing Derek in the chest with his finger. "You think you'd have learned after the last time. If this devolves into werewolf wrestling, you get to play ref. I'm not losing another pair of jeans to my own pack. I still haven't finished rebuilding my wardrobe from the salamander incident."

"I tried to tell you to stay out of that." Derek reminded him, his thumbs stroking at the skin at Stiles' hips, having slipped beneath the fabric of his shirt.

"Yeah, yeah. What else is new?" Stiles dismissed that with a wave. "Come on." He tugged Derek toward the kitchen. "You can watch me cook you a proper hero's meal."

"I'm not a hero, Stiles." Derek grumbled, the tips of his ears turning pink like they did every time Stiles called him that. "All I did was follow a scent."

"Shut up, Derek." Stiles smirked, letting it drop and changing the subject. "What do you want? Golabki or burgers?"

Derek just stared at him, his expression bland.

"Yeah, okay. Dumb question." Stiles laughed, digging through the refrigerator to find the head of cabbage.


Felicity yawned and rubbed at her eyes, her glasses tossed on the desk beside her keyboard, as she tried to force back the headache taking shape beneath her brows. She took a moment to let her eyes drift over Oliver where he was stretched out on the roll-away bed they kept for occasions like these. He was fast asleep, face turned toward her, his mouth fixed in a frown even while resting. Felicity smiled slightly, letting the swell of affection warm her chest before she went back to work.

Two hours later and Felicity found herself with more questions than answers. For instance, why did the medical examiner find avian DNA in the wounds on each victim? He'd even gone so far as to say the damage to their bodies had been caused, at least in part, by some kind of large predatory bird. There was definitive evidence that all six victims had had their jugular pierced by what appeared to be a beak before being mauled by what could only be described as talons. Another thing all six victims had in common was that each of them showed signs of internal collapse, their organs, bones, and even their circulatory system having caved inward, as though sucked into a vacuum. The almost complete lack of blood was pretty much expected at that point.

These murders made all of zero sense. There was, so far, no connection between victims, nothing to shed light on how the killer was choosing targets. Add in the bit about the large bird of prey as an apparent accomplice and Felicity was utterly baffled.

The details niggled at something at the edge of Felicity's brain, sparking to life vague recollections of something she couldn't quite pull to the surface. Shaking off the eerie feeling and reminding herself that she wasn't alone in the lair, Felicity typed all of the information she had into a search program that used an algorithm to scan the internet and multiple databases for anything resembling the details she gathered. Leaving the program to do its job, Felicity pushed away from her desk in order to refill her mug from the coffee pot in the little kitchenette she'd insisted they needed.

By the time she returned to her desk and finished a second cup of coffee, Felicity was lost in sorting through the data her program compiled. She spent the next three hours sifting through everything, trying to decide what was relevant and what had no bearing on the case. The further into the internet she got, the more Felicity's skin prickled with awareness, like something was staring her right in the face but she was still managing to miss it.

The search program pinged back, one last scrap of information before it restarted its search. Felicity pulled up the last result, her brow furrowing as she read. Most of the information on the page was encrypted, which only served to further baffle Felicity since her program shouldn't have flagged the page at all. She wondered if the algorithm had picked up one of its search parameters in the encryption code itself.

Determined to figure out why, Felicity back-traced the site, finding it tucked away in the darkest recesses of the internet where no one but a skilled computer expert would know where, or even how, to look for it. There were several layers of security, more than a few hoops for Felicity to have to jump through since she didn't have any of the required passwords or command prompts.

It was nearly 6 am by the time she managed to figure out what had triggered her program, and almost 7 when the shocked gasp left her lips.

"What's wrong?" Oliver's sleep roughed, honey-over-gravel voice asked as he stirred awake.

"Nothing." Felicity answered immediately, minimizing the windows on her monitor. "Or, well, nothing yet. I might have found something but I have to do some more research."

Oliver frowned, pushing his shirtless form up out of the bed and shuffling toward Felicity. "Did you sleep at all?"

"No. I got caught up in trying to figure this out. I'm fine though. Go shower and get dressed." Felicity shooed him towards the bathroom. "Digg and Roy will be here soon and you have a mission to prep for."

Oliver's frown deepened, his sleepy eyes roving over Felicity's face. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm good." she promised. "A quick nap while you guys prep and I'll be good to go by the time you're ready to head out."

Oliver looked like he might argue but after a second's hesitation he turned and made his way toward the bathroom. When the door clicked shut behind him, Felicity dove back into action and started working on a plan.


"Answer your phone." Derek growled, kicking at Stiles' legs under the sheet.

Stiles kicked back, muttering nonsensically under his breath as he struggled back to the land of the awake and aware. The phone stopped ringing, lulling Stiles into a false sense of security. The second he relaxed back into the mattress, his phone blared back to life.

"Someone better be dead." Stiles muttered darkly, untangling his limbs from around Derek's and rolling sideways to snatch the offending device from the nightstand. Answering, he pressed it to his ear. "Danny, I swear to God-"

When Stiles cut off abruptly, his heartbeat kicking up, Derek tuned his hearing into the conversation.

"-don't know how they managed it, Stiles. I woke up to a security alert. Whoever it is, they're good, man. No one should be able to breech the site." Danny was panicked, his worry carrying clearly, even through the phone.

Derek sat up so fast he dislodged the sheet from around his hips. If Stiles wasn't busy internally freaking out he might have noticed his very naked boyfriend had unintentionally put his flawless body on display.

"You said that there was no way for this to happen!" Derek snapped, not even feeling guilty when Stiles flinched.

"I don't know what happened. It should be impossible." Danny insisted, having heard Derek's angry voice through the phone.

"Can you find them?" Stiles tried, running a hand over his face in frustration. He didn't need to have the wolves' senses to know that Derek was furious. Rightfully so, but still.

"They're in California, north of us. I'm trying to narrow it down now." Danny assured, his tone still thick with anxiety.

"Find them." Derek growled, this time less sleepy-woken-by-a-ringing-telephone and more find-them-so-I-can-rip-their-throat-out.

Ending the call and dropping the phone on the bed beside him, Stiles buried his head in his hands. "Don't." he gritted out.

"You promised me, Stiles." Derek said, anger vibrating off his skin. Stiles guessed that the rest of the pack , at least those in the house, were already moving around in their rooms, responding to their Alpha's anger. "You swore to me that no one would find that stupid fucking website."

"I know." Stiles snapped and then sighed, lifting his head to meet Derek's eyes, glowing red. "I'm sorry, okay? I don't know how they got through."

"This puts not just us, but all of the packs in danger. Everyone with a connection to us is now in danger because of us." Derek snarled.

Stiles knew Derek was right. It had been Stiles' genius idea to insist they needed a website to keep in contact with, and keep track of, the sprawling network of supernatural badassery that they worked hard to establish. Allied packs and their emissaries, Argent hunters who followed the code Allison initiated, Covens and independent practitioners of magic who the packs knew they could trust (by Derek or Scott's approval only), members of law enforcement who were in the supernatural know, and the occasional supernatural being (banshees, fae, and the like) who had proven themselves loyal to the cause and general supernatural knowledge they'd acquired over the years. Information on all of them was contained in the database, an online beastiary of sorts, accessible to each of them so long as they had the passwords to bypass security. And, every single one of them were now in danger. Whoever had hacked their database managed to put an entire faction of the supernatural community in danger, maybe without even realizing they'd done it.

Stiles prayed that they didn't know what they'd done. If someone who knew about werewolves and the supernatural was behind this, if they genuinely wanted to hurt Stiles' pack or any of the rest of them, Stiles had practically handed them the key to achieving that goal, held up on a silver platter and tied with a shiny red bow.

"We need to fix this." Derek said between clenched teeth.

"We will. Danny's working on finding them as we speak. We'll figure it out, Derek." Stiles insisted.

Derek could smell regret and anxiety rolling off of Stiles, clinging to the air around him. He could hear Stiles' heart thumping guiltily in his chest, feel its heavy thrum. Rationally speaking, Derek knew it was just as much his fault as it was Stiles'. After all, he'd been the one to agree to let it happen. He and Scott had agreed that as long as Stiles and Danny could keep the site hidden from prying eyes, it was actually a good idea. Being able to keep careful records of every and all supernatural encounters, be it by their pack or one of the others, being able to instantly share information made it that much easier to protect themselves and their territories. So, the database had gone live. If he were thinking about it, the site had been up for almost five years without incident. Which lent itself to what Stiles and Danny both kept repeating about the site being safe from outsiders.

"Call the pack." Derek commanded, turning on his heel and stalking away without another word.

Stiles watched him go, his chest aching with the strength of the emotions rolling through the mate bond. Being an Alpha's mate, even in an unconventional pack such as theirs, as well as being innately magical, meant that Stiles felt the bonds, pack and mate, more intensely than the rest of the pack. Human, wolf, or banshee, an Alpha's mate got the brunt of it when emotions ran rampant within the pack. Stiles' inherent magic made the bond a tangible web that he could see, each thread a different shimmering colored line connecting one pack member to another. It also meant that unless he were shielding, Stiles felt even small shifts in emotions. Powerful emotions, such as anger or rage, hit Stiles more sharply than they hit the others.

Derek was a strong broadcaster. Even after almost four years together Stiles still had trouble shielding with Derek. Lydia thought it was because Derek and he were too intertwined to separate themselves completely. Stiles was pretty sure she might be right. Even before they'd solidified the mate bond Stiles had been able to read Derek better than anyone else. It was a talent of his, apparently.

After sending out a quick text to Scott, summoning him to the house, Stiles forced himself out of bed and into the shower. He spent the entirety of the fifteen minute shower bouncing back and forth between berating himself for not doing enough to protect the database and being hurt and angry at the way Derek reacted to the breech.

Dressed and still buzzing with emotional overflow, Stiles made his way down to the kitchen, dragging Erica along with him when he caught her on the stairs. When she arched a quizzical brow at him Stiles tried to smile when he answered, "Breakfast before battle plans."