I'm getting excited about this new arc in the story and I hope you'll like it, too. :)
Chapter 49
Their bicycle tour took the four teens to the one designated bicycle and jogging path that was winding its way around Beacon Hills' few sights and through the public parts of the preserve. There were three routes staked out: one for leisure bikers with just ten miles; one for people who wanted to exhaust themselves, or their kids, with twenty miles; and the longest stretch for true enthusiasts was a whopping forty miles. Stiles knew that it was doable, but out of concern for Erica's somewhat limited constitution they all decided on the shortest route with a very long picnic pause planned in, and see whether they could brave the longer routes later in the summer.
"I know that you're all probably itching to tire yourselves out," Erica said as they met at the start of the path at the preserve. "Thanks again for going easy on me. To make it a bit more bearable for you I've brought toys!" Beaming, she rummaged in her backpack and pulled out two neon coloured frisbees and a handful of badminton birdies. "Boyd has the battledores."
"Awesome!" Stiles grinned. "I'm sure we'll all have a good time." He nodded at Derek. "Especially since that one and his uncle took care of our lunch."
"I do adore a man who can cook," Erica replied with a wink.
They set off and pedalled into the preserve slowly, not just giving Erica time to get accustomed to the bike, but to refresh all of their muscle memory. Stiles hadn't used his bicycle since obtaining his driver's licence, and while he hadn't forgotten how to do it, he wasn't as secure riding on it as he'd like.
"Americans are dumb not to do this more often," Boyd said after a while of contented driving. He pointedly looked around at the lush trees, the laughing kids racing ahead of them, and the elderly people walking a bit off in the woods and picking up trash. "It's restful."
"I like it, too," Erica said. "My mom and I go Nordic Walking when the weather's good, but this is much better. You get to see more."
"Didn't your parents go riding with you?" Isaac asked.
Erica shook her head, blond curls flying. "Nah, I had a couple really bad seizures while on a bike when I was twelve, so we stopped. But I'm a bit better now and you're with me, so here I am. And it's great!"
"I would probably be too chicken to just try again," Stiles admitted. "We didn't exactly give you a lot of warning."
"That's because I really wanted to go. Don't worry, I practiced all of last week with Boyd," Erica confided. "He also got my old bike ready, so I'm as safe as can be."
They went for another three miles and then stopped at the designated resting space. There was a bistro and benches, but Stiles and his friends opted to lay out their blanket a little away from the screaming kids and gossiping adults and have a real picnic, ants and all.
Not long into their break, however, they hadn't even finished their sandwiches, Isaac and Derek suddenly stiffened.
"What is it?" Stiles asked, alarmed.
Derek's jaw tightened. "Motorcycles, two of them. There might be trouble."
Erica stared at them. "Really? How do you know? I can't hear a thing."
"You will soon enough. Shit." Stiles threw his unfinished sandwich back into its tupper box. "Should we hide out somewhere?"
"Too late," Isaac said shortly. "They're fast." He winced. "And pushing others off the path. Assholes."
And he was right. The roar of motorcycles reached the human ears now, too, and confused and annoyed mutters could be heard. A minute later, two guys in heavy black leathers on even heavier Harleys screeched to a stop by the clearing. Both were wearing open helmets, large black sunglasses and bandanas over their mouths and noses hid their faces completely.
"Stilinski!" one of them shouted, revving up his engine and laughing loudly at the alarmed shrieks of some women and children. "Show yourself, little boy! We got a present for you!"
Derek made to hold Stiles down, but Stiles shook his head at him.
"Isaac's filming and I've already dialled my dad. Let's see what they want before they get the bright idea to harass the bystanders," he murmured.
"I don't like it," Derek hissed.
Stiles pressed his lips together but stood. "What do you assholes want!" he shouted.
The bikers laughed again, one of them unstrapping a cloth-wrapped package from his torso.
"Just saying hello, kid!" the man yelled back. He used a lighter to light up a fuse and lobbed the package over the clearing. "Have fun!"
Derek was up in a flash, catching the package out of the air with an impressive jump, and threw it back at the bikers, who were trying to leave the scene with squealing tires - hard.
People screamed when it detonated, and screamed again even louder when an unholy stench immediately assaulted their noses.
The biker who'd actually been hit by the bomb lost control over his Harley and swerved into his screaming comrade, making both of them crash in a tangle of limbs and metal. In a way they were lucky that Derek hadn't hit them at full speed, because that'd definitely have done some lasting damage.
"Holy mother of fuck, that's disgusting!" Erica cried, covering her face with both hands. "What is that?"
"Skunk sap," Isaac groaned with watering eyes. "I'll kill them!"
"Stay with Erica!" Stiles ordered. He whipped off his T-shirt to protect his airways from the stink and went after Derek, who was already by the bikers and tying them up with their own bandanas with extreme prejudice. That they were lying in their own skunk slime and wailing like babies about their burns was poetic justice at its finest.
"Dad?" Stiles shouted into his phone to get heard over his father's impressive cussing. "We're all fine, promise. Send help, especially someone who can get rid of skunk stink." He looked around and saw that several people had lost their lunch already. "Fuck, it's like The Exorcist around here. People are skedaddling fast, but Isaac's keeping up the filming so you can find them later."
"Don't move!" the sheriff ordered and then hung up.
"I'd like to kill them," Derek said to Stiles, roughly pressing down on both the bound guys' backs. His eyes were glowing blue. "Can I?"
"Fuck you!" one biker shouted hoarsely.
Stiles crouched down by the men's faces and cocked his head. Going for a thoughtful villain impression might instill some fear into those guys … he certainly hoped so.
"Eh, no, not gonna happen. You a member of the Lobster Wolfies?"
"We are The Lobos Locos!" the man snarled, fighting futilely against Derek's hold. "What the fuck steroids is he on?!"
"Wouldn't you like to know. Listen up, Locust Dudes, I don't like your presents," Stiles said with infuriating calm, although his nose was begging to die right about now. "If you plan on delivering more of those, my buddy should maybe deal with you real quick, to thin out your little group's ranks. He could make it look like an abnormally vicious animal attack. The bad thing about it would be that it'd also feel like an abnormally vicious animal attack. So what do you say? Yay or nay?"
The other of the men spat at him. "You'd never, you little shit! Sheriff's son, hah!"
Stiles grinned slowly and as meanly as he could, which, Isaac had assured him, was a lot. "Oh boy. You have no idea what you've brought onto yourself." He patted the guy's bearded cheek condescendingly just as sirens could be heard in the distance. "Have fun in jail, you ineffectual little jerks. My dad'll be sure to make it extra unpleasant for you. Oh, and you can bet that I'll get your names."
"Two minutes," Derek murmured.
Stiles' smirk widened as he uncapped his sharpie. "Enough time to encourage those two to sing like Maria Carey at a sold out concert."
Quickly he painted a couple of runes onto the men's necks, well hidden beneath the collars of their leather jackets. The bikers cursed and struggled against Derek, who was absolutely done with the situation.
Then, half a dozen police cruisers pulled to a stop at the clearing and doors flew open.
"Stiles!" the sheriff shouted, handcuffs already out. "Are you alright?"
"Sure thing, daddio," Stiles replied, getting up and stepping back as soon as the bikers had been cuffed. "Derek single-handedly apprehended both of them with his mad skills. Isaac should have it on camera."
"Downside is, we stink," Derek growled. "Can we go wash before it's too late to get it off?"
"It's mostly the hands and some aerosolized stuff on our clothes," Stiles consoled his somewhat overwhelmed father. "We could go by the station for our statement later, after a shower."
"Yes, go," the sheriff decided, narrowing his eyes on the two bikers. His deputies were throwing blankets around them so they wouldn't sully their uniforms while they were being dragged to a portable shower that was already being set up. "Scrub down thoroughly, I really don't need to smell that inside the station for the next four weeks. First aid for washing should be back there."
Stiles saluted and dragged Derek over to the police van that was offering a special mix of hydrogen peroxide, dishwater detergent, and sodium bicarbonate to the traumatized people.
"Over here, Stiles!" Tara Graeme called and waved them over. "We got an extra bucket ready for you when we learned that you're in the thick of things. Hi, Mr. Hale."
Derek nodded at her and dunked his hands into the bucket without further ado. Stiles let him scrub down his hands and arms thoroughly before joining him and doing the same.
"Is everything alright?" Erica's breathless voice sounded from behind them. "Did you get hurt?"
"Nah, Derek took them out neatly," Stiles returned proudly, sloshing more liquid over his forearms and rubbing with his sponge. "It's just the stink that's bothering us, but this helps a lot."
"We'll have to burn our clothes," Derek muttered, scowling.
Boyd cleared his throat. "That was a damn fine reaction to their attack, Derek."
"Right?" Erica nearly plastered herself against Stiles' back. "I was frozen with shock. Like, how did you even jump that high?"
Stiles, who'd known the second Derek had openly displayed some of his werewolf abilities that they'd need to do damage control, had already thought of an answer. "Well, I wasn't gonna say anything, but people will ask … I think we need to tell them, Derek."
Derek looked searchingly at him. "Will it be uncomfortable?"
"For a while," Stiles told him. "Sorry about that. It's better than the pitchforks, though."
Rolling his eyes, Derek returned to his scrubbing, leaving it to Stiles to give a plausible explanation.
"Derek sort of suffers from PTSD," Stiles said bluntly. "Because of what the Argents did to his family. That's why he threw the bomb at the Lolos and not into the trees."
"Heightened adrenaline response," Boyd murmured. "Good for us today, but sucky when it's not needed. Can't say I mind that you caught the guys, though, Derek. I'm guessing the sheriff is of the same opinion."
"Yeah, he'll be, once he's done yelling at us for having such bad luck on our first outing. And Derek's dealing okay with it, most of the time," Stiles went on, "so don't make a big deal out of it, okay? My dad already knows, so there won't be too many remarks if he can help it."
"Nah, that's totally cool," Erica said, still a little shaky. "Thanks again, Derek. I appreciate it very much that you kept that bomb from exploding in all of our faces. Who cares how you did it."
Boyd nodded his agreement, but his keen eyes rested on Stiles and Derek for a moment longer before he turned to pry Erica away from Stiles so the teen could continue washing himself.
On the way to Peter's home they didn't talk, mainly because they needed their breath to get over there as quickly as - in Stiles' case - humanly possible.
Once inside the building, they left the bikes on the empty first floor and stormed up, Derek vanishing into his own bathroom for a shower and Isaac dragging Stiles along to Peter's apartment, where they occupied both bathrooms. The glower Isaac sent Peter, who'd come to investigate their bodily integrity and offer plastic bags for their clothes, was epic.
"I'll just wait out here," Peter said mildly, only to get two doors slammed in his face.
It hurt Stiles a little to place his beloved graphic T-shirt into the plastic bag and seal it, but everything he'd worn smelled bad enough to make any attempt at salvaging it a moot point. Aerosols were mean that way, especially when one threw hypersensitive werewolves into the mix.
Since he really didn't have much left to wash off, thank god, Stiles hurried through his shower, sniffed himself critically after stepping out to make absolutely sure that he wasn't stinking anymore, and gingerly opened the bathroom door to snatch up whatever clothes Peter had laid out for him. They were obviously Isaac's, which was both disappointing and reassuring.
At last, Stiles spent some minutes in front of the mirror, trying to get his hair back into its usual style with some of Peter's hair products. While it worked differently than his own and was therefore a little frustrating, the subtle smell of the stuff was absolutely gorgeous.
"All done with the decontamination?" Peter asked, a half-smile curling up the corner of his mouth.
"I hope so," Stiles griped. "You tell me if I was successful."
"Oh, gladly, sweetheart." Without hesitation Peter came up to Stiles and pulled him into an embrace. "Smells fine to me. You obviously scrubbed your hands well at the scene." He held Stiles for a moment longer and then retreated slightly. "I'm sorry that this happened to all of you. I can only assume that Erica was terrified."
"She dealt pretty well with it," Stiles said. "Thankfully. I was afraid that the shock at the explosion might cause her to seize or something."
"Isaac carries several med pack cards with him, as well as a turquoise die," Peter soothed him. "Even if she had, it probably wouldn't have been a disaster."
"I'd rather not find out, but yeah. He's a good wolf scout." Stiles slunk over to Peter's monstrosity of a couch and let himself flop onto it. "I can't believe those Lobo guys managed to drive right into Beacon Hills."
"Me neither," Peter agreed. He handed Stiles a glass of water. "Your father must be frothing at the mouth. I'm glad Derek was there to protect you because the FBI is obviously useless. I'm also glad that you see no problem with getting their names later because I'd like to have words with them."
"Nope, no problem at all, they have it coming." Greedily, Stiles drank the water down. "Whew, thanks. I needed that! I can't wait to see what Isaac has filmed. I hope he managed to catch Derek's epic throwback."
Peter's smile broadened to a vicious, beautiful thing. "He was always very good at ball sports, especially basketball."
Isaac came out of his bathroom, still scowling. With a careless flip he lobbed his phone across the room at Peter. "Here, you can watch the video. I'll get something to eat since someone so rudely interrupted our lunch. I'll never get those pastrami sandwiches back!"
"Me neither," Stiles agreed mournfully and scrambled to join Isaac in the kitchen area. "You have something we can warm up?"
They found a large tub of creamy leek soup with ground beef in the freezer and put it in a pot to reheat. Peter, being the snob that he was, eschewed microwaves and so the teens had to wait impatiently for their food to thaw.
"I should develop a heating spell for food," Stiles grumbled as Isaac poked at the thick block of greenish soup.
"Please do," Isaac muttered. He cranked up the heat. "How about coffee while we wait? You make the best lattes."
Stiles complied, making four just in case Derek wanted something sweet to calm his nerves.
"Mmh, thank you," Peter murmured and took the caramel latte Stiles brought him. His eyes never left the screen of Isaac's phone. "Yes, Derek's pitch was indeed excellent, but I must say that I also like how you handled the Lobo members. May I ask what runes you put on them?"
"Oh, just something to make it easier for my dad to interrogate them," Stiles said airily. "You know, a rune for truth, a rune to share … that kind of stuff. We'll see how it works, or if it even works."
"It will," Peter replied confidently. He put the phone aside. "You really kept a cool head in the face of danger."
"Sheriff's kid here," Stiles shrugged. "What really helped was Isaac thinking of recording everything, which totally escaped me, and of course Derek doing his superman thing."
"You immediately called your father, which was arguably even more important with all the mundanes in danger. You all performed admirably under stress. Unfortunately his event highlights the need for some training."
"Training?" Stiles asked, wary. "What sort of training?"
"Don't worry, I won't press you into PT with Derek," Peter smirked, "but I believe that we could all benefit from some general lessons in problem-focused coping. Who does what in any given situation, that sort of thing."
"Yeah, sure, I can get behind that," Stiles agreed. "You have a plan for that already?"
"Only what worked for my family, which was much more diverse with regards to numbers and talent, but we can go from there. Each of us has different strengths so we'll work with those first. But we also need to compensate for weaknesses, so specialized training will definitely be in our future."
Stiles chewed on his lip for a moment. "Mmmh, good thinking. Say, since you're rather well-read in magical theory … if I taught all of you some basic runes, and if you were to draw them in certain situations … could I make them work even if I'm not in the same place? Do you think that's possible?"
Peter's face lit up with pure admiration and wonder. "Why, I think it's at least worthy of investigation, Stiles. We'll make it a priority to find out because if we were able to at least create protective wards in an emergency, that'd be a huge boon to the pack's safety."
"Yeah, I thought so," Stiles said, warmth spreading through him at the praise. "I mean, if we're a pack, it's only fair that you get to use my magic. After all, I've got a wolf spirit from you to help me out, too."
"Ah, that reminds me." Peter got up and joined them at the stove. "I'm ready to let Lou go, and he's more than ready to finally merge with you for good."
"Are we doing this now?" Stiles asked, heart starting to beat faster with excitement.
"We can, if you wish," Peter said. "But I'd like for you to consider two things. The first is the fact that Lou might choose to remain outside you, like he did the night you took him from The Failure. That means that he'll be seen, especially if he chooses to act like a tattoo. The second is that he might choose to get inside you, like he is right now with me, but such an amount of mountain ash might be poisonous to a human and put at least some strain on Lou's healing ability, should he even have any in his current form of existence."
Stiles deflated a little. "You're right. I hadn't thought about any of this." He straightened again und lifted his chin a little. "But I want him, Peter. I don't care what artistics I'll have to perform to hide him. We'll work it out as we go along. Right now I'd say let him roam around on my skin, and if he really needs to hide, he can just … get inside. I'll have my med packs, I can deal with it if the ash is really poisonous to me." He reached out and grinned helplessly when Peter's eyes began to glow in that pretty amber beta gold. "Hey, Lou."
"Alright. That was all I needed to hear," Peter said.
The door to the apartment opened and Derek strolled in, looking very freshly scrubbed, and vaguely excited.
"You weren't going to do this without me, were you?" he asked casually.
Stiles snorted. "Never, dude! That's, like, a moment for our pack grimoire!"
"I thought I'd film it with the digicam," Isaac offered. "That way it won't be accessible via the net, and I can watch it as often as needed until I've drawn the scene."
"We've got a plan," Peter said, pleased at everyone's enthusiasm. "Once we're fed, we'll make some more history."
Stiles and Isaac cheered and even Derek looked thoroughly satisfied with how the day was turning out.
End of chapter 49
