The Argument
After his conversation with Lady, everything starts to get fuzzy for Stiles. The warmth is what guides him where he needs to be, he vaguely remembers healing Boyd, but he can't remember how he did it, or if it worked at all. He doesn't know how much time passes, but he is cocooned by his warmth, his magic, and he feels safe. He thinks he hears someone speaking, possibly to him, but it sounds like they are miles away and underwater, so he couldn't hear it even if he wanted to. Instead, he stays where he is and just enjoys the feeling of the magic that he just found out that he had, he can't even truly form actual thoughts, just emotions, and impressions. He reaches for the warmth, the magic, and starts to try to form it to his will, to see if he can make it respond to him and it does, as well as it can while still being in the state that Stiles is in.
After what feels like days, or possibly weeks, he hears a voice in his head, he can only make out a few words of what is being said to him though, and he thinks that he recognizes the voice but he couldn't tell who it was even if his life depended on it. He can't really understand what the voice wants with him either he can only hear a word here and there and it makes no sense to him, 'Stiles… not… bite… if… speak…' are the only word he hears clearly enough to remember them. Then he feels a sharp pain somewhere, the haze prevents him from making out where it hurts, just that it does. Then he hears the voice again, but this time he hears every word, it is still quiet, sort of like it's being whispered to him but he still hears it.
'I will not lose you now! Do not leave me, Stiles, do not leave your father and friends, we need you and we need you alive!' the fuzziness starts to recede and he finally recognizes the voice. It's Lady! How could he not have recognized her sooner? Then he remembers what she said and tries to make sense of it. Why would she think that he would leave her, or any of them for that matter? He had no intention to do that, and he tries to tell her just that but at the same time, the haze tries to bring pull him away from everything again. It feels urgent, as it if thinks that Stiles will walk into danger if he leaves this state, but he remembers then that the danger was over so he had no reason to stay like this. So he pulls at the warm magic in his chest and does his best to use it to ward off the haze and to help him think more clearly, it listens to him and he takes a second to enjoy the fuzzy feeling before he truly uses the magic to pull himself out of his state.
He gasps out a breath, it almost feels like he had been underwater and just came up to the surface to breathe, and that is when he feels a sharp pain in his nose.
"Ow!" he exclaims and brings a hand to his nose, he notices that Lady is there and then he remembers hearing her voice and tries to remember the words she had said, and then he realizes what had happened. "Did you just bite me, Lady?!" before she can respond he continues, "You promised me that you wouldn't do that!"
Lady startles a bit when her human sits straighter and gasps loudly, it takes him just a few seconds before he brings a hand to his nose, probably to inspect the damage she had done. Then she jumps when he starts talking. "Ow!" he said, and she feels just the tiniest bit of satisfaction that he was being punished for scaring and worrying not just her but his friends as well. It takes a second or two for him to truly react, "Did you just bite me, Lady!?" he asks her loudly before she could answer he spoke again, "You promised me that you wouldn't do that!" is said just as loudly as the first sentence.
"I warned you that I would bite if you did not answer me," she tells him and absently hears the other humans make noises in the background, but that did not matter to her, she needed her attention directed at Stiles and not the other humans.
"No, you didn't! I think I would remember you telling me that you were gonna bite me!" he told her, and now she took the opportunity to step onto his hand that was still beside her on his nose.
"You would not listen to me or your humans so I warned you, I said that if you did not answer then I would bite you, you did not even react so I bit you," she told him in a calm almost bored tone of voice, she would not her fear and concerns be shown in until she knows he will truly be alright.
"Seriously..?" it's asked so slowly that it doesn't even sound like a question, she couldn't nod like the humans so she decided to use the system that had almost been forgotten between them at this point and tapped his hand twice. "Fuck, okay, if you say so.." he says then he waves the opposite hand than the one she is on, over his nose, and the hand glows. The glow spreads to his nose and suddenly her bite is completely gone, but Stiles's whole body is now glowing, it's almost bright enough to make her eyes hurt. He glows for a few seconds before it stops, and he looks shocked. "Huh, that's new," he says and looks at his hand weirdly, "It didn't work like that with the others," he says quietly as if he is speaking to himself or thinking out loud.
"Stiles…" says the sheriff slowly to her human, "I know that you told me that you could understand what Lady wants and that you could talk to each other in your head or whatever, but why didn't you tell me that she could actually talk?" he asks, and that makes her react. Had the humans heard her speak to Stiles? How could that be? She knows that no other human but Stiles had heard her all the other times she had spoken to him.
"What… What are you talking about dad?" her human asks his father. "I'm talking about the fact that all of us could hear your spider as she told about how she had warned you before biting you." he has a small amused smile on his face.
"Wait, seriously? You heard that?" Stiles looks at the humans then he looks at her. She wonders what it means, for the humans to have heard her speak. How did that happen, and why?
She thinks that these might be questions that even her human might not be able to answer, even if she asks them out loud.
Lady decided that she could not be bothered to listen to the humans anymore, she was still too worried about Stiles's wellbeing to concern herself with other humans. She climbed up his arm to his shoulder and settled down there, she started to tap him with her pedipalps, mostly to make sure he was really there and that his blood kept flowing as it should, but also to comfort him. Then she let the sleepiness take over, she would not fall completely asleep around all of these strange humans but she could doze off for a bit, and so she did.
Stiles didn't know what to think about everything that had happened today. He could still feel that warmth in his chest, his magic. Then there was the fact that Lady could now talk so that other people than him could hear her, and he didn't know what to do about that or if it was a good thing. He could also still feel the residue of the fuzzy state he had been in earlier, and he wondered what that had been about. Had he used too much magic and just become exhausted in some weird way, or was it something else?
He spoke with his dad for a bit, but he can't really remember what they had talked about. He watched his dad corral the formerly kidnapped teens into his police cruiser and assumed that had been part of what they talked about. Chris said something, gave him a weird look, and waved goodbye as he walked to his own car.
The twins were still with him, and one of them nudged him forwards and said something but Stiles just couldn't focus right now. His magic was vibrating in his chest and under his skin as if it wanted him to use it right now, but he felt too tired to feel excited enough to try it out and see what he could do with it. He made a mental note to research magic more later, right now though he just wanted to go home take a quick shower and throw himself on his bed.
He can feel himself being steered towards the passenger seat of his jeep, and he thinks that's just as well, he almost certainly cannot drive in the state he is in now. Both Ethan and Aiden talk to him on the way back, and Stiles hears them but doesn't truly register what they're saying, he still gives them some answers from time to time, to reassure them that he is still aware enough to not need medical attention. Or another spider bite, he had never been bitten by something bigger than an ant or something similar, so it was a shock how much the bite had actually hurt before he managed to heal it that is. Which reminds him about the glowing, he had no idea why he had started to glow, he might not have been completely aware when he healed Boyd but he knows for a fact that he hadn't glowed when he healed Erica and Cora, or when he had used his magic on Kali. He guesses that is another thing he'll have to figure out later.
He suddenly wishes that he could talk to Derek, he had been born a werewolf, after all, so he probably knew something about magic, maybe. But he and his pack didn't want anything to do with him, so he will not ask him about this, he can figure it out himself. Hopefully, the twins had some information, like whether magic is a common thing and maybe they've got an inkling of where to search for the answers he wants. Otherwise, he'll just find his own answers somehow. Not now though, now he's going to take a nap until he gets home and then go to bed and sleep for as long as possible.
The next morning, Stiles wakes up from his deep and restful sleep, and for the first time since he can remember he wakes up on his own, without loud noises, alarms, or his dad waking him for one reason or another. He keeps his eyes closed for a moment longer, and then he starts stretching his arms. He opens his eyes, and smiles, he can't remember the last time he felt so well-rested. He sits up sees Lady sitting in the window, and tells her 'good morning' before going to the bathroom to get ready for the day.
When he is dressed and starts to walk over to Lady, but suddenly he stops and just looks at the spider. He walks closer to her and really looks at her. He faintly hears her asking him what he is looking at, but he can't come up with words to answer her yet. He wonders how he had missed this, or maybe it happened recently enough that he would not have noticed right away. According to all of his wolf spider research, they usually don't get too much bigger than an inch and a half in length, some have legs that are around three inches. Lady had only been a bit over an inch in length when he first saw her, looking at her now though is a big shock. Because she must be more than twice as big as she was back then. If he were to guess then he would say that she is close to three inches, possibly even bigger.
He stands still and wonders for a bit, how could he have missed that she had grown so much?
He then thinks about all the other strange things in his life, like how his former best friend turned into a werewolf, that he met and befriended a spider, how that spider later was able to communicate with him. Then he also remembers that she had managed to make herself heard to the others too, and he thinks that maybe his newly discovered magic might have something to do with it. It would be a pretty big coincidence to have found a magical spider, especially when he himself later finds out that he is capable of using magic. Maybe Stiles's magic is what drew Lady to him, like a familiar of some sort. He had thought about her possibly being a familiar before but hadn't put much stock in it as he hadn't had magic at that time, or at least he hadn't known about his magic back then. In a lot of stories familiars are animals that are magically bound to a witch, wizard, warlock, or other types of magic users, and in some of those stories that Stiles had read when he went on his very first 'holy shit, the supernatural is real' research binge, they can even kind of feed on the magician's magic and so they themselves be capable of using that magic. Even if it's only for small things, like in this case if that is what's happening here, Lady and her ability to speak to him and also other people now, he assumes. Or maybe help her grow bigger than is normal for her species.
It would be awesome if that is what is happening here, he's going to have to read up on similar things, and maybe ask the twins if they have any idea about what is happening to him and to Lady.
It is then that he remembers that he still hasn't answered Lady's question, "I'm just looking at you Lady, and admiring how much you have grown since you came here," he brings his hand towards her and drags one of his fingers down her back. He'll never get over how soft she is to pet.
"I had noticed some growth earlier, but not this much, this has happened since yesterday," Stiles is suddenly even more curious, and he is almost convinced that this has something to do with his sudden magical abilities. He holds his hand in front of her and lets her crawl on it, then he makes his way to the kitchen for some kind of food, he's pretty sure that there is some leftover spaghetti in the fridge.
That'll do nicely, why waste time on cooking breakfast when you can eat leftovers? When he walks into the kitchen he is surprised enough to freeze for a second, because the kitchen table is filled with people. His dad, the twins, Chris, and Allison are all sitting there and chatting as if they've always been friends, it creeps him out a little bit but he makes himself move forward and towards the fridge.
"Morning kid, how're you feeling?" asks his dad, and there went his great plan of ignoring everyone. He sighs, "Morning dad, Ethan, Aiden," then to make it seem as he barely noticed them as if they're just an afterthought he says, "Argents," he is still a little bit bitter about the whole Scott and Hale pack thing and he is absolutely petty enough to take a little of it out on the two hunters currently in his kitchen.
"I feel great, can't remember the last time I felt this good actually," he finally finds the spaghetti and takes it out of the fridge, puts it on a plate, and into the microwave, then he turns around and hops up on the countertop so that he is facing the other kitchen occupants. "So, whatcha doing here guys, having a secret meeting without me?" his tone is teasing, and a bit curious because he had expected his dad and even the twins as they don't really have anywhere else to go at the moment, but the Argents presence was a big surprise for him. Especially, Allison, he can't remember the last time he had been this close to her or anyone else of Scott's friends.
"You think we would have a secret meeting without you, in the kitchen of the house that you live in?" was the equally amused answer he gets from his dad, and he is suddenly hit with a pang of relief. His dad is still acting like he usually is, so the whole magic glowy thing yesterday didn't make him think of Stiles differently than he had before.
"Well, spiders can talk, werewolves and hunters exist, I can apparently do magic," he lists with an amused smirk, "You never know what's gonna happen next." His dad chuckles stand up and walk over to him. When he is standing in front of Stiles he leans forward and wraps his arms around him, and Stiles feels himself relaxing into the embrace and wraps his own arms around his dad's neck.
"You scared me half to death yesterday kid, I don't ever want to go through that again Stiles. I don't know what I'd do if something happened to you," is mumbled into his ear and Stiles tightens his grip on his dad.
"I'll do my best, but I'm pretty sure it won't happen again, it was more like a magical awakening or something. You know the consequences of using magic for the first time, when you don't know how to properly use or control it," they both startle when the microwave beeps, Stiles reluctantly pulls away from his dad and takes his food out of the microwave. He grabs a fork and starts to eat his spaghetti, he is pretty sure that he is in for a long conversation about the things he did yesterday, and explanations on how he did them, and he doesn't have those answers yet so it'll be an unsatisfactory situation all around.
An hour or so later they have all moved to the living room, and they have gone over yesterday's events as well as they could. They have discussed the rescue, what's going to happen to the alphas, where the twins are gonna stay, and also a bit about Stiles and his magic. No one has the answers that they all want, and Stiles's only information about magic comes down to what he read from Deatons's books and they only covered druids, and supernatural creatures, not anything about any other kinds of actual magic.
Well they also covered sparks, and he supposes that that is a kind of magic, the most powerful kind actually, but they were near extinct and relied on belief to do magic, what were the odds that he would just so happen to be a spark. It was ridiculous to think that he of all people could be that powerful. But then he started to really think about it, and it sort of made sense. He had wished so hard that he had believed that the mountain ash would form a ring around Erica and Cora, then how he had managed to pull Kali off of him and kept her in one place until help arrived, and how he had managed to will Erica and Cora into waking up and being healed.
The more he thinks about the events of yesterday he realizes that what he did could be counted as believing something into becoming reality. Which is basically the definition of a spark, but it's still too unbelievable for him to truly think that that is what he is. He thinks that he has to try and use his magic again before he can even start to think that he is actually a spark, but that would be a great explanation for everything that has happened recently. He had really wanted to be able to converse with Lady in a better way, and then suddenly he can hear her talk, and it wasn't until after his power surge yesterday that anyone else could hear her talk either, that could be a possible side effect of his magic too.
He is brought out of his thoughts when his dad and Chris stand up and walk back into the kitchen, and Allison is moving closer to him and she sits down on the couch beside him and starts talking to him.
"Stiles, I don't understand why you would go through all of this trouble to help Erica and Boyd when you told Scott that you didn't want anything to do with him or anything even possibly related to something supernatural," and Stiles looks at her sharply, because what!?
"What are you talking about Allison?" the words are said slowly and uncertainly because he isn't sure he actually wants an answer to that question. The insinuation is bad enough without having all of the information.
"Scott told all of us that after what happened with my family, you didn't want anything to do with him or the pack," she told him but she too sounded a bit unsure after Stiles's reaction to what she had said, "Why do I get the feeling that that is not the whole truth?" she finishes, and Stiles is at a loss for words. Scott, his best friend since forever, had told Stiles that he and his pack had decided that Stiles was a liability and not welcome in their pack, but he had told Allison that it was Stiles that didn't want to have anything to do with them? Was Allison the only person Scott had said that too or was it something he had told all of them?
Before he can answer he hears the doorbell ringing, and his dad walking over to open it, then he sees the pack walking inside and into the living room. They're all there, Erica, Boyd, Derek, Isaac, Cora, Jackson, Lydia, and Scott, and suddenly Stiles can't breathe. He wishes that Mandy and Sean were there, they were always good at helping him when he panicked about Scott or the rest of the pack. Instead, he feels Lady crawling on his neck, and he feels Ethan and Aiden just in front of him and he thinks they're talking to him but he can't concentrate. It takes a couple of minutes, but he manages to control his breathing and tries to remember what he was doing before the panic set in. He remembers and looks up at Scott, and he is not panicking anymore, he is just angry. Scott had lied to him, he had hurt him more than Stiles thought possible, and it wasn't even true.
"Is that true Scott?" he starts and Scott looked like he wishes he was somewhere else, good, he thinks. He wants Scott to suffer if only a little bit, for everything he put Stiles through. "Answer the question, Scott! Did you or did you not tell Allison that I was the one that said I didn't want anything to do with you?" he is so angry, but he manages to make his voice not shake when he speaks.
"I did it to protect you, Stiles!" is the answer, and it only makes him angrier, "How is that protecting me? Huh? Wouldn't you say that it would be safer for me to actually be aware of the stuff that is happening when I am already aware of the fact that things like werewolves exist?" he surprises himself over how calm he sounds
"Just because you know it exists doesn't mean you have to be involved! If you stay away from anything supernatural then you'll be safe!" Stiles honestly doesn't know how he managed to put up with Scott for so long, because that sounded very logical if you are fluent in Scott.
He chuckles a little before he answers, "Where have you been during our entire friendship? When have I ever stayed out of something when I didn't want to? What makes you think that I would be able to go on with my life and pretend that werewolves don't exist?" he says, and seriously Stiles first reaction to new things is to learn everything about it, and he honestly thinks that he'll never be able to learn everything about the supernatural world but that is not going to stop him from trying.
"Because I told you to! I don't want you to get killed because you insisted on following the pack into danger! The easiest way to stop that from happening was to not have you around the pack at all. You would do the same thing if the roles were reversed." Wow, Stiles had never heard him quite this stupid before.
"Well, you were wrong. I've never been good at listening to people, you know that. And I would never do something so stupid! If anything I would have made sure that you knew how to get out of any danger you got into," Stiles can feel everyone looking at him and Scott, and wonders how many of them he had lied to. "Besides, it was my decision to make! I have a right to decide whether I do or don't want to have any part of that world. And you cutting me out only made me more determined, or did you not notice me tracking down and rescuing your missing friends, all without you there to protect me?" his anger is slowly being replaced with indifference, whatever Scott had done couldn't be undone, he could only move forward and do his best to avoid getting into another situation like this again.
"You know what?" Stiles says before Scott has a chance to answer him, "It doesn't even matter anymore. You don't want anything to do with me then stay the hell away from me. But you should know that there is nothing you or anyone else can do to stop me from doing what I want. And if the things I want to do involves learning about the supernatural, and doing my best to help my dad keep this town safe from any supernatural threats, and since you ended our friendship there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop me." Scott looks like he is about to protest but Stiles keeps on talking, "What I really want to know though, is why you would tell Allison that it was me who didn't want to be involved when it was you who made that decision for me?" now he takes a breath, his great mood from this morning has been obliterated, but he wants to hear the answer to this one question before he walks out of the room, as far away from Scott as possible right now.
"Because they would have still come to you for help! I couldn't let them put you in danger, so I told them that you didn't want anything to do with any of us!" Scott finally exclaims and Stiles freezes again. Them he said, he had told them.
"So you didn't just lie to Allison, you lied to all of them? That is some dedication, to learn how to lie to a bunch of werewolves just to hurt your oldest friend. I almost feel as if I should applaud you on a job well done, except it wasn't well done because you didn't keep me out of danger, if anything you let me get myself in more danger by being alone than if I'd had help," Stiles stands up and prepares to leave, "Well this has been fun! Let's never do it again! I have to go somewhere else now, literally anywhere else would be great actually," he starts and turns to Ethan and Aiden, "I'll see you later, alright? Dad said you could stay here right? If he didn't then I'm saying it now, the more the merrier and all that. So I expect you two to be here when I get back from wherever I end up." He tells them and starts to walk away, he pushes his way through the werewolves all the while trying to ignore that they're even there, he grabs his car keys and his backpack that is still filled with stuff to help him out in case of supernatural emergencies, and opens the front door and walks to his car.
He sits down in his jeep, and puts his forehead against the steering wheel for a minute, he feels Lady tapping his shoulder and he is grateful that she doesn't want to talk to him right now. He is tired of talking. He sits up and starts the car, he can see everyone looking at him from the house as he drives away. He sincerely hopes that they're all gone when he gets back. Until then he's just going to drive around, maybe stop for lunch somewhere later on, and just figure out what is going on in his life.
He has to find a way to know for sure if his magic makes him a spark or something else, and he needs to think about what to do with the Hale pack. He doesn't know what they think of him and he's pretty sure most of them dislike him and thinks that he is annoying, but maybe he can ask Derek some of the questions he has about magic and werewolves and stuff, now that he knows the reason they've all stayed away from him.
Until then he is just going to enjoy some time alone, just him, and Lady of course. Maybe do some of that research he has been putting off.
He leans back into the seat of the car, and turns on the radio, and just drives around. If he is lucky he might manage to salvage the rest of his day so that the end of it is just as good as the beginning was, and just ignore the bad things that happened in the middle of it.