i. decision: the bite
The twins brought Jackson to the new fancy apartment complex that had been built on the edge of Beacon Hills. His parents had debated on whether to buy an apartment there but since they already lived in a huge-ass mansion-like house, that debate had led to nothing. Jackson shuddered at the thought of being confided in a small apartment with his parents.
The twins stopped their bikes and parked them at the curb, Jackson following suit with his Porsche. None of them looked out of place in front of the high-end apartment building which was probably the point.
"Still with us?" Ethan spoke as if he was daring Jackson to chicken out on the last few meters. Jackson squared his jaw and did not even bother to reply. His actions would speak louder than his words, so he just shoved himself past the twins and onto the path that led to the entrance, forcing the two other boys to follow him, or be left behind. It was the small hints that counted.
They made their way through the entrance hallway on the ground floor and towards the elevator that would take them to the penthouse. Whoever was waiting there must be filthy rich, Jackson concluded. He looked at the twins who exuded an aura of carefully curated nonchalance. Jackson would know; after all he was doing exactly the same.
"So, what's this all gonna be?" he asked as if he had no care in the world.
"It'll be easier to show than to tell," Aiden replied, not even bothering to tear his eyes away from the screen that was counting floors the elevator was passing by. With a subdued ping the elevator's doors opened into the penthouse.
Jackson was standing in a wide living area that stretched over the whole width of the building. There was a wide window front that cover the whole side of the space and allowed for an uninterrupted view over much of Beacon Hills and the adjacent preserve. There was a fireplace on the right side of the room, unlit, with a seating arrangement of couches and chairs around it and sturdy looking wooden bookshelves but that was as far as Jackson took in the room because then he noticed the standing in the middle of the room, head crooked to the side as if he was trying to listen to something.
"Ah, Jackson," he greeted him, completely ignoring the twins. "I'm happy to see that you made the right decision." Jackson suddenly realised that the man in front of him was blind. As district attorney, his foster father attended many fancy shindigs and benefit galas which Jackson sometimes had to attend as well. The man before him reminded him of the people he had met during one of those organised by the Californian Blind Association: The sunglasses, even though the sun was barely shining; the way he seemed to look past Jackson instead of at him; the careful way he moved around the room.
Yeah, he was pretty sure now that the man in front of him was blind.
"That remains to be seen," Jackson replied. If this man was some kind of crazy, he could just leave by means of the fire escape near the elevator.
"Ah, hedging your bets, aren't you?" the man laughed. "I admire that." He stepped up to Jackson and extended his hand. "My name is Deucalion." Jackson shook the offered hand and was surprised by the firmness of the handshake.
"Ethan and Aiden told me that you could give me some answers," Jackson said, choosing candour over courtesies. "About what is going on with McCall and Stilinski."
"Ah, the beauty of childhood rivalries." If it had not been said in such a dry tone, Jackson would have assumed that Deucalion was mocking him, but he seemed more amused by it, so Jackson stayed his tongue. "You noticed how both have become stronger? Better? You instinctually realised that they had somehow become superior to you, even though you spent so much time on honing yourself to as close to perfection as you possible could."
Jackson wanted to bristle at the assertion that Stilinski and McCall were in any way superior to him, wanted to deny it and hurl abuse at the man who was daring to claim such, but he didn't, because deep down he knew that Deucalion was only voicing out loud what a small voice inside him had been telling Jackson all along.
"You can tell me?" he asked, his voice a little bit desperate and Jackson hated himself for it.
"Of course," Deucalion replied, a predatory grin flashing across his face. He lifted his hand and pulled his sunglasses off his face. And before Jackson could even take anything in – the milky white sheen over his eyes, the scars he possessed instead of wrinkles – the man suddenly changed in front of him: His eyes lost their milky sheen and instead suddenly started to glow red, as if a demon was staring straight back at Jackson, his hair grew denser, his teeth sharpened into fear-inducing fangs and his nails turned black and into wicked looking claws.
Shocked by the sudden turn of events, Jackson – driven by his human instinct who told him to put as much space between him and this predator – stumbled back and fell onto the ground where he continued to scramble backwards. Deucalion did not follow but instead let out a thunderous roar that made the hairs on Jackson's neck stand up.
For the first time in his life Jackson felt truly terrified – not afraid of underachieving, of losing Lydia or all the other small ways one could be afraid as teenager – but this true primordial fear that even the first humans had felt back on the prairie when they had come across another predator. It was this instinctual fear that lived deep down in every human and had accompanied humanity throughout history. One which could not be erased, no matter how civilised or advanced the world had become.
It was a horrible feeling, feeling so defenceless and afraid. It did not matter that Jackson's grade average was barely behind Lydia's or Stilinski's, that he was the star athlete at Beacon High, that he was driving a Porsche and that his parents were influential and loaded. In this moment Jackson was just helpless prey in front of a predator.
Jackson never wanted to feel like that ever again.
As fast as the change had come over him, Deucalion changed back into the harmless blind man. A deception, as Jackson was now aware of. And it worked.
He scrambled back up, trying to make it appear less shameful than it was. "What the fuck was that?" he nearly shouted.
"Don't curse," Deucalion chided him. "It's uncouth." Jackson wanted to tell him where he could stick it, but the rational part of him reminded him that after what he had just witnessed, he should not needlessly antagonise the man.
"As to what you just saw," the older man continued. "Primordial and undiluted power. One I possess. As do Ethan and Aiden. As do Scott McCall and Stiles Stilinski. All of us are werewolves."
Jackson wanted to call bullshit on that, but after Deucalion's demonstration he just knew that what the man was telling him was the truth. There just was no other explanation for it.
"McCall and Stilinski have it, too?" he asked instead, the all too familiar feeling of jealousy curling in his stomach again.
"You're an intelligent boy, aren't you? Don't tell me that you haven't noticed the changes in those two?" Deucalion asked. "Though I admit that the Stilinski boy is hiding it better than his friend."
"Of course, I noticed," Jackson scoffed, some of his arrogance creeping back into his voice.
"What if I offered you the same?" Deucalion spoke. "The power, the strength, the invulnerability?"
"I'd ask what you want in return," Jackson told him. He may be arrogant, but he wasn't stupid: Power always came with a price.
"Good," Deucalion smiled. "You're keeping a cool head. Not many would in the situation you found yourself in. That speaks of your character." He paused for a moment. "As for what it would cost you? Like wolves, werewolves are also organised in packs. If you decided to take me on my offer, you would become part of my pack which comes with certain obligations. Nothing nefarious, I promise. You're still attending school after all."
Jackson wanted to point out that Aiden and Ethan were also still attending school, but he figured that it was none of his business, so he kept quiet.
"Of course, there is the chance that the bite won't take and instead kill you," Deucalion continued nonchalantly. "Just being honest and upfront with you about the possible negative outcomes."
"And if it takes?" Jackson asked.
Deucalion's grin widened and he spread his arms wide as if he wanted to encompass the whole world. "Then all of this – the power, the strength – will be yours. Everything will be yours to take. You'll be no longer the prey; instead, you'll become the predator." His eyes glowed red and when Jackson looked over his shoulder, he saw that Ethan's and Aiden's eyes did so as well.
To Jackson's credit he did not immediately say yes. This was something serious, something far more impacting than any decision he had ever made before. But despite all the cons – the risk of death, the general shadiness of Deucalion, the feeling that he had not received all the information necessary to make an informed decision – deep down Jackson already knew what his decision was going to be.
And from the faint smirk on Deucalion's face, so did he.
Power was the greatest seducer of them all and Jackson so desperately craved it. Because what was his worth if others weren't worth less?
"How does it work?"
"Just give me your arm," Deucalion instructed him and extended his own. Jackson offered his and immediately Deucalion's fingers closed around it. Even if he had wanted to, Jackson was no longer able to escape.
"This might hurt a little bit," was the only warning he got before Deucalion's teeth grew into fangs and pierced through Jackson's skin.
He screamed.
ii. decision: revaluation
"You seem sad." Lydia looked up to see Scott leaning against the wall next to her, his eyes shining with sympathy.
"Hey, I'm not that stupid!" Scott huffed in mock-annoyance. Apparently, she did not have her expression as under control as she always thought she had if any of her disbelief showed on her face.
"I never said you were," Lydia replied, which was not a lie. She had only ever thought it. "How did you figure it out?" She turned her head back towards the main area of the loft where Derek was currently showing Stiles a werewolf's weak points by getting really close to him and pointing them all out on the Alpha's body.
Lydia doubted that there were any non-platonic undertones to it at all. Derek was much too controlled and restrained for something like that. Physical closeness had probably been part of his upbringing and now he was passing it on the only way he knew how. But even with her average human senses, Lydia could see the blush on Stiles' face from the other side of the area. She wondered if Derek had noticed, too, and was ignoring it or if he was just that obvious.
To be honest, though, Derek was a fine specimen of a men even if not completely Lydia's type, so she could sympathise with Stiles to a degree.
"You've been really quiet the whole time," Scott answered her question. "I mean, you're not as talkative as Stiles – no one is, I think – but usually you always have something to say. Most of the time something smart, sometimes it's just something mean. But today you didn't even comment about Stiles' Batman shirt, and I know how much you hate comic prints."
"Maybe I just hate that particular shirt?" Lydia suggested.
Scott shook his head. "Nope," he said, popping the 'p', "you hate them in general. Once, Jackson wore these awesome sneakers that had a tiny Superman logo on the side, and you didn't talk to him the whole day. He never wore them again."
Lydia looked at Scott as if he had suddenly recited all the decimal places of Pi for five minutes straight. "You're really not that stupid." Scott smiled, revealing the dimples Allison had raved about all the times.
"I'm not smart as Stiles or you are," Scott admitted freely as if he had long ago made peace with that fact. "But I got other stuff I'm good at. Which is why I know that you're trying to distract me by giving me backhanded compliments."
"Here I thought it was working," Lydia sighed. On the other side of the room, Derek had laid Stiles flat on the ground with a new move he was trying to teach the other boy. Stiles was too occupied to eavesdrop on their conversation with his werewolf hearing – besides he was not good at multitasking with his new abilities yet – but Derek could probably hear every word they were saying. Unlike Stiles, though, he probably did not care about her teenage melodrama, so Lydia did not mind as much.
"I had a fight with Allison," she finally said. Maybe Scott would understand. He was the only one who was as close as she was to Allison – even more. Stiles was not really that close to her and the less spoken about Derek's tangled history with the Argents the better. "She did not think that I'm suited to being in the know about the supernatural world. We threw some hurtful things at each other."
"She probably worries about you."
"That doesn't give her the right to infantilise me," Lydia shot back more heated than she wanted. "Obviously, you would take her side."
"I'm not taking anyone's side," Scott replied unperturbed by her sudden outburst. "I'm just pointing out what her motivation might have been. And I know you, Lydia, and you probably gave as good as you got." Her silence was answer enough. "Just do what I always do when people doubt me."
"What would that be?"
Scott flashed her a grin which was all predatory. "Prove them wrong." Lydia raised her eyebrow at him. "No one believed that I'd keep up with school, that I wouldn't need to retake a year. No one believed that I'd ever male it on the lacrosse team. And look where I am now."
"You got onto the team because you literally changed your species," Lydia pointed out.
"Doesn't matter," Scott replied, unperturbed by her rebuttal. "I made it. And even you can't doubt that I was trying hard even before I became a werewolf." He had her there: Scott's perseverance was the stuff of legend at Beacon High. The asthmatic boy who for years tried to get onto the most prestigious sports team and finally made it.
"So, you're saying I should prove Allison wrong by staying alive?" Lydia recapped.
"Well, yeah, I guess," Scott agreed. "It doesn't hurt if you apologise to each other, too. You're friends after all. I always feel horrible when Stiles and I are fighting."
"I'll take that into consideration," Lydia replied. Maybe it was time to let go of some of her preconception that still lingered from school. Scott was by no means as simple as she had thought of him, so what else might be different if she bothered to take a closer look?
"How are things between Allison and you?" Lydia wanted to know.
"It's getting somewhere again," Scott beamed. "Were writing and calling again. School is pretty normal, not any awkwardness or hostility. I think we'll be soon meeting outside of school again. I think we can work through it."
"Sounds good," Lydia hummed.
"But until then, let's still have some fun watching this," Scott said and tilted his head towards Derek and Stiles, the latter who had managed to tear up Derek's shirt with his claws so that the older werewolf's chest was now partly exposed. Lydia could practically feel Stiles' mortification radiating through the whole room.
"Yeah, let's do that. I definitely need some cheering up and this definitely qualifies."
"You mean Stiles' budding crush or Derek's sixpack?"
Lydia just laughed.
iii. decision: path of least resistance
It was the smell that alerted Stiles that something was off when he arrived home. The savoury hint of grilled meat – just enough to still be raw on the inside – the sharp whiff of barbecue sauce and the pungent smell of a salad sauce that had been prepared with way too much vinegar.
It made him stop in his tracks as he tilted his head to better listen to what was going on inside. He could hear someone – his dad – rummaging through the kitchen, searching for the cutlery, because Stiles' dad did not know where half of the stuff you needed for cooking even was because he never cooked. He could even make out the faint traces of 'Eye of the Tiger' that his dad was humming while he was bustling around the kitchen.
That was what threw Stiles off. His dad never cooked. Yes, he sometimes threw some frozen food into the oven and called it 'cooking', but Stiles could not remember the last time his father had used any kind of ingredients that did not come out of the freezer (before his mother had died, his dad had loved to cook, but it had stopped the sicker she had become and the more he had to take care of her. Afterwards he had never taken it up ever again).
Something was afoot. And if the events of the recent past were anything to go by, that never meant anything good for Stiles. Not bad, either to be completely honest. It just meant that monumental change was about to occur. So, no pressure at all. Maybe Stiles was also a little bit exaggerating. His dad deciding to cook could be just a normal thing. Just his dad branching out, trying some new stuff outside of work and watching The Great British Bake-Off or Downton Abby (even though he would forever deny it, but the viewing activity of Stiles' Netflix told a different story).
Stiles let himself into the house and made his way towards the kitchen. Even the dinner table was already prepared. Until now Stiles could have sworn that his dad did not even know where some of these dishes had been stowed away by Stiles during the Great Kitchen Clean-Up of 2017.
"Hello, father dearest," Stiles greeted his father who reciprocated with a nonchalant grunt as he tried to balance the burger patties on the spatula towards the plate, he had placed next to the stove.
"Stiles," his father greeted him after he had accomplished that feat. "Happy you're here."
"About that…" Stiles started as he lounged down on one of the kitchen chairs. "What's this?" He made a wide gesture with his right hand that encompassed the whole of their kitchen. "I didn't even know you knew where to buy anything that isn't frozen food."
"I actually know where they have the fresh produce, I walk through those aisles every day on my way to the important stuff." The sheriff proudly patted the patties with the spatula he was still holding in his hand.
"Dead animals?" Stiles snorted. His dad did not look very amused by that.
"At least I also prepared some salad," his dad pointed out. "So, you can't complain about my cholesterol or my heart clogging up or whatever it is they blame meat for."
"It's not blaming," Stiles retorted, "It's a scientifically proven fact. Also, you can't blame me for being suspicious." He narrowed his eyes at his dad. "Did the school call you? Whatever they told you, it is either not true or greatly exaggerated. My character is beyond reproach."
"I'm sure," the sheriff replied sardonically. "You have a better chance at persuading me of that if you help me set the table." There was not much left to do, so Stiles put out some glasses and something to drink while his dad finished fixing the burgers. The delicious smell of it made his mouth water and his stomach grumble. His dad sure knew how to make some burgers.
"Dig in," his dad prompted when they were finally sat at the table. They ate in companionable silence, only interrupted by 'Hand me the ketchup, please?' and the sounds of Stiles' moans of delight every time he bit into his burger.
"Now, don't get me wrong, dad, this was delicious," Stiles said as he sucked the last bit of sauce from the tips of his fingers. "But tasty food only fools me for so long, and this point has come now. What is going on?"
His dad leaned back on his chair and sighed. "There's been another murder. Again, it is one of your fellow students. Emily Morrison." Stiles swallowed. The Darach had struck again – like Deaton had said it would – and killed another innocent person. And they had not even noticed.
"It made me realise how lucky I am to have you," his dad continued, oblivious to Stiles' inner turmoil. "And it showed me how suddenly and fast that can change."
"Nothing will happen to me," Stiles tried to assure his father who just smiled at him, pained.
"I'm sure the other victims thought that, too," he replied. "As did their parents." Stiles wanted to tell his dad that it was not that; that he was sure because he was a werewolf; because he knew the supernatural and knew what was killing those people, but he stayed his tongue. Maybe knowledge was power, but in this case, knowledge was also danger. And he could not put his dad in danger. Never.
"There'll be a press conference later," his dad continued, the distaste obvious in his words. "But I'm already telling you now that there'll be some new rules in place for you."
"So, the burgers were just to soften me up for the blow?" Stiles joked weakly.
The sheriff shook his head. "No, it's not to soften you up. It is just…standing there in the forest, looking down on the corpse of a girl that still had her whole life in front of her and later in the station when I had to tell her parents that they would never see her again, I realised that it has been so long since we had some quality time together. No school, no stress, no fighting, just the two of us." He smiled at Stiles. "You should take every chance you can get to spend time with the people you love." He squeezed Stiles' shoulders.
Stiles did not really know how to take his father's words. On one hand, he was glad that his father had decided to do this and that they had had this time together. He would never complain about his father wanting to spend time with him. Life had shown both of them that time with loved one was precious and could be taken away. But it did feel a little bit weird that it had taken three murders for his dad to come to this realisation.
"So, what are these new rules you have in mind?" Stiles asked instead. Nudging the conversation along was saver territory than dwelling on the difficult relationship between him and his dad.
The sheriff's expression turned more serious: "The Preserve is off-limits. Neither you nor Scott will go there. I have already talked to Melissa about that. I will not confine you to the house – I know that it would be pointless – but you will keep me informed about where you are all the time. And last of all: You'll be at home before 9:30pm."
If he were a normal teenager, Stiles would protest, throw a tantrum or anything faced with such draconian – at least for a teenager – measures, but he instead he did nothing. Not because he agreed with his father or acquiesced to his rules, but because he knew that he would not keep to them from the start. He had a monster to catch and an Alpha Pack to keep in check – he could not afford to be restricted by his father rules that were based on the assumption that he was a helpless teenager and not an alpha werewolf.
It saddened Stiles, though, because it made him realise that this nice moment his father and he had shared would not last. He would agree to his father's rules already in the knowledge that he would break them and the moment his father caught him (which would happen, eventually, Stiles had no illusions about that) his father would, too, recognise that Stiles had lied to him with a straight face.
But his father would expect at least some form of resistance from his teenage son. But Stiles found himself unable to summon the emotions necessary for it. It felt so pointless, so why even bother.
"Alright," he just agreed.
"Just like that?" his dad prodded, obviously not convinced by his son's unexpected acquiescence. "I expected more of a discussion."
"Path of least resistance," Stiles joked weakly. "You won't change your mind, so why exert all this effort when I could put it into a new record run at Super Mario later?" A video game reference was all it needed to convince his dad. Or maybe his dad was also taking the path of least resistance: Choosing to believe Stiles when deep down he knew that he shouldn't.
"Love you, kiddo."
"Love you, too, dad."
