Moonlight sprawled it's way across a messy room. Only the red glow from an alarm clock and slow, even breathing kept it company. Time seemed slow and sticky, dragging on.
For the first time in a long time, the occupant of the room was sleeping soundly. The type of deep sleep that pulled you in and tried to refuse to release you when you woke. The kind of deep that spoke of a headache sitting at the base of your skull when you woke 12 hours after you closed your eyes, a sleep that said 'You haven't seen a lot of me lately, but now you've over done it, too much too fast'
Stiles was sprawled out on his back, limbs askew mouth hanging open. The picture of peace. The red glow of the clock read 2:34 am
A sudden loud and persistent screech cut through the air jolting him out of sleep.
"Fuck!" the word was out of Stiles' mouth before he was even fully conscience his body jack knifing into a completely upright position, his heart hammering in his ear.
No matter how deep a hold sleep had on him, all it took these days was a drop of a pin to wake him. It paid to be a light sleeper in Beacon Hills. Though being a light sleeper didn't mean that he wasn't still half asleep when he got woken up.
Still not completely back in the land of the living, he fumbled for his phone, nearing knocking it off his night stand only catching it by its charger before it could crash to the floor.
Even though his brain was still half asleep he was already moving toward where he kept his shoes and hoodie before he had even hit answer.
"What's wrong? What's going on?" He slurred out as he started to shove his feet into his shoes.
There's only one reason why someone would be calling at- he glanced at the clock- 2:35am.
Beacon Hills' amazing luck had struck again. They had, had some peace for about a month but about a week ago a coven of witches had decided to show up in town, Stiles had known they were up to trouble.
"Stiles! Stiles, you've got to get to the Hale house! Something's wrong with Derek!" Scott's voice came down the end of the line, ringing too loud in Stiles' ear.
"What'd you mean something's wrong with Derek? What's going on?!" He asked trying to get answers as he stumbled his way down the stairs and out of the house.
"I- ah!" Stiles could hear a struggle on the other side of the line which only made his concern grow. " I can't explain right now, just-just get here okay?" Scott panted down the phone, before the human heard a click in his ear as Scott hung up on him.
Stiles tried to smother a frustrated scream as he scrambled into the jeep and peeled out of his drive way.
Sure Scott, just hang up on me after giving me a heart attack, Stiles thought to himself as he sped through town.
He hoped he didn't get stopped by any of the cops on patrol. His dad knew about the whole werewolf thing now but that didn't mean that he wanted to have to explain to his dad why he suddenly had a giant speeding ticket he needed to pay from his 3:00am outing.
Stiles grumbled the whole way to the Hale house, keeping himself company on the dark road. He was trying to fight the heaviness of his eyelids, but the hypnotic winding of the road was making it hard. He was glad when the house came into view, at least he would be able to aim his focus at whatever was going on.
The headlights of the jeep swept across the yard, lighting up the pack where they were huddled on the newly remodeled front porch.
They all turned to look at him as he cut the engine and stumbled his way out of the jeep.
"What's going on?!" He asked as he jogged his way up the steps, noting that Scott wasn't huddle with them.
"Shhhhh!" Erica shushed him from where she was hugging Isaac. Boyd stood close by, though he wasn't touching the other two you could tell that his presence was comforting to them none the less. Isaac was shaking a little, and Stiles didn't have to be a wolf to know that the other man was freaked out.
"What's happening? Where's Scot-?" he tried to asked but he was cut off by a loud roar that made his heart almost jump out of his chest.
"Something's wrong with Derek." Erica whispered at him.
"Uh yeah I got that message when Scott called me demanding I get over here!" Stiles whispered-shouted, "What is wrong with him?!"
The betas looked at each other shiftily, which only made Stiles heart beat faster.
For the last year he had been nursing a not so secret crush on the alpha and any little thing was enough for Stiles to worry about him. Not to say that he didn't worry about the other members of the pack, the other citizens of Beacon Hills for that matter, but with Derek the worry was different. Not because Stiles saw Derek as more important but because fate seemed to have a grudge against Derek and whatever slight it thought Derek had given it, it took every opportunity to shit on him for it. The poor guy had, had not one but two girlfriends turn out to be fucking psycho. Derek had finally started to function like a normal adult this last year, he had gotten a job at the library, had started treating the betas better, hell he had even rebuilt the Hale house so that the pack could have a pack house. Life was going okay for Derek the last year, it was only a matter of time before fate decided to bite him in the ass. Stiles had the right to be worried about the emotionally stunted alpha.
Which is why he was so worried when he heard another roar come from inside the house. When the beta's seemed like they weren't going to answer him- maybe they just didn't know what was wrong themselves- he pushed his way passed them into the house.
The beta's tried to stop him but he had already opened the door and stepped in before they could.
"Wait, Stiles-!" Was all he heard before he was being plowed over by a dark hairy mass.
The air was knocked out of him as his back hit the floor and the heavy body that slammed into him settled itself onto his chest.
His mind was racing as he was trying to process what was going on. He heard footsteps scrambling toward him and distantly he heard Scott's voice shout his name through the ringing in his ears. He struggled to get air into his lungs, the combination of hitting the floor and the 200 pound thing settling its weight on him making it difficult to catch his breath.
That process wasn't helped along once he started processing what was going on. A massive black wolf was crouched on top of him, its snarling muzzle directly in his face. He could feeling the wolf's hot breath against his face as it growled at something over Stiles head.
What little breath Stiles had gotten back came out of him in a whimper.
The beast heard him and stuck his snout in the human's face.
Stiles flinched back, panicking.
This seemed to catch the wolf's attention even more as it turned its attention away from whatever it had been growling at and started running its nose over Stiles face.
If Stiles didn't know any better he would say the thing was nuzzling him.
A bit of hysterical laughter escaped him at the thought.
This seemed to excite the beast more, Stiles could feel the wolf's body give a wiggle and the snuffling picked up. He felt a steady thump start to hit his leg, which Stiles realized was the wolf's tail wagging.
"Stiles! Stiles, are you okay?!" He heard Scott shout, cautious footsteps started approaching again.
The wolf didn't like that and it's head snapped back up to snarl at Scott, who stopped in his tracks.
"What?" Stiles rasped out, "What is happening?!"
At the sound of his voice he could feel the wolf's tail start to wag again.
Regaining a little bit of his courage his peaked around the mass of fur above his face and saw Scott hovering in the corner of his vision.
Stiles squinted at him. The other teen was wolfed out but was wringing his hands together, worry etched into his face. His eyes flickered back and forth between the wolf- who had gone back to nuzzling Stiles face- and his best friend.
When he saw Stiles looking at him he gave him a strained smile.
"…Hey buddy," Scott started. "You doing okay?"
Stiles stared a the other teen for a beat, the wolf on top of gave his up turned cheek a quick lick before going back to nuzzling him.
Seeing the completely baffled 'what the fuck Scott' look on his best friends face, Scott grimaced.
"So Derek was turned into wolf by the witches." Scott explained waving a hand toward the wolf on top of Stiles.
"Uh, yeah Scott I sort of figured that one out on my own."
"Yeah well whatever spell they did made him go-feral or something. I heard his howl and when I got here he was trying to attack Isaac and the others-"
"The witches somehow where able to get in the house without us noticing." Erica's voice came from behind Stiles head. Stiles had almost forgot they were there. "When we realized they were here, they cast some sort of spell on Derek and the next thing we know he's a covered in fur. Apparently the witches didn't think their plan through because Derek turned on them and well…they won't be bothering us again."
"But he doesn't seem to recognize us-" Scott told him.
"-Apparently he recognizes Stiles," Erica interrupted.
And apparently he wasn't too happy with Stiles attention being on something besides him, which he showed by woofing lightly in the human's face and giving a happy little wiggle when Stiles turned his attention back to him.
Stiles hesitantly brought his hand up and ran it though the fur on Derek's flank. The wolf's tongue lulled out of his mouth.
The group stared at the pair on the floor for a second before Scott continued what he wanted to say.
"We wanted you here to help figure out what was going on, we though maybe having someone less…" Scott trailed off as he thought about how to phrase what he was trying to say.
"You thought having the least threatening person he knows around might help." Stiles finished for him, his eyes narrowed at his sheepish best friend.
"Exactly." Erica said.
Stiles strained his neck backward to try to catch a glimpse of her from where he was still buried under 200 pounds of muscle wolf. It only managed to make his neck hurt.
"Yes but," Scott said sending glare Erica's way, "when he started to get more agitated and started trying to leave we thought it might be best for Erica and them to be outside to warn you. He was getting pretty out of control, searching for something, we don't know what-"
"Oh I think we know now," Erica interrupted again. Stiles didn't have to look at her to know she was smirking.
He decided to ignore her and turned his attention back to the wolf in his arms.
Derek seemed to be enjoying the pets that he was getting, the human could feel the wolf's tail thumping a steady rhythm against his leg and he was panting happily.
"Um, so, with how cool he seems to be with me, what are the chance that he'll let me up, you think?" Stiles asked glancing at Scott, the only other person he could see beside Derek.
Scott looked back and forth between Stiles and his living blanket.
"…50/50?"