Chapter 04: Don't like people if you don't know their names

Stiles III

Stiles is surrounded by children when the nurses come into the room and interrupts his fake magic trick. It's time for their sleep and Stiles promises them to return in a few weeks when he can. Julia stares at him, unimpressed as she allows herself to be led away. She turns with a roll of her eyes and begins talking to one of the other kids.

"It's great when you come here Stiles," Says one of the nurses, Melissa McCall, Scott's mom, and she looks tired, half her curly brown hair is sticking out of her ponytail like she had just taken a nap. John, a small boy born with a weak heart, and Millie a girl with a lung condition, had been missing and Stiles can only imagine two reasons for it, and one is horrifying. A part of Stiles desperately wants to cry, even with all the supernatural help at the hospital, they just can't do anything sometimes if the parents refuse to have their children 'tainted' in any way. The other part of him wants to go home and never return. "They love you, Stiles."

Stiles gestures awkwardly and feels slightly guilty. "I do what I can," his stomach growls loudly and Lilian, a girl of 8 years with no hair but eyes that shines with life, giggles at his predicament. "I should go. Go home I mean. To get something to eat. I'm uh hungry." Stiles says, his thoughts drifting briefly to the leftovers in the fridge, just waiting for a heating.

"No," Melissa says. "Wait here and I'll get you something. Lilian, let's get you to your room, come on." She points once at him and then the ground before turning her back on him and walks away. She knows he'll be there once she's back.

The problems of not being able to escape your best friend's mom.

Lilian waves back and doesn't say anything but makes a goofy face behind Melissa's back as the woman guides her along. Stiles sticks his tongue out and crosses his eyes, Lilian laughs and disappears down a corner with Melissa.

Stiles watches for a few seconds and slips away with his 'magic suitcase' under one arm. He's at the morgue in no time, slipping past personnel with quick and small illusions. Stiles gags as he slowly opens the door to the morgue, the smell hits him like a lacrosse ball to the head and he feels nauseous.

He walks over the drawers and smells at all of them until he finds Laura's smell. Stiles takes a deep breath with his mouth and pulls out her body. If he had thought the smell was bad before, it had nothing on her body when outside in the air.

He takes another breath and feels for her lingering emotions, they are an odd mix of some kind of happiness he had never felt before and terror. Why she would be happy before her death Stiles doesn't understand.

"Okay," He whispers and closes his eyes shut as he zips away the covering. "Don't puke, and especially don't faint." he says softly, mostly to himself as he opens his eyes and looks over the many cuts in her body that definitely looks like she's been mauled by an angry werewolf. They have a ragged look to them as if the claws had been digging into her flesh at a painstakingly slow pace. Around her ankles are angry red skin like she had been tied up. Her middle is not as big of a mess like he had thought that night in the forest, instead the flesh is torn more smoothly. At her waist, just over the cut is a a large black tattoo of a wolf pack sleeping in a giant pile. The number of wolves in the tattoo match the number of people who died in the fire.

Stiles suddenly feels sick and the room temperature is dropping round him. A memory wells up in the back of his mind and he can taste the bile in the back of his throat as his head swims among the smells and feelings of despair.

He shivers and packs her in with hurried but careful hands because he does not want to harm Derek's sister more than he already has. He sips her up and a thought comes to him, he could have left DNA on her. Stiles dismisses the thought quickly as Scott's DNA is probably on her body as well with how he had tumbled over her body, Stiles' dad must have smoothed it over.

Stiles locks her body up again and can't help but feel like he's being a creep after having stared and studied her mauled naked body. And it's Derek's sister, he's not going to be able to look the werewolf in the eyes.

Oh god.

He's looked at Derek's sister and Alphas naked, dead, and mauled body. He's going to kill him.

Derek can never know what he did on this day. Stiles will take it to his grave.

He closes the door and takes the file hanging on it. Stiles skims it for information, she has tattoos, a pricing, the wounds that killed her happened long before she was bisected, and there were traces of something in her blood Stiles doesn't know what is. It's probably wolfsbane. Stiles hands begin shaking as he slips the folder back as it sat.

He takes a shaky breath once it's in place and rushes out the cold room, speeding along the hallways and annoying medical staff as he dodges between them. He almost runs a surgeon whom he recognises, over. Stiles throws himself into one of the bathrooms and hurls himself at one of the toilet booths as what little he had in his stomach comes rushing out the way it came down. He washes his face with shivering limbs and looks at his reflection.

Time to face the facts, if Laura was killed by hunters Derek would be Alpha, if she was killed by a werewolf he wouldn't.

Derek isn't an Alpha.

Laura was bisected. Werewolves doesn't really do that, hunters do that. She wasn't cleanly cut in two, but it happened some time after death.

Either the Alpha did it to throw of the scent or there's hunters hiding in Beacon Hills, right under his dad's nose.

But Stilinski would have come to the same conclusion Stiles had, he told Stiles the day he was bitten that Stiles should have known what it meant when a body was cut in half. It didn't register in Stiles before now, he'd been too worried about other things to notice.

Hunters. In Beacon Hills.

Stiles practically flies towards the hospital exit.

He needed out yesterday.

"There you are!" Melissa suddenly walks in front of him, cutting off his path with what looks like a sandwich in her left hand. Stiles shouts out in shock, having completely forgotten about her. Melissa, not expecting his shout, screeches in surprise, "Stiles!" she whispers hard and pushes her sandwich into his hands. "Where were you? I've been looking all over for you." She looks at his face and knits her eyebrows together, placing the back of her hand on his forehead before moving it down to his black eye. "You look pale, are you alright? Have you been sleeping?" she sweetly forgoes asking about the black eye slowly healing on his face.

"I err-" Stiles says intelligently as he wraps his hands around the sandwich and lightly pushes his hands and the sandwich back against his chest, so he's standing awkwardly with the sandwich. "I was on the toilet. On the toilet pooping." he says in the end when the pause gets too long.

"Ah, that is important," Melissa says, not believing him one second. Worry flows of her as she pats him on the shoulder and looks at his tired eyes. "Try to get some sleep. No all nighter today, okay? At least you haven't dragged Scott into it this time you con artist," She smiles at him without any judgment. "I know your dad's been sick but he's going to be okay. So, take it easy. Try not showing up with a black eye and looking sicker than the kids you're supposed to entertain next time. It isn't a good way to be a role model."

"I'm not a role model." Stiles protests and holds a hand awkwardly over his eyes and rubs them. "Or a con artist. Why would you even think that?" He adds quickly.

Melissa gives him a look.

"What?"

She stares, the same look in her eyes. The one she uses when she finds him and Scott doing something they shouldn't have. A slightly disappointed look, but also way more amused. Scott's got the same look down pat. "I've known you since you were little, Stiles. Besides, shouldn't you have been in school today?"

"What? how do you- I was in school."

"Well you just confirmed you weren't," Melissa is a demonic entity. Sometimes he wonders if she really is of fae decent. It would answer so many questions he has about the two McCalls he likes. "How did you get that black eye?"

"I was swinging a stick around." Stiles says, he had already prepared an alibi for his shiner.

"Of course," Melissa says with a big nod. "Do you know how many times I hear that one? Don't answer, it's a lot. I expect that Scott does not have a black eye when I come home?" She says, a crooked smile on her lips and he nods. Her hands roam his face until she glances at her watch and looks back up at him disappointed. "My break is over, so I will see you later Stiles." She swiftly walks away, and Stiles looks down at the sandwich. It's ham and cheese.

His stomach growls, empty.

"What do you need Stiles?" Vlad asks as Stiles slips into one of the stools at his bar. He immediately hands over a glass of orange juice as Stiles gets comfy, almost as if he'd expected Stiles to show up.

"Me? Need something? Can't I go visit you without a hidden agenda?" Stiles asks, loosely appalled.

Vlad tsks, "Stiles, everyone wants something from me, power, information, alcohol."

"Company?" Stiles suggests and drums his fingernails on the glass, the tips if his fingertips going wet with condensation.

"No," Vlad says and shifts his eyes to where another bartender, a female fae who looks eight and is very tall for her apparent age, her head only just reaches over the edge, and she's mixing up something that smells like blood, for a blonde woman sitting besides Stiles. "What are you doing here then?"

"... information," Stiles admits. "And this time you better not scam me."

"Why Stiles, you can't keep beating that dead horse, it was a fair trade of information," Vlad says appalled, or fake appalled, Stiles can never tell the difference, no heartbeat. "You found out about the cards you wanted, and I got first-hand information on the vetting process your father uses."

"I was ten, and that wasn't the only time."

"And I am as old as your father Stiles, in my eyes you will be a child until you are at the most a hundred. That is when a Kitsune is considered an adult among their own, correct?"

Stiles scowls. "I'm not answering that."

"Regardless, I will need something in return for information." Vlad turns to pick at the various bottles littering shelves covering the entire wall.

"Of course, you want something in return. You never want something in return, this is so surprising! What will I do? I wasn't prepared! Where you?" Stiles says not kindly and stares almost dully as the reflection of a blue bottle labelled 'Unicorn saliva,' shows off as a mermaid, his scales are visible on his arms, and a dwarf, the supernatural kind, speaks and clicks glasses of beer. A strange combination.

"Your sarcasm is noted." Vlad interrupts his musings.

"Hunters," He says bringing his attention back on Vlad as the woman besides him sips the blood drink. Eating blood has always been weird to Stiles, it makes sense but it's just plain weird. Stiles is happy, grateful, he's not a vampire or anything else that likes to drink and eat blood. Blood jelly is freaky. "How many has been in Beacon Hills since dad took over and before then, where and when."

Vlad lifts one eyebrow as he stares into Stiles eyes with his orange gaze. "That is a heavy request. What do you plan to do with the information? Kill them all? Torture them? It would seem fitting with what you are Stiles, but are you not going sober?"

"Look I could just take the time to find out myself, it'll be easy. But I don't have all day so what do you want in return for making my life so easy and comfortable?" He ends it with a question

Vlad hums and taps his chin as if he's thinking about it, he peers up past Stiles and grins. "I want you to talk with someone who just got here, she still has to talk to the Protector. But I want to know why she's here first. What do you say?"

"You want me to talk with someone who could be a murderous criminal?"

"Well you'll be the one meeting with them soon enough, so it might be good to get a leg up." Vlad says like he's doing Stiles a favor.

"He's not dying." Stiles snaps and Vlad blinks.

"Well then you better get to work," he says with a smug smile and points subtly behind Stiles. "Go talk to the blonde woman in the leather jacket."

Stiles looks behind him and spots the woman, she's leaning back on one of the dark red sofas with a drink that smells strongly of alcohol in one hand and a black phone in the other. Her thumb types away at the screen as she sips on her drink. She's kind of hot, but nowhere near Lydia's level. No one is prettier and smarter than Lydia Martin.

"You're not a vampire! but a demon who's crawled his way from hell to torture everyone in his domain!" Stiles hisses to Vladimir but the vampire is already gone to talk with other customers. Stiles never really have problems with speaking to strangers, but casually asking someone for directions or just where they got their superman shirt is very different than questioning a total stranger on their personal reasons for being in Beacon Hills.

With a very- in his opinion- painful groan Stiles takes his glass of juice and treks up to the woman, but before he can embarrass himself by spewing out Vlad's question she lowers her phone and looks up at him. Saving him the future nights the memories of his embarrassment would have kept him up. "Who might you be?"

It seems I do have a lucky kitsune looking over my shoulder. Stiles thinkswith more relief than probably necessary. "I'm Stiles, Stiles Stilinski. Vlad asked me to ask you about why you're in Beacon Hills."

She smirks at him, evidently able to tell he isn't comfortable. "Kate, and now why would I tell you, a total stranger, anything, it could be something private you know." she gives him a very slow wink.

"Well it's not my question, I don't care. Give me a lie if you want." He offers, then it technically won't be him lying and then Vlad won't know better. That's what he gets for being an ass, incorrect information.

She taps her chin thoughtfully and her smirk widens with mirth. "Hmm. How about this, I'm in Beacon Hills to eat the best dishes in the world." she snaps her fingers.

Stiles stares, "Hah. No. He won't believe that. It's too likely." he says sarcastically.

She smiles softly then. "How about the truth then? I'm here for my brother, he's been having issues with the family business," she flips her hand with a shrug, "What about you then? What are you at the Cerise for?"

"I'm just here to confirm something from Vlad." Stiles says vaguely.

"Really? I'm not actually here for anything. I was searching for the Guardian so when I saw an elf, I asked if he knew where I should go. 'yeah, I will show you to the kitsune' he said and dumped me in here." she makes a quick gesture to his right where a blonde elf, dressed in a faintly purple suit with a twisting pattern of tree branches, is sitting at the bar with another elf with dark skin, beads braided into his blonde hair and casual clothes, t-shirt and jeans.

The first elf turns and gestures to Kate and Stiles, "I found her on the street isn't she pretty?"

"I like the male with her more, he has nice marks on his face, I don't see that a lot," The other says and leers at Stiles, "She's too old, it's too bad she's one of the aging ones. Makes her ugly."

"Shut up Lema, you just like your humans small."

Stiles turns from the conversation with embarrassment and flushed cheeks. "Don't trust the elves, they're a bunch of creepy freeloaders."

Kate snorts, and glares over at the two elves, she can't hear what they're saying but their stares are enough to clue her into their intentions. "I'll keep it in mind for the next time I ask one for directions."

"To get a meeting with the kitsune you have to talk with the sheriff, you know like a middle man. He's the one that does most of the interviews for the Guardian and he checks people out. Figures out if they're creeps here to kill everyone."

"The law enforcement here knows about it all? I can get that some of them might know, Beacon Hills is one of the biggest supernatural Hotspot in the world. But everyone? That's… insane."

Stiles huffs. "Not everyone, but those my dad would trust not to shoot at a vampire the first time they see one. Trust me, it's better that way. Thomson never really recovered, may his undead husk rest peacefully."

"Dad?" Kate asks, discarding her phone and leaning towards him.

Stiles stares for a few seconds, "Oh right, you're not a local. My dad is the sheriff."

"He is? Then you must know a lot about how Beacon Hills is run. What are the best ways to get through an interview without revealing my devious not safe for children plans?"

Stiles snorts, "You can't and even if I knew, I couldn't tell you."

"So you're not spying on your dad? Trying to get an in into what he's doing? I know I did when I was younger. I'd sneak around and listen in on my dad, later I got a microphone installed in his office, but he found it within minutes."

"That's… well I wouldn't bug my dad," he would, but he never has, "what did your dad do that was so exciting anyway? Sell drugs?"

She leans back into the sofa, her chin raised as she picks up her glass and peers into the liquid inside. "We sell weapons it's the family business. With your dad being the sheriff, you must be familiar with guns. I held my first gun at 5 years old, my mother and father were so angry, my mom mostly because she did not want me to like guns. My dad told me it was what made him certain that I was meant for the family business. Even though he won't let me sell like Chris." the last part is whispered, not meant for Stiles to hear.

"I've actually never touched a gun, dad won't allow me to. I think he's sure I'll somehow end up shooting myself," Stiles thinks it over and hastily adds, "Which I wouldn't."

"Are you sure?" she giggles lightly.

"... Probably," Stiles admits, "But I really wanted to learn how to use a gun when I was 14 and read everything I could get from the internet. Dad wasn't even impressed by my research and still said no. Again."

Kate raises her glass. "Well someday you'll be able accidentally shoot yourself without needing your father's permission."

Stiles is about to reply when he remembers that he's only 15, and that for kitsune, adulthood starts at 100. With Stilinski being a pure kitsune Stiles can't see himself escaping the strict gun-less laws of his father's. "yeah… that's probably never happening. I might be a bit too keen on living."

They lapse into silence and Kate fidgets with her nails, "So I've been wondering, actually I've been having a lot of trouble with it. But what are you?"

The question is obvious but also so very rude. It's something he would ask, so Stiles knows it's a bad one. "What I am? I'm a boy? You know male, I have seen my own body before you know, it would honestly be weirder if I never went to the toilet or bathed."

Kate stares her eyes widening and her mouth turning down into a scowl as he talks.

Stiles grins at her face, it's quite comical and replies, "I'm human." it's not a total lie, so even if she can hear his heart she won't know any better.

"Wait really? I was sure…" she frowns in thought and roams her eyes over his face, scrutinising.

"Sure I was a what?" Stiles scowls, "Actually don't tell me because if this becomes the 23rd time I'm told someone thinks I'm a werecreature I will hit you."

Just because he can transform into a fox and has amber eyes doesn't make him a werecreature, they'rehumans plus something else, even those that are born. Werecreatures turn into animals, and kitsune technically turn human, not fox.

Now that he thinks about it, it's kind of disturbing. Kitsune got their human forms by inhabiting humans, and when the humans learned to figure out who was possessed and get rid of the kitsune, they learned to make a human form for themselves. But that also means they're not really compatible with humans, so how does Stiles exist? Most supernaturals has always had a human base, they were humans that changed so it makes sense. But elves can't make babies with humans, the DNA is too different- so how the fuck does a spirit and a human make a baby. Stilinski doesn't even have DNA in the normal sense and Stiles has seen what his own DNA looks like.

It's not pretty.

Did the first the human kitsune forms have a basis in human genes? But how does that work with half kitsune, you can't breed a fox and a human. Hell, you can't breed a mule.

… Does that make Stiles infertile?

Is Stiles even male? He knows most kitsune doesn't have gender, they're hermaphrodites. They just become what they need to make more little tricksters. Technically Stilinski could probably get pregnant- which is not something Stiles wants to think of- bad brain, think of rainbows.

Rainbows are good, nice, and safe from any thoughts into whether or not Stiles can get pregnant.

"… I was thinking spirit animal." Kate says, interrupting his thoughts and saving him from continuing with the very awkward thoughts of his own gender.

"why?" that was one he's never heard before. Spirit animal, cool but also kind of horrifying considering they're basically in servitude to a magical person. Like a slave but with 10% more fake freedom.

She hums ad points briefly to the glass of juice sitting between them. "It's mostly your eyes, then Vlad? That was his name, right? Vlad gave you juice which could be because spirit animals aren't allowed alcohol, then there's- well it doesn't matter I clearly guessed wrong." she shrugs and grins, showing teeth. "What am I then? Can you guess?"

"Well you're supernatural because why else would you need to meet with the Kitsune or Sheriff?" he takes a subtle whiff of her scent, she doesn't smell like a normal creature like a were or other non-humans, but she does smell somewhat magical, "I think you're a witch. You can't be a druid as you're too… un-vague… and too… non-evil… I'm biased. Please don't be a druid after I just said all that. I swear The local druid is evil." she nods along as he speaks though there's a thoughtful look in her eyes when he mentions Deaton.

"I'm not a witch." She says

"… A druid?" Stiles tries, really hoping she's not.

She sees his face and laughs. "Human," she finally says, taking pity on him.

That just doesn't make sense, "But why would you need to meet with the kitsune then? If you're just human? the only other way is if you're a hunter-"

"-Hunter." she finishes the sentence with him

Stiles, unprepared for the revelation- how was he fucking unprepared? He was here because of hunters- kind of just froze like a deer in the headlights. "You're a hunter? In a bar filled with supernaturals? It's that really something you want to advertise?" she laughs nervously to diffuse the tension that has his head swarming with the sound of a thousand flies, people look their way, their eyes filled with curiosity or just good old contempt.

Relax, he tells himself and sags his shoulders, she thinks you're human so you're safe.

"You're tense." she says, his attempts at being causal clearly failed.

"Yeah well," he says, "hunters don't have the best reputation in these parts, you know with the whole burning down a pack of werewolves that included humans- you know, humans like me, just because they were loved by and loved werewolves."

"The Hale fire wasn't us."

"Yeah sure, it wasn't hunters, it was clearly the house who was the culprit, kept them looked in and tightly packed for grill night." Stiles rolls his eyes and gets satisfaction when she winces, her face twisting.

"It wasn't, they were peaceful." she repeats, shoulders tight, like hunters actually care if supernaturals are peaceful.

"Sure…" Stiles drawls, "So what family do you belong to?"

"Argent"

"Ohhh… A werewolf hunting family staying in Beacon Hills," he nods dramatically and swings his hand in a circle, "you've either got balls of diamond or are just plain crazy.

She grins, his sarcasm apparently making her less tense. "between you and me? I think my brother is just crazy, but sometimes you have to do uncomfortable things to protect innocent people."

Stiles nods, he wholeheartedly agrees, it's what he's doing right now, doing something uncomfortable to not get his dad and himself killed. It is really too bad Kate's a hunter, he'd begun liking her. "I couldn't agree more."

Now to find a natural way to get free of their conversation without seeming suspicious. Cold sweat trickles down his neck.

The conversation between Stiles and Kate has been a real pain to write gone through so many rewrites trying to make her seem less creepy and more normal/manipulative. And let me tell you, she really was -in the first draft that is- stalker-ish and pushy.