He woke with a start. It was cold. He shivered, pulling his limbs in on himself while someone rustled against him.
He peaked open an eye, groggily focusing on the blonde girl who'd nestled into his side. She wore his red hoodie over her arms, but her legs remained bare. She was unconventionally attractive, curled up around his arm like that. A bit like cuddling a gorgeous, exotic, yet poisonous creature.
With both eyes now open, Stiles observed the girl's slumbering features. She was nothing like his type, because he'd only had eyes for Lydia Martin since elementary school. But she was undeniably appealing, and represented to Stiles a sort of triumph over the monotony that had become his life recently. He'd broken out of his mold.
She was comprised of opposites: sharp angles, smooth, pale skin, dark eyes and dress, bright expressions. An angry purple 'love' mark bloomed on her alabaster shoulder.
He brushed a stray tangle of hair off her face and she stirred. Her lips curled up and she practically purred, unfurling her slender limbs in a stretch that shook her. And then her eyes were open and on his.
"I've been dreaming that you cut off my head with a flaming sword," he murmured for lack of anything better to say.
"Well that's too bad. I like your head where it is," she smiled, reaching out to touch a freckle on his cheek.
She was practically a stranger. Was a stranger, aside from the dancing, and the kissing, and the caressing, and... Stiles' mind wandered a bit while she shivered against him. His arms wrapped around her automatically and he rubbed warmth into her back.
"'S too cold," she mumbled into his chest as they gradually warmed up.
"How'd you get here?" Stiles asked as the thought of this girl disappearing with his hoodie dawned on him.
"Came with friends. You?"
"Same." He yawned widely.
It was quiet for a while. Stiles thought about kissing her again, but as the dusty dawn light sharpened into morning the realization of what had actually gone on was feeling less and less appealing. He didn't regret it exactly. Not at all. He just didn't know where to go from here. He'd never had to think about it before.
10001110101
When he woke again she lay over his side, tucked in under his chin and wrapped around his leg. It was warmer and brighter out, and Stiles half-wondered where Danny might have got off to in the night.
He looked down at the top of her head. There were bits of sand, glitter, and confetti in her hair. His chest ached faintly where the bones of her jaw pressed against him. He wanted to stretch, vaguely needed to pee, but didn't want to be rude by disturbing the sleeping girl.
Except she wasn't asleep.
He stroked her hair and her gaze turned up to him.
"I didn't want to just leave while you were sleeping," she said, pressing up into the heals of her hands to hover over him.
"Thank you." He stretched and stood, then stooped to help her off the mat they'd acquired sometime in the night. She smiled mischievously while he got his bearings.
"Um, do you mind standing right -" he took her by the shoulders "-here, while I go have a word with that bush?"
She giggled. She had a much more girlish giggle than he'd anticipated, but she nodded in agreement.
10001110101
"Great! Thanks for not leaving me, dude," Stiles enthused when they'd finally located Danny's car.
"Of course. I've just been napping," the tall lacrosse goalie replied with a slight smirk in the girl's direction.
She tugged Stiles away a few paces while the boy cast a look of just one minute back at Danny.
"Listen," Stiles began before she could speak, "Thanks for everything. I had a really-"
"No, don't do that," she interrupted. "You don't have to try to smooth this over or anything. I know I'm not going to see you again. It's a choice I made, too."
She rose up onto her toes and kissed his cheek, his mouth, taking him by surprise. She lingered just a moment longer with her hand on his chest.
"Thanks," she whispered. She slipped out of his hoodie and handed it back to him.
"No, thank you!" he called after her as she flitted through the debris of bottles, cans, and drunken bodies.
When Stiles returned to the car Danny's eyebrows were in his hairline.
10001110101
The drive back to Beacon Hills was quiet, though both boys' faces occasionally slipped into sheepish grins.
The one mistake that broke the comfortable silence was Danny's question of "what about Lydia?"
Stiles' first instinct was to rebuff with a "what about her?," but he tried to play it cool.
"I guess it's obvious," he hedged.
"Like, since middle school," Danny confirmed.
"Aren't you 'sposed to be Jackson's best friend," Stiles countered, a little more on edge.
"Yeah, but whatever man. Those two were more fucked up than McCall and Argent. I mean, come on!"
Stiles was amused by Danny's seeming disapproval of the Lydia-Jackson pairing, and by his enthusiastic distaste for the relationship rumor mill that surrounded their high school in general. The question of Lydia easily slipped their minds.
10001110101
Scott McCall and Derek Hale were standing in the Stilinski's front yard when Danny's car pulled up. Sheriff Stilinski's squad car was nowhere to be seen, and Stiles was silently thankful that he'd be able to shower and sleep again before meeting his father. He was not grateful, however, for the werewolf welcoming party on his front lawn when an oblivious Danny was accompanying him.
"Jesus, Stiles! Where have you been?" Scott questioned as the teammates approached the house.
Danny gave Stiles an inquiring look before glancing between Scott and Derek, while the shorter of the two boys unlocked the door.
"Danny and I went camping. In the desert." Stiles held the door wide for his companion to enter ahead of him, while barring the door to the wolves. "It's just to the right past the stairs," he called after Danny.
"Then why do you smell like sex?" Derek broke his glowering silence with an angry rebuff.
Stiles could feel the heat rise in his face as his mouth fell open. Alpha-sourwolf Derek Hale had not just called Stiles out on his sex life. That did not happen.
"Not that it's any of your business." Stiles' expression was so stern as to seem comical. He willed his tell-tale heart not to race.
"Whoa, man! I know you're not dating Danny!" Scott insisted, searching first Stiles' face and then Derek's for some break in the hostility, holding his arms apart between them like a buffer. "Jeez, Derek!"
Danny came ambling back from the bathroom to find the tension clearly not diffused.
"Thanks, Stiles. Think I'm just gonna head home and crash. I'll see you at morning practice Monday?" he asked.
"Yeah Danny. Thanks so much!" Stiles enthused pointedly with a look toward the Alpha. His teammate retreated to the drama-free safety of his car.
"McCall. Miguel" Danny acknowledged as he passed.
10001110101
"Why'd Danny call you Miguel?" Scott was questioning Derek, and the room at large, while no one paid him any attention. "Is that really what that smells like? Do I smell like that?" His incessant chatter was easy to tune out.
Stiles paced the room slowly, attempting and failing to calm the unjustifiable anger he was feeling toward his naïve best friend and his Alpha. Since he'd arrived home, pulling into the drive to see Scott and Derek on his lawn, Stiles had felt a growing heat in his body. All he wanted was to have a shower and lie down for a while, but Scott wouldn't leave.
And who knew why Derek was there?
None of Scott's words were sinking in as Derek watched Stiles pace.
"Look," Stiles finally halted, turning on the werewolves in the room. "I've just been really sick of hanging out with the supernatural crowd lately, and I needed some time. I know I'm the most brilliant mind you've got, but I got tired of not measuring up to your... brawn. So I went to a rave with Danny and bunch of normal humans to clear my head a little."
Derek snorted at the use of the expression, clearly smelling stale alcohol on the boy. "Clear?"
Stiles shot him a just don't look and continued.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was going. I'm sorry I left my phone off. I mean, I was in the middle of nowhere, anyway! I just needed a break!" Stiles swayed on the spot, his voice rising.
"It's okay, Stiles," Scott soothed. "I'm sorry, too. I've been bugging you a lot about this stuff – and homework – lately. I should have been able to give you space. Sorry," he repeated. "We good?"
Stiles nodded and the world tilted. Derek sensed it before Scott did, but they both caught the boy by the arms before he crashed to the ground.
Stiles' forehead beaded sweat and he clutched at his chest through his shirt. Scott pillowed his head with a sweatshirt pilfered from the nearby laundry basket.
"Whoa, man. Are you okay?"
"My chest, dude."
"Did you do anything at that rave?" Scott's voice warped in Stiles' ears.
"He doesn't smell right." Derek? "What happened in the desert?"
"Oh, my head. I'm hot! I'm hot!" Stiles was slipping fast into a delirium. He clawed his chest and drew circles in the air.
The werewolves questioned him, held him steady as he slipped away.
1000111010
Stiles couldn't quite recall how he'd gotten from the floor to his bed until he finally forced his eyes open and saw the werewolves crowded around his room. They'd multiplied in his absence of consciousness.
Isaac paced nervously back and forth across the room, Peter sneered from the doorway, and Scott hovered anxiously beside Stiles' pillow. The pack's Alpha was not readily visible, but as Stiles showed signs of stirring a pair of red eyes glowed from the corner.
"'Sgoin' on, guys?" Stiles slurred as he tried to sit it up, but Scott's firm hands pushed him back against the pillows. "Havin' a surprise party? I'm surprised."
"He's clearly still delirious," Isaac observed.
"And he reeks," Peter added.
"Guys!" Scott silenced the bickering Betas before they could get out of hand. His attention returned to his best friend. "Stiles, what's going on?"
"How should I know? I was fine until you clowns showed up. Maybe I've developed a werewolf allergy." Stiles' sense of humor, although not quite up to par, was beginning to make a comeback. "All I know's that I had a fucking great time at a party last night, and then the brat pack shows up and my head goes all spinny, and my chest hurts, and... I'm hot!" He pulled at his shirt in a fanning gesture.
Peter snorted at the comment, capturing Stiles' attention. He rolled his eyes and searched for a comeback, but the Alpha-wolf interceded before one came to him.
"Stiles, how long has your chest hurt?" Derek asked, stepping out of the shadow with a curious expression on his dour face.
"I dunno, man..."
Scott glanced back and forth between his best friend and his Alpha. He could read the concern and suspicion as it rolled off Derek in waves.
"Just think about it, Stiles. How long?" Scott insisted.
Stiles rubbed his chest and winced, fanning his shirt away from him again. The other werewolves inhaled sharply, moving into a tighter formation. Stiles couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but clearly Scott and Derek could. A near-to-silent agreement seemed to run through the pack.
"Take it off." Derek stalked forward in his menacing way.
"W-what?" Stiles stammered, finally managing to sit up without Scott holding him against the bed.
"Take off your shirt."
"Why?" Stiles' eyes went wide, searching and re-searching the expressions of every wolf in the room.
"Just do it, Stiles," Scott tried to sound strong and reassuring, but it didn't take supersonic wolf hearing to detect the notes of uneasiness that had settled in.
Stiles blushed, then blanched in quick succession. He scanned the room for any excuse, for any way out, but there was no point disobeying an Alpha when his entire pack was congregated in Stiles' bedroom.
He slid out of his hoodie and tugged the hem of his t-shirt up over his head to a chorus of sharp inhalations.
1000111010
A dark ring of bruised and scarred flesh stood out against Stiles' creamy skin.
"Who did this to you?" Scott's nostrils flared, his eyes flashing wolf-gold protectively.
"What?" Stiles cataloged the expressions of the wolves populating his bedroom, noting fangs here, raised hackles there, and four sets of glowing eyes. Then he turned his gaze back on himself, catching a glimpse of dark against his chest.
He scrambled for the mirror, cringing at his reflection as he gingerly brushed fingertips across the damaged flesh. His mouth fell open in horror.
"It smells dead, man," Isaac muttered, a hand to his face serving the dual purpose of hiding his wolfish features and blocking the scent.
"Am I gonna die?" Stiles was on the verge of a full-blown panic. Screw staying calm in a room of werewolves, his thoughts were running wild and out of control. "H-how did this-? Did that-? What's-? That bitch! Did she-? What's going-?"
The room was spinning again, but this time he managed not to pass out.
Stiles sank heavily to the bed, oblivious to whatever conversation was passing between the pack without him.
"Stiles! Stiles!"
Finally Derek's red eyes and Alpha jaws were growling in his face, snapping Stiles back to reality.
"Stiles, I need to know who... whoever it is I can smell on you. Who was she? Did she look like a werewolf?"
"Uh, no! She did not look like a werewolf or I'd have run screaming all the way back to Beacon Hills! Jeez, I was trying to get away from you all! I don't even remember this happening!"
"It's okay, Stiles. Settle down. We're just trying to help here," Isaac sounded level-headed and calm. Usually Scott's job, but Stiles realized he had disappeared.
"Fuck, dude..." Stiles scrubbed his face in his hands, still trying to come to grips. "She was just a girl! Just some seductive fucking chick on the dance floor. How come I can't avoid this shit? Even when I full-on refuse the bite I get sucker-punched by some supernatural bullshit!"
Stiles' anxiety had swiftly turned to anger. He tried to use Isaac's unusually collected expression as an anchor, but couldn't appreciate the teen's composure. He turned his anger and confusion on the Alpha for answers. Derek scowled in return.
"Wolf out," Derek ordered.
"What?"
"Wolf out." Complete lack of understanding showed all over Stiles' face. "I'm trying to force you, like I can my own pack, but it's not working. Get angry."
The Alpha was in Stiles' face, but he couldn't muster any more anger than he was already feeling.
"I don't think it's happening. I don't feel any different in that way at all."
"But he's clearly healing," Isaac addressed his Alpha. "How can he heal if the bite isn't taking?"
Stiles looked down at his still-bare chest. The mark did appear to be somewhat less cringe inducing than before, a little more scarred in than scabbed over. But if he wasn't becoming a werewolf, that would mean his body was rejecting the bite. That meant Stiles would die.
"Maybe it wasn't a werewolf that bit him."
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A/N: Thank you for reading