Title: The Stilinski's Travelin' Show
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Pairings: Derek/Stiles (main); side Scott/Allison and Jackson/Lydia/Kate
Disclaimer: Teen Wolf is this show on MTV. Unfortunately, I like watching it with slash goggles on.
Chapter Rating: PG-13 (NC-17 in future parts)
General Warnings: AU, utter crack!, angst, character deaths,
quite possibly erroneous understanding of circus lif
Chapter Warnings: slight gore, plot development?
A/N 1: Thank you for all the lovely comments and favorites and follows! This is honestly my first ever published Slash Fiction - first Fanfiction even. I got so excited when I opened my e-mail to find loads of alerts this morning and immediately set about to working on a new chapter. I hope you guys like this one. And oh, did I mention there's plot development? There's a couple more chapters after this. And it won't be long until actual slash happens, I promise! Please comment. Those and feedback would be greatly appreciated. :)
A/N 2: For those wondering what's up with the Stiles/Jackson pairing, it's unrequited. Unless there are people who don't want it to be? LOL. Also, it's largely Stiles-centric so I can maintain the story structure & flow though I would love to do one in Derek's. Maybe I'll do a time stamp or a B-side. Maybe.
A/N 3: Unbeta'd all mistakes are my own.
Summary:
"That night, Stiles stumbled upon new copies of the play bills for their upcoming shows on his father's desk. One of the entries read: Derek, THE TEEN WOLF!
And that's where all the hot mess started."
CHAPTER
-2-
Scott's knees were useless. They've apparently turned to Jell-O and instead of helping the rest of his legs work they tremble and buckle making the boy fall on his ass. He slips shaky hands into his pant pockets searching for his inhaler.
Of course he doesn't find them.
Scott could feel his lungs collapsing, his chest tightening. Clipped strangled sounds, half gasp and half scream, escape his lips and he wonders peripherally if Allison were here to see him like this, would she think less of him?
Maybe not, considering the fact that there was half a dead body at his feet.
The girl's eyes were glazed over white, lifeless. Dead.
Dead.
Her legs were torn – ravaged – from under her. She lay on her stomach or what was left of her stomach with her face screwed up to one side and Scott's mind supplies that human necks really don't turn around that far back. Muscles, flesh, sinew and then bone on display, framed in blood and deluge. Clear as day in the shroud of night.
Jesus her spine was snapped in two!
Scott could taste the bile on his tongue and feel his dinner threatening to rip its way out of him through his throat. His pulse was pounding deafeningly in his ears.
The carcass looked fresh, probably not more than a day old…
Then the realization hit him; it was so instantaneous it actually hurt.
What if the killer was still there?
Scott leapt to his feet. Animal or human, it didn't matter. He wasn't staying to find out.
Suddenly his knees weren't as useless anymore as he bolted towards the clearing, running as fast as he could. The hot wind blew away the dirt and tears from his face. But it could not whisk away the image in his mind: of torn flesh, of blood, of cold unseeing eyes.
Somewhere a wolf howls. But that could've just been his imagination.
Stiles had about a second to think 'What the fuck?' when someone collided into his side, knocking the breath out of him and the flashlight from his loose grasp.
"Stiles!" says the offender, harried and breathy.
Stiles' back hurt like a bitch – the momentum toppling them both over like teenage-sized dominos, one on top of the other. He blinked the spots from his eyes and silently cursed every pagan god and lesser god he could name off of the top of his head.
"Y'know," he drawls. "I didn't think you were into the whole football scene. I'd tell you you'd make a pretty good linebacker if I didn't want to strangle you first."
But his annoyance quickly melted away when he saw the look on Scott's face – spooked beyond his wits and trembling all over.
"Dude, you alright? Where have you been? Everyone's been looking for you. We'll be heading out to the next town soon and—"
"A girl, in the woods. There's this girl in the woods and… and…"
"A girl? What girl?"
"The dead girl!"
"There's a dead girl in the woods?"
"Yes, Stiles! Fuck. Stop smiling. How can you even find this amusing?"
"I don't know. So, wait… There's a dead girl in the woods?"
"YES! Dammit, yes! I saw her, okay? I saw her! Her legs were torn off and—"
"Holy hell, her legs were torn off? Torn off how? Like they were hacked off?" Stiles couldn't fight down his excitement. Oh, there was horror and panic in there too. But as sick as it is, there was the excitement.
Scott fell silent. His pupils were blown wide and it made his eyes grow dark.
"No. It looked like they were clawed off."
The trip was delayed for a day due to an on-going investigation.
Awesome.
Despite the apparent asthma attack, Scott was talking loud enough (he was close to hysterics but Stiles held his tongue) that the patrolling officers investigating a missing person's report (that have come around to their show because Fate was a bitch that way) overheard him.
Naturally they pulled him aside to bombard him with questions. Stiles tried to get in between his best friend and the cops but he was unceremoniously shoved aside. Scott threw him nervous glances over his shoulder as they led him away. All Stiles could do was offer his friend a lop-sided grin and a couple of thumbs-up.
It didn't help any.
The next morning found Stiles having breakfast with his father in his father's trailer.
When his son "moved out", Mr. Stilinski used the freed up space to put in a little dining area/kitchenette where he could eat and have coffee in peace. It made the place look homier, really. And yeah, the eats bit. Stiles took advantage every chance he got.
"I haven't heard from Scott all night. Are they done with him yet?"
Mr. Stilinski peered at his son over the paper he'd been leafing through. "How about you swallow first, son? And then ask me your question again."
Stiles hastily downed the big-ass chunk of Sausage McMuffin he'd been lolling around in his over-stuffed mouth with a swig of Coke and proceeded to wipe his lips with the back of his hand.
His dad chuckled. His first real laugh in ages.
"Are you sure it's my eating habits you should be worried about? At the rate you're going, you'll die of a stroke at twenty-five."
"I haven't heard from Scott all night. Are the cops done grilling him yet?" his son asked impatiently, completely ignoring his father's jibes.
Mr. Stilinski let out a sigh, drawing it out (and not entirely for dramatic effect.) The Ring Master rubbed at his temples. He looks tired. More tired than usual, like the kind of tired sleeping twelve whole hours a day – everyday – can't fix.
Stiles spared a thought for his late mother. Everything was better when his mom was alive. Hell, even the shows were better. And he was pretty sure his dad wouldn't look half as bad or half as wrung out.
Or half as lonely.
"Melissa is going to kill me," his dad says after a beat.
"It's not your fault."
"No, but Scott is my responsibility. He may have come out here because he wanted to but now that he is, it automatically puts him in the not-so-short list of asses I have to keep in check." A pause. "My hands are already full with you alone."
"You flatter me, sir."
"It wasn't my intention."
"Touché."
They eat in silence shortly after that – nothing but the crinkling of the paper wrappers of Stiles' sandwiches and the clinking of a teaspoon in his father's coffee cup keeping them company.
"Are there bears around here?" Stiles broke through the silence because his mouth is of the opinion that silences are one of the things in life it was made to break.
"If you haven't noticed, son, we run a circus show. Of course we have bears around here."
"I didn't mean Bobo, dad." And Stiles says this with all the exasperation a teenager can have with a parent. "I mean, are there bears around these parts? Around this area?"
"I… don't think so. Why do you ask?"
"Huh. Scott told me that the girl's legs were torn off and—"
His dad gave him a dirty look but he continued anyway.
"—well, not so much as it was torn off but clawed off, y'know? I reckon maybe it's an animal? Which got me thinking, why are the cops still interrogating Scott? Unless they hadn't noticed it was claw marks? Unless – I haven't seen the body myself – it looks like it got clawed off but maybe it was hacked off in a really animalistic sort of way? And—"
"Enough, Stiles." His father's tone was serious and there was a warning in there. Stiles would ignore it on any other day but his dad's shoulders were tensed, his mouth drawn into a hard line. A flicker of something dawned on his face just then but it was gone as soon as it had appeared.
"Stay here. I have to go take care of something. I'll be back in a minute."
Mr. Stilinski walked out with a backwards glance to his son, his gaze meaningful like he was daring Stiles to move an inch or else.
Stiles just shrugged his shoulders and tracked back to devouring his sandwiches.
It took all of fifteen minutes for the door to creek open again. Stiles had his nose tucked in the paper – going over the Sudoku puzzle, answering it in his head – when he heard his dad pad over to him. The footsteps were strangely muted.
"Hey, there's an ad here for a sweet looking jeep. Second hand. But it's an all-terrain, four-wheel auto and it's only a couple of hundred bucks! What do you say, da—" he made the mistake of looking up then and just about choked on his food.
"D-Derek." He finished lamely.
The werewolf was glaring down at him. His green eyes flickering blue then back again.
"What are you doing here?" Derek just about growled.
"Eating. Obviously. What are you doing here?"
"Your father wanted to see me."
"Really? I wonder sometimes though, man. If I didn't know any better I'd say you were stalking me." It was a joke, really it was. But Derek continued to glare.
Stiles suddenly found the swirling patterns on the marble table top intensely fascinating, giving it all his attention. He of course failed to see it when the corner of the wolf man's lips twitched for about as long as a heartbeat. Then it reverted back to a usual scowl.
"So…" there goes his mouth again with its silence-breaking compulsion. "About the body they found in the woods—"
"A dead body in the woods?"
"No, a body of water. Yes a dead body! Seriously, dude, where have you been? Everyone's talking about it."
"Out," was Derek's reply. It's amazing how one word could sound so dismissive. The werewolf took his gaze away – finally – to eye Mr. Stilinski's bookshelf. Taking in every worn-out spine and title.
Even though Derek wasn't looking at him, Stiles felt horridly exposed. He squirmed in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable in his own skin and seriously!—
How the fuck does Derek do this to him?
A niggling sensation at the back of his mind told Stiles that there are a thousand things he and Derek should be talking about. A thousand things he should be asking but isn't because he doesn't know what they are. Not yet.
For now, he puts all his apprehension on the backburner to instead ask:
"How's circus life treating you?"
Stiles regrets the words the moment they fly out of his mouth. He sounds ridiculous, he knows. And if Derek's expression is anything to go by, the werewolf's opinion on the matter is much the same.
But to Stiles' (and the general living space's and the vast cosmos') surprise, Derek answers.
"Well."
Stiles was struck dumb. He trips over his next words when he practically blurts, "good. No one giving you a hard time? You getting enough Kibble?"
He's pushing his luck but Derek doesn't appear to be gearing up for an attack in the next foreseeable future. And besides, Stiles really. Can't. Help. It.
Or... he could be wrong because the next thing he knew the werewolf was stalking closer. Stiles would back up against the wall if he weren't plastered against it already. And then Derek bent down so they were more or less at eye level.
Stiles had enough sense to process the fact that Derek smells like leather, old wood (the good kind), ash, grass and rain. It's not an objectionable smell. Stiles recalls what the werewolf had said yesterday, how Stiles smelled of lion and of Jackson.
What does Jackson smell like? He ponders. A lot different from Derek for sure. More human. More…
'Hugo Boss', maybe?
He's so distracted by his own thoughts that he misses it when Derek reaches out one strong hand to swipe his thumb over Stiles' lower lip and—
Oh holy Jesus. Derek was touching him.
The movement was slow; almost as if it were deliberate. Derek dragged the pad of his finger along Stiles lip all the way up to the corner of his mouth were they remained for what felt like an eternity. Stiles was sure his eyes were bugging out of their sockets and that sound he's hearing isn't a rabbit jack hammering at his temple but is actually his heart thudding in his chest. He whimpers – honest to God whimpers – and it was mostly intended as a question.
Mostly?
"You have ketchup all over your bottom lip." After a short pause, the werewolf adds. "You eat like an animal."
Was he kidding? Was Derek fucking Hale actually fucking kidding? Stiles couldn't fight down the bubbling of… of… something in his lower belly.
He laughs nervously. Then his eyes just about fell out of his skull when Derek took back his hand and brought his thumb to his mouth to suck the said condiment off.
Stiles opens his mouth to say… What? What the hell was he going to say?
Nothing apparently because that's the time his father walks in. Derek quickly stood to his full height, expression turning grave and serious as he acknowledged Mr. Stilinski's presence.
"Derek, you're here. Good." The Ring Master huffs. Then he turns to his son, "Scott is by the props tent. Maybe you should go see him while I speak to Derek here." The in private was left unspoken. But Stiles got the message.
He got up on shaky legs. Stiles noticed belatedly that his throat had gone dry, like he lost the ability to form saliva. Maybe he did. Along with his ability to form words.
In place of a goodbye, Stiles gave his dad a mock salute and slinked out the door, which was promptly shut behind him.
He'd ponder on all the secrecy but son-of-a-bitch his lips were burning! Especially the area where Derek had touched him. He absently strokes his fingers over the tingling flesh. Stiles shakes his head violently and tries not to think hard about what it all means.
In fact, by the time he spotted Scott sitting morosely by the props tent, he had chalked it all up to the werewolf's inability to understand the meaning of personal space.
His best friend was sat beside Allison, who was comforting Scott by rubbing small circles on his back. (Fucking, score! Wait… inappropriate.) To one side was Danny, the Tallest Teen in the Midwest. Even as he was sitting, he towered over everyone else. On the other was Lydia with her Siamese twin Kate glued to her side. They all had varying levels of worry emanating from their person. Except for Jackson who was languidly leaning up against a crate to one corner, nearest Lydia. Their hands entwined. Stiles ignored the ache in his chest, the annoying pinpricking of jealousy and strolled on over.
Scott immediately clues Stiles in on his night. It had been horrible. (Horrible may not even be a strong enough word, Stiles' mind supplies.) The account spilled out of his mouth and Stiles caught it all because he was awesome and loyal and sympathetic. And if he was trying to make himself look good in front of Jackson, it was done subconsciously.
It was around midnight when they had finally been allowed to pack up all their shit and caravan out of there. Scott was cleared and after further investigation, the police no longer had a missing person's case on their hands but an animal attack.
And although Stiles had similar assumptions earlier that day, he couldn't help but think it was the wrong call.
The wheels on his trailer clunked dully as their circus caboose rode on into the night, lulling Stiles to sleep.
He was seconds away from unconsciousness when he suddenly remembered that he didn't have ketchup with any of his Sausage McMuffins that morning.