Chapter 17: The First Full Moon

Lydia flopped back onto Stiles, smirking at the groan that rumbled through his chest. "Come on, get up. We're doing things today. It's summer and I'm not letting you wallow in self-pity for the next three months. We're going out with Cora and Danny today. Get up," she sang, flipping onto her stomach to breath in his ear.

"Why would you do that?" Stiles whined, burying his face in his pillow.

"Because you're being a complete downer, and it's like ten already. That's almost halfway done with day. We have things to do, places to be, people to see. Today is the day you will be social. You're dad already gave me the permission to get you out of the house in any manner I deem necessary. He's got a date with Madame McCall he thinks we all don't know about." She grinned, snuggling into his back. "You've been locked in this room for the past week. That's not healthy, darling."

Stiles mumbled a reply that turned into a growl. A gasp ripped up his throat as he shoved himself up onto his hands. Lydia was thrown up, landing back on his back with a yelp. "Oh fuck, the full moon's tonight."

"Yes, tonight, so you can still do stuff today," Lydia said brightly, making herself comfortable on his back again. Sliding off his back, she shoved him off the side of the bed with a pair of well placed boots to his side. "Get up, Danny and Cora are already waiting down in the car."

Rolling his eyes as he dragged himself to his feet, Stiles glowered at her. When he saw that he wasn't going to make any headway against her, he started pulling on clothing. "I hate you."

"No," she said simply, "You love me."

…..

Cora laughed brightly in the back seat, slinging a reply back at Lydia that had Stiles' skull splitting in two. The day was nearly over, the sun slowly beginning to set against the horizon. The sky blazed oranges and pinks, darkening to the navy blue of full dark. The full moon rose high in the sky, ushering the sun to sleep and calling the supernatural to life.

"Hey, Stiles, are you alright?" Danny asked from the front seat, twisting around to grasp his knee.

Stiles shook his head. "No, no I'm not," he hissed through his teeth, curling in on himself, pulling his knees to his chest, "Lydia, Cora, we need to get the others. Now. The calm isn't going to last long, and I have a feeling tonight is going to be a rough one."

Cora glanced over at him, knowing in her eyes. Lydia looked at him in the rear mirror, fear clouding hers. She nodded, whipping her car around with squealing tires. Danny braced himself against the middle console, throwing a glare towards his best friend.

Lydia kept her eyes on the road, muttering, "It's a good thing they're all hulled up at Scott's tonight. It would be a bitch to collect all of them." She darted a look to Danny, allowing a curse to slip passed her lips. "Well, Danny, looks like you're going to learn today."

"Learn what, exactly?"

"Is that alright with you two?" Lydia asked the back seat, ignoring Danny's question.

Stiles didn't reply, curling his nails into the back of his neck, so Cora wordlessly nodded.

Danny rolled his eyes forcefully, flipping back around and tightening his seatbelt across his lap. "If you're talking about the whole werewolf thing, I already know. If you get me killed, I will come back and kill every single one of you, I swear it."

…..

"Scott, where's your mom?" Stiles hissed, wincing as his own voice sent splinters through his head and black spots across his vision. He leaned heavily into Danny, his feet dragging across the hardwood of Scott's living room.

Scrambling around, kicking blankets and pillows and small coffee tables that sobbed at impact out of their way, he rushed, "She's was supposed to be just getting dinner for us, but she's been gone for a few hours. She might have gotten called in by her witch friend at the hospital. I don't think she'll be back for a while."

Stiles whined as Danny lowered him onto the couch, curling in on himself once more. Not only was his head splitting in two, but his chest now felt as if it was being pried open by the jaws of life and his heart forcibly removed while beating. His toes curled with the pain, the air around him crackling with magic.

"What's wrong?" Scott asked, dropping down in front of his best friend. He was careful not to touch him, not wanting to feel the wrath of one of Stiles' magical outbursts. Inadvertently, he took to snuffling around Stiles, looking for the source of his anguish. As he pulled away, his own face contorted with only a sliver of what his best friend was going through. "Ah, hell."

"Do you have chains? Or maybe handcuffs? Even rope would do some good," Cora asked quickly, looking around the house frantically as the moon began to rise higher in the sky. Her eyes were flashing gold, her breath labored.

"What? No! Why would I have any of those things?" Scott asked.

Cora snapped her teeth to him, a snarl ripping up her throat. Lydia grabbed her wrist tightly, glaring at the girl. "Sorry," she muttered, turning her eyes from him, "That was uncalled for."

Keeping her eyes on the girl beside her, Lydia held out her hand, "Everyone, give me your wands. Now. Except for you, Danny, you're going to need that unless you go home."

Ethan jumped up from a couch, his eyes flashing. "No! Danny should stay here."

His eyebrows pulling together, Danny gripped Ethan's shoulder. "I'm not going anywhere. I can help… somehow."

"Wands," Lydia reiterated with a hard roll of her eyes.

The wolves and coyote willingly relinquished their wands, Lydia plucking Stiles' wand from his back pocket once she had them in hand. "No one is getting their wand back until the sun's cheeky little face starts to poke itself over those hills, do you hear me? Danny and myself are the only two who will have their wands on hand." With a wave of hers, she banished the rest to a place only she knew of.

"Why doesn't Stiles get his wand?" Scott asked, still crouched in front of him.

"Because if you haven't noticed, he's going out of his mind faster than the rest of you," she told him curtly, "Which, frankly, doesn't make a lick of sense, but neither does you all turning at the full moon."

To validate her point, Stiles let out a suppressed scream, digging his nails into his scalp.

"Case in point."

"So… what are we supposed to do? I'm completely in control, but we have four newly turned shifters and two relatively new shifters and one emotionally compromised shifter," Malia pointed out matter-of-factly, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back against the wall coming into the living room.

Erica snarled over at Malia, her eyes flashing gold, and Malia returned the favor with a flash of steel blue. Isaac turned a snort of laughter into a cough, turning his face away into Boyd's back.

"You may not think so, but I am the most stable one here -shut up-," she said, shoving a finger in Isaac's direction, "And we need a game plan before the moon reaches its peak because once it does… well, let's just say 'I'm going to need help' is an understatement."

…..

Lydia and Danny hooked the final cuffs and chains to the wall. Pulling back into the middle of the living room, they did one last check of their friends' restraints before sliding to the floor, back to back. Each had a hand on Stiles' ankle, trying to keep him calm, but his voice had oscillated slowly between keening and screaming. No amount of coaxing or soothing would lessen his agony.

Outside the windows, the moon had reached its peak, the light filtering through thin, lacey curtains hanging over the windows.

"Was this necessary?" Malia growled, the moonlight falling across her face, jerking at the one chain linking her wrists to the wall. Her growl deepened as her claws dug into the plaster.

"Hey! That's the wall of my house!" Scott shouted, shifting agitatedly, the links around his ankles rattling.

Flashing fangs, Malia snarled at him, "I don't give a shit."

"You will when I rip your eyes out."

"Shut up! Shut up, all of you!" Stiles shouted, digging his heels into the couch as they pushed out from his body. His knuckles pressed white against his skin, a scream rising from his throat.

The wolves, and even Malia, added their own voices to his scream, their howls flooding the house, pouring out of every crevice. Stiles' magic snapped, shooting out through the room in every direction, blooming against the walls and skittering down the chains and into the weres. Stiles' scream dissolved into relieved panting, his hands falling away from his head, but the howls continues, growing louder to accommodate the lack of a voice.

"What's going on?" Danny called back to Lydia, clutching his wand like a lifeline, his fingers a vice around hers.

Lydia was silent for a long moment, resisting the urge to scream herself. It stuck in the back of her throat, clawing at her vocal cords. "I… I think…" she swallowed down the knot in her throat, whispering just loud enough for Danny to catch her words, "I think they're calling for their alpha."

"Derek?" Danny whispered back, "They're looking for Derek? What about Stiles?"

"Same. He's calling for their alpha, for Derek. Fuck, if I thought they needed him this badly, I would have found a way or someone to get him to stay." Lydia ran her hands through her hair, her lipstick smudged.

Danny spun around to face her, eyes wide and a little terrified. "Why would Stiles be calling for an alpha? The three of us are human, and you don't see us screaming for him."

With the weres going crazy, Lydia couldn't or wouldn't look Danny in the eye. "Danny, you know a lot, but you don't know everything. Not even Stiles knows everything, and right now is not the time to explain why you're the only full human in the room!" she snapped.

"I'm the what?" he shouted, but his words were drowned out by the screech of metal breaking and the scream of nails on plaster. Flipping back around, the pair stared at Scott's broken chains and Malia dragging her nails down the wall again, deliberately staring Scott down. She gnashed her teeth at him, a clear challenge.

Groaning, Lydia pushed herself to her feet. "For the love of McGonagall's wand arm," she snarled, raising her wand just as three more chains shattered, "Stupid, weak enchanted chains." Keeping her eyes on Erica's advancing form, she called over her shoulder, "Stiles, a little help here. Now would be a great time to come out of that coma of yours!"

Stiles groaned in response, his back arching off of the couch.

She let out a scream as Isaac jumped over the couch at her. "Stiles, time to stop dying!" Boyd stalked around on Danny's side.

"What do we do?" Danny shouted, holding his wand as far away from his body as he could manage.

"I don't know!" As one, they threw up shields, backing to Stiles as the wolves threw themselves at the barrier. "I don't think those are going to last long." Already, they could hear the cracks creating a spider web through the magic. "No, not long at all."

Grabbing Lydia's shoulder, Stiles hauled himself from the couch, a thin sheen of sweat covering his skin, but his eyes glowing bright red, near the shade of a shifted Derek's, with his magic. Stepping around the pair, he stepped as close to the barrier as he could manage, and said, "Back off. They are your friends, not for you to-"

His words were cut off by the snarls and snapping of teeth and yelps of pain from Scott and Malia as they fought behind the couch. Whirling around, he locked eyes with Scott's rapidly shifting ones. They fluttered wildly between gold and scarlet, narrowing at Stiles. Though Malia was still scrambling after him, Scott turned, stalking towards Stiles.

"Scott," Stiles growled warningly, spreading his arms in front of Danny and Lydia.

Boyd, Isaac and Erica turned to stare at Scott, crouching low to the floor. Ethan and Cora pulled themselves up against the wall, transformed, but in control. Aiden and Malia fought against their chains, growling and itching for a fight.

Scott stalked towards them, eyes fixed on Stiles, head cocked at an unnatural angle. As the trio roared, marking Stiles, Danny, and Lydia as their prey, Scott's head swiveled towards them, twisting inquisitively. When the three roared again, his hackles shot sky high. With the scarlet of his eyes only growing redder with each passing moment and the gold fainter, Scott released a roar that had them crouching low to the floor, shuffling against the wall and hiding within each other's shirts. Aiden and Malia's jaws snapped shut. Terror flooded Ethan and Cora's faces.

Unfounded anger roiled in Stiles, his magic racing through the house, sending his hair bristling. "Back off now, Scott!" he shouted, pouring magic into his words.

Scott struggled against their hold, dragging himself closer with each step. He roared again, clawing for Stiles.

Power flooded into Stiles, mixing with his anger. "Scott! You are not the alpha! Back off!"

"The alpha left! I can be the alpha!" Scott finally yelled, his words near unintelligible, but the gold of his eyes brightened, overshadowing the red.

"No, you can't be! Derek is the alpha, and I am the alpha's mate! This is not your pack to command, and you do not have authority here!" His voice rang with command. The room shuddered around them. The magic crackling through the room pulsed, the lights flickering around them. His mother's ring beneath his shirt, hung from the chain Talia had given it to him on, vibrated like a tuning fork, pulsing with his magic.

When Scott flung his body towards Stiles, Stiles only threw up his arms in protection, eyes slamming shut. Scott yelped helplessly, slamming back against the wall, sliding down beside Malia. Another yelp was pulled from him as Stiles' magic wrapped around his form.

Stiles stood over him, eyes glowing the scarlet of an alpha's. "Learn your place," he snarled, crouching to lean close to Scott's face, their noses nearly brushing, "Or you won't like what happens." He smiled menacingly.

Terror curling Scott into himself, his eyes faded back to gold, his form returning to human. With chattering teeth and shuddering muscles, he whispered, "Wh-what just happened?"

Stiles fell back onto his hands, his eyes their normal shade of amber and wide as they could be. His mother's ring shone through the fabric of his shirt, a bright ring of light against his breastbone. "I don't know."

"What the fuck was that?" Lydia cried, huddled behind Danny.

Standing and releasing Scott from his magic, he repeated, "I don't know."

…..

"Now. Now you can explain to me what you meant when you said I was the only full human in the room and what the hell just happened out there," Danny told Lydia over the sound of the shower. He stood in the steam of the tiny bathroom, leaning back against the edge of the sink, staring at the stripped towel hanging over the towel rod. "If I'm the only full human, what does that make you and Stiles?"

A heavy sigh floated up with the steam followed by Lydia's voice. "Not completely human." She paused for a moment, thinking of where to start. "Before Laura died, she told me some things, some things that got me thinking."

"What things?" Danny pushed himself up onto the counter, leaning his head back against the wall. How the hell had he gotten so mixed up in all this crazy supernatural bullshit? Maybe if he stopped dating all together, most of his problems would be solves.

"Things, like, we don't smell completely human. Yeah, the mixing of magical blood with magical creature blood isn't a new idea, but it's not that common either," Lydia said, peaking her head out of the shower to look at him. "Other things, I figured out by myself. Like the whole werewolf thing. They weren't very subtle about it."

"So, if you and Stiles aren't completely human, then what is the other part of you?"

Lydia sighed again, forlornly, "I don't know."

Danny nodded to himself, turning his eyes to the ceiling. "Can you at least explain what happened with Stiles and Scott? I thought you could only be an alpha by killing another, so how were Scott's eyes both red and gold, and Stiles, his eyes were red for a little bit there too. Ethan and Cora too, why weren't they completely going crazy like the others?"

"I can only make assumptions about all of that. I do have a few theories though."

"Care to share?"

Considering, letting the warm water run over her skin, Lydia nodded. "Well, with Derek being gone, there was no alpha here to control the others, as you saw. With the absence of an alpha, one of the others had to take over, right? So, something in Scott, something that has the qualities of a leader, took that opportunity. I've only ever read about it in passing, where a werewolf becomes an alpha without needing to be given the power or an alpha having to die for that to happen. I think that's what happened to Scott tonight." She paused, letting the events of the night slip through her mind like water over smooth stone. "But what Scott's wolf forgot is that this 'pack' has a mated pair, an alpha pair."

"Mated pair? Alpha pair?" Danny asked curiously.

"Right, it's what you call the alpha male and alpha female in a true pack of wolves. That's what Derek and Stiles are. I don't think Stiles actually knew they were mated until whatever makes him loyal to Derek got pissed at Scott for trying to take that position. So, when Scott tried that, Stiles alpha -or whatever makes him not as human as everyone things- came out to remind Scott's wolf of that fact. I'm guessing though that Stiles wouldn't have been able to control the others so easily without that part of him that isn't human. As far as I can tell, his alpha isn't that strong yet."

Rubbing at his forehead, Danny tried to wrap his mind around what Lydia had just told him. When he couldn't, he decided it would be best to just move onto something else. "Okay, Cora and Ethan then. Why weren't they going crazy?"

"Us."

Danny blinked. "What?"

"I think… I think we were keeping them relatively sane. They didn't want us to get hurt, so they kept themselves calm."

"Well, I can understand Ethan and me, we're together, but Cora and you just doesn't make that much sense. Yeah, you two are friends, but not that close of-" He stopped abruptly, letting his mind process it. "Ah, Lydia, you're not-"

She only laughed in response.

Yeah, okay, so I'm not too sure about this chapter, or at least the last part, and the part with Stiles and Scott was supposed to go a little different, but I think I like the way it went. Hope y'all did too. And yes, before you ask, I am in love with the notion of Cora and Lydia.