Stiles nodded.

They grew silent. Stiles strained his ears, but he couldn't hear what Derek was apparently hearing. A long minute passed with only the sound of a crow in the distance. Then Stiles heard it—a faint crunching. Someone was walking through the leaves. Derek tensed, hands gripping his red sweatshirt. A twig cracked off to the left. Both of them jumped. When they settled back a moment later, the walking stopped. Derek frowned, trying to hear the footsteps—or just something in particular—but couldn't.

He stepped back and furrowed his brow. "They're gone," he said.

"What do you mean?"

Derek shook his head, eyes drifting into the distance. "I don't know. There's no footsteps, no heartbeat, nothing. Whoever it was is just gone."

Stiles felt a tingle at the back of his neck. "Oh brilliant. That's definitely not disconcerting at all. I mean that's all we needed: ghosts or phantoms or some teleporting creature to freak the shit out of all of us."

Derek just gave him a look. "Come on. Crime scene."

And they were back to trekking down the hill to the river. When they finally reached the area quartered off by yellow tape, Derek already noticed something weird. He slid through the leaves, lifted the police line over his head, and stepped onto the mossy rocks by the stream. Stiles quickly followed, being careful not to step on the little tape and cone line the police had put where the body was found.

"Whoa," Stiles said, following Derek's gaze. "That's where the body was."

Derek nodded. "It wasn't like this last night."

"I really hope not."

In the exact area where the body had laid the smooth rocks were tinged with some sort of blue, glistening sheen. Derek squatted down and reached out a finger, but Stiles stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Whoa dude, no, don't touch it."

"Why not?"

"Several reasons. One being that you don't know what it is." Stiles reached into his pocket, pulled out two pairs of blue latex gloves, and handed one pair to Derek. "Another being that this is a crime scene. Don't leave any fingerprints. Dad and the rest of the police are already suspicious, don't make them count you as a suspect."

"You just walk around with gloves in your pocket?"

Stiles slapped one of the gloves to the back of Derek's head. "No, you moron. You said we were going to the crime scene, so I grabbed them."

Derek slapped the gloves over his hands and bent down to inspect the blue filmy substance on the rocks. Stiles stood, hands on his hips and glancing around nervously. Derek reached out a finger again and lifted some of the substance onto the tip. His nostrils flared. His face scrunched as he sort of flinched back.

"What? What is it?"

"It's…nothing." His brow furrowed as he stared at the gooey stuff on his fingertips.-

"Don't get cagey on me now."

"No—it's nothing. There's no scent."

Stiles bit his lip as he started to dance around on his feet. "Plenty of things don't have scents," he said.

Derek shook his head. "Maybe to your human senses—to us…everything has a scent."

Stiles took a breath, face compressing in worry. "Shit."

"Yeah."

"This is probably not normal."

"No."

"So not normal. Like, supernatural."

Derek nodded.

"Fuck." Stiles swiped a hand down his face.

"Do you have a plastic bag on you, too?"

"No?"

Derek reached into his jacket and pulled out a pocketknife. He sprung it open and scraped some of the blue stuff onto the blade. "Give me one of your gloves." Stiles peeled the latex off his hand and handed it over. Derek slid the stuff on the inner lip and tied a knot at the end. "We'll give it to Deaton. Maybe he knows what it is."

Stiles nodded, swallowing his deep sense of foreboding with pursed lips. Derek stood up and led the way back to his car. When they slid inside, Stiles asked, "So…Jackson is sick? How bad? Erica and Boyd bad?"

Derek turned on the ignition and switched the gear into reverse, turning the wheel until he was facing the path back out the woods. "Yeah," he said. "It happened faster than them, too. Maybe because he's the newest wolf out of all of them. I don't know." He gritted his teeth, glaring out the window in front of him as they barreled through the trees.

Stiles nodded, twitching nervously in his seat. He took his Adderall. He was okay. So why was he so twitchy? And why was his heart beating out of his chest? This could not be a panic attack. No.

"That's probably it," he said. "No change in Erica and Boyd, though?"

Derek shook his head.

"That's good. Well, okay, not good per say. But at least they didn't get worse, so yeah it's pretty good. All things considering. How's Deaton with those tests?"

"He had to send some to a lab in another city."

"Oh. Well that could take some time then. I see. Y'know I think they're gonna be okay. Kanima poison worked on wolves but it wore off. Maybe this is like that, and they just need time to recover. Yeah." Stiles trailed off, unsure how to keep saying they were going to be okay without sounding like he really didn't know what the hell was going on or what the hell was going to happen. He bit his lip. Because he really didn't know.

Derek made a sharp turn out of the woods and onto the main road. "I just," he started, stopping to take an anger-filled breath.

"What?"

"Don't know what to do."

"Oh." What am I supposed to even say to that? "Um, you'll figure it out?" Lame.

Derek glanced at him from the corner of his eye. He puffed out a breath and rolled his eyes heavenward. "I don't know what is happening, okay? I just… I'm just not good at this."

"Not good at what? Figuring stuff out? Ugh, Derek, seriously. Yeah sure it took you forever to realize your uncle was a psycho-axe-murderer. And then there was the time you literally fell for the kanima's tricks. And of course let's not forget the whole Gerard scene. But like—"

"Stiles."

Stiles held up his hands. "Dude, all I'm saying is that you're obviously not Sherlock Holmes. You figure things out when they become all obvious and shit—just like most of the population. It's not like that's a terrible thing—"

"But it is."

Stiles shook his head. "Uh, no. Because no one expects you to have all the answers anymore. I mean, yeah sure when you first blew into town all creepy and weird some of us probably thought you knew everything—Scott believed you could help him with all the new wolfy madness. But like, let's be honest here, okay? You're barely an Alpha. You're like five years older than I am. Your childhood ended really early and really dramatically. So in reality you're actually like a teenager in this huge muscley adult body. For God's sake you own a Camaro but live in a subway cart. Lord knows what you eat. Jesus, it's either rabbits you hunt at the full moon or Captain Crunch. I swear to God. But, I digress. My point is that it's fairly obvious that you're not this omniscient, wolf-yoda or anything. It's also obvious that you have no idea what you're doing half the time—but guess what? No one cares. No one fucking cares, Derek. Isaac, Scott, all of them realize this by now—so no, no one expects you to have all the answers and to solve every goddamn problem in this town. So stop beating yourself up over it. Got it?"

Derek's hands were clenched over the steering wheel and his face was set in an angry mask dedicated to the road ahead. He looked like he was an inch away from tossing Stiles out—while they were still moving. Slowly though he began to relax, taking long breaths.

"And stop that. You're going to pop a vein—possibly an artery."

His eyes flashed red in Stiles' direction. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"Yeah sure."

Derek turned left and sped down the near empty street, passing through the green lights until they were just a block away from the vet's. He slowed down, turned into the parking lot and shuddered to a stop right at the entrance.

"Stay here," he commanded as he jumped out of the car. "And don't fucking touch anything."

Stiles just put his hands up in surrender. Derek glared one last time before running inside. It was several minutes of impatient jittering before Derek came back out…followed by Scott who frowned at Stiles in the passenger seat. Derek nudged his head, and Stiles took the hint. He got out, nearly slamming his hoodie in the car door when he turned to shut it. Derek walked around to the other side and leaned against the car, waiting.

"Hey Stiles," Scott said.

Stiles nodded. "Hey."

"Uh, what's up?"

"Just dropping some stuff off and then going to the home improvement place down the street."

"You and Derek?"

"Yes."

Scott glanced at the leather-clad figure only a few feet away. Hesitantly, he stepped forward and took Stiles by the shoulder, pulling him a little further away. "Um, why exactly?"

"He smashed a hole in my wall, and I'm going to get him to fix it before Dad comes home and sees it. Why?"

Scott blinked. "I just… I told you already." His voice got low, eyes glancing at Derek over his shoulder. "It's probably not a good idea to you know."

"No I don't know. Enlighten me."

Scott tensed. "Look okay, he's not like terrible or anything, but he's also not good."

"What are you my father?"

"Stiles—"

He shrugged off Scott's hand. "Did you just follow him out here to lecture me? I thought you and he were like pack now—pack adjacent, or something. You've come to an understanding. What's your problem, man?"

"His problem is that you're hanging out with Derek Hale."

Stiles jumped and turned around. "Lydia? I didn't eve—don't sneak up—Jesus."

Lydia looked, if it were even possible, more radiant than ever. Her strawberry blonde curls were glinting even in the foggy grey atmosphere. And her warm blue coat gave a certain powdered look to her appearance that made her seem soft despite the hard edge to her eyes and the stiff, angry lip. If Stiles hadn't felt so utterly put off by her renewed love with Jackson, he might have fallen right back on the Lydia Train right then.

Lydia eyed Derek who was still somehow remaining stoic despite the fact that he could probably hear every word of their conversation. "I personally don't have much of a problem with him. I haven't spoken to him enough to accurately judge him. However, if I believed in luck, I'd say he's the bad kind."

"He can hear you," Scott mumbled.

Lydia raised a brow. "Good. Because he should hear it. Stiles, it's not exactly smart to hang out with him. He turned my boyfriend and bunch of teenagers and half of them didn't turn out so well. Not even to mention that he's a walking target. Sure Allison and her father have hung up the crossbows and all, but that doesn't automatically take away the bounty on his head. Hanging out with him will only put you in the crosshairs. Now look, it's really up to you whether you risk your life or not, but I at least hope you listen when I tell you that it isn't smart. I don't give advice often, so you should take it."

Stiles glared between the two of them. "Derek's not all that bad okay? He's an idiot for sure, but he's not bad. You guys are making a big deal out of nothing."

Lydia shook her head. "He bit Jackson and then he turned into a giant lizard that tried to kill everyone—and now he's catatonic on a metal table. So, I don't think I'm making a big deal out of nothing."

"Derek's not the one at fault for those things. Jackson turned into a kanima because of himself, and you can't blame him for something none of us know anything about."

"My point is that people around him tend to get hurt." Lydia waved her hand. "But it's really none of my business. If you want to get back in that car, then that's up to you. Neither Scott nor I will stop you."

"Lydia—"

She gave Scott a firm look. "Neither of us."

Stiles shook his head. "You guys are overreacting." He turned back and headed back to the car.

Derek turned around slowly, eyes wavering between Stiles and everywhere else.

"Goddammit. Derek, you still have to fix my wall."

Derek sighed and got back in the car with Stiles right behind him.