Author's Notes: I wanted to get some things out before the new season starts, so these are just some unrelated, stand alone drabbles I've accumulated. Some humor, some angst, lots of hurt/comfort. Most will contain Pack-ness, Sterek, Pre-Sterek, and Bromance of Scott and Stiles.

Warning for this part: overtures of self-destructive Stiles

Summary: Stiles is recovering poorly after the nogitsune, especially around Scott and Chris. The pack is coming together though, and Chris is watching.

11 (Blame)

Scott sprinted toward Stiles, sliding in front of him and roaring in fury as he faced down the hunters. Derek took up his place next to the alpha, growling low, ready to attack, to defend.

Scott itched to be able to reach back to Stiles, make sure the other was alright, but he couldn't move; the very literal role of wall between danger and his pack he was beginning to embrace. Lydia had Stiles, was trying to help him, keep him standing. 'He's hurt. He's bleeding, clutching his arm, he's in pain'. And then, Scott realized as he caught Stiles in his peripheral vision, 'he's pissed'.

Stiles stared through the gap of Scott and Derek in front of him and straight at the humans and their wolfsbane weapons. They stood ready, but not attacking anymore. Outnumbered and hesitating. Two of the men were scuffed up, sporting patches of quickly blackening skin. Scott felt a surge of pride at the evidence of the fight Stiles put up.

"You're running with monsters." The man most in the foreground sneered, glaring at Stiles.

"I'm nowhere near you", Stiles bit out viciously even as he blinked blood out of his eyes. Scott didn't think he'd ever heard his friend's voice carry that intense an undercurrent of rage. Maybe in those first confusing weeks after his dad left, which made so much sense now (Stiles knew about that night. Always had. Hated that man for the minutes Scott couldn't remember), but this was murderous.

Stiles was ready to kill for him. For any of his threatened pack. Scott squared himself more in front of Stiles just in case the injured teen decided to lunge for the humans.

The hunters were outgunned. An advance party. They couldn't win. Scott hoped they were bright enough to get that. If not...

Scott, alpha and all, could barely sense their own hunter (not the same one, not right, but still important) in the trees, the one on their side. There was no way the humans would be able to tell Chris was there at all, waiting to pick them off as soon as they made a more blatant move against the Code.

"...This isn't over." The same man says, clearly bypassing the wolves to glare at Stiles, just like Chris had said. This clan hated wolves, but they hated human pack, 'betrayers', more. Scott stepped in to block their view of Stiles completely, finding Derek meeting him halfway.

After tense seconds, the man backed away, weapon still raised as he and the two others retreated. Scott waited until they were completely gone from his senses before he turned to where Lydia was trying to get Stiles on his feet.

"I'm okay." Stiles told Scott before he could ask. Stiles absently licked the blood away from the split in his bottom lip, breath stilted from a bruised rib. 'No, you're not', Scott thought. He hadn't been for awhile.

Stiles had never liked admitting when he was actually hurt, especially lately. Still, when Scott went to take stock of his injuries, Stiles didn't pull back, let him gauge his wounds in his 'freaky wolf-y way'. Scott frowned. The gash in his arm was wide. He was pale.

"You need a hospital."

"I'm good, man. Really."

"Stiles-"

"I'm alright, Scott. I can get patched up at home."

If his alpha voice worked on Stiles, Scott might have considered using it because his friend needed help. In the end it wasn't necessary though.

"Scott's right." The voice came from the base of the tree, approaching them. Scott heard Stiles' teeth clench. His body went still and he wouldn't look up anymore. "You're gonna need a few stitches from what I saw."

It had taken weeks and more than few reassurances from Scott before Stiles had been able to look him in the eye after-

After.

Chris Argent was another story. Stiles turned into someone else around the man. Someone timid and small and sad. It scared Scott. Scared them all.

The hunter didn't blame Stiles, but he knew why Stiles acted as he did around him. He stopped a few feet from the teen, trying not to startle him. Chris had said Stiles owed him nothing, that what happened wasn't him; just something wearing his face. But after a quick look at Scott, the man knew this was a situation he could use to their advantage. Stiles wasn't likely to refuse a request from the forever grieving father.

"You're going to the hospital." Scott ached to reach out and stop Stiles as he chewed on his already split lip, drawing more blood. Danger momentarily passed, the alpha's full attention was now on his injured friend.

Finally, Stiles made an approving motion, not raising his eyes.

Chris nodded and reached out toward Stiles in case he needed a bit of a push to get going. He didn't get far before a solid wall of werewolf blocked his way. Derek stood between them. Not angry, no longer wolfed-out, but perfectly conveying he had no intention of moving.

Chris didn't take offense. Derek, unbelievably, liked Chris, protected him like the rest of the pack when it was needed.

But Derek would kill for Stiles.

He'd kill Chris for Stiles.

Just like Scott.

Relenting, the hunter stepped back to let the others tend to the teen, usher him back toward the cars.

They were all still fumbling. Around words, the past, each other. But, more and more, Chris had noticed that they were beginning to stumble along together. They reached out for one another more now and fell all the less often for it.

It wasn't something he could be a part of. Not really. If he'd ever had that in him, he didn't any longer.

So he watched, fairly content with it all, as Scott looped Stiles' non-Lydia arm over his own shoulders. As Derek waited just a beat longer than the rest of them to turn and walk away, making certain that Chris was no threat to the teens, and returning a nod that the hunter gave to tell the wolf he'd be just fine on his own. His car was close.

Chris stayed in that field for a long time after the headlights had dimmed and they'd gone off to lick their wounds, prepare for the next fight they faced together.. Looking at the sky, more reflective than he usually allowed himself to be, he let himself think of the pack those kids were becoming. How a year ago, he would have never thought of a new pack forming as anything positive or right.

Closing his eyes, just for the space of a few breaths, he let himself think of the place his daughter would have held in that pacck and how beautifully she would have shined.