I promise I'll eventually live up to the "slow updates" tag but apparently, today is not the day XD
FFdotNet Edit: this website doesn't have tags but I'll leave the warning anyway lol.
This was kind of fun to write, so I hope you guys enjoy it!
September 20th, 2009
There's a blinding light coming through his closed eyelids, that's the first thing Stiles realizes. The second is that whatever sort of powers he has now, not getting a crick in the neck or a killer back pain from sleeping while sitting at the computer desk - right in front of the open window where the sun was blazing down on him with a vengeance - was definitely something to put on the 'pros' side of the list. That's right about when the past night catches up to him and he jolts up from the chair, accidentally knocking it back. It hits the closed door on the other side of the room and, when Stiles walks up to pick it up, it leaves a dent in the wood.
Goddamn weird strength, not now!
He has no idea why these things are happening now of all times since he was bitten nearly two weeks ago. He's not even sure about the werewolf angle, even though the vampire hypothesis was quickly discarded - no bloodlust here, no sir - and the possibility of a radioactive wolf bite - because that thing was not a normal wolf - sounds equally farfetched. There's not even a full moon anytime soon to test his theory since the next one will be on October 4th, and the chances of any medical professional letting him commandeer their lab for radiation experiments are less than nil.
Instead of letting himself panic - alright maybe he panicked a little bit but no one needs to know - Stiles takes a calming shower instead, which he'd neglected to do after the gym. Weighing possible superpowers against a bit of sweat wasn't even a fair fight. Once he leaves the shower and grabs a comfortable pair of clothes that Caroline would probably side-eye on a good day, he makes his way down to the kitchen for breakfast.
"Where are you going?" Is what his cousin greets him with once he steps into the kitchen, heading straight for the freezer.
"Library," he tells her, watching her pout about it as he grabs some frozen waffles and drops two into the toaster.
"But you were gone all day yesterday!" She whines into her tea-filled mug. The fact that it only took one decent blend to convert her into a tea drinker only proves to Stiles that she hadn't even liked coffee in the first place.
"Care, we're not Siamese twins and I'll be here all year, gimme some breathing space," he snaps, realizing he may be a little more high-strung than he thought. An apology is already halfway out his mouth before she interrupts.
"Sorry for wanting to spend time with you," She huffs and stands up, sounding annoyed but he can easily spot a hint of hurt in her tone.
"I don't mean it like that, come on Care Bear," he walks over to her before she can turn to leave and lightly grabs her arm, "I'm just in a mood, don't listen to me. Maybe it's my time of the month," he jokes with an eyebrow wiggle.
"Idiot," she mumbles as she turns to him but still smiles at the joke, so he counts it as a win, "but you're right, we don't have to hang out all the time, it's just- you're my friend first, everyone else was Elena's, I just don't want someone else to- to steal you or something. God, saying it out loud sounds worse than in my head," she realizes with a grimace.
Stiles can't help but feel a little touched, even as he laughs at her expression, "You're family, no one's gonna steal me or whatever, alright? I'm just in the middle of a research spiral, you know how I get."
"Yeah, fine, just don't forget to stop for lunch," Caroline tells him back in her normal tone, apparently over her sudden attachment issues. "If you pass out from low blood sugar again I'll kick your ass," she warns, shooing him back toward the toaster where his waffles had already popped back up.
"That was four years ago, let it go!" Stiles replies with a roll of his eyes, getting back to fixing a quick breakfast.
"Never!" She calls as she leaves the kitchen.
He sighs and pulls out his phone to check the time, eyes widening at realizing it's already 10 p.m. and making him rush to smear some peanut butter into a waffle before smushing both together and shoving the result into his mouth like a PB sandwich before grabbing his backpack - for note taking purposes - and car keys, running out the door. He had three hours of public library time and had to make the best of it.
Chewing on his rushed breakfast waffles as he drives, Stiles' mind drifts to the past night's research. He'd almost chalked it up to a weird adrenaline spike since he does have anxiety issues, but the healing thing just didn't check out, coupled with the bite… well, his money was still on a radioactive wolf, maybe some escaped lab experiment like in the comics, but it doesn't hurt to look into werewolves too he supposes. The issue was the lack of knowledge to test his current hypothesis, so to comply with the scientific method it was time to gather enough knowledge to make a prediction before conducting any experiments to prove him right or wrong. Which in turn meant going to the library, since Google wasn't being too helpful in the 'how to know if you're a werewolf or some sort of wolf mutant' department.
He could have bothered the Salvatores, of course, but he should at least check out the publicly available resources before texting Stefan for access. The only reason he'd skipped the town library on his witchy research was the fact that he'd casually asked Bonnie about it and she'd mentioned coming out empty-handed from that particular source. If he didn't find anything useful on werewolves though, then he might risk stopping by the boarding house.
Well, this is useless.
Apparently, if one is to look for werewolf media in the public library, the choices are between Cassandra Clare, Patricia Briggs, and Stephenie Meyer. Sure, they're not absolutely invalid in terms of research, but the werewolf lore in each of them is completely different from the others, and nearly all of them imply that werewolves are born that way while Briggs' work implies that only an incredibly vicious attack that leaves the victim near death can cause a human to become a werewolf, nothing like his meager little bite. Twilight's werewolves, upon further research, are more like shapeshifters than actual wolves, so he puts the whole thing out of his mind with no small amount of relief. The Werewolf in Paris ends up being nothing but deeply disturbing and makes him reluctantly pass on checking out Cycle of The Werewolf and The Howling since both are also classed as horror. All in all, he has a couple of ideas but not many criteria with which to judge the eventual results of his experiments.
That means, of course, that he should go forward with the testing anyway.
Stiles leaves the library and immediately heads toward the woods that surround the edges of town, picking a spot to park by the lake that he's familiar with just in case he ends up getting lost. His first stop after shoving a notepad and pen in his pocket is by the thickest tree he can find, and he winces preemptively at the thought of punching it.
It's for science, he reminds himself, rearing back for a punch.
He closes his eyes when tree bark flies at his face, but opens them to see a large, fist-shaped dent into the tree trunk, slightly stained red in accordance with the stinging pain in his knuckles.
Awesome.
One look at his hand has him frozen in morbid fascination as he watches the skin over his knuckles close up, followed by a grimace when it starts closing around a few shards of wood. He promptly pulls out all visible splinters, wincing at every pull to the newly-healed skin, before reaching for his notepad and scrawling a quick checkmark in front of both 'super strength' and 'accelerated healing', making a note to actually remove any piercing objects or else he'll end up healing around them.
After a thorough look at the place he's chosen to park at, Stiles starts jogging through the path between the trees, frowning slightly after a couple of minutes. He's not really running any faster than he remembers, and sure he's not getting tired but shouldn't his increased strength mean an increase in running speed? Pausing, he tries to consider the last few time his newfound powers had made themselves known.
Maybe it has to do with intent?
Sure, he hadn't intended to break the punching bag, but he did intend to hit it with all his strength, and the healing had only been triggered after an injury, so maybe intending to go as fast as possible would trigger any increased speed. He nods to himself and falls into the set position, taking a breath before launching into a sprint- and hitting a tree face-first in less than a second.
"Who put that there?" Stiles grumbles in annoyance under his breath, standing back up and brushing off the dry leaves from his clothes, "Okay, take two. I've got this." he tells himself, crouching back to start position and focusing on the path forward, mentally mapping the twists and turns he needs to take through the trees.
Ready, set… go.
He picks up speed instantly, keeping his eyes peeled on the correct path to avoid another collision with a tree trunk, and it becomes easier to map the more speed he gains. Stiles grins against the wind hitting his face, letting out a loud whoop in excitement. Running feels absolutely amazing, he never wanted to stop. Unfortunately, he had to, unless running at supernatural speed in the city streets was suddenly in his plans.
Stiles made his way back to the Jeep in record time, enjoying the running speed a little more before putting a checkmark in front of 'fast', adding 'very' behind the word. He didn't really have a way to measure how fast, but he thinks he may be able to keep up with a car if it isn't going max speed, which is ridiculously cool.
His other tests are a little more iffy, but he still sits down on the ground by the jeep and closes his eyes, trying to focus on the noises around him. Thinking about that reminds him of hearing Vicky approaching the bleachers the other night when she wasn't anywhere near hearing range, but he had been trying to keep an ear out in case anyone called for him so it may have counted as the necessary intent. He breathes out, trying not to fidget much or think about a particularly misplaced twig under him that was poking into his leg, or how he could hear an ant crawling toward- wait, he can hear an ant.
Or can I? Do I just want to think I'm hearing it? Maybe I'm imagining it.
With a frustrated sigh, he gives up on that particular test and tries instead to smell anything different. Wolves have a good sense of smell, right? So it stands to reason that werewolves should too, he'd even smelled the burger Care brought for him all the way up from his room, so smelling something in the forest should be a piece of cake.
Nope, I've got nothing, he decides a few minutes later.
It just smelled like nature, dead leaves and all, though maybe the fact that all he could think of to smell in a forest was animal poop was kind of putting him off from trying very hard. With that in mind, he stops with the tests for the moment and gets back in the car, driving out in the direction of the Mystic Grill for a different sort of experiment. Also because it's almost an hour past lunchtime and Caroline will be disappointed if he forgets to eat.
He grabs a seat inside once he makes his way to the Grill, greeting Vicky with a smile when the girl comes by to take his order, and waits until she leaves to pass on his order of a burger before he acts on his newest idea for testing his senses. Setting his sights on a random table out of hearing range, Stiles focuses on trying to hear their conversation. It's a young couple, the guy looks like the stereotypical jock maybe a few years out of high school while the girl looks much younger, maybe Caroline's age or less, with wavy dark brown hair and brown eyes which should have been harder to distinguish from that distance. Maybe his sight is better too?
"Not yet," he finally hears the girl say after a few minutes of concentration, "have some patience."
"Next weekend, then?" The guy asks, sounding impatient.
The girl smirks, "I'll think about it"
"He's not hot enough for all the staring you're doing," a voice right by his ear startles him into jerking away, nearly falling off the chair if it wasn't for the hand holding it in place and him too by extension.
"What the hell, Damon?" He glares up at the man who seemingly came out of nowhere. Shouldn't Stiles have heard him coming? Did focusing on the couple distract him from everything else? "And there's a-" he looks back in the direction he'd been looking at before and only sees the jock on his own, typing on his phone, "There was a girl, not that there's anything wrong- I mean," his eyes narrow at the amused smirk growing on Damon's face, "you're an ass."
"Took you long enough to notice," Damon replies with humor, sliding into the chair opposite to him on the table, "but it was getting a little creepy."
"People watching," he blurts out, mentally facepalming at his excuse but it's too late to take it back, "I do it sometimes, I mean, just… try to figure out stuff about people. Without talking to them."
"Do you?" there's a slight narrowing of the blue eyes focused on him before Damon shrugs, "Not the strangest hobby around. What brings you to the Grill on your lonesome? Don't you usually have a perky blonde attachment?"
"I was at the library, Care doesn't stick around for my research binges," he explains, "had to take a break to eat or I'd never hear the end of it."
"Still on a witch hunt?" Damon raises one curious brow.
Stiles takes a moment to consider his recent discoveries before replying, "Werewolf hunt, actually."
"Oh?" the man props an elbow up on the table, leaning forward into it, "I thought you were… what was it? Team Edward?"
"I can't believe you looked up Twilight just to make that reference," Stiles deadpans, "but it's a personal interest, anyway. Just something I felt like looking into. Any chance the Salvatore library has anything interesting on the subject?"
Damon tilts his head slightly in consideration, "Maybe a thing or two. Want to check it out?"
It takes Stiles a moment to remember Zach's warning and Stefan's request before deciding to completely ignore them, "If Zach and Stefan don't ban me from the library for it."
Damon rolls his eyes, "It's my house too, they can't dictate who I invite over."
He's spared from having to respond to that by Vicky's arrival with his order, which makes him realize how hungry he suddenly feels. It figures, after all the running and punching, but it still catches him by surprise.
"Give me your phone," Damon all but demands as Stiles distractedly shoves a couple of curly fries into his mouth. He shrugs and pulls it out of his pocket, unlocking it before handing it over. Damon messes with it for a minute before sliding it back to him over the table. "Text me when you're done, I have a little errand to run."
"Sure," he replies, his focus returning to the juicy burger in front of him.
He doesn't hear Damon leave but, when his phone screen lights up with a new text from a contact named 'Sexiest Salvatore', he knows his sudden laughter probably follows the man on his way out.
Do you guys notice anything different? Maybe something doesn't quite go with the wolfy lore of either series? Well, don't worry, that's on purpose.
Anyway, next chapter we're finally back on track with canon! Yay!