Disclaimer: I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.
Warnings: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers. Additionally, there is canon-typical consent issues surrounding age. Please exercise understanding of personal sensitivities before and during reading.
Author's Note(s): Yay! I got to a publishing point in something that wasn't about linguistics & rhetoric! (It's the first time in over a year.)
Challenge/Competition Block:
Stacked with: MC4A (Games/SE; Generic)
Individual Challenges: Mother (Y); Watts; Mutable; X Rated; Student MC; Condiment Shelf [x2]; Spark Plug; Minor; Magical MC; Fresh Fandom High; Binger; Cinematic; Dreamers [x2]; Tossed Chum; Nonhuman MC [x2]; Shifter MC [x3]; LEO MC; Ethnic & Present [x4]; Neurodivergent; Rian-Russo Inversion [x4]; Short Jog; Bucket Listing; Exchange; Greatest Gift; Salt Wrench; Crack Addict; Booger Breath; Setting Sail; Bi Bi Bi; Feeding; Outer; Liberal Arts; Zed Era; Finders; Hold the Mayo [x4]; Rainbow Connection
Other MC4A Challenges (Prompt): Ship (Snarkers)[Su-SW1 (Accidental Acquisition; First Aid/Aftercare; Meet Cute/Ugly); Su-SW2 (Accidental Acquisition; First Aid/Aftercare)]; Chim [Bugface](Turned Left Instead AU; Bargains/Deals; "We Don't Talk about Bruno" - Encanto); Hunt [Sp WD (Native/Indigenous); Fa WD (Native/Indigenous); Fa Set (Forest/Wood); Fa Set (Shoe); Sp Review (Current Season); Su Review (Current Season); Fa Review (Current Season)]; Fire (Fidget); Garden [Achuffa (Jewish); Tuklo (Black Character); Ushta (Sheriff Stilinski); Tahlapi (Outside); Hannali (Teen Wolf); Pests (Turned Left Instead)];
Representation: Mieczysław "Stiles" Stilinski & Derek Hale; Stilinski Family Feels; Bitten Stiles; Season 1 Rewrite; Jewish Stilinskis; Wintu Hales; Pre-Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski; Chim Song Prompt;
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenge(s): Corvid Brain; Hot Apple; Piper Mix; Turtle-Duck; Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp; Persistence Still; Found Family; Nontraditional; Zucchini Bread; Middle Name; Mother Hen; Nightingale; Spinning Plates; Unwanted Advice; Brooms Only; Lock & Key; For the Vine; Lovely Coconuts; Trickster's Union; Lyre Liar; Most Human Bean; Muck & Slime); Chorus (Odd Feathers; Pear-Shaped; Pocky Pockets; Wabi Sabi; Fizzy Lemonade; Machismo; Peddling Pots; Mouth of Babes; Tomorrow's Shade; A Long Dog; Eternal Boredom; Larger than Life; Unicorn; Creature Feature; Abandoned Ship; Head of Perseus; In the Trench); Demo 1 (Dog Star; Inky Shadow; Queen Bee; Under the Bridge; Where Angels Fear; Civil Disobedience; Easy Zephyr; Suddenly Audrey); Demo 2 (Call Me Dantes; Sitting Hummingbird; Some Beach; Getting On; Lost Llama; Hot Stuff; Mermaid; Sailor Take Warning; Tied & Died; Misshapen Pods)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: T3 (Toad); SN (Rail; Negate); FR (Satisfaction; Evolution); O3 (Orator; Ox); HoSE (Obscure); Once (Moses Supposes; Santa Fe; Inchworm); CM (Brier; Notch; Yogin); War (Orator; Obstruction; Sanctuary; Ennui); TY (Slainte; Ntaiv; Kulonbozo; Enfant); Mea (Ennui; Rampant)
Space Address (Prompt): SpB 2B (Adaptation); TrB 5D (The Healer); CM 2B (Scents); SuB 1A (Adventure); AU 4A (Never a Villain); FaB 2A (Smoke); Set 4E (Forest/Woods)
Word Count: 2779
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A Series of Stupid Stunts
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Stiles almost detoured to pick up Scott. It was habit. Ever since Scott had moved back from Beacon Valley summer before last, they had been inseparable. Most of that time had been dedicated to keeping up with homework and Scott's newfound obsession with lacrosse. Every time that Stiles had tried to drag Scott along one of these investigations, he had gotten them caught. Scott's mom was nearing the point of exiling Stiles.
So at the last moment, Stiles decided to not to involve Scott. Besides, there were many factors to consider when looking for half a dead body. Such as Stiles didn't know which half was the missing one. Scott wasn't ready to be exposed to that kind of thing, even if Scott's chief complaint about Beacon Hills continued to be that nothing ever happened. Not to mention that dragging a severe asthmatic around the woods away from the marked trails in the middle of the night was a fantastically stupid idea.
Considering what he ended up finding, maybe Stiles going out into the woods at night was a stupid idea, too.
Because Stiles found the missing half of the dead body that his dad was out searching for. She was a pretty woman with the same odd shade of pasty tan that many of the local Natives had. If it hadn't been the middle of winter, she likely would have been a much darker tan. Her long hair was the same dark brown as the rotting leaves that surrounded her. She was laying on her front with her head twisted to the side. If it weren't for the blankness in her brown eyes, she could almost have been mistake for sleeping.
She reminded Stiles of the last memory he had of his mother.
In the distance, a dog gave a sharp bark, a signal that he had found a scent trail. Stiles froze for a moment before he took off in the opposite direction. One good thing about all the criminal trespassing he did was that he was very good at sprinting and maneuvering around obstacles. He only stumbled when the trees suddenly gave way to a clearing.
His eyes were immediately drawn towards the sky and the nearly full moon hanging above the neat circle of branches. A few dry oak leaves still clung to a few of the branches as testimony about the mild winter they had had so far. Like it was being pulled, his gaze dropped to a large stump in the center of the clearing. Its roots were as thick as his legs and twisted upon each other like a nest of snakes.
Between one blink and the next, Stiles was next to the stump. The aged wood felt almost warm against his fingertips. It was surprisingly smooth, too. It felt like the butcher-block table in the garden shed, not polished exactly but well-weathered. He ran his hands along the grooves in opposite directions, bending at the waist until his chest and face were pressed against wood. Despite the cold night, Stiles felt like he was wrapped in a thick blanket fresh from the dryer.
A sound made him crane his neck to look across the stump. His mind provided a brief image of a bearskin rug before it was distracted by the eyes glowing in the darkness like embers. The eyes moved as the shadowy figure circled around the stump. Despite the way having the figure out of his sight made his heart race, Stiles only turned his head to press his cheek against the stump.
The nose that touched the back of his neck was animal, something with a long canine muzzle. Stiles could even feel its whiskers tickling behind his ear. But what was skimming up his sides, lifting his shirts, was definitely hands. Stiles shivered at the sensation of claws trailing over his skin.
He couldn't stop the moan that escaped at the scrape of teeth at the base of his neck, the spot where neck met shoulder. The beast released a deep rumble somewhere between a purr and a growl. It vibrated Stiles' body because of how close the beast was pressed against him. There was a swipe of tongue against the same spot, and maybe it was wrong, but Stiles keened with the sheer want that exploded through him.
"Please," he managed to gasp out, though he couldn't tell you what he was asking for. His eyes rolled back as teeth slid into his neck as easily as a hot knife through butter. As the darkness swallowed him, Stiles heard a single howl fill the night.
It reminded him of the look on his father's face when the doctor had told him the news.
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Stiles woke up to sunlight on his face. He stretched sleepily as he listened to the birds singing and the wind blowing. His neck and shoulders were sore, probably from sleeping on wood instead of his bed with his pillow. The breeze smelled like rich loam and lichen and just the barest hint of frost. He stretched again, arching his back. Fuck if tryouts after school today wasn't going to suck.
School.
He scrambled upright. It only took a glance around the clearing to recognize that he had no clue where he was. Fortunately, Stiles already had the necessary app downloaded to his phone. The signal on his phone did the weird little jump routine that it typically does in the Preserve. When it finally settled and the app's map updated, Stiles breathed a sigh of relief at how close he was to the parking lot of Beacon Memorial's out building.
After a quick jog fueled by the residual adrenaline, Stiles had enough time to drive back home, change his clothes and grab his backpack, and then get to the school just in time to slip into the masses rushing to get to their second period classes. Scott grinned as Stiles joined him at their lockers. He bumped their shoulders together and pointed out a new face talking to Lydia and Jackson across the hallway.
"Her name is Allison," Scott said dreamily. Stiles rubbed his nose in the hopes that it covered up the almost-overwhelming smell of Axe and so many different perfumes. Scott didn't seem to notice the smell or the gesture. "I gave her a pen."
"That's nice," Stiles commented. Adjusting to school was always a problem. He was regretting that he forgot his Adderall in this morning's rush. "What did I miss in English, dude?"
"We're reading Metamorphosis," Vera Boyd announced as she joined them. Her brown eyes cut to the trio across the hall. "How is it that the new girl hasn't even been here a full day and is already in with Lydia Martin?"
"Pretty people herd together," Stiles answered, half distracted by a trace of something sharply floral coming off the new girl. He shook his head to clear it and swallowed down the acidic trace of bile that threatened. "It's an instinct. Do you think we'll have a writing assignment?"
"After last semester's Econ final?" Vera scoffed. "All the teachers will be running scared. You'd probably build a case for real life lycanthropy or a comparison to The Little Mermaid."
She wiggled her fingers at them as she headed off to her next class, something that Stiles really needed to herd Scott towards, too. Somehow, Stiles had to manage to make it through the day and tryouts before he could go see if he could find that stump again. He needed some kind of evidence that the creature was real. He didn't know why, but something inside him was demanding it.
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The Preserve was different than it normally was. The birds were louder than they had been, more prone to flying off in screaming whirlwinds of feathers. Small creatures scrambled out of his way, too. The entire wood was wild and pulsating with life around him. Stiles wanted to run just for the sheer enjoyment of it.
So he did.
Stiles ran, following a deer track. His lungs pumped in time with his flapping flannel. Water splashed under him as he leaped from one creek bank to the other. It felt better than it ever had. Too bad Finstock was too busy with lacrosse during the spring. Track would have been great. Cross-country in the fall was always one of Stiles' favorites, even if he always ended the first few practices gasping for breath, no matter how he kept up his training during the rest of the year.
Abruptly, Stiles stopped. This was the spot where the body was. He was sure of it. In addition to moving her, someone had done their best to scatter forest debris into the spot where she had been. He leaned down to touch the moist ground. Lifting his fingertips to his nose, he could practically smell the dried blood. It was almost covered by some floral scent that made his nose prickle and burn.
"This is private property," a voice growled. Stiles looked up at the speaker but didn't rise out of his crouch. The man was tall and broad. His eyebrows made his scowl look very fearsome. He was also wearing clothes with mud on them and a black leather jacket which looked slightly too big on him. He looked vaguely familiar, but then a lot of people look that way to Stiles, because of the sheriff reports that Stiles totally did not read because that would have been illegal in a lot of the cases. Not a lot of them made Stiles want to feed them soup like this guy did.
"No, it's not," Stiles corrected as he watched the newcomer's face. Was this guy's eyes blue or green or golden honey? "The only private property out here is about a half mile behind you."
The reminder was enough for Stiles to recognize him. Unfortunately, it also came with recognition of the woman from last night, too. Holy shit. The Hales were back in Beacon Hills, and one of them had been cut in half with what had to have been a very large and very sharp blade. This town had to fucking cursed for them, what with the fire and now this. No wonder Stiles wanted to adopt the dude. Did Derek even have anyone left who hadn't been horrifically murdered?
Fortunately, Stiles hadn't done anything stupid like come out into the woods without telling anyone where he was going when there was someone in the woods cutting people in half. He certainly hadn't done that while his dad was pulling extra shifts at the station and probably wouldn't even notice he was missing.
Derek Hale's scowl deepened, like he hadn't expected his claim to be challenged. It should have made him more intimidating. He was a big guy who probably knew how to handle himself and now looked angry. If Stiles was any kind of normal, he would be scared or at least a little intimidated. Instead, Stiles had been put together a bit wrong, and he just thought the guy looked like a puppy trying to puff itself up.
"So, tell me, Derek Hale," Stiles said, finally standing up, "where are you staying these days?"
Before Derek could answer, the wind shifted. Something from the same growing part that had driven him to run through the woods made Stiles tilt his face into it. He felt his nostrils flare as he breathed deep. There was no doubt in his mind which parts of the scent belonged to the woods and which belonged to Derek himself. There was a plethora of information to be had, so much that Stiles felt a little dizzy from it all, but there was one scent above the others that made something snap and snarl inside Stiles.
Derek Hale smelled like he had been rolling around in burnt wood.
"Oh, fuck no," Stiles snapped even as his brain managed to articulate the conclusion it had reached. Damn puppy was going to get himself killed. Didn't he realize that someone was likely targeting Hales? "You are not staying there! Even the motel out by the highway would be better, and every stay there comes with free food poisoning."
Without thinking about it, he was moving into Derek's personal space. He ignored the deep growl Derek made and started tugging the older man in the direction of the parking lot where Roscoe was waiting. Probably out of surprise, Stiles was actually able to pull Derek along like a parent would a grumpy preschooler.
LP
It probably said something about their personal histories that his dad only seemed resigned when he spotted Derek at the kitchen table. To be fair, the scene that he had walked in on bore more than a passing resemblance to a few times Scott had been downtrodden and Stiles had bullied him through a care routine that Stiles had developed after his mother's death during the Year They Don't Talk About. Seeing a stranger sitting in their dining room wearing his clothes with his hair still damp from a shower—well, most parents would probably be concerned or worried. Melissa would definitely have questions if she had walked on Scott alone with some stranger.
Instead of asking anything, Noah Stilinski had simply rubbed Stiles on the back of the neck and tiredly dragged himself up the stairs to shower off the questionable amount of hours he had just put in at work. Derek watched the whole exchange with barely concealed longing. Stiles had only the beginning of understanding about the changes he had undergone, but he still recognized the cause of that look, how his dad's action would have looked to a creature like a werewolf (as crazy as that sounds).
But that was the world that Stiles was a part of now. Derek wasn't the one who had bit Stiles. It was weird how deep that knowledge ran. Derek hadn't bit him but was tightly connected to the one who had. They were all the same thing, and they were all a part of each other. That made Derek one of Stiles', and if there was nothing else that he knew how to do, it was how to take care of what was his.
"I'm assuming there's some kind of visible proof we can give him?" Stiles asked as he put a bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich cut into quarters in front of the older werewolf. Derek just blinked his oddly-hazel eyes at him. "I'm brand new to this, dude. All I've figured out is that it's like my worst sensory days on steroids. So I'm hoping you have some way of actually proving the werewolf thing to Dad or this is gonna be a very short conversation."
"How new?" Derek asked with enough caution that Stiles would have been offended if it weren't warranted. Stiles glanced at the clock on the stove.
"Eighteen hours?" Stiles answered. He shrugged and took a bite of his own sandwich. "I didn't exactly note the time, and besides—"
Stiles blushed deeply at the memory how he had felt right before losing consciousness. Then he blushed for a different reason. If Derek's sense of smell was anywhere close to what Stiles had developed, it was probably obvious what Stiles had been remembering. Lord on High, this was going to take some adjustments. Derek continued to eye him like he was a rabid animal that was likely to bite at any moment.
"You are very collected for less than a day into the change." Derek's eyes flared until they were glowing an electric blue. Stiles felt his own eyes heat in response. Whatever response Derek had been expecting, it was clear from the way he jerked back that he hadn't gotten it. "What the fuck?"
"Care to share with the class, sourwolf?"
"Your eyes are violet."
"Fairly certain they're brown, actually."
"No, I mean—Your beta flash. It's purple." Derek looked lost again. It made him look adorably sulky. Stiles understood his babcia's habit of pinching his cheeks so much right at that moment. "I've never seen that color."
"Well, that certainly gives me a topic to research," Stiles said. He reached across the table to nudge Derek's spoon. "Eat your food before it gets cold. We'll figure everything out later. Dad's gonna be a bit anyway."
"Bossy."
"Yep." Stiles made sure to pop the end of the word extra hard. He gave his toothiest grin before continuing. "And don't you forget that."
"You're going to be a terrifyingly good wolf once you get your paws under you."
Stiles just slurped his soup extra loudly.
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To be continue?
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