chapter eleven; the trigger
AFTER STILES tells them he wants to get to know them better the room feels different, a little less suffocating and awkward. Hayley's face lights up like he just told her they won the lottery. Then she begs him to let her make him something to eat for dinner, despite it only hitting four. And by the third time of trying to say no thank you he ends up letting her make him some spaghetti just so he won't have to keep saying no.
He excuses himself to check on his dad, calling him. He says he's not going to be home for dinner so Stiles should get himself something, and that he might have to pull an all-nighter at the station. Something about a son and his parents being killed. He won't tell him anything else no matter how much he begs him to.
When he finally hangs up and comes back to the kitchen Klaus is on the couch in the living room, Hope is sitting at the counter and Hayley's standing by the stove, mixing a pan of sauce with noodles.
"You're okay to stay here for a bit?" Hope asks as soon as she notices him.
He nods, pulling up a chair beside her. He doesn't doubt the three of them were listening to his conversation with their super hearing. Surprisingly he finds himself not minding it. If they wanted to do something bad they would've by now, he tells himself when his mind suggests all of this is just a plan to get his guard down. But it feels nothing like the Nogitsune did, it feels genuine, real.
"Yeah, my dads spending the night at the station so he won't even notice I'm out" he admits, leaning his elbows on the counter to have a place for his head to rest.
He can almost feel Klaus recoil behind him at the dad word. Shit. He didn't feel bad still seeing Noah as his dad, cause at the end of the day he was. But Klaus is too. Things were so complicated right now maybe he should just avoid the word as a whole.
"Or I mean Noah. I mean – this is weird" he finally finishes, telling himself to just shut up, deafening silence would be better than him continuing.
Hayley turns to give him a smile it doesn't look forced but it doesn't look 100% natural. "You can say dad. He's looked after you for the last seventeen years when we couldn't. I'd actually like to meet the man who raised my kid soon" she admits.
Something about my kid makes his cheeks flush, they don't even have a connection yet but having his mother, having a mother again in itself is awesome, but hearing his mother call him her kid. It sends a heat to his face he can't do anything about.
"He only had to look after him because of those bloody witches. Pain in the ass always" Klaus says from behind him.
"Dad" Hope whines, but Stiles doesn't care. He's still just looking at Hayley who's turned halfway to mix the pan. He's trying his hardest not to compare her to Claudia but it's hard. The long brown hair, the honey brown eyes he shares with them, even the way her hand is planted to her side. He has her back, he has a mother back. Maybe not Claudia but it's nearly the same. He only feels a tiny bit of guilt while he thinks this.
"It doesn't matter what they did then, all that matters is the spell broke. Whenever Stiles triggered his curse, it broke the spell. Just be happy Klaus" Hayley warns.
When he triggered his curse? Stiles thinks. Oh, right, when he killed people. How was he supposed to feel about the deaths that ended up giving him a family? How did that even happen? It had to be some kind of fucked up irony.
"Mom" Hope whines again, glancing Stiles a look.
His eyes widen, "Oh no, no, it's fine. You don't have to do that, you can talk about it." he tells her, though it doesn't sound very convincing.
"We all had to kill someone to trigger our curse, Stiles. It's nothing to feel guilty about, it's always a messed-up accident when it happens. I triggered mine when I was thirteen, a couple of friends and I got drunk, and one thing led to another. Someone died." Hayley explains.
"I went after some witches, my powers got out of control and there was a human in the room above. Crushed by the shelves and dresser falling." Hope adds in.
It's like some messed up comfort club, hearing how everyone in this room had triggered their curse. It almost is comforting, except nobody had killed as many people as he had doing it.
"I didn't know I had the curse. Turned into a vampire and I lost control, turned out my mother had had an affair with a werewolf." Klaus says, his tone going bitter on the topic of his mother.
Stiles knits his brows together, "Wait so you're a wolf and a vampire?" he asks, turning to look at Klaus. He had read about it in stories, but he didn't actually think that being two supernatural beings at the same time was possible.
Klaus nods, giving him a smirk, "I was the first hybrid."
He turns to look at Hayley and then Hope, "And you guys?"
"Moms a hybrid too. But you and I, well, we're different" Hope begins.
"What do you mean different?" Stiles questions, he thought being a werewolf was enough. What else was wrong with him?
Hope looks at Hayley as if asking for permission to tell him, she starts to explain, a look of fear in her eyes for his reaction. "Well technically we weren't supposed to be possible. But we're here, and our grandmother was a witch so that gives us magical abilities. But then because we've now both triggered our curse, we're technically hybrids. Until we die."
"What happens when we die?" Stiles finds himself asking. It feels like she's about to say they'll come back like how Jackson had, reptile creatures. He knows he won't like what he's about to hear.
"Well, we have a constant strain of vampire blood in our veins because of mom and dad. In order to turn you need to die with vampire blood in your system"
"So, when we die, we'll be forced to come back anyway" Stiles finishes for her. When she nods, he can feel his stomach churn, he feels a little sick. "But we'd only be vampires then, right?"
Hayley's suddenly at the other end of the counter, Klaus too. Though they'd probably been there earlier.
"You'd be a tribrid. All three; witch, werewolf, and vampire" Klaus clarifies, and it feels like the final blow.
He feels like he might throw up. If that was true, if he would come back when he died. Did that mean back when he wasn't him, back when he, Kira, Scott, and Lydia went to the school, when he almost gave in and killed himself to save them. Would it have worked? Would killing himself have killed the Nogitsune and have him end up alive?
"You look a little pale" He can hear Hayley say, and then suddenly there's a glass of water in front of him that he doesn't remember watching her get him. His mind is reeling, spiraling down a list of endless possibilities, different endings that don't end with Allison and Aiden dead.
He finds himself chugging the water, feeling the cold hit his stomach. Back in that basement, the first time he really saw him. What if he had killed himself, left an empty body for the pack to kill without any doubt about what would happen to him. That was what gave it the time to get stronger and take over, the packs fear of what would happen to Stiles. But if they never had to worry about that, they could've ended it faster. Saved everyone the pain.
"You okay Stiles? Is this another panic attack?" Hope asks, though she sounds weird and a little echo-y.
He hears Hayley and Klaus repeat panic attack? But he doesn't have it in to reassure them. "No, not that. Just, thinking." He manages to spit out. He continues running over best- and worst-case scenarios. So many options they had but couldn't see because they only saw half the board. Sure, it would've meant being seventeen forever, but he would've done it. If it meant they'd still be here and not six feet under the ground.
"How did you trigger your curse?" Klaus questions, he probably smells the grief that's pooling off of him, they can probably all smell it.
He's so busy thinking through all the events that led to that night, planning scenarios, working out the odds that he doesn't realize what he's saying.
"I didn't."
He can see the confusion in all their eyes, and he hates that he can feel his eyes getting a little teary. It feels worse than when he accepted he was adopted, worse than them dying, it must be some sick joke from the world. They had the solution they had needed at the time, only they didn't know it.
"When I killed them," he starts, looking straight ahead to the stove in front of him. He doesn't want to see their faces when he says it, see the disgust. "It wasn't me. I – I mean it was my body, but I wasn't the one doing it."
"What do you mean?" Hayley asks, and he already regrets starting this.
He gulps, regretting finishing the water so fast. Somehow Klaus must be able to read his thoughts because he moves to refill his glass.
"Have you ever heard of the Nogitsune?"
He can hear the glass drop onto the floor, splitting into a million shattered pieces. His head snaps to the sound, looking at Klaus who's no longer filling up the cup, but giving him his undivided attention.
"You have no business knowing about the Dark Kitsune. How do you know his name?" Klaus asks him, he looks like he doesn't fully trust Stiles and at the same time is heartbroken for him.
Hope and Hayley watch them both with confused eyes.
Stiles rubs a hand across his tired face. He isn't sure why he's decided to unbottle this today. Today was supposed to be awkward and bittersweet and a good memory. He truly has a talent for ruining good things.
"When I killed people, I wasn't there, it was him. The Nogitsune, he was the one, the one who did it. Who – who slaughtered people in the hospital and at my dad's station. God even my friends' boss wasn't safe." He isn't sure if he should continue but it's also the first time he's talked about it out loud. Something in him just can't stop. "And now I find out I could've," his voice wavers, "I could've stopped it. I could've god I could've saved her."
Klaus is the only one who seems to truly understand what he means. Hope and Hayley follow along but they don't get it, they don't know about him, they don't know what he does.
"He possessed you" Klaus states, solidifying what Stiles has been trying to get at.
"Oh my god" Hayley whispers, a hand over her mouth, Hope says his name a few times along with a few sorrys. I'm so sorry, I'm sorry Stiles.
He wipes at the tears that have fallen without his permission, feeling a lot like a spotlight is on him. This is not what he had wanted, this night was going to be good. It was supposed to lead to one big ol happy family. Now everyone was looking at him with pity.
He huffs out a bitter grunt that's meant to be a laugh. "I ruined tonight, huh. Bet you weren't expecting this when you came to save your long-lost son." A murderer. He gets up, feeling the urge to run.
"Stiles, wait" Hope calls out to him.
"I think I should go home, I- yeah, I'm gonna go home. I'm sorry" he wants to be invisible, go home, hide under the covers and never leave his room ever again. This was stupid, trying to make this new family work, it couldn't. Nobody would be able to look at him the same after what he did.
"Stiles" Klaus yells after him. "Stiles it's not your fault"
That stops him. He's heard his dad tell him the same thing; the entire pack continues to tell him that. Yet hearing Klaus, someone he just met tell him it's not his fault. Someone who's only had a few hours total to judge his character and already he knows it isn't who he is.
"None of what happened when he took over is your fault. And you are not a murderer. I know what a murderer looks like, and you're about the furthest thing away from it." he continues, and it's the most Stiles has heard Klaus talk before.
"Yeah, but I didn't do anything" Stiles argues, his voice wobbles. He's standing there like the night Scott left with Deucalion, teary eyed and flushed.
"You couldn't" Klaus replies back, he keeps coming closer and for some reason it's the most reassuring thing he could do. He's not flinching away from Stiles; he's actually getting closer after hearing what he did.
Stiles rolls his eyes but there's no actual heat behind it, he's in disbelief. "I could've tried to do something." he's arguing with no one but himself, he knows this. But he needs to say it, he needs to get it out of his system.
Klaus is so close now, close enough where he can actually see the similarities in their faces. His own eyes are a little wet, damp with what looks like the beginning of tears, but they won't fall.
"You couldn't do anything little one."
He continues to shake his head in denial, "I could've, I could've done something. I should've fought harder or – or stopped it before he could continue. Maybe then – maybe" he runs out of breath, "maybe I would've found a solution if I fought harder," he's heaving for air. "could've, could've saved them could've saved-"
He isn't sure how it happened, he isn't sure why he did it or how he was fine with it. But suddenly the gap that had been between him and Klaus isn't there anymore, somehow between then and now Klaus had pulled him into a hug, a soul crushing heavy hug. One that steadies Stiles, finally makes him feel like he's not about to be sucked into a huge black pit in the ground. He's not thinking about how weird he should find it, he's not thinking about the girls behind them watching with wide eyes, or even the Nogitsune.
Right now all he can focus on is safe, for the first time since it happened, for the first time since getting his body back, his control back. He finally feels safe.
a/n: super super long chapter for you guys! I had such a fun time writing this one, I loved starting on Klaus and Stiles bond. What did you think about todays chapter? Also, I need your opinion. What would you get a teen wolf fan/ lana del rey/ harry styles fan for christmas? making a basket for my friend and I need ideas lol.