Chapter Text
Derek, he needed to call Derek.
Every bone in his body was screaming at him, each one pulling him in a different direction. But there was one thing they could agree on – he needed Derek.
Wincing, Stiles pulled off the tattered remains of his shirt and pressed them to the open wound in his side. His legs moved sluggishly, bringing him closer and closer to his off-campus apartment on instinct. He cleared the woods and made it to the trail head, only a mile away from his destination.
Stiles reached into his back pocket, willing his eyes to focus on his contact list.
He couldn’t call Derek. Derek was somewhere in Brazil, unreachable by cell.
Scott.
He could call Scott, his Alpha. The word oddly rankled in his mind, but he pushed it aside and hit the call button next to Scott’s name.
It rang five times before going to voicemail. Stiles cursed and tried again.
Ring ring ring ring ring.
Nothing.
“Dammit,” Stiles swore, focusing his energy on not crushing the phone in his hand as he continued to zombie-walk towards his apartment.
Two more calls to Scott went unanswered, so Stiles went through his options.
His Dad? Hell no. Malia, no. Liam, no. Lydia, maybe. But she was in France with her mother, so no.
Peter?
A flash of pain in his side drove him to hit the call button. Peter picked up on the first ring.
“Stiles,” he purred. “I didn’t think you still had this number. Lonely at Berkeley, are you?”
“Peter,” Stiles gritted out. He felt an ache in his chest he couldn’t place. He applied more pressure to his wound and sighed in relief when he saw the end of his street. “I need your help.”
Stiles could practically hear the air shift over the phone. “I’m on my way,” was all Peter said before he ended the call with a click.
He had no idea why, but the knowledge that Peter was coming eased some of the ache. Stiles knew in the back of his mind that it wouldn’t go away completely until he saw Derek.
Derek, who he hadn’t seen in months. Who left again after they defeated Monroe and the rest of Gerard’s hunters. Who no one had spoken to since the beginning of Stiles’ freshman year.
Stiles took a second to be thankful for the lack of streetlights surrounding his apartment as he let himself in the front door. His dad had been able to pull some strings and get him an exemption from first year housing after Stiles had transferred from GW’s FBI program to Berkeley’s Criminal Justice program.
He dropped what used to be his shirt and carefully removed his jeans and underwear before the front door had even closed behind him.
Resolutely not looking down at his wound, Stiles made his way to the bathroom and got into the shower. He rinsed the blood off his hands, arms, and legs, before using a washcloth to gently clean the area around the wound. Then he just stood under the spray until the water ran clear rather than pink.
Stiles turned off the shower and took a deep breath. His side stung fiercely. The defensive wounds on his hands and knuckles also smarted, but less so.
An hour. That’s how long he had to hold it together. It was an hour from Beacon Hills to Berkeley, and Peter said he was on his way.
One hour.
Stiles shuffled into his bedroom on autopilot, pulling on some sweats but foregoing a shirt. He grabbed a large gauze bandage from his well-stocked First Aid kit and taped it over his wound as well as he could without looking at it.
After that, he sat down on the sole couch in his living room and waited.
Forty-three minutes later, Peter burst through the front door.
“Where is it?” he asked, looking around wildly with glowing blue eyes. “I smell a wolf, Stiles, where is it?”
His own eyes glassy, Stiles stood and removed his bandage. Peter growled lowly and stepped forward into the light, closing the door behind him.
Peter reached his hand out, but stopped just short of touching the jagged bite wound that marred Stiles’ otherwise unblemished waist.
“Who did this to you?” Peter whispered.
“I don’t know,” Stiles croaked, his voice hoarse. “But his eyes were red.”
The full weight of the situation suddenly sank in, bringing Stiles to his knees. Peter caught him before he fell completely, but Stiles couldn’t make out the words the man was saying.
His breath came in bursts, as if ripped out of his lungs. His head swam and his vision began to blacken around the edges. After a few minutes of fighting against the unconsciousness, Stiles found himself leaning into it instead.
When he came to, there was light shining through his front curtains and a wet washcloth on his forehead. He sat up with a jolt, displacing the washcloth and causing his head to spin.
A hand reached out from nowhere and eased him back down onto his couch. Stiles let himself be manhandled, knowing on instinct the hand wasn’t a threat to him. “Derek?” he slurred.
“Still not Derek,” a tired voice replied, as if it’d had to recite that same line more than once.
Stiles’ head swam, but he remained lying down. Parts of his mind were still fuzzy, but he was aware enough to recognize the voice. “Peter? What are you doing in my apartment?”
“You called me, Stiles,” he replied with a sigh, slumping back down into the armchair on the other side of the living room.
“I did?” This time, Stiles succeeded in sitting up, but kept his eyes closed. The light peeking through the curtains was too bright for reasons he couldn’t grasp yet.
Peter leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together so tightly his knuckles went white. “What do you remember from last night?”
Stiles scratched the back of his neck and chanced a glance through his eyelids. He turned his face away from the window and was able to open his eyes enough to see a discarded, bloody gauze patch on the floor by his feet. “Last night?”
Something was wrong. Peter’s words didn’t have their usual sarcastic bite to them, and Stiles’ head felt like it was working overtime.
“Last night,” Stiles repeated slowly. “I called you. Why did I call you?” he trailed off with a furrowed brow, not expecting an answer.
His head shook slowly of its own accord, as if trying to shake loose the information he was searching desperately for. When the events of the previous night hit him, he shot out of his seat, only to be met with a rush of emotions.
“No,” Stiles insisted faintly. “No, no, no, no.” He tried to run his hands through his hair, but found his arms suddenly locked by Peter’s grasp. He looked up into the man’s ice blue eyes and saw his own flurry of emotions reflected on Peter’s face.
“It’s going to be ok, Stiles.” Peter kept up with his litany of reassurances and Stiles attempted to keep his breathing even and steady. If you’d told him a year ago that he’d find himself comforted by anything Peter Hale said, he would have laughed. But now, Stiles clung to the man’s words like a lifeline.
At some point, Stiles’ claws had extended, biting into Peter’s arms, but the man hadn’t flinched. He just continued assuring Stiles he was going to be fine and instructing the boy to breathe.
Eventually Stiles’ breathing evened out, though his claws remained unsheathed. There was no mirror in the living room, but Stiles could tell from how sharp the room looked in his vision that his eyes were glowing.
“I’m a werewolf,” he whispered, meeting Peter’s eyes almost defiantly.
Peter nodded and extracted himself from Stiles’ grasp. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll fix us something to eat? We’ve got a lot to discuss.”
Suddenly ravenous, Stiles sat back down on the couch and grabbed his phone from the side table so he’d have something to do with his hands. Trying his hardest not to focus on the claws he was still sporting, he unlocked his phone carefully and frowned at what he saw.
No notifications from Scott.
Not one. It had been almost seven hours since Stiles had tried getting a hold of him and there wasn’t even a, ‘you ok?’ text in response.
Stiles fought through the disappointment and turned his attention instead to the three missed calls from Jackson.
“Jackson called?” he hollered out to Peter, not taking his eyes away from his phone.
Peter gave a noncommittal hum from the kitchen, which Stiles heard perfectly with his newfound superhuman hearing. “Is that abnormal? I just assumed you’d missed your weekly phone sex date or something.”
Stiles growled under his breath, which pulled him up short momentarily. The ability to actually growl was something he’d have to get used to and be careful of. “No, we haven’t spoken since Junior year, a little after the – um, the Nogitsune.”
“Hmm,” Peter hummed again. “You called him after the fact, I take it?” He waltzed back into the living room like he belonged there and set a steaming hot mug of tea and a sandwich in front of Stiles before sitting down a little closer than he would normally dare get. “Smart, getting advice from the only other person you know who had gone through something similar.”
Stiles left Peter to his musings and opened up the 14 unread texts from the former kanima. His eyebrows went higher and higher on his face as he read each one.
‘Stiles, what the hell did you do?’ Followed by several expletives, all sent separately.
‘Call me back. Now.’
‘I’m serious, Stilinski, call me back.’
Stiles’ eyebrows disappeared into his hairline as he read the last one.
‘Fuck it, I’m on my way. You better not be dead when I land.’
He handed the phone to Peter silently, attempting to absorb the multitude of information he had just received. “Why the hell is Jackson coming here?” he asked Peter around a large bite of his sandwich, as if the man would have any idea.
Which, of course, he did. “He must have felt you.”
“Felt me?” Stiles frowned. “You mean, felt me when I turned?”
Peter rolled his eyes and tossed the phone onto the coffee table in front of them. “You know, Stiles, for someone who spent most of the last three years researching werewolves, you seem frightfully under informed about pack dynamics.”
“Pack dynamics?” Stiles picked up the mug and sighed at the warmth under his fingertips. His claws clicked against the ceramic, but he tried his hardest to ignore them. He was aware enough of the pit in his stomach that was begging him to find Derek; he couldn’t focus on much else at the moment, but he tried his damndest to listen to Peter’s response.
Peter leaned back into the couch and closed his eyes, attempting to look nonchalant, but missing by a mile. It was clear from the tension in his shoulders that he was worried about Stiles and trying to hide it. “The wolves in a pack can feel one another. Like a string from your center to theirs. Close your eyes.”
Stiles complied immediately, the wolf inside him thrilled at being given an order that it could follow easily. It did nothing to ease the pit inside of him, but it was another distraction he could cling to.
“Do you feel that tugging sensation in your core?” Peter asked softly.
Stiles hummed affirmatively.
“That’s me. I’m calling out to you using our pack bond.”
Stiles’ eyes flew open at that. “But we’re not pack.” He felt the bond sag, as if it was sad. He concentrated on the bond immediately and pulled it taut again, desperate to right whatever wrong he’d committed to make his packmate feel that way.
Peter opened his eyes and chuckled sardonically. “Aren’t we? Even if you find the idea of me being in your pack… unseemly, it appears that your wolf feels differently.”
“Dammit,” Stiles cursed under his breath, eliciting another amused huff from Peter. “So, wait,” he sat up suddenly. “Does that mean Jackson thinks we’re pack?”
Peter nodded, closing his eyes once more. “Check your bonds, Stiles. They will all feel different from one another. The bond to your Alpha will feel the strongest, but you can feel the other betas as well.”
Stiles frowned and concentrated on his bonds. He checked a few of them, dismissing them all as not-Jackson, until he found one he could only describe as feeling green. “Found him.” He tugged a little on the bond, as if to reassure Jackson he was ok, and was surprised to feel a tug back immediately. It was insistent and annoyed, but Stiles fought a smile when he realized there was also a sense of relief tied to the tug.
“Who else is there?” he asked Peter, cocking his head to the side and reaching out towards his bonds.
“You tell me,” Peter replied, in a quintessential Peter-like tone, as if he already knew the answer and was just waiting for Stiles to catch up.
Stiles frowned again as he found that he couldn’t identify a few of the bonds. When he expressed his frustration to Peter, the man merely smiled.
“That just means the bonds haven’t fully formed yet.”
Sitting back into the cushions, Stiles bit his lip carefully to avoid his fangs, and hesitantly voiced the thought that had been nagging at him since they started their little pack bond lesson. “Why can’t I feel Scott? Is his one of the bonds that hasn’t fully formed yet?”
At this, Peter actually looked somewhat remorseful. “I’m afraid not. If you recognized Scott as your Alpha, not only would you feel his bond above all others, but he would have felt you immediately and it would be him on this couch talking to you and not me.”
“So we’re not pack?” Stiles asked dejectedly.
“That, Stiles, will be entirely up to you. But he is not your Alpha, no.”
“Then who is?”
Peter quirked his eyebrow at the boy. “You sure do ask a lot of dumb questions.”
The pit in Stiles’ stomach grew stronger. He wrapped his arm around his middle, as if holding himself together with one hand. “But he’s not an Alpha,” he protested weakly.
“That’s not as important as it used to be. You don’t need to have an Alpha designation to lead a pack,” Peter said.
“I need him,” Stiles whispered.
To his surprise, Peter didn’t respond with a sarcastic comment or witty anecdote. He simply smiled sadly. “I know. It’s why you can’t change back,” he said, gesturing to Stiles’ beta form and claws.
“Do you… do you know how to get a hold of him?” Stiles asked hesitantly. “He changed his number before I moved back. I’m not even sure he can be reached by phone, come to think of it.”
Peter reached out and placed a hand on Stiles’ forearm reassuringly. “He’s on his way. He felt you so he was coming anyway, but getting word to him was one of the first things I did while you were out.”
Stiles’ wolf howled with joy, but his face squinted suspiciously. “Why do you say that like there were other things you did while I was out that I wouldn’t approve of?”
Peter didn’t answer, just closed his eyes again and smirked.
Stiles sat back and examined his claws idly while Peter feigned sleep. After a few futile minutes of trying to get them to go away, he turned his attention instead to the bonds he could feel, trying to get a better grasp on who his wolf apparently believed was pack.
Lydia, he could feel her. Her bond felt golden and warm. Stiles smiled to himself, but left it alone; he didn’t want to risk her finding out about his transformation before he had it under control.
He rooted around in his bonds and found one that was unmistakably Isaac. Stiles groaned audibly and lolled his head back onto the couch. “Dammit,” he muttered halfheartedly.
Peter snickered next to him. “Not pleased with some of your new pack mates?”
“Shut up, Peter.”
Stiles sat up straighter when he felt a solid bond near the one he knew to be Derek’s. It was firm and resolute, and he knew without question it belonged to his father.
Of course, after the initial excitement from feeling his father’s bond had worn off, the crippling insecurity followed. “Peter,” Stiles whispered.
“Hmm?” Peter, sensing Stiles’ distress, opened his eyes and turned his body slightly towards the new wolf.
“How do I tell him – them?” he corrected himself quickly, but without much hope that Peter would have missed the original intent.
To his surprise, Peter simply smiled lazily at him. “Your father won’t care about you becoming a wolf, Stiles. He’s just going to be happy you’re ok.”
Stiles shook his head, looking down at his claws. “You don’t know that.”
“I do know that,” Peter countered immediately. “In all the time I’ve been watching you and your father, John Stilinski has not once done anything that would lead me to believe he cares if you’re human or not. He has, on the other hand, performed several super-human feats to ensure your continued safety. He’s not going to care you’re a werewolf, Stiles. Of that I am certain.”
Stiles looked up when Peter was finished. “Wow, zombie wolf. That might be the nicest and creepiest thing you ever said to me. Congrats.”
Peter just rolled his eyes and stood up, stretching the ache of sitting on Stiles’ cheap couch out of his body. He strode towards Stiles’ bathroom but stopped before he made it to the door. “Oh,” he said over his shoulder. “And as for the question you’ve been too scared to ask, the answer is yes.”
“What do you mean?” Stiles asked listlessly, his blood running cold.
“Yes,” Peter repeated, stepping into the bathroom and making to close the door behind him. “Your eyes are blue.”