Chapter Text
It felt like forever since he’d last been home.
Well, in his defence, it had been four years. Actually, just over four years. It had been a lot harder than he’d been expecting, honestly. Being away for so long. A necessity, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
Still, it felt like he’d been gone for forty years instead of just four. He wasn’t sure how much would’ve changed, how much would’ve stayed the same. A few of his friends had left. His closest ones had stuck around, but the goal was usually to escape as quickly as possible when means permitted.
He used to think that was what he wanted, but now he wasn’t so sure. It had been nice, being somewhere else, away from this tiny little town in nowhereville, California. But after four years, he didn’t know anymore. He’d missed a lot about home. The familiarity, the trees, the people.
He’d missed the small town life in general. And really, Beacon Hills wasn’t small, it was a sizeable town, it just wasn’t a huge metropolitan like Chicago, which was where he’d spent the past four years.
He couldn’t help the smile that had slowly formed on his face while passing the large ‘Welcome to Beacon Hills’ sign. Everything looked the same, and yet different all at once. The Preserve was still there, which made sense because he doubted four years away would have that massive amount of trees and greenery just disappear—and thank God for that. Still, he liked the drive through the trees, enjoyed the quiet, closed his eyes and just felt for a bit.
This was definitely the better place for him. He needed the greenery. Needed nature, and the strength of the wilderness around him. He’d managed well enough in Chicago, because it wasn’t like there wasn’t any greenery out there, but nothing like this.
The Preserve felt like home, and he couldn’t even describe the relief he felt just being near it again.
“Which way?”
Stiles Stilinski opened his eyes, startled out of his calm moment of peace by the gruff voice.
“Just follow the road, it’ll lead you into the heart of town,” he said, leaning forward slightly. “Once we’re further in, I’ll give you directions.”
The cabbie grunted in response, but obeyed, doing as he was told.
Honestly, it had been a challenge finding a taxi willing to take him out this far. Was costing a pretty penny, too. Something had come up at work, so his dad hadn’t been able to pick him up from the airport, and everyone else who could’ve been sent was unavailable. Stiles didn’t mind, he knew people were busy, he just worried he’d have been stuck out in Sacramento waiting for someone to pick him up since all the cabs he’d tried insisted Beacon Hills was too far.
This guy seemed to take pity on him. Maybe because he’d seen Stiles waiting over an hour, cycling through all the cabs and trying to get a ride out to Beacon Hills. Maybe it was near the end of his shift and he figured it would be worth the money.
When they reached the town square, as promised, Stiles leaned forward and started giving him directions to his house. It was dark when they pulled up, the cruiser usually parked on the curb gone, but he didn’t worry about that. Despite his long absence, he still had a key. Besides, he was planning on heading to the station as soon as his bags were inside to see his dad, so it wasn’t a big deal.
Stiles winced at the price staring back at him from the metre, but tried not to dwell on it while handing over his credit card. Once the payment went through, Stiles thanked the driver profusely for his kindness in bringing him all the way out there, and climbed out.
The cabbie got out too, helping with his three bags from the trunk, Stiles’ messenger bag and backpack already over his shoulders.
While they were getting his bags out, he noticed the guy’s eyes straying to his forearm, the sleeve of his plaid over-shirt having pulled back slightly.
“It’s a tattoo,” he informed him, mostly to help rid him of the confusion on his face.
The cabbie didn’t comment, evidently not expecting to have been caught, and helped haul the last bag out of the back.
He thanked the guy again as he shut the trunk, and then re-arranged all of his things so that the large hockey bag was balanced on top of the two rolling suitcases, and then rolled everything up to the front door.
He smiled while passing by the Jeep, his pride and joy, and hoped his dad had remembered to run it every now and then during his absence. It looked like it was nice and shiny—well, as shiny as a car older than him could be, he supposed—so he’d probably made sure it was ready for Stiles’ return.
Once he got to the porch steps, he let go of both suitcases and headed up with just his backpack and messenger bag. He’d made sure to put his key in an easy-to-find location before heading out, but of course, he couldn’t remember where that was now that he was back.
Finally finding it in his backpack after what felt like an eternity, he unlocked the front door and pushed it open, unable to stop the grin from spreading across his face. He inhaled deeply, feeling like he never wanted to leave again.
It was funny to realize that, during high school, all he’d ever wanted was to leave this place and live on his own without rules and responsibilities.
Four years of freedom and he was so, so glad to be home.
Home. Where toilet paper just magically appeared once it ran out. Sure, ‘magic’ was his dad in this case, but still! The number of times he’d run out of toilet paper was embarrassing. He had a new appreciation for everything parents did for their kids, because damn was being an adult hard.
Not that he was an adult. Twenty-three hardly counted as an adult.
Walking into the house, he set his backpack and messenger bag down out of the way in the entrance to the living room, then headed back outside. He brought the hockey bag up first, dropping it further down the corridor, then the two suitcases one at a time.
When everything was inside, he shut the front door, and then stood there for a few seconds, just basking in the knowledge that he was home.
It was seriously strange to think about everything that had changed in the past four years, while similarly knowing barely anything had. He was positive he’d walk into the kitchen and find his dad’s ‘secret’ junk food stash without any problems.
Because his dad was horrible at hiding stuff. Seriously, it was a good thing he’d become a cop instead of a serial killer, because he wouldn’t so much be ‘serial’ given he’d commit one crime and immediately be caught.
Wandering through the house while turning on lights, he looked around to see what had changed, and what hadn’t. The couch in the living room looked like it was on its last leg, but it was still the same old couch they’d had for years. His dad’s armchair was new though. He remembered him mentioning it about a year ago, how his old one had crapped out on him. He was glad he’d bought a new one instead of just deciding he could live without it.
His dad deserved the little things. Sure, money was tight, but it was just an armchair.
Stiles made a face when he found a few of his high school graduation pictures up around the living room. He’d still been sporting his buzz cut back then, it made him look like a kid. He’d grown his hair out in university because his friends insisted it would stop causing problems when he tried to go anywhere.
He’d been stopped in a supermarket once by an older lady asking if he’d lost his parents. It had been sweet of her to be worried, but also humiliating because she’d literally thought he was twelve.
He was nineteen at the time.
Shaking his head and deciding he’d beg his dad to burn those pictures later, he walked into the kitchen and found it looking fairly similar to usual. Grabbing a chair and climbing onto it so he could open the cupboard above the fridge, he pushed the large vase aside and dug around until his hands found a bag.
“Really, dad?” he sighed. Some things never changed.
Grabbing the bag from the cupboard, he made a face when he found two bags of Doritos and a few chocolate bars. Well, those were immediately going into Stiles’ room to be devoured later, because he wanted his dad to live to the ripe old age of one-hundred. If that meant depriving him of chips and chocolate, that was what he’d do.
He had to wonder, while replacing the chair, if his dad had continued to hide his junk food while Stiles was gone just out of habit, or if he’d remembered that morning because his bossy son was coming home.
Walking back down the corridor, he grabbed his backpack, messenger bag, and the large hockey bag and hauled it all upstairs. He had to get the light for the corridor with his elbow, but he knew the place well enough he probably could’ve made it to his room without it. The second floor looked exactly as he remembered it, and when he reached his room and kicked the door open entirely with one foot, he felt so nostalgic looking into his old room.
He still had posters for shitty bands on his walls, and the burn in the far corner when he and one of his best friends had stupidly tried to light fireworks in the house, but otherwise, it looked the same. Cleaner than he remembered, but that was probably because he hadn’t been around to make a mess of it.
The room smelled a little musty, so he wandered over to the window to crack it open, smiling to himself and inhaling deeply.
It seriously felt so good to be home. He felt more energized being surrounded by all the nature, and the familiarity. He kind of wanted to unpack and make like he’d never left, but he was already running behind. If he wasn’t careful, his dad would eat without him.
Hurrying back downstairs, he grabbed the suitcases, bringing them up one at a time, and then left everything in his room to be dealt with when he got back. Grabbing his messenger bag, he dumped everything out on his bed—see? Like he’d never left already—and snatched up the items he’d need for this outing.
When he got back downstairs, he had to go through the house to turn off the lights again. He’d missed two on the second floor, and while he kind of wanted to turn them back off, he figured having them on wasn’t a bad thing. People would think someone was home, which worked out well to avoid them getting robbed blind.
Not that anyone would ever be stupid enough to try and rob the sheriff’s house, but dumb people existed.
Locking up behind himself, he walked over to the Jeep, running his hand along the hood while passing it and unlocking the door. It stuck when he tried to open it, and reminded him so much of high school it was like he’d never left.
Getting behind the wheel felt like an experience, honestly. He sat there for a good few minutes, remembering the feel of this amazing car, and then finally started it up. The rumble was overly loud and grating, but it was like the sweetest melody he’d ever heard.
“Missed you,” he admitted to it, then shifted into reverse and backed out of the driveway.
It felt surreal driving through town again after so many years. A few people on the block out walking their dogs did double-takes, and he waved to a few of them, grinning broadly. He was positive Mrs. French down the road was already bemoaning his return, because his Jeep was not quiet and it had probably been an amazing four years of blissful silence.
At least she’d had those four years!
Honestly, he’d worried when he got back that he might not remember how to get around town. A lot could change in four years, and he thought perhaps he’d forgotten how to get from one place to another. Thankfully he hadn’t, and within minutes, he was parking in the visitor’s lot of the precinct, a few of the cops on their way out on patrol stopping in their tracks and bee-lining it over to him to greet him and give him hugs.
His face hurt from smiling by the time he got inside, only for Tara Graeme, who was manning the front desk, to let out a sound that should have shattered eardrums as she rushed around the counter and crushed him in a hug.
“Look at you! You got so big!” She pulled away, hands on his shoulders while giving him a once-over. “You look good, Stiles. Very handsome.”
“Don’t start crushing on me Tara, I’ll only break your heart,” he said solemnly.
Tara gave him a look. “Some things never change. You’re still a smartass.”
“Not just my ass that’s smart.” He winked at her over-exaggeratedly.
She rolled her eyes at him and shoved him towards the bullpen, closer to his dad’s office. “Go on, get out of here.”
“I just got back, and you want me gone already?” Stiles slapped both hands to his chest while walking backwards, affecting a wounded expression. “The pain, Tara. The agony!”
She didn’t seem repentant at all for her cruel, cruel words, but he forgave her. It was hard to stay mad at Tara, she was awesome.
Turning to walk properly, he waved and called greetings to a few of the officers, seeing one or two new ones he didn’t know. They’d become acquainted with him before long, he was sure. Jordan Parrish wasn’t at his desk, but Stiles remembered him from high school, the man having been a senior when he’d been a freshman. His dad only had good things to say about the guy, so Stiles was glad he’d managed to snag a job there.
He was a good guy, really nice. Humble, honest. It helped he was a Hellhound, though a lot of people tended to be scared of him because of it. Stiles didn’t blame them, wasn’t every day someone could just catch fire when pissed off.
Epic, though. Stiles had seen it happen once during a basketball game. The other team had freaked out. Hilarious. Stiles was an asshole in that he found that immeasurably amusing.
Reaching his dad’s office, he knocked once on the door before pushing it open. A closed door had never meant anything to him in his youth, and he certainly wasn’t going to let it deter him now. Probably a bad thing, now that he thought about it, but his dad was used to it.
Besides, when he had someone important in his office, whoever was at the front desk usually let Stiles know for this exact reason.
The second the door swung open fully, his dad was already beaming at him, half out of his chair and moving around his desk, arms open for a hug.
Fuck, it felt so good to see him!
“Hey dad,” he said, moving forward and accepting his hug, squeezing tightly.
The sheriff didn’t say anything, he just held on for dear life, one hand at the back of Stiles’ neck and the other around his shoulders, holding him tightly.
It lasted a while. Longer than Stiles had thought it would, but to be fair, it had been four years. He wasn’t complaining about the extra long hug at all. He’d missed his dad so much. FaceTime and WhatsApp were good for them, but nothing beat a bone-crushing hug from the best hugger Stiles knew.
“Missed you, kiddo.”
“You too,” he admitted, patting his dad’s back a few times. “Are you crying?”
“No.”
He was totally crying. Well, tearing up maybe. Still, it counted.
That was fine, Stiles felt overly emotional, too. It was weird to realize how much he’d missed his dad only once he had him in front of him. Of course he’d missed him while he was away, but he hadn’t realized how much until now.
“You look good, kid,” his dad said once he managed to pull away, hands on his son’s shoulders while looking him over. “Really good.”
“It’s the hair,” Stiles insisted, motioning it with a grin. “Finally look my age.”
“You definitely don’t look like you’re twelve anymore,” his dad agreed, pulling him into another tight hug. “I’m really glad you’re back.”
“Me too,” he admitted, holding him tightly. “Glad you managed to stay in one piece while I was gone.”
“I had some help.” When he pulled away this time, he took a step back so he could grab his keys off his desk. “Speaking of, you talked to Scott yet?”
“Nah, he’s at work. Texted him once I landed, but he’s got stuff going on. Besides, you’re my first date. Dinner is with you and no one else today.”
“I’m honoured.”
“Damn straight,” Stiles insisted with a grin.
His dad shook his head with a laugh, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and leading him out of the room. He locked up his office, which Stiles found interesting because it meant he had a big case going on right now, and called out that he was heading to dinner and to radio him if he was needed.
Once they got outside, Stiles almost wanted to take the Jeep to dinner since it’d been so long, but it had been just as long since he was in his dad’s cruiser, so he didn’t mind taking that instead. They didn’t go far, the diner was only a five minute drive—close enough to walk, but he was lazy so he wasn’t going to complain about his dad driving them there.
As soon as they walked in, a few people greeted him, Stiles grinning and waving to those he recognized. Consequence of a small town and being the sheriff’s troublemaker son meant everyone knew him. Well, most people, at any rate. There were definitely new faces here and there, which was always surprising.
No one moved to Beacon Hills, California. No one even really knew where it was.
The waitress led them to a booth near the back, Stiles sitting so he was facing the door, and she set down menus and some water. He perused the choices excitedly, wondering what had changed and what hadn’t. His dad had mentioned the diner had gone through an ownership change a year or so back—the old woman who owned it had gifted it to her grandson—but it was still doing as well as always. The menu didn’t seem to be any different, as far as he could tell.
And still reasonably priced, which he appreciated.
“So,” his dad said, setting his water down after having taken a sip, “tell me everything.”
“I can’t cram four years into one dinner,” Stiles insisted, rolling his eyes. “And I’ve kept you up to date on most things. I’m just happy to be back. I missed this. Nature. It felt suffocating sometimes in Chicago.”
“I didn’t think you’d last out in the city, to be honest.” His dad crossed his arms over his chest, Stiles’ eyes catching on the writing on the inside of his father’s left forearm. “Considering.”
“Wasn’t without its challenges,” Stiles said. “And city birds are assholes. Also the squirrels are like... really weird. They have issues.”
His dad let out a loud laugh at that, uncrossing his arms so he could reach across the table to pat his son on the shoulder.
“It’s good to have you back, Stiles.”
“It’s really good to be back,” he admitted honestly. “Thanks for letting me crash until I figure things out.”
“You know you can stay with me as long as you want, right?” his dad’s expression softened. “You don’t have to run out and be an adult just yet.”
“Gonna try and see if I can grab a job around town for now. Go from there, I guess.”
The sheriff nodded, thumb of his right hand rubbing lightly over the words etched into his skin on his left arm. Stiles’ eyes drifted down to them, feeling his chest tighten, but looked back up at his dad when he spoke.
“Hey.” The older man smiled. “Stop worrying about it.”
“I’m not worrying about it,” Stiles lied, leaning back in his seat. “I’ve got it covered.” He pulled up the sleeve of his over-shirt to reveal his own left forearm, where Roman numerals were inked darkly into his skin.
His father arched an eyebrow. “When you told me you were getting a tattoo of your mother’s birthday, I was expecting something more... normal.”
“Roman numerals are cool,” Stiles insisted, looking down at them. “Besides, it’s a good conversation starter.”
“People must ask about it a lot,” his dad commented. “Primarily surrounding how you managed to get that to come out of your soulmate’s mouth.”
“Usually how that goes,” Stiles admitted, lowering his sleeve and crossing his arms on the table. “But like I said, it’s a good conversation starter.”
Stiles remembered the first time he’d asked his mother about the words on her arm. He was seven, resisting the urge to fall asleep while she tucked him in, and trying to find a way to procrastinate bedtime. So, he’d asked her about it.
She wasn’t the only one who had words on her arm. His dad did, too. So did most of his teachers, and a lot of the deputies at his dad’s work.
The words on her arm said ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.’ It was a weird thing for someone to have on their arm, and she explained to him that they were the first words his father had ever spoken to her.
That was how he found out about soulmates. He’d kind of already known they existed, it was hard not to notice, but he hadn’t fully understood them yet. His little seven year old self didn’t fully understand them either, if he was honest, but having it explained by his mother certainly helped until he reached grade eight and they really got into it.
In a way, it was comforting. Knowing there was someone out in the world for everyone. Stiles liked the idea, and while he knew there were people out there who didn’t, he was a firm believer of to each their own. He’d seen both the good and bad about soulmates, and just because someone was destined as a soulmate didn’t mean there wouldn’t be hardship.
Someone could be absolutely perfect in every way and mesh well with their assigned party, and also be an alcoholic that ruined their marriage. Like his best friend Scott McCall’s parents. His parents were soulmates, and had been good for each other, had supported and loved each other. But then his father started drinking. Heavily. He’d started getting angry and violent. Eventually, the marriage fell apart and his father left town.
He didn’t think they were divorced, but they were definitely separated.
So it was possible to be soulmates and still have hardships. It was something people drilled into them the first day they’d learned about them in school.
“Just because someone is deemed to be your soulmate doesn’t mean you owe them anything,” his teacher had said.
For the most part, soulmates were great. Very few people tended to have problems, and more often than not, soulmate marriages lasted versus those who didn’t have soulmates.
Well, not didn’t, but more never found them. That was the thing that Stiles feared the most, if he was honest. Everyone had a soulmate, it was impossible not to. But some people never found them. It could be for many reasons, such as geographical distance, unfortunate deaths, near-misses, the works.
A terrifying, horrible thought for anyone, but that small glimmer of hope of someone being out there for them was enough to make the fear dissipate, for the most part.
Stiles remembered being a little obsessed with his parents after that. Well, with their bond, anyway. Their soulmate mark.
His mother’s was ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,’ and his father’s was, ‘That’s all right, accidents happen.’
He’d always believed, originally, that everyone was born with the words already etched into their skin. He remembered checking himself over from head to toe after his mother’s explanation on what the words on her arm meant, and had cried thinking he was destined to be alone. His mother had to explain to him that it didn’t work that way.
The words only appeared somewhere of importance once they were spoken. So for Stiles’ parents, both of their arms had been smooth without any trace of the words appearing up until the moment his father bumped into his mother. The second he spoke to her, the words would’ve formed on her arm, and vice versa when she replied.
It was why it was so easy for near-misses. Because people bumped into each other all the time and apologized for it, so it was entirely possible to accidentally meet a soulmate and never even know it until hours later.
And the location wasn’t fixed, either. Most people tended not to actually have a place of importance on their body, so the default was usually the inside of people’s forearms. It was why his parents both had theirs there, though it was possible to have them elsewhere.
Stiles had met someone in university who had their soulmark on their collarbone, which would’ve been really cool if their soulmate hadn’t been drunk off their ass at the time they’d met and proclaimed, ‘you’ve got amazing tits.’
Definitely not something someone wanted clearly visible on a regular basis.
Growing up, it was actually really interesting to see all the different things people had etched into their skin from their soulmates. Some of them were truly insane, and borderline hilarious. Others were very vanilla, like apologies for bumping into someone, or introductions, or even polite requests to pass by someone.
As time passed, Stiles had slowly watched all of his friends, both from high school and university, meet their soulmates. Not everyone did, because as people always said, a lot of factors could stop someone from meeting their one and only, but in his particular circle of friends, each and every one of them had met their soulmate.
If he was honest, Stiles found that depressing. To be around so many people with their soulmates while he himself hadn’t found his own... it hurt. It made him feel like something was wrong with him, even though he knew there wasn’t.
He was just unlucky, was all.
After a while, he’d started feeling uncomfortable with not having met his soulmate. When his best friend Scott McCall had come up for a visit, and decided he wanted to get a tattoo—three bands on his upper arm, Stiles didn’t question it, he just went to be supportive—he ended up chatting with one of the other employees while he was waiting.
She’d lost her soulmate in a car accident a few years back, which Stiles had felt devastated to hear, but she’d kept her memory alive by tattooing as many words as she could remember her soulmate saying to her all over her body.
Stiles had explained having lost his mother at the age of nine, and after a surprisingly convincing twenty minutes, he found himself in a chair with the employee tattooing Roman numerals on his left forearm.
His mother’s birthday. It wasn’t a soulmark, but it was just as important to him.
The thing he hadn’t considered at the time was that people would assume it was a soulmark. He’d done it on a whim—probably not something to decide on a whim, getting ink permanently etched into his skin, but whatever—but it hadn’t occurred to him until one of his classmates had asked how in the hell his soulmate had said that to him that he realized what it looked like.
Soulmarks looked just like tattoos. They weren’t always the same colour, but the way they appeared on people’s skin made them look like legitimate tattoos. And Stiles now had a tattoo clearly visible on his arm where a lot of people, his parents included, had their soulmarks.
Not his brightest idea, but as he kept saying: at least it was a good conversation starter.
Stiles’ head jerked up off his pillow at the loud sound of the garbage truck outside and he groaned, letting it fall back down and resisting the urge to suffocate himself by pulling it over his head so he could go back to sleep.
He’d spent almost all night unpacking, since his dad was at work and he had the run of the house. He’d gotten distracted by YouTube halfway through, which had delayed his unpacking, which had in turn delayed his bed time.
He’d forgotten how loud it was when it was silent. In Chicago, he’d gotten used to the noise that seemed never-ending, which meant when new noise came about, he mostly slept through it. In Beacon Hills, it was silent until it wasn’t, which meant the slightest noise woke him.
Stiles finally understood how his dad had always woken up at the smallest sound whenever he’d tried sneaking out in his youth. This was horrible. It was going to take him ten thousand years to get used to this again.
Or like, a month, at least.
On the bright side, at least he’d slept through the night, so that was a plus. He took the win.
It seemed to take forever for the stupid garbage truck to pass, but eventually, it lumbered its way down the street and disappeared from his life. Hopefully forever.
But probably only until next week.
Stiles snoozed off and on for a while longer, never fully able to pass back out now that his brain was conscious enough to acknowledge sound, but at least he was resting.
And it wasn’t like he had anything to do today. He was planning on visiting the Preserve, catch up with whatever friends were free today, and then be a couch potato for a bit. He knew he had to start looking for a job, but he wasn’t in a hurry.
Not because he was mooching off his dad, but because he had a fair amount in the bank right now and he was allowed time off, thank you very much.
It had been a very stressful existence up to this point. School, school, and more school. He just wanted like, maybe two weeks to just exist.
Besides, he had no idea what to do with his degree. He knew what he wanted to do, but it wasn’t like he could just magic his job into existence. Though that would be extremely convenient.
Would’ve been a lot easier four years ago, considering what had happened during his first year of university, but well... couldn’t win them all. Besides, it felt kind of callous to think about his employment opportunities in light of what had happened.
When he heard movement from down the corridor, and the eventual sound of his father going down the stairs, he groaned loudly again and figured he may as well get up. If he didn’t, his dad was liable to make himself something unhealthy for breakfast.
The sheriff was probably going to hate having Stiles home, since it meant he would be back to watching his diet.
Lying in bed for an additional minute, he finally inhaled deeply and forced himself to roll onto his back and sit up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes while climbing out of bed. He almost fell right off it when his foot got caught in the sheets but managed to catch himself.
Yawning widely while opening his door, he wandered down the corridor to the stairs, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and headed for the kitchen. He entered it just as his dad was preheating the oven, coffee in hand.
He’d noticed that yesterday. The new coffeemaker. It had a timer on it for when to start making coffee, and then kept it warm for up to four hours after brewing. Stiles loved it already and hadn’t even used it yet.
Better than their old coffeepot.
“Morning,” he mumbled, making a beeline for the coffee and grabbing a mug from the cupboard.
“Morning,” his dad replied. “You sleep okay?”
“Until the truck came by.” The coffee wasn’t so much in a pot as it was more of a dispenser. Like those fountain drinks at McDonald’s. It was kind of cool. He pushed his mug against it, and watched as steaming hot coffee began to fill it.
This was literally the best morning ever.
“You’ll get used to it again,” his dad reassured him, patting his shoulder once. “I was going to make eggs and hashbrowns.”
“Egg whites only for you.”
“Stiles—”
“You had four years of freedom,” Stiles informed him, turning back and beginning to sip at his coffee, leaning against the counter behind him. “I’m back now, and you are going to suffer through healthy eating again.”
His dad sighed, but evidently wasn’t going to argue with him on this. At least not yet. Maybe tomorrow morning he would, but for now, Stiles would allow the hashbrowns, but he drew the line at the egg yolks.
It was probably why his dad wasn’t arguing, because at least he was getting hashbrowns.
Stiles shooed him away from the stove so he could take over, which his dad didn’t seem to have a problem with. The older man moved to the table and sat down, sipping at his coffee while Stiles grabbed the eggs out of the fridge and cracked three of them into a bowl, separating out the yolks. He figured it might be easier to just make scrambled eggs for his dad, and he could grab some ingredients from the store later to do something with the egg yolks. He didn’t want them to go to waste, and even though he hadn’t had to do this for four years, he still remembered a ton of recipes he could use egg yolks in.
Nothing his dad could eat, but Stiles had to eat too!
He’d just pulled a pan out and was laying the hashbrowns onto it when his dad spoke behind him.
“So what are your plans for the day?”
“I was gonna visit my tree,” he said. “And see if Scott or Jackson are free later.”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on it for you,” his dad said, as if Stiles didn’t already know that. “It’s been looking good.”
“Trees tend to figure their own shit out. More resilient than plants.” Stiles shoved the tray of hashbrowns into the oven, even though it hadn’t beeped to confirm it was done pre-heating. Whatever, he was sure it’d be fine.
That was how all of his cooking worked. He did the thing, and it turned out okay.
After pulling out the only non-stick pan they owned for his dad’s eggs, he grabbed another one for himself and sighed when he saw how much butter was missing from the block in the fridge. His dad really was predictable.
He didn’t berate him though. He would just be in charge of the food again now that he was back.
“Actually, if you’re going into the Preserve today, maybe you can do me a favour.”
“Sure.” Stiles cracked two eggs into his pan, debating whether he wanted them sunny-side up or over-easy. He figured he’d see how hard they were to flip and go from there. “We have any bread?”
“In the pantry.”
Stiles moved over to grab the loaf, pulling four pieces out since he knew his dad would want some as well. Their toaster could only do two at a time, but it was likely his dad’s would be done first anyway.
“We’ve had a bit of a situation in the Preserve the past few years.”
“Oh yeah?” Stiles asked, dumping his dad’s egg whites into the non-stick pan once it was hot enough and grabbing a spatula. “What kind of situation?”
“A wolf.”
Stiles turned to cock an eyebrow at his dad. “Here? There are no wolves in California, dad.”
“Thank you, Mr. Expert,” the sheriff said sarcastically, still holding his mug of coffee in one hand and giving Stiles a look. “No one knows where it came from. Whether it was being illegally transported and managed to escape or if it was intentionally set loose in the Preserve. All we know is, there is a wolf in the Preserve.”
“Is it dangerous?” Stiles asked curiously. He knew wolves tended to be pack animals, so if this one was alone, it was entirely possible it wouldn’t feel comfortable trying to attack anyone. It didn’t have backup if something went wrong.
“It’s smart,” his dad said, sipping his coffee and putting his mug down. “We’ve been trying to catch it for years, but it doesn’t seem to fall for any of our traps. It’s come out into town a few times, but it always runs off before we can grab it. Animal control’s come out numerous times, and we even had an expert last year, but it’s really sneaky. I thought maybe you could try and talk to it. We’re not trying to hurt it, we just want to get it back where it belongs.”
Stiles nodded, turning back to the stove and beginning to scramble his dad’s eggs. His own were taking a while to cook, but the edges were browning. He’d probably used a bit too much butter.
Oh well, butter was bad for his dad, not him.
“I’ll see if I happen upon it while I’m out there,” Stiles confirmed. “Maybe I can find out where it came from and we can get it back there.”
“Thanks Stiles.”
“S’what I’m here for.”
His dad let out a small snort, but Stiles just grinned and finished up with his dad’s eggs. The toast popped at about the same time, so he got it all on a plate and went to hand it over to his dad. The hashbrowns weren’t done yet, but he didn’t worry about it. He just finished up with his own eggs—he decided on over-easy—and then went to join his dad at the table.
They could devour the hashbrowns afterwards.
“So,” his dad said, stabbing at his eggs and looking put out, but at least not complaining about it, “what are your overall plans, then? Still the same?”
“Haven’t changed,” he confirmed. “Just a bit harder now that the company I wanted to work for kind of went belly-up.”
His dad gave him a look. “Stiles, the entire family was murdered in our own town, maybe remember that before saying things like that.”
Stiles inclined his head in acknowledgement for his lack of tact, but it wasn’t like anyone was around to hear it aside from his dad. Besides, it really did suck that the company had gone under because the family who owned it had died.
Well, not all of them.
He’d been halfway through his first year of university when it had all gone down. Their little town in the middle of nowhere had somehow become ground zero for some batshit crazy Druid. Or a Darach, he supposed. Whatever.
She’d been working on a ritual to make her all-powerful or something, Stiles hadn’t really paid much attention to it at the time because he was more worried about his dad. He was honestly terrified something was going to happen to him while he was out investigating all the murders.
After the ninth murder in the ritual, and absolutely no leads, his dad had called them.
The Hales.
Apparently they used to live in Beacon Hills and still owned property there, but they’d moved to New York when Stiles was still in pre-school and had made a name for themselves. They were a family of Werewolves with an extensive knowledge of the Supernatural. By the time Stiles had started university, they were one of the best Supernatural hunting companies in the world.
They’d started up with family only—the two parents, and the mom’s brother at first, then added their eldest daughter and their son when they were old enough. They had a second daughter and a niece, but both were around the same age as Stiles, so definitely too young at the very beginning to be working there. They were slated to join once they were old enough, and had probably formally been a part of the company once they’d graduated high school. He knew both the eldest daughter and son had worked at the company while attending university, so it was likely the younger daughter and niece would be the same.
As years passed, they added a few more people, and things were going well. Extremely well. They were very well-off, and could solve almost every crime with hardly any problems, it was nuts. Stiles had been kind of obsessed with them in high school.
They even had their own show, they were so good.
No one had expected them to fall as hard as they did, especially not in a small town in California on what should’ve been a routine assignment for people so experienced.
His dad had called them about the rituals, and they’d come immediately. Stiles figured it was because this was their hometown, even though none of the Hales had lived there for years.
They hadn’t all come. Only the parents, their eldest daughter and their son. The uncle, Peter Hale, had remained back in New York with the youngest daughter and his own daughter, Cora and Malia respectively.
As far as the news had said—and the extra information he managed to trick out of his dad—the four Hales had determined almost immediately what kind of Supernatural being they were up against. The problem was, the Darach they were after knew they were there. It meant they had to play a game of cat and mouse.
No one was entirely sure what had happened, but from what he’d gathered from his dad, the Hales and Darach had encountered each other when the latter was finalizing the next part of the ritual in the Preserve. They’d found another dead body tied to a tree close to where the carnage was.
It had not been a battle easily won. The two Hale parents were thought to have died first, completely torn to shreds by magic. The eldest daughter, Laura, was presumed to have died next in much the same manner.
The Darach herself was found dead next to charred earth and smoking trees. The popular opinion was she and the eldest son, Derek, had been the last ones standing and had taken each other out. The Darach had had her throat ripped out, and the charred earth in front of her—well, it suggested there wasn’t enough of Derek Hale left for them to find.
Peter Hale had been forced to come out to Beacon Hills to identify the bodies, but he hadn’t lingered long. He’d made arrangements for the Hales—what was left of them, anyway—to be buried in the town cemetery where the rest of the Hales had been laid to rest, but hadn’t allowed Cora to come.
His dad said everything was done as quickly as possible, and was under the impression it was to ensure Cora didn’t have the opportunity to see what had become of her parents and sister. Stiles was willing to bet he hadn’t even told her there wasn’t enough left of Derek to bury.
Peter Hale had taken time away from the business after that to take care of his niece and daughter. The company had been entrusted to the wrong person—someone named Kate Argent—who drove it into the ground at rapid speed, only for the Argent Agency to rise up less than four months later. It was clear she’d been sent in to destroy the Hales from the inside so that she and her family could become the new monopoly in the United States where Supernatural incidents were concerned.
It was a shitty thing to do, especially to a family still grieving, but people were assholes that way.
Stiles had spent his whole teenage life gearing up to join the Hales, wanting to fight the good fight with his impeccable research skills and his charismatic personality. Unfortunately, that all went down in flames, and now he was stuck either doing his own thing as a consultant, or joining the Argents.
As much as he wanted to do this job, it didn’t sit well with him. He didn’t want to join the Argents after what they’d done to the Hales. He felt like he would be rewarding them by offering his services, and he didn’t want that.
Besides, he was still hopeful the three remaining Hales would rebuild and rise back up to their former glory. While the company had been run into the ground, everyone knew Peter Hale was an extremely smart man, and a phenomenal investor. They were still as rich as ever, so he figured the Werewolf was just biding his time and would come back with a vengeance.
Especially now that Cora and Malia would’ve been finished with university, same as Stiles. If he heard even a whisper of the company trying to get off the ground again, Stiles would have his resume in Peter’s hand so fast, the man would say, “How did you get into my house?”
It was all he’d ever wanted to do. Help people with what he was good at.
And what he was good at was research.
Well, that, and his whole nature thing, but he didn’t know how beneficial that was in the grand scheme of things.
When the oven finally went off to announce it was done preheating, Stiles went to pull the hashbrowns out. They were fully cooked, though not as crispy as he’d have liked. Whatever, good enough.
He dumped half on his plate and half on his dad’s before hunting down the ketchup and finishing up his breakfast with his old man.
In a way, it was good the truck had woken him up earlier than anticipated, because it meant he could head out to see his tree and grab groceries to make his dad a healthy dinner before he headed out for his shift.
His dad was going to hate having him home.
“I can’t believe your dumb ass came all the way back to this place. You got out, Stiles. What kind of moron graduates university in a city like Chicago and thinks, ‘You know what’s a good idea? Moving back in with my dad in the middle of fucking nowhere and dying alone and jobless.’”
“Okay first off, that’s rude, I am very attractive and charismatic, people will be all over me and I’d be hard-pressed to die alone,” Stiles said, pointing a finger at his phone, even though it wasn’t visible since... it was a phone. “And second, I haven’t seen my dad in four years, and Scotty in at least two. Even if I end up jobless for a few months, I want the opportunity to catch up and spend some time with them. I have enough money saved to not be a leech on dad for a while, so I’ll be fine. And if I have to get a part-time somewhere until something else comes up, then I will.”
Stiles ducked under a low-hanging branch, reaching out with one hand to brush his fingers along the trunks of the trees he passed and feeling his blood singing in his veins. God, it felt so good being here.
“What about me, you selfish jackass?!”
Rolling his eyes, Stiles said, “Jackson, I literally saw you last week when you dropped by because you were bored. You have the means to see me whenever you want, so until that changes, you’re not on the docket for priority, sorry.”
“You could’ve gone home if you’d taken me up on all my offers, but no, you had to be all noble.” He could picture Jackson Whittemore rolling his eyes on the other end of the line, like he thought Stiles turning down his multiple offers of flying him home in business class was selfish of him.
It was the opposite of selfish. Stiles would’ve loved to take him up on it every single time, but Jackson was his friend, not his bank account, and he wasn’t going to use him like that. He appreciated that Jackson was trying to do something nice for him, and he loved his friend more than anything for pretending to be an asshole while simultaneously being the most selfless person Stiles knew barring his dad, but that only made him more determined not to take advantage of his kindness.
Stiles wasn’t going to use his friend like that. He cared about him too much.
“You know why I didn’t accept those offers, Jackson.” Stiles sighed, leaning back against a tree and closing his eyes, basking in the smell of earth and greenery and the warm sun on his skin. “I’m here now. Despite all your griping about me wasting my life by coming back here, it means I’ll be around for as long as you want me to be. We can hang out as much as you want while I figure out what to do with my life.”
“I could use an assistant,” Jackson said.
“You have an assistant. I know your dad hired one for you, and they’re probably a lot more qualified than I am.”
“She’s boring and easily butt-hurt,” he argued.
“By that, you mean she isn’t used to your level of asshole the way I am. You’ll figure it out, just give her a chance.”
It didn’t sound like Jackson wanted to give her a chance, if the grumbling was anything to go by, but after a few more seconds he muttered that he had to go and that he would be seeing Stiles for dinner or else. Stiles just saluted him, despite Jackson not being able to see him. It didn’t matter anyway, because his friend hung up on him before he could get another word in.
He didn’t mind, he was used to it. Jackson tried very hard to make everyone think he was an asshole because he worried about anyone finding out he was actually a huge softie. Stiles was glad, honestly. Not to toot his own horn or anything, but he knew that he himself would never take advantage of his kind-hearted friend like that. Other people weren’t so noble.
Putting his phone away, since he knew Scott was working and he hadn’t heard back from him yet, he stayed where he was for a few seconds and just felt the trees around him, enjoying the way they pushed and pulled.
He wasn’t as connected to everything as his mother, but he could still feel it. Considering he was half-Nature Spirit, it was more than a lot of people thought he could do. He wasn’t as powerful as his mother, who had herself been a pure Nature Spirit, but he wasn’t bad.
Stiles was still affected by nature as much as any others, and while he might not be able to move the earth or control the wind or anything, he did all right. He could speed up the growth of flora, and he had the same innate ability as his mother to communicate with fauna. Speaking to animals wasn’t exactly as exciting as people thought it was, but he liked it all the same.
And he loved the Preserve. It reminded him of his mother.
Her parents had not been happy when she’d married a human, but they hadn’t been nasty about it, either. Stiles had never met them, they’d passed before he was born, but his mom used to tell him stories about them, and his dad often reaffirmed that they were good people. Other Supernaturals with rebellious daughters may have disowned them entirely for marrying a human, but not his grandparents. They’d valued their daughter more than tradition.
Besides, his dad was awesome, Stiles wasn’t surprised he’d won them over.
Still, growing up in Beacon Hills had made him unaware of just how hard it was living in a big city away from nature. It had affected him a lot more than he’d thought it would, and he honestly felt like he could breathe again just being near the trees.
After basking for a few moments, he remembered he was there to visit his tree and opened his eyes, pushing away from the one he was leaning against and beginning to walk the all-too familiar path.
He didn’t have to go much further, since he’d already been almost there by the time he stopped to bask in the energy of the Preserve, so when he finally walked out into a tiny clearing with a stream, he beamed at the sight of his tree over by the far side of the clearing. It was decently close to the rest of the trees in the area, but far enough away that it had its own space.
His mother had done it on purpose, insisting it would grow twice as large as other trees, and twice as fast so long as Stiles always made sure to take care of it.
Wandering over to it, feet getting wet when he walked through the stream, he placed his hand on the bark and pressed his forehead against it, closing his eyes.
“Hey you,” he said quietly. “It’s been a while.”
He couldn’t talk to trees—it’d be convenient, though probably a little weird so he wasn’t mad about it—but he knew trees listened.
This was his tree. The first and last gift his mother had ever given him.
She’d planted it when she found out she was pregnant, and had come by often with his dad to watch it grow. By the time Stiles was born, the tree was already almost a foot tall, aided by his mother’s abilities. When she passed away when Stiles was nine, he remembered coming to the tree and crying.
His dad found him there hours later after having searched high and low for him. That was when Stiles realized this tree was everything to him, because it was the first and last thing his mother had given to him. This tree she’d planted for him before he’d even been born.
It became the most important place in the world to him. He came by and told this tree everything, like his mother was somehow still there listening to him, as long as he talked to it. So he did. And he made sure to help it grow, to keep it healthy.
By the time he’d left for university, it had already grown to almost forty feet, as far as he could tell. Now, it had to be bigger. He was just glad it was healthy. He had so much to share with it.
Four years was a long time, after all, and trees didn’t use cell phones.
“Nuts. Berries? Nuts?”
Stiles opened his eyes and glanced down, seeing a chipmunk right beside his left shoe, staring up at him.
A grin almost split his face apart.
“Alvin! Holy shit! Look at you, you got so big!” He bent down and held his hand out flat, the little chipmunk scuttling onto his palm and sniffing around it before looking back up at him expectantly.
“Nuts. Nuts?”
“Sorry buddy, I didn’t bring any nuts with me today.” He used one finger to pet the small animal’s head, still grinning at it. “Man, you were so little when I saw you last! Can’t believe how big you got. And chunky. What’s all this?” He poked at the chipmunk’s side. “Look at all this. You’re never gonna attract the ladies if you eat all their food, you know.”
“Nuts? Nuts. Berries?”
Stiles laughed, petting the chipmunk for a few more seconds before bending down to let it back onto the ground. It scurried around his feet for a bit before approaching his tree and sniffing at it.
Honestly, he was surprised the little chipmunk remembered him. It had been four years, and it was only a few months old when Stiles had first met it. Still, he wasn’t complaining. He knew a lot of the other chipmunks and squirrels he’d named over the years had probably passed on by now. The thought made him sad, but circle of life and all that.
He always found it funny when he interacted with animals. He could understand them, and he knew they could understand him—to a degree—but they spoke pretty much the same way a little kid did.
Sentences weren’t a thing at all, and most of the time they just repeated back words Stiles was saying to them. Most of them wanted food or protection or pets, but that was about it. He remembered how disappointed his best friend Scott McCall had been the first time Stiles had told him all the dog kept saying was he wanted to play fetch.
No deep, philosophical discussions with animals, that was for sure.
And some of them didn’t even speak to him at all. Animals were just like humans, they could choose to speak or choose not to. Some of them got confused when they heard Stiles speak, because they could understand him, but recognized he wasn’t like them. Others were just shy or scared.
Chipmunks and squirrels didn’t give two shits.
Neither did pigeons.
They saw a human, recognized it understood them, and immediately asked for food. Stiles had not had fun with the pigeons and squirrels on campus in Chicago.
He bent down so he was a bit closer to Alvin, who was still sniffing around the base of his tree.
“Hey buddy, have you seen the wolf?”
“Wolf? Wolf. Wolf.” Alvin said, turning back to him and scuttling over quickly. “Nuts?”
“Focus, Alvin,” Stiles insisted. “Have you seen it? The wolf. A big animal.”
Alvin made his way around Stiles quickly, forcing him to turn his head to keep him in sight. “Big animal. Big. Big.”
“Yeah, big. Like me, but not me. Furry. You know,” Stiles said, and then howled quietly.
Alvin instantly panicked and leapt at Stiles, trying to make it into his clothing for protection. The little chipmunk almost made it under Stiles’ shirt before settling with Stiles grabbing him and holding him inside the flap of his open over-shirt and out of sight.
“Predator! Predator! Not safe! Wolf. Wolf. Eat. Big.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Stiles sighed and reached into the little safe zone with his other hand to pet the chipmunk. It was trembling, and he felt bad for having scared the poor guy.
He looked around, wondering if he should go looking for it, but he didn’t want to spend too much time doing that right now. He had to buy groceries and make food for his dad to bring to work so he wouldn’t have an excuse to eat at the diner, and he was apparently having dinner with Jackson—and hopefully Scott—tonight so he couldn’t exactly linger.
Waiting for Alvin to calm down—it didn’t take long, it never seemed to with the chipmunks—he pulled the little guy out from inside his over-shirt and set him back on the forest floor.
“Nuts?”
“I’ll bring you some nuts tomorrow, okay?” He pet it lightly and smiled. “It’s good to see you, buddy.”
He stood, pressed his palm against the tree, and felt content. He pushed some nature magic into it, wanting to make sure it stayed strong and healthy, and then let his hand slide off the bark.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” he told his tree. “I’ll see you soon.”
Turning, he headed back the way he’d come, splashing through the stream once more. When he made it to the trees across the clearing, he paused and turned when he felt something watching him, the hair on the back of his neck rising. He scanned the opposite tree line, but saw nothing.
He almost called out, figuring it had to be the wolf, but he heard leaves rustling soon after and knew it had turned away to disappear further into the Preserve.
Stiles hesitated, wanting to go after it, but he was short on time. He had nothing planned for tomorrow, he could spend the whole day in there looking for the wolf.
“I’ll be back,” he promised—Alvin, his tree, the wolf. “See you tomorrow.”
He faced forward again, ducked under a branch, and disappeared back through the trees.
“Stiles!”
It was a good thing Stiles didn’t get embarrassed easily, because if he did, Scott screaming his name across the restaurant probably would’ve qualified as embarrassing. Thankfully, Stiles was plenty embarrassing all on his own and didn’t need the help of anyone else, so he was virtually immune to any and all forms of embarrassment.
Grinning broadly while getting to his feet, he watched Scott rush across the restaurant, ignoring the looks some of the other patrons were throwing his way. When his friend reached him, he practically threw himself at him. Stiles was just lucky he was used to it, because he didn’t fall over and upend the table he’d gotten for them.
Scott crushed him in the best hug ever—second only to his dad, of course—and patted his back a few times. Stiles held him back just as tightly, because wow. Two years was a long time. He’d honestly expected Scott to look different, but he... really didn’t.
Aside from the stubble he now sported, and the shorter hair, he looked exactly the same. Hadn’t even grown any more since they’d last seen each other, whereas Stiles had. He was glad to finally be taller than Scott.
It was his turn to make jokes about his height! Bad enough Scott used to make fun of him the same as everyone else for his buzzed head and short stature, he was looking forward to the tables being turned.
“It’s so good to see you, man!” Scott pulled away, beaming at him. “Love the hair, you actually look your age now.”
“Thanks. Hey, did you shrink? I swear you used to be taller.” He grinned when Scott rolled his eyes and shoved him lightly, but he was still beaming at him like he was the most amazing sight he’d seen in a while.
They both took their seats, Scott debating whether he wanted to sit beside Stiles or across from him. He opted to sit across from him, because sitting beside him meant he’d be staring at Jackson all night.
His two closest friends did not get along. They tolerated each other for his sake, but Scott had never warmed up to Jackson’s unique way of showing love, and Jackson got frustrated with Scott’s inability to delve into the grey area of things. His friend was very black and white, whereas Stiles and Jackson did perfectly fine in the grey.
Scott rolled up the sleeves of his ‘old man sweater,’ as Stiles decided he would call it, displaying the soulmark he had wrapped around his wrist in neat little print. People always said the font of people’s soulmarks matched whatever their voice sounded like to the recipient, so Stiles had always joked that Scott had been in fairy-land when his soulmate—and now fiancé—had first spoken to him.
The words were in a cursive, loopy font that actually matched Kira Yukimura’s personality. She was sweet, and kind, and definitely the kind of girl to bring home to mama, but she had some bite to her, too. She was a total badass, and last Stiles had heard, she’d reached the top level in Judo and was now basically considered a lethal weapon.
It was super hot, in a totally not-into-his-friend’s-fiancé-but-also-able-to-appreciate-how-hot-strong-women-were sort of way.
His eyes strayed to the loopy words, wrapping around his wrist in a cute little, ‘Oh, thank you so much’ display, and tried to smile instead of being jealous. It was always hard not to, but he managed all right.
“Dude, I have so much to tell you,” Scott insisted, looking like he was already making a mental list of everything he had to share with him since they last spoke on the phone. “Deaton said he’s willing to help pay for my vet tech course as long as I sign a contract with him confirming my employment once I graduate, so I’ll be all set for a job once I’m done and he’s going to help foot the bill so mom doesn’t have to!”
“That’s amazing!” Stiles said honestly, startled at the words. “Holy shit, congrats man! Deaton’s such a good guy!”
“Right?” Scott was practically vibrating in his seat. “He and mom sat down and had a long chat about it. He knows how hard it was getting my degree, because school’s not cheap, but I did really well and got accepted into Purdue University for the fall semester! That’s like, the number one vet tech school in the country!”
“Wow.” Stiles didn’t know what to say. He was stunned, honestly. Not because he thought Scott couldn’t do it, since he’d worked hard and studied his butt off the past four years trying to make good grades to get into veterinary school, but mostly because it was weird to realize Scott was moving forward into his dream career.
Scott had wanted to be a vet as long as Stiles could remember. Ever since they were kids. He’d gotten a part-time job manning the front at the clinic in town, owned by Alan Deaton—consequently, also the only Druid they had in town—and as he grew more and more interested, Deaton had started showing him a few things in the back. He’d mostly done it to see if Scott was serious about his career path, but also because he needed the help since nobody else in this small town was interested in being a vet.
It was crazy to realize Scott was actually doing it. He was out there, working hard, about to go to school in another state in the fall to actually be a vet.
Or a vet tech, whichever, Stiles honestly didn’t know the difference.
And he knew Jackson was well on his way to having a career. He’d been fast-tracked through university, doubling up on his credits as much as possible so he could get into law school as quickly as possible. He’d only graduated in December, but had already been brought on as a junior partner in his father’s law firm.
His two closest friends both had their soulmates—Jackson’s was some other rich lawyer’s son he’d met in law school named Ethan, who lived in England but was planning on moving to the States as soon as his twin brother was done his own schooling to be an accountant—and they both had their careers all lined up.
Stiles didn’t even have a part-time job right now. Sure, he’d only just graduated and his own plans for a career had gone down in flames when the Hales had passed away, but still...
He felt like both of them had their lives together, with careers and soon-to-be spouses, and plans for the future, and Stiles had...
Well, honestly, he had nothing.
No job, no soulmate, no future plans. All he had was his dad, and while he loved the guy, that wasn’t exactly the future he’d always envisioned for himself.
Stiles rubbed absently at his tattoo while Scott continued to talk about his eventual plans for the fall. He was going to have to find a place to rent down in Indiana, where the school was located, and he and Kira were talking about timing for their wedding since they didn’t want to cut corners on it.
“You’ll be best man, of course.”
“Of course,” Stiles said, managing a smile. “I better be. Kira choose a maid of honour yet?”
“Her mom is really pressuring her to make it her cousin, but I’m pretty sure she’s gonna go with Lydia. They’ve been friends for years, and it’s Kira’s day, as I keep reminding her, so she should get to do what she wants.”
“It’s your day too, man.” Stiles reached across the table to pat his shoulder. “Not just about the bride, you know.”
Scott grinned at him, but the smile slowly slid off his face a moment later. Stiles didn’t even have to turn to know why.
“You just had to choose the table in the middle of the restaurant, didn’t you?” Jackson asked, falling into the chair beside Stiles and pulling the menu over so he could peruse it.
“They didn’t have any other seats where you could see the door,” Stiles insisted, but he didn’t dwell on it too much. Jackson wasn’t listening, and was probably just complaining to annoy Scott, anyway.
Stiles had a thing about having his back to doors when in a public setting. He didn’t know why, he’d never experienced anything horrible happening to him as a child or anything. It was just one of those things where he couldn’t have his back to a door in public. At home, he was fine, but if he was in a restaurant, or a coffeshop, or a diner, whatever, he needed to be able to see the doors.
It made things really uncomfortable when he used to go to the Starbucks on campus in Chicago, because it had two entrances at opposite ends. He’d had a hell of a time finding a place to sit where he could see both of them, and the few times he hadn’t managed to, he’d ended up leaving before finishing his drink because he was too uncomfortable.
Everyone had their little idiosyncrasies. At least Stiles’ didn’t hurt anyone. He just didn’t like being caught off-guard.
He assumed maybe it was the Nature Spirit in him. Humans had never treated nature kindly, so he probably just felt really uncomfortable with the idea of having someone able to sneak up on him. Not that one generally ‘snuck up’ in a restaurant or coffee shop but regardless.
Scott didn’t quite clam up at Jackson’s appearance, but he wasn’t as chatty about how things were going as he’d been a moment ago. They’d moved away from the wedding talks, and Stiles assumed it was because Jackson wasn’t invited. He didn’t think Jackson cared, considering Stiles doubted Scott would be invited to his.
Then again, Jackson was still a secret softie, so he may invite Scott just so he could mix in some assholeness and some kindness all at once. It would be a dick move, since Jackson was probably going to get married after Scott, which meant Scott would feel guilty for not having invited him to his wedding, but it would also be nice because while the two of them may never have gotten along, they still hung out enough that they were... not friends, but a version of it when two people spent their lives growing up together while never getting along.
Regardless, Stiles wasn’t going to say anything to either of them. This was their day, and they could invite whoever they wanted.
He did often think about how anxiety-inducing his own wedding would be though—provided he found his soulmate or someone dumb enough to marry his ass—because he’d have a hell of a time choosing a best man.
The safest bet may honestly be to ask someone else. Like Scott’s mother. He wouldn’t mind having Melissa as his best woman. Couldn’t ask his dad, the guy would be blubbering in the front row taking a bazillion pictures, otherwise he’d definitely be his first choice.
It was nice catching up with Scott—and sort of Jackson, since again, he’d literally seen him last week—and while dinner was always a little awkward when the two of them were together, it was still a good time.
“When’re you free next?” Scott asked while he took the last bite of his cherry cheesecake, licking some of the sauce off his lips. “We should hang out, it’s literally been so long since we’ve been together.”
“I don’t have a job right now, so it’s more working around your schedule.”
Jackson coughed.
“The plural your,” Stiles insisted, rolling his eyes and giving Jackson a look. “Both of your schedules. He works for a vet’s office and you’re in law. Both of you have crazy schedules and hours. I’m currently still unemployed, I have all the time in the world.”
“You gonna look for a job?” Scott asked curiously. “I know you wanted to work for that Supernatural company out in New York, but are you gonna switch to that one other company? The Argents, or whatever?”
“No,” Stiles said vehemently. “Those people are absolutely not benefiting from my amazing research skills after what they did.”
“They saw an opportunity and took it,” Jackson argued. “Stop being so damn salty.”
“They did not see an opportunity,” Stiles insisted, turning to him, borderline offended. “They purposefully sabotaged the Hale’s company so they could create their own. And now I’m stuck trying to find a new career path because of it.”
“Could always be a zookeeper,” Jackson offered with a smirk, taking a sip of his coffee and making a face, presumably because it was now cold.
Served the asshole right. Karma, right there.
“Hey, speaking of which, you hear about the wolf?” Scott asked.
“Yeah, dad told me about it.” Stiles scraped the bottom of his plate with the side of his fork, wanting to get absolutely every last drop of chocolate from his own chocolatey dessert. No chocolate left behind! “He wants to see if I can talk to it, figure out how it got here and to let it know we’re not trying to hurt it, we just want to get it home.”
“Is that safe?” Jackson asked, scowling slightly. “This isn’t like a mole-rat or a platypus, it’s a fucking wolf.”
“Okay, first of all, I’ve never even seen a mole-rat before, let alone spoken to one,” Stiles insisted, giving Jackson a weird look for his choice of comparison. “Second, it’s probably scared and confused. When it realizes it can understand me, I don’t think its first instinct is going to be to attack me.”
“Can you shorten that sentence a little?” Jackson asked. When Stiles gave him a confused look, he said, “I need something shorter for your tombstone.”
Stiles rolled his eyes and flipped him the bird, still scraping at the remainder of his chocolate in hopes of getting more.
He wasn’t worried about the wolf hurting him, he just had to find it. That was the goal for tomorrow, searching high and low for the animal in the Preserve to hopefully get it home.
And if it did attack him? Well... Lesson learned, he supposed.
Not that it would be much of a lesson if he was dead...
Jackson’s worries about Stiles being murdered by a large wolf in the Preserve ended up being unfounded since Stiles spent literally eight hours in the damn thing looking for it and came up empty. He went back the following day, and the day after, and the day after that, but as his dad had said, the wolf was smart.
It didn’t seem to ever be around, and whenever Stiles thought maybe he’d found it, he came up empty. The wolf was really, really smart. No wonder no one had ever managed to catch it.
And it wasn’t even hostile or anything, either. Even his dad admitted that every time it was seen in town, it didn’t go after anyone, or try and hurt anyone. It was like it was trying to find something or go somewhere, and would run off the second it was spotted to avoid being captured.
All in all, it was a weird animal. As far as Stiles could tell, it just wanted to be left alone. But maybe it also just wanted to get home, and it couldn’t. That was what Stiles wanted to help it with, which would be a lot easier if the damn thing would make itself known when Stiles called out to it.
Five days later though, and no dice.
While he wanted to keep trying to find it, he also needed to find a job, so while he’d much rather be out in the Preserve trying to protect nature and re-unite the wolf with its family, he knew tomorrow he would have to start trying to find a job.
There wasn’t much in Beacon Hills, but even if he had to work as a bag boy at twenty-three, at least it was something. And he’d worked as a bag boy for a year in high school so really, it wouldn’t be so bad to go back. It was a relatively mundane job, but at least he would get to talk to people and hopefully entertain himself.
He’d been hoping for something a tad more exciting, but at least he acknowledged a job was a job, and on top of that, people at the store were terrible gossips. Stiles liked a good dirty little secret, so he wouldn’t be mad if people started confiding in him the way most people tended to confide in bartenders.
It made him wish he knew anything about mixing drinks, because he’d love to work at the club in town. Though maybe he could find a job as a—well, not a bouncer, but maybe a waiter or something. He felt like he recalled most of the waiters being women, for some reason. Which was weird, when he really thought about it, because Jungle was a gay bar.
Why their tiny little town had a gay bar, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t mad about it. Jackson certainly wasn’t mad about it, though Stiles doubted he’d visited the place much given he had his soulmate. Stiles was a free man, destined to die alone, so he could dance it up with other men as much as he wanted.
He was still thinking about flashing lights and deafening bass as he fell asleep, wondering about his chances to actually snag a job there when he finally passed out. He woke up some indeterminable amount of time later screaming his head off with his dad holding him tightly from behind, insisting he was okay, that everything was fine, that he was safe.
Stiles didn’t know what happened, but to be fair, he never did, and he clutched tightly at his dad’s closest arm, struggling to calm his rapid breathing and stop the tears streaming down his face. His heart was like a battering ram against his ribs, painful in his chest, but he did his best to ignore it and just focus on his dad behind him.
The man’s grip was firm, grounding, comforting. It made sense, considering this was something the sheriff had been forced to endure Stiles’ entire life. He was well-practised at it now, and Stiles was honestly surprised his father hadn’t forgotten how to calm him down after four years away.
It had been a long four years for Stiles, wrought with a lot of uncomfortable conversations, embarrassment, and the occasional grumpy roommate. Most of them were pretty okay with this parasomnia Stiles had, but not everyone was as understanding when woken up in the middle of the night by someone screaming their head off and thrashing around. Especially when they got smacked in the face while trying to wake him up.
For a few moments, he and his dad stayed where they were, his father holding him tightly from behind, one arm trapped beneath the sheriff’s firm grip and the other loose, allowing Stiles to hold onto his dad’s forearm for dear life. It took a while for Stiles’ breathing to even out, and his heart even longer than that.
“You okay?” his dad asked when the worst of it seemed to have passed. His heart was still a touch faster than normal, but he was calming down.
“Yeah,” Stiles managed to get out, then cleared his throat at the hoarseness of it from the screaming. “Yeah, I’m good. Sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize for, kiddo.” His dad held him a moment longer, like he was afraid to let him go, but eventually slowly loosened his grip. “Thought maybe you’d gotten over that. You’ve been back for a while and didn’t have one, so I was hopeful things had improved during your time away.”
Stiles twisted on his bed so he could lean back against the wall, bringing his knees up and raking a hand through his sweaty hair. He winced at the feeling, but did his best to ignore it, letting his hand drop back down to rest on his bent knee.
“They’re less common than they used to be,” he admitted. “But they’re not gone.”
His dad looked sad to hear this, but Stiles just shrugged. He’d lived his whole life with this, so he was kind of used to it by now.
Sleep terrors—also known as night terrors. The thing he hated the most about them was he had no idea what they actually were. Sleep terrors weren’t like nightmares. He knew what nightmares were like, because he’d experienced a lot of them after his mother’s passing. Nightmares could be remembered. They jerked people awake, made them uncomfortable and scared.
He wished sleep terrors were the same way, but they weren’t. He woke up having absolutely no recollection of what he’d just been dreaming about. All he knew was he woke up screaming and flailing, because that usually started before he was conscious. He would just have a full-blown meltdown while unconscious and upon waking, he couldn’t remember a thing.
He used to have them at least three times a week when he was little, but they’d started to become less frequent as he grew up. Doctors kept telling his parents he’d grow out of it, but there was always that one small percentage who never did.
Lucky him, he fell into that percentage.
While he definitely didn’t have them as often, they were still frequent enough for him to hate it. At least once a month. Sometimes more, depending on how stressed me was. He used to have them a lot during exam period at school, which no one had appreciated—especially Stiles—because people were sleep-deprived enough as it was without Stiles waking them up screaming every other night.
“Sorry I woke you,” Stiles said, feeling guilty. His dad had a stressful job, and Stiles hated that he was stealing sleep from him.
“Nothing to apologize for,” his dad repeated, reaching out to pat his shoulder. “As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters.”
Stiles just nodded, promising he was fine. His dad still stayed with him for a while longer, likely because it had been a while and he wanted to be sure Stiles truly was okay. Which he honestly was, he was used to this feeling so it wasn’t anything for him to be worked up about.
It was unpleasant as fuck, always had been, but he was usually okay once he calmed down. He’d have a hell of a time getting back to sleep, but he knew he would eventually.
“Dad,” he said when he saw his dad yawn for the third time in as many minutes. “Seriously. I’m fine. Go back to bed.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” he said emphatically. “I’m good. I’ll probably just grab a drink and go back to sleep, so you should, too.”
His dad inspected every inch of his face while rubbing absently at his soulmark. He seemed to believe him—which was good, because Stiles was being honest—and finally nodded.
“Okay. All right.” He rubbed one hand across his mouth then stood up, reaching up to rub at his face with both hands. “If I’m gone by the time you wake up tomorrow, call me, you hear?”
“Sure,” Stiles promised. “I’ll call you. When I wake up at one in the afternoon.”
His dad gave him a look, but seemed to relax a bit more at the realization that Stiles was okay. He headed for the door to leave, Stiles planning on sitting for a few more minutes before going to get a drink, when the sheriff spoke.
“I forgot how scary it was.”
Stiles glanced at him, and saw his father had half-turned back towards him.
“Waking up to you screaming like that. It’s been so long, I forgot how terrifying it could be. Thinking something had you. That you were being attacked. I feel guilty for being relieved it was only your sleep terror.”
“Don’t feel guilty, dad,” Stiles insisted on a sigh. “I’m glad it was just a sleep terror, too. I’m sorry it happened though, and that it scared you.”
“Part of being a parent,” he said, offering Stiles a small smile. “Try and get some sleep. Call me in the morning.”
“I will,” Stiles promised again, and waited while his dad watched him for another long moment before finally exiting the room and shutting his door.
Stiles listened to his dad head back down the corridor and when his door finally shut, he let his head thunk back against the wall and sighed, feeling like crap. He hated worrying his dad, and he hated how sad the man had looked at realizing Stiles still experienced these sleep terrors.
It really wasn’t a big deal. Stiles was so used to it now that it was just as normal as breathing for him. He recognized it could be scary for others to witness, but it was nothing more than an inconvenience for him.
He felt like shit for scaring his dad, though. He couldn’t imagine how he must’ve felt, hearing Stiles’ panicked, terrified screams after not experiencing it for four years. He knew it wasn’t his fault, and that his dad didn’t blame him at all, but he still felt bad about it.
Letting out a sigh, Stiles raked one hand through his hair again before pushing himself to the edge of the bed and climbing off it, turning to head towards his door so he could grab a drink from downstairs. He knew he’d get back to sleep eventually, but his throat hurt from the screaming so he felt like he needed something to help soothe it a little.
Filling a glass with water once he reached the kitchen, he stood staring at the tattoo he had on his left arm while he sipped at it.
He couldn’t help but wonder if maybe finding his soulmate would finally have the sleep terrors go away.
That would definitely be convenient, and thus probably way too much to ask for.
Stiles finished his water, then went back upstairs. He was unconscious again within half an hour, and the rest of his night passed without incident.
By the end of the day, Stiles was honestly exhausted. He didn’t really know why, considering the day he’d had, but it just felt more taxing than it had honestly been.
He’d spent the entire morning and afternoon dropping off resumes at basically every store in town. Some weren’t even hiring, but he dropped one off anyway. One never knew when an opening would turn up, and he wanted to have first crack at it.
Summer was kind of hindering his ability to find anything worthwhile, considering all the more high school-aged jobs were taken by the kids old enough to work who were still in school, but some of the other ones were a bit too specialized for him.
The welding company in town was hiring for a new welder, but Stiles didn’t have any of the qualifications for it, so even though he dropped off a resume, he wasn’t exactly holding his breath. On top of that, he’d have to be trained up and take some courses and honestly, it wasn’t a field he was looking to get into. He was just desperate to earn his keep so his dad wasn’t stuck footing all the bills when Stiles was basically living rent-free in his house.
It didn’t matter that his dad didn’t care, he did. His dad had worked hard Stiles’ entire life to give him as good an upbringing as he could with the limited funds they had. Stiles didn’t want the man working himself to the bone again when Stiles himself could contribute.
Provided he found something, at any rate.
Once he was done dropping off his last resume at the flower shop—he knew dick all about flowers, but he thought it might be kind of cool to learn about flower arrangements—he headed out towards the Preserve. He wasn’t going to look for the wolf or anything, but he wanted to check on his tree and nature made him feel calmer in general anyway.
He didn’t need an excuse to visit the Preserve, but he somehow always found himself trying to justify his own actions to himself. He wondered if that was a thing everyone did or if he was just weird that way.
Reaching his tree, he saw that Alvin was nowhere to be seen, but a few birds flapped around his head asking if he had any worms for them—which, why? Why would he have worms? Did they think he just carried worms around in his pockets in case birds asked him for some?
Seriously, people were always so disappointed to find out how boring animals actually were.
Better than when Jackson saw shit like this and called him a fucking Disney princess. He wasn’t a Disney princess! He didn’t need no man to complete him, he was a strong, independent, Disney disaster!
Laughing to himself over his witty retort—to himself, but whatever, he was still funny—Stiles walked over to his tree. He placed one hand on it and sighed, feeling at peace while standing there, letting his forehead rest against the rough bark and closing his eyes.
“I miss mom,” he whispered to his tree. He felt an ache beginning to form in his chest at the mere thought, but being back home reminded him so much of his mother. It didn’t matter that she’d passed away when he was still a kid, he missed her so much every day, and being back home where he had all his memories of her made it hurt even more.
He remembered his mother being the one to come in and wake him from his sleep terrors, because his dad used to work a lot of night shifts back when he was younger. He remembered how she would soothe him as he woke up crying, not even knowing why he was crying or what he was so scared of, which only made him cry more. His dad did the best he could once there was no choice but for him to take over, but it had been a jarring contrast the first time between his mother’s soft, reassuring voice and his father’s tight embrace.
He knew it was because his dad was scared of him hurting himself, but Stiles would never forget waking up at nine years old to his dad hugging him tightly in an attempt to keep him still as opposed to his mother’s calm, soothing voice. It had the same effect, and it was the same kind of love, just expressed differently.
Stiles was more used to his dad’s strong arms around him now than his mother’s soothing voice. It had been so long since he’d had the latter that he felt like it would be impossible for anyone to help him wake up with just speaking to him. Now he needed that grounding action of someone holding him, jerking him back into consciousness.
Still, he missed his mom.
Sighing and sitting down at the base of the tree, he leaned back against it and stared up through the leaves, watching the wind rustle them and cast weird shadows along the ground. He noticed a patch of grass in the clearing that didn’t seem to be doing as well as the rest of it, and wondered if maybe it was getting too much sunlight. Placing his hand on the ground, he pushed nature magic into it until the almost browning grass began to turn green and grow a little bit.
Smiling to himself, he settled back more comfortably and went back to staring up at the rustling leaves.
He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but it had been a really long day of pounding the pavement, coupled with his not-so-stellar night yesterday. He felt calm and at peace and comfortable in the forest, so without meaning to, he ended up passing out beneath the tree his mother had planted for him.
Stiles jerked awake an indeterminable amount of time later to his phone vibrating in his pocket. Struggling to rub the sleep from his eyes and squinting around himself in confusion, he managed to pull it out and saw his dad’s picture on the screen.
“Hey dad,” he said, voice scratchy from sleep and eyes struggling to focus. Why couldn’t he see anything? “What’s up?”
“Where are you?” his dad asked. Not angry, or worried. More—concerned, maybe. Confused.
“I’m...” He looked around himself in the pitch darkness and when he dropped one hand to the ground, he realized he felt so comfortable because he was still in the Preserve. “In the Preserve,” he informed him. “Shit, I must’ve fallen asleep. What time is it?”
“Late,” his dad said. “Came home in time for dinner, but you weren’t here. I figured you were with Jackson or Scott, but Scott dropped by an hour ago and when you still didn’t come home, I called Jackson.”
Stiles pulled the phone from his ear and noticed it was almost ten. Shit, he’d slept the entire evening away.
“Sorry. Came out to check on my tree and passed out.”
“You gonna be all right? Want me to come get you?”
“Who’s the Nature Spirit here?” Stiles asked with mock-offence.
“Half-Nature Spirit,” his dad countered. “I can be out there in ten.”
“Nah, it’s fine. I can find my way back from here. I’ll be home in a bit.”
“All right,” his dad said, not sounding convinced. Rude, Stiles was perfectly safe. He knew these woods like the back of his hand! “I’ll heat dinner up for you.”
“Thanks pops. See you in a bit.”
Hanging up, Stiles squinted in the darkness, but he couldn’t see anything. The stream he always walked over to reach his tree was trickling quietly in front of him, and while he was fairly confident in his ability to make it back out to the lot where his Jeep was, he’d never actually had to go through the Preserve in the dark before.
He could sense the area around him, kind of like feeling the trees and the various plants and the ground beneath him because of his magical side, but that didn’t tell him which direction he was meant to go in. When he could see, he could figure out where to go based on the trees he saw and use visual clues. In the dark, sure he knew where the trees were, but that didn’t really give him anything else to go on.
Bringing his phone up, he turned on the flashlight function and cursed Apple products and their inability to actually hold a charge. It was already in the thirty percent range, and while he knew he could probably afford to make it all the way back to the lot, he didn’t want to accidentally run out of battery at the worst time.
“Okay,” he said to himself, looking around. “Just use it when necessary then.” He inspected his surroundings quickly, and then nodded to himself and turned off the flashlight when he knew what direction he needed to go in. Walking through the stream, he let out little sounds of displeasure when the cold water soaked into his shoes, but didn’t worry too much about it. He’d be home soon anyway.
Walking through the trees and letting his fingers run lightly along the barks as he passed them, he turned his flashlight function back on to make sure he was still going in the right direction when he heard something behind him. Whipping around, he aimed the flashlight in a wide arc, feeling his palms beginning to sweat.
Right. He’d been in the woods looking for a wolf the past few days, and while he felt confident during the day, somehow being there during the night in the pitch blackness was a little less comfortable. For all he knew the wolf felt like he was an easy target stumbling through the woods.
Wolves were pack animals, and usually hunted in packs because it made them feel more confident in their ability to take down prey. This wolf was alone, which meant it had to be more careful and selective when it came to taking out perceived dinner.
Stiles didn’t want to be dinner.
“Okay,” he said quietly to himself, walking backwards while continuing to sweep the area with his phone. “Everything’s fine. It’s all good. Just gonna walk quickly towards the lot and nobody will get hurt. No one is going to be anyone’s dinner.”
He whipped around in another direction when he definitely heard a twig snapping beneath the weight of something huge and when he took another step back, he slowly felt his foot beginning to slide.
For a second, he didn’t know what was happening, and then he began to fall.
“Oh shit!” Stiles flailed his arms in an attempt to catch something, anything, but he lost his footing entirely and tumbled backwards down a steep slope. He’d been so focussed on tracking the movement that he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings, and he tried to protect his head as best he could as he rolled his way down the hill, grunting in pain every time a part of him collided with a boulder or a tree.
He kept trying to halt his descent, but to no avail until he slid along some fallen, damp leaves at the bottom of the incline and scrambled to grab hold of something just as his body flew over the edge of a cliff.
“Oh fuck!” he shouted, fingers barely catching on the rocky edge of the drop he found himself dangling over. “Oh Jesus! Oh shit!”
Stiles tried to find purchase, but his shoes slipped off the rocky side and he couldn’t get a foothold, arms shaking and fingers threatening to drop him to his death below. He didn’t know how big of a fall it was, and he wasn’t really in a position to see with how dark it was. Also, he couldn’t exactly waste time trying to check for how far down he’d have to drop before he died, screaming all the way, so he continued attempting to pull himself up, fingertips barely latching onto the stones and feet struggling to find something, anything, for him to find purchase on.
Honestly, the ideal would be for a flock of birds to come and lift him to safety, but this wasn’t a cartoon and he would be too heavy for even fifty birds to lift.
He was screwed.
He was literally fucking screwed!
“Oh God,” he whispered to himself, trying to figure out what to do as his arms shook and his fingers ached. He kept trying to find purchase with his sneakered feet, but to no avail. He was literally going to plummet to his death in a second.
He had no fucking idea what to do! He was barely hanging on by his fingertips, so pulling himself up was out of the question, but he couldn’t dangle there indefinitely, either!
Just when he thought maybe he’d found a foothold, the second he put any weight on it, it fell away from beneath him, making him almost lose his grip entirely, a shout escaping him as he struggled to hang on.
Stiles had just started trying to find another foothold—despite knowing it was useless, but he was nothing if not stubborn!—when he heard it.
Movement above him.
Something was coming down the steep incline, seeming to have a much better handle on the whole thing than Stiles did. He couldn’t really see much with how dark it was, but the area he was in was devoid of trees at his back—which made sense, because cliff—and the moon was particularly bright tonight.
It made it so that when a shadow loomed over him and he glanced up, he saw the shadowed figure of a very, very, very large animal.
The wolf.
It was the wolf.
Stiles’ lungs closed up at the sight of it. He’d been looking for the wolf for days now, and hadn’t once managed to find even a hint of it. And now, here it stood, right in front of Stiles while he dangled helplessly off the edge of a cliff.
He’d never felt so small in his life.
He hadn’t had any concerns whatsoever looking for the wolf in broad daylight while he had the chance to run or climb a tree or just—defend himself somehow.
But now, he was at the wolf’s mercy, dangling by the fingertips, and just praying the damn thing wasn’t about to eat his fucking face.
It wouldn’t kill him, right? His being half-Nature Spirit meant it would understand him, and that would probably confuse it enough not to kill him, right? Like, it would think Stiles was some weirdly-shaped wolf or something? Please God, he liked his face how it was without the wolf-teeth makeover!
“I don’t want to die,” he said desperately, the wolf still staring down at him. “Please, I can’t...”
It just stared at him for a second, Stiles unable to see its dark eyes in the even darker fur, but he could feel it staring at him. Probably because it recognized that it could understand him and was trying to determine why that was.
Stiles’ stomach dropped and he was positive he was going to fall to his death and his dad was going to spend literal months scouring the Preserve in search of his fucking body when the wolf’s head lowered and its nose nudged at the fingers of his right hand.
“No, don’t!” Stiles insisted, voice a few octaves higher than normal. “I’ll fall! Stop it!” What the fuck was it doing?! It was like it was trying to make him fall!
After a few seconds of unsuccessfully trying to force his hand to let go—though it didn’t bite at him, for whatever reason—the wolf huffed against Stiles’ hand, straightened once more, and disappeared from sight. Stiles returned to his desperate attempts to get back on solid ground when a shadow leapt clear over his head and over the side of the cliff, making him let out an urgent shout.
“What the fuck! Crazy! Crazy suicidal wolf!” Jesus, he’d been told the wolf was smart! Why the fuck had it just jumped to its death over the edge of the cliff?! It was nuts! It was insane! There were easier ways to go than to jump to its—
Stiles almost lost his handhold when he jerked in fright, turning his head when he felt wetness against his cheek.
The wolf... was right there.
It had two paws up against the edge of the cliff Stiles was dangling off of, its head exactly where Stiles’ was, giving him what he could only describe as a, “you’re an idiot” sort of look.
Stiles stared at it for a few long seconds, hands still shaking, and then finally looked down.
Despite how dark it was, the moon made it clear that he was about a foot off the ground. This wasn’t a cliff, it was just a small drop.
The wolf had literally been trying to push him off so he’d hit the ground and realize he wasn’t in any danger.
“Oh.” Stiles let go and stumbled slightly when he made it back on solid ground, the wolf lowering itself back onto all fours. “I knew that,” Stiles informed it, rubbing his hands along his jeans and ignoring the rapidly pounding of his heart. “I was just, you know—a test. I was testing you. To see if you were as smart as everyone said. You know, because I totally, totally knew this wasn’t a huge drop.”
He could practically feel the wolf judging him and he cleared his throat uncomfortably, putting one hand against the rocky wall beside him and slowly lowering himself to the ground so he could give his shaky legs a break. His breathing was coming quickly and his entire body was coursing with adrenaline over his near-death experience—never mind he wasn’t really in danger, but his body didn’t know that! He just needed a minute to regroup and calm himself down.
Sitting down and burying his face between his knees, he took a second to breathe, trying to get himself back under control. He’d never been so fucking scared in his life. First he’d thought the wolf was going to eat him, then he thought he was going to fall over the edge of a cliff, then he thought the wolf was going to eat him again... It was a lot for the span of like, two minutes.
And he’d dropped his phone during his tumble, so that was cool. Not a problem at all.
Fuck. An expense he didn’t really have money to spare on. Those funds he’d been saving up over the past four years were going to start dwindling rapidly and he’d only been home for a week.
He jumped when he felt wetness against the back of his neck and sat perfectly still. The wolf sniffed at him for a few seconds, and Stiles let out a grunt when it pressed its nose to a spot near his left ear. It let out a little huff of air before backing off and Stiles carefully raised his head. When the wolf let out another huff, pressing its nose to a spot a little to the right of where the pain had been, Stiles realized it was telling him he was injured.
Reaching up slowly with one hand, he touched at it, feeling wetness, and pulled his fingers back before rubbing them together.
Great, he was bleeding. Just what he needed. Well, he didn’t feel woozy or anything, so it likely wasn’t serious. He’d just have to be careful washing up later because he was sure shampoo was going to hurt.
The wolf let out another huff and Stiles realized it was still sitting there beside him, probably confused about how it could understand him, and waiting on an explanation.
“Right! Sorry man.” Stiles turned to the wolf and offered it a small smile, letting his hand drop from the injury. It ached, but it didn’t actually hurt that much. It was probably just a small wound from his tumble. “You’re probably really confused about why you can understand me, huh? I’m Stiles. I’m a Nature Spirit.” He paused. “Well, half-Nature Spirit, if we’re gonna get all accurate like dad. I can speak to animals and stuff. I’ve been looking for you the past few days.”
The wolf kept staring at him, not saying a word. At least it wasn’t aggressive, but it also wasn’t really instilling Stiles with confidence that it wasn’t contemplating eating him for dinner.
Just when he’d opened his mouth again, the wolf stood and turned, disappearing into the trees. Before Stiles could demand to know where it was going, it suddenly ran for the edge of the small drop and leapt up over it, disappearing back up where they’d both originally been.
“Hey, wait!” Stiles insisted, getting unsteadily to his feet and craning his neck to look up over the edge. “Where are you going?!”
The wolf didn’t respond and Stiles threw his arms in the air in disbelief. Seriously, what kind of impolite wolf just made itself known for a few seconds without a word to Stiles, and then ran away? That was extremely rude.
“Rude,” Stiles muttered aloud, moving back over to the edge of the small drop. “Rude wolf. Rudest of all wolves ever.” Not that Stiles had met many wolves in his life, but a cursory hello would’ve been nice!
Finding a foothold for himself, Stiles kicked off the ground and managed to grab the edge above him, grunting and flailing his other foot around trying to find another place to put it. Now that he knew the drop was shorter and he wouldn’t die if he fell again, he didn’t worry so much about just trying to get back up.
He managed to wedge his foot somewhere else and kicked off with the lower one, getting his shoulders up over the edge of the small drop and grabbing at a handhold a little ways from the edge. Breathing hard, he looked up and saw the wolf was back, his cell phone dropping right in front of Stiles. It had a surprisingly small amount of slobber on it, and while he wasn’t positive in this light, it didn’t even look like the screen had cracked.
Score.
“Thanks,” he muttered, still trying to tug himself up. He glanced up at the wolf, who was just standing there. “You know you could help me. If you can find the time in your busy schedule.”
The wolf let out a small huff, like it was snorting at him, and then moved forward over him. Stiles let out a small shout when he felt a tug at the back of his pants and he was suddenly wrenched back over the edge onto the top platform, landing on his back with the wolf looking down smugly at him.
“That... okay.”
Wow. He knew wolves were strong but... damn. Stiles needed to put on more muscle weight or something, that was actually kind of scary. The wolf had literally lifted his entire body right up, that wasn’t concerning at all, not even a little bit.
Maybe it wasn’t eating him because he was too skinny.
Turning his head, he reached out for his phone, hitting the home button and seeing the screen light up. His battery was woefully low, but he was right about the screen. It wasn’t cracked.
Nice.
Letting out another harsh exhale and dropping the hand holding his phone, he stared up at the sky for a few moments, trying to catch his breath despite his efforts not having been particularly strenuous. Eventually, the wolf snuffled at his ear again and Stiles flailed.
“Don’t do that,” he insisted, wiping the snot from his ear while sitting up. “Stop pressing your nose into me, that’s gross, man. Come on.”
The wolf nudged at him lightly as he continued to sit there rubbing at his ear, and he realized it was his left one. The wolf had been trying to remind him he was injured and to get going.
“Right,” he said to himself, more than the wolf, and struggled to his feet. He almost tripped over the wolf when it got all up in his space trying to steady him, and inadvertently made him lose his balance instead. He managed to keep his footing though and sighed. “This is a disaster.” He tapped his screen and went to his flashlight function, sweeping the trees in an attempt to figure out where he was.
He had no clue.
Great.
So much for knowing the Preserve like the back of his hand.
“Don’t suppose you know how to get out of here?” he asked the wolf, turning to it.
The wolf was gone.
Stiles threw both arms in the air in frustration. Like, what was he going to do to the wolf in the middle of the night?! Why was it still as fucking sneaky as ever?!
Sighing to himself, he started to walk towards the edge of the incline he’d fallen down when he heard what almost sounded like a bark to his right. Turning, he saw the large shadow of the wolf standing a few feet away.
Frowning, Stiles moved over to the wolf, his light bouncing off the ground, and when he reached it, the wolf started up the incline. Stiles shone the light where it had begun its climb and was surprised to see a well-worn path. Evidently this was actually a place people travelled to and it had caused a divot in the ground which would make it easier for him to climb back up.
Turning off the flashlight and shoving his phone back into his pocket, he carefully began to climb back up the incline, tripping every now and then but managing to catch himself with his hands. It felt like a really long, slow ascent but he eventually felt the ground evening out and then he was back up at the top. The wolf was still lingering a little to his left, and when it was clear Stiles could still see it despite the much darker area, it turned and began to walk away.
Stiles chose to believe it was leading him to the lot so he just wordlessly followed behind it. It didn’t take long for light to begin to break through the leaves, the street lamps and various lit areas around the outside of the Preserve coming closer and closer.
The wolf stopped, turning to look at Stiles, as if to make sure he understood. Stiles grinned at him, moving up beside him and able to see the road through the trees.
“Awesome. Thank you, I probably would’ve been stumbling around for a while. Hey, since you’re here, maybe we can—” He turned back to the wolf, and found it gone again. “—be totally rude to each other and walk off mid-sentence. No big.”
Seriously, rudest wolf he’d ever met. It was not setting a good example for other wolves.
Sighing and reaching up to touch his injury again, he was at least relieved it wasn’t still bleeding, but he wanted to get it cleaned up sooner rather than later.
“This is totally how Commissioner Gordon feels talking to Batman,” he muttered to himself while walking further out of the trees until he’d reached the road. He looked both ways, trying to determine where he was along the long road, and realized he was a little bit too close to town compared to where the Jeep was. Backtracking, he made it to the lot in about ten minutes and climbed behind the wheel.
By the time he got home, his dad was already getting ready to head to bed, having mostly been waiting up for his son to come back. Stiles just ate dinner and figured he’d do the same. It had been an exhausting day and despite his hours-long nap, his night had been a little bit too adrenaline-fuelled for his tastes.
Once he was on the second floor, he bypassed his room and headed straight for the bathroom and a shower. Yanking his clothes off, he tried to check his head injury in the mirror, but saw nothing. He wasn’t too concerned about it, because it was literally just a dull throb and he doubted he even had a concussion. He hadn’t even known he’d hurt himself during the fall until the wolf had pointed it out.
Predictably, shampooing his hair hurt, but he endured it and kept washing the spot until the water going down the drain ran clear. He hoped it wouldn’t start bleeding again and stain his pillow, but he’d deal with that if it came about.
After taking the quickest shower he could get away with, mostly just wanting to clean his head wound and rinse off the dirt, grime and sweat of his nightly jaunt in the woods, he turned the water off and stepped out. Drying off and leaving his dirty clothes in a heap on the floor to be dealt with tomorrow, he headed back into his room, changed out into his pyjamas, and fell onto his bed.
He was disappointed he’d finally met the wolf, only for it to ghost him the second he was safe again. At least everyone was right about it being smart. He’d have to try and find it again tomorrow.
Back to tromping through the woods all day.
Mind still on the wolf and how strangely intelligent it was, Stiles closed his eyes and was out in under a minute.
TBC...