Chapter 1: Wolf Moon
Chapter Text
Stiles was bored, and that was never a good thing. It generally led to trouble and mayhem and all hell breaking loose.
Her dad had left half an hour ago, yelling at her to get some sleep for school tomorrow. There was a note of emergency in his tone that he tried to hide, but she could always detect the subtle undertones of his mood. It was a skill she had learned first with her mother when she had gotten sick, and then had continued to use on her father upon Claudia’s death. Back then, it had been a survival skill. She needed to be prepared for when her mother was about to change from the loving and doting figure to a complete nutcase who thought her daughter was a demon or to watch over a father who had lost the love of his life to ensure that he didn’t die from alcohol poisoning or lose his job. These past few years, though, when everything had begun to right itself, Stiles had found that such observational skills could now be used in more fun ways.
This evening, for example. Hearing that slight edge to her dad’s tone alerted her that something was going on in Beacon Hills, something out of the ordinary, something that threatened to disturb the calm of a sleepy small town. Something, in other words, that could break her out of her boredom.
She was in her jeep the moment she knew her dad would be past the corner. Revving up Roscoe, she turned on the police scanner that she had installed months earlier. It would seem that all deputies were on the case, speaking back and forth about locations and sightings. Dead body. Fresh. In the woods. Unidentified female. Half the body missing. This was the beginning scene of a Criminal Minds episode. And Stiles needed to be there for it.
Now, there was a slight voice in the back of her mind, very slight and very quiet, that may have been trying to tell her that going out into the preserves at night, looking for a dead body, with the murderer possibly still nearby, was a bad idea. A morbid idea too. Like, what kind of psycho wants to go out and find a dead body? But Stiles was never good at listening to that quiet voice of reason in moments like these. Moments of severe boredom. She had a problem, but she couldn’t find it in herself to want to fix it.
She ended up at the place where she always seemed to find herself. Her second home. Though it wasn’t really the place that was her second home, but the person inside that second story bedroom who, through the shadows on the curtains, looked to be completing a workout montage. She climbed the tree that she had been climbing since she was 8 years old to knock on his window, but in her excitement, slipped on one of the branches and she got stuck, hanging from the branch by her armpits, her feet dangling. She tried to swing her feet with enough gusto to get back into the tree or the ledge of the house when she heard thundering footsteps in the house and the door swung open. It was about that time she managed to get her feet up, but then Scott had to scream like a little girl, shocking Stiles into a panic squeal herself, and she dropped from the tree, arms and head first.
“What the hell are you doing?” Scott demanded.
“You weren’t answering your phone.” Nevermind that she hadn’t even tried to phone him. She’d been in a hurry. In such a hurry that she may have left her phone on her bed. Possibly almost dead. “Why do you have a bat?”
“I thought you were a predator!”
And he was planning to beat the predator with a bat? This poor guy. If he thought she was a predator, why he’d even open the door? He should have just hid behind something, waiting for the predator to come in and then unsuspectingly wack him with the bat. Because there had been nothing unsuspecting about the way that Scott had run down the stairs. Not that any of that was something that she needed to lecture him on right at this moment. There were bigger things to focus on!
“Look, I know it’s late but you got to hear this. Two joggers saw a body in the woods.”
“A dead body?” Scott did not look sufficiently appalled or interested. Just confused. This doofus.
“No, a body of water. Yes, dead ass, a dead body.” She related all the details she had heard over the police scanner on her way over. Her entire body was vibrating, eager to get on the move.
She managed to convince Scott to accompany her. Truthfully, she was well aware that she could convince Scott to do anything. It had always been this way since they had become the best of friends in first grade. And it was a good thing too. Without her, he’d be staying at home going through a mundane life, never once stepping out into the real world to experience the thrill of what it meant to really be living. He should be grateful for her efforts to make his life interesting. When they were old, they’d look back on adventures like this, talking and laughing about the trouble they used to get us to.
So why did it seem like he wasn’t remotely interested? She had parked Roscoe at the edge of the preserves, miles away from where she knew the deputies had started their search, and they began to trudge through the trees. But despite her own adrenaline spiking, Scott was doing nothing but complaining. Which was so ridiculous. Something like this had never happened in Beacon Hills before. This argument about the school starting back up tomorrow was completely inane. They were going to be going to school for the next three years, and it wasn’t like the first day of school took all that much effort. Heck, the easy going ways of the first day required three hours of sleep tops. And why was he talking about lacrosse? Sitting on the bench all year wouldn’t take much “effort either.
Oh, he did actually want to put effort into lacrosse this year? Was that what the workout montage was all about? “Hey, that’s the spirit. Everyone should have a dream, even a pathetically unrealistic one.”
Not being about to deny her statement, all Scot could do was point out what he thought to be a sad truth too. “What if we’re killed?”
“Didn’t think about that.” If she had thought about that, she probably would have stayed in her bedroom. She wasn’t suicidal after all. She didn’t think she was, anyways. No, she was just bored.
An abrupt noise cut through her manic thoughts and stopped Scott from trying to be even more logical. It got louder. Spooked, Scott and her took off running in the opposite direction. Stiles could feel the rush of blood pulsating in her veins. It carried her faster and faster, the wind and leaves snapping against her ears.
“Ahhh!!” She screamed at the sudden snarling mass in front of her and she landed hard on her backside. She shook the pain away and stood, groaning. Not from pain, but what stood before her.
Her dad was shining a light at her as one of his deputies held the dog at bay. It was still attempting to get to her, its teeth sharp and snapping. “This delinquent belongs to me.” He ordered the others to continue their search as he caught Stiles by the arm to drag her away. “So do you listen to all my calls?”
“Not the boring ones.”
“Where’s your usual partner in crime?”
Where was Scott? He had been right behind her as they ran. She was sure she had felt him at her back when the dog had startled her. He must have had enough of a warning to hide behind a tree until he was sure he could sneak away. Their rule of thumb was to never give each other away. They had a ride-or-die kind of friendship. Stiles had gotten caught, so Scott should have been on his way back to the jeep, going safely back to his room as he had wanted to do all night anyways.
Suddenly, Stiles’s ear was stinging. Her dad had pinched to keep her walking with him. Not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to let her know he was serious. “...talk about something called invasion of privacy.”
^^^^^^^^^^
Stiles woke up the next morning scolding herself for being such an idiot. In the light of a new day, she actually had the brain power to realize how stupid her “adventure” had been, and how much of an awful friend she was to drag Scott out with her. She didn’t know why she often did things like this. Why she couldn’t control her impulses or why she seemed to lean towards the morbid and terrifying. Why she was always seeking out something to get her adrenaline rushing.
On top of feeling stupid, she felt the full weight of guilt too. The first thing she had done once she’d gotten home was plug her phone in to charge so that she could call Scott. They’d been on the phone for over an hour as he had described how he’d run across a wild animal and had ended up with a wicked bite on his side. He had sounded pained on the phone too, out of breath and scared. It had torn Stiles in two, but she knew that if she had revealed such emotions it would have made Scott more panicked. As it was, he seemed to be handling the fright fairly well. He said he had cleaned it and made sure to keep away any sort of infection (thank goodness that his mom was a nurse who had taught her son the basics) and that he would definitely survive.
Still, Stiles had to make sure he was okay for herself.
“Let’s see this thing,” she demanded as she ran up to him at the front of the school steps. She kept her voice manic as she knew she often sounded like on the highs of adderall, masking the guilt she felt at having him. He had it covered in bandages, but as thick as the bandages were, deep red stains had spread across it. She reached out with gentle fingers, but pulled back at the last second, doing her best to hide the guilt that was beginning to choke her.
“I didn’t see much, but I’m pretty sure it was a wolf.”
“A wolf bit you?” No. She climbed her way out of the guilt to explain the facts. “California doesn’t have wolves.” Something else had been in the wolves. Someone else.
“I found the body.”
What? The guilt dissipated and despite her awareness of her stupidity just a moment before, she was hit with the same interest as the previous night. There was a murderer in Beacon Hills. Possibly a serial killer, Stiles thought, since the kill had been done in such a gruesome way. And the body itself didn’t seem to belong to someone from town. Had the killer chased the victim into the preserves from somewhere else, or had the victim come into town and happened upon them? Actually, Stiles was now thinking as she and Scott headed into the school building with the bell ringing incessantly around them, why had the victim been in the preserves at all. Besides Stiles (and Scott) and the occasional deputies sent out to check the area for drunk teenagers or homeless, no one really went that deep into the woods. If it was someone from out of town, why would they have gone through the preserves at all?
Going into the woods last night had been stupid, and it was horrible that her attempts at seeing a dead body had led to Scott getting hurt…but Stiles couldn' help but want to go out there again. Was the murderer still in the preserves?
^^^^^^^^^^
As much as Stiles yearned to know more about the dead body and investigate into this mysterious murder, she forced herself to keep such morbid thoughts away. Instead, she focused on Scott. She wanted to make sure he was okay, that her actions hadn’t led to him truly getting messed up.
Odd thing was, though, Scott did seem okay. In fact, he didn’t even move as if he were hurt at all. When he bent down to get a pencil from his backpack to give the new girl that came in, there was no wince of pain or sign of strain. He’d just smiled at the newcomer with that puppyish expression, his dark brown eyes soft and welcoming. That was odd too. Scott didn’t generally go goo-goo eyes over some girl.
To be fair though, Stiles supposed, the girl (Allison), was pretty. Objectively. She had long, luscious, dark hair that sort of cascaded just past her sharp shoulders. Stiles was just a little envious of that; her own hair was a boring shade of brown, often dry, and extremely short. She’d had a buzz cut Freshmen year for reasons she could not yet admit to and it had taken almost a year to grow out as much as it had, which was to say, tufts about her ears and neck. Allison also had a figure on her. Very curvy. That, though, Stiles was not at all envious of. In the locker room, she had heard plenty of the other girls complain about back pains and growing pain and just general boob pains because of such developments. So Stiles figured she was lucky to not yet experience such burdens, if she ever would, and was quite happy with her Double As. They were even small enough that she could get away with not wearing a bra on days when she didn’t have PE. She had been gloriously free this summer.
“She’s talking to Lydia.”
“Hmm?” Stiles turned to see Scott looking longing at Allison who was now surrounded by Lydia, the strawberry blonde bombshell that practically ruled the school, and Jackson, whom Stiles had aptly named Jackass. “Oh yea. It’s because she’s hot. Beautiful people herd together.” Poor Allison, she thought. She had seemed fairly nice too. If she was going to be spending time with those two, though, nice was going to be thrown out the window before the end of the week.
Poor Scott, actually. He wasn’t going to stand a chance at all.
^^^^^^^^^^
After school, Stiles and Scott were on the lacrosse field, only vaguely listening to Coach Finstock as he went back and forth between shouting out orders and making weird comments that not even Stiles could follow along with. She figured try-outs would be much like they had been last year. They’d play, have fun, enjoy mocking the other players (mainly Jackass), and not really care about winning or losing. As much as Scott said he was trying to make first line, it was pretty obvious neither would be getting off the bench anytime soon.
At least, that’s what Stiles had thought, but then she had spent the next hour watching Scott dominate the game. She had winced at the first ball that had smacked Scott in the helmet as he was unfairly selected for goal keeper. Then shocked at watching him catch the second one. Then completely amazed at the speed, accuracy, and agility he displayed with every catch after. He even did a flip. What the heck? Since when was Scott capable of doing flips, let alone doing one with such grace to catch a freakin’ ball?
“And that’s not the only weird thing,” he was telling her later when they were back in the preserves. Not to look for the murderer like Stiles was only meagerly interested in doing, but to look for Scott’s inhaler that he had apparently dropped while running away from that “wild animal”. “I hear stuff I shouldn’t be able to hear. Smell things like mint mojito gum in your pocket.”
That was oddly specific, yet so very wrong. “I don’t have…” Oh, she did. When the heck did she put gum in her pocket? “So all this started with a bite.”
“What if it’s like an infection?”
“I think I’ve heard of this,” Stiles mused. It made sense, she thought, all things considered. Except, of course, for the fact that such things didn’t exist. Did they? “Lycanthropy. It’s the worst but only once a month." She howled for good measure and laughed. "Hey,” she smacked Scott’s arm when he acted affronted by the idea, “you’re the one that heard a wolf howling.”
He glared at her, to which she deflected, “Oh, is that your inhaler?” His glare immediately dropped as he bent down to search through the leaves.
“What are you doing here?” The rough voice startled Stiles and she practically jumped out of her skin. “This is private property.”
While Scott talked to the man, Stiles just stood there in shock, staring in disbelief. He looked vaguely familiar, but it wasn’t a face that had been in town anytime recently. She knew everyone in town.
The man tossed Scott’s inhaler to him and then turned to leave with a huff and a silent warning that they should indeed get off this “private property”. Which was a crazy thing to say. While it was technically private property, the people the property belonged to weren’t around anymore. Hadn’t been around for nearly five years.
As if hearing Stiles’s thoughts, or maybe just sensing her continued stare, the man turned to her with a furious gleam. Stiles’s heart almost stopped, her breath caught in her throat. Those eyes. Those kaleidoscope eyes. Stiles had seen those eyes before, though it had been half a decade since.
“Dude,” Stiles smacked Scott’s shoulder again, this time with sudden inspiration and a rush of adrenaline. “That’s Derek Hale.”
He’d certainly grown since the last time she’d seen him last. She’d been 10 and hanging out at the station when her dad had brought in the 2 eldest Hale children. Derek, who had been 15 at the time, had been covered in soot and his eyes had had a glassy sheen to them, void of any life. There had been dried tear stains marked across the dirt and soot on his cheek. He had been frail and lost, hunched in on himself, and Stiles could remember the pang in her own chest at the sight of him. She had wanted to reach out in comfort, she remembered, but even at that age she had known that she was too insensitive to be of any real comfort to anyone.
For better or worse, he wasn’t frail anymore. He’d filled out nicely these past years, looking as if he’d been helping out at the farm during the day and saving Metropolis by night. Though that wasn’t too surprising, Stiles figured, remembering the way in which he used to play almost every sport back when he was in jr. high and high school. He had been especially good at basketball.
The years had also taken away that lost, empty gaze in his eyes. It had been replaced by rage.
Shit. Stiles couldn’t take her stare away from the spot the man had just left, only vaguely aware that Scott was talking. She just couldn’t believe that Derek Hale was back. Just when a murderer had come into town too...killing someone preserves…on private property. Private property because it had once, and probably still did, belong to the Hales.
Well shit. Was Derek Hale the murderer?
^^^^^^^^^^
Stiles did not sleep at all that night. Her thoughts buzzed furiously and it felt like there were hundreds of spiders upon her skin. Despite her suspicions about Derek, she knew she had to keep her mouth shut without any proof. Though it all seemed like too much of a coincidence to be anyone other than Derek, she couldn’t find it in herself to actually accept that he could do something like that. It didn’t fit the image she had had of him all those years ago.
She was eager to get her hands on any further information that the station had on the case, but her dad was currently still had the station pulling a night shift’s, so there would be no way she’d be able to sneak a look at any of those files. Her dad knew her too well when it came to things like that. Plus, she was pretty sure that if she left the house now and he found out, she’d be grounded for a month.
Therefore, it was with dark bags under her honeyed eyes and sluggish movements that she went to school the next day and tried to distract herself with classes (though that had been a foolish thought to begin with), Scott, and lacrosse practice. The latter two did actually serve as a distraction from her thoughts of murder and Derek, but caused an entirely new set of problems that plagued her being.
Scott was acting weird. And not just wanting to be popular, breaking out of his shell, going through some teenage boy thing weird. Like utterly, unexplainably weird. She was pretty sure she caught him sniffing Allison’s hair while they were in English when Allison briefly leaned back in her chair to stretch her legs. Scott had also been ignoring Stiles all of lunch, his head titled slightly in a way that reminded her of a dog that was trying to guess what noise it had just heard, and then had quickly sprinted to Allison before the new student had even entered into the cafeteria. Those instances, though, Stiles could almost chalk up to Scott’s level of infatuation. Apparently when he fell, he fell hard. What happened at lacrosse, however, could not be blamed on such a thing.
While Scott had certainly proven his prowess the day before, now he was going above and beyond what was realistically possible. Stiles sat on the bench, jaw dropped and hands fidgeting restlessly in a what-the-freak amazement. There was no way summer work-out routines had given Scott the ability to dodge and catch so quickly or to do freakin’ flips. Not even steroids could give him the ability to do these kinds of things, could they? Though she knew for a fact steroids wasn’t even a possibility. Scott was too much of a goodie-too-shoes except for when he was following along with one of her schemes. There was definitely something unnatural going on.
Stiles slammed her palms into her forehead so hard that Greenberg glanced at her in concern momentarily, though he then must have thought it was just Stiles being Stiles because he turned his attention back to practice without a word. She’d been joking the day before about lycanthropy, but it didn’t seem so much like a joke now. All his little quirks and sudden skills made so much more sense within this line of thought. Why had she dismissed Scott so easily when he had mentioned hearing a wolf howl? Why hadn’t she questioned Scott more on his heightened sense of hearing and smell?
“Want to come to mine?” Stiles asked Scott the moment practice was over, trying to conceal the fact that her skin felt like critters were crawling over her again and that her blood was rushing as if she had been the one to run up and down the field.
Scott’s attention was elsewhere. Surprise, surprise. Guess on who? “Actually, I think I might walk home by myself today if that’s cool?”
Stiles looked over to where his puppy dog eyes were staring to see that Allison was staring right back with a small, upward tilt to her painted lips. She really was pretty, and seemingly just as interested in Scott as he was in her. Well, maybe not as interested - Stiles didn’t think Allison had his same obsessive manner - but she clearly liked him. The thought did something to Stiles that she couldn’t exactly decipher. It felt like something was twisting in her gut. Stiles took a breath and did her best to ignore it. “Of course dude,” she slapped him on the back in camaraderie, “Don’t blow it huh?”
Then she was off to Roscoe before she could see Scott make his way over to the girl of his dreams. Stiles pushed the thought to the deepest part of her mind as she drove home, allowing herself to focus on the possibility of the supernatural instead. Once home she ran upstairs and slid into her wheeled chair in front of the computer, settling herself in for hours of research.
She wasn’t entirely sure how long she had been at the research, only that when Scott came into her room, she was strung out on energy drinks and Adderall (granted, not the wisest decision), there were printed articles scattered across her floor and bed, and her fingers were aching. There must have been something off about her appearance too because Scott gave an odd look, briefly scrunching up his nose. “You’re a werewolf,” she stated, seeing no reason to beat around the bush. “Werewolves are a thing. And you are that thing.”
She had sort of thought Scott would understand where she was coming from. Afterall, he had been the one to be experiencing all these changes personally and he was the one to hear the wolf and they had just talked about it yesterday…two days ago?...Stiles wasn’t actually sure at the moment. Anyways, she had figured Scott would be on board.
Instead, he just stared at her as if she were insane. “What the heck is this?”
“Research.”
“On werewolves?” Why was he speaking to her in that incredulous tone?
“Yes, because that’s what you’ve become. You can’t just gain reflexes and moves like you’ve suddenly gained over night Scotty.”
“I’ve been training.”
“Training doesn’t get rid of asthma.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Dude, just look at these,” she grabbed the newest article she had printed and practically shoved it into his chest out of excitement.
Usually Scott took her slightly too aggressive movements with ease, either just backing away from her or gently reminding her to calm down. He had always seemed to understand that there were times she just couldn’t control the amount of energy inside her. Her simple shove of papers, though - which had hardly been a shove at all really - had caused Scott’s expression to harden. In the next second, he shoved her back. She faltered backwards, her feet getting tangled in the wheels of her chair, and she landed with a loud thud onto her floor, scattering the papers as her hands braced her landing.
Scott grabbed the chair before it could topple over her. “Sorry.” His voice was panicked and slightly hoarse. He was gone before Stiles could call him back. With an aching backside, Stiles used the chair to lift herself up. Her jaw dropped at the sight of claw marks that had punctured the faux leather where Scott’s hand had been.
Chapter 2: Second Chance At First LIne
Chapter Text
It was obvious that Scott didn’t want to accept the truth of what had happened to him, but Stiles knew no good would come from living in denial. She had to get him to understand what he had become, had to help him through this change, had to ensure that he would survive this.
After the fifth attempt to contact Scott, her call went immediately to voicemail. He’d blocked her or turned off his phone entirely. Either way, this was not a good sign. She left another message as she prepared herself to leave and track him down the old fashion way. “Come on Scott. You can’t be out right now. I can help. Please, just please go home. Relax. I can bring over pizza, we can play games. Something that doesn’t involve you going crazy. You have…” The voicemail cut her off.
This was horrible. She had checked his house first, but, as she fearfully expected, he wasn’t there. Her fingers drummed the steering wheel as she saw in front of his house, wondering where he could have gone.
It took a minute too long to remember that there was a party going on at Lydia’s that night. Usually, Stiles and Scott stayed away from the parties, partly because playing video games was a lot more than standing around talking about inane subjects, and partly - mostly - because they were never invited. Allison would have been invited, though. Taking a deep breath and making a wish for Scott’s sanity, she revved up her car once more and headed to Lydia’s.
Lydia lived in the richer part of town, with large, almost Victorian like houses. Stiles parked about a block away, out of sight from Lydia’s front porch. She was trying to settle her own nerves as she walked to the house, breathing in the warm August air and trying to rehearse what she would say to Scott to get him to calmly leave the party. But there was apparently no need for that. Two houses down, she spotted Allison standing out on the lawn, arms wrapped around herself like a hug, a frown marring her expression, and her eyes darting across the yard. She looked like every girl in a teen drama that had been abandoned at a dance, and Stiles didn’t have to take a guess to know that it must have been because of Scott.
There was a sense of relief at the knowledge that Scot had had enough control over himself to leave before any harm could be done, and so she started to turn back to Roscoe to begin her tracking anew. Just as she was turning, though, she caught sight of Derek casually making his way to the dark haired girl. Stiles mid pivot to watch as he spoke to Allison briefly before beginning to follow him down the street.
This girl had the same type of naivety as Scott it would seem. Who in their right mind would follow a complete stranger away from a crowd of people? Especially a stranger that looked like this new version of Derek, who really seemed to be going for this whole bad boy vibe.
Trying to be subtle, Stiles slowly began to follow, doing her best to keep to the shadows as much as possible. Her heart was thumping in her chest and her adrenaline was spiking. She had to follow to make sure that Allison was safe, but it wasn’t until the crowd outside of Lydia’s house was just a murmur that Stiles began to rethink her decision. Derek might be the murderer after all. And if he tried to murder Allison, what exactly was Stiles going to do? She really needed to start taking that pepper spray her dad had bought her everywhere. Or, better yet, bring along the taser she had taken from the station a month ago. She wondered if calling the station now would be of any help. What would she even say?
Her worries were for naught. They ended up at another house where Allison turned to Derek with some quiet words before walking up the steps and heading inside. So Derek was just walking her home? Why? How did he know where she lived or even who she was?
Stiles was musing how odd all this was, including the odd realization that the Argents and Derek must have arrived in town at the same time, when Derek’s eyes caught hers. The rage she had seen in her gaze before was still there, along with the twisted edges of a snarl.
“Why are you following me?”
She hadn’t realized he had moved so close to her. How fast had he moved? He was now only an arm’s length away, even more intimidating up close. Probably because he was glowering down at her, practically puffing out his chest in a display of…dominance? His thick eyebrows furrowed and he looked absolutely murderous.
“Well?” This time his snarl showed more teeth. Which should have been more frightening, but really, Stiles could help but notice that he still had those bunny teeth that had caught her attention so long ago. It was kind of adorable that he hadn’t grown out of that no matter the other changes that had occurred.
“Why did you walk Allison home?” she asked, shaking her thoughts away from old memories of him.
“Someone had to. It’s not exactly safe out here. Might be murderers about.”
“Like you?” Dangit, she hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
His response was another angry twitch of his lips, but instead of the bunny teeth that had been revealed before, Stiles was sure his canines had just sharpened. She stepped back in shock, and a little bit in fear, but in the next second the fang had disappeared. His nostrils flared and his muscles tensed, but after a breath of what Stiles assumed was meant to be a calming exhale and inhale exercise, he simply told her, “Go home Stiles” in a tone that made it clear he was not giving a mere suggestion.
“Who told you my name?” she called after him as he turned and headed in the opposite direction. She hadn’t thought he had remembered her from all those years ago, not like she remembered him. But even if he had, she hadn’t been going by Stiles back then. He kept walking. Frowning, she continued to stare after him. There was another row of rich houses the way he was heading, but after that, nothing else. Except the woods. With her voice barely above a whisper, she wondered, “Are you a werewolf?”
Though he continued to walk away there was a brief moment of hesitation in his step that was enough of an inclination to answer her question.
^^^^^^^^^^
Stiles ended up searching for Scott for another 2 hours before she had to head home, not wanting her dad to catch her out past 10pm - and she knew he had his deputies on guard after the stunt she had pulled the night before. She walked up her stairs with her skin crawling and her thoughts buzzing, halfway tempted to just go back outside and test her luck. There was a high chance she would have done so too, if not for her phone playing “Two-Player Game”, alerting her that Scott was calling. “Where have you been? What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said. Other than the fact that he sounded a little more forlorn for someone who was supposedly okay, it wasn’t the voice of someone consumed with guilt or rage. It wasn’t the sound of someone who had gone feral.
Stiles breathed out a sigh of relief, plopped onto her puffy Star Wars bed covers, and kicked off her shoes. “Tell me everything.”
It was a little past midnight by the time they were done trading information back and forth: Scott feeling the pull of the moon despite trying his hardest to ignore it, Allison, Derek taking her home, Derek being a werewolf, Derek apparently leaving Allison’s jacket in the woods like a warning to Scott (how had Stiles not even noticed that Derek still had her jacket when he was walking away?), hunters shooting arrows at him. Actually, all that had taken maybe thirty minutes to share. The hour and a half after that was Scott bemoaning the fact that he thought he had ruined things with Allison and how horrible life, and so on and so forth. Stiles may have stopped truly listening halfway through that rant, but she had kept up enough of a convincing pretense to make it seem like she was hanging on his every word.
^^^^^^^^^^
Being the good friend that Stiles was, she made sure that the first thing she asked Scott was, “Did you apologize to Allison?” rather than to inquire further into his misadventures the night before that he had only skimmed over. She knew that he still didn’t want to truly accept this werewolf business and that she would have the opportunity to bombard him with questions. Doing so over pizza and videogames would probably be the best time. “Is she going to give you a second chance?”
“Yea.”
Despite the positive response, Scott sounded like he was in a depressing daze. Stiles tried to knock him out of it with her usual, over the top energy. “Alright, so everything’s good!”
“No. Remember the hunters?”
“Hard to forget something you told me just last night and has left a terrifying image in my mind that wouldn’t allow me to sleep.”
“Her father is one of them? He shot me with a crossbow.”
“Wow.”
Hunters. In Beacon Hills. Right on the heels of the sudden appearance of werewolves. Or were the werewolves always here? Was Derek a werewolf before he left five years ago, or was this a change that had occurred while he was gone? Had Derek’s family been werewolves?
Wait. Focus. “Does Allison know about him?” She couldn’t, right? Otherwise, she’d have known about Derek. Did Derek know the Argents were hunters? Why would he risk going to their house if he knew? Except, he had to have known, because that was the only way he would have known who Allison was.
“This is the worst.” Scott’s groaning broke Stiles out of her spirals of questions and attempts to draw connections. She couldn’t deal with this. There were too many players and unknown variables for her to try to figure it out in her head on the spot. She needed space and time and probably a very large cork board with twine and pictures and locations. Her dad wouldn’t be too suspicious if she set up a murder in her room, would he?
Stiles shook her head. All that had to be later. For now, she didn’t focus on Scott. Keep Scott calm. Keep Scott distracted, away from thoughts of Allison and werewolves and werewolf hunters. Lacrosse seemed like a good way to do so, especially since Scott was so adamant on making first string. So she patted Scott’s shoulder in an act of camaraderie, steered him to the locker rooms where she had to momentarily depart to get changed herself, and then ran to his side the moment they were both out on the field.
“Just focus on making a fool out of Jackass,” she was telling him to build him up. “That should be fun. And easy. You’ve got this.”
Except, he didn’t seem to have it. Rather than being his amazing werewolf self as he had done the other two practices, it looked like he was putting in as much effort as Stiles was - which was to say, none at all.
Coach Finkstock wasn’t making anything less stressful either as he was shouting out insults. “McCall, my grandmother can move faster than that. And she’s dead. Do you think you can move faster than the lifeless corpse of my dead grandmother?”
Scott muttered a “yea” in his new grumpy tone that Stiles now associated with his wolfy moods. It hinted at an anger that was just below the surface ready to boil over. Stiles bit her nails anxiously as she sat on the bench next to Greenberg, watching as Scott steadied his breath and every muscle beneath his pads and jersey seemed to ready itself for war. Stiles’s own breath was caught in her throat.
And suddenly, Jackass was slammed to the ground. His sharp cry of pain would have generally been pleasing to Stiles’s ears, but in that moment she had to wince. Because this was something non-wolfy Scott would be beating himself up for later. Stiles watched Scott stand there in surprise and guilt at his own aggression. Or, she had thought Scott was standing in surprise and guilt, but then she noticed the gold glint past the helmet and she was jumping from the bench about the same time he was taking off for the gym. As she took off after him, it was only with a vague recognition that she noticed Derek standing at the side of the bleachers from the corner of her sight.
“Scott,” she called in what she hoped was a sweet and soothing tone, but it wasn’t like she had much practice with that kind of thing so she wasn’t sure how well she pulled it off. “It’s going to be okay. You just need to calm down. Breathe in, breath…Ah!!!” She scrambled away just as Scott rushed at her with his claws out. The metal of the locker bent easily under Scott’s attack. He turned with a snarl and Stiles had a clear view of his shift: bushy sideburns that had grown from nowhere, eyes glowing gold, fangs protruding from his lips, and thick hair on the back of his hands that were raised in attack, claws long and sharp. It was only due to his lack of awareness beyond his wolfy rage contrasted with Stiles’s quick impulses and chaotic movements that she was able to continue to avoid getting ripped to shreds until she managed to grab the fire extinguisher from its stand. It wasn’t a graceful move of salvation, but it did what needed to be done.
Coughing and fanning the gas away from his face, Scott shook himself out of his shift. The newfound hair descended and the sharp points returned to normal. Gold eyes were now their sweet brown. “What happened?”
Leaning against the wall, fighting the urge to just collapse, Stiles explained with shaky breaths, “You tried to kill me.” Maybe she should just collapse. The cold floor looked comfortable enough in her state. Better than standing on shaking jelly legs with her adrenaline making it even harder to breathe than when she was running around in terror. “It’s like I told you before. It’s the anger. It’s your pulse rising. It’s a trigger.”
“But that’s lacrosse. It’s a pretty violent game.”
“Maybe we should quit.”
Scott’s look spoke of what a betrayal he thought her words to be. “We can’t quit. I’m first line. I’m co-captain. This is the dream.”
“Okay, well, at the very least, you probably shouldn’t play Saturday. Not with the full moon so close.”
“That’s not an option either. I have to play. I just need to learn to control this.”
Stiles nodded, always playing the role of the supportive friend, all the while she was going about to blow a gasket at the thought of him playing on Saturday and completely losing it in front of hundreds of people, at least one of them a hunter. Sighing, she relented to her more common sense side, which didn’t happen often. “We will definitely find a way for you to get this under control. But if we can’t…”
Scott sighed too. “Then I don’t play on Saturday.”
“Okay, then. So…ready to head back out?” She looked out to the window where she could see Jackass being put into the back of an ambulance. Scott turned to see what she was staring at and his body seemed to deflate in on itself. Despite the fact that she desperately didn't want to, she asked, “Do you want to follow to make sure he’s okay?”
Scott continued to stare out of the window, his frown deepening. “If my mom sees me she’ll ask what I’m doing there. But..” His expression more and more like the puppy he had always reminded Stiles of rather than the wolf he had been only moments before.
“I’ll go. I’ll let you know the prognosis when I do.”
“Thanks Stiles.” They started their way back to the field. “And sorry I tried to kill.”
“All good. Just don’t make a habit of it.”
^^^^^^^^^^
The next day, Stiles paced along the hallway right around the corner of the principal’s office. Her dad was talking to Mr. Thomas and it was clearly about the dead body in the woods, but she couldn’t hear their conversation and she couldn’t risk moving closer because the moment her dad caught her he’d move the discussion with the principal away from her. She had already tried to peek a look at some of the documents he had brought home, but the moment she had reached for the file while her dad was in the kitchen, he'd called out to her, “I’m checking for fingerprints on all the files. Keep your hands and eyes off.” She had also tried to sneak a peak while at the station, but all the deputies had apparently been given strict orders to not let her get past the lobby unless escorted by him. It was all very frustrating. He had never made it so difficult before for her to look in on a case.
When she spotted Scott coming out of one of the classrooms, she immediately dragged him. Time to use his werewolf abilities to their benefit, rather than just having to deal with the consequences. “What are they saying?”
“Curfew because of the body.”
Stiles cursed under her breath. “Unbelievable. My dad’s out looking for a rabid animal while the jerkoff who actually killed the girl is just hanging out doing whatever he wants.” She was tempted to let her dad know that werewolves were involved, but 1.) she was pretty sure he wouldn’t believe her and 2.) if he did believe her, he’d just put himself into danger without the proper backup.
Scott seemed to understand her thoughts. “You can’t exactly tell your dad the truth about Derek.”
“Yea. Well, I mean, we don’t know if it is Derek.” Sure, all signs seemed to point to Derek, but Stiles’s instincts just told her it wasn't. And Stiles prided herself on having great instincts. But there was too many coincidences surrounded Derek’s sudden appearance to ignore, so…. “I can do something.”
“Like what?”
“Like find the other half of the body.”
Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to actually be a part of finding the other half of the body. Her dad caught her before she could make it to Roscoe and decided that this was the day that she could make up for her late night excursion into the woods. There was menial work to be done at the station: parking permits to file, letters to send as reminders for unpaid tickets, floors to clean, etc. Stiles had tried to get out of it by citing child labor laws, but his response was just that she should take it up with law enforcement then, which, ha-ha.
Stiles was sort of hoping that she would have the chance to now happen upon information about the murder case, but she all found was that the case was closed. The final assessment was that it was indeed an animal attack and the only thing that the files her dad had been bringing home were other animals' deaths. Apparently, the station was trying to see if they could track the wild animal that was responsible for the dead body. Stiles saw a bit of those documents, but she wasn’t too sure what to make of them. Either they were random animal deaths caused by other animals or werewolves ate critters as if they were actual wolves. It did make Stiles wonder if Scott would have any cravings for live rabbit or deer in his future. She took a picture of what she could just in case so she could look at the details more closely in the confines of her room. They too could be added to what would become her murder board.
Stiles was released from her sentence two hours later and she drove Rosco just above the speed limit that she knew she could get away with and ran through Scott’s house and up the stairs. “”What did you find? How did you find it? Where did you find it?”
“I found something at Derek’s.”
“Are you kidding? Like what?”
“Something’s buried there. I could smell blood.”
“That’s awesome.” Evidence. Something to show her dad that would get him closer to the truth without maybe revealing the complete truth. “I mean,” she corrected herself, reminding herself that someone had died. That Scott was talking about someone’s dead body being buried in Derek’s yard. “That’s terrible. Whose blood?”
“I don’t know. But when we do, your dad nails Derek for murder.” \
Stiles nodded along. This was all great. She was worried about the dangers that her impulsive decision into the woods had put him into, that he wouldn’t be able to ever accept his life as a werewolf, that his life had practically been destroyed because of her. But look at him now, about to right a wrong and bring about justice. This was a good sign. A good beginning. They could be like supernatural detectives.
But then Scott had to ruin such high aspirations. “And then I can learn how to play lacrosse without changing. Because there’s no way I’m not playing that game.”
“Right. Well, then, no time like the present, let’s go.”
Stiles’s adrenaline was already spiking as she cut off the engine to Roscoe at the edge of the perseveres. Her fingers drummed against her jeans. When they got to the burnt out husk of what used to be a large estate, she couldn't stop moving. She was pacing on what used to be the front porch, the wood beneath her feet bending slightly at each of her steps, soft and pliable and probably termite infested. There was a perverse thought of whether there was something beneath the wood she was pacing upon and if she might in the next second find herself falling through a termite infested hole. Did the Hales have a secret underground lair? Maybe they had had a den beneath their estate. That’s probably where Derek was, since the estate itself was obviously inhabitable. Stiles bounded with a little more weight in her next step to see if she could happen this super secret hideout.”.
“The scent is the same.”
Stiles’s mind was forced back into reality to where Scott was kneeling in the grass. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the shovels, handed one to Scott, and started digging. The ground was softer than she had expected. She found that it hardly took any effort at all, which was good seeing as she didn’t often like to put much effort into anything.
“What if he catches us?” Scott asked out of the blue, pausing momentarily.
Stiles continued to dig, thinking Scott was only just a bit ridiculous to not have thought of the risk of that before then. She, on the other hand, had thought of that immediately; she just hadn’t thought the possibility (high possibility) of that happening to outweigh the possibility to having an actual lead on who had truly killed that woman. “I have a plan for that. You run one way. I run the other. Whoever he catches first too bad.”
“I hate that plan.”
Honestly, Stiles did too. If Derek did catch them, and if he was in fact the murderer, he would obviously chase the slower of the two, which now that Scott had superpowers, would be her.
It wasn’t much longer before their shovels hit something hard with a clang. The coffin was only about two feet down if even that. Which seemed like an amateur move for a murderer. Wasn’t he aware that he was supposed to hide the body in a harder spot? Forget that, what had he been thinking when he had buried the body in front of the house? Talk about immediate give away. Serial killers were stupid.
“Ahhh!” Stiles jumped away, accidently hitting herself with the shovel on her way backwards.
“It’s a wolf.” Scott sounded disappointed at the discovery.
After Stiles shook away the initial shock, she kneeled beside Scott again to peer into the coffin where a black wolf head laid with its eyes and mouth wide open. “It’s a werewolf.” Though interesting that this werewolf could transform into an actual wolf. Most of the articles and pictures that Stiles had found on the internet, the ones from the more reliable sources, had mostly showed werewolves in hybrid forms, much like Scott had appeared while attacking her, though maybe a little hairier.
Stiles pondered this new development in the case. The dead woman being a werewolf changed things. Why would Derek kill another werewolf? Plus, the way this wolf was buried seemed more like what one does to pay respects to a loved one, not as a trophy for a kill. Would werewolves even keep trophies of their kills? Did wolves?
Maybe this was done by a hunter. They had already tried to shoot Scott and Derek after all. What if they weren’t the first werewolves to be attacked? No, Stiles recanted, there were animal hairs on the dead body. The part of the dead body that had been left human. So, yea, nevermind, it was probably another werewolf that did this. Which meant Derek.
Something caught Stiles’s eyes as her thoughts ran in a circle inside her skull. It was a purplish flower poking out of the ground, its stem spinning away from the flower in a swirl. “Wolfsbane”
“What’s that?”
“Seriosuly? You’ve never watched The Wolf Man? Werewolf in London?” Stiles scoffed as she reached for the plant and began to pull it from the ground. As she had expected, she had to keep pulling, the vine spiraling around the gravesite. “You are so unprepared for this.”
“Stiles.”
“What?”
All he did was point into the grave, and low and behold, there was a human girl’s head instead of a wolf’s. The sight of the dead body didn’t upset her as it did Scott, who jumped up in a hurry to vomit in the bushes feet away. Stiles was more densitized. Maybe because of her dad’s job, her dark spiraling searches into google, or the sight of dying mother. Either way, death never did seem to have the same effect on her that she heard others had. However, there was something about this dead body that made her a little sick to her stomach, metaphorically speaking. She had known this person.
“Stiles.” Scott’s hoarse and sickly voice broke her out of her thoughts.
“Yea, on it,” and Stiles was calling her dad to report that they had found the other half of the body. The one that belonged to Laura Hale.
Scott was escorted away for questioning as soon as the Sheriff and deputies arrived. He was still looking like he was about to puke any second and her dad had taken mercy upon him. Such a mercy, she knew, would probably not be extended to her once he was done arresting Derek and canvasing the area. She decided she would do as much as possible before that time arrived.
When Derek was placed in the back of the cop car, Stiles waited only long enough for the deputies to take pictures of the crime scene for her to slide into the passenger side. “Okay,” she stated with as much bravado as she could muster, “just so you know, I’m not afraid of you.” Derek glared, his thick eyebrows pointed inwards and his jaw set. “Okay, maybe I am a little. Doesn’t matter.” Especially not right now when the adrenaline racing through her veins was taking the reins. “I just want to know something. That’s your sister, isn’t it?” His glare intensified, but there was something in his eyes that Stiles knew to be something far deeper than rage and hatred. “Why could she turn into a wolf? Can you turn into a wolf? Is that why you killed her?” She was hoping for a more distinct sign that he wasn’t the murderer, but he was giving her nothing, not even a denial.
Instead, he growled at her. “Where are you so worried about me when it’s your friend that’s the problem? When he shifts on the field, what do you think they’re going to do?” The glare dropped momentarily and the werewolf moved his head closer to the bars. “You have to stop him.” He smelled like the woods. “And trust me, you want to.”
“But how exactly…”
Stiles hadn’t been able to finish her question about how she was supposed to stop Scott from doing anything, with him now having an advantage over her. Or, more importantly, how was she to help him gain control so that him playing would eventually not be a problem. Her dad pulled her out from the police car by the cuff of her neck. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The deputies were getting ready to leave, the crime scene secured. Her dad stood before her, one hand resting habitually on the butt of his gun. In a fit of nerves, she rambled out what Scott and her had found, trying to excuse their search on Scott’s inhaler, only realizing a second too late that her words were digging her into her own grave.
“So you were lying?”
“Depends on how you define lying.”
She knew that the grounding was going to minimal when she saw her dad fight back twitch of lips as he sighed in exhaustion at antics he knew was coming. “I define it by not telling the truth. How do you define it?
“Reclining your body in a horizontal position,” Stiles tried, dramatizing her gestures. And success. Her dad smiled. Only for a second, but it was there. Followed by an eyeroll and a grab for the back of her neck again as he led her away. It might have been her imagination, but she thought she saw Derek’s lips twitch too.
^^^^^^^^^^
Scott was already sitting in the passenger seat of Roscoe. He didn’t look as pale as before, which Stiles took as a good sign. “Take Scott home, then you go home.” Her dad informed her sternly, putting slight pressure on her as a sign of seriousness.
“Yes sir.”
Stiles flailed her way into the driver’s side, her adrenaline buzzing again in eagerness to tell Scott what had been going through her head for the past hour. But they had barely gotten onto the main road with her not even having the chance to inform Scott that she knew who the dead body belonged to when Scott slammed his fists into the air bag compartment. “Hey. Easy on…”
“Stop saying werewolf.”
“What? I haven…”
“Stop enjoying this so much.”
That did the job of shutting Stiles up. No matter how much she was trying to unravel this mystery and untangle her thoughts for Scott’s sake - because knowing about these things could lead to a greater understanding of how to help him -, he had hit on the money. Of course he did. Scott understood her better than anyone. For all that she wanted to help, she was aware, just as she was the night she went out searching for a dead body, that there was this morbid fascination within her that she couldn’t quite explain.
Before she could at least try to explain her desire to help, and how this information could help, Scott had jumped out of her car. Roscoe’s brakes squealed dangerously and slide against the gravel before stopping completely. Scott was long gone by then though.
^^^^^^^^^^
Stiles hadn’t slept at all that night. She had tried to search for Scott, but, much like last time he had been controlled by the wolf’s impulses, it was nigh impossible to track him down. Dispatch hadn’t been any help either. Though she couldn't quite blame them for not taking her description seriously. When she had finally arrived home, much later than what her dad had probably been intending - good thing he hadn’t been home yet either -, she’d tried to call Scott, but each call went straight to voicemail. She had tossed and turned the entire night thinking of all the ways Scott could get himself killed or all the ways he could kill someone else.
It was a relief to see Scott at school, not a single scratch on him, though if there had been, he would have already healed. There hadn’t been reports either. Her relief was short-lived, though. The moment she walked up to him, it was clear that the wolf was still just under the surface. His voice was still gruff, his eyes were too frustrated, and everything he did he did it with just a little too much strength. They would need to get him a new locker with the way the handle had bent under his aggressive tug this morning to get it open.
The only time throughout the school day in fact, in which Stiles saw Scott act more like himself than the wolf was whenever Allison was near. It seemed like the moment she was close enough to scent, Scott could finally take a breath and relax. She even saw him smiling with her, that dorky smile where he showed too many teeth and his eyes crinkled at the edges. It was a good thing, Stiles told herself, that Scott had something/someone to connect him back to himself. If Stiles couldn’t be the person, it was good that he had someone slight hope that pleading would work, seeing as she never pleaded (never needed to), but Scott just shook his head stubbornly. “I have to. I can’t lose this chance. I can’t lose Allison.”
Stiles fought against the urge to state how ridiculous that was. He had known her for less than a week. She had to wonder if this obsessive mentality was because of the wolf or if this was just Scott’s natural behavior towards his crushes. “Allison isn’t going anywhere.”
Scott rounded on her, accidentally hitting her arm when he did so. Stiles winced at the bruise that would surely leave, but said nothing. His eyes flashed gold, on and off like beacon, as if he were waging an internal battle on which side of himself would be going out on that field. Finally, with a sharp intake of breath, the gold bled out, leaving behind only brown, though it held none of the softness that Stiles missed so much. “I just want a freakin’ normal life. Why can’t you get that?”
“Okay,” she placated, though she had no intent on letting this one go by. She didn’t have much capacity of calmness to begin with, though she often tried at least with Scott, and with no sleep moving her forward, she had absolutely no ability to find it within herself to just accept the hits that he kept throwing. With a saccharine tone and a pat on his shoulder with much more force than she’d typically do, she said, “Just make sure to stay calm. No stress. Don’t think about Allison being in the stands. Or that her father is trying to kill. Or that Derek is trying to kill you. Or the girl he killed…” Gold eyes were back. “Sorry.”
As Scott joined the rest of the first line players in the huddle, Stiles went straight to the bench to take her honorary spot. Last year, she hadn’t minded the bench at all. Had preferred it, honestly. She had only joined lacrosse because Scott wanted to, and lucky for her it was the only sport at Beacon Hills High that didn’t have a girls team, so they automatically had to let her join. Practices were fun, but it was too much effort to actually play the game to win, and all she had wanted was to have more time to hang out with her best friend.
This year she was already hating the bench, and it was only the first game. She was restless sitting there, her fingers drumming against her knees, her legs bouncing, and her body swaying as she did her best to monitor Scott’s every move. She was just a little proud that he seemed to be controlling himself by not using the full extent of his newfound abilities and energy, but she knew it would only be a matter of time before that changed. There were some booing in the crowds along with some hecklers. Jackass was being, well, a jackass. And to put the cherry on the ice cream cake, Allison was helping Lydia hold up a “Jackson #1” banner. That was definitely going to send Scott over the edge.
With that as a motivation, Scott made the final goal, winning them the game, but as everyone was cheering and shouting out “McCall” in celebration, Scott was running off the field. Stiles jumped up from the bench to follow him once again, but Allison was moving faster. Having already witnessed the type of effect Allison had on Scott, Stiles let her go. She would have followed at a slower speed, but from behind her, she heard her dad finish talking on the phone. The only word that she could catch was “Laura Hale”.
Hoping that Allison was indeed the right person Scott come back to himself, Stiles started towards her dad, asking, “Everything okay?
The sheriff shook his head. Stress weighed his shoulders down. “The coroner’s office agrees with the first findings. Her death is from an animal attack.” He placed his face in both palms before rubbing his temples. “I just arrested an innocent. Shit Stiles, I accused him of killing his sister.”
“That’s not on you,” she argued. “That’s on us. And I mean, why did he even bury here like that? Why hadn’t he reported it?”
He stood, smoothly down wrinkles from his uniform. “I don't’ kiddo. I guess I’ll try to figure that out as I release him.” He stepped from the bleaches. His hand handed on Stiles’s head, ruffling the short locks slightly. “Remember to go straight home after dropping Scott off.”
“Yes sir.”
She too began to step down, but froze half way. Mr. Argent had moved out onto the field to study something, Stiles’s glove. It was as if a large stone had just plummeted into Stiles’s stomach. She knew without a doubt what he was looking at. Punctures at the fingertips from where Scott’s claws had protruded. .