How Scared I Was Part Four: "Your Sins Into Me"
Series: How Scared I Was
Chapter Title: Your Sins Into Me
Part: 4/5
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Characters/Pairings: Derek/Stiles; Scott McCall/Allison Argent, Jackson Whittemore/Lydia Martin.
Rating: PG-15
Disclaimer: All characters depicted in sexual situations in this post/fanfiction/fanart (including material in the comments) are fictional and are intended to be and considered to be by the author of said material of the legal age of consent in the United States, regardless of what age these characters may be in the material they are derived from.
Summary: That night Stiles didn't sleep well.
Warnings: un-betaed. Creepiness.
Previous
That night Stiles didn't sleep well. He tossed and turned and was waking up every hour, on the hour. Mostly he found that the inch and a half wide collar caused some discomfort. Not because it was itchy or anything, but because he couldn't curl up into his favourite positions while wearing it. He eventually settled for draping himself over Derek's chest, ear pressed to his skin. He allowed himself to be lulled back to sleep by the sound of his steady heartbeat. There was a matching rumbling in his own chest, which he'd come to realize was him purring. He tried not to think about it.
The next time he woke up after falling asleep like that, he was alone in the bed. This didn't often happen, so when it did it he had to take stock of everything before he got moving. He heard Derek puttering around the house. With a stretch and a yawn he threw the blankets off and went to get up. He absently scratched at his stomach and went to rub his eyes with the palms of his hands when the scent hit him. Coppery, almost like pennies-he'd only smelt this one other time. His eyes widened as he tipped his head down to look at his stomach.
There wasn't much blood, he'd just torn open the scabs with his scratching. But still, he hadn't had any marks upon going to bed. There were three scratches running from between his nipples to an inch above his belly button. They were raised, like welts, and were newly scabbed over. He turned to the blankets, sure enough there was blood smeared over the inside of them, dried and looking more brownish than red. He didn't know when or even if he made a sound, but Derek was behind him and frowning, reaching to touch him.
“How did this happen?” Derek asked softly, his eyes studying Stiles' face, “Did I do this to you?”
It was uncharacteristic of Derek to be so soft, to sound so guilty. Stiles shook his head, even though he didn't really know the answer. He didn't think Derek had clawed him at all. Maybe he'd done it to himself? The scratches went straight down in such a way that he found that highly unlikely. Still, he didn't want his boyfriend to think he was causing him pain-whether it was unintentional or not. “No, no. I must have done it in my sleep or something.”
Derek didn't look entirely convinced; he led Stiles into the bathroom and motioned toward the counter. “Sit.”
“Hey, I'm not the dog here.” The joke flopped, mostly because he didn't sound very amused when he said it. He just felt inexplicably nervous. He blamed it on The Group Incident (which is precisely what he was calling last night at the old Hale house). He pulled himself up onto the counter and gently swung his legs while Derek searched for a wash cloth, dampened it and began wiping up the dried blood that was smeared across his skin. It made Stiles feel a bit like a little kid, so after a while he took over and pushed Derek towards the bloody sheets.
It was no time at all before Stiles was pulling a shirt on, covering the scratches, and helping Derek put new sheets on. There was still a faint trace of copper in the air, enough to make Derek continuously look over at him with a guilty expression. As Stiles was drinking his morning coffee he caught him for the umpteenth time and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Stop that. It doesn't hurt at all, I'll be fine.”
That seemed to be what Derek needed to hear, because he gave a sort of sheepish expression, ducked his head and took a long drink from his own cup. After that he stood up from his stool and crossed to rinse out his cup, pressing a kiss to Stiles' forehead. “The pack should be here later today, after school.”
{break}
After school Stiles drove with Lydia in the passenger's side, blabbering on about going shopping together soon. It turned out that when Lydia found out that Stiles was with Derek and no longer sniffing after her, she wanted to spend loads of time with him. While this wasn't a loss for Stiles, he had been very tentative at first: he still really, really liked her (he'd been chasing after her since the third grade for Christ's sake!) but now that he was spending more time with her he was beginning to realize just how good of a friend she could be. She'd also changed a lot since last year's formal-when everything had gone a lot further than just “awry”. Jackson pulled in ahead of Stiles, screeching tires just to get there first in his silver Porsche. Allison and Scott pulled in behind and parked, everyone spilling out of their respective vehicles and headed towards the door.
They piled into the house, shucking off shoes and leaving them by the door. Stiles got leaned on by Lydia as she took her heels off, Allison practically fell on Scott trying to take hers off. Stiles couldn't really understand why girls wanted to wear towers on their feet, but he also wasn't willing to ask about it either. Jackson was the first one to sit down, favouring the comfort of the couch rather than the stools that were pulled up to the island in the kitchen. Stiles let everyone else get settled as he wandered toward the bedroom. He heard the shower going before he'd entered the room, but found the door closed to the bathroom. Opening the door quietly, he slipped in and leaned back against the counter by the sink. It didn't take long for Derek to pop his head out from behind the curtain.
“Stiles.” He didn't appear to be very amused, but Stiles smiled anyway.
“Derek.” He mimicked his boyfriend with a teasing glint in his eyes. Derek retreated back behind the curtain and started rinsing his hair again.
“Everyone's here?” It was more for conversation than a real question. Stiles knew he could hear the rest of the pack out in the main part of the house. He nodded anyway, fingers carding through his growing hair.
“Yeah.”
Derek cleared water and the last remnants of soap from his face before he spoke again. “I'll be right out.”
Stiles knew when he was being dismissed-besides, he had to take care of the others. He walked back out and flopped down on the couch, picked up the remote and turned the TV on. By the time Derek got out there, dressed in a gray long sleeve shirt and a pair of dark jeans, Stiles and Jackson were talking about Criminal Minds, Lydia and Allison were dunking chips into some dip they'd taken from the fridge and Scott was perched on a stool, listening to everything going on around him. Immediately, though, everyone stopped what they were doing and the TV got turned off. Allison was a bit slow on the uptake, crunching a few more chips before putting the bag away, but no one faulted her.
It was a little while before anyone spoke. They all just sort of sat around and looked at each other, hoping someone else would talk first. Finally, Derek spoke. “We're going back to working on the house.”
Immediately protests sprung up from Lydia, Stiles and Scott. Derek just shot Stiles a look that meant 'no arguing' and he fell silent-not happily, mind you-which caused the other two to shut up too. Jackson was looking around at everyone, looking slightly too laid back to be sane. Stiles glared at him out of principle. Allison leaned forward on the marble top to the island in the kitchen where she, Scott and Lydia were gathered around. “I don't know-whatever that was seemed pretty demanding. Do we even know what it can do?”
Stiles made a 'tch' sound that drew everyone's gaze to him, including Derek who was glowering slightly. “It's a damn ghost-obviously-it can do ghosty things.”
Okay, so usually he sounded a little more intelligent. Jackson rolled his eyes and moved to lean forward, but Stiles pushed on before anyone could make any negative comments in his direction. “Like tossing things, scaring the piss out of you, maybe even curse people or possess them for all we know. I don't think it's really safe. We should get, like, ghost exterminators or something to take care of the place.”
Stiles knew, deep down, he was acting like a scared little kid about ghosts, something incorporeal, yet he hadn't been acting as such when he was a human and facing down Alpha frickin' werewolves-he wasn't sure if it was just the fact that it was ghosts he was dealing with, or if becoming part cat had made him lose any and all backbone he might have once had. Lydia twirled her hair around her finger and dug into her pocket for some gum, Scott was giving him a strange look but it was Derek that spoke, leveling a rather gentle look in his direction.
“I want to be sure of what we're dealing with. The best way to draw it out is to go back to working on the house.” While usually the Alpha had last say in what the pack did (Stiles knew this by watching a whole bunch of documentaries), it was clear that Derek was going back whether they were going to come with him or not, but he was hoping that he could count on them for back up. Stiles wasn't quite sure if the rest of them would understand this, they tended to do the opposite of what Derek wanted for the most part. He expelled a lungful of air and looked around at the pack.
“I guess we're going then.”
{break}
The rest of the pack meeting had to do with Lydia and Allison talking about expanding their shopping horizons (meaningful looks over at Stiles included-perhaps they were trying to include him, but he was in his own conversation), Scott and Jackson talking about Lacrosse and how their defense needed some work before the next big game, and Stiles working alongside Derek to make dinner happen for all of them. Derek didn't say anything about it until later, but when he was saying goodnight at the door he pulled Stiles aside and murmured a simple 'thank you' into his ear. Stiles gave a one armed shrug and a kiss on the cheek before heading to his Jeep and going home.
The next day they dressed for the occasion and strapped on tool belts, driving over to the old Hale house and hesitantly starting to work. Derek made them go in teams of two (Stiles somehow managed to get himself paired up with Jackson) to check out the house and see if there was anything weird or out of place. He was supposed to be happily ignoring the problem and avoiding it with Scott by his side, but for some reason Derek had wanted to talk to Scott and Allison had latched onto Lydia as quickly as possible (probably for more girl talk), so he and Jackson had just sort of ended up wandering the upstairs. Stiles thought that the place looked even more creepy with their work half-done. Maybe it was due to him knowing why they had stopped. He shook himself out of his thoughts when Jackson spoke up, trailing his claws over the remnants of dry wall hanging off the edges of the supports.
“You really think this thing has the juice to possess people?” He was giving Stiles a sidelong glance that was simultaneously worried and reproachful. Like he didn't want to believe it could happen, but part of him did anyway. Stiles was slightly put out that the rest of the pack didn't seem to take him seriously, even if he was the one who always did the research for them and he was just about as high ranking as Derek. Shouldn't they just be accepting of anything he said? He grit his teeth; Jackson probably didn't mean to be disrespectful, he just permanently sounded like a dick.
“I don't know.” Irritation laced his words, “It can move things, it can talk; what else do you need it to do?”
“Just asking.” Jackson grumbled, scratching his cheek with blunt nails and looking down at the rotting floorboards. They meandered through the room and Stiles looked out the window toward the back of the house. He wondered what the backyard had looked like before the fire-with a family living here. He could almost see it: the tire swing new and maybe a trampoline off to the side, a mowed lawn where the children rolled around and got grass stains on their clothes, a well-kept gravel path that led between the trees and back toward the lake that Stiles knew was back there. They probably had barbeques, but maybe they roasted deer and rabbit instead of burgers and hot dogs. He turned back to tell Jackson to move on and finish sweeping the top floor.
Jackson was close-way closer than he was before. A snarl was on his lips and his eyes looked somewhere between irate and vacant. His hand, clawed, reached up and grasped the front of Stiles' print t-shirt, yanking their faces so close that their noses bumped harshly even though Stiles was trying to shrink back. Hot breath puffed on his face as Jackson growled out the words. “I told you to GET OUT.”
Stiles wasn't sure what sort of noise he made, but whatever it was he couldn't hear it over the pounding of his own heart. The blood was rushing in his ears and he was trying his best to scramble out of the beta wolf's clutches. Then, like he hadn't just been scaring the shit out of Stiles, he grinned.
Stiles froze, knowing that while he was still somewhat panicky he shouldn't be-Jackson had been pulling his leg. Jackson loosened his hold on his t-shirt as four pairs of footsteps all started up the stairs in a hurry. Stiles was gulping in lungfuls of air when Jackson rocked forward, touching their foreheads together, his voice husky and low. “You're too easy.”
Derek was the first into the room, looking around for whatever had caused Stiles to yell the way he had. Jackson sprung away from Stiles like his life depended on it (it probably did). Scott was second into the room. “Dude, are you okay?”
Stiles took another gulping breath of the chilly air and punched Jackson on the shoulder, his nerves still making him a little shaky. “Yeah, he was just being an asshole.”
Derek grumbled, looking between the two, and then ordered them all back to work with a 'don't fool around.' They all wandered back down to the main level and stood around for a bit before Derek doled out jobs for everyone. There didn't seem to be any sign of ghostly inhabitants, though Stiles was still keyed up from Jackson's prank and wasn't quite sure he wanted to continue working on the house. After a while, though, the quiet of the house made him relax. That was his undoing.
{break}
It was like he was there, but he wasn't. He could see what he was doing, but he wasn't in control; a passenger, not the helmsman. He turned on his heel, the movement abrupt, the hammer he had in his hand falling to the floor with a clunk. Allison looked up and frowned, her eyebrows drawing together. “Stiles?”
He could feel his face drop any expression he might have had while working on the house, a vacant look drifting over him. His feet took him toward the door to the tunnels, not even acknowledging Allison. She dropped her own hammer and stood up, trotting over to him with a worried expression. He kept walking at a sedate pace. “Stiles? What are you doing?”
He couldn't make himself say anything, not even look at her. She seemed to realize where he was heading and twisted her fingers into the sleeve of the sweatshirt he was wearing. She looked back over her shoulder, presumably to look for the others. “Guys? Guys!”
Footsteps sounded behind him as his hand reached for the knob. More followed as he twisted it, the metal not feeling cold, like he would have expected, but painfully hot-he would have sworn and jerked away if he had any control over himself, but it just kept searing his hand-and he pushed open the door.
“What is he doing?” Lydia's voice was quiet, almost a whisper. Derek crossed the floor to approach him even as he started down the stairs into the tunnels.
“Stiles,” His voice was hard, demanding. Something Stiles would have answered whether he wanted to or not. He kept walking down the stairs, his face blank. “Stiles, where are you going?”
It had bite to it, probably because Derek hated being ignored. Stiles wanted to flail, scream, cry over the pain in his hand but he couldn't. It was like he was in a trance or something. He knew, distantly, that this must be possession, but he couldn't bring himself to be scared. The fact that he couldn't control himself was scary-he didn't want anyone to worry about him-but the fact that he had some ghostly mojo in him? It seemed like a vague notion, far away and not bothersome in the least. He kept on down the tunnel. He heard the others piling down the stairs after him, hissing questions under their breath and trying not to intrude. Derek kept pressing, though. Allison had dropped back to join the others, Stiles could almost tell that she was squeezing the life out of Scott's hand. Derek had reached for him, but let his hand fall away before touching him a couple of times-was he afraid of this? He shouldn't be afraid.
His feet brought him down the tunnels to the room with a drain in the floor and windows up above their heads to the evening air. Derek sucked in a breath and stayed back by the doorway like there was something preventing him from going any further. Stiles realized then that this was the room they had died in-his family had burned to death in here. He got five feet from the window and he sunk down-no, he collapsed in a heap-like a puppet who's strings had been cut. He immediately tried to move, thinking that maybe the ghost wasn't there anymore. He was wrong.
A wail of utter agony rose from his throat and tore through the still air in the basement. It sounded unearthly, the pain in that sound. He couldn't see any of the pack-they must have been at the door still. When the cry ended warm arms wrapped around his torso-Derek, he could tell by the smell-but it wasn't anything he could respond to.
Except then he did, but it wasn't any kind of response that should have happened. His claws raked the side of Derek's face, ripping it open and splattering droplets of blood. It wasn't a pansy scratch either, it was deep and gouging. Derek ended up on his ass, sprawled on the floor between Stiles and the doorway where the pack was huddled. Jackson was being held back by Scott as Derek wiped the blood off his face and stared at Stiles in bewilderment. Stiles felt the angry expression on his face, his fangs pushing at his lips and his eyes flipping over to the slitted ones that usually only happened in the dark.
“How dare you disturb our slumber.” His voice was sharp as a knife and hissed out, not sounding at all like himself. Just like that it felt like all of the energy had drained from him. He felt cold and tingly and like a weight had been lifted off of him. He didn't realize he'd pitched forward until his face met the cement of the floor with a crack. He groaned as everything went dark.
Next
Chapter Title: Your Sins Into Me
Part: 4/5
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Characters/Pairings: Derek/Stiles; Scott McCall/Allison Argent, Jackson Whittemore/Lydia Martin.
Rating: PG-15
Disclaimer: All characters depicted in sexual situations in this post/fanfiction/fanart (including material in the comments) are fictional and are intended to be and considered to be by the author of said material of the legal age of consent in the United States, regardless of what age these characters may be in the material they are derived from.
Summary: That night Stiles didn't sleep well.
Warnings: un-betaed. Creepiness.
Previous
That night Stiles didn't sleep well. He tossed and turned and was waking up every hour, on the hour. Mostly he found that the inch and a half wide collar caused some discomfort. Not because it was itchy or anything, but because he couldn't curl up into his favourite positions while wearing it. He eventually settled for draping himself over Derek's chest, ear pressed to his skin. He allowed himself to be lulled back to sleep by the sound of his steady heartbeat. There was a matching rumbling in his own chest, which he'd come to realize was him purring. He tried not to think about it.
The next time he woke up after falling asleep like that, he was alone in the bed. This didn't often happen, so when it did it he had to take stock of everything before he got moving. He heard Derek puttering around the house. With a stretch and a yawn he threw the blankets off and went to get up. He absently scratched at his stomach and went to rub his eyes with the palms of his hands when the scent hit him. Coppery, almost like pennies-he'd only smelt this one other time. His eyes widened as he tipped his head down to look at his stomach.
There wasn't much blood, he'd just torn open the scabs with his scratching. But still, he hadn't had any marks upon going to bed. There were three scratches running from between his nipples to an inch above his belly button. They were raised, like welts, and were newly scabbed over. He turned to the blankets, sure enough there was blood smeared over the inside of them, dried and looking more brownish than red. He didn't know when or even if he made a sound, but Derek was behind him and frowning, reaching to touch him.
“How did this happen?” Derek asked softly, his eyes studying Stiles' face, “Did I do this to you?”
It was uncharacteristic of Derek to be so soft, to sound so guilty. Stiles shook his head, even though he didn't really know the answer. He didn't think Derek had clawed him at all. Maybe he'd done it to himself? The scratches went straight down in such a way that he found that highly unlikely. Still, he didn't want his boyfriend to think he was causing him pain-whether it was unintentional or not. “No, no. I must have done it in my sleep or something.”
Derek didn't look entirely convinced; he led Stiles into the bathroom and motioned toward the counter. “Sit.”
“Hey, I'm not the dog here.” The joke flopped, mostly because he didn't sound very amused when he said it. He just felt inexplicably nervous. He blamed it on The Group Incident (which is precisely what he was calling last night at the old Hale house). He pulled himself up onto the counter and gently swung his legs while Derek searched for a wash cloth, dampened it and began wiping up the dried blood that was smeared across his skin. It made Stiles feel a bit like a little kid, so after a while he took over and pushed Derek towards the bloody sheets.
It was no time at all before Stiles was pulling a shirt on, covering the scratches, and helping Derek put new sheets on. There was still a faint trace of copper in the air, enough to make Derek continuously look over at him with a guilty expression. As Stiles was drinking his morning coffee he caught him for the umpteenth time and punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Stop that. It doesn't hurt at all, I'll be fine.”
That seemed to be what Derek needed to hear, because he gave a sort of sheepish expression, ducked his head and took a long drink from his own cup. After that he stood up from his stool and crossed to rinse out his cup, pressing a kiss to Stiles' forehead. “The pack should be here later today, after school.”
{break}
After school Stiles drove with Lydia in the passenger's side, blabbering on about going shopping together soon. It turned out that when Lydia found out that Stiles was with Derek and no longer sniffing after her, she wanted to spend loads of time with him. While this wasn't a loss for Stiles, he had been very tentative at first: he still really, really liked her (he'd been chasing after her since the third grade for Christ's sake!) but now that he was spending more time with her he was beginning to realize just how good of a friend she could be. She'd also changed a lot since last year's formal-when everything had gone a lot further than just “awry”. Jackson pulled in ahead of Stiles, screeching tires just to get there first in his silver Porsche. Allison and Scott pulled in behind and parked, everyone spilling out of their respective vehicles and headed towards the door.
They piled into the house, shucking off shoes and leaving them by the door. Stiles got leaned on by Lydia as she took her heels off, Allison practically fell on Scott trying to take hers off. Stiles couldn't really understand why girls wanted to wear towers on their feet, but he also wasn't willing to ask about it either. Jackson was the first one to sit down, favouring the comfort of the couch rather than the stools that were pulled up to the island in the kitchen. Stiles let everyone else get settled as he wandered toward the bedroom. He heard the shower going before he'd entered the room, but found the door closed to the bathroom. Opening the door quietly, he slipped in and leaned back against the counter by the sink. It didn't take long for Derek to pop his head out from behind the curtain.
“Stiles.” He didn't appear to be very amused, but Stiles smiled anyway.
“Derek.” He mimicked his boyfriend with a teasing glint in his eyes. Derek retreated back behind the curtain and started rinsing his hair again.
“Everyone's here?” It was more for conversation than a real question. Stiles knew he could hear the rest of the pack out in the main part of the house. He nodded anyway, fingers carding through his growing hair.
“Yeah.”
Derek cleared water and the last remnants of soap from his face before he spoke again. “I'll be right out.”
Stiles knew when he was being dismissed-besides, he had to take care of the others. He walked back out and flopped down on the couch, picked up the remote and turned the TV on. By the time Derek got out there, dressed in a gray long sleeve shirt and a pair of dark jeans, Stiles and Jackson were talking about Criminal Minds, Lydia and Allison were dunking chips into some dip they'd taken from the fridge and Scott was perched on a stool, listening to everything going on around him. Immediately, though, everyone stopped what they were doing and the TV got turned off. Allison was a bit slow on the uptake, crunching a few more chips before putting the bag away, but no one faulted her.
It was a little while before anyone spoke. They all just sort of sat around and looked at each other, hoping someone else would talk first. Finally, Derek spoke. “We're going back to working on the house.”
Immediately protests sprung up from Lydia, Stiles and Scott. Derek just shot Stiles a look that meant 'no arguing' and he fell silent-not happily, mind you-which caused the other two to shut up too. Jackson was looking around at everyone, looking slightly too laid back to be sane. Stiles glared at him out of principle. Allison leaned forward on the marble top to the island in the kitchen where she, Scott and Lydia were gathered around. “I don't know-whatever that was seemed pretty demanding. Do we even know what it can do?”
Stiles made a 'tch' sound that drew everyone's gaze to him, including Derek who was glowering slightly. “It's a damn ghost-obviously-it can do ghosty things.”
Okay, so usually he sounded a little more intelligent. Jackson rolled his eyes and moved to lean forward, but Stiles pushed on before anyone could make any negative comments in his direction. “Like tossing things, scaring the piss out of you, maybe even curse people or possess them for all we know. I don't think it's really safe. We should get, like, ghost exterminators or something to take care of the place.”
Stiles knew, deep down, he was acting like a scared little kid about ghosts, something incorporeal, yet he hadn't been acting as such when he was a human and facing down Alpha frickin' werewolves-he wasn't sure if it was just the fact that it was ghosts he was dealing with, or if becoming part cat had made him lose any and all backbone he might have once had. Lydia twirled her hair around her finger and dug into her pocket for some gum, Scott was giving him a strange look but it was Derek that spoke, leveling a rather gentle look in his direction.
“I want to be sure of what we're dealing with. The best way to draw it out is to go back to working on the house.” While usually the Alpha had last say in what the pack did (Stiles knew this by watching a whole bunch of documentaries), it was clear that Derek was going back whether they were going to come with him or not, but he was hoping that he could count on them for back up. Stiles wasn't quite sure if the rest of them would understand this, they tended to do the opposite of what Derek wanted for the most part. He expelled a lungful of air and looked around at the pack.
“I guess we're going then.”
{break}
The rest of the pack meeting had to do with Lydia and Allison talking about expanding their shopping horizons (meaningful looks over at Stiles included-perhaps they were trying to include him, but he was in his own conversation), Scott and Jackson talking about Lacrosse and how their defense needed some work before the next big game, and Stiles working alongside Derek to make dinner happen for all of them. Derek didn't say anything about it until later, but when he was saying goodnight at the door he pulled Stiles aside and murmured a simple 'thank you' into his ear. Stiles gave a one armed shrug and a kiss on the cheek before heading to his Jeep and going home.
The next day they dressed for the occasion and strapped on tool belts, driving over to the old Hale house and hesitantly starting to work. Derek made them go in teams of two (Stiles somehow managed to get himself paired up with Jackson) to check out the house and see if there was anything weird or out of place. He was supposed to be happily ignoring the problem and avoiding it with Scott by his side, but for some reason Derek had wanted to talk to Scott and Allison had latched onto Lydia as quickly as possible (probably for more girl talk), so he and Jackson had just sort of ended up wandering the upstairs. Stiles thought that the place looked even more creepy with their work half-done. Maybe it was due to him knowing why they had stopped. He shook himself out of his thoughts when Jackson spoke up, trailing his claws over the remnants of dry wall hanging off the edges of the supports.
“You really think this thing has the juice to possess people?” He was giving Stiles a sidelong glance that was simultaneously worried and reproachful. Like he didn't want to believe it could happen, but part of him did anyway. Stiles was slightly put out that the rest of the pack didn't seem to take him seriously, even if he was the one who always did the research for them and he was just about as high ranking as Derek. Shouldn't they just be accepting of anything he said? He grit his teeth; Jackson probably didn't mean to be disrespectful, he just permanently sounded like a dick.
“I don't know.” Irritation laced his words, “It can move things, it can talk; what else do you need it to do?”
“Just asking.” Jackson grumbled, scratching his cheek with blunt nails and looking down at the rotting floorboards. They meandered through the room and Stiles looked out the window toward the back of the house. He wondered what the backyard had looked like before the fire-with a family living here. He could almost see it: the tire swing new and maybe a trampoline off to the side, a mowed lawn where the children rolled around and got grass stains on their clothes, a well-kept gravel path that led between the trees and back toward the lake that Stiles knew was back there. They probably had barbeques, but maybe they roasted deer and rabbit instead of burgers and hot dogs. He turned back to tell Jackson to move on and finish sweeping the top floor.
Jackson was close-way closer than he was before. A snarl was on his lips and his eyes looked somewhere between irate and vacant. His hand, clawed, reached up and grasped the front of Stiles' print t-shirt, yanking their faces so close that their noses bumped harshly even though Stiles was trying to shrink back. Hot breath puffed on his face as Jackson growled out the words. “I told you to GET OUT.”
Stiles wasn't sure what sort of noise he made, but whatever it was he couldn't hear it over the pounding of his own heart. The blood was rushing in his ears and he was trying his best to scramble out of the beta wolf's clutches. Then, like he hadn't just been scaring the shit out of Stiles, he grinned.
Stiles froze, knowing that while he was still somewhat panicky he shouldn't be-Jackson had been pulling his leg. Jackson loosened his hold on his t-shirt as four pairs of footsteps all started up the stairs in a hurry. Stiles was gulping in lungfuls of air when Jackson rocked forward, touching their foreheads together, his voice husky and low. “You're too easy.”
Derek was the first into the room, looking around for whatever had caused Stiles to yell the way he had. Jackson sprung away from Stiles like his life depended on it (it probably did). Scott was second into the room. “Dude, are you okay?”
Stiles took another gulping breath of the chilly air and punched Jackson on the shoulder, his nerves still making him a little shaky. “Yeah, he was just being an asshole.”
Derek grumbled, looking between the two, and then ordered them all back to work with a 'don't fool around.' They all wandered back down to the main level and stood around for a bit before Derek doled out jobs for everyone. There didn't seem to be any sign of ghostly inhabitants, though Stiles was still keyed up from Jackson's prank and wasn't quite sure he wanted to continue working on the house. After a while, though, the quiet of the house made him relax. That was his undoing.
{break}
It was like he was there, but he wasn't. He could see what he was doing, but he wasn't in control; a passenger, not the helmsman. He turned on his heel, the movement abrupt, the hammer he had in his hand falling to the floor with a clunk. Allison looked up and frowned, her eyebrows drawing together. “Stiles?”
He could feel his face drop any expression he might have had while working on the house, a vacant look drifting over him. His feet took him toward the door to the tunnels, not even acknowledging Allison. She dropped her own hammer and stood up, trotting over to him with a worried expression. He kept walking at a sedate pace. “Stiles? What are you doing?”
He couldn't make himself say anything, not even look at her. She seemed to realize where he was heading and twisted her fingers into the sleeve of the sweatshirt he was wearing. She looked back over her shoulder, presumably to look for the others. “Guys? Guys!”
Footsteps sounded behind him as his hand reached for the knob. More followed as he twisted it, the metal not feeling cold, like he would have expected, but painfully hot-he would have sworn and jerked away if he had any control over himself, but it just kept searing his hand-and he pushed open the door.
“What is he doing?” Lydia's voice was quiet, almost a whisper. Derek crossed the floor to approach him even as he started down the stairs into the tunnels.
“Stiles,” His voice was hard, demanding. Something Stiles would have answered whether he wanted to or not. He kept walking down the stairs, his face blank. “Stiles, where are you going?”
It had bite to it, probably because Derek hated being ignored. Stiles wanted to flail, scream, cry over the pain in his hand but he couldn't. It was like he was in a trance or something. He knew, distantly, that this must be possession, but he couldn't bring himself to be scared. The fact that he couldn't control himself was scary-he didn't want anyone to worry about him-but the fact that he had some ghostly mojo in him? It seemed like a vague notion, far away and not bothersome in the least. He kept on down the tunnel. He heard the others piling down the stairs after him, hissing questions under their breath and trying not to intrude. Derek kept pressing, though. Allison had dropped back to join the others, Stiles could almost tell that she was squeezing the life out of Scott's hand. Derek had reached for him, but let his hand fall away before touching him a couple of times-was he afraid of this? He shouldn't be afraid.
His feet brought him down the tunnels to the room with a drain in the floor and windows up above their heads to the evening air. Derek sucked in a breath and stayed back by the doorway like there was something preventing him from going any further. Stiles realized then that this was the room they had died in-his family had burned to death in here. He got five feet from the window and he sunk down-no, he collapsed in a heap-like a puppet who's strings had been cut. He immediately tried to move, thinking that maybe the ghost wasn't there anymore. He was wrong.
A wail of utter agony rose from his throat and tore through the still air in the basement. It sounded unearthly, the pain in that sound. He couldn't see any of the pack-they must have been at the door still. When the cry ended warm arms wrapped around his torso-Derek, he could tell by the smell-but it wasn't anything he could respond to.
Except then he did, but it wasn't any kind of response that should have happened. His claws raked the side of Derek's face, ripping it open and splattering droplets of blood. It wasn't a pansy scratch either, it was deep and gouging. Derek ended up on his ass, sprawled on the floor between Stiles and the doorway where the pack was huddled. Jackson was being held back by Scott as Derek wiped the blood off his face and stared at Stiles in bewilderment. Stiles felt the angry expression on his face, his fangs pushing at his lips and his eyes flipping over to the slitted ones that usually only happened in the dark.
“How dare you disturb our slumber.” His voice was sharp as a knife and hissed out, not sounding at all like himself. Just like that it felt like all of the energy had drained from him. He felt cold and tingly and like a weight had been lifted off of him. He didn't realize he'd pitched forward until his face met the cement of the floor with a crack. He groaned as everything went dark.
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