FIC: Intangible l Teen l Stiles Stilinski and Derek Hale l Teen Wolf
Title: Intangibles (chapter 1/fuck if I know)
Fandom: Teen wolf
Author: Roz
Warnings: None thus far? I will supply different warnings per chapter, depending on what there is to warn about. Thus far, it's just language.
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 4481
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf or its characters, and I intend to make no profit from this work of fiction.
Summary: Stiles sees the Triskele on Derek's door and he decides to do a little digging. He's unprepared for what exactly that entails, and what exactly this symbol might mean for the future of Beacon Hills. And the war he might accidentally cause because of it.
Stiles was the first one to notice the massive disconnect within Derek’s pack. It started when every time he went over to Scott’s, Isaac was there. It started when Isaac started attending dinner with Scott. Stiles used to hang around Scott a lot around dinner time because his dad was never home and he didn’t like eating alone.
It started when Isaac started sleeping on the couch. And then when Melissa dragged him off of the couch and ushered Isaac back toward a spare room that used to belong to Scott’s father before she kicked him out. Stiles knew Scott back then - he knew all the arguments. He knew Scott’s parents stopped sharing a bed sometime during junior high because Scott had asked him if that was normal behavior. They could hardly be in a room together without arguing, in low controlled voices. It was uncomfortable for Stiles to even witness, but Isaac wasn’t there for any of that.
It started when Melissa noticed that Isaac owned about three whole outfits, and then guilt-tripped Scott into taking Isaac out for more - even though they really didn’t have the money. But Isaac’s parents were dead, and the poor kid wore the same pair of jeans four days a week and he never asked them for anything. It started when Isaac began splitting his time - unequally - between Derek and Scott, because Derek wasn’t Scott’s alpha and Derek wasn’t talking to Scott anymore.
Derek wasn’t talking to any of them. And it annoyed Stiles, and his annoyance annoyed him too. Because this was a guy he tried avoiding for the last seven months. This was the guy he didn’t trust, this was the guy he tried to talk Scott out of listening to. And Derek’s silence could be taken as a blessing - his silence meant nothing bad was happening. What did that say about Stiles that he likened Derek to a bad omen? And still expected to see him. But Stiles caught Isaac on the phone with Derek once when Stiles showed up at Scott’s house unannounced, and the hushed, hurried whispers - well, they begged to differ.
And that symbol painted on Derek’s door? Stiles had glanced a glimpse of it when he’d gone looking for Derek - right before Derek told him to get lost, that he didn’t have a reason to be there. That he was with Scott, in Scott’s pack - that he’d chosen his side, even though nobody had really asked Stiles. Nobody had to, really, because Scott was his best friend, and it went without say. Wherever Scott went, Stiles would follow. He would follow him into hell if he had to. With his luck, Scott wouldn’t know about not eating the food in hell. He would get trapped there forever; but Stiles would be with him. He would lead him out of hell, out of the dark. Would Isaac?
He read up on that symbol. He knew it was like the symbol on Derek’s back - a triskele, but different. It was sharp lines, jagged edges and there had to be a reason for that; it had to mean something. He knew from before what spirals meant, especially in repetitions of three. Three was a very important number in symbolism, it turned out.
Birth, life and death. Past, present and future. Mind, body and soul. Man, woman and child. It meant unity. Completion. It was also present in folklore - three wishes, three guesses, three little pigs, three bears. But it got better than that. First, three was used five hundred and twenty three times in the bible. Which - that seemed a bit excessive, but whatever. There was a line that John the Baptist said in regard to Christ. “I am the alpha and the omega.” He wasn’t quite sure why the website mentioned that - since that was just two, and two symbolically meant duality and complete opposites, mirror images, at times. That was when Stiles figured three probably meant Alpha, Beta and Omega too. That was probably why Derek got it engraved on his skin. Sure. That wasn’t creepy.
A spiral form of the triskele was a solar symbol and Stiles accidentally learned why exactly there were 365 days a year and why the calendar was based off of the solar year and not the lunar year. More specifically, a triskele was an ancient Celtic symbol that has come to refer to the cycle of life. Since it was usually drawn with one continuous line, it could mean the never ending and continuous movement of life. It also represented the number three.
However, since this symbol wasn’t a spiral - he broadened his search. He found out it was a Sicilian triskele. A triskele with chthonic importance. Chthonic merely meant Earth.
“One that designates, or pertains to deities or spirits of the underworld,” he read out loud. The greek ‘khthon’ was another word for earth - and the island that used this symbol as a flag had been colonized by Greece at the time. But it wasn’t really Earth; it was the interior of the soil, not the living surface of the earth. He added the symbolic meaning of Earth to his list of things to further research. He knew it might be a strenuous process. He’d stumbled into Celtic and Greek lore and there were a lot of conflicting stories when it came to lore.
There was a triangle in the center of the Sicilian triskele because it was a flag and the island it belonged to was in the shape of a triangle. A triangle that had three capes that were equidistant from each other, jutting out from the triangle.
‘The Sicilian Triskele was usually drawn with a Medusa head in the center, instead of a triangle,’ google informed him. Ironically, Athena was the patron goddess for this island. And there were two stories about Medusa and Athena in mythology. One depicted Medusa as a destructive aspect of Athena. But a different one depicted Medusa as a monster that was killed by Perseus - and her head adorned Athena’s shield. Athena symbolized civilization, law and justice, just warfare. Strength. Strategy. Skill. And this bitch was harsh. One of the tales of her and Medusa depicted Medusa as a human who was raped by Poseidon in her temple. And upon seeing the destruction of her temple, Athena turned Medusa into this monster - this woman with snakes for hair, who turned men to stone should they look her in the eye. She was petty and fierce.
He looked up Earth - and Earth pretty much correlated with Athena. Cold, steady, unmoving, full of hollows and caves and valleys.
He wasn’t sure why, but he was suddenly on edge, because somebody had drawn this symbol on Derek’s door. And it wasn’t a welcoming to the neighborhood, let’s bake casseroles later kind of move. It was a challenge. And the people who drew this symbol were strong and steady and skilled and they were coming for Derek. For them all. This cold, steady, unmoving force.
“Hey.”
Stiles jumped, but immediately relaxed when he saw Scott in his doorway. “Hey - god,” he said, pressing a hand to his chest. “What?” And it wasn’t the question he’d meant to ask, but there it was. What was Scott doing here? Things had been tense between them. They hadn’t really been making many house calls.
Scott smiled and didn’t read too much into Stiles’s question as much as Stiles did. Stiles closed his computer and spun in his chair to face Scott. “I’m not God, Stiles - I don’t why you call me God everytime I come over. Flattering, yes, but inaccurate.”
Scott received a cold gaze in response for the joke. It was their natural response to each other’s jokes. Now jokes on other people’s behalfs? Yeah. They laughed at those. Loudly. Obnoxiously.
“Where’s Isaac?” Scott said, with a smile, the only hint that he heard that question from Stiles way too often - a question Stiles didn’t even remember voicing half the time. Scott and Isaac had become nearly inseparable. The question was the only hint at Stiles’s inner lying annoyance and jealousy, but Scott didn’t read too much into that either. He thought it was amusing. As amusing as using his werewolf powers with Stiles when they practiced lacrosse, evidently. “We’re about to head to the field to practice. You wanna come?”
“Practice lacrosse with two werewolfs?” Stiles reiterated, canting his head to the side. “Uh, no, bud, I think I’ll pass on that one.”
“You don’t like him,” Scott broached.
“I like him just fine,” Stiles said automatically. It was a memorized line because he did read too much into his own behavior. He didn’t have a problem with Isaac. Isaac was pack, sorta. He got the raw end of the stick. He had no one. It was good that he had a friend like Scott. But the more time Isaac spent with Scott, it felt, the less Stiles saw him. He realized abruptly that he wasn’t going to tell Scott about the stupid Triskele on Derek’s door - and it saddened him. Because he told Scott everything, but they hadn’t really been talking a lot lately.
“You’re cold with him, man,” Scott said, and maybe Scott read too much into his behavior after all.
“What? No, I’m not,” Stiles said - another automatic response, but this one was a little more genuine. He was honestly baffled because he wasn’t cold to Isaac. He wasn’t cold to anyone.
“Dude, every time you come over you have this look on your face. You remember how you used to look at Matt?” Scott continued.
“Uh, no, I never actually got a look at my own face, Scott,” Stiles said wryly. Joked. But what if he did look at Isaac like Matt? Because he really hated Matt, and he couldn’t imagine looking at anybody but Jackson like he looked at Matt. Just… his stupid face. And the look on that stupid face. He just didn’t like it.
Scott smiled faintly. “He’s cool,” he said. “Quiet and subtle which is weird, because you’re the only person I ever hang out with and you’re definitely not very quiet or subtle but he’s cool. You should hang out with us. It’ll be fun.
There was that word that Scott had started using lately ever since he and Allison ended things. Fun. He was pretty sure it didn’t mean what Scott thought it meant. Because playing lacrosse with two werewolves who thought using their powers against the puny mortal was anything but annoying and awkward as hell was definitely not fun. “Next time,” Stiles said, glancing over his shoulder at his closed computer. “I got some homework to catch up on. And uh - my dad has a new case that I thought I’d… uh, dig into, y’know?”
“Your dad hates you messing with his cases,” Scott pointed out, ignoring the comment about his homework because Stiles just… never seemed to have any. Stiles wondered if he’d gotten better at lying, because Derek always called him out on it, but Scott never seemed to notice. Allison’s heartbeat was probably the only one Scott paid attention to anyway. Not everybody wanted to be a walking lie-detector.
Stiles cracked a smile this time. “Yeah, I know,” he admitted. “But he loves it - secretly - I am positive.” Lie. “It’s probably nothing.” Lie. “But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. With all the werewolf bullshit and everything.” Truth. “I mean, imagine if I never snooped in my dad’s files? You wouldn’t have your BFF Isaac right now.” Truth so true it hurt to swallow.
Scott wasn’t smiling anymore. There was a tension here that had never really left, not since that night in the Sheriff’s department. It was a tension so thick and so full, it was hard to breathe. For a second, it looked like Scott might say something about that - reaffirm Stiles’s status as his best friend. But then that second passed and both of their expressions sort of just closed down after that. “Okay, well, dude, if you change your mind, we’ll probably be at the field all night. You know you can’t make captain next year if you don’t practice.”
“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. “And I totally intend to practice. Eventually.”
There wasn’t much to say after that, so Scott left and Stiles released a trapped breath and turned back to his computer. And nearly jumped out of his chair. Because standing right in front of his window was Derek Hale. “Jesus Christ,” he shouted, pressing a hand to his chest. “Could you not do that, seriously, man?” The frustration in his voice was very real. Fucking werewolves. Materializing out of thin air. Like fucking werewolves.
Derek didn’t smile. He never smiled. Stiles read somewhere that it took more muscles to frown than smiles - no wonder Derek’s face looked so lean and chiseled. Dude never took a break. “What?” Stiles asked. “What is it, Lassy? Timmy’s stuck in a well?” He rapped his fingers on the closed lid of his computer.
Nothing. No reaction, no smile, no eye roll, nothing. “Dog jokes? Clever. You’re lying to Scott now?” He asked. Stiles knew he looked pissed just because that was just his face, and not because he actually cared who Stiles lied to.
“Are we having a talk here? Is this our first heart to heart? Should I lie down and tell you all of my problems? Is that the stage we’ve reached in our friendship?” Joking was his default, and he wasn’t sure if it got funnier, or worse when Derek never smiled. “Contrary to what it looks like - the lassie joke was not because you’re a werewolf. Because I am clever.”
Derek looked unimpressed, but he didn’t argue the point. Stiles was clever. Probably more than all of them. Cutting the boy down wouldn’t do Derek any favors. “Why?” Derek asked, pressing, like the answer was important.
“Scott’s busy, and it’s nothing. I don’t wanna play lacrosse with him and his new fucking live in roommate.” The agitation was real too. He shrugged and scoffed. “So what? I’m allowed to blow off my friends, dude, what are you even doing here? Did you hear my heartbeat speed up from all the way across town? Or do you just eavesdrop outside of my house on a regular basis now? Is this a hobby for you? Are you really that uncreative and creepy?”
Still, nothing. “You’re getting better at lying. You’re starting to talk over your disloyal heartbeat. Distraction is the laziest tactic in the books, though, you do realize that, right?”
Was Derek joking, or was he really insulting him? Stiles honestly didn’t know whether he should be offended or not. “What books? Good peptalk, though. Never get a job at a suicide prevention hotline.”
Derek moved deeper into Stiles’s room. “What’d you find out?”
“Huh?” Stiles asked, his head whipping to the side to stare at Derek, hoping maybe he’d just misheard Derek.
“I heard you talking. About the deities of the underworld. What’d your halfass google search lead you to, Stiles?”
“First off,” Stiles began. “Searching google is an art form and I have mastered it. Nothing I do on google is half-assed, okay? And second off - rude. I didn’t find out anything. I found out why we follow the solar calendar and not the lunar one - it’s actually a funny story. So there was this dude, right -”
“Stiles.” Derek looked impatient, not amused. Or hell - maybe it was amusement. Did Stiles even know what Derek’s amused face looked like? Maybe he was so uncreative that his amused and impatient faces looked the exact same. It seemed plausible. “What did you find?”
“Nothing. Just that a strong, steady, skilled, unmoving force has challenged you. Waged war on you. And probably all of Beacon Hills because hey - why the hell not? Why haven’t you told Scott yet?”
Derek shrugged, leaning back against Stiles’s wall. “I thought Isaac might.”
Stiles stopped, narrowing his eyes at Derek. Wait. What was that look for? Was that emotion? “Wait,” he said. “Are you - are you jealous right now? Really?”
Derek shrugged again. “No.”
Stiles rose to his feet and moved closer. “No. No that is it - that is jealousy on your face, right now. No wait - I got this, I’ve been practicing.” He cleared his throat and pitched his voice slightly deeper. “Do you know what I just heard right there? Your heart skip a beat over the word - no.” He grinned and poked Derek in the chest. “Jealous.”
Derek’s face loosened slightly, and there was a faint smile that ghosted over his lips before disappearing entirely. “Shut up. What else do you know?”
“What else do you know?” Stiles countered, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Nothing,” Derek said.
Stiles made a loud noise - “BZZT! Wrong answer. Please try again.”
Derek rolled his eyes. “It’s a pack of Alphas.”
Stiles sobered up quickly. “I think that’s theoretically impossible. There’s a pecking order to wolves, and I’m fairly positive that an entire pack of alphas would have imploded about the same time they all got together.”
“Yeah, in theory,” Derek agreed. “But somehow they make it work. They probably have an Alpha alpha. Werewolves feed off of each other’s power. The more members you have in the pack, the more powerful each member is - but also the more powerful the alpha is. But if all the members in the pack are alphas…”
“They all get that extra power boost,” Stiles finished for him, like he’d just unearthed something new. “But that creates a kind of paradox, doesn’t it? Each individual members comes with power that is amplified by the alpha, but the alpha is amplified by the individual member - that is amplified because they’re an alpha too. And it’s all amplified over and over again - how is that even possible?”
Derek shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
“That is freaking genius.” Stiles appeared to have temporarily forgotten the pressing danger. “Why are they here?”
“They are drawn…” He paused, and Stiles watched as he tried to work out his train of thought. As if he were actually trying here. “When an alpha comes to power, a werewolf can feel it. Usually that alpha draws omegas to him - omegas who have been disowned by their own pack, or whose pack has died - they are drawn to new alphas, because it represents a new start - and usually because new alphas are so desperate to build a pack, they can’t really be picky about who they let in. But all werewolves can feel it. These alphas, they can feel it. And they intend to rob those new alphas of their power when they’re still young and inexperienced.”
“Like you,” Stiles said helpfully.
“Like me,” Derek agreed, in a surprisingly humble moment. “That’s why they’re here. For power.”
“So that’s potentially mind-boggling terrifying,” Stiles said. “What are you going to do about it.” There was a certain glint in his eyes, already going over the possible solutions in his head.
“I don’t know,” Derek said again.
“Well, you’re not strong enough, right? I mean Erica and Boyd are AWOL. And Scott isn’t with you. And Isaac is -” What even was Isaac?
“Isaac is pack,” Derek said firmly, almost defensively.
“Yeah, okay.” Stiles held up his hands defensively. “And Peter -” He made a face. He hadn’t really dwelled much on Peter Hale. At the time of his sudden revelation that Peter wasn’t as dead as they had all thought - he was a little caught up on the whole getting his ass kicked by an old man, Lydia reviving Jackson with power of love and Scott taking care of Gerard on his own. There was this aching feeling at the back of his brain when he thought about Scott’s face. Scott hadn’t looked surprised at all. “You know he’s working an angle, right?”
“I know,” Derek confirmed, sounding tired - like he’d already gone over it too many times in his own head too.
“If he were to kill you to become Alpha again, this new pack would probably recruit him, right? Instead of killing him? He’s not really a new alpha - he was more powerful than you are now. He had this whole wolf shape thing and creepy eyes and everything going for him - I mean what’s up with the turning into a wolf anyway? How come you don’t do that?”
Derek was frowning at Stiles, because that was the conclusion he’d come to too. But he didn’t know what to do about it. Peter was helping - for the moment - but Deaton’s words hadn’t strayed too far from his mind. The man had told him not to trust Peter. He had said that Peter would try to get into his head, make him feel like he needed his uncle; make him trust him.
“Derek.” Stiles snapped his fingers in front of Derek’s face.
“What?” Derek snapped, coming back to himself and scowling at the boy.
“Zone out, huh?” Stiles evidently wasn’t the least bit surprised at being annoyed. He didn’t even look offended. “Yeah, I do that all the time. Doctors like to pretend it’s a symptom of exhaustion but I think it’s just because you’ve got too much thought in your head and your brain doesn’t really know what to do with it. Mine usually creates terrifyingly graphic simulations to go along with the thoughts.” Stiles cleared his throat and rocked back on his heels. Derek couldn’t really imagine Stiles ever being truly exhausted. The kid had too much energy. “How did Peter resurrect himself?”
Derek frowned at him and Stiles sighed. Derek’s face had completely shut down. “We’re totally done with the info sharing, aren’t we?”
“It’s not something you need to know,” Derek said, stiffly. “It pertains to werewolf rituals and -”
“Like the wolf moon?” Stiles asked. He had learned it through a doctor he and Scott had looked for, for the werewolf cure.
Derek moved abruptly, suddenly reversing their positions and Stiles found himself slammed back hard against the wall. “How do you know about that?” Derek asked quietly, controlled violence in his voice.
“Google,” Stiles said automatically. It was a lie, and his heartbeat picked up - but he wanted to pretend like maybe that had more to do with the being slammed into walls part instead of the lying part.
Derek’s face darkened. “Wrong answer. Try again.”
If Stiles wasn’t having trouble breathing, choking on his own fear, he might have laughed. “Look, could you just trust me for like one second? I know it has to do with Lydia, okay? I don’t know the specifics, but I know he did text her before all that Jackson bullshit. Which makes me think you didn’t just kill Jackson - that that was part of the cure, you big ol’ marshmellow, you. And c’mon - we’re totally on the same side. Well, except for that one time you wanted to kill Lydia and we actively opposed you - or that one time we got you arrested - or - or that one time we told everybody in town you were a crazed killer and accidentally turned you into a fugitive… sorta on purpose…” Stiles chuckled breathlessly, realizing he was definitely not helping his case. “Crazy times,” he said weakly.
Okay, maybe they weren’t on the same side all the time - but it’d been a while and it seemed like they ended up against the same threat… all the freaking time. “Don’t you think it’s about time we cut the bullshit and just admit maybe we’re all fighting the same monster and instead of fighting each other we should maybe like pool our resources and work together - like civilized adults?”
Something in Derek’s face shifted it into an unreadable expression, and he opened his mouth like he might say something - something Stiles wanted to hear - but then the door opened, and they both froze.
“Stiles, have you seen my -” His father stopped there, in the doorway, and stared at them. Stiles glanced back at Derek and realized what this might look like. Derek had him pressed against the wall, fingers digging into his sternum, and this could go one of two ways. His father could immediately think Derek was threatening Stiles - which wouldn’t be too far off the mark. Or he could think they’d just gotten caught making out red-handed. “Hale,” his father said stiffly, and that told him absolutely nothing about his father’s inevitable reaction.
“Sheriff Stilinski,” Derek said back. Stiles nudged Derek in the ribs and Derek immediately backed off - gave him room - and in hindsight, that probably didn’t help the situation any. It just made it look like they could communicate silently, with touches - which was so totally not true.
“Dad,” Stiles said automatically. “This is totally not what it looks like.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it looks like,” His father said, carefully. It was a good tactic, Derek realized. It forced Stiles to either admit what he did - admit what it looked like - or it forced him to come up with a lie on the spot. A lie that they’d both have to be a part of in the end.
“It looks like… Me and Derek here -”
“Derek and I,” Derek said - helpfully. Stiles shot him an unimpressed look.
“Derek and I were wrapped up in a very intense argument about Skyrim,” he said, shooting another glare at Derek. “This peasant actually played the Blades’ lap dog and killed Paarthurnax - can you believe that?” And to Stiles’s credit, he actually sounded alarmed and angry about it. Personally offended.
Stiles’s father’s gaze shifted over to Derek. “Who’s Paarthurnax?” He asked, but he didn’t sound like he cared. It was a test. This was the problem with embellished, unrehearsed lies.
“He’s the dra-” Stiles began.
“Derek,” his father interrupted, silencing Stiles with a stern, unamused look. “Who is Paarthurnax.” It had stopped being a question.
Derek felt trapped in that gaze, rooted to the spot, the familiar dread at being chastised by an adult heavy in his gut - like he had anything to fear from this man. Like he cared. It brutally reminded him that he was still a child. “He’s a character that…. Clearly deserved to die. I play no one’s lap dog,” Derek said slowly. He just barely caught Stiles’s grin from behind the sheriff. “I do what I want.” And if Derek hadn’t sounded so robotic about it - it might actually have been funny.
The sheriff didn’t look impressed. “Dinner is in five.” Only once he was halfway down the hall did he throw over his shoulder, “I’ll set you a place, Hale.”
Once the sheriff was out of earshot, Stiles actually started laughing. He covered his face with a hand and laughed loudly into the silent room. Derek shoved Stiles back into the wall hard, before passing him and following in the sheriff’s footsteps.
Fandom: Teen wolf
Author: Roz
Warnings: None thus far? I will supply different warnings per chapter, depending on what there is to warn about. Thus far, it's just language.
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 4481
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf or its characters, and I intend to make no profit from this work of fiction.
Summary: Stiles sees the Triskele on Derek's door and he decides to do a little digging. He's unprepared for what exactly that entails, and what exactly this symbol might mean for the future of Beacon Hills. And the war he might accidentally cause because of it.
Stiles was the first one to notice the massive disconnect within Derek’s pack. It started when every time he went over to Scott’s, Isaac was there. It started when Isaac started attending dinner with Scott. Stiles used to hang around Scott a lot around dinner time because his dad was never home and he didn’t like eating alone.
It started when Isaac started sleeping on the couch. And then when Melissa dragged him off of the couch and ushered Isaac back toward a spare room that used to belong to Scott’s father before she kicked him out. Stiles knew Scott back then - he knew all the arguments. He knew Scott’s parents stopped sharing a bed sometime during junior high because Scott had asked him if that was normal behavior. They could hardly be in a room together without arguing, in low controlled voices. It was uncomfortable for Stiles to even witness, but Isaac wasn’t there for any of that.
It started when Melissa noticed that Isaac owned about three whole outfits, and then guilt-tripped Scott into taking Isaac out for more - even though they really didn’t have the money. But Isaac’s parents were dead, and the poor kid wore the same pair of jeans four days a week and he never asked them for anything. It started when Isaac began splitting his time - unequally - between Derek and Scott, because Derek wasn’t Scott’s alpha and Derek wasn’t talking to Scott anymore.
Derek wasn’t talking to any of them. And it annoyed Stiles, and his annoyance annoyed him too. Because this was a guy he tried avoiding for the last seven months. This was the guy he didn’t trust, this was the guy he tried to talk Scott out of listening to. And Derek’s silence could be taken as a blessing - his silence meant nothing bad was happening. What did that say about Stiles that he likened Derek to a bad omen? And still expected to see him. But Stiles caught Isaac on the phone with Derek once when Stiles showed up at Scott’s house unannounced, and the hushed, hurried whispers - well, they begged to differ.
And that symbol painted on Derek’s door? Stiles had glanced a glimpse of it when he’d gone looking for Derek - right before Derek told him to get lost, that he didn’t have a reason to be there. That he was with Scott, in Scott’s pack - that he’d chosen his side, even though nobody had really asked Stiles. Nobody had to, really, because Scott was his best friend, and it went without say. Wherever Scott went, Stiles would follow. He would follow him into hell if he had to. With his luck, Scott wouldn’t know about not eating the food in hell. He would get trapped there forever; but Stiles would be with him. He would lead him out of hell, out of the dark. Would Isaac?
He read up on that symbol. He knew it was like the symbol on Derek’s back - a triskele, but different. It was sharp lines, jagged edges and there had to be a reason for that; it had to mean something. He knew from before what spirals meant, especially in repetitions of three. Three was a very important number in symbolism, it turned out.
Birth, life and death. Past, present and future. Mind, body and soul. Man, woman and child. It meant unity. Completion. It was also present in folklore - three wishes, three guesses, three little pigs, three bears. But it got better than that. First, three was used five hundred and twenty three times in the bible. Which - that seemed a bit excessive, but whatever. There was a line that John the Baptist said in regard to Christ. “I am the alpha and the omega.” He wasn’t quite sure why the website mentioned that - since that was just two, and two symbolically meant duality and complete opposites, mirror images, at times. That was when Stiles figured three probably meant Alpha, Beta and Omega too. That was probably why Derek got it engraved on his skin. Sure. That wasn’t creepy.
A spiral form of the triskele was a solar symbol and Stiles accidentally learned why exactly there were 365 days a year and why the calendar was based off of the solar year and not the lunar year. More specifically, a triskele was an ancient Celtic symbol that has come to refer to the cycle of life. Since it was usually drawn with one continuous line, it could mean the never ending and continuous movement of life. It also represented the number three.
However, since this symbol wasn’t a spiral - he broadened his search. He found out it was a Sicilian triskele. A triskele with chthonic importance. Chthonic merely meant Earth.
“One that designates, or pertains to deities or spirits of the underworld,” he read out loud. The greek ‘khthon’ was another word for earth - and the island that used this symbol as a flag had been colonized by Greece at the time. But it wasn’t really Earth; it was the interior of the soil, not the living surface of the earth. He added the symbolic meaning of Earth to his list of things to further research. He knew it might be a strenuous process. He’d stumbled into Celtic and Greek lore and there were a lot of conflicting stories when it came to lore.
There was a triangle in the center of the Sicilian triskele because it was a flag and the island it belonged to was in the shape of a triangle. A triangle that had three capes that were equidistant from each other, jutting out from the triangle.
‘The Sicilian Triskele was usually drawn with a Medusa head in the center, instead of a triangle,’ google informed him. Ironically, Athena was the patron goddess for this island. And there were two stories about Medusa and Athena in mythology. One depicted Medusa as a destructive aspect of Athena. But a different one depicted Medusa as a monster that was killed by Perseus - and her head adorned Athena’s shield. Athena symbolized civilization, law and justice, just warfare. Strength. Strategy. Skill. And this bitch was harsh. One of the tales of her and Medusa depicted Medusa as a human who was raped by Poseidon in her temple. And upon seeing the destruction of her temple, Athena turned Medusa into this monster - this woman with snakes for hair, who turned men to stone should they look her in the eye. She was petty and fierce.
He looked up Earth - and Earth pretty much correlated with Athena. Cold, steady, unmoving, full of hollows and caves and valleys.
He wasn’t sure why, but he was suddenly on edge, because somebody had drawn this symbol on Derek’s door. And it wasn’t a welcoming to the neighborhood, let’s bake casseroles later kind of move. It was a challenge. And the people who drew this symbol were strong and steady and skilled and they were coming for Derek. For them all. This cold, steady, unmoving force.
“Hey.”
Stiles jumped, but immediately relaxed when he saw Scott in his doorway. “Hey - god,” he said, pressing a hand to his chest. “What?” And it wasn’t the question he’d meant to ask, but there it was. What was Scott doing here? Things had been tense between them. They hadn’t really been making many house calls.
Scott smiled and didn’t read too much into Stiles’s question as much as Stiles did. Stiles closed his computer and spun in his chair to face Scott. “I’m not God, Stiles - I don’t why you call me God everytime I come over. Flattering, yes, but inaccurate.”
Scott received a cold gaze in response for the joke. It was their natural response to each other’s jokes. Now jokes on other people’s behalfs? Yeah. They laughed at those. Loudly. Obnoxiously.
“Where’s Isaac?” Scott said, with a smile, the only hint that he heard that question from Stiles way too often - a question Stiles didn’t even remember voicing half the time. Scott and Isaac had become nearly inseparable. The question was the only hint at Stiles’s inner lying annoyance and jealousy, but Scott didn’t read too much into that either. He thought it was amusing. As amusing as using his werewolf powers with Stiles when they practiced lacrosse, evidently. “We’re about to head to the field to practice. You wanna come?”
“Practice lacrosse with two werewolfs?” Stiles reiterated, canting his head to the side. “Uh, no, bud, I think I’ll pass on that one.”
“You don’t like him,” Scott broached.
“I like him just fine,” Stiles said automatically. It was a memorized line because he did read too much into his own behavior. He didn’t have a problem with Isaac. Isaac was pack, sorta. He got the raw end of the stick. He had no one. It was good that he had a friend like Scott. But the more time Isaac spent with Scott, it felt, the less Stiles saw him. He realized abruptly that he wasn’t going to tell Scott about the stupid Triskele on Derek’s door - and it saddened him. Because he told Scott everything, but they hadn’t really been talking a lot lately.
“You’re cold with him, man,” Scott said, and maybe Scott read too much into his behavior after all.
“What? No, I’m not,” Stiles said - another automatic response, but this one was a little more genuine. He was honestly baffled because he wasn’t cold to Isaac. He wasn’t cold to anyone.
“Dude, every time you come over you have this look on your face. You remember how you used to look at Matt?” Scott continued.
“Uh, no, I never actually got a look at my own face, Scott,” Stiles said wryly. Joked. But what if he did look at Isaac like Matt? Because he really hated Matt, and he couldn’t imagine looking at anybody but Jackson like he looked at Matt. Just… his stupid face. And the look on that stupid face. He just didn’t like it.
Scott smiled faintly. “He’s cool,” he said. “Quiet and subtle which is weird, because you’re the only person I ever hang out with and you’re definitely not very quiet or subtle but he’s cool. You should hang out with us. It’ll be fun.
There was that word that Scott had started using lately ever since he and Allison ended things. Fun. He was pretty sure it didn’t mean what Scott thought it meant. Because playing lacrosse with two werewolves who thought using their powers against the puny mortal was anything but annoying and awkward as hell was definitely not fun. “Next time,” Stiles said, glancing over his shoulder at his closed computer. “I got some homework to catch up on. And uh - my dad has a new case that I thought I’d… uh, dig into, y’know?”
“Your dad hates you messing with his cases,” Scott pointed out, ignoring the comment about his homework because Stiles just… never seemed to have any. Stiles wondered if he’d gotten better at lying, because Derek always called him out on it, but Scott never seemed to notice. Allison’s heartbeat was probably the only one Scott paid attention to anyway. Not everybody wanted to be a walking lie-detector.
Stiles cracked a smile this time. “Yeah, I know,” he admitted. “But he loves it - secretly - I am positive.” Lie. “It’s probably nothing.” Lie. “But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. With all the werewolf bullshit and everything.” Truth. “I mean, imagine if I never snooped in my dad’s files? You wouldn’t have your BFF Isaac right now.” Truth so true it hurt to swallow.
Scott wasn’t smiling anymore. There was a tension here that had never really left, not since that night in the Sheriff’s department. It was a tension so thick and so full, it was hard to breathe. For a second, it looked like Scott might say something about that - reaffirm Stiles’s status as his best friend. But then that second passed and both of their expressions sort of just closed down after that. “Okay, well, dude, if you change your mind, we’ll probably be at the field all night. You know you can’t make captain next year if you don’t practice.”
“Yeah,” Stiles agreed. “And I totally intend to practice. Eventually.”
There wasn’t much to say after that, so Scott left and Stiles released a trapped breath and turned back to his computer. And nearly jumped out of his chair. Because standing right in front of his window was Derek Hale. “Jesus Christ,” he shouted, pressing a hand to his chest. “Could you not do that, seriously, man?” The frustration in his voice was very real. Fucking werewolves. Materializing out of thin air. Like fucking werewolves.
Derek didn’t smile. He never smiled. Stiles read somewhere that it took more muscles to frown than smiles - no wonder Derek’s face looked so lean and chiseled. Dude never took a break. “What?” Stiles asked. “What is it, Lassy? Timmy’s stuck in a well?” He rapped his fingers on the closed lid of his computer.
Nothing. No reaction, no smile, no eye roll, nothing. “Dog jokes? Clever. You’re lying to Scott now?” He asked. Stiles knew he looked pissed just because that was just his face, and not because he actually cared who Stiles lied to.
“Are we having a talk here? Is this our first heart to heart? Should I lie down and tell you all of my problems? Is that the stage we’ve reached in our friendship?” Joking was his default, and he wasn’t sure if it got funnier, or worse when Derek never smiled. “Contrary to what it looks like - the lassie joke was not because you’re a werewolf. Because I am clever.”
Derek looked unimpressed, but he didn’t argue the point. Stiles was clever. Probably more than all of them. Cutting the boy down wouldn’t do Derek any favors. “Why?” Derek asked, pressing, like the answer was important.
“Scott’s busy, and it’s nothing. I don’t wanna play lacrosse with him and his new fucking live in roommate.” The agitation was real too. He shrugged and scoffed. “So what? I’m allowed to blow off my friends, dude, what are you even doing here? Did you hear my heartbeat speed up from all the way across town? Or do you just eavesdrop outside of my house on a regular basis now? Is this a hobby for you? Are you really that uncreative and creepy?”
Still, nothing. “You’re getting better at lying. You’re starting to talk over your disloyal heartbeat. Distraction is the laziest tactic in the books, though, you do realize that, right?”
Was Derek joking, or was he really insulting him? Stiles honestly didn’t know whether he should be offended or not. “What books? Good peptalk, though. Never get a job at a suicide prevention hotline.”
Derek moved deeper into Stiles’s room. “What’d you find out?”
“Huh?” Stiles asked, his head whipping to the side to stare at Derek, hoping maybe he’d just misheard Derek.
“I heard you talking. About the deities of the underworld. What’d your halfass google search lead you to, Stiles?”
“First off,” Stiles began. “Searching google is an art form and I have mastered it. Nothing I do on google is half-assed, okay? And second off - rude. I didn’t find out anything. I found out why we follow the solar calendar and not the lunar one - it’s actually a funny story. So there was this dude, right -”
“Stiles.” Derek looked impatient, not amused. Or hell - maybe it was amusement. Did Stiles even know what Derek’s amused face looked like? Maybe he was so uncreative that his amused and impatient faces looked the exact same. It seemed plausible. “What did you find?”
“Nothing. Just that a strong, steady, skilled, unmoving force has challenged you. Waged war on you. And probably all of Beacon Hills because hey - why the hell not? Why haven’t you told Scott yet?”
Derek shrugged, leaning back against Stiles’s wall. “I thought Isaac might.”
Stiles stopped, narrowing his eyes at Derek. Wait. What was that look for? Was that emotion? “Wait,” he said. “Are you - are you jealous right now? Really?”
Derek shrugged again. “No.”
Stiles rose to his feet and moved closer. “No. No that is it - that is jealousy on your face, right now. No wait - I got this, I’ve been practicing.” He cleared his throat and pitched his voice slightly deeper. “Do you know what I just heard right there? Your heart skip a beat over the word - no.” He grinned and poked Derek in the chest. “Jealous.”
Derek’s face loosened slightly, and there was a faint smile that ghosted over his lips before disappearing entirely. “Shut up. What else do you know?”
“What else do you know?” Stiles countered, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Nothing,” Derek said.
Stiles made a loud noise - “BZZT! Wrong answer. Please try again.”
Derek rolled his eyes. “It’s a pack of Alphas.”
Stiles sobered up quickly. “I think that’s theoretically impossible. There’s a pecking order to wolves, and I’m fairly positive that an entire pack of alphas would have imploded about the same time they all got together.”
“Yeah, in theory,” Derek agreed. “But somehow they make it work. They probably have an Alpha alpha. Werewolves feed off of each other’s power. The more members you have in the pack, the more powerful each member is - but also the more powerful the alpha is. But if all the members in the pack are alphas…”
“They all get that extra power boost,” Stiles finished for him, like he’d just unearthed something new. “But that creates a kind of paradox, doesn’t it? Each individual members comes with power that is amplified by the alpha, but the alpha is amplified by the individual member - that is amplified because they’re an alpha too. And it’s all amplified over and over again - how is that even possible?”
Derek shrugged. “I don’t know,” he admitted.
“That is freaking genius.” Stiles appeared to have temporarily forgotten the pressing danger. “Why are they here?”
“They are drawn…” He paused, and Stiles watched as he tried to work out his train of thought. As if he were actually trying here. “When an alpha comes to power, a werewolf can feel it. Usually that alpha draws omegas to him - omegas who have been disowned by their own pack, or whose pack has died - they are drawn to new alphas, because it represents a new start - and usually because new alphas are so desperate to build a pack, they can’t really be picky about who they let in. But all werewolves can feel it. These alphas, they can feel it. And they intend to rob those new alphas of their power when they’re still young and inexperienced.”
“Like you,” Stiles said helpfully.
“Like me,” Derek agreed, in a surprisingly humble moment. “That’s why they’re here. For power.”
“So that’s potentially mind-boggling terrifying,” Stiles said. “What are you going to do about it.” There was a certain glint in his eyes, already going over the possible solutions in his head.
“I don’t know,” Derek said again.
“Well, you’re not strong enough, right? I mean Erica and Boyd are AWOL. And Scott isn’t with you. And Isaac is -” What even was Isaac?
“Isaac is pack,” Derek said firmly, almost defensively.
“Yeah, okay.” Stiles held up his hands defensively. “And Peter -” He made a face. He hadn’t really dwelled much on Peter Hale. At the time of his sudden revelation that Peter wasn’t as dead as they had all thought - he was a little caught up on the whole getting his ass kicked by an old man, Lydia reviving Jackson with power of love and Scott taking care of Gerard on his own. There was this aching feeling at the back of his brain when he thought about Scott’s face. Scott hadn’t looked surprised at all. “You know he’s working an angle, right?”
“I know,” Derek confirmed, sounding tired - like he’d already gone over it too many times in his own head too.
“If he were to kill you to become Alpha again, this new pack would probably recruit him, right? Instead of killing him? He’s not really a new alpha - he was more powerful than you are now. He had this whole wolf shape thing and creepy eyes and everything going for him - I mean what’s up with the turning into a wolf anyway? How come you don’t do that?”
Derek was frowning at Stiles, because that was the conclusion he’d come to too. But he didn’t know what to do about it. Peter was helping - for the moment - but Deaton’s words hadn’t strayed too far from his mind. The man had told him not to trust Peter. He had said that Peter would try to get into his head, make him feel like he needed his uncle; make him trust him.
“Derek.” Stiles snapped his fingers in front of Derek’s face.
“What?” Derek snapped, coming back to himself and scowling at the boy.
“Zone out, huh?” Stiles evidently wasn’t the least bit surprised at being annoyed. He didn’t even look offended. “Yeah, I do that all the time. Doctors like to pretend it’s a symptom of exhaustion but I think it’s just because you’ve got too much thought in your head and your brain doesn’t really know what to do with it. Mine usually creates terrifyingly graphic simulations to go along with the thoughts.” Stiles cleared his throat and rocked back on his heels. Derek couldn’t really imagine Stiles ever being truly exhausted. The kid had too much energy. “How did Peter resurrect himself?”
Derek frowned at him and Stiles sighed. Derek’s face had completely shut down. “We’re totally done with the info sharing, aren’t we?”
“It’s not something you need to know,” Derek said, stiffly. “It pertains to werewolf rituals and -”
“Like the wolf moon?” Stiles asked. He had learned it through a doctor he and Scott had looked for, for the werewolf cure.
Derek moved abruptly, suddenly reversing their positions and Stiles found himself slammed back hard against the wall. “How do you know about that?” Derek asked quietly, controlled violence in his voice.
“Google,” Stiles said automatically. It was a lie, and his heartbeat picked up - but he wanted to pretend like maybe that had more to do with the being slammed into walls part instead of the lying part.
Derek’s face darkened. “Wrong answer. Try again.”
If Stiles wasn’t having trouble breathing, choking on his own fear, he might have laughed. “Look, could you just trust me for like one second? I know it has to do with Lydia, okay? I don’t know the specifics, but I know he did text her before all that Jackson bullshit. Which makes me think you didn’t just kill Jackson - that that was part of the cure, you big ol’ marshmellow, you. And c’mon - we’re totally on the same side. Well, except for that one time you wanted to kill Lydia and we actively opposed you - or that one time we got you arrested - or - or that one time we told everybody in town you were a crazed killer and accidentally turned you into a fugitive… sorta on purpose…” Stiles chuckled breathlessly, realizing he was definitely not helping his case. “Crazy times,” he said weakly.
Okay, maybe they weren’t on the same side all the time - but it’d been a while and it seemed like they ended up against the same threat… all the freaking time. “Don’t you think it’s about time we cut the bullshit and just admit maybe we’re all fighting the same monster and instead of fighting each other we should maybe like pool our resources and work together - like civilized adults?”
Something in Derek’s face shifted it into an unreadable expression, and he opened his mouth like he might say something - something Stiles wanted to hear - but then the door opened, and they both froze.
“Stiles, have you seen my -” His father stopped there, in the doorway, and stared at them. Stiles glanced back at Derek and realized what this might look like. Derek had him pressed against the wall, fingers digging into his sternum, and this could go one of two ways. His father could immediately think Derek was threatening Stiles - which wouldn’t be too far off the mark. Or he could think they’d just gotten caught making out red-handed. “Hale,” his father said stiffly, and that told him absolutely nothing about his father’s inevitable reaction.
“Sheriff Stilinski,” Derek said back. Stiles nudged Derek in the ribs and Derek immediately backed off - gave him room - and in hindsight, that probably didn’t help the situation any. It just made it look like they could communicate silently, with touches - which was so totally not true.
“Dad,” Stiles said automatically. “This is totally not what it looks like.”
“Why don’t you tell me what it looks like,” His father said, carefully. It was a good tactic, Derek realized. It forced Stiles to either admit what he did - admit what it looked like - or it forced him to come up with a lie on the spot. A lie that they’d both have to be a part of in the end.
“It looks like… Me and Derek here -”
“Derek and I,” Derek said - helpfully. Stiles shot him an unimpressed look.
“Derek and I were wrapped up in a very intense argument about Skyrim,” he said, shooting another glare at Derek. “This peasant actually played the Blades’ lap dog and killed Paarthurnax - can you believe that?” And to Stiles’s credit, he actually sounded alarmed and angry about it. Personally offended.
Stiles’s father’s gaze shifted over to Derek. “Who’s Paarthurnax?” He asked, but he didn’t sound like he cared. It was a test. This was the problem with embellished, unrehearsed lies.
“He’s the dra-” Stiles began.
“Derek,” his father interrupted, silencing Stiles with a stern, unamused look. “Who is Paarthurnax.” It had stopped being a question.
Derek felt trapped in that gaze, rooted to the spot, the familiar dread at being chastised by an adult heavy in his gut - like he had anything to fear from this man. Like he cared. It brutally reminded him that he was still a child. “He’s a character that…. Clearly deserved to die. I play no one’s lap dog,” Derek said slowly. He just barely caught Stiles’s grin from behind the sheriff. “I do what I want.” And if Derek hadn’t sounded so robotic about it - it might actually have been funny.
The sheriff didn’t look impressed. “Dinner is in five.” Only once he was halfway down the hall did he throw over his shoulder, “I’ll set you a place, Hale.”
Once the sheriff was out of earshot, Stiles actually started laughing. He covered his face with a hand and laughed loudly into the silent room. Derek shoved Stiles back into the wall hard, before passing him and following in the sheriff’s footsteps.