fanfic: Intangibles 8/10 l PG-13 l Stiles Stilinski l Teen Wolf
Title: Reinforcement
Author: Roz
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Characters: Erica, Isaac, Stiles, Derek, Lydia, Scott.
Warnings: Spoilers through the end of season two. Graphic violence involving a minor.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf or its respective characters, and I intend to make no money off of this work of fiction.
Summary: Stiles scoffed derisively. “You’re about as subtle as an avalanche.”
Summer washed over them like a tidal wave. Suddenly Stiles had too much time on his hands. His father worked a night shift that more often than not turned into a morning shift. Stiles tried to ignore the sneaking suspicion that it was probably because most of the murders occurred at night. And the full moon. Jesus. It was like they weren’t even trying to control themselves.
Stiles signed up for summer classes, knowing that the overwhelming sense of time he had on his hands was an illusion and he wouldn’t have enough time for school, but he needed to make up his GPA after Harris gave him a D for chemistry. He knew what the man was doing, he knew he didn’t miss any of the questions on his final. He’d fucking studied.
He lingered around the house until his father left for the night, every day. He didn’t want to worry his father by being gone all day, but even that thought made him uncertain. They had lied to Lydia and look how that’d ended… Stiles was doing the same thing to his father, even after Lydia’s speech about how being forewarned is forearmed. If his father was ever attacked, he would be using the wrong bullets because he’d have no freaking clue exactly what he was up against. It was wrong and selfish and yet Stiles found himself doing it anyway.
The first time he encountered an out of town hunter, he was walking out of walmart, several bags of junk food dangling from his fingers, a Monster Energy Drink already open and halfway to his lips. The only reason he noticed them at all was because in the midst of them was Chris Argent. Stiles locked eyes with Chris just long enough to know that Chris saw and recognized him. As he should. Stiles had been badgering him every week since he got stabbed. Chris refused to let him make house calls. The bullets Stiles got were always mailed. Now he understood why. What would it look like if he was always around both Derek and a hunter?
It had been nearly two months which sounded outrageous so he tried not to think about it. Two months meant a lot of things. It meant that he should have healed by now, that he should have moved on by now. That the nightmares should have stopped by now. That the alphas should be dead by now. It meant time was moving too fast and everything else was moving too slow.
“That’s the kid,” he heard one of them say to Argent as he brought the energy drink to his lips and took a swift chug and moved past them, eyes focused ahead and blank. “The one always hanging around the Hale place.”
Stiles shoved his bags into the passenger seat and climbed into his jeep. If Argent was going to use him against Derek, he would have done that already. If Argent wanted to use him against Scott, he’d had his chance. Stiles just hoped Argent had let those chances pass intentionally. He hoped Argent didn’t want to do any of that. He hoped just this once, somebody could be honorable about this and stick to their goddamn code. He started up his jeep and left before he could talk himself out of it, before he could give into the curiosity and panic eating at him, and try to eavesdrop. It didn’t matter. Their fight wasn’t with the hunters. It was with the Alphas, and that was all the fight they could handle right now, Stiles told himself, knowing full well he was going to find time to map out a plan incase the hunters did attack them.
-----
“You’re doing this all wrong.”
Stiles glanced up from the station of chemicals he’d set up on Derek’s crappy coffee table. He had his notebook flipped open to a page full of equations that Lydia had scribbled down into the book a few days ago. She had taken the time to explain them to him three times too, before he finally got it. It wasn’t the first time Lydia stopped him to tell him he was adding too much sulfur, so he assumed she was talking to him.
She wasn’t talking to him, and she wasn’t talking about the explosives he was mixing. She was talking to Derek, who had finally found his way home. Derek had been widely missing in action. Which was okay. Really, it was. His betas deferred to Stiles or Scott when Derek wasn’t there, and it made things easier. Stiles was almost entirely positive they didn’t even realize they were doing it.
Lydia had a hand on her cocked hip. Derek stopped, and stared at her. His stare was dangerous, but Lydia didn’t even look like she noticed it. “What.” Stiles stripped off his safety gloves, eyes fixed on the two of them in front of him.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Lydia repeated, helpfully. “Alphaing. You’re doing it wrong.”
If it was possible, Derek’s gaze grew even more dangerous, as he finally realized what she was talking about. Everyone in the room froze. “What,” Derek repeated. He was adding periods to questions that weren’t really questions.
“Where the hell have you been, Hale? I’ve been here all week, in this danky house of yours, and you’ve been AWOL. You’re the Alpha, you’re supposed to help.”
Stiles grimaced. Lydia didn’t actually care. She couldn’t actually care. Stiles waited, because there was a catch, a catch that made it abundantly clear Lyida was right, and the whole world was eternally wrong.
It wasn’t exactly like Derek had been gone the entire time, either. Some nights, he crawled in through Stiles’s window, and sat there while Stiles ran through his notes. Sometimes Stiles had questions for Derek, sometimes Derek had questions for Stiles, but mostly, it was just Stiles ranting, and it was Derek sitting there silently. Even after Stiles went out and got mountain ash and built himself a fucking magical circle, he still broke the circle so Derek could come up to his room, and then mended it once Derek was gone.
Derek’s gaze shifted to Stiles, pointed and angry. “Who invited her?” He asked Stiles. It wasn’t really a question either, because it was obvious. Derek knew who invited her. Everybody knew. And nobody really had a verbal problem with it. Erica’s remarks were more pointed, and Isaac was more quiet than usual, but nobody seemed too upset about it, and the more the week wore on, the more at ease everybody grew.
“Uh….” Stiles rose to his feet, fumbled his safety glasses and dropped them on the table. “Well, funny story actually - I can totally explain this.”
Lydia rolled her eyes and ignored Stiles. “What are you going to do when they attack you on a full moon and the only people here to help you are werewolves who can’t control themselves because you neglected to teach them?” She pressed, and Stiles winced. She was going for the jugular. This wasn’t going to be pretty.
“I can control myself,” Isaac said helpfully. He sat against a rotted wall beside Scott, who was doing everything in his power to focus on the booby trap he was assembling instead of Derek and Lydia.
“One time, sweetie?” Lydia asked. “Circumstances are everything. Sure - you can make the shot when nobody else is on the field, but what are you going to do when you’ve got defense charging at you?”
Isaac’s eyes narrowed and he looked toward Stiles now too, because how the hell did she know that?
“You don’t have to be such a raging bitch about it,” Erica muttered. Erica wasn’t helping. She sat on the stairs watching them. Earlier in the week, Stiles had offered to teach her to shoot a gun because he thought it would help if they were all armed and dangerous, but after she nearly shot Lydia, he decided maybe things wouldn’t be better if they were armed and dangerous.
“Yes I do,” Lydia snapped. “Because no matter how mean I am in here, they are going to be a thousand times more vicious out there and you need to be prepared. You’re not prepared - none of you are, and it will get you killed.”
The silence thickened and Stiles tripped over himself in his haste to cross the room to Derek and Lydia. “Okay! We can all just relax, I can totally explain this. It’s not what it looks like, okay -”
“She graced you with one look and you told her everything you know,” Derek deadpanned.
Stiles faltered. He liked to think it had been a bit more dignified than that. “Okay… it’s exactly what it looks like.” He deflated. “But she’s smart, okay? And she’s a part of this too. Peter thinks she’s useful - doesn’t that tell you something?”
Derek huffed, nostrils flaring. He ignored Lydia’s quiet ‘oh honey, that’s not attractive’ but with each passing minute, he looked more willing to murder someone. “I don’t trust Peter’s judgment.”
“Judgments are opinions,” Lydia said. “I don’t have judgments. I have facts. What you need to do is start training the people you do have in everything. We live in 2011, not 1850. The average teenager doesn’t know how to fight.”
Derek’s gaze returned to hers and he took a step closer. Stiles jerked forward, weaseling his way in between them - not an easy feat, since neither Lydia or Derek moved back. He wiggled his elbows and succeeded victoriously, but Derek didn’t look amused. Stiles put his hands on Derek’s chest defensively, to hold him at bay, and to Stiles’s utmost surprise, Derek actually paused. “I don’t need a human’s input on how to run my pack - let alone a human who single handedly resurrected Peter,” Derek snapped, raising his voice in what passed as a shout.
Stiles didn’t have to be a werewolf to feel the tension rolling off of Derek, or to know that behind him, Lydia didn’t even look a tiny bit sorry. Stiles lifted his hands - as if to remind Derek that they were still in the defensive position. “I know man,” he said quickly, and he did. He hadn’t told Derek once what he was doing wrong, because it wasn’t his place. This wasn’t his pack - it was Derek’s,and Derek had enough on his plate. It became more apparent with each passing day. So Stiles took what Derek gave him. He made the traps and the bombs and focused on the plan, and he let Derek focus on the pack.
“She didn’t mean it like that,” Stiles went on. “When Lydia Martin is mean, it’s because she cares.” He ignored her ‘hey!’ of indignation. Stiles took Derek by the elbow and led him away from Lydia. Or well - he tugged hard until Derek finally relented and let himself be led further away.
“Why is she really here?” Derek asked quieter now, in their fake sense of privacy, but his tone was still angry and unrelenting.
“Because she’s smart,” Stiles hissed back. “Because this fight involves the entire town and it’d be stupid to cut off the smartest person I know just because you don’t trust her.” His fingers tightened on Derek’s arm. “I trust her. I never would’ve brought her here if I didn’t. I wouldn’t let her help us if I didn’t.” His fingers dug into Derek’s arm, because Derek’s scowl hadn’t even wavered. “I wouldn’t have told her anything if I didn’t,” he pressed. “Trust me, alright? Just tune out all her bitchiness, and listen to everything she says. You don’t have to admit you’re listening - nobody will think any less of you, alright - Mr. Mcbroodyson? Just try to look at it objectively. If they do attack on a full moon, our werewolves, dude, they need to have it down. They need anchors, they need to know how to control the shift. They need to know how to fight, or they’re dead. We’re all dead. Focus on them, okay? I got everything covered on this front.”
Derek’s scowl wavered. It wasn’t obvious, but Stiles could see it. It softened slightly. “Fine,” he grunted, and it looked like Derek would rather spit out teeth than say that one word. “Keep an eye on her. I don’t trust her.”
Stiles flashed Derek a brilliant smile and clapped his shoulder with a hand. “Got it, buddy,” he agreed. “Keep an eye on Peter. I don’t trust him.”
Derek nodded once, swiftly, and then he made for the door. He paused there for a second, tossing a look back at the rest of the pack. They were still doing their best to focus on miniscule tasks. “Let’s go,” he barked, before leaving.
The pack scrambled to comply. It was hard to tell if it was Derek’s voice, or if they were just that eager to have a break from Lydia’s dictatorship. Stiles wandered back toward Lydia and nudged her with his elbow. “That could’ve gone way worse, I think.”
“He could’ve mauled me to death,” Lydia agreed.
---
It’d been two months and despite the threat about keeping his mouth shut, Stiles hadn’t heard from the Alphas since. None of Derek’s pack had. The only evidence of their existence was the murders. Stiles assumed something big was going to happen - something big always happened - and it had to be the war, when they broke and finally attacked Derek. Why were they waiting? Until then, Derek’s pack never went anywhere alone. Stiles mixed wolfs bane, mountain ash and mace all together in handheld mace canisters and distributed them to the pack.
Isaac had smiled at Stiles, and said, “Are you asking me to go steady? Is this the equivalent of giving me your jacket?”
“What?” Stiles had asked, suddenly flustered.
“What?” Isaac echoed.
Stiles screwed up his face at the extremely unhelpful response and said, “No, I just don’t want you to die, dick, shut up,” and dropped it at that, but Isaac was still smiling, and it was a little worrisome.
Everybody was on edge. Everybody was as paranoid as Stiles had been the entire last two months, and it felt good, because it made him feel a little bit like he wasn’t entirely losing his mind.
The only place he felt safe was at his own house, and Derek’s. Lydia’s was a good place too - he’d made her a barrier too, but it was more about keeping Peter out than the Alphas. It didn’t matter. She was safe too, and that helped ease his nerves a little bit.
Stiles’s phone rang and he answered it. His father had already left for work and he was standing in front of the microwave in the kitchen, watching his hot pockets slowly revolve inside of the machine. “Yeah?” He asked into the phone. It was an unknown number, and he entertained the possibility that Derek broke Scott’s phone again. With werewolves, keeping track of their numbers was hard when they kept breaking their phones.
“Are you a hunter?”
Stiles froze. The entire world ground to a halt. He recognized the voice. He knew exactly who it was. He heard that voice every time he shut his eyes - and sometimes when he didn’t. “Nope,” he tried to go for casual and failed. “Why? Looking for new applicants?”
The woman on the other end laughed, low and sultry and Stiles glued his eyes back on his revolving plate. “I realize I might not have been clear enough the last time I spoke with you, Stiles.” He didn’t like how she said his name. She said it like she knew him. “I realize now that threatening you wasn’t the best tactic to use, even though I have no doubt the mountain ash around your house is to protect you more than your father.”
“Mountains don’t ash, silly goose,” Stiles said. He managed humor this time, but his eyes were hard and focused.
The woman laughed again. He didn’t like it, because it didn’t sound real. It didn’t just sound forced, it sounded forceful. “But you see, Stiles, your father doesn’t adhere to that strict circle of yours.” Stiles went so painfully still, every muscle rigid, at her implication. “No. Tonight he’s on I-80. A poor woman was found in a ditch. Mauled to death. Bears it looks like.”
“If you think you’re being clever making it look like animal attacks, you’re stupider than you look,” he said, but his own fear was spiking. “There’ve been twelve bear attacks in California since 1980. And suddenly in three months there’s double that?” Stiles scoffed derisively. “You’re about as subtle as an avalanche.”
The woman didn’t laugh this time. There was silence and Stiles realized he was pacing. “Did you really think Derek Hale was the only werewolf with humans on his side?” She asked slowly. Stiles’s head snapped up. Yes. Yes, he had. He’d assumed that much and it was such a stupid assumption. Even Peter Hale had employed humans. “Here’s a secret, Stiles. Ours are better. We’ll tell your father you said Hi. It’ll be the last words he ever hears.” The line went dead.
Stiles swore and spun around. He reeled back, choking, taking ash to the face. It stung his eyes and his vision blurred as he fell back against the counter. He knocked a few plates to the ground in his haste, and the sound of glass shattering against tile nearly drowned out the microwave’s beep. He scrubbed at his eyes. Through the fog of falling ash - not ash, he realized - he barely had time to see the fist coming and twist to the side. It glanced off of his chin and Stiles ducked low to avoid the next blow. He drove his hand forward hard, heel first and hit the attacker in the chest. He felt bone under his palm, and then he lifted his hands and clapped them hard against the man’s head - over his ears.
The man reeled back and Stiles grinned. Pain. Good. He got that move from Tumblr. He rammed forward, catching the man around the waist and they both fell to the ground.
He had to get outside, he had to break the circle, to call someone.
He had to get to his gun.
Author: Roz
Fandom: Teen Wolf
Characters: Erica, Isaac, Stiles, Derek, Lydia, Scott.
Warnings: Spoilers through the end of season two. Graphic violence involving a minor.
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf or its respective characters, and I intend to make no money off of this work of fiction.
Summary: Stiles scoffed derisively. “You’re about as subtle as an avalanche.”
Summer washed over them like a tidal wave. Suddenly Stiles had too much time on his hands. His father worked a night shift that more often than not turned into a morning shift. Stiles tried to ignore the sneaking suspicion that it was probably because most of the murders occurred at night. And the full moon. Jesus. It was like they weren’t even trying to control themselves.
Stiles signed up for summer classes, knowing that the overwhelming sense of time he had on his hands was an illusion and he wouldn’t have enough time for school, but he needed to make up his GPA after Harris gave him a D for chemistry. He knew what the man was doing, he knew he didn’t miss any of the questions on his final. He’d fucking studied.
He lingered around the house until his father left for the night, every day. He didn’t want to worry his father by being gone all day, but even that thought made him uncertain. They had lied to Lydia and look how that’d ended… Stiles was doing the same thing to his father, even after Lydia’s speech about how being forewarned is forearmed. If his father was ever attacked, he would be using the wrong bullets because he’d have no freaking clue exactly what he was up against. It was wrong and selfish and yet Stiles found himself doing it anyway.
The first time he encountered an out of town hunter, he was walking out of walmart, several bags of junk food dangling from his fingers, a Monster Energy Drink already open and halfway to his lips. The only reason he noticed them at all was because in the midst of them was Chris Argent. Stiles locked eyes with Chris just long enough to know that Chris saw and recognized him. As he should. Stiles had been badgering him every week since he got stabbed. Chris refused to let him make house calls. The bullets Stiles got were always mailed. Now he understood why. What would it look like if he was always around both Derek and a hunter?
It had been nearly two months which sounded outrageous so he tried not to think about it. Two months meant a lot of things. It meant that he should have healed by now, that he should have moved on by now. That the nightmares should have stopped by now. That the alphas should be dead by now. It meant time was moving too fast and everything else was moving too slow.
“That’s the kid,” he heard one of them say to Argent as he brought the energy drink to his lips and took a swift chug and moved past them, eyes focused ahead and blank. “The one always hanging around the Hale place.”
Stiles shoved his bags into the passenger seat and climbed into his jeep. If Argent was going to use him against Derek, he would have done that already. If Argent wanted to use him against Scott, he’d had his chance. Stiles just hoped Argent had let those chances pass intentionally. He hoped Argent didn’t want to do any of that. He hoped just this once, somebody could be honorable about this and stick to their goddamn code. He started up his jeep and left before he could talk himself out of it, before he could give into the curiosity and panic eating at him, and try to eavesdrop. It didn’t matter. Their fight wasn’t with the hunters. It was with the Alphas, and that was all the fight they could handle right now, Stiles told himself, knowing full well he was going to find time to map out a plan incase the hunters did attack them.
-----
“You’re doing this all wrong.”
Stiles glanced up from the station of chemicals he’d set up on Derek’s crappy coffee table. He had his notebook flipped open to a page full of equations that Lydia had scribbled down into the book a few days ago. She had taken the time to explain them to him three times too, before he finally got it. It wasn’t the first time Lydia stopped him to tell him he was adding too much sulfur, so he assumed she was talking to him.
She wasn’t talking to him, and she wasn’t talking about the explosives he was mixing. She was talking to Derek, who had finally found his way home. Derek had been widely missing in action. Which was okay. Really, it was. His betas deferred to Stiles or Scott when Derek wasn’t there, and it made things easier. Stiles was almost entirely positive they didn’t even realize they were doing it.
Lydia had a hand on her cocked hip. Derek stopped, and stared at her. His stare was dangerous, but Lydia didn’t even look like she noticed it. “What.” Stiles stripped off his safety gloves, eyes fixed on the two of them in front of him.
“You’re doing it wrong,” Lydia repeated, helpfully. “Alphaing. You’re doing it wrong.”
If it was possible, Derek’s gaze grew even more dangerous, as he finally realized what she was talking about. Everyone in the room froze. “What,” Derek repeated. He was adding periods to questions that weren’t really questions.
“Where the hell have you been, Hale? I’ve been here all week, in this danky house of yours, and you’ve been AWOL. You’re the Alpha, you’re supposed to help.”
Stiles grimaced. Lydia didn’t actually care. She couldn’t actually care. Stiles waited, because there was a catch, a catch that made it abundantly clear Lyida was right, and the whole world was eternally wrong.
It wasn’t exactly like Derek had been gone the entire time, either. Some nights, he crawled in through Stiles’s window, and sat there while Stiles ran through his notes. Sometimes Stiles had questions for Derek, sometimes Derek had questions for Stiles, but mostly, it was just Stiles ranting, and it was Derek sitting there silently. Even after Stiles went out and got mountain ash and built himself a fucking magical circle, he still broke the circle so Derek could come up to his room, and then mended it once Derek was gone.
Derek’s gaze shifted to Stiles, pointed and angry. “Who invited her?” He asked Stiles. It wasn’t really a question either, because it was obvious. Derek knew who invited her. Everybody knew. And nobody really had a verbal problem with it. Erica’s remarks were more pointed, and Isaac was more quiet than usual, but nobody seemed too upset about it, and the more the week wore on, the more at ease everybody grew.
“Uh….” Stiles rose to his feet, fumbled his safety glasses and dropped them on the table. “Well, funny story actually - I can totally explain this.”
Lydia rolled her eyes and ignored Stiles. “What are you going to do when they attack you on a full moon and the only people here to help you are werewolves who can’t control themselves because you neglected to teach them?” She pressed, and Stiles winced. She was going for the jugular. This wasn’t going to be pretty.
“I can control myself,” Isaac said helpfully. He sat against a rotted wall beside Scott, who was doing everything in his power to focus on the booby trap he was assembling instead of Derek and Lydia.
“One time, sweetie?” Lydia asked. “Circumstances are everything. Sure - you can make the shot when nobody else is on the field, but what are you going to do when you’ve got defense charging at you?”
Isaac’s eyes narrowed and he looked toward Stiles now too, because how the hell did she know that?
“You don’t have to be such a raging bitch about it,” Erica muttered. Erica wasn’t helping. She sat on the stairs watching them. Earlier in the week, Stiles had offered to teach her to shoot a gun because he thought it would help if they were all armed and dangerous, but after she nearly shot Lydia, he decided maybe things wouldn’t be better if they were armed and dangerous.
“Yes I do,” Lydia snapped. “Because no matter how mean I am in here, they are going to be a thousand times more vicious out there and you need to be prepared. You’re not prepared - none of you are, and it will get you killed.”
The silence thickened and Stiles tripped over himself in his haste to cross the room to Derek and Lydia. “Okay! We can all just relax, I can totally explain this. It’s not what it looks like, okay -”
“She graced you with one look and you told her everything you know,” Derek deadpanned.
Stiles faltered. He liked to think it had been a bit more dignified than that. “Okay… it’s exactly what it looks like.” He deflated. “But she’s smart, okay? And she’s a part of this too. Peter thinks she’s useful - doesn’t that tell you something?”
Derek huffed, nostrils flaring. He ignored Lydia’s quiet ‘oh honey, that’s not attractive’ but with each passing minute, he looked more willing to murder someone. “I don’t trust Peter’s judgment.”
“Judgments are opinions,” Lydia said. “I don’t have judgments. I have facts. What you need to do is start training the people you do have in everything. We live in 2011, not 1850. The average teenager doesn’t know how to fight.”
Derek’s gaze returned to hers and he took a step closer. Stiles jerked forward, weaseling his way in between them - not an easy feat, since neither Lydia or Derek moved back. He wiggled his elbows and succeeded victoriously, but Derek didn’t look amused. Stiles put his hands on Derek’s chest defensively, to hold him at bay, and to Stiles’s utmost surprise, Derek actually paused. “I don’t need a human’s input on how to run my pack - let alone a human who single handedly resurrected Peter,” Derek snapped, raising his voice in what passed as a shout.
Stiles didn’t have to be a werewolf to feel the tension rolling off of Derek, or to know that behind him, Lydia didn’t even look a tiny bit sorry. Stiles lifted his hands - as if to remind Derek that they were still in the defensive position. “I know man,” he said quickly, and he did. He hadn’t told Derek once what he was doing wrong, because it wasn’t his place. This wasn’t his pack - it was Derek’s,and Derek had enough on his plate. It became more apparent with each passing day. So Stiles took what Derek gave him. He made the traps and the bombs and focused on the plan, and he let Derek focus on the pack.
“She didn’t mean it like that,” Stiles went on. “When Lydia Martin is mean, it’s because she cares.” He ignored her ‘hey!’ of indignation. Stiles took Derek by the elbow and led him away from Lydia. Or well - he tugged hard until Derek finally relented and let himself be led further away.
“Why is she really here?” Derek asked quieter now, in their fake sense of privacy, but his tone was still angry and unrelenting.
“Because she’s smart,” Stiles hissed back. “Because this fight involves the entire town and it’d be stupid to cut off the smartest person I know just because you don’t trust her.” His fingers tightened on Derek’s arm. “I trust her. I never would’ve brought her here if I didn’t. I wouldn’t let her help us if I didn’t.” His fingers dug into Derek’s arm, because Derek’s scowl hadn’t even wavered. “I wouldn’t have told her anything if I didn’t,” he pressed. “Trust me, alright? Just tune out all her bitchiness, and listen to everything she says. You don’t have to admit you’re listening - nobody will think any less of you, alright - Mr. Mcbroodyson? Just try to look at it objectively. If they do attack on a full moon, our werewolves, dude, they need to have it down. They need anchors, they need to know how to control the shift. They need to know how to fight, or they’re dead. We’re all dead. Focus on them, okay? I got everything covered on this front.”
Derek’s scowl wavered. It wasn’t obvious, but Stiles could see it. It softened slightly. “Fine,” he grunted, and it looked like Derek would rather spit out teeth than say that one word. “Keep an eye on her. I don’t trust her.”
Stiles flashed Derek a brilliant smile and clapped his shoulder with a hand. “Got it, buddy,” he agreed. “Keep an eye on Peter. I don’t trust him.”
Derek nodded once, swiftly, and then he made for the door. He paused there for a second, tossing a look back at the rest of the pack. They were still doing their best to focus on miniscule tasks. “Let’s go,” he barked, before leaving.
The pack scrambled to comply. It was hard to tell if it was Derek’s voice, or if they were just that eager to have a break from Lydia’s dictatorship. Stiles wandered back toward Lydia and nudged her with his elbow. “That could’ve gone way worse, I think.”
“He could’ve mauled me to death,” Lydia agreed.
---
It’d been two months and despite the threat about keeping his mouth shut, Stiles hadn’t heard from the Alphas since. None of Derek’s pack had. The only evidence of their existence was the murders. Stiles assumed something big was going to happen - something big always happened - and it had to be the war, when they broke and finally attacked Derek. Why were they waiting? Until then, Derek’s pack never went anywhere alone. Stiles mixed wolfs bane, mountain ash and mace all together in handheld mace canisters and distributed them to the pack.
Isaac had smiled at Stiles, and said, “Are you asking me to go steady? Is this the equivalent of giving me your jacket?”
“What?” Stiles had asked, suddenly flustered.
“What?” Isaac echoed.
Stiles screwed up his face at the extremely unhelpful response and said, “No, I just don’t want you to die, dick, shut up,” and dropped it at that, but Isaac was still smiling, and it was a little worrisome.
Everybody was on edge. Everybody was as paranoid as Stiles had been the entire last two months, and it felt good, because it made him feel a little bit like he wasn’t entirely losing his mind.
The only place he felt safe was at his own house, and Derek’s. Lydia’s was a good place too - he’d made her a barrier too, but it was more about keeping Peter out than the Alphas. It didn’t matter. She was safe too, and that helped ease his nerves a little bit.
Stiles’s phone rang and he answered it. His father had already left for work and he was standing in front of the microwave in the kitchen, watching his hot pockets slowly revolve inside of the machine. “Yeah?” He asked into the phone. It was an unknown number, and he entertained the possibility that Derek broke Scott’s phone again. With werewolves, keeping track of their numbers was hard when they kept breaking their phones.
“Are you a hunter?”
Stiles froze. The entire world ground to a halt. He recognized the voice. He knew exactly who it was. He heard that voice every time he shut his eyes - and sometimes when he didn’t. “Nope,” he tried to go for casual and failed. “Why? Looking for new applicants?”
The woman on the other end laughed, low and sultry and Stiles glued his eyes back on his revolving plate. “I realize I might not have been clear enough the last time I spoke with you, Stiles.” He didn’t like how she said his name. She said it like she knew him. “I realize now that threatening you wasn’t the best tactic to use, even though I have no doubt the mountain ash around your house is to protect you more than your father.”
“Mountains don’t ash, silly goose,” Stiles said. He managed humor this time, but his eyes were hard and focused.
The woman laughed again. He didn’t like it, because it didn’t sound real. It didn’t just sound forced, it sounded forceful. “But you see, Stiles, your father doesn’t adhere to that strict circle of yours.” Stiles went so painfully still, every muscle rigid, at her implication. “No. Tonight he’s on I-80. A poor woman was found in a ditch. Mauled to death. Bears it looks like.”
“If you think you’re being clever making it look like animal attacks, you’re stupider than you look,” he said, but his own fear was spiking. “There’ve been twelve bear attacks in California since 1980. And suddenly in three months there’s double that?” Stiles scoffed derisively. “You’re about as subtle as an avalanche.”
The woman didn’t laugh this time. There was silence and Stiles realized he was pacing. “Did you really think Derek Hale was the only werewolf with humans on his side?” She asked slowly. Stiles’s head snapped up. Yes. Yes, he had. He’d assumed that much and it was such a stupid assumption. Even Peter Hale had employed humans. “Here’s a secret, Stiles. Ours are better. We’ll tell your father you said Hi. It’ll be the last words he ever hears.” The line went dead.
Stiles swore and spun around. He reeled back, choking, taking ash to the face. It stung his eyes and his vision blurred as he fell back against the counter. He knocked a few plates to the ground in his haste, and the sound of glass shattering against tile nearly drowned out the microwave’s beep. He scrubbed at his eyes. Through the fog of falling ash - not ash, he realized - he barely had time to see the fist coming and twist to the side. It glanced off of his chin and Stiles ducked low to avoid the next blow. He drove his hand forward hard, heel first and hit the attacker in the chest. He felt bone under his palm, and then he lifted his hands and clapped them hard against the man’s head - over his ears.
The man reeled back and Stiles grinned. Pain. Good. He got that move from Tumblr. He rammed forward, catching the man around the waist and they both fell to the ground.
He had to get outside, he had to break the circle, to call someone.
He had to get to his gun.