Teen Wolf (TV): catch me if you can
fandom: teen wolf (tv)
title: catch me if you can
pairing/rating: derek/stiles, pg13 (cursing)
summary: How do you like my solution to the Kobayashi Maru?
On A03
**
“It’s fine,” Stiles pants, stripping off his jacket. “Give me your scarf,” he tells Lydia, and she shoves it at him.
“Stiles,” she says urgently, “I can do it, don’t--”
“I need you to explain what happened, work with Deaton to fix it,” he says, wrapping her scarf around his mouth and tying it tightly behind his head. “Best bet is--”
“Ginger,” Lyda snaps, “I’m not an idiot. Derek’s going to kill you, you know.”
Stiles squares his shoulders, his fingers on the doorknob. “Not if Hargreaves does it first.”
“Don’t you dare die,” Lydia says, and then Stiles is through the door and into the lab.
//
The first dead body Stiles saw wasn’t his mother’s.
His dad was giving him a ride in the patrol car, and Stiles was sitting back, so careful and flush against the back of the seat because he’s not technically allowed to sit in the front and this is a special occasion but he has to sit very still and not lean forward at all and definitely not turn on the siren.
When Stiles hears the high pitched wail he sits up straight. “Not me,” he says immediately. His dad snorts, and the tires crunch on gravel as he pulls over to the roadside.
“Stay in the car, buddy,” he says, and Stiles fidgets. He taps his fingers against the car door, kicks his feet back and forth until they tap the underside of the glove compartment. He strains against the lapbelt to press his face against the window and breathe out fog to draw in with the tips of his fingers, twists around to poke at the metal grate between the front and backseat.
Then he undoes the buckle with a quick shove of his hand and slides out of the car and goes looking for his father, who is crouched next to a twisted, crumpled piece of metal that used to be a car, the glass of the windshield shattered and bloody. Stiles walks, looking down to see the shards embed in the rubber soles of his shoes, until his toes bump against something under a white sheet.
Stiles crouches, curious, curious, curious, thinks gleefully about telling Scott, lifts the sheet, and thinks oh, oh oh and then stops thinking.
//
“No,” Stiles says when Derek swings through his window with a whisper of leather on plaster. “unless you have a literary critique of Catcher in the Rye to share with the class, we have nothing to talk about.”
“Need your help,” Derek grits out like speaking words actually physically pains him.
“That doesn’t sound like an analysis of the symbolism of Holden’s hat...”
“Stiles,” Derek growls, and Stiles sighs, clicks the save button in his word processor, still considering angles of rebellion, conformity, suburbanism in the fifties. All of that grinds to a halt when he catches sight of Derek, and he gapes for a second until his brain comes back online.
“Holy shit,” he says, because Derek has shrugged off his jacket and his thin tanktop is streaked through with blood, dry and tacky down his right side. He’s leaning sideways against Stiles’ window, head tilted down, slumped in against himself.
“It’s been a long day,” he rasps. Stiles snorts, fumbling at his phone.
“Witch?” he asks. They’ve been tracking a human that, to quote Scott “smells straight on funky,” just outside the little pack’s little ring of woods, someone who leaves behind birds with their necks twisted at grotesque angles and black-burnt symbols scorched into tree trunks.
“Stumbled on her,” Derek says, “took care of it.” Stiles yanks up Derek’s shirt and uses one of his lacrosse practice shirts to wipe at the blood, his other hand opening the camera function on his cellphone. He’s been documenting everything, building files on everything they encounter, every guess, hypothesis, any piece of data and evidence he can chronicle.
“You eat her?” Stiles asks, cleaning the last of the blood just below Derek’s armpit. The skin is smooth and unbroken, and Stiles sighs.
“No,” Derek says, eyebrows drawn close together in a scowl. “why do you think I always eat everything.”
“You’ve already healed,” Stiles grumbles, tossing his phone on the bed. “and maybe because you’re a werewolf who is always threatening to kill everything.”
Derek looks almost offended. “I don’t eat everything I kill. And it wasn’t my side.” He tilts his head so Stiles can see the track of dried rust-red blood caked around his ear and trailing down his neck.
Stiles snorts. “If a crying Indian comes through my window next I’m kicking you all out.” He puts his fingers on Derek’s jaw to turn his head, peering into Derek’s ear, and frowns. “Is it healed? I can’t tell.”
“Healing,” Derek says. “Your fingers are cold.” Stiles blinks.
“Uh--sorry?” He blows hot air on his fingers, tucks them under his armpit. Derek’s tanktop is still rucked up, his hipbones exposed. “You’ve got a little...” Stiles uses his fingernail to scrape a fleck of blood off Derek’s navel. Derek sucks in a breath, his stomach going concave. Something rumbles in his chest, and Stiles’ mouth is open to start talking about how sometimes blood is bright bright red and sometimes it’s so dark it’s black and why is that, but he’s completely interrupted by the sound of his father opening his bedroom door and promptly choking on his own spit.
Derek had twisted at the sound of the doorknob, put Stiles between them to hide his bloody shirt, ducked his head until his injured ear is facing the wall, and now he’s staring at Stiles’ laptop like it’s the most interesting thing in the entire world.
“Dad,” Stiles says, his voice unnaturally high. “We were just about to call you in.”
“I seriously doubt that,” his father says, voice like ice. “Downstairs, two minutes.” Stiles nods jerkily, because he’d honestly expected his dad to demand an immediate explanation--giving them time to regroup and form a story must go against every cop instinct his dad’s got. Everytime he uses his dad’s trust against him he feels like shit and also simultaneously relieved.
“It’s a twisty feeling,” he says aloud. Derek stares at him. Stiles jolts himself into action, spinning to dig into a drawer. “Cover story,” he says, “cover story, tutoring--yeah no, and hey, what happened to super hearing.”
“A witch stabbed me in the inner ear.” Derek sounds almost indignant. Stiles spins to point at him, an oversized hoodie clutched in his fingers.
“Those are not the actual words that came out of your mouth. You said you had a long day. You know what a long day means? School was a drag, work sucked, you burned your breakfast. Long day does not equal a wayward warty woman stabbing you in the brain with her witchy weapons.” Stiles gives himself points for alliteration. Derek looks noticeably less impressed, but he pulls the sweatshirt over his head.
“What are we telling your dad?” Stiles throws a beanie hat at him.
“Cover your ear up.” Stiles fumbles to find the shirt he’d used earlier, shoves it between the wall and the dresser where it won’t be noticed. “We’re going with secret friends who bond and I’m lending your poor sad Ponyboy self these books on SAT prep because you’re trying to get your poor sad orphaned self into college. I knew those books would do something more useful than paperweights someday. Try to look downtrodden.” Derek glares harder, the dark knit cap pulled low over his face. Stiles pulls the hood up, his knuckles brushing against Derek’s hair. It’s a lot softer than he thought it would be.
“Stiles, I look like the unabomber.”
“Yes,” Stiles snaps, gesturing jerkily at the door, “that is where your life is now. You’re aspiring to look like the unabomber. Maybe if you took my advice and not gone looking for witches without the rest of your pack then--” Stiles has more, about how maybe if Derek made Danny his sassy gay best friend none of this would have happened and an entire section of a rant comprised of different ways of saying look at your life look at your choices, but Derek is looking at one of the pens lying on Stiles’ desk like he’s contemplating using it to finish the witch’s job just so he won’t have to listen to Stiles say another word, so Stiles just sighs and starts out the door, Derek trailing behind.
**
Allison climbs through Stiles’ window, waking him because she’s banging on the sill in her rush, tumbling to the floor and breathing loud. “Get up,” she says, shaking him, “Stiles get dressed.”
“What’s wrong?” Stiles rolls out of bed, reaching for his jeans. He pulls a hoodie over the soft tee he wears to bed, grabs a stick of gum from his desk.
“We have to go to Deaton’s,” she says, “Scott’s been poisoned.”
//
Stiles hasn’t always rambled. He always talked a lot, even Scott’s mom mutters about how he must have chattered his way out of the womb, but he used to leave the rambling in his head and speak only the conclusions.
“The swingset is my favourite,” he says on the playground at six, “blue Jolly Ranchers are gross chalky sand the library has reading circle tomorrow mom’s meatloaf.”
“Freak,” Jackson Whittemore says, and shoves him hard enough to topple him back into the tanbark. Stiles picks bits of mulch from his palms.
“I like green Jolly Ranchers,” Scott says solemnly. Stiles considers him with six year old seriousness. Scott tilts his head at him. “Do you wanna dig a hole in the sandbox?”
Stiles imagines Jackson falling in the hole and never coming out. “Yes,” he says, and they scramble across the sand to a corner, shoes slipping and stumbling, digging with their fingers until the sand paints their skin dusty-white and granules dig under their nails.
//
“I have a present for you,” Allison announces. Stiles doesn’t look away from his bedroom ceiling.
“What would Scott say,” he says, pitching his voice high and girlish. “he goes on vacation for one week and his girlfriend succumbs to the Stilinski wiles.”
“Your animal magnetism was just too strong,” Allison says, and Stiles snickers. He sits up and scoots sideways to leave Allison a space to sit on his bed. A nylon bag slung over her shoulder scrapes on his windowframe.
“All the people coming through my window,” he says, “I should set out a welcome mat. Maybe some snacks.”
“Use one of the ones that sings when you step on it,” Allison suggests, and they both pause to appreciate the gloriousness that would be Derek’s face upon triggering a jaunty tune.
Stiles stretches. “I’m on vacation, and since you’re not covered in blood or screaming I’m assuming this isn’t an emergency for my inner Giles.”
Allison slings the duffel bag off her shoulder and lets it thump on Stiles’ bed. “This visit is for your inner Buffy.” She draws out a little pistol, light grey with darker accents, not much bigger than her hand. “This is a Smith and Wesson 3193.”
“Holy shit,” Stiles squeaks, flapping his hands at her. “I know for a fact you don’t have a permit for that, put it away!”
“Isn’t your dad at the school shooting response seminar?” Allison peers behind him, looking confused.
“Yes,” Stiles says, “but oddly enough committing felonies in his own house still makes me nervous.”
Allison scoffs. “It’s a misdemeanor and a two hundred dollar fine.”
“It’s a misdemeanor,” Stiles says, mocking her tone, “if the gun is legally registered to you and legally purchased, which I highly doubt it is because you are not old enough to do either of those things.”
Allison looks disgruntled. “My information is outdated.”
“Knowledge is power!” Stiles does a little fistpump in the air and Allison stares at him. Whatever, he thinks, people who don’t get School House Rock references don’t get to judge.
Allison tucks the pistol away, and Stiles takes a breath of relief. “Don’t you want to learn how to handle guns.”
“I actually know how to handle guns,” Stiles snaps, “I am the son of the sheriff.”
“Do you know how to shoot them?”
Stiles flops back to lie facedown on his bed. His voice comes out muffled through the duvet. “Theoretically.”
Allison taps her fingers on the mattress. “Lydia’s family is vacationing in the Bahamas.” Stiles thinks about Lydia on a tropical beach, side tie bikini in colours to match her hair.
“Yes please,” he mumbles.
“And Scott’s gone,” Allison continues. Stiles turns his head to see her twist her fingers in the sheets. She’s lonely, Stiles realizes, no school, no boyfriend, no Lydia and only a creepy pack of Hunters back at her house for company.
“It might be nice,” he says, rolling over on his back. “to have something better than a fire extinguisher to use to defend myself. Fruitlessly, as I inevitably will be knocked unconscious in the least manly way possible.”
“Another facet of your inner Giles,” Allison says brightly, and Stiles half-laughs, sitting up and searching for his shoes.
“We are going so deep into the woods we’ll need that gun to protect us from the cast of Deliverance,” Stiles warns, “I don’t need felonies on my record.”
Allison bounces on her toes. “It would probably just be sealed under your juvie record.” Stiles catches her by the sleeve with one leg over the windowsill.
“Hold tight, Helena Kyle. Contrary to apparent popular belief, I do have a working front door.”
**
“It’s wolfsbane,” Deaton says, “but there’s no gunshot wound, no lacerations, no injection marks of any kind.”
Stiles takes Scott’s hand, helps Allison shift him into her lap. She smoothes his hair off his forehead, and Stiles swallows hard. Scott’s sweating, shivering and making tiny whining noises that punch Stiles right in the gut. Lydia makes a frustrated noise from where she’s bent over a laptop.
“Are you sure he couldn’t have ingested it?” she asks, “Someone slipped it in his food.”
“No,” Derek says from where he’s been pacing a groove into the floor. “He would have smelled it, even him.”
“Hey,” Allison says loyally, but Scott makes a distressed noise and she goes back to shushing him softly, pressing kisses to his temple.
“It’s weak,” Deaton says, “it’ll wear off soon, but if he gets dosed again...”
“What if he inhaled it,” Stiles says, “yesterday you were sweeping the abandoned warehouses for that Hunter--”
“Hargreaves,” Allison says, “bad news. He’s wanted by the other Hunters too. Kills a lot of humans as ‘collateral damage’.”
“Right,” Stiles says, “but when Lydia and I pulled his records we found that he has a Master’s degree in chemical engineering.”
“And he wrote his senior thesis on biological warfare,” Lydia announces, spinning the laptop so they can see an article displayed on the screen. “It was published online.”
How to Wage Germ Warfare on Sub-Humanoid Species, it says.
//
Stiles’ mother died slowly, very slowly, until she lay in the hospital bed with grey chapped lips and spoke nonsense in tiny whispers, throat parched constantly and skin like thin paper.
Stiles remembers, mostly, how nice of a day it was when they buried her, Stiles’ skin sun-warm under his suit jacket and bright blue skies overhead. He also remembers the silence, how it buzzed in his ears and grew louder and louder, like snow on the television set, static screaming in his ears until he filled it with his own voice.
Derek Hale is the loudest person Stiles has ever met.
//
“That’s a ladies gun,” Jackson says, half-sneering, and Stiles envisions sticking the bore-brush straight through Jackson’s eyesocket.
“You’d just heal anyway,” he sighs, and Jackson scoffs. Stiles is sitting against the wall in Derek’s house, a clean towel spread out before him and gun oil shining slightly on his fingers, cleaning the little pistol and waiting for Allison. Jackson moves around him in a restless half circle, his lip pulled up to expose his teeth. Stiles refuses to make any wolf metaphors for how he’s acting, and concentrates on the way Allison had showed him how all the pieces fit together.
“Little pistol,” Jackson says, half-singing, “That’s what, the opposite of compensating for something?” Stiles grits his teeth and tries to remind himself that the full moon is only few hours away, Jackson probably can’t help this particular outbreak of assholery. that insult made no actual sense, and Stiles is mature enough to be the bigger person.
“I don’t know,” his mouth says without permission from his brain, “what do you do to compensate for the people you killed as Godzilla’s less attractive younger brother?” Stiles freezes, and he can hear Jackson swallow, the scrape of his shoe as he rocks backwards from the force of Stiles’ words. “Shit,” Stiles mutters, and sits up straight, laying the brush aside. “Jackson--” he says, half rising, and stops again at the look on Jackson’s face. He looks gutted, paler than usual. A muscle in his jaw twitches.
“It’s whatever,” Jackson mutters, and Stiles slides back down to the ground. He taps his fingers against the peeling wall and picks the wallpaper out of his nails. He brings his hands closer to his face to look at his nails and the acrid smell of old smoke wafts up to his nose. Stiles puts his hands down quickly and chews on his bottom lip. His leg starts jumping, up and down on the ground.
“I attacked you,” Jackson says abruptly, and Stiles is startled into stillness for almost five full seconds.
Then he flexes his toes in his boots, curling them in and out again, over and over. “Yeah.”
Jackson is leaning against the staircase, scowling at the steps like they’ve personally wronged him. “I never said I was sorry.” He grits out the words from the back of his throat, expression twisted.
Stiles blinks at him. “Are you... saying it now?” Jackson’s jaw clenches again, his teeth grinding, and makes a small choked-off noise. Stiles has a horrible image of Jackson vomiting over the idea of throwing up and then suffocating to death on his own vomit and then Lydia murdering Stiles slowly and painfully for harming her boyfriend. “It’s fine,” he says quickly. “Let’s just... forget it.” Stiles shifts, his ass going numb from the floor, and hopes vainly for something to attack them so the awkwardness will end. He checks his watch and groans. Another half hour at least until Allison meets him for practice.
“You don’t have to dab at it like that,” Jackson says abruptly, and Stiles looks up, a soft rag soaked at the tip with solvent in his fingers.
“What?”
“Smith and Wesson 3193 ladies,” Jackson says, gesturing awkwardly. “There aren’t any wood or plastic pieces, so you can soak the whole thing in the solvent.”
Stiles blinks at him. “Oh. Thanks?” He looks down at his towel and frowns slightly, trying to work out how to proceed.
“I can show you,” Jackson says, and the floorboards creak as he walks to the wall and slides down, less than a foot from Stiles.
“Yeah,” Stiles says, “um, okay.”
Jackson leans over, his body warmth pressing lightly against Stiles’ side. “My parents are the Republican kind of rich California,” he says, taking the rag from Stiles’ hands and setting it aside. He smoothes his fingers over the towel and rearranges the parts carefully before reaching for the bottle of solvent. “You should let it soak for thirty minutes.”
“Thanks,” Stiles says, and his fingers start tapping on the floor again. They stare at the opposite wall for a while.
“Still a ladies gun,” Jackson says.
“See how manly you feel when I shoot you with a ladies wolfsbane bullet,” Stiles counters, and they glare at each other until Jackson’s head cants sideways and Allison bounds through the door.
**
“You’re not going in there,” Derek orders, and Stiles snorts.
“We need to check out the warehouse to see what Hargreaves is up to, and the only one not going in there is you,” he says. “Well, also not going in there will be Jackson. Or Scott, but he’s still semi-recovering so I’m assuming he doesn’t factor into this conversation--”
“Stiles,” Derek says, and his claws dig into Stiles’ sleeve. “I’m not going to let you.” Stiles wraps his hand around Derek’s fingers and squeezes. Derek makes a noise from the back of his throat, a high pitched whine of distress.
“Derek,” Stiles says quietly, “you can’t stop me.”
//
There are things that Stiles’ father tells him that would have made his mother angry, wisdom doled out late at night when his father slumps in the kitchen after a long day, mud on his boots, pouring out gold liquid into the glasses they used in their wedding.
“Someone points a gun at you,” he says, “don’t do as they say. They’re going to kill you, your best move is to jerk and run.”
“Okay dad,” Stiles says, and digs in the fridge carefully, looking for the plate with the plastic wrap. “Mac and cheese night, low fat margarine and skim milk. You’ll love it.”
His father stares at the table without blinking, taps his fingers against the rim of the glass. “Harder to shoot a moving target then people think.”
//
Stiles shuffles through the cafeteria line, balancing two pizza slices on one arm and shoving the other into the bin of chips, digging frantically as the people behind him bump up against his back, shoving impatiently. “Man down,” he shrieks, as someone grabs him by the arm and starts to pull him back, “tag me out!”
“Man shut up,” Scott says, grinning. “What’d you get?”
Stiles looks at the bags cramped in his fist. “Sour cream and onion,” he reports, “aaaand, cheddar chives.”
Scott takes one of the plates off Stiles’ arm and makes a grab for a bag of chips. Stiles moves to block him and gets an elbow in the gut for his trouble. “No fair,” he wheezes as they reach the front of the line. “You and your... were--” Stiles catches sight of the cafeteria worker, looking harassed and angry about her life. “withal,” he finishes, “your amazing wherewithal.”
“Seven dollars,” the lady says, completely ignoring everyone and everything.
“He’s got it,” Stiles says, jerking a thumb towards Scott, who makes a wounded noise but digs in a pocket for a handful of crumpled one dollar bills.
They toss their backpacks onto an empty table and Stiles puts his bag of chips flat on the table so he can smack it with his fist and pop the seal with a bang. Little pieces of chip fly across the table and land on Scott’s shirt, who doesn’t notice at all because he’s learned about ‘star crossed lovers’ in English class and is setting up a metaphor for his and Allison’s epic throughout-the-ages romance.
“You would use your powers to marry Allison,” Stiles complains, mostly to interrupt him more than anything else, “when you could have,” he deepens his voice dramatically, “money! Power! Fame!”
Scott cups his hands around his mouth, lowering his tone to match Stiles, “World domination!”
“You spoke my summoning words?” Lydia intones, and promptly ignores Scott’s existence completely. “We’re still on for today?”
Stiles fishes in a pocket and comes up with a USB stick, fumbling slightly under the force that is Lydia Martin’s full attention. “Yeah, here. Usual password.”
“See you later, loser,” Lydia says, more Heathers than Mean Girls, and walks off. Stiles watches her go with a faintly dazed expression.
Scott pokes him with the ends of his spork. “Are you imagining she’s the Scully to your Mulder again?”
“We are literally compiling X-Files,” Stiles says, turning back to his plate. “They had a baby in the last season, you know.”
“Lydia Martin is never going to let you impregnate her,” Scott says, and Stiles throws a napkin at his face.
“I want to believe,” he says, and shoves his mouth full of pizza crust.
**
“Shit,” Lydia pants, running her hands through her hair. “shit shit. Danny, go tell everyone.”
“Don’t die,” Danny says, and runs.
“We have to go in there,” Stiles says, “we have to deactivate it.”
“Wolfsbane is poison for humans too,” Lydia argues, “we need gasmasks, SWAT, nuke it from fucking orbit.”
Stiles leans in to look through the pane of glass in the door. “Look Ripley, he’s got the device to let it into the air right there.”
“You don’t know that,” she argues, and Stiles laughs.
“No you’re right,” he says, “I think he’s just auditioning for the next Ghostbusters movie. If we leave he could start dispersing it.”
“We stay here,” Lydia counters, “watch him and if he tries to leave--”
Stiles grabs her and pushes her close to the window. “Look. You see that hole cut into the pipes? They’re painted blue.”
“Blue like water,” Lydia says, and curses expressively.
//
Stiles is with Lydia when the wendigo attacks them. Lydia is sitting on his jacket, which she’d practically ripped off him when she took one look at the couch and the floor and refused to directly touch either of them. They’re pouring over two texts Stiles had ordered from sources Allison had recommended, making notes and cross-referencing against the information they’ve already got, when the wall between them explodes inwards.
Stiles doesn’t even catch a good look at the thing at first, scrambling blind with bits of plaster, wood, paint chips and insulation raining down, dust heavy in the air. He crawls blindly towards Lydia, feeling out for her, and his outstretched hand meets hers. He yanks her to him and they fall against each other, knocking together painfully and shoving backwards, and that’s when Stiles sees it.
“Holy Mary mother of god,” he says. It’s humanoid, but its limbs are longer than they should be, long and sinewy with wickedly curved claws and teeth that are so close to Stiles’ face that he can say with a large amount of certainty they’re more isosceles triangular than equilateral. It smiles at them, and a forked tongue flickers through the gaps in its fangs. Lydia clutches tighter at his hand.
“My bag,” she says, and the creature hisses at them, its eyes glowing pale red. Stiles can see Lydia’s totebag, lying propped against the wall--on the opposite side of the creature.
“Fuck,” he says, and tries to squeeze Lydia’s hand in a reassuring manner.
“Ow, asshole,” Lydia hisses, and the creature takes a step towards them, his legs moving oddly, not like a human, hulking thigh muscles and feet more like back paws. Stiles realizes with a jolt what it reminds him of.
“Dear god,” he says, “we’re in that scene from Jurassic Park.”
“Distract it,” Lydia says, and shoves Stiles hard. He stumbles, and those pale red irises track him, its head cocked. Lydia edges around behind them, slowly, staring at her bag. She steps on a piece of plaster and it crackles under her foot. The creature’s head whips around, and Stiles panics, yanks his shoe off and hits it square in the chest.
“Oh shit,” he says, and runs, slipping on the floor, gait uneven from the difference in height from one leg to the other. He skids into the kitchen, his shoulder knocking hard against the doorframe, and five points of agony bite into the muscle of his upper arm before the entire limb goes numb. Stiles yelps, wrenching himself around, and stumbles to the ground. The creature looks down at him, teeth bared, and licks Stiles’ blood off its claws.
Stiles tries to get up, and makes it to his knees before he staggers again, the numbness spreading up his arm and down to his chest. His legs feel heavy, weighted down, and Stiles tries to scuttle himself backwards. The creature takes another step forward, still sucking Stiles’ blood off its fingers, and then something made of glass crashes into its back and catches fire.
It screams, a carnal howl deep in its throat, and thrashes, smashing the flimsy table in the room, claws digging ragged trenches into the walls. Stiles is losing feeling in his legs, and he falls onto his back, using all his energy to turn his head to face the creature.
It staggers towards him, still aflame, and Lydia steps into view behind him, pale and shaking but holding a glass bottle with a lit rag stuffed in the neck. “I fucking hate velociraptors,” she says, and hits the creature in the back of the head with a throw so hard Stiles thinks Finstock should recruit her. The creature screams again, over and over, and collapses, twitching and crying out. Stiles watches it die, his eyes starting to close, and Lydia falls to her knees beside him.
“Stiles,” she says desperately, “get up, Stiles, come on.”
“Natasha Romanov,” he says clearly, and she blinks at him. “you have the same hair.”
“The house is on fire,” Lydia says, pulling at him, “get the fuck up, Stilinksi.” She starts to drag him, Stiles flopping limp and bumping over debris. Lydia pants in his ear, cursing, and dirty smoke hits Stiles’ nose and throat.
“Again?” Stiles mumbles, and then Lydia’s hands around his middle disappear, and Stiles is lifted up completely, cradled against a broader chest.
“This way,” Lydia shouts from somewhere out of sight, and Stiles lets his eyes close.
“Derek,” he mumbles, and passes out.
He wakes up sprawled out in the forest, mouth like cotton swabs. His whole body is tingling painfully, like every inch of him had fallen asleep and is just now waking up. He opens his eyes, wincing, and sees Lydia hovering over him, looking pissed.
“Thank god,” she snaps, and hits him in a hug.
“Oh god the pain,” Stiles yelps, “I can’t even appreciate this moment.” Lydia leans back and socks him hard in the shoulder.
“Don’t lie,” she says, and Stiles figures he is actually enjoying the contact on many levels so he doesn’t argue.
“What happened?” he asks, and Derek appears from between two trees, shaking his head as he changes back from wolf to human.
“Wendigo,” he grunts, and presses two fingers against Stiles’ pulsepoint.
“Can’t you hear my heart?” he asks, and then processes his statement. He whips his head around to Lydia.
“Wendigo?”
“Cannibalistic humans with supernatural abilities,” Lydia says, “paralytic spit.” She pulls her cell out of a pocket and pulls up the photo album. “I got pictures.”
Stiles tries to focus. “But it didn’t bite me,” he says, “clawed me, and the paralysis spread from the scratches.” Lydia looks thoughtful.
“Hollow claws? Like snake fangs.”
“Any remains?” Stiles asks, and she shrugs.
“Fire is mostly out, but Derek wants to wait until the place has cleared.”
“Smoke inhalation has a higher rate of injury than actual flames,” Derek says shortly.
“Thank you, Smokey,” Stiles says, coughing. “I gotta get home.”
“You shouldn’t drive,” Derek says.
“I’ll take you,” Lydia offers, but Stiles is watching Derek, who is staring at his house, lit very gently with glowing embers, the Hale house ablaze once again.
“Derek,” he croaks, but Lydia is tugging on his arm and Derek just shakes his head at him, a little twitch.
“Smoke won’t bother me,” he says, “I’ll try to salvage the body.”
“Get the claws,” Lydia orders, and starts to pull Stiles to his feet. “And pictures.”
Stiles makes a grab for Derek’s sleeve. “Don’t go in there,” he says quietly, “don’t go in there, Derek.”
“Go home, Stiles,” Derek says, and Lydia half carries him to the car.
“You smell like an ashtray,” his father says.
“I’m secretly a pryomaniac,” Stiles says, kicking his shoes off and starting for his room.
“Is Derek Hale buying you cigarettes?” Stiles actually barks out a laugh at that, and then deteriorates into a coughing fit that ends with a dry heave, halfway up the stairs. His father stares at him from the couch, still in uniform, the top buttons of his shirt undone.
“No dad,” Stiles says finally. “I’m going to bed.”
“Where’s your jeep,” his dad says flatly.
“At Derek’s,” Stiles replies casually, “Lydia gave me a lift, I think I’ve got a cold.” He coughs again, pounding his own chest with his fist. “Gonna hit the hay.”
“There was a fire reported at the Hale house,” his father says, and pours himself another two fingers of bourbon. “Know anything about that?”
“Well dad,” Stiles says lightly, “I was down to my last cigarette, and I thought, there’s nicotine in fiberglass insulation, right? So I built this incendiary device, and--”
“Stop,” his father says, fingers flexing, “just... stop,” and Stiles stops. His father stares at him, and Stiles stares right back. “I--I love you, son,” he says finally, and Stiles tamps down the jerk in his chest. He smiles casually.
“Goodnight dad,” he says.
**
“Don’t you dare die,” Lydia says, and Stiles opens the door and goes into the lab.
There are heavy sheets of plastic hanging from the ceiling, and even Stiles can smell that something isn’t right. The water in the pipe gurgles and rushes, and Stiles eases over to the dark machine resting next to it. He pushes the spout out of the way and crouches in front of it, trying to suss out how it works.
“Stand up,” someone says from behind him, “slowly. Let me see your hands.” Stiles raises his hands in the universal don’t shoot posture. He turns slowly.
“Mr. Hargreaves?” he guesses, and the man smiles. He’s got dark hair trimmed brutally short in a military cut, dark fatigues and combat boots. He’s also holding a gun that looks more like a hand cannon than a pistol. “I’m not a werewolf.”
“You run with wolves,” Hargreaves says coldly, and fires.
//
title: catch me if you can
pairing/rating: derek/stiles, pg13 (cursing)
summary: How do you like my solution to the Kobayashi Maru?
On A03
**
“It’s fine,” Stiles pants, stripping off his jacket. “Give me your scarf,” he tells Lydia, and she shoves it at him.
“Stiles,” she says urgently, “I can do it, don’t--”
“I need you to explain what happened, work with Deaton to fix it,” he says, wrapping her scarf around his mouth and tying it tightly behind his head. “Best bet is--”
“Ginger,” Lyda snaps, “I’m not an idiot. Derek’s going to kill you, you know.”
Stiles squares his shoulders, his fingers on the doorknob. “Not if Hargreaves does it first.”
“Don’t you dare die,” Lydia says, and then Stiles is through the door and into the lab.
//
The first dead body Stiles saw wasn’t his mother’s.
His dad was giving him a ride in the patrol car, and Stiles was sitting back, so careful and flush against the back of the seat because he’s not technically allowed to sit in the front and this is a special occasion but he has to sit very still and not lean forward at all and definitely not turn on the siren.
When Stiles hears the high pitched wail he sits up straight. “Not me,” he says immediately. His dad snorts, and the tires crunch on gravel as he pulls over to the roadside.
“Stay in the car, buddy,” he says, and Stiles fidgets. He taps his fingers against the car door, kicks his feet back and forth until they tap the underside of the glove compartment. He strains against the lapbelt to press his face against the window and breathe out fog to draw in with the tips of his fingers, twists around to poke at the metal grate between the front and backseat.
Then he undoes the buckle with a quick shove of his hand and slides out of the car and goes looking for his father, who is crouched next to a twisted, crumpled piece of metal that used to be a car, the glass of the windshield shattered and bloody. Stiles walks, looking down to see the shards embed in the rubber soles of his shoes, until his toes bump against something under a white sheet.
Stiles crouches, curious, curious, curious, thinks gleefully about telling Scott, lifts the sheet, and thinks oh, oh oh and then stops thinking.
//
“No,” Stiles says when Derek swings through his window with a whisper of leather on plaster. “unless you have a literary critique of Catcher in the Rye to share with the class, we have nothing to talk about.”
“Need your help,” Derek grits out like speaking words actually physically pains him.
“That doesn’t sound like an analysis of the symbolism of Holden’s hat...”
“Stiles,” Derek growls, and Stiles sighs, clicks the save button in his word processor, still considering angles of rebellion, conformity, suburbanism in the fifties. All of that grinds to a halt when he catches sight of Derek, and he gapes for a second until his brain comes back online.
“Holy shit,” he says, because Derek has shrugged off his jacket and his thin tanktop is streaked through with blood, dry and tacky down his right side. He’s leaning sideways against Stiles’ window, head tilted down, slumped in against himself.
“It’s been a long day,” he rasps. Stiles snorts, fumbling at his phone.
“Witch?” he asks. They’ve been tracking a human that, to quote Scott “smells straight on funky,” just outside the little pack’s little ring of woods, someone who leaves behind birds with their necks twisted at grotesque angles and black-burnt symbols scorched into tree trunks.
“Stumbled on her,” Derek says, “took care of it.” Stiles yanks up Derek’s shirt and uses one of his lacrosse practice shirts to wipe at the blood, his other hand opening the camera function on his cellphone. He’s been documenting everything, building files on everything they encounter, every guess, hypothesis, any piece of data and evidence he can chronicle.
“You eat her?” Stiles asks, cleaning the last of the blood just below Derek’s armpit. The skin is smooth and unbroken, and Stiles sighs.
“No,” Derek says, eyebrows drawn close together in a scowl. “why do you think I always eat everything.”
“You’ve already healed,” Stiles grumbles, tossing his phone on the bed. “and maybe because you’re a werewolf who is always threatening to kill everything.”
Derek looks almost offended. “I don’t eat everything I kill. And it wasn’t my side.” He tilts his head so Stiles can see the track of dried rust-red blood caked around his ear and trailing down his neck.
Stiles snorts. “If a crying Indian comes through my window next I’m kicking you all out.” He puts his fingers on Derek’s jaw to turn his head, peering into Derek’s ear, and frowns. “Is it healed? I can’t tell.”
“Healing,” Derek says. “Your fingers are cold.” Stiles blinks.
“Uh--sorry?” He blows hot air on his fingers, tucks them under his armpit. Derek’s tanktop is still rucked up, his hipbones exposed. “You’ve got a little...” Stiles uses his fingernail to scrape a fleck of blood off Derek’s navel. Derek sucks in a breath, his stomach going concave. Something rumbles in his chest, and Stiles’ mouth is open to start talking about how sometimes blood is bright bright red and sometimes it’s so dark it’s black and why is that, but he’s completely interrupted by the sound of his father opening his bedroom door and promptly choking on his own spit.
Derek had twisted at the sound of the doorknob, put Stiles between them to hide his bloody shirt, ducked his head until his injured ear is facing the wall, and now he’s staring at Stiles’ laptop like it’s the most interesting thing in the entire world.
“Dad,” Stiles says, his voice unnaturally high. “We were just about to call you in.”
“I seriously doubt that,” his father says, voice like ice. “Downstairs, two minutes.” Stiles nods jerkily, because he’d honestly expected his dad to demand an immediate explanation--giving them time to regroup and form a story must go against every cop instinct his dad’s got. Everytime he uses his dad’s trust against him he feels like shit and also simultaneously relieved.
“It’s a twisty feeling,” he says aloud. Derek stares at him. Stiles jolts himself into action, spinning to dig into a drawer. “Cover story,” he says, “cover story, tutoring--yeah no, and hey, what happened to super hearing.”
“A witch stabbed me in the inner ear.” Derek sounds almost indignant. Stiles spins to point at him, an oversized hoodie clutched in his fingers.
“Those are not the actual words that came out of your mouth. You said you had a long day. You know what a long day means? School was a drag, work sucked, you burned your breakfast. Long day does not equal a wayward warty woman stabbing you in the brain with her witchy weapons.” Stiles gives himself points for alliteration. Derek looks noticeably less impressed, but he pulls the sweatshirt over his head.
“What are we telling your dad?” Stiles throws a beanie hat at him.
“Cover your ear up.” Stiles fumbles to find the shirt he’d used earlier, shoves it between the wall and the dresser where it won’t be noticed. “We’re going with secret friends who bond and I’m lending your poor sad Ponyboy self these books on SAT prep because you’re trying to get your poor sad orphaned self into college. I knew those books would do something more useful than paperweights someday. Try to look downtrodden.” Derek glares harder, the dark knit cap pulled low over his face. Stiles pulls the hood up, his knuckles brushing against Derek’s hair. It’s a lot softer than he thought it would be.
“Stiles, I look like the unabomber.”
“Yes,” Stiles snaps, gesturing jerkily at the door, “that is where your life is now. You’re aspiring to look like the unabomber. Maybe if you took my advice and not gone looking for witches without the rest of your pack then--” Stiles has more, about how maybe if Derek made Danny his sassy gay best friend none of this would have happened and an entire section of a rant comprised of different ways of saying look at your life look at your choices, but Derek is looking at one of the pens lying on Stiles’ desk like he’s contemplating using it to finish the witch’s job just so he won’t have to listen to Stiles say another word, so Stiles just sighs and starts out the door, Derek trailing behind.
**
Allison climbs through Stiles’ window, waking him because she’s banging on the sill in her rush, tumbling to the floor and breathing loud. “Get up,” she says, shaking him, “Stiles get dressed.”
“What’s wrong?” Stiles rolls out of bed, reaching for his jeans. He pulls a hoodie over the soft tee he wears to bed, grabs a stick of gum from his desk.
“We have to go to Deaton’s,” she says, “Scott’s been poisoned.”
//
Stiles hasn’t always rambled. He always talked a lot, even Scott’s mom mutters about how he must have chattered his way out of the womb, but he used to leave the rambling in his head and speak only the conclusions.
“The swingset is my favourite,” he says on the playground at six, “blue Jolly Ranchers are gross chalky sand the library has reading circle tomorrow mom’s meatloaf.”
“Freak,” Jackson Whittemore says, and shoves him hard enough to topple him back into the tanbark. Stiles picks bits of mulch from his palms.
“I like green Jolly Ranchers,” Scott says solemnly. Stiles considers him with six year old seriousness. Scott tilts his head at him. “Do you wanna dig a hole in the sandbox?”
Stiles imagines Jackson falling in the hole and never coming out. “Yes,” he says, and they scramble across the sand to a corner, shoes slipping and stumbling, digging with their fingers until the sand paints their skin dusty-white and granules dig under their nails.
//
“I have a present for you,” Allison announces. Stiles doesn’t look away from his bedroom ceiling.
“What would Scott say,” he says, pitching his voice high and girlish. “he goes on vacation for one week and his girlfriend succumbs to the Stilinski wiles.”
“Your animal magnetism was just too strong,” Allison says, and Stiles snickers. He sits up and scoots sideways to leave Allison a space to sit on his bed. A nylon bag slung over her shoulder scrapes on his windowframe.
“All the people coming through my window,” he says, “I should set out a welcome mat. Maybe some snacks.”
“Use one of the ones that sings when you step on it,” Allison suggests, and they both pause to appreciate the gloriousness that would be Derek’s face upon triggering a jaunty tune.
Stiles stretches. “I’m on vacation, and since you’re not covered in blood or screaming I’m assuming this isn’t an emergency for my inner Giles.”
Allison slings the duffel bag off her shoulder and lets it thump on Stiles’ bed. “This visit is for your inner Buffy.” She draws out a little pistol, light grey with darker accents, not much bigger than her hand. “This is a Smith and Wesson 3193.”
“Holy shit,” Stiles squeaks, flapping his hands at her. “I know for a fact you don’t have a permit for that, put it away!”
“Isn’t your dad at the school shooting response seminar?” Allison peers behind him, looking confused.
“Yes,” Stiles says, “but oddly enough committing felonies in his own house still makes me nervous.”
Allison scoffs. “It’s a misdemeanor and a two hundred dollar fine.”
“It’s a misdemeanor,” Stiles says, mocking her tone, “if the gun is legally registered to you and legally purchased, which I highly doubt it is because you are not old enough to do either of those things.”
Allison looks disgruntled. “My information is outdated.”
“Knowledge is power!” Stiles does a little fistpump in the air and Allison stares at him. Whatever, he thinks, people who don’t get School House Rock references don’t get to judge.
Allison tucks the pistol away, and Stiles takes a breath of relief. “Don’t you want to learn how to handle guns.”
“I actually know how to handle guns,” Stiles snaps, “I am the son of the sheriff.”
“Do you know how to shoot them?”
Stiles flops back to lie facedown on his bed. His voice comes out muffled through the duvet. “Theoretically.”
Allison taps her fingers on the mattress. “Lydia’s family is vacationing in the Bahamas.” Stiles thinks about Lydia on a tropical beach, side tie bikini in colours to match her hair.
“Yes please,” he mumbles.
“And Scott’s gone,” Allison continues. Stiles turns his head to see her twist her fingers in the sheets. She’s lonely, Stiles realizes, no school, no boyfriend, no Lydia and only a creepy pack of Hunters back at her house for company.
“It might be nice,” he says, rolling over on his back. “to have something better than a fire extinguisher to use to defend myself. Fruitlessly, as I inevitably will be knocked unconscious in the least manly way possible.”
“Another facet of your inner Giles,” Allison says brightly, and Stiles half-laughs, sitting up and searching for his shoes.
“We are going so deep into the woods we’ll need that gun to protect us from the cast of Deliverance,” Stiles warns, “I don’t need felonies on my record.”
Allison bounces on her toes. “It would probably just be sealed under your juvie record.” Stiles catches her by the sleeve with one leg over the windowsill.
“Hold tight, Helena Kyle. Contrary to apparent popular belief, I do have a working front door.”
**
“It’s wolfsbane,” Deaton says, “but there’s no gunshot wound, no lacerations, no injection marks of any kind.”
Stiles takes Scott’s hand, helps Allison shift him into her lap. She smoothes his hair off his forehead, and Stiles swallows hard. Scott’s sweating, shivering and making tiny whining noises that punch Stiles right in the gut. Lydia makes a frustrated noise from where she’s bent over a laptop.
“Are you sure he couldn’t have ingested it?” she asks, “Someone slipped it in his food.”
“No,” Derek says from where he’s been pacing a groove into the floor. “He would have smelled it, even him.”
“Hey,” Allison says loyally, but Scott makes a distressed noise and she goes back to shushing him softly, pressing kisses to his temple.
“It’s weak,” Deaton says, “it’ll wear off soon, but if he gets dosed again...”
“What if he inhaled it,” Stiles says, “yesterday you were sweeping the abandoned warehouses for that Hunter--”
“Hargreaves,” Allison says, “bad news. He’s wanted by the other Hunters too. Kills a lot of humans as ‘collateral damage’.”
“Right,” Stiles says, “but when Lydia and I pulled his records we found that he has a Master’s degree in chemical engineering.”
“And he wrote his senior thesis on biological warfare,” Lydia announces, spinning the laptop so they can see an article displayed on the screen. “It was published online.”
How to Wage Germ Warfare on Sub-Humanoid Species, it says.
//
Stiles’ mother died slowly, very slowly, until she lay in the hospital bed with grey chapped lips and spoke nonsense in tiny whispers, throat parched constantly and skin like thin paper.
Stiles remembers, mostly, how nice of a day it was when they buried her, Stiles’ skin sun-warm under his suit jacket and bright blue skies overhead. He also remembers the silence, how it buzzed in his ears and grew louder and louder, like snow on the television set, static screaming in his ears until he filled it with his own voice.
Derek Hale is the loudest person Stiles has ever met.
//
“That’s a ladies gun,” Jackson says, half-sneering, and Stiles envisions sticking the bore-brush straight through Jackson’s eyesocket.
“You’d just heal anyway,” he sighs, and Jackson scoffs. Stiles is sitting against the wall in Derek’s house, a clean towel spread out before him and gun oil shining slightly on his fingers, cleaning the little pistol and waiting for Allison. Jackson moves around him in a restless half circle, his lip pulled up to expose his teeth. Stiles refuses to make any wolf metaphors for how he’s acting, and concentrates on the way Allison had showed him how all the pieces fit together.
“Little pistol,” Jackson says, half-singing, “That’s what, the opposite of compensating for something?” Stiles grits his teeth and tries to remind himself that the full moon is only few hours away, Jackson probably can’t help this particular outbreak of assholery. that insult made no actual sense, and Stiles is mature enough to be the bigger person.
“I don’t know,” his mouth says without permission from his brain, “what do you do to compensate for the people you killed as Godzilla’s less attractive younger brother?” Stiles freezes, and he can hear Jackson swallow, the scrape of his shoe as he rocks backwards from the force of Stiles’ words. “Shit,” Stiles mutters, and sits up straight, laying the brush aside. “Jackson--” he says, half rising, and stops again at the look on Jackson’s face. He looks gutted, paler than usual. A muscle in his jaw twitches.
“It’s whatever,” Jackson mutters, and Stiles slides back down to the ground. He taps his fingers against the peeling wall and picks the wallpaper out of his nails. He brings his hands closer to his face to look at his nails and the acrid smell of old smoke wafts up to his nose. Stiles puts his hands down quickly and chews on his bottom lip. His leg starts jumping, up and down on the ground.
“I attacked you,” Jackson says abruptly, and Stiles is startled into stillness for almost five full seconds.
Then he flexes his toes in his boots, curling them in and out again, over and over. “Yeah.”
Jackson is leaning against the staircase, scowling at the steps like they’ve personally wronged him. “I never said I was sorry.” He grits out the words from the back of his throat, expression twisted.
Stiles blinks at him. “Are you... saying it now?” Jackson’s jaw clenches again, his teeth grinding, and makes a small choked-off noise. Stiles has a horrible image of Jackson vomiting over the idea of throwing up and then suffocating to death on his own vomit and then Lydia murdering Stiles slowly and painfully for harming her boyfriend. “It’s fine,” he says quickly. “Let’s just... forget it.” Stiles shifts, his ass going numb from the floor, and hopes vainly for something to attack them so the awkwardness will end. He checks his watch and groans. Another half hour at least until Allison meets him for practice.
“You don’t have to dab at it like that,” Jackson says abruptly, and Stiles looks up, a soft rag soaked at the tip with solvent in his fingers.
“What?”
“Smith and Wesson 3193 ladies,” Jackson says, gesturing awkwardly. “There aren’t any wood or plastic pieces, so you can soak the whole thing in the solvent.”
Stiles blinks at him. “Oh. Thanks?” He looks down at his towel and frowns slightly, trying to work out how to proceed.
“I can show you,” Jackson says, and the floorboards creak as he walks to the wall and slides down, less than a foot from Stiles.
“Yeah,” Stiles says, “um, okay.”
Jackson leans over, his body warmth pressing lightly against Stiles’ side. “My parents are the Republican kind of rich California,” he says, taking the rag from Stiles’ hands and setting it aside. He smoothes his fingers over the towel and rearranges the parts carefully before reaching for the bottle of solvent. “You should let it soak for thirty minutes.”
“Thanks,” Stiles says, and his fingers start tapping on the floor again. They stare at the opposite wall for a while.
“Still a ladies gun,” Jackson says.
“See how manly you feel when I shoot you with a ladies wolfsbane bullet,” Stiles counters, and they glare at each other until Jackson’s head cants sideways and Allison bounds through the door.
**
“You’re not going in there,” Derek orders, and Stiles snorts.
“We need to check out the warehouse to see what Hargreaves is up to, and the only one not going in there is you,” he says. “Well, also not going in there will be Jackson. Or Scott, but he’s still semi-recovering so I’m assuming he doesn’t factor into this conversation--”
“Stiles,” Derek says, and his claws dig into Stiles’ sleeve. “I’m not going to let you.” Stiles wraps his hand around Derek’s fingers and squeezes. Derek makes a noise from the back of his throat, a high pitched whine of distress.
“Derek,” Stiles says quietly, “you can’t stop me.”
//
There are things that Stiles’ father tells him that would have made his mother angry, wisdom doled out late at night when his father slumps in the kitchen after a long day, mud on his boots, pouring out gold liquid into the glasses they used in their wedding.
“Someone points a gun at you,” he says, “don’t do as they say. They’re going to kill you, your best move is to jerk and run.”
“Okay dad,” Stiles says, and digs in the fridge carefully, looking for the plate with the plastic wrap. “Mac and cheese night, low fat margarine and skim milk. You’ll love it.”
His father stares at the table without blinking, taps his fingers against the rim of the glass. “Harder to shoot a moving target then people think.”
//
Stiles shuffles through the cafeteria line, balancing two pizza slices on one arm and shoving the other into the bin of chips, digging frantically as the people behind him bump up against his back, shoving impatiently. “Man down,” he shrieks, as someone grabs him by the arm and starts to pull him back, “tag me out!”
“Man shut up,” Scott says, grinning. “What’d you get?”
Stiles looks at the bags cramped in his fist. “Sour cream and onion,” he reports, “aaaand, cheddar chives.”
Scott takes one of the plates off Stiles’ arm and makes a grab for a bag of chips. Stiles moves to block him and gets an elbow in the gut for his trouble. “No fair,” he wheezes as they reach the front of the line. “You and your... were--” Stiles catches sight of the cafeteria worker, looking harassed and angry about her life. “withal,” he finishes, “your amazing wherewithal.”
“Seven dollars,” the lady says, completely ignoring everyone and everything.
“He’s got it,” Stiles says, jerking a thumb towards Scott, who makes a wounded noise but digs in a pocket for a handful of crumpled one dollar bills.
They toss their backpacks onto an empty table and Stiles puts his bag of chips flat on the table so he can smack it with his fist and pop the seal with a bang. Little pieces of chip fly across the table and land on Scott’s shirt, who doesn’t notice at all because he’s learned about ‘star crossed lovers’ in English class and is setting up a metaphor for his and Allison’s epic throughout-the-ages romance.
“You would use your powers to marry Allison,” Stiles complains, mostly to interrupt him more than anything else, “when you could have,” he deepens his voice dramatically, “money! Power! Fame!”
Scott cups his hands around his mouth, lowering his tone to match Stiles, “World domination!”
“You spoke my summoning words?” Lydia intones, and promptly ignores Scott’s existence completely. “We’re still on for today?”
Stiles fishes in a pocket and comes up with a USB stick, fumbling slightly under the force that is Lydia Martin’s full attention. “Yeah, here. Usual password.”
“See you later, loser,” Lydia says, more Heathers than Mean Girls, and walks off. Stiles watches her go with a faintly dazed expression.
Scott pokes him with the ends of his spork. “Are you imagining she’s the Scully to your Mulder again?”
“We are literally compiling X-Files,” Stiles says, turning back to his plate. “They had a baby in the last season, you know.”
“Lydia Martin is never going to let you impregnate her,” Scott says, and Stiles throws a napkin at his face.
“I want to believe,” he says, and shoves his mouth full of pizza crust.
**
“Shit,” Lydia pants, running her hands through her hair. “shit shit. Danny, go tell everyone.”
“Don’t die,” Danny says, and runs.
“We have to go in there,” Stiles says, “we have to deactivate it.”
“Wolfsbane is poison for humans too,” Lydia argues, “we need gasmasks, SWAT, nuke it from fucking orbit.”
Stiles leans in to look through the pane of glass in the door. “Look Ripley, he’s got the device to let it into the air right there.”
“You don’t know that,” she argues, and Stiles laughs.
“No you’re right,” he says, “I think he’s just auditioning for the next Ghostbusters movie. If we leave he could start dispersing it.”
“We stay here,” Lydia counters, “watch him and if he tries to leave--”
Stiles grabs her and pushes her close to the window. “Look. You see that hole cut into the pipes? They’re painted blue.”
“Blue like water,” Lydia says, and curses expressively.
//
Stiles is with Lydia when the wendigo attacks them. Lydia is sitting on his jacket, which she’d practically ripped off him when she took one look at the couch and the floor and refused to directly touch either of them. They’re pouring over two texts Stiles had ordered from sources Allison had recommended, making notes and cross-referencing against the information they’ve already got, when the wall between them explodes inwards.
Stiles doesn’t even catch a good look at the thing at first, scrambling blind with bits of plaster, wood, paint chips and insulation raining down, dust heavy in the air. He crawls blindly towards Lydia, feeling out for her, and his outstretched hand meets hers. He yanks her to him and they fall against each other, knocking together painfully and shoving backwards, and that’s when Stiles sees it.
“Holy Mary mother of god,” he says. It’s humanoid, but its limbs are longer than they should be, long and sinewy with wickedly curved claws and teeth that are so close to Stiles’ face that he can say with a large amount of certainty they’re more isosceles triangular than equilateral. It smiles at them, and a forked tongue flickers through the gaps in its fangs. Lydia clutches tighter at his hand.
“My bag,” she says, and the creature hisses at them, its eyes glowing pale red. Stiles can see Lydia’s totebag, lying propped against the wall--on the opposite side of the creature.
“Fuck,” he says, and tries to squeeze Lydia’s hand in a reassuring manner.
“Ow, asshole,” Lydia hisses, and the creature takes a step towards them, his legs moving oddly, not like a human, hulking thigh muscles and feet more like back paws. Stiles realizes with a jolt what it reminds him of.
“Dear god,” he says, “we’re in that scene from Jurassic Park.”
“Distract it,” Lydia says, and shoves Stiles hard. He stumbles, and those pale red irises track him, its head cocked. Lydia edges around behind them, slowly, staring at her bag. She steps on a piece of plaster and it crackles under her foot. The creature’s head whips around, and Stiles panics, yanks his shoe off and hits it square in the chest.
“Oh shit,” he says, and runs, slipping on the floor, gait uneven from the difference in height from one leg to the other. He skids into the kitchen, his shoulder knocking hard against the doorframe, and five points of agony bite into the muscle of his upper arm before the entire limb goes numb. Stiles yelps, wrenching himself around, and stumbles to the ground. The creature looks down at him, teeth bared, and licks Stiles’ blood off its claws.
Stiles tries to get up, and makes it to his knees before he staggers again, the numbness spreading up his arm and down to his chest. His legs feel heavy, weighted down, and Stiles tries to scuttle himself backwards. The creature takes another step forward, still sucking Stiles’ blood off its fingers, and then something made of glass crashes into its back and catches fire.
It screams, a carnal howl deep in its throat, and thrashes, smashing the flimsy table in the room, claws digging ragged trenches into the walls. Stiles is losing feeling in his legs, and he falls onto his back, using all his energy to turn his head to face the creature.
It staggers towards him, still aflame, and Lydia steps into view behind him, pale and shaking but holding a glass bottle with a lit rag stuffed in the neck. “I fucking hate velociraptors,” she says, and hits the creature in the back of the head with a throw so hard Stiles thinks Finstock should recruit her. The creature screams again, over and over, and collapses, twitching and crying out. Stiles watches it die, his eyes starting to close, and Lydia falls to her knees beside him.
“Stiles,” she says desperately, “get up, Stiles, come on.”
“Natasha Romanov,” he says clearly, and she blinks at him. “you have the same hair.”
“The house is on fire,” Lydia says, pulling at him, “get the fuck up, Stilinksi.” She starts to drag him, Stiles flopping limp and bumping over debris. Lydia pants in his ear, cursing, and dirty smoke hits Stiles’ nose and throat.
“Again?” Stiles mumbles, and then Lydia’s hands around his middle disappear, and Stiles is lifted up completely, cradled against a broader chest.
“This way,” Lydia shouts from somewhere out of sight, and Stiles lets his eyes close.
“Derek,” he mumbles, and passes out.
He wakes up sprawled out in the forest, mouth like cotton swabs. His whole body is tingling painfully, like every inch of him had fallen asleep and is just now waking up. He opens his eyes, wincing, and sees Lydia hovering over him, looking pissed.
“Thank god,” she snaps, and hits him in a hug.
“Oh god the pain,” Stiles yelps, “I can’t even appreciate this moment.” Lydia leans back and socks him hard in the shoulder.
“Don’t lie,” she says, and Stiles figures he is actually enjoying the contact on many levels so he doesn’t argue.
“What happened?” he asks, and Derek appears from between two trees, shaking his head as he changes back from wolf to human.
“Wendigo,” he grunts, and presses two fingers against Stiles’ pulsepoint.
“Can’t you hear my heart?” he asks, and then processes his statement. He whips his head around to Lydia.
“Wendigo?”
“Cannibalistic humans with supernatural abilities,” Lydia says, “paralytic spit.” She pulls her cell out of a pocket and pulls up the photo album. “I got pictures.”
Stiles tries to focus. “But it didn’t bite me,” he says, “clawed me, and the paralysis spread from the scratches.” Lydia looks thoughtful.
“Hollow claws? Like snake fangs.”
“Any remains?” Stiles asks, and she shrugs.
“Fire is mostly out, but Derek wants to wait until the place has cleared.”
“Smoke inhalation has a higher rate of injury than actual flames,” Derek says shortly.
“Thank you, Smokey,” Stiles says, coughing. “I gotta get home.”
“You shouldn’t drive,” Derek says.
“I’ll take you,” Lydia offers, but Stiles is watching Derek, who is staring at his house, lit very gently with glowing embers, the Hale house ablaze once again.
“Derek,” he croaks, but Lydia is tugging on his arm and Derek just shakes his head at him, a little twitch.
“Smoke won’t bother me,” he says, “I’ll try to salvage the body.”
“Get the claws,” Lydia orders, and starts to pull Stiles to his feet. “And pictures.”
Stiles makes a grab for Derek’s sleeve. “Don’t go in there,” he says quietly, “don’t go in there, Derek.”
“Go home, Stiles,” Derek says, and Lydia half carries him to the car.
“You smell like an ashtray,” his father says.
“I’m secretly a pryomaniac,” Stiles says, kicking his shoes off and starting for his room.
“Is Derek Hale buying you cigarettes?” Stiles actually barks out a laugh at that, and then deteriorates into a coughing fit that ends with a dry heave, halfway up the stairs. His father stares at him from the couch, still in uniform, the top buttons of his shirt undone.
“No dad,” Stiles says finally. “I’m going to bed.”
“Where’s your jeep,” his dad says flatly.
“At Derek’s,” Stiles replies casually, “Lydia gave me a lift, I think I’ve got a cold.” He coughs again, pounding his own chest with his fist. “Gonna hit the hay.”
“There was a fire reported at the Hale house,” his father says, and pours himself another two fingers of bourbon. “Know anything about that?”
“Well dad,” Stiles says lightly, “I was down to my last cigarette, and I thought, there’s nicotine in fiberglass insulation, right? So I built this incendiary device, and--”
“Stop,” his father says, fingers flexing, “just... stop,” and Stiles stops. His father stares at him, and Stiles stares right back. “I--I love you, son,” he says finally, and Stiles tamps down the jerk in his chest. He smiles casually.
“Goodnight dad,” he says.
**
“Don’t you dare die,” Lydia says, and Stiles opens the door and goes into the lab.
There are heavy sheets of plastic hanging from the ceiling, and even Stiles can smell that something isn’t right. The water in the pipe gurgles and rushes, and Stiles eases over to the dark machine resting next to it. He pushes the spout out of the way and crouches in front of it, trying to suss out how it works.
“Stand up,” someone says from behind him, “slowly. Let me see your hands.” Stiles raises his hands in the universal don’t shoot posture. He turns slowly.
“Mr. Hargreaves?” he guesses, and the man smiles. He’s got dark hair trimmed brutally short in a military cut, dark fatigues and combat boots. He’s also holding a gun that looks more like a hand cannon than a pistol. “I’m not a werewolf.”
“You run with wolves,” Hargreaves says coldly, and fires.
//