Chapter Text
Lydia ushers Erica upstairs to go through the clothes they bought and pick out a more modest outfit. There’s no need to go back to the blue potato sack, she says, but maybe something a little less dramatic will help ease her parents into things. She changes into looser jeans and a nice sweater with a scoop neckline. The boots are replaced with the brown flats.
She and Allison coach her through the complete freak-out she has at the thought of facing her parents and breaking this news to them, which lasts a little longer than she would have expected. Then Sheriff Stilinski is home and Melissa McCall has arrived, and Erica goes back downstairs somewhat nervously.
“You look very nice,” Melissa tells her, and she tries not to freak out again. Scott is setting the table while Stiles finishes his dinner preparations, and before long there are several dishes of amazing smelling food on the table, and then the doorbell rings and Stilinski leaves the dining room to answer it.
The table is packed quite full, because with Erica’s parents, there will be eleven people and the table really only seats ten. So Sheriff Stilinski is seated at one end with Stiles on his right and Erica’s parents on his left, and Melissa McCall is at the other end, with the pack filling in the rest, Erica next to her parents, Derek next to Stiles, Scott next to his mother, Allison next to Scott.
“Erica!” Cynthia Reyes gapes at her daughter, clearly stunned at this new look, as toned down as it is. They had stopped by the Reyes household briefly on their way to the mall, so Erica’s parents could see that she was still alive and not seizing, and told them that they were going to go shopping and get her hair done. Even so, this is not what the Reyes parents had expected. “You . . . you look . . .”
Erica gives them a smile that’s half-hopeful, half-worried. “Good? Good is what we were aiming for.”
“You look amazing,” Cynthia says, embracing her. Over Erica’s shoulder, she gives her husband an astonished look. “I just, I’m just a little surprised, when you said ‘makeover’ this wasn’t what I pictured.”
“You look great, honey,” Erica’s father, Javier, says.
Erica returns the hug, clearly pleased by the compliment but in a much softer way than the compliments she was getting from the pack. “It wasn’t really what I was expecting either, but uh, Lydia doesn’t fuck around when it comes to shopping.”
“Swear jar,” Javier says automatically. Erica sticks her tongue out at him.
“Honey, how on earth did you pay for all this . . .?”
“Oh, it was my treat, Mrs. Reyes,” Lydia smoothly interjects. “Don’t even worry about it.”
Derek opens his mouth to make an indignant protest over Lydia taking the credit for his bank account, but pauses at the idea of a twenty-four year old man buying a fifteen-year-old girl a complete makeover and new wardrobe opposed to a sixteen-year-old rich girl doing the same thing. Creepy. He closes his mouth with a sigh. “What has my life become?” he mutters to the nearest pack member.
Unfortunately for him, that happens to be Stiles, who clearly doesn’t feel sorry for him in the slightest. He just grins at Derek before turning to the Reyes’ and saying, “You’re just in time, come sit down for dinner . . .”
While the food is on the table, they don’t talk about werewolves. The adults keep the conversation on neutral topics while everyone stuffs their faces. Cynthia and Javier look continually more and more astonished, both at how friendly their daughter is with these people, how they take her vulgar mouth in stride, and how much food she’s putting in her mouth. She puts away two entire platefuls of Stiles’ beef stew.
Erica finishes the second plate and several people look at her as if waiting to see if there’s going to be a request for a third. She takes a deep breath and then relaxes into her chair. “I’m good.”
“Amazing,” Isaac says, and gets a wadded up napkin thrown at him for his trouble.
“No throwing food at my table,” Stilinski says, thinking about the many, many food fights this room has hosted. “At least not in front of guests.”
“Yes, Papa Stilinski,” a bunch of voices obediently chorus.
Cynthia is looking at Erica with a worried frown, which is understandable, since any new behavior can be a precursor to a seizure. “Are you all right?” she asks.
“What?” Erica asks, blinking, then realizes what her mother is really asking. “Oh. Yeah, perfectly fine. Rock steady. No funny taste or anything.”
“You just don’t usually . . .” Cynthia trails off, at a loss as to how to finish the sentence without insulting either her daughter or Stiles, who cooked the meal.
“Eat?” Erica offers. Things are edging towards awkward in a pretty dramatic way.
“Nobody can resist my cooking,” Stiles says with a cheerful grin, lightening the mood almost instantly. “And this is one of my specialties. It’s actually a recipe I made up myself, but it comes from a recipe for Flemish beef stew. The trick is to get a really good dark beer . . .” He continues to chatter about how to make the stew, which nobody at the table cares about in the slightest, to give everyone time while the mood settles.
Scott and Allison start clearing the table. “We’re on dish duty,” Isaac says, nudging Lydia, and she makes a face at him.
“Coffee?” Stiles asks the Reyes’.
“Please,” Cynthia says, still a little unnerved. “Two cream, two sugars.”
“I take mine black,” Javier says, and Stiles jumps to get it while the room clears of everyone except the adults, himself, and Erica.
Once the coffee is served, Erica finds herself giving Stiles a grateful look. She was so wrong. This was way better than anything she would have done on her own. It was still as uncomfortable as fuck, but at least she felt like she had backup. Stiles just gives her a little smile in return, not a smug smile, just a ‘this is what I do’ sort of smile, which looks right at home on his face.
“Erica, you can’t have coffee!” Cynthia says, aghast, as Stiles puts a mug down in front of her.
“I, uh . . .” Erica pulls the mug towards herself, soaking in the warmth and taking a deep breath. She really wants to try it. It always smells so good, but maybe her mother has a point and she shouldn’t yet. She looks over at Derek as the resident expert on what her body can and can’t handle.
Derek shrugs, his eyes shifting to her parents for a second before saying, “Try it. Just a few sips. Go slow and you should be fine.” They’re going to have to start breaking it to her parents somehow. “And add milk, or it’s going to be more bitter than Lydia’s ex-boyfriend.”
Stiles passes her the creamer while her parents gape. Cynthia finally manages, “I, I think we know better than you about her medical condition and what she can and can’t have.”
“Under normal circumstances, you would be absolutely correct,” Melissa smoothly intervenes. “And we would never dream of telling you otherwise. But things have changed for Erica in the past twenty-four hours, and we called you over here so we could tell you about it.”
Erica adds a generous amount of creamer, tries it, and makes a face. “Holy Christ.” She adds more, then looks up in time to see her mother swell like she’s going to start taking people apart. Her father doesn’t look too pleased either. It’s hard for her to be angry, since this sort of behavior has always protected her and taken care of her in the past. “It’s okay. I’m okay. For pretty much the first time ever.”
“Erica, what . . . what’s happened?” Javier asks.
Derek interjects here. “We turned her into a werewolf.”
Both of Erica’s parents just blink at him, dumbfounded.
“Grrr,” Erica says, in a fairly unconvincing manner. “No, seriously. Werewolf. Turns out that epilepsy isn’t so much of an issue for them. Us.”
“If . . . if this is some kind of joke,” Cynthia begins, her voice shaking, and that’s when Derek shifts into his partial form. Predictable chaos follows, and it takes Melissa and Sheriff Stilinski several minutes to get them calmed down and back in their seats.
Erica takes a moment to get over how awesome the claws were. She gives her parents a hopeful look. “See?” She waves a flailing hand at her own face. “It’s already helping. Less shitty medicine, more food. I don’t feel like I want to roll over and smother myself with my own pillow just to avoid getting out of bed. I actually feel like I give a fuck.”
“But – but you’ve been turned into – ” Cynthia stares helplessly at Derek’s now-human face, her mouth working soundlessly.
“A werewolf,” Stiles interjects. He sounds calm, but there’s that steel underneath his voice, that note which says people had better stop aggravating his pack or they’ll regret it. “I won’t say it doesn’t have any drawbacks, but the wolves keep their full consciousness when they shift. It’s not a curse.”
Javier rounds on him. “Are you the one who did this to my daughter?”
“Hey! They didn’t do anything to me. It was informed consent. It wasn’t like I was attacked or tripped and fell onto someone’s waiting teeth. Jesus.” Erica is giving her father a glare at least as fierce as the one she had directed at Stiles earlier.
“You can’t give informed consent!” Cynthia snaps. “You’re a minor!”
“We probably should have talked to you first,” Sheriff Stilinski admits, “but it’s sort of difficult to believe, and – ”
“Damn right you should have talked to us!” Javier yells. “We never would have let her anywhere near you crazy bastards if we’d known!”
“Well, shit, Dad, I’m glad I didn’t talk it over with you, then! What the fuck do you mean I can’t give informed consent?” She slams her hand down on the table. “All that means is that I understand the pros and cons of treatment. What could go right or wrong. And fuck if I don’t understand that after living with this for my entire life!”
“Maybe we should all stop yelling,” Melissa says.
Cynthia shakes her head, almost frantically. “There, there must be a way to undo it, right?”
Derek just shakes his head.
“There has to be a way to undo it!” she shouts.
“There isn’t,” Derek says.
“Oh, God,” Cynthia says. “My little girl . . .”
“Is fine,” Erica blurts out. “I’m fine. I’m awesome! I woke up this morning and I was hungry. When was the last time I actually wanted to eat something?”
“Being a werewolf isn’t that bad,” Derek says. “I’ve been one my whole life. It’s not a curse. It’s a gift. It makes you stronger. It lets you heal faster. It enhances your senses. And yes, it also happens to let you shift forms into a wolf or a part-wolf, part-human. But it’s not as terrible as you’re making it out to be. Yes, there are bad werewolves out there, and that’s who the movies have been made about, but there are bad people out there, too. The vast majority of werewolves are just like people, living their lives and minding their own business.”
Cynthia sits back down with a thump. She doesn’t seem to know what to say. Javier is still spitting mad. “Erica, get your coat,” he snaps. “You, you haven’t heard the last of this,” he adds to the others. “You stay away from my daughter!”
Erica jerks to her feet automatically at her father’s command, because he’s her father and he’s upset, but her eyes are dragged by an unexpected gravitational force to Derek and Stiles, especially Stiles. The idea of being split up from them is terrifying, and a small animal whine escapes the back of her throat. She doesn’t even know where the feeling is coming from, but it doesn’t seem wrong so she doesn’t fight it.
Sheriff Stilinski is on his feet as well, his hands spread out in a placating gesture. “Mr. Reyes, please,” he says, “we all want what’s best for Erica.”
Javier opens his mouth to reply, but then looks to the side at where Stiles has gently taken Erica’s hand and tugged her back into her seat. “Get your hands off her, you little bastard,” he snarls.
Stiles’ jaw sets in that familiar stubborn expression, and his father hastily continues before he can explode. “Think of this like another medical trial,” he says.
“Like an experimental new drug,” Melissa says, since she knows more about it than the others. “Being used off label. Not a lot of official testing, but great anecdotal results. Which would have a good chance of making Erica completely seizure free. And in return, for a few nights every month she just gets kind of sick instead. If something like that was available, wouldn’t you have been willing to give it a try?”
“Well . . .” Cynthia looks at her daughter and her new clothes, her makeup, the look on her face as she leans into Stiles’ shoulder. Some of the panicky feeling left her as soon as Stiles had her by the hand, and once she was settled back into her chair, she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her face into his shirt.
“I’m sorry I got mad at you,” she mumbles, and Stiles just rubs her back in a comforting gesture. Derek had moved with Stiles, almost at his elbow, but he forced himself not to touch Erica or react to the aggression the man is flinging at his alpha. His jaw tightens, and he takes a slow, deep breath.
“A doctor never would have done anything like that without consulting us,” Javier says through gritted teeth.
“True,” Melissa says, “but we aren’t doctors. And this wasn’t a drug. Ultimately, Erica had to make the choice herself – and she had to choose to tell you herself.”
Erica peeks out from around Stiles and says, “So take that,” glaring at her father.
Derek rolls his eyes. “You are going to be in so much trouble,” he says to Erica. To her parents, he says, “We wouldn’t have offered without knowing how it works. We wouldn’t have endangered Erica’s health. It helped Scott, who was a pretty bad asthmatic beforehand.”
“Well . . .” Cynthia is clearly hedging. “No more seizures? Really?”
“Really,” Derek says. “She’s already feeling a lot better.”
Cynthia swallows hard. “Will . . . will we have to keep her locked up during the full moon?”
“No,” Derek says flatly. “The first couple of full moons are difficult, but it’s her pack’s responsibility, our responsibility, to help her through that. It’s just a matter of learning self-control. She’ll never not be Erica.”
“Oh.” Cynthia swallows again. “Oh. That’s good.”
“Javier, please sit down,” Melissa says. “I know you’re upset, but let’s talk about this. Okay?”
Javier’s jaw clenches in an unpleasant expression, but then he nods stiffly and sits back down. Derek gives in to instinct and does run a hand over Erica’s hair before sitting down in one of the empty seats with Stiles between himself and Erica. Her grip on Stiles loosens up somewhat when it becomes clear that her parents aren’t going to drag her away from her pack and her alpha.
Since it seems they’re in somewhat more of a mood to listen, Stiles takes the floor, explaining about werewolves in depth. He’s done more than his share of research about them, and knows almost as much as Derek does at this point. He explains about werewolf families and turned wolves, and how he and Scott had gotten involved, although he minimizes the trauma as much as possible. He doesn’t mention hunters. Their truce is holding, and some things just aren’t important for the Reyes’ to know. He doesn’t say much about Peter Hale, either, or how he got the position of alpha. That sort of thing was important for Erica, but it isn’t important for her parents.
Cynthia settles down somewhat and starts asking questions, and between the assembled people, they manage to answer everything to her satisfaction. Javier just sits there with his jaw set in a stubborn expression that’s fairly similar to the way Erica looks when she’s pissed off. He doesn’t argue, but he does give Stiles several sharp looks, clearly unhappy with the way Erica is cuddling up to him.
Derek, meanwhile, has sunk gratefully back into his stoic silence. He makes a mental note to ask Sheriff Stilinski how he had resisted the urge to punch Javier in the face when he called Stiles a little bastard. He thinks it might come in handy in the future. He stays quiet until Stiles is done talking and Cynthia seems to have asked all her questions, at least for now. Then he steps in again, because he doesn’t care if Javier is angry at him, as long as he can get along with Stiles and the other parents. “You’re still angry. Why?”
Javier scowls at him. “Besides the fact that you went behind my back and made a life-changing decision with my daughter without seeing fit to inform me?”
“Yes,” Derek says, unperturbed. “Besides that.”
Javier just glares daggers. “She’s my daughter,” he says. “You couldn’t possibly understand.”
Stiles looks at Derek and says, in a quiet voice without emotion, “He’s jealous that we helped her where he couldn’t.”
This catches Derek off guard. “What?” He understands the words, but it’s so far from what he was expecting to hear that he’s thrown by it.
Sheriff Stilinski winces. Stiles isn’t wrong, but saying it in front of everyone was a little less tactful than usual. Melissa doesn’t look thrilled with him, either. Cynthia just looks tired, but she doesn’t object. Javier only gets more pissed off. “You, you,” he sputters, searching for an appropriate insult. “How dare you say that to me?”
Now it’s Derek who winces, having learned that Stiles will dare just about anything. Erica, for her part, stares at her father incredulously. “Is that what this is about? You think you haven’t helped me enough?”
“No, honey,” Javier says, and struggles to find words to explain. “It’s just, we’ve always done everything together, and – ” There’s a pause. Then he says, stiffly, “Would you mind giving us a little privacy?”
Stiles gives Erica a questioning look, wanting to be sure it’s okay. She nods and gives his hand a squeeze, so he stands up and leaves the room with the others on his heels. Javier glooms in silence until they’re gone. Erica doesn’t give her father an opening; she just launches right in. “I don’t know how to make you less pissed off if I don’t know what has you pissed off. Is it because I didn’t talk it over with you guys or ask permission? Or is because you think you haven’t helped enough? Because that’s bullshit. You’ve so helped enough. Maybe I think your life shouldn’t revolve around worrying about whether or not I’ll start twitching like a freak, take a header down the stairs, and finally kick the bucket.” She slumps in her seat, giving him a nervous, worried pout.
“We’ve always talked everything over as a family,” Javier says. “Why didn’t you come to us? Did you not trust us?”
“You did sort of flip your shit. I told you now, didn’t I?” She scowls a little. “Well, Stiles decided to tell you tonight. I knew I wanted to tell you, but he just worked out all the details. But if I hadn’t trusted you, I wouldn’t have wanted to tell you at all.”
Since her father is still glowering, she shrugs and tries to think about why she hadn’t talked it over with them. “It’s like . . . being part of the pack is like being part of a family, a really close family. They can decide I would fit in. And I can decide if I fit in. But you can’t. Like . . . okay, I know you want to punch Stiles right now, but pretend you don’t. Imagine his dad trying to decide if Stiles was going to fit in as a part of our family. How the fuck would he know?”
“So you didn’t want to talk to us because you’re replacing us?” Javier asks.
“No! Are you trying to take everything the wrong way, Dad? Why would you even fucking ask me that?”
Cynthia intervenes here. “It . . . it’s a lot to take in,” she says. “You have to give us some time and respect that. But . . . I’m glad that you’re okay.” She chokes on a sob. “I’m so glad that you’re finally going to be okay.”
“Oh, jeez, Mom.” Erica gets up, circles the table, and hugs her mother.
“I’m all right,” Cynthia says, sniffling. “I just . . . I think what your dad is trying to say is that . . . it’s taken us off guard how grown up you are now. It’s almost as if you eloped and got married behind our back. Because you can be part of two families, honey, you can, but you went and chose this new family and new life for yourself without saying a word.”
Erica can’t help but grin at that. “Don’t think of it like losing a daughter. Think of it like gaining a bunch of other teenagers. And Derek.”
Javier glares at her. “That’s not comforting.”
Her grin turned a little wolfy. “Since when have I ever been comforting?”
Cynthia lets out a sudden bark of laughter. “She’s got you there, Javi.”
Javier’s glare just intensifies. “That Stiles kid . . . do I have to get my shotgun where he’s concerned?”
“Well, since his dad is the sheriff and we’re in his house . . .” Erica plunks down in the chair next to her mother and waits to see how well that crack goes over. It does not go over well. Her father looks like he’s bitten down on a lemon. “We aren’t dating. We aren’t screwing. I’m not screwing anyone.” She squirms a little. “But we’re cuddly.”
Javier folds his arms over his chest and says, “I guess that’s all right.” After a pause, he says, “You never used to want anyone touching you.”
“I know! While I was out with Lydia and Allison today I was all like, ‘hug me!’ It’s the wolf thing. We’re cuddly with each other. Like a normal wolf pack would be. If anyone outside the pack tried, I’m pretty sure I’ll want to break their fingers or their face.” Unless it was an attractive male like Julian, but she doesn’t think she needs to tell her parents about that.
Cynthia just lets out a sigh. “I think we need a little time to sit on this,” she says. “Maybe we should let it go for the rest of the night.”
Erica nods, her hair bouncing, which still makes her smile. “Stiles made some sort of dessert thing involving strawberries and . . . other things that smell good, so you probably want to try it. Pretty much everything he’s fed me so far has been to die for.”
“He doesn’t seem the type,” Javier remarks.
“To cook or to take care of people?”
“Either, really, but I meant cooking.”
“I dunno. He made me an omelet, and cookies for everyone, and babbled something earlier about how tonight’s dinner was supposed to be a pot roast but he fed it crack or something.” Or at least it tasted like it was crack.
“Bacon, actually,” Stiles says, poking his head into the dining room. “Better than crack and entirely legal. Everything okay?”
“Mmmm, bacon,” Erica says, in a tone that shouldn’t be used for food. She looks at her parents. “Are we good?”
“For now, I guess,” Javier says. He sounds grumpy, but no longer actively angry. Stiles can deal with grumpy. He deals with grumpy every single day.
“I’ll bring out dessert, then,” Stiles says, smiling at them.
Erica grins back, knowing that Stiles will bring the rest of the pack in with him when he comes back. She thinks about telling Stiles that he’s doomed to look at her shoulder forever, but she’s afraid that he would drop something.
The rest of the pack does indeed come rushing in, and several of them start thanking Erica’s parents for letting her stay. They seem somewhat taken aback by this, but then Stiles comes in with a tray of strawberry shortcake. Derek, behind him, has a small stack of plates. “Okay,” Stiles says, setting it down. “All’s well that ends well. Let’s eat.”
~ ~ ~ ~