Chapter Text
The forest is quiet; the scent of damp Earth permeates throughout it from a day old rain. The moon hangs over the dark forest, veiling the trees in a pale glow. Though it isn’t exactly peaceful, the quiet causes a false sense of safety.
The sounds of leaves and sticks cracking ring out, breaking the well mannered silence. Stiles is led out in front of his dad with a hand digging into his shoulder, daring him to try anything. His father has been and is continuing to reprimand him about looking for a dead body in the forest at night. Something something invasion of privacy something something murder. Though if Stiles is being honest, he isn’t and hasn’t been paying attention. His thoughts are drowning out any attempts that his father is making to educate him about the dangers of looking for corpses and respecting boundaries.
What is he thinking about that requires him to blank out whatever his dad is saying? Well it was Scott. More specifically, the fact he is currently alone in the woods by himself, in the dark, with a killer…maybe.
He is currently devising a plan to get out of his fathers grasp, to help Scott. Stiles knows he isn’t the strongest but power in numbers, right? But his plan can’t really start until his dad’s hand isn’t digging into his shoulder. So for once, Stiles waits.
It happens while they are walking, his dad fails to see the tree root sticking out of the ground and he stumbles. The grip around Stiles loosens just for a moment and that’s all he needs. He pivots, spinning backwards, completely losing his dad’s grip and darting back the way they came. He can hear his father hit the ground with a soft curse, scrambling up to chase after Stiles.
“STILES!” the slightly annoyed shouts of his dad follows after him as he sprints through the forest.
Now Stiles hasn’t really thought this plan through, but when has he ever?
He can hear his dad’s footfall starting to catch up with him. Stiles knows for a fact he is not going to outrun his dad. So he has to outwit him, which shouldn’t be too hard. His thought process is rudely interrupted by a stone right when his foot gets caught on it. He tries to catch himself, but he steps weirdly, causing a sharp pain to shoot through his ankle. In doing so, he is completely sent careening down a large slope.
“Stiles!” worry paints his dad’s voice as Stiles rolls down the slope. Branches, rocks, and uneven ground only serve to hurt him more than slow him down, causing him to hit the ground with a groan. He lands sprawled out against the forest floor, taking a few moments before dragging himself into a sitting position.
He doesn’t need to try and stand up to realize he’s hurt his ankle. Which isn’t ideal, but he can work with this; he’s out of his father's sight for now. New plan: find cover and wait for his father to pass him then look for Scott. He takes a glance around the area to see a rock with a slight opening underneath that he can probably slip under. His thoughts are interrupted by the sound of his dad making his slow way down the slope, shouting his name.
“Stiles, are you ok?!”
He scrambles underneath the rock in a panic, trying his best to squeeze into the space completely. Once fully underneath the rock, Stiles tries to spin himself to face the opening but the tight space restricts any large movements. His movements cause him to get stuck with one of his arms underneath his torso and the other arm stuck to his side, trapped in between his body and the rock. His torso is half twisted up with the underside of the stone digging uncombably into him. The scent of moist dirt and foliage attacks his nose, the smell all too familiar by now.
“STILES! That looked like a bad fall! Are you alright?” his dad shouts, landing at the bottom of the slope. He spins his flashlight around the area looking for any traces of his son. Stiles freezes, now feeling slightly bad for worrying his dad. He is most likely going to feel terrible about this later but right now it is only a small concern.
“Did he really keep running after that fall?” sounding more exasperated than worried now. With a sigh, his dad took one last survey of the area, knowing he doesn’t have much time to waste if his son did run. Then he starts running in the direction he last saw Stiles heading.
Stiles waits until he can’t hear his father’s footsteps anymore, until he has to strain to hear his father shout his name with a few muttered half-baked threats. He finally deems it safe, and starts trying to make his way out from underneath. It’s a slow and arduous process, with his body scraping against the stone as if it didn’t want him to leave. Finally fully wiggling out, he is littered in small scratches across his back, arms, legs, everywhere, along with a layer of dirt and leaves that he tries his best to dust off. He tests if his ankle is sprained by placing his body weight on it and deduces it just hurts.
So he continues with his plan to find Scott, disreading that he’s half limping. The only sounds in the forest are of foliage crunching under foot and the whisper-shouts of “Scott?!” Stiles is making every time he gets bored of waiting for a response.
After about fifteen minutes of walking, Stiles decides to give his ankle a break because he doesn’t want to risk actually messing it up…Also it hurts. Finding a tree, he presses his back against the bark and slowly slides down to the ground, paying no mind to the aggravating scrapes on his back.
Now and only now does Stiles realize just how creepy a forest at night can be. An eerie silence falls over —no animals, no trees moving in the wind, or wind howling—just complete and utter silence beside Stiles' own breathing. A chill runs up Stiles’ spine; he can feel eyes on him. His whole body jolts when he hears a bush rustling.
“Scott?!” Stiles pushes himself into a standing position against the tree. He takes a glance around for more movement but none happens. The night falls back into eerie quiet.
“Scott?” Stiles creeps towards the bush he has seen move. There is no answer. “Scott, I’m sorry I dragged you into the woods to look for half of a dead body, then left you but I didn’t want you to get in trouble.” The words tumbling out of his mouth cause him to remember that he’s probably going to be in a hell lot of trouble once he gets home.
But once again no response comes back. Stiles can feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end with the silence. “Come on Scotty, just jumpscare me already and let’s go. I’ve already fallen more times than I wanted to today.”
Stiles almost falls down while turning towards a noise. He knows it’s stupid to cling on to the thought that this is Scott, but the thought that it isn't is causing his heart to beat out of his chest and his ears to ring.
“Scott?” Stiles quietly mumbles, before everything goes to hell. All Stiles is able to make out is a flash of red eyes before something grabs him from behind.
Stiles lets out a scream, while an arm wraps its way around his throat, keeping him in place. He struggles against the stranger but they’re surprisingly strong for their slim stature. That doesn’t stop him from trying. He tries to shout for help knowing there are police in the woods probably looking for him, but the hand around his throat covers his mouth before he can even get a noise out.
His attacker uses their free hand to pull the collar of his shirt to the left, revealing his shoulder. Stiles thrashes against their hold, muffled noise of protest spilling out. The attacker leans down. A light pressure presses against Stiles' clavicle, before the skin breaks, causing Stiles to freeze. Sharp serrated teeth dig into his flesh, easily ripping a chunk of skin out of the side of his neck. He can feel the muscle being torn through the serrated edges catching on every fiber and reaching down to the bone. A bite. Someone bit him, like actually bit him. He knows that’s not what he should be focusing on but in the absurdity of this situation, it’s the first thought that hits his mind. The second one is well if they can, so can I.
Stiles takes advantage of how his attacker has relaxed their hold on him after the bite, and in one rapid motion, he pulls his mouth free from their grasp. Then he bites down on their hand with all his might. Apparently it’s hard enough to break skin, as the metallic taste of blood flows into his mouth. He can feel as they pull back in surprise, their teeth tugging on the muscle caught in between its grooves before tearing a chunk of muscle out. Stiles falls like a bag of rocks once his attacker lets him go, collapsing to his knees. It’s so sudden that he accidentally swallows some of the blood still in his mouth, causing a coughing fit to emerge.
He hears his attack curse before disappearing, like literally disappearing; Stiles doesn't see or hear them run away, just one second they are there and the next: gone. In which Stiles is left on the forest floor, finishing the last of his coughing fit, the metallic taste of blood still lingering in his mouth. His hand automatically reaches up to cover the deep bite wound on the left side of his neck.
He lets out a groan, removing his now blood-slicked hand. He can feel just how gnarly the bite is, aggravating a new wave of pain every time he slightly shifts his left arm. He can tell that his attacker could have and would have taken a bigger chunk out of him if he hadn’t decided to fight back. With his limited medical knowledge that he got from partially listening to Scott’s mom, he knows he needs to stop the bleeding by putting pressure on the wound.
Stiles tries his best to pull his jacket off, having to bite down on his lip to stop himself from screaming when he brushes his wound. His vision blurs either from pain or tears; he can’t really figure out which one, nor does he care to know. Once he fully pulls off his jacket, he takes a deep breath before pressing the jacket against the wound hard enough to make him see stars. He tightly wraps the jacket around the wound. He bites down on his lip again to stifle a scream from spilling, causing him to draw blood by the amount of pressure he places upon it.
Now that the most concerning issue has been dealt with…Kinda. Stiles has to come up with a new plan, cause he definitely wasn’t going to find Scott in this condition, but surely Scott’s gone back home by now, considering how ever long Stiles was looking for him…right? Surely? So the new plan is: go to Scott’s and check if he made it home, then get back to his own home before his dad does, clean the bite, and lastly tell his dad that he went straight home after running off…That will totally work.
Stiles drags himself off the ground and starts retracing his steps back to his Jeep. The forest has seemed to lose the memo of being eerily quiet as now the sounds of animals and trees rustling are now filling his ears, which calms him down way more than it should have.
It feels like forever until he sees his Jeep, lying untouched by the Horrors™ of the forest unlike Stiles. The one positive is that his dad wasn’t staking out his car and waiting for him, which hasn’t crossed his mind until his Jeep is in view. Stiles almost violently flings the driver door open with his good arm, giving his Jeep an apologetic look immediately after, both for flinging the door and the fact he might get blood in her interior.
Placing the keys in, the car hums to life with a sound so comforting that it almost makes him cry. He takes a glance at his phone for the time: 1:53 am, cringing once he sees that his dad has called him over twenty times in the past hour. He is so right, he does feel terrible for leaving his dad worried. He shakes his head, remembering that he had a plan and pulling on to the road in silence.
The drive to Scott’s is one Stiles has done thousands of times, something familiar. It lets him put his mind on autopilot, allowing for his mind to drift. Not really thinking of anything for once, just letting his brain process what happened.
Stiles doesn’t even realize he has pulled into his usual spot near Scott’s house until he pushes open the Jeep with his left hand. The wrong one to use, for it immediately sends a burning sensation through it. Then and only then does Stiles finally realize just how badly his arms hurt. Every moment causes a new spike of agony to rip through his body and a new pained noise to spill out of his mouth.
This reveals a new problem for him because how the hell is he supposed to climb his way to Scott’s window if he can’t move his left arm without causing excruciating pain. He’s currently standing near the side of Scott’s house that he usually uses to clamber his way onto the roof that’s right beside his window, trying to think of a plan. He can just knock on the door, since Scott’s mom is still awake, seeing as the lights are on. He also considers the fact she is a nurse and even if she wasn’t, anyone can see just how badly he is injured by looking at him. Then she’ll call his dad and he’ll worry his dad even more and he doesn’t want that.
He paces in frustration, until it hits him and he literally wants to slap himself for not thinking of this sooner. He jogs back to his Jeep and grabs his phone. He almost screams, for two reasons: one, it is so obvious and he completely forgot. Two, he accidentally hits his left arm on his way into the driver seat of the car, sending fire through his body.
Stiles has to take a deep breath to calm himself a bit, before calling Scott. It rings seven times before Scott picks up.
“It’s 2:15 am. What do you want?” Scott’s voice comes back grainy through the speakers of the phone.
“Hey!” Stiles tries his best to act happy. “You got home safe, right?”
“Pretty much, now let me go back to sleep.”
“What do you mean pretty much?”
“So I can’t?”
“When you answer my question you can.”
“Fine. I got bit by something in the forest, but I’m fine.”
“YOU WHAT!”
“Can you not shout at 2:00 at night? And it was just some animal.”
“Oh…Well, we'll talk more tomorrow.”
“Nope, why did you shout?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.” Stiles turns the keys, starting the Jeep up.
“No, Stiles, you drag me out into the forest in the middle of the night to go look for a body. Then leave me alone, where I get bit by an animal. Then after I get home and go to sleep, you call me at 2:00 am,
an hour after I got home, to check if I was safe. So explain why you shouted when I said I was bit.”
“First of all, it’s technically 2:17 in the morning. And second of all, I’ll explain tomorrow.”
“Answer my question, Stiles.”
Stiles lets out a sigh, knowing he isn’t getting out of this without somewhat of an explanation of what happened to him. “I was also bit by something, but they were a human and I’m pretty sure they were the killer—”
“YOU WERE BIT BY HUMAN?!”
“Now look who’s shouting at 2:17 am, but anyways I’ll tell you more tomorrow. Night.”
“Stiles wait a-” Stiles hangs up before Scott can finish his sentence and starts driving back home.
He pulls up to his home. The wound just burns nonstop now, but there was good news: his dad wasn’t home yet. So the plan is still in motion. Stiles makes his way to the front door, fumbling with the keys for a few seconds before unlocking the door.
As soon as Stiles gets inside and relocks the door, he bolts for the bath room, nearly slamming the door behind him in the process. Flicking the lights on, he can see just how bad he looks. He is covered in his own blood, sweat, and some dirt the forest gave him. He is also pale, like deathly pale. The jacket wrapped around the bite is ruined, with it being so stained with blood that Stiles can barely make out the previous color of it.
Stiles takes a deep breath in, peeling the jacket off his wound and letting out a pained noise after seeing just how bad it looks. It is gnarly, it doesn’t look like a human bite, it doesn’t even look like a bite at all, a chunk of skin is missing from his left clavicle. He can see the muscles and around the outside where the “teeth” dug into him. He can see the ivory of his bone. The marks left behind are nothing like Stiles has seen before; it isn't clean. The skin is torn open and mangled, bits of flesh still hanging onto the cut by tethers of muscles. Blood covers the wound in red, dripping out steadily with some of the streaks dried onto his skin.
Stiles reaches into the bathroom cabinet and pulls out a first aid kit. He pulls out a gauze pad, placing it over the wound, leaving it on the sink. He will do a better job of taking care of his wound after he takes a shower, but he wants to get clean without bleeding out.
Stiles turns on the shower, getting it right in that sweet spot of just warm enough where it doesn’t burn but not cold enough to cause chills. He takes a quick shower, getting off all the dirt, grime, sweat and blood caking his body.
After, he pulls out wipes and a bottle of disinfectant out of the first aid kit. Peeling off the now wet gauze pad, he coats a wipe in disinfectant. With a shaky hand he brings the wipe across the wound, letting out a hiss of pain in doing so. Stiles does his best to clean the wound, flinching every time the solution comes down upon it. He takes a few breaks to catch his breath and to get a new wipe once it gets too coated in blood.
Deeming the wound clean, Stiles pulls out a roll of gauze from the kit and starts wrapping the bite. It comes out a bit sloppy with his limited medical knowledge and mobility, but it will do its job. Finally done with his bite, he walks into his bedroom and pulls on a set of pajamas. Walking back into his bathroom to brush his teeth, he notices just how much it looks like a crime scene. Blood covers the shower, with the tile floors stained in blood. Now Stiles can deal with this right now, blood will probably be easier to clean when it’s wet rather than dry, but he’s tired. He was just bit by a mad person and had to make his way through an entire forest during the night. So that’s later Stiles’ problem. He quickly brushes his teeth, shutting the bathroom door after leaving.
Stiles pulls on a set of pajamas, and all plans on waiting for his dad to get back get thrown out the window as soon as he sees his bed. Not thinking twice about flopping down on the bed, he passes out in seconds within his head hitting the pillow, forgetting to even text his dad he was ok.