Chapter Text
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A Series of Stupid Stunts
Collection
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"Werewolves?" Stiles' dad leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. Despite the posturing, he looked comfortable in his college sweatshirt and pajama pants with cartoon sheriff badges. His pale blue eyes squinted as he examined both Stiles and Derek. It was uncannily similar to how Stiles had looked at Derek earlier in the woods, and how Uncle Peter had once looked at everyone. "Really, Stiles?"
"Really," Stiles confirmed. He held up his left hand like he was being sworn in at court. With his right hand, he touched first one shoulder and then the other before touching the tip of his nose and the center of his chest. Noah Stilinski rolled his eyes.
"I'm fairly certain that's not the correct order."
"Well, it wasn't exactly covered in my bar mitzvah lessons, now was it?"
"You hang out with Scott all the time!"
"I think his confirmation was the last time he was at a service."
"Melissa then," his dad countered without missing a beat. "Surely you've spent more time around her than it took to steal her keys."
"Borrowed," Stiles protested, as if that was the most important part. "I borrowed her keys, and I'm hurt that you'd accuse me of breaking the law. I'm your son!"
"Exactly," he agreed as he unfolded his arms in order to reach for the banana yellow coffee mug that Stiles had set in front of him before they had begun their explanation. In cheery red letters, the mug declared that he was the world's best tata. When he lifted it to take a drink, the bottom had a black handlebar mustache.
"Um," Derek said when the silence between them just lingered. Stiles' eyes snapped away from his father towards him. Derek could feel the tips of his ears start to turn a rosy pink from the attention. Derek cleared his throat. "You seem to be taking this …well."
"I learned a long time ago that some things just are." The older man shrugged, making the faded letters across his chest move like a wave. "Werewolves being real actually makes sense of some things I've found in various cases. Maybe more if there's other supernatural things, too."
"OH," Stiles exclaimed, bouncing in his seat, "locked room mysteries!"
The sheriff gestured towards Stiles as if to say there you go. Stiles started muttering to himself even as he shoved himself out of his chair to head into the kitchen. Derek blinked at his back. Was that even English?
"You get used to it," the sheriff assured him. He took another drink of his coffee before lowering it back to the tabletop. He lifted a single eyebrow in obvious question. "So, werewolves are real. My son may be one but is currently experiencing transformation dysfunction—" Derek choked at the phrasing. "And you came here looking for your sister, who you already know is dead because you… felt it? Do I have that right?"
"Yes, sir," Derek confirmed. A look passed over the man's face. Derek looked helpless at the doorway to the kitchen where Stiles was still opening and shutting drawers. Despite being younger, the teenager was definitely better at being in charge of things. This was starting to feel like a conversation that needed someone with that kind of aptitude.
"I'm gonna be as delicate as I can when I ask this," Noah started, drawing Derek's attention back to him. "Do you know where the rest of her body is?"
Derek opened his mouth only to close it again. Something bitter and astringent entered the sheriff's scent that made Derek's inner wolf whine. Derek hunched into himself as he began to fidget with the cuffs of his borrowed shirt. The sheriff let out a sigh that sounded like was coming from his toes.
"Son," Noah said gently, "we're gonna need the rest of her if it's still available. It will only be for a short while. Then we'll be able to release the whole body for funerary rites." Derek felt his shoulders brushing against his ears. He didn't dare look up from the table, no matter how gentle the sheriff was being. "Is it still available?"
Derek stayed silent.
Stiles did not.
"Probably doesn't have an easy answer, Daddio," Stiles announced as he dropped a battered composition notebook onto the table along with a handful of pens in various colors. He started sorting the pens into some kind of order before opening the notebook to a seemingly random page. "He smelled of dirt and ash, so I'm willing to bet he buried her, probably around the Hale ruins, but I'm also willing to bet he's not completely stupid. There's ways around the freshly disturbed ground issue but half the LEOs in the county are looking for a body." Stiles' eyes flashed that violet color as he met Derek's eyes. "The bitter flower smell that's still clinging to ya—does that have anything to do with how you hid her?"
"Bitter flower?" Derek asked, trying to follow the stream of words coming out of Stiles' mouth. He sorted through what he had done in the few hours before meeting Stiles in the woods near his childhood home. He felt his brow furrow as he frowned. "Do you mean wolfsbane? I made a rope out of the variety my family grew to coil around Laura." He glanced up at Noah. "It forced her top half into wolf form. To keep the hunters from disturbing her grave."
"And maybe other interested parties," Stiles commented, already turning his attention back to his notebook. "I think I remember a legend about eating the flesh of a werewolf would grant you similar powers." Stiles spun an orangey-red highlight through his fingers. Abruptly, he dropped the marker to focus back on Derek. The violet flash of his eyes seemed a bit more red. "How likely is it that hunters would want a trophy? Would they take a part of her?"
It took Noah slamming both his palms against the table for Derek to realize that the growling wasn't coming just from himself.
"Well," Noah said into the startled silence, "I guess we'll just check the box on instinctive growling. That's probably a sign of healthy transformation function."
"Did you just make a dick joke?"
Noah pointedly took another sip of his coffee to flash the mustache at his son.
Derek didn't know if he was horrified or comforted by the banter.
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Derek woke up in a strange place. His gaze flicked around the space frantically, trying to pinpoint what had startled him out of his surprisingly sound sleep. The room was fairly well lit by the nearly-full moon shining through a part in the clouds that had been dumping rain for most of the evening. The blue JEEP night light plugged in near the closet door helped.
There was no threat in the room with him.
Then he heard Stiles talking in the next room.
"Dude, I don't think you have a choice," Stiles said. "You know how filthy dogs' mouth are. You need a professional to look at it." Derek could hear just enough of the voice on the other end of the phone to hear the whining tone. "Sepsis isn't going to impress anyone, Scott. Unless this dog is secretly a werewolf, this bite needs to be disinfected thoroughly." There was another pause. Stiles gave a sharp sigh. "Yeah, sheepdog is more realistic—that's not the point. You need to disinfect the wound. Oh, you think you can do that yourself? How about a rabies shot? Does your boss have the human version of that just stashed away—Of course I'm right. Now do you need me to come drive you?"
Derek started getting out of bed as he heard the distinctive sound of Stiles moving around his room. He knew that Noah knew who Scott was. But the idea of Stiles sneaking out in the middle of the night while Noah slept across the hall made something heavy and sour settle in Derek's stomach. He couldn't let Stiles go out into the dark alone.
Stiles still wasn't fully changed. He could get hurt. He could get killed. He could suddenly lose control and hurt someone else. He could lose control and draw the attention of hunters back to Beacon Hills.
He couldn't let Stiles go out into the dark alone.
Stiles rolled his eyes when he almost ran into Derek in the hallway, not even looking a bit surprised. He also didn't argue about Derek following him out to the car other than to say that he would have to move to the back when they picked up Scott. As awkward as it would be to fit his bulk into the pop-up seat, Derek was willing to deal with it.
Something about Stiles reminded him of how Cora used to follow their uncle around. It was more than the fact that Cora would be around the same age if she had survived. He chocked it up to how both of them (and Uncle Peter, too, if Derek was being honest) had a sharp edge of wildness to them. For all that his mother had been renowned for being able to fully shift into a wolf, her wolf form had never seemed a natural extension for her. Instinctively, Derek understood that the same would not have been true for his little sister, just like it was proving untrue for Stiles.
Stiles was, as Derek had predicting, proving to be a terrifyingly good wolf.
"Who's that?" Scott asked as he opened the passenger door once they had arrived at the vet office. The other teen squinted to the darkness of the jeep. He had a small pad wrapped around his left forearm. He also smelled very strongly of disinfectants and wet dog. But underneath there was a scent that was painfully familiar.
"That's Derek," Stiles said as if that alone would explain anything. "Get in already, dude. The sooner we get you to the hospital, the sooner I can get the lecture over with. Dad's not gonna be happy about me going out at night again, even with the escort."
"But who's Derek?" Scott asked even as he clambered into the jeep. He buckled in as Stiles started driving off. Derek knew he was glaring at the back of Scott's head, but he couldn't help it. Why would a vet tech smell of wolfsbane mixed with mountain ash? "I didn't know we knew a Derek."
"We didn't," Stiles countered easily. "I adopted him like I'm a Kent."
"I can tell you're making a reference," Scott said, twisting in his seat to frown at Stiles more directly. He also took the opportunity to direct that frown towards Derek. "You look too old to be adopted."
Derek glowered at him. Scott went pale under his tan skin and focused deliberately on Stiles instead.
"I'm going to tie you to my couch and force you to watch every DC movie I own," Stiles declared as he turned into one of the parking lots for Beacon Hills Memorial. His fingers drummed restlessly on the steering wheel as he pulled into a space near the entrance to the emergency room. "Clark Kent, dude. Superman. He was adopted as a baby."
"But Derek's not a baby."
"Sure he is!" Stiles looked a little crazy with that wide a grin on his face. "He's a puppy and I am going to love him and squeeze him and call him George."
"I thought his name was Derek?"
"Do you ever watch television?"
"I watch telenovelas with Mom."
"Speaking of, let's go see her and get lectured."
"Oh, no—"
"It's cute that you think you still have a choice."
With those words, Stiles got out of the car. Derek decided to climb out the back instead of going closer to Scott like going out either front door would entail. He made sure to keep Stiles between himself and the other guy. The position also kept Derek between Stiles and the nearby woods. He couldn't see anything, but the hairs on the back of his neck still rose like someone was watching. Maybe he was just being overreactive because of what had happened to Laura, but he just knew that he had to protect Stiles from whatever threat had claimed her.
It was weird, but his instincts towards Stiles felt a lot like how he felt towards his sister. He needed to protect the younger teen, and given the circumstances that might mean teaching him. At the same time, Derek got the increasingly strong impression that Stiles probably wouldn't need a lot of teaching or guiding. That was probably the weirdest thing of all. Stiles hadn't even been bitten a full day yet while Derek had been born a werewolf into a family of werewolves. There was no logical reason to think that Stiles would be knowledgeable in the way of the supernatural.
Yet here they were.
The dark-haired nurse lingering behind the admin desk cut off her conversation at the sight of them. Without hesitation, she came rushing around the said desk. Her deep brown eyes moved over the three of them quickly.
"What happened?" she demanded. Her hands were moving over Scott, lifting the bandage. Despite that, the question did not seem directed at what had to be her son. Stiles answered, confirming Derek's feeling.
"Dude got bit by an after-hours dog he was treating to impress a girl." Stiles jabbed an elbow into Scott's side when he opened his mouth to protest. "Yeah, it was an emergency, but don't even pretend that it wasn't to impress Allison." Stiles' voice dropped as he shifted back to address his words towards the nurse. "He was just going to dress it and go home."
"Scott Arturo McCall Delgado," the nurse growled as she glared at the boy whose shoulders had hunched down. Not that Derek blamed him any. If he had a tail, it would have been tucked at the very angry mom voice combined with what was very obviously a full name. Even Stiles was wincing a bit at that, though he did give Scott a couple of consoling pats on the back. "You know better than that."
"I'm up to date—"
"Except that you had your last booster back in August!" She made a dismissive gesture with both hands. "And all that means is that you're getting two shots instead of five. Now let's get you seen. Carolina, is Room Four still available?"
Derek followed along behind the trio like a silent shadow. Melissa McCall (as the nurse was named) noted his presence but didn't question it as she gathered supplies. She focused on lecturing her son as she cleaned the bite again. As she wrapped gauze around a dressing pad, she turned her words towards Stiles.
"So who's dark and broody, Stiles?"
"What makes you think he's mine?" Stiles tried to look innocent, and maybe it would have worked with most people, but Melissa just raised an eyebrow at him as she prepped Scott's shoulder for the vaccine shot. He flushed before rubbing the back of his neck. "I mean, he is, but what makes you think that?"
"Who is he, Stiles?"
"Derek Hale," Stiles answered with a more respectful tone than he had used with even his father earlier. It made Derek straighten his own back, alert and wary. Melissa stilled for a moment before she gave Scott his shot. Stiles continued as if she had said something. "He's staying with us for a while. I'm thinking of just keeping him."
"People aren't pets," Melissa said with a deep sigh. Stiles bounced on the balls of his feet but said nothing.
All of the rest of them sighed in unison.
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To be continue
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