Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Stiles unlocks the front door with a frown on his face.

At a quarter to midnight, the house is mostly dark and quiet. There’s light coming from the kitchen, though, and when Stiles sticks his head through the doorway, he spots Kira sitting at the table. She’s bent over her books as usual, with headphones on that blare music so loudly that even Stiles’ human ears can pick up the faint beat fifteen feet over. That’s probably the reason she can’t hear him hiss her name several times. Stiles has to wave his arms madly until she spots him with a start.

“What the hell,” he mouths, vigorously tapping his wristwatch.

Kira waves him off with a shake of her head. She points at her books, her headphones and then into the vague direction of the living room, makes some complicated faces that Stiles can’t read and goes back to her work.
Alright then.

Stiles rolls his eyes and pulls the door shut. After all, it’s the weekend and Kira is old enough to know what she’s doing, he figures, feeling only slightly guilty. Now, the only source of light in the dark hallway is a faint glow coming from the living room, so Stiles heads there next, already pretty certain of what he’ll find.

Sure enough, Isaac is stretched out on the sofa with his head in Lydia’s lap, who is dutifully stroking his hair, even though she looks more asleep than awake.

“Hi,” Stiles says softly, walking over to sit on what little space is left on the sofa.

Isaac immediately crawls over to squeeze onto Stiles’ lap instead, making himself as small as possible and hiding his face in the crook of the older boy’s neck. Must’ve been a really bad dream, Stiles thinks sadly, wrapping his arms around his little brother.

Lydia gives him a grateful smile. “I’ll try to get Kira to bed,” she says quietly, leaning over to press a kiss to the top of Isaac’s head before leaving the room.

Stiles just stays where he is for a while, hugging Isaac close and letting the boy seek all the comfort he needs.

“I’m sorry you had to come home early,” Isaac mumbles sheepishly.

“Don’t be,” he murmurs calmly, “It’s not a big deal…”

“But Lydia said you were busy with Derek.”

Stiles has to suppress a groan. Fucking Lydia making innuendoes in front of their innocent baby brother, come on.

“I’m never too busy to come home when you need me, bud.”

Isaac doesn’t seem entirely comforted by that. “D’you think…” he hesitates, “D’you think Lydia is angry with me?”

Stiles is nonplussed. “What? Why would Lydia be angry with you?”

“Because I woke her up in the middle of the night but then made her get you.”

The duh goes unsaid and Stiles is impressed with the attitude Isaac can muster even when he’s so distraught.

“What, so, you think she’ll feel like you chose me over her? That’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe I hurt her feelings,” Isaac argues feebly, playing with a tiny hole in his sleep shirt.

“Lydia’s definitely not angry with you,” Stiles promises fondly, “She knows we have a deal that’ll help you and all she wants is for you to feel better when you have a nightmare.”

Isaac hums noncommittally.

“…How bad was it tonight?” Stiles asks gently.

“Pretty bad,” Isaac says in a constricted voice.

“That sucks, buddy. D’you wanna talk about it?”

“No,” Isaac says and suddenly sounds as though he’s about to cry, “I want Erica.”

“She’s just upstairs, kiddo. D’you wanna sleep in her bed tonight? I’ll go talk to her if you want, we do have that deal, after all.”

“…Yeah.”

“Okay.” Stiles gets on his feet with Isaac clinging to him like a Koala and it takes a little conviction to get him to let go.

“Listen, buddy,” Stiles says, cupping Isaac’s face once he’s back on his own two feet, “Why don’t you go stay with Lydia while I talk to Erica, huh? You can tell her thanks for looking after you until I got here, it’ll make you feel better.”

“Alright,” Isaac agrees meekly, taking Stiles’ hand and not letting go until they reach the stairs. He scuttles off, then, and slips into the kitchen.

Stiles’ heart aches a little as he climbs upstairs. Moments like these always remind him of how young most of his little brothers and sisters still are, and how much pain they already had to go through. Erica and Isaac were only toddlers when their biological father abused them, who was disgusted with their kind and basically tried to beat it out of them. The twins claim to remember only bits and pieces, but the emotional trauma has left some scars. Isaac has night terrors he never talks about at least once a week and reacts exceptionally badly to the smallest hints of physical violence. Erica, on the other hand, turned fear into power and is surely the most badass ten-year-old girl ever, despite the frequent panic attacks.

To nobody’s surprise, Erica is wide awake in her bed when Stiles enters the twin’s room and closes the door behind himself. She turns her head to the door, blinking her big eyes at Stiles. With a werewolf hearing like hers, she’s not exactly going to sleep through her brother having nightmares in the bed right next to hers, no matter what Isaac talks himself into believing.

“Can he sleep with you?” Stiles whispers, kneeling down next to the head of Erica’s bed. He’s gonna have to wait a few minutes to make sure Isaac buys it.

“Duh,” Erica yawns. “… he sounded really terrified,” she says quietly, staring at the ceiling. “It got so bad, I was about to climb into his bed myself. But then he woke up and ran out to get Lydia…”

“He’s just embarrassed, you know that.”

Erica scoffs. “It’s not like I don’t have panic attacks.”

“I know, love, I know. But you’re a really good sister. I’m proud of you.”

“I hate it when he has these dreams.”

“Me, too.”

Erica is silent for a minute. “Is Derek okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” Stiles says, startled, “Yeah, he gave me a really cool sweatshirt for my birthday. Now that I think of it, I left it at his house, damnit…”

“Your birthday was two weeks ago,” Erica frowns.

“So?”

“Nothing, just saying… do you think it’s been long enough yet, I really want to go back to sleep.”

“You realize we all could get much more sleep if you and Isaac just admitted to each other that you want to help each other out. I mean, you end up sleeping in one bed anyways, every single time. Why the charade?”

“You don’t get it,” Erica groans into her hands with the kind of utmost frustration only kids can manage. “That’s just not how it works, okay?”

“But why?” Stiles despairs, “I mean I kind of get Isaac not wanting to ask you for comfort. That’s one thing. But I don’t get why you can’t offer it.”

Erica gives him a sad kind of smile and the look in her eyes is way too mature for a girl her age when she says, “To Isaac, me offering would be worse than him asking.”

“Oh, screw that,” Stiles replies, getting to his feet gracelessly, “The boy is only ten, I’m pretty sure he’s not supposed to be so… so…”

“Dumb?” Erica suggests with a small smirk, and rolls onto her side. “Just send him back in here, will you?”

Stiles salutes and steps out into the hallway. “Isaac,” he whispers, loud enough for the boy to hear downstairs but not loud enough to wake up all the other werewolf kids. “All clear.”

All but five seconds later, Isaac darts up the stairs. He doesn’t look at Stiles as he disappears into his room, but before the door falls shut, he mumbles a “Thanks” into Stiles’ vague direction.

Stiles is sure that they’ll wake up tomorrow all cuddled up and proceed to ignore each other all morning. Sometimes, he thinks he’ll never understand these kids.
And then he gets a little scared, because he’s only eighteen himself and that’s probably not the kind of thing normal eighteen-year-olds worry about.

When he gets back down to the kitchen, Lydia is in Kira’s former chair. There’s an open tub of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough on the table in front of her. Wordlessly, she holds out a second spoon.

“Kira went to bed?”

“Uh huh.”

They eat ice cream in silence for a while.

“So what’s that deal you and Isaac have going on?”

Stiles grunts. “Just that every time Isaac has a nightmare like that, I’ll go bribe Erica into letting him sleep in her bed and nobody ever talks about it again.”

Lydia pulls a face. “Kind of ridiculous he won’t just ask her himself right away, isn’t it? When we were kids and snuck into each other’s beds, we didn’t even bother to ask first.”

“It’s even more ridiculous when you consider the deal I’ve got with Erica at the same time,” Stiles says with a small smile, “Which entails that whenever Isaac’s got a nightmare like this, I’ll pretend to bribe Erica, so she can let Isaac sleep in her bed because she wants to, and nobody ever talks about it again.”

Lydia’s eyes widen. “I’m not sure whether I should laugh or cry. How come all the kids in this family are so extremely afraid of embarrassing themselves in front of each other?”

“I dunno, maybe it’s a werewolf thing. ‘Don’t show any weaknesses’ and all that jazz.”

“Loving and taking care of each other is not a weakness.”

“Of course not,” Stiles sighs, “Maybe it’s just the beginning of puberty when absolutely everything is embarrassing, or maybe they’re all very fond of their dignity-“

“But we are a family,” Lydia insists, sticking her spoon into the tub a little aggressively, “They are supposed to be able to be themselves and show their feelings and not be ashamed!”

“I’m afraid that’s wishful thinking, Lyds,” Stiles says wearily, “Let’s just be grateful, it could be a lot worse. Look at the twins, at least they do take care of each other, who cares if it’s behind each other’s backs.”

“I care,” Lydia says stubbornly, but she drops it. “Nevermind. Sorry again for interrupting your date. How was it, anyways?”

She puts on this devilish smirk that Stiles dreads, and he is definitely too tired for this shit.

“It was not a date,” he says nevertheless, because. It wasn’t a date.
It wasn’t.

“You keep telling yourself that, honey,” Lydia says sweetly.

“Lyds, seriously, we didn’t even have dinner or anything. It wasn’t a date.”

“But you wish it was.”

“No, I don’t, shut up.”

Lydia doesn’t even bother to roll her eyes.

Stiles shrugs sheepishly. “He gave me a hoodie. As a late birthday present. He said he’s had it for a while, but didn’t have the guts to give it to me.”

“Oh my god,” Lydia gushes with delight, “that is so sweet, and I never would’ve thought I’d ever say that about Derek. Show me!”

“I can’t, I left it on his sofa.”

“Ooh, on his sofa, huh?” Lydia says gleefully. “What else did you leave on Derek’s sofa?”

“Oh my god, I hate you.” Stiles drops his head onto folded arms on the table and leaves it there.

Lydia tuts. “Of course you don’t.”

“… Of course I don’t.”

“I just want to make sure it went okay, you know?” she says, starting to pet Stiles’ hair the way he likes. “As your concerned and loving sister, I feel like I have to check that he treats you right, doesn’t take advantage of you… that kind of thing.”

“You’re crazy,” Stiles deadpans, voice muffled. “All of that is crazy and I can see right through it. Also, I’m perfectly able to look out for myself. And I don’t think Derek is able to take advantage of anybody… that way. I’ve determined that he’s actually a big marshmallow on the inside,” he elaborates, waving a hand around over his head in a dismissive way.

He can’t see Lydia’s face, but she makes a sound like the squeak of a mouse.

“But what did you do??” she bursts out after a beat, apparently unable to let it go.

Stiles sighs. “I arrived, I had a look at his place, which is surprisingly nice, might I add, he gave me the present, we talked – you were wrong, by the way, Derek does have a sense of humor – then we watched Criminal Minds and then you called, right before they would have caught the killer. Happy?”

Lydia doesn’t answer for so long, Stiles finally lifts his head a little and squints at her. She’s inspecting her nails with a frowny face.

“What?”

“Criminal Minds, really?” Lydia says then, looking distinctly judgmental. “Don’t you guys have enough violence in your lives already?”

“Well, I can’t speak for Derek, but I’m not exactly short on Disney movies either, am I? Also, you love Criminal Minds, because you always know who the murderer is first!”

“I’m the Reed of this family,” Lydia dismisses loftily, “but I was actually thinking that, as great as the show undoubtedly is, it’s not exactly first date material, is it?”

Stiles stares her down incredulously. “Lydia, I swear to god – it wasn’t a date!”

“Sure thing, honey,” she agrees sweetly, and entirely unconvincingly, but at least she seems satisfied with the amount of information Stiles has given her, and drops it. Instead, she gets up and wanders over to the dresser, grabbing a stack of paper. Her tiredness from before seems to be forgotten.

“This is the collected research on the Kanima,” she informs him and the paper drops onto the table with a significant thud. “Have you looked through it yet? Laura sent me the according pages of the bestiary by mail, so those are in there as well…”

“You don’t expect me to read all of that right now, do you? That’s, like, at least fifty pages.”

“Sixty-three,” Lydia sniffs haughtily, “Which I have already read. You just need to listen to my summary of the important bits.”

Stiles grins. “Gladly.”

“Basically, a Kanima is a lizard-like shapeshifter and a mutation of the werewolf gene, which means that the original bite was partially unsuccessful due to the victims personality or past, turning them into a Kanima rather than a werewolf – although just like the werewolf, the Kanima is most powerful around the full moon. As you already experienced, the tip of a Kanima’s tail, as well as its claws, secrete a specific venom that paralyses its victim immediately. The most important behavioral difference, however, is that the Kanima doesn’t look for a pack, but for a master, someone who controls and commands it. The bestiary cites the story of a South American priest who used a Kanima to get rid of all the murderers in his town, but I don’t suppose that the master of our particular specimen had a particularly good cause in mind.”

“Probably not…” Stiles agrees slowly, trying to process all the information his sister has just thrown at him. “Um… so… you’re saying that somebody else told the Kanima to kill that jogger, and to attack us in the Preserve?”

“I would assume it. Deaton compared the substance in the victims neck wound with the dead Kanima’s venom, which are identical of course, so we can at least determine it as the perpetrator and dad can close the case.”

“”The perpetrator was determined to be a shapeshifting lizard, who paralyzed the victim with the venom in its tail and then proceeded to tore the helpless victim’s abdomen apart with its claws,” ” Stiles intones dully. “Yeah, I can totally see that report happening.”

Lydia, who is idly leafing through her research, doesn’t acknowledge any of this. She pulls a single sheet from the paper, which shows a rather crude sketch of what must be a Kanima, with another figure standing commandingly over it.

“Somebody made it kill… but why… why now… and here,” Lydia muses slowly, staring at the picture.

“Is it a coincidence?” Stiles wonders aloud, “The two Omegas and now the Kanima?”

“Omegas don’t have a master, they can’t be controlled.”

“But they’ve been poisoned into madness, haven’t they? Somebody must have done that, too.”

“Yeah,” Lydia says grimly, “and I don’t believe in coincidences.”

~

Stiles doesn’t make it to bed until after one a.m. He and Lydia both regret it in the morning, when Scott and Malia barge into their room at eight o’clock sharp. Just like every weekend.
Malia wanders over to Lydia’s bed, the way she rubs her eyes indicating that she’s still rather sleepy. Lydia lifts up her blanket to let Malia crawl into bed with her, throws an arm around the little girl, and they both go back to slumber. Stiles is not as lucky.

“Stiles!!” Scott stage-whispers, patting the pillow next to Stiles’ face excitedly. “I dreamed about dinosaurs! It was so awesome! I flew on a Pte-ro-dac-ty-lus and you were there, too, and a T-Rex ate you!”

“Sounds great, buddy,” Stiles mumbles, not really listening. Scott has been talking about dinosaurs a lot lately. He does notice a prominent lack of other voices, though. “Scotty, where are the twins? Where’s Liam?”

“Liam went to Daddy, I think,” Scott answers dutifully, “And, um, Isaac and Erica are cuddling with each other, so… still sleeping.” He shrugs with a slight air of puzzlement regarding the twins’ unusual sleeping manners, and promptly proceeds to more important issues: “Can you make breakfast, now, Stiles? I’m really hungry, and when I was riding the Pte-ro-dac-ty-lus I was thinking about pancakes and-“

“Scott, buddy, I was up real late,” Stiles interrupts gently, “do you think you can hold on for half an hour? Come cuddle with me, huh?”

Scott’s face splits into a sunny smile.

Later, they find Kira back at the kitchen table, her head buried in her arms, surrounded by the usual breakfast chaos.

“I don’t understand,” she groans, words hardly intelligible through the hoodie she seems to have pulled on right over her pajamas, “how they can all be up so damn early. Nothing is holy to these children,” she adds dramatically, emerging briefly to glare at Stiles, as though it’s somehow his fault that the kids are early risers.

Needless to say, Kira is not a morning person.

The sheriff chuckles. He’s off work this Sunday, blessedly, and currently making the badly craved pancakes at the stove, closely watched by Scott. Liam is curled up on a chair, munching on a bit of banana and watching the twins set the table. Isaac and Erica are carefully avoiding each other’s eyes, and Lydia rolls her eyes at them. Boyd is reading the newspaper, completely unperturbed by everything that’s happening around him. He does glance under the table every now and then, though, most probably checking on Malia. The loud noise this particular morning is primarily composed of the radio, nicely accentuated by Jackson and Allison bickering loudly all across the length of the table.

“You’re talking to each other again!” Stiles remarks happily, pulling out the chair next to Jackson.

“I’m not talking to her!”

“So what it is you’re doing, then?” Allison wonders mockingly, “Talking to yourself?”

“You started!” Jackson snaps, “ You told me to shut up!”

“Only because you were blasting your dumb music in our room while I was trying to sleep!”

“You would’ve had to get up anyway.”

“Says who? Maybe I would’ve liked to sleep in for once!”

“Then you would have missed breakfast,” Jackson says slowly and condescendingly, which always works to rile Allison up.

“What if I wanted to miss breakfast?!”

“Don’t be stupid, you never miss breakfast. I bet, if I hadn’t woken you up, you would just be angry at me for making you miss breakfast or some shit. You always find a reason to be angry.”

Allison seethes, “That would be because you always find a reason to be an annoying douchebag,” and throws a bread roll at Jackson’s head. The boy doesn’t even flinch.

“Because throwing food at someone is not at all annoying.”

“Shut up,” Allison says, heartfelt. She gets up and walks around the table to collect her roll. “Let’s not forget that you are the asshole here, okay, and I have every right to be angry, even Lydia said so!”

“Do not pull me into this right now,” Lydia says tiredly, pouring herself an enormous cup of coffee.

“It’s been a week,” Jackson says curtly, but he looks extremely uncomfortable. “Get over it. I said I was sorry.”

“I don’t care,” Allison mutters with furrowed eyebrows, “You meant what you said.”

“You know full well I didn’t, you’re just using this as an excuse to have a go at me over and over again! How long do you want to hold it against me??”

“As long as I want to.”

“Twerp.”

“Dickhead!”

“That’s it,” a voice says loudly, but to Stiles’ surprise it’s not Lydia, it’s his dad, sounding absolutely done. “I’ve had enough. You’re bringing everybody down with your endless fighting and the way you treat and talk to each other is intolerable. You sort this out right now.”

Allison throws her hands up in annoyance and drops into a nearby chair, but Jackson jumps up, facing the sheriff head on.

“You can’t make us.”

The sheriff laughs bitterly. “Yes, I can. You either start getting along, or I’ll ground you again and cut you’re allowance.”

“What? You can’t do that, what for?”

“Excessive fighting,” the sheriff shrugs, “Now say sorry and shake hands.”

“We’re not in kindergarten,” Jackson hisses resentfully, while Allison nods. “And we’re old enough to sort things out by ourselves. We don’t need you to do it for us.”

“Right,” Allison agrees, and comes to stand next to her brother, arms crossed. “Sorry, dad, but this is our business.”

“C’mon, Ally, we’re eating in the living room.” Jackson goes to grab both their plates, waiting for his sister to add a pancake to each, and then they leave the room with their noses in the air.

“What the hell just happened?” Boyd asks gravely.

Everybody, even Kira, stares at the sheriff, who shrugs again and says, “The easiest way to unite two people is by giving them a common enemy.”

“Cheers,” Lydia comments and downs her coffee.

+++

Two days later, on Tuesday evening, Stiles is doing laundry with Kira.

“Dad’s taking time off on Saturday,” he informs her conversationally, trying to match up a downright mountain of single black socks (he’s concluded that socks are an invention of the devil). “He wants to do a barbecue because the weather is supposed to be really nice this weekend.”

Kira is plainly not listening to a word he’s saying, folding kids’ t-shirts while muttering mathematical equations under her breath, her eyes going out of focus every now and then.
Stiles rolls his eyes good-naturedly and keeps her from adding Liam’s shirt to Malia’s pile. Just as Jackson comes barging in, demanding to know where his Lacrosse uniform has ended up, Stiles’ phone starts buzzing in the pocket of his jeans. The caller ID indicates Lydia, which is concerning since she’s supposed to be on stake-out duty tonight.

He holds up a hand to stop the two teenagers bickering about disappearing sportswear, and answers with an urgent, “Lydia, what’s wrong?”

The voice on the other end of the line huffs. “It’s Laura, and before you freak out on me; no, Lydia is not hurt. She just doesn’t have the voice to talk to you right now.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Stiles asks flatly, forcing his pulse to slow down after it was momentarily skyrocketing.

Laura doesn’t beat around the bush. “We, that is to say, Lydia, just stopped a fucking beta werewolf from killing an old dude and his Rottweiler. You know, I knew she was a banshee and all, but your sister just screamed a full grown werewolf into temporary unconsciousness.” She sounds genuinely impressed.

Stiles lowers himself weakly onto the sock mountain, before jumping back up due to the lingering wetness.

“Her voice is her weapon,” he comments, rubbing the back of his pants as Jackson and Kira laugh.

“Yeah, well, now her voice is gone,” Laura grumbles. “She shoved me behind a tree, but the force of her scream still blew me off my feet, can you believe it…”

There’s an air of disgruntlement in her voice, and Stiles suspects that Laura is generally not used to being pushed out of the way. She probably prefers beating up the bad guys herself.

“Be glad she didn’t burst your eardrum, it’s happened to me before… wait a moment, did you say beta werewolf?!”

“Positive,” Laura confirms, back to business, “He doesn’t seem to be poisoned either, I can’t smell any wolfsbane and he seemed quite sane when he jumped the old man. Anyways, we’ve tied him up and I’m going to take him home for interrogation, we’ll see what he has to say. I’m gonna need you to come fetch Lydia and also tell the old guy some story. He’s still out cold. The dog is going berserk, though.”

“He fainted? Oh my god, did you check if he’s alright?”

“Yeah, calm down, Lydia’s looking after him. He’s, like, ancient, but sturdy enough I guess… Lydia’s nodding, he’ll be fine. Are you coming, then?”

“Of course I am, where are you?”

“Hell if I know, somewhere in the middle of the preserve. I’ll get Lydia to text you the coordinates.”

Stiles hangs up with a nod, leaves an indignant Jackson in charge of Mount Sock, and sprints to his jeep. Lydia is never in a good mood after having to temporarily sacrifice her voice to knocking out some delinquent; he’s not going to let her wait in the dark forest with a passed-out grandpa and a crazy Rottweiler on top of it.

“Somewhere in the middle of the preserve” was quite right, and Stiles has to leave the Jeep by the edge of the woods (next to the haphazardly parked Camero - all Stiles can think is that Derek surely wouldn’t approve of this way of handling his precious car) and fight his way through trees and undergrowth for ten minutes until he reaches the tiny clearing.

“Finally,” Lydia croaks hoarsely, sitting crossed-legged next to the limp body of a truly very old man.

A huge, dangerous looking Rottweiler is crouching near his owner, apparently scared into submission by Laura, who is, to Stiles’ surprise, still around. She’s leaning against a nearby tree with an air of great boredom; a lean, middle-aged and tightly bound man is lying at her feet. He’s still got his fangs on show, spitting an impressive array of curse words into the night.

“We didn’t have anything to gag this piece of scum with,” Laura informs him, lazily prodding the werewolf with the tip of her feet.

“I thought you’d be long gone by now.”

“I couldn’t leave your mute and defenseless sister out here on her own, could I? But now that you’re here, I’ll be on my way.” Laura bends down to drag her captive to his feet. “We’ll let you guys know if he’s had anything important to say.”

With that, the pair of them make their way back into the direction of the cars, accompanied by the guys continuous cursing and Laura’s snappish replies.

Stiles drops to the ground next to Lydia.

“You didn’t really scream with this dude around, did you? He’s so old, I’m surprised it didn’t kill him!”

“He’d already fainted by then,” Lydia whispers, affronted. “Must’ve been the crazy shapeshifter trying to eat his…” Her voice gets more silent with every word until it breaks off entirely. She gives an unhappy huff and waves it off.

The huge dog starts to regain his confidence with every yard Laura puts between them. Luckily for everyone involved, the old guy begins to stir and groan before his companion can pounce on Lydia and Stiles, who unfortunately left his bat in the car.

It takes all of Stiles’ persuasiveness to convince a very confused “Mr. Peter Smith, hello, please do call me Pete, my dears, and this is Oscar,” that the monster he’d reportedly been attacked by must have sprung from his fantasy.

“Maybe you saw a mountain lion, Pete,” Stiles suggests gently, as they shuffle through the scrub, back to the Jeep, Oscar trotting innocently along in their wake. “There are a lot of those around here. Or maybe you dreamed it. You’ve been out cold for quite a while, there.”

“How did you and Oscar end up in the middle of the forest?” Lydia adds in a whisper, which Stiles has to repeat loudly for old Pete to understand.

“Oh, I was looking for Oscar, wasn’t I, dear? He must have smelled a squirrel or some other little animal, and just whooshed away after it. I followed him to the clearing back there, didn’t I, and that’s where we saw this… creature.” The old man shudders.

“Mountain lion,” Stiles supplies hastily.

“Right you are, young man, the mountain lion… well, I’m not the youngest fellow anymore, am I? Gave me quite the shock there, I assume.”

“Understandably,” Lydia croaks sympathetically, but Pete doesn’t seem to have heard her.

They drop the old man and his dog from hell Oscar off at home, making sure he’s alright and continuously assuring that they did not, in fact, see a fanged, hairless man-wolf anyway near where they found him.

“Thank god he didn’t ask why we were in the middle of the woods at ten in the night to find him,” Lydia whispers as they’re speeding towards their own house, rubbing her throat moodily.

“Ah, nonsense,” Stiles dismisses with grin, “we would have simply been Hansel and Gretel looking for breadcrumbs.”

“You’re not funny.”

“Derek would have laughed.”

“Stiles, honey, not even Derek is smitten enough with you to laugh at that feeble excuse of a joke.”

“You’re mean when your throat is sore. Also, Derek is not smitten with me, but can we still pretend this conversation never happened?”

“Gladly.”

+++

Stiles gets the call two days later, at half past ten in the evening. He’s exhausted, to say the least, having spent an hour and a half trying to get Liam to go to sleep. The four-year-old is sweet enough most of the time, but lately he’s developed a bit of an aversion against his bed. Which is definitely not something Stiles can relate to at all, because right now, a bed seems like the most heavenly place on earth. (Actually, any flat, reasonably soft surface would do, Stiles is not picky.)

“This is the second time this week you’re blessing me something as mundane as a phone call, Laura Hale,” Stiles jokes feebly, trying not to let on how tired he is. “You’ll be losing all your mystery soon.”

Laura elects to ignores this and comes, as always, straight to the point. “Cut the shit, Stilinski, I’ve got news about our situation-“

“Do you mean the beta-werewolf situation or the general shit-is-going-down situation?” Stiles interrupts, unable to stop himself.

“Both,” Laura clarifies, “The scumbag’s name is Chester Brown, which is an incredibly stupid name for a murderous werewolf, if you ask me. He’s from Oregon, or so he says, and after two nights of… intensive persuasion, he just told us he was paid to wreak havoc in Beacon Hills.”

“Come again?!”

“Paid, Stilinski. As in, hired for random murder.”

“Did he say who paid him??”

“No,” Laura says, a little too quickly for Stiles’ liking. “He said he never saw their face, never knew their name… Looks like someone’s been poisoning Omegas, controlling Kanimas, hiring Betas… Can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

“One’s an incident, two’s a coincidence, three’s a pattern,” Stiles recites automatically, rubbing a weary hand over his face.

This is not good news at all. In fact, this sounds like it could develop into a serious, quick-action-requiring, crap-we’re-all-gonna-die kind of problem. And while Stiles definitely has enough, most annoying problems of his own, those are surely the worst.

“Stiles,” Laura pipes up after a stretch of silence, sounding uncharacteristically worried, “If three is a pattern… What’s four?”

+++

This weekend marks the official beginning of spring as you’d imagine it. The sky is a clear, forget-me-not blue, with not a single cloud in sight and the sun shining brightly, boosting the temperature. The Stilinski pack spends the whole day out in their enormous backyard, occasionally doing homework on the porch, but mostly just running around and playing (or, in Lydia’s case, sunbathing in a deck chair).
The sheriff comes home in the early afternoon, just as promised, and is greeted enthusiastically by all the kids.

“Happy to see Dad, are you?” Stiles teases fondly, ruffling Jackson’s hair after the boy has finished hugging their father hello.

“Only because he brought food,” Jackson retorts with red cheeks, bends down to pull a pack of burger buns out of one of the many bags and forcefully chucks it at Stiles, who only just catches it – before it hits him in the face – with a mock-scandalized yelp.

“Guys!” the sheriff calls, as Stiles begins to chase Jackson around the kitchen, swatting at him with the bun package. “Guys, I thought we were clear on this! No playing with the food – why am I even bothering?” he asks Lydia with an exasperated laugh.

“Hope dies last,” Lydia shrugs, reaching for the vegetables, “Put the meat into the fridge, will you, before it goes bad in this heat.”

They’re planning a big celebratory barbeque for the evening, unearthing both their ancient, dusty grills from the basement in order to fit all the stuff the sheriff has bought on his way home onto them. To be fair, nobody is entirely sure what they are supposed to be celebrating, so everyone just came up with a reason of their own: Jackson won his first official lacrosse match the day before, which he doesn’t fail to mention about once every hour, Erica is ecstatic to finally be allowed to wear her favorite dress without tights, and Stiles is simply celebrating the fact that nobody died this week. Small victories.

Boyd insists on inviting Cora over for dinner (and Boyd rarely insists on anything, so it’s an easy deal), which then causes all the younger kids to demand they invite Laura as well (who, in their opinion, is the coolest person to ever grace the earth, which is not something Stiles can very well argue with). The sheriff simply decides on extending an invitation to all three Hales; it’s not like they don’t have enough food to feed a small army. Stiles is eternally grateful for that development, because he doesn’t think he’d want to see Lydia’s face had he brought up Derek himself.

He spends an hour directing everybody around, as they build a mismatched table long enough to fit fifteen people, prepare burgers and chicken skewers and put up a few leftover lampions because Allison insists. It’s reasonably chaotic, and Stiles ends up trying to get the stupid charcoal to smolder for twenty minutes. By the time the grills finally work and the sheriff has taken position behind them (proudly wearing his “King of the Grill” apron), Stiles is covered in sweat and coal dust.

Obviously, this is when the doorbell rings. Everybody else is terribly busy, of course, so Stiles ends up sprinting to the front of the house, swearing under his breath and wiping his face. (The back of his hand comes back black with soot. Figures.)

Given the warm weather, the three Hales have blessedly forgone their usual leather attire, but Stiles still feels self-conscious when Cora gives him a customary once-over, then slips past him with a small smirk on her face.

“Ah,” Laura grins broadly, “Looks promising.”

She looks from Stiles to Derek when she doesn’t get any reaction, eyebrows rising and lips curling.

“I’ll follow the smell of food, shall I?” she says simply, patting Stiles on the shoulder before disappearing into the house.

A few seconds pass, which Stiles and Derek spend awkwardly staring at each other, until delighted shrieks of “Laura!” drift over from the backdoor and make Derek jump.

“Um. Hello. You look…”

“Sooty, yes,” Stiles finishes for him, “The grill and I won’t be friends any time soon.”

Encouraged by the smile Derek cracks at that, Stiles ushers him into the house and lets the door fall shut behind him.

“Thanks for the invitation,” Derek blurts out suddenly, as though he’d planned to say it and nearly forgot.

“’Course, dude. Uh, most of them are in the backyard, as you can hear, just pass right through… I’ll just go wash up,” Stiles says, starting towards the stairs with an apologetic grin.

But even when Stiles is already halfway upstairs, Derek hasn’t moved, lingering in the entryway as though unsure what to do with himself. Stiles reminds himself that Derek is not exactly a pro at social interaction, and even though he gets on greatly with the kids… all of them at once plus Lydia and the sheriff has to be a little overwhelming.

“Hey,” he tells Derek gently, “do me a favor and take Malia out with you? She’s probably still hiding under the kitchen table. You might have a good shot at coaxing her out, what with how much she likes you.”

Derek looks taken aback for a moment, but then a grateful smile lights up his features, making him look quite entrancing, and hell, Stiles really needs to get a grip on himself, Jesus.

“Right,” he nods and dashes up the stairs, keeping himself from watching Derek be even cuter with Malia. He’s got to somehow preserve his dignity. Or, he thinks, glimpsing at his soot-covered reflection in the bathroom mirror, what’s left of it anyways.

Stiles is the last one to reach the back porch. He’d been temporarily congratulating himself because Derek wasn’t lurking in the kitchen anymore, apparently having made it outside on his own, which, great. It’s not like there’s anything to be afraid of about his family… then again, once Stiles has stepped out into the sunlit backyard, he finds he might have to reconsider. Lydia, Kira, Allison and Erica are grouped around an apprehensive-looking Derek, all four girls with identical, gleeful smirks on their faces.

Abort mission, Stiles thinks nonsensically, torn between going over to save Derek and fleeing back into the house. United, his sisters are a force to be reckoned with.

“Sti-hiiiles,” Erica singsongs, “Derek brought you something!” She plucks a bundle out of Derek’s arm and waves it over her head so Stiles can see. It’s the sweater with the wolf on the front which he’d forgotten at Derek’s place last week.

“Oh,” he says dumbly, “Uh, thanks.”

“I wanted to take it on Monday night, but I forgot,” Derek says gruffly, looking deeply regretful.

“So he brought it with him tonight,” Lydia muses airily, “Thoughtful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, otherwise we’d have probably never gotten to see it,” Allison says shrewdly, winking.

“And it’s so pretty,” Kira adds brightly. She takes the garment from Erica and throws it to Stiles. “Put it on for us, will you?”

“You’re evil,” Stiles says, catching it and pointing at his sisters. “You’re all evil. Derek, just ignore them. They get a kick out of making people uncomfortable, they’re mean like that.”

He ignores the four mock-offended gasps that follow his statement and goes to drag Derek along and off the porch. He catches Lydia’s eye over his shoulder, trying to look indignant, but predictably the girls just burst into laughter. They’re evil.

Dinner is a rowdy affair. It seems to go on forever; the sheriff grilling heap after heap of meat, the kids taking a break from eating every so often, going on noisy rampages through their spacious backyard, and everyone switching seats at leisure.

Stiles finds himself next to Derek more often than not. The werewolf seems to enjoy himself well enough, devouring burger after burger and laughing at the children’s (and Stiles’) antics, but there is a slight uncertainty in the way he holds himself, the way he talks only when addressed.

“All right?” Stiles asks quietly, passing Derek on his way to the salad and catching the other man’s expression, which can only be described as lost.

“Yeah,” Derek nods slowly. “This is nice.”

“But?”

“Nothing. It just… reminds me, you know?” He glances at the tangle of limbs in the nearby grass that is Scott and Isaac, rolling around in play-fight. “Of how it used to be.”

Stiles swallows heavily. “Did you do these kinds of things with your family?”

“Every month around the full moon. We used to have a campfire and stuff. Cora always ate so many S’mores she’d end up puking.”

Stiles can’t help snorting at that, glad that Derek finds something funny among the hurtful memories.

“Well, it’s lucky we don’t have those, then.”

Much later, once the sun starts to sink so low it touches the treetops of the nearby woods, casting long shadows across the backyard, Boyd and Cora put down their cutlery.

“You hear anything suspicious, call immediately, alright?” Lydia inculcates, handing over the car keys, “We’re not taking any risks these days, I don’t want you to try and play hero.”

Cora rolls her eyes but doesn’t say anything as Boyd takes the keys with a reassuring nod.

“Should we feel bad for making them leave?” Laura contemplates, taking a bite out of her third burger and watching Cora and Boyd stride across the lawn with her head tilted slightly to the left.

Stiles follows her gaze just as Boyd wraps a loose arm around Cora’s waist. “I don’t think they mind very much, to be honest.”

Laura only smirks.

“We should probably not tell Derek about that,” he adds in a whisper, but of course Derek hears him – stupid werewolves – and rounds on him.

“Tell me about what?” he demands to know sharply and Laura chokes on her food with how much she’s laughing at Stiles’ facial expression.

“Boyd is going to use his stake-out duty to make out with our little sister,” she stage-whispers as soon as she’s calmed down enough to do so, and Stiles groans.

“He’s WHAT?”

“Oh, calm down, Der. At least Boyd’s a gentleman.”

“I- but- she can’t, they can’t… she’s sixteen!”

“Exactly,” Laura smirks again, “Sixteen and stuck in a small car with a hot boy for hours. What were you expecting?”

After that, Derek goes a little white in the face and refrains from saying anything else on the matter.

Stiles laughs at him. “You’re such a marshmallow when it comes to Cora, it’s actually adorable.”

“You’ve called me that before,” Derek says irritably, “I don’t even like marshmallows!”

He picks up his fork and proceeds to impale his last piece of chicken with such incredible grumpiness, Stiles bursts into laughter yet again.Laura giggles uncontrollably into her hand, stopping only when Malia comes running to drag her off for a game of tag.

“Thanks a lot,” Derek grumps, “Now she’ll keep calling me that.”

“What, Marshmallow?” Stiles asks innocently, ignoring Derek’s growl, “Nah, Laura won’t. Bet she’s got her own wide range of embarrassing nicknames for you… I might, though.”

The growling intensifies. “Don’t you dare, Stiles. I’m gonna rip your throat out. With my teeth.”

“Naw, Marshmallow, that’s been an empty threat for two years now.”

“Stiles!”

With the sun gone, it doesn’t take long for darkness and a slight chill to descend upon their little gathering. Allison, Erica and Jackson flee into the warmth of the house, proceeding to watch a show on the living room TV. The sheriff, Laura and Derek, the only ones left at the dinner table, are deeply immersed in a conversation about gun wounds and the loss of limbs (it’s all very interesting and a little barbaric). Liam has long since fallen asleep on the sheriff’s lap. On the far end of the backyard, close to where the woods begin, Scott, Isaac and Malia are hunting for this year’s first fireflies, with Kira keeping an eye on them. From the distance, they seem to be dancing amidst a small number of tiny, glittering dots of light. Stiles and Lydia are squeezed tightly together on the old porch swing, sharing a blanket and watching over the lawn.

“We should do this more often,” Stiles breathes, simultaneously blowing a stray lock of Lydia’s hair out of his face.

“The barbecue thing or the let’s-sit-on-the-swing-in-the-cold-and-dark-and-do-absolutely-nothing thing?”

Stiles snorts. “The barbecue thing.”

“Yeah,” Lydia agrees, smile audible in her voice, “Especially this summer, before we leave for college.”

“Before you leave for college.”

“Stiles-“

“We’re not talking about this, Lyds.”

“Fine,” Lydia harrumphs and stops talking altogether for a while.

“Do you think Laura is not telling us something? About that beta wolf we caught?” she starts back up a little later, voice barely a whisper, but Laura and Derek, only a few yards away, seem far too absorbed into their own conversation to listen in on theirs.

“Yeah,” Stiles sighs just as lowly, “Pretty sure she’s trying to hide something from us.”

“And Laura is usually really honest,” Lydia mutters worriedly, “Like, uncomfortably so, sometimes. Keeping stuff to himself is more Derek’s kind of thing, isn’t it? But if it’s Laura as well-“

“-it must be bad,” Stiles finishes for her, eyes never leaving the Hale siblings.

Lydia rubs her temple. “Do you feel like this is somehow the calm before the storm?”

“I do,” Stiles murmurs, watching a small grey cloud creep up beyond the distant treetops, obscuring a patch of the starry sky. “I really do.”