Chapter Text
~*~
Danny's bruises from Jackson's outburst throbbed in time with the music as he wove his way through dozens of dancing bodies, trying to find Matt.
Instead, he found Erica and Isaac carrying away what looked like Jackson - barely conscious, if at all.
"...ecstasy," Danny pronounced, remembering the way the three of them had been dancing earlier. It didn't sound or feel right, but it was the only thing that made sense. Then he frowned in thought. "Overdose?" he questioned.
He started to follow them - which, of course, is when he stumbled across Matt.
Dancing with Allison.
For a moment, it was like his heart stopped beating and all the blood in his body stood still.
Danny wanted to say he was surprised.
He wasn't. He'd known Matt was obsessed with her.
Danny wanted to say he wasn't hurt.
He was.
For a moment, he debated stomping over and demanding answers, demanding to know if Matt just used Danny to get in here. He even started to move, raising a fist-
-then realized his hand was already in a fist.
Danny didn't want to become that guy.
Hands shaking in a way that had nothing to do with the music or his bruised shoulder, Danny turned and walked in the opposite direction.
Screw Matt.
He'd go check on Jackson, make sure he hadn't died of whatever he OD'd on, then head home.
He didn't find Jackson - but near the main door, he did run into Stiles.
Literally.
"Have you seen Jackson?" Danny demanded, as he helped Stiles off the floor.
"Uh, hey, Danny!" Stiles said, his grin too big and far too bright. "What brings you here?"
Danny crossed his arms, unimpressed, and continued. "Erica and Isaac were dancing with him, then carried him out when he was barely conscious."
Stiles...paled. He looked nervous.
He looked guilty.
"If I find out you guys had anything to do with this," Danny said. "After you kidnapped him-"
"I did not drug Jackson!" Stiles answered immediately.
"...funny," Danny said, tilting his head. "I didn't actually say anything about drugs."
"I-" Stiles flailed.
Then turned and ran.
Danny shot after him, but for once, his muscles worked against him. Not only did he have trouble weaving through a crowd Stiles had no problem slithering through, but at least two girls tried to stop him to flirt with him. Even though Danny ignored them and ran past them, they still slowed him down.
Enough that by the time he was able to reach the doors, he lost sight of Stiles.
His only lead on Jackson, gone.
He took several deep breaths of the evening air, until his fists stopped clenching and his heart stopped racing. He turned towards the street over where his car was parked...
...only to hear gunfire.
It was instinct, more than anything else, to freeze at the sound. Danny had only ever heard it coming from TV screens and video games, but the sound was unmistakeable.
His next instinct was to go towards the sound.
~*~
Two months ago, the weirdest thing in Erica's life was her own brain spontaneously generating tiny electrical storms at the most inopportune moments imaginable.
Now, it was seeing Jackson burst through a wall like a particularly reptilian PowerPuff girl.
She looked at Isaac. "Do you think we could do that?"
Stiles scowled.
They went in the direction Jackson had gone, but lost him in the rave. With a frustrated grunt, Stiles stormed outside, and for lack of a better option, Erica and Isaac followed him.
Only so far, though.
A few steps outside, and Erica started to get that pins-and-needles feeling of a limb falling asleep. Only, instead of a single limb, it was an entire side of her body - the front, a bit to the right.
The side of her closest to the line of black dust on the ground.
One look at Isaac, and she knew she wasn't the only one. He crouched down and slowly reached out towards the line.
He couldn't reach it.
Stiles grinned. "It's working!" he whooped.
Erica wondered what's working and wondered if it would stop the kanima as well as it was stopping them-
They heard a howl - a howl of distress.
It wasn't any of them, and Boyd's howl sounded different, which meant-
"Break the line!" Derek snapped at Stiles.
"What-"
"Scott's in trouble," Isaac said.
Eyes wide, Stiles rang his fingers through the line of the black dust...only for it to stay right where it was.
"Stiles!" Derek snapped, heedless of Erica's dropped jaw and Isaac's wide eyes.
"I'm trying!" Stiles snapped back at him.
Stiles closed his eyes, waiting a moment, and reached out. This time, instead of touching the dust, he just waved his hands over the line.
This time, it broke.
She and Isaac both jerked as that pins and needles feeling abruptly vanished, and Derek bolted towards where the howl had come from.
~*~
Danny rounded the corner of the building, the sounds of the music and people from inside almost bowling him over. If he'd stayed in there a few minutes longer, he wouldn't have heard the gunfire.
Which meant he wouldn't have followed the sound, which meant he wouldn't have circled halfway around the building in confusion and desperation, which meant he wouldn't have seen Erica Reyes and Isaac Lahey helping a stumbling man carrying a half-conscious Scott out of a side room.
A stumbling man that Danny recognized.
"Miguel?" he muttered.
Danny had already figured out from the moment Stiles said the name that it wasn't real. But it was nice to have it confirmed when Stiles appeared, rushing towards them and yelling, "Scott? Derek!?"
"We have to go, now!" Isaac snapped at him.
"Where's your jeep?" Erica demanded.
Stiles led them away, gaze flitting across the ground, before the group disappeared around the other side of the building, towards the car lot.
Danny looked down, and frowned when he saw what looked like a line of black dust on the ground. He followed the line of dust.
He stopped when he reached a break in the line - not too far from where Danny had heard the gunfire. The line kept going, and Danny kept walking. He also pulled out his phone and opened up the browser, creating a new tab and typing in a search.
The search wasn't meant to get results right away. His main goal was to let the tab sit there and be a reminder for him to do some research when he got home.
But when he typed in derek beacon hills, the first result that came up was a picture and a news article about Derek Hale. The picture was the man who Danny just saw being escorted away by Stiles and a pair of other teenagers.
Danny actually stopped to read incredulously, eyes narrowing as he stumbled across the arrest reports. Mapping his own meeting with the man to everything being said about Hale...
Stiles had been using Danny for a lot longer than he'd even realized.
Danny hadn't just tracked a text for a stupid classmate and his hot friend. He'd helped an honest-to-god fugitive.
Before Danny could read any further, though, there was a lot of screaming coming from inside the building. He looked up just in time to see the doors burst open and a panicked mob pour out of the rave.
"What the-"
He watched, stunned, as everyone fled, screaming about a dead body and how there was blood everywhere and oh god what if her killer is still here run run run-
Scowling, Danny jogged around the fleeing mob, over to the side entrance. There were people running out of that door, too, but a lot less of them. Danny was able to stand strong against the crowd and slowly move forward, until he was back inside the half-empty building.
The room that'd been pleasantly claustrophobic before, felt like a cavern as he looked around.
It didn't take him long to see what had everyone running.
Kara.
Or rather, Kara's dead body.
For a moment, he just stood there, staring at her open eyes and blank face and her ripped out throat.
It was one thing to know that people were dying in this town - again.
It was another thing to see the dead body of someone he'd talked to a day or two before.
He'd talked to her, he knew her, he bought tickets from her for local events all the time. He'd even talked to her that morning.
And now she was a corpse on the ground.
The room was still emptying out, and he hadn't even been the only person rooted there and staring in shock. Someone shoved at his shoulder, and that got Danny moving, back with the crowd, back outside, and back to his car.
This just went from an illegal rave to a murder, and Danny needed to get away from the crime scene before the cops showed up.
And he wasn't the only one.
"Danny!" Matt cried out from beside Danny's car. "Thank god, you're all right. What-"
"Kara's dead," Danny blurted out, reaching his car. Matt immediately wrapped an arm around Danny's shoulder. Despite the vivid memory of Matt dancing with Allison, Danny leaned into the touch. "The ticket girl, she - someone ripped her throat out."
Matt's eyes widened rather theatrically at that. "What? How?"
"I don't know!" Danny said. "I only saw the body, and even that was after everyone else started running away."
Tightening his sideways embrace, Matt wondered out loud, "What the hell happened, here?"
"I don't know, but whatever this is..." Danny frowned. "I think some of our classmates are in on it."
Matt frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Earlier, I saw Erica and Isaac dragging Jackson out of the rave, and he wasn't conscious. Just saw them again, doing the same thing with Scott, also not conscious, but with Stiles and..." He pulled out his phone, swiped in, and showed Matt the page he'd been reading. "Derek Hale."
Matt's eyebrows rose as he read down the page.
"And whatever this is? It's been going on for a while," Danny said. "A while back, I went to Stiles' place. I thought it was to study, but he made me track the origin IP of a text someone sent, and this guy was there. I didn't know who he was at the time, they said his name was Miguel." He jerked his head towards the phone. "But I just checked the dates, and this was when Hale was still wanted for the janitor's murder at the school." He swallowed. "Stiles was harboring a wanted fugitive in his room, and I helped them, somehow."
The last part, he spoke bitterly, and Matt squeezed Danny's shoulder in comfort.
"Do you know what happened to Scott and Jackson?" he asked.
Danny shook his head. "At first, I thought they took some E or something. The way Erica and Isaac were dancing with Jackson earlier, it'd make sense. But with all of this..."
Matt nodded. "We'll figure this out," he promised, handing Danny his phone back.
"And-" Danny pointed a bit over the building they'd just left. "I'd heard gunfire, a few minutes before people saw Kara's dead body. But she doesn't look like she was shot."
Matt's eyes widened. "You sure?"
"For a moment," Danny said. "I - didn't look too closely."
"I wouldn't," Matt agreed with an understanding nod.
With a shake of his head, Danny unlocked the car.
"The cops will get here any moment, and they'll be fanning out," Danny said, opening his driver's door. "We need to get out of here before they see us."
"Won't they see everyone on the security cameras, anyway?" Matt asked.
Danny shrugged. "Doubt it. This whole thing was supposed to be under the radar, right? They're smart, they probably cut the security cameras."
"You mean hack them?" Matt asked. "Can you do that?"
"You can, but it's easier to literally cut them," Danny said. "As in, cut the wires on the security camera so they stop recording. If you can do it from above or behind, you never even get seen."
Matt nodded. "Well, we might need to do that soon, if we want answers. With the school's new cameras?"
Danny snorted, and climbed into the car. "Not like those ever help."
"You okay to drive?" Matt asked.
Danny nodded. "I didn't drink or anything." Fighting the very, very strong urge to bite his lip, he said, "Need me to take you home?"
Shaking his head, Matt said, "No one expected to need to leave this fast, so not everyone stayed sober."
Danny smiled. "I've driven home drunk people in their own cars, before," he said. "I wish you all the luck."
"Thanks," Matt drawled. "I'll need it. See you at school?" Danny nodded. With a firm pat to Danny's shoulder, Matt shut Danny's door for him, but waited.
With a slight eyeroll, Danny started the car, and smoothly turned out of his spot and onto the street, rolling down his windows. "See!" he called out at Matt. "I'm fine!"
"Just making sure!" Matt yelled. He waved and jogged off. Danny started driving, but also looked for Matt in the rearview mirror.
Matt was headed back towards the building.
No, not the building - towards Allison, who was waiting by her own car.
The car that Matt climbed into.
The car that Matt climbed into on the passenger side, no less.
Of course. Matt being nice to Danny paled in comparison to his minor obsession with Allison.
With a forlorn sigh, Danny started driving away, again.
Then slowed down again when he saw several, armed men who were definitely not police officers standing by the doors to the rave.
One of whom he recognized.
"Principal Argent?" he asked, bewildered. He watched as their high school principle handed a pretty big handgun to...was that Mr. Argent? Allison's dad?
Principal Argent knelt down, and held his hand over something. Squinting, Danny realized it was the black line of dust he'd been following earlier.
After a moment, Principal Argent pulled his hand away, like he'd been burned.
Danny almost turned around to park and spy on them, but he heard sirens in the distance. So did the men, who started scattering.
With a frustrated sigh, Danny tore out of there, barely making it off the corner before the cops appeared down the street.
He was ending this night with way more questions than he'd started with.
~*~
Officially, Noah Jonathan Stilinski was a civilian, now.
Unofficially, he'd been the Sheriff for eight years, and a cop for another six before that. He'd been elected Sheriff with little fanfare because few thought anyone else was better for the job. He'd done it well, up until this year, and most people respected him when he wore the badge.
It was only the kind of person they thought he was without the badge - the kind of father they thought he was - that cost him his job.
Even though John was no longer even a cop, let alone the Sheriff, none of the deputies challenged him or put up more than a token effort to stop him as he approached the crime scene.
Though it looked it wasn't just him. This wasn't the time for the District Attorney to be wandering around the crime scene, either, yet there was David Whittemore.
The man looked up when he saw the Sheriff approaching, and sighed.
"Stilinski, what are you doing here? You know-"
"I know," John said. "Though it's not like you're supposed to be here, either."
Whittemore grimaced. John pulled out the list of names from his pocket, and said, "I just need to see if...I just need to check."
He crouched down by the girl's body. Her raves were illegal, but the kind that deserved fines and a bit of county jail time, not - this.
Unfolding the list of names he and Stiles had compiled earlier, he said, "I need to know her name."
David hesitated, but answered, "Kara. Kara Simmons."
John looked down the list, and frowned.
"What?" David asked.
"She's not on the list," he muttered, and crumpled up the paper in his fist. "Damnit. Back to square one."
"You're supposed to be on square zero," David deadpanned. After a chuckle, he quipped, "You can take the man out of the Sheriff's office, but you can't take the Sheriff out of the man."
John smiled ruefully, and stood up.
"Well, you're not wrong about the office part," he said. "So I'll head out."
He turned and started to walk away, only for David Whittemore to call out, "Hey, Sheriff!"
Out of habit, he turned around. However, despite the fact the title no longer belonged to him, he was the one David had been addressing.
"After this," he said, waving his hand at the murder. "We should sit down and figure out what's really going on with our boys."
This man had effectively gotten him fired - but he seemed to regret it. He also seemed to see what John did: that there was something bigger than a prank gone wrong that their kids were involved with.
John nodded. "After this," he promised. Then he turned and walked out the door.
He wasn't the Sheriff, anymore.
He wasn't even a cop, anymore.
He didn't belong here, anymore.
~*~
Normally, Isaac hated being in the back seat with the windows open on a chilly-night like this.
But cold air blasting in his face was better than inhaling the remnants of wolfsbane from Scott and Derek's clothes.
In the front passenger seat, Derek - slumped against the door - hung up from his phone call to the vet.
"Deaton's meeting us at the clinic," he said, voice almost slurring.
"Thank god," Stiles said. Calling over his shoulder at Erica and Isaac as he took a sharp turn, he demanded, "How is he?"
"Still alive," Isaac deadpanned. "Barely."
"Really helpful!" Stiles snapped. "You're just so-"
"Stiles," Derek said, cutting him off.
Stiles subsided, grumbling about stupid evil hunters and goddamn possessed murder-puppet lizards.
"We couldn't even stop that thing from killing someone," Erica said. "How the hell were we supposed to capture it?"
"Technically, we did," Stiles pointed out. "We just couldn't contain it."
Erica growled at him.
Derek snarled back at her, and with a jerk of surprise, she quieted.
Still slumped against the door, Derek ordered Stiles, "If the cops find anything, keep us appraised."
Isaac blinked in surprise at the sudden change in Stiles' heartbeat. His breathing grew more tense, and he heard the creaking of the steering wheel even as he saw Stiles clench his fists.
"Well, it's not like I'll be able to know if they find anything," Stiles ground out. "Since my dad got fired because his son used police property to kidnap a classmate."
The Jeep was silent after that, save for the sound of Scott's labored breathing.
"...for what it's worth," Derek said. "I'm sorry."
"Like that helps," Stiles snarled.
But Stiles went quiet, splitting his attention between the road, and checking on Scott in the rear-view mirror.
From Scott's other side, Erica murmured, voice low enough that only werewolf hearing could pick it up, "We're going to fix this, right?"
Derek nodded once.
"...how?" Isaac asked.
This time, there was no answer.
Probably because Derek didn't have one.
~*~
An hour later, Scott was still unconscious on the table Deaton had him laid out on.
But his breathing was even and clean, even after Deaton pulled off the snout-sized oxygen mask.
Stiles sighed in relief, and behind him, Derek murmured, "Thank you."
At that, he turned around, looking at Derek in surprise.
"...wow," he said finally. "First an apology, and now a thank you?"
Derek glared at him. But he wasn't even moving because he didn't want to wake up Isaac and Erica, whose heads rested on his shoulders.
Instead, he looked between Stiles and Deaton.
"...Boyd was shot," he said finally. "I don't know what kind of bullet he took. I don't know where he went. I'm guessing he went home. He needs help."
Stiles nodded, pulling out his phone. "On it," he said.
He darted out of the exam room, around the front desk, and ducked into the tiny bathroom to the side.
Inside, he called Allison.
"S-Stiles?" she answered.
Stiles blinked at the even-tinier mirror in surprise. "You okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine," she said, sounding like she wasn't.
"You're lying," Stiles said. "But right now, we have bigger problems, so I'll pretend I believe you."
A sniffle, like she'd been crying. "What bigger problems?" she asked.
"Boyd was shot," Stiles said. "And he disappeared after, but Derek thinks he went home. Can you check the ammo your mom's guys used tonight? And if any of them have wolfsbane, can you bring me a bullet?"
"I can do that," she said. "Usual meeting place in..." A moment, the faint sound of a door opening, then closing a moment later. "Forty minutes?"
"Yeah," Stiles agreed. "And if I don't make it, leave it right by the rock, but not on top of it."
"I'll use the chalk to mark it," she reported, then the line went dead.
With a frustrated sigh, Stiles pocketed the phone, then headed back out-
-and stalled at the sight of his guidance counselor and substitute Latin teacher sitting in one of the chairs of the little waiting room.
With a smile, the enigmatic teacher said, "Hello, Stiles."
"Uh, heeeyy, Ms. Morrell," Stiles said. He felt so, so confused, because- "It's way after hours-"
"I'm here to see my brother," she said, with that same, blank-faced look that made talking to her feel like talking to a tree.
(Trees didn't talk back, thankfully, which is what made talking to her so easy.)
"You mean Dr. Deaton?" he asked. She nodded, and Stiles blinked as he took in her appearance. Now that he thought of it, they did kind of look alike. "Oh, um, well, we were, uh..."
At that moment, Deaton appeared.
"Marin," he greeted. "What are you doing here?"
Ms. Morrell took a deep breath. "Trying to decide whether I admire your sentimentality, or despise it."
Stiles frowned in confusion, while Deaton's face seemed to harden with irritation.
"If I wanted your opinion, I would make an appointment with the guidance office," he said.
No, he snarked.
Stiles blinked at the equally-enigmatic veterinarian in surprise.
He didn't realize the man was even capable of sarcasm.
"From the state of things, I think you could use a little guidance," Ms. Morrell said. "Are you really going to leave all of this up to a couple of kids?"
Deaton shrugged, and pointed at Stiles. "Stiles made a mountain ash barrier, tonight, around an entire building - even after running out of it, and on his first try." Stiles' jaw dropped, but Deaton continued. "They're more capable than you think."
Morrell raised an eyebrow, neither of them appearing to notice Stiles' heart plummeting through the goddamn floor.
"Did he, now?" Morrell asked. She looked at Stiles. "Did it contain the kanima?"
Stiles was still gaping at her, so Deaton answered for him.
"It contained some werewolves," he said. "But Stiles had to break it before they had the opportunity to test it on the kanima."
"That's a shame," Morrell said.
Stiles pointed at her. "You- what- how?!"
He looked back and forth between them, before finally throwing his arms up in the air. "You know what? I give up. I don't care! I have bigger problems." He looked at Deaton. "While Scott was inhaling wolfsbane, Boyd was shot with a bullet full of it. I've gotta go deal with that."
Morrell's expression darkened. "Do you have the wolfsbane he was shot with?"
Stiles narrowed his eyes at her, but said, "I'm working on it." He turned towards Deaton. "Got any more of that ketamine? I don't think Boyd should be conscious for this."
Deaton seemed to think for a moment. "How are you feeling?"
"What?" Stiles asked. What the hell was Deaton getting at? "How am I feeling?"
"He means," Morrell said. Stiles turned to look at her, just in time to catch an eyeroll. "How are you feeling after making that mountain ash barrier? And more importantly, do you feel up to doing that again?"
Stiles swallowed, staring at what he'd thought was just another high school teacher.
"...Yeah," he said, looking back and forth between the two mysterious people he was caught between. "I am."
Deaton accepted his answer with a single nod. "Wait here," he instructed, and went back to the exam room.
Swallowing, Stiles turned to Morrell. "So, uh - are you like Deaton?"
"Like him, how?" Morrell asked, with a blank smile. "Alan is a licensed veterinarian, and I am a part-time teacher and counselor."
"Yeah, but can you do magic like him?" Stiles asked.
"You made a mountain ash barrier, tonight," Morrell deflected. "Do you feel very magical, right now?"
"A little bit like a Jedi, yeah," Stiles said. Then, his eyes widened in realization. "Oh my god, are you guys like the Skywalker twins or something?"
It was hard to tell, but Morrell seemed more amused by his outburst than anything else.
Deaton came back out a moment later, handing him a syringe which was already full of something - a liquid with some kind of plant inside it.
"You don't need to put in as much effort with this valerian as you did with the mountain ash," Deaton said, putting it in some kind of protective, tubular casing that would keep it from leaking. "You aren't creating something from scratch - just using the valerian to help the ketamine along. But you will still need to be a spark-"
Morrell huffed in derision.
"-to work against a werewolf's natural metabolism to sedate Boyd," Deaton said, glaring sidelong at his sister.
Stiles nodded. "Use the Force to sedate a werewolf, got it."
Deaton looked like he was barely refraining from rolling his eyes. "You are not a Jedi, Stiles."
"...I can't believe you've seen Star Wars and Scott hasn't," Stiles grumbled. "But, uh, thanks."
He turned to Morrell, couldn't think of what to say, and instead gave her an awkward kind of wave as he headed out the door, checking his phone for any updates.
Half an hour later - and after ten minutes of waiting in the woods only a few blocks away from the Argent home - he got one.
He didn't even see Allison until she was less than a dozen yards away. Stiles would've yelped in surprise if he weren't so cold and shivering.
"H-H-Here," she said, holding out a single bullet with the Argent fleur on it in a thinly-gloved hand. "There were three different types of gun, and three different types of bullets. This was the only one with wolfsbane."
"Thanks," Stiles said, taking it and pocketing it. He narrowed his eyes at Allison. "And I know I said I'd pretend to believe you earlier, but what's wrong? Did something happen?"
"No!" Allison said. Stiles stared at her, and Allison sighed. "I know I was leading him on a bit, but I still liked Matt. He seemed nice."
Raising an eyebrow, Stiles asked, "'Seemed'?"
Her shoulders slumped. "I checked out his camera. He's stalking me."
Now both his eyebrows shot up. "Danny's going to be even more disappointed," he said.
Allison gave him a wet, humorless smile. "Even more than he already is?"
Stiles nodded, conceding her point. "Are you going to be okay?"
She shrugged, surprisingly non-chalant. "In the grand scheme of all the other problems in my life, a stalker is not that big of a problem." With a wan smile, she said, "I'll be talking to him at Lydia's party tomorrow night. Either he'll stop...or I'll make him stop."
With a grin that Stiles hoped looked as predatory as he felt, he held up a fist. She bumped her own fist against it.
"If you need it, you know we'll have your back, right?"
Allison nodded. "Honestly, even seeing all the creepy pictures he had of me was still nothing compared to some of the stunts my family's pulled on me. At least he hasn't put a bag over my head, kidnapped me, and tied me to a chair in a basement. So he's already coming out ahead of my dad."
Stiles was probably going to hell for laughing at that, but he couldn't help it - it was true. "I gotta go," he said, still chuckling as he patting the pocket with the bullet in it. "But good luck, okay?"
Allison nodded. "When I text you asking if you made it home from the rave okay," she said. "I'll be expecting an update on Boyd and Scott."
Stiles nodded. "Scott's fine," he said, already answering half her question. As for the other half, which would be monitored by her family... "I'll let you know if I made it home smoothly, roughly, or...not at all."
With a single, tight hug, they parted ways, Allison to sneak back into her home while Stiles went off to track down the last werewolf for the night.
~*~
Boyd groaned awake to the smell of ash in the air, the throbbing of his abdominal muscles, and the sound of a hyperactive teenager sitting at the foot of his bed.
Damn, that magical ketamine hit hard.
"How long've I been out?" Boyd slurred out, patting his shirtless torso. Two little bumps where the normal bullets had hit him, and above them, a small hole where he'd been struck by the wolfsbane bullet.
"About two hours," Stiles murmured, looking between Boyd and the bedroom door. "Uh, the bottom two should be gone in a few hours. The top one may leave a bit of skin discoloration, but otherwise it should also disappear by tomorrow."
With a slow nod, Boyd pushed himself up. He stretched a few times, in a few different directions. Some twinges when he lifted his arms up, and throbbing when he held them out, but no pain besides those.
Stiles stared at him.
"Like what you see?" Boyd drawled.
Making a face, Stiles picked up the shirt that now had bullet holes in it and threw it at him.
Boyd pulled the shirt on, frowning when he realized Stiles was still glancing at the door.
"Relax," Boyd said, rolling his eyes. "As long as we keep quiet, no one will bother us."
"I know," Stiles said. "That's what bothers me."
Now Boyd was really confused. "Isn't no one barging in a good thing?"
Stiles clenched his jaw.
"...You were out for nearly two hours," Stiles said. "Your family sat down for a long, chatty dinner. Then your parents put your little brother and your sister to bed. And not once did anyone so much as knock on your door."
Stiles kept looking between the door and the boy in the bed.
"Is this why you took the Bite?" Stiles asked.
Boyd glared.
"Thank you for helping me," he ground out, hoping Stiles got the hint.
He didn't. Or he did, but ignored it. It was hard to tell with Stiles.
"Scott said that you said you wanted to be a werewolf like him - rather than Derek."
For some reason, this was the moment Boyd remembered Stiles' dad was a cop. And Derek seemed to think Stiles was going to grow up to be a cop, too.
He was never going to let this go. Cops made their living by harassing people, and Stiles was no exception.
Better to give him something else to latch onto - and distract him.
"Why is Scott trying to do anything about the kanima?" Boyd asked.
Stiles looked at him like he was crazy. "Um, hello? Scary monster going around killing people-"
"Yeah," Boyd cut him off. "But not anyone he cared about. And the kanima isn't his fault, either. It's not his problem, it doesn't have to be - but he's trying to do something about about it, anyway. Why?"
Now Stiles looked like he was appraising Boyd for a head injury.
"That is why," Boyd said. "Most people would say, 'not my problem' and peace out. I know I'm missing a lot about what happened around here before Derek Bit me, but I'm pretty sure that option never even occurred to Scott - or even you."
He got up and went to the window overlooking the bit of yard on the side of his house. Nudging aside the screen propped up against the wall beside it, he re-opened the window.
Pointedly, he looked back to Stiles. "But Derek is still my alpha. He found me and Erica and Isaac, the three kids who needed the Bite the most, needed a pack the most, and gave that to us."
The open window was a big enough hint that Stiles didn't ignore it.
"Fine," Stiles said, getting up. "But don't forget that he didn't give you the Bite because you needed it. He only helped you because he needed a pack, not because you needed it."
Boyd felt his claws sink into his palms.
"You know why I want to be like Scott?" he demanded. "Because Derek needs someone like that in his pack...and if Scott won't do it, I will."
Stiles blinked in surprise.
"It's supposed to be a win-win situation for us," Boyd said. "Derek helped us, and we help him. I don't care 'why' he cares about us, as long as he does. Maybe he's going after the kanima for a different reason than Scott - but he's still doing it."
With a snort, Stiles shook his head as he stood up. "You already sound like Scott, you know that?"
That threw Boyd for a loop. He narrowed his eyes at Stiles as he perched on the window ledge.
"Derek's good at making people think they'll get what they want," Stiles said, turning his head to face Boyd. "He can do it without even lying, because a guy who grew up around werewolves knows better. He'll probably even try to get you what you want - but only because it keeps you on his side."
"He wants to help us," Boyd said. "And he's trying his best."
"...I know," Stiles muttered. "That's the problem." Boyd frowned in confusion, but Stiles already turned and slipped out his window. Boyd kept a careful eye on him as Stiles crawled down the trellis until he landed on top of the shed, then clambered down off of that. He heard the sound of the grass crunching under Stiles' feet, but he doubted anyone in his family heard anything.
Stiles started to head out towards the street, but then stopped and looked back up at Boyd.
Without raising his voice, Stiles said, "I hope you're right about Derek. But if he disappoints you as much as he disappointed Scott - we could use another guy like you."
Then he turned and walked away.
Boyd snarled, but calmly replaced the screen in his window and closed it.
What the hell did they know about Derek, anyway?
~*~