Chapter Text
The house is a wreck. Standing in the front hall, Stiles looks around her and sighs. "There is no way I'm going to be able to hide this from my dad." Like, seriously, no chance. "Unless..." she looks at Allison. "Got any super awesome hunter ninja carpenters on speed dial?"
"Maybe," Allison says, digging in the hall closet for the broom, "but my parents haven't gotten to that part of my training yet."
"Well, it was worth a shot," Stiles says, going to the kitchen long enough to get a bowl of water and a cloth. "You've probably already healed up," she says, approaching Boyd when she comes back, "but you look like hell."
"You're not looking much better," he says, his voice raspy. "You sure about that arm?"
"Yeah, mostly," Stiles kneels down beside him. Her balance isn't the best on her good days, but on a day when she's been thrown around the room like a kanima chew toy? Boyd's lucky that she only sloshes the bowl a little bit. "I've dislocated my arm before and this doesn't feel like that. Probably wrenched it pretty good, though." Looking at him, she grimaces. "You realize you've probably got a couple hours like this, right? The whole super werewolf healing thing doesn't seem to do much against kanima venom." She thinks she might have actually recovered faster than Derek, but that might have been because of how she was exposed.
This shit would be so much easier if it came with a handbook. Or, y'know, if Kate Argent hadn't burned down the only house in town that would probably have one.
"Yeah," Boyd sighs. "Guess I won't be much help."
"Eh, you don't suck." Stiles wrings out the cloth and looks at him. "Uh, dude, I'm pretty sure the shirt's toast, but I think we might have something here that fits. The guys from the department are forever leaving their shit here." Which is a minor detail compared to the part where undressing paralyzed members of Derek's pack has become a legitimate thing in her life.
Okay, so, undressing Derek and Boyd isn't exactly a hardship, but Stiles would prefer it be more about happy, consensual fun-times as opposed to, well, homicidal hipsters.
Jackson can pretend he's a jock all he wants, but she knows the truth. She's seen the aviators.
"Here," Lydia says, handing her a pair of scissors. "Easier. Shirt's already ruined. Might as well put it out of its misery."
Which, yup, also there is the part where it makes it less creepy. Okay, no, it doesn't, but Stiles can pretend. Actually, she can pretend like a boss when she needs to. Witness her near-lifelong crush on Lydia Martin.
Stiles brandishes the scissors, looking at Boyd. "You okay with—"
"Yeah, never liked this one anyway."
Which, total lie, and oh great, his grandma probably bought him this shirt or something.
"Well, upside of the kanima being Jackson," she says, trying for a cheerful smile, "You can make him buy like half a dozen better ones."
"At least," Lydia says, settling down beside them. She's got a new frame in her hand and the broken one with Mom in the other. She gives them a smile that's at least twice as terrifying as Jackson's kanima routine as she adds, "He'll be making quite a few reparations once this is over."
"Make sure it's shiny and involves a couple karats," Stiles agrees with actual cheer. Anything which makes Jackson miserable is absolutely something she can get behind. "Right, so, new shirts incoming, and I am totally sorry about this one." At which point she starts cutting it open.
The claw marks across his chest are still bleeding a little, sluggish, and that's probably something to do with the venom too. "We should probably be taking notes on this stuff," she mutters to herself.
"Already am," Lydia singsongs. "I'm still amazed none of you are dead yet."
"Yeah, well, we think fast on the fly and we've been spending a lot of time on the fly," Stiles grumbles. The shirt's starting to stick to the wounds and she shoots an apologetic look Boyd's way before working them free.
"Don't worry; can't feel it anyway."
"You will once it starts wearing off." With the wounds clear, she picks up the cloth again. "Hopefully these things heal up before then. So, uh, have I thanked you for totally trying to save our lives?"
She doesn't need to look to know what kind of expression is on his face. They're not exactly BFFs on their best days. She's never had much use for trying to make friends outside of Scott (she owns her annoying, thank you) and Boyd's never seemed interested in trying.
Needless to say, warm and fuzzy just isn't their thing.
"Don't worry," she wrings out the cloth, grimacing as the water turns red, "I'm not expecting hearts and flowers here. It just seems like the thing you do when a guy nearly gets his guts clawed out trying to protect everybody."
"One of the perks," Boyd says. He almost smiles at the blatantly disbelieving look she fires his way. "Not the getting your guts clawed out part; the helping part. I meant what I told Scott."
"About trying to be him?" Huh. She'd kinda thought that was bullshit. Scott's not as good as Scott most of the time and she doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell any of the time. It's weird to think he's somebody's role model. "Not a bad idea, though with the rushing headlong into sharp, poisonous claws routine, it's a little more Derek Hale than Scott McCall."
"At least no pool this time." Boyd almost grins. "Though, from what I hear, it wasn't all that bad if you ignore the near-death experience."
Stiles really considers killing him for saying that. Really. She can't see the look Allison must be giving her right now, but it probably looks like the one on Lydia's face.
Royally, royally fucked.
"Pool?" Lydia echoes, narrowing her eyes. "Exactly what pool?"
"I may have to murder you, Boyd," Stiles says, quietly resigned. "I hope you don't mind that."
Boyd's head doesn't move, but his eyes track warily between Lydia and Allison. "Don't mind a bit."
"What pool, Stiles?" It's bad enough that Lydia repeats the question, but the tone in her voice is the kind of thing that promises unholy hell if Stiles doesn't answer.
Things were actually so much easier when Scott was legitimately the only real friend she had in the world and she's seriously mourning those days right now.
"Why do you guys have to pay attention to everything?" she asks, fully aware she's whining and, fuck, she deserves this one. "Can't we just focus on the part with the homicidal lizard king?"
"And ignore the part where you spent two hours in a pool with Derek?" Boyd asks and, oh god, she hates him to infinity right now.
"Seriously?" she asks, waving the cloth in his face. "I am dressing your wounds and you betray me like that? Seriously? There will be consequences, Vernon."
She gets a brief moment to enjoy the way he winces before Allison and Lydia both descend on her. Which, okay, they're supposed to be cleaning up the house and not just sitting there staring at her like she's the answer to every goddamn secret in the universe.
"It's not like that, okay?" she mutters, going back to cleaning Boyd's wounds. God, she wants antiseptic right now. The burny, stingy antiseptic. Maybe Deaton has something. She's got to ask about that the next time she's over there. "We were kanima-contained at the time and Derek was totally paralyzed. There was zero funny business involved."
"Once he put his pants back on," Boyd chirps.
"Seriously, Lydia, can you get me some bleach or something? I feel like testing his pain reflexes." Stiles glares at the grinning Boyd. "You shouldn't even—Erica totally spilled, didn't she? She was supposed to be unconscious for that stuff."
"She was, mostly, but she saw enough."
"Like Derek putting his pants back on while Scott CPR'd the hell out of me?" she grimaces. "Okay, whatever, still not supposed to be sharing this shit. What happens with the kanima stays with the kanima."
"So, just to be clear," Lydia insists, slowly, "Pants were not a thing?"
Stiles sighs heavily. "Look, he was heavy, okay? Boots and jeans were not helping with the flotation and it wasn't like he could swim on his own with the being paralyzed part."
"That's where—" Allison winces. "So when you called—"
"Kinda drowning a whole lot," Stiles nods. "Yeah, shit timing on that one, huh?"
"Half-naked Hales aside," Lydia goes back to working on the picture in her lap as if she did not just drop that incredibly impressive image into Stiles' head, "we do need to discuss your interactions with the kanima. I don't have enough data to form any kind of conclusions as to behavioral patterns and we're going to need that if we want to catch him."
"We're going to need more than behavioral patterns to catch him," Stiles says, but she's nodding anyway. Lydia is terrifying on ordinary days. Sitting there, calmly sliding Mom's picture out of the ruined frame like she cleans up wreckage like this every day of the week, Lydia looks like something approaching goddess levels of fear and trembling.
It's so ridiculously hot that Stiles can almost forget the part where Boyd's kind of half-naked and amazing right in front of her. Almost. Seriously, so not blind about that. So not blind at all.
Allison nudges her and there's a wicked little grin on her face when Stiles looks up. "Seriously, though, no pants? As good as I think?"
Stiles glares at Boyd with her best ' breathe a word and I will sprinkle wolfsbane on your wheaties' glare before admitting, "Better," with a wicked little grin of her own. She waves her hands, not really sure what she's trying to describe, but whatever it is, Allison and Lydia both start smirking.
Boyd's response to that is to close his eyes. "Somebody just kill me, okay? I do not need to be hearing this."
Flicking him with the cloth, Stiles laughs. "Man up, Vernon. We haven't even started with the dick jokes yet."
The look of horror on his face is totally worth everything else. The whole damn day has just been made.
She perks up. Now, if she can just figure out a good lie to tell her father she'll be set.
Which is precisely the thought that kills her moment of joy and drops her right back onto the night's emotional roller-coaster. Just, seriously, how is she going to explain this to her father?
"I have no idea what I'm going to tell my dad," she says, in the midst of it all, and her voice is the kind of quiet that would make Scott run for the junk food. "There's no way we can clean all this up before he gets back."
"We won't," Lydia says, getting up. She rehangs Mom's picture with a care that could make Stiles cry if she let herself think about it. Instead, she breathes deep against it and listens. If Lydia's planning she'd be an idiot to ignore her. It's worth it when she turns around to say, "We're going to tell the truth; Jackson did it."
Lydia's literally tearing up as she says it and Stiles gets an image of her father's face when Lydia tearfully describes her boyfriend's rampage. She feels bad about lying to him again, she does, but she can't imagine for a second letting her father meet up with Jackson the kanima. She can't go where that will end up and she will tell every goddamn lie in the book to keep that from happening.
Or, in this case, she'll let Lydia do it.
"To be honest," she says, slowly finding it within herself to smile again, "I'm pretty much totally terrified and turned on right now."
"Get used to it," Allison sighs. "She's just warming up."
"I know," Stiles says, looking at her, "That's the best part."