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It wasn't all that surprising when Scott got caught by his dad. Stiles almost felt a little guilty about that because splitting up, however accidentally, had been like setting Scott up to be found. It's not like Scott could easily run away or silence the sound of his heavy breaths. Stiles listened with a wince as his dad gave Scott a dressing down and then inwardly cheered when Scott deflected the question about Stiles by faking an asthma attack. He waited until a few minutes after he'd stopped hearing the sounds of his dad ushering Scott back to the cars and perhaps even to a doctor. Stiles was just lucky his jeep was parked on the other side of the woods or that would have been it.
He looked around for the inhaler Scott had dropped while they were running from the police. When he'd been 10, he'd had to listen to a half hour lecture from Ms McCall about the importance of valuing someone else's possessions. Mostly it had been about how he'd destroyed Scott's inhaler and did he know how much these things cost? (He got the same lecture from his dad later, after he'd seen how much it would cost to replace the inhaler.)
He couldn't find the inhaler anywhere and he didn't want to backtrack too far and maybe run into any of his dad's deputies, so Stiles saved the GPS coordinates on his phone. He and Scott could come back after school, in daylight, and have another look around. In fact, daylight didn't seem like a bad idea. He wasn't afraid - of course not - but it was pretty dark and eerily quiet and it would probably be best to head home anyway because there was no doubt his dad would swing by the house and check on Stiles after he'd dropped off Scott.
Stiles slid his phone back into his pocket and turned around to head back to his car. As he turned, his foot caught on a root and he stumbled and nearly crashed into the nearest tree. It was only after he'd caught himself and taken a few calming breaths that Stiles focused on the outside world again.
He immediately wished he hadn't. On the other side of the tree that he was still clinging to lay the body of a woman in her twenties, with pale, blue-tinted skin and an empty, expression on her face. The lower half of her body was missing. Stiles felt bile rise in his throat and he jerked away, taking a few steps back to get some distance between him and the body. He needed to call his dad or one of the deputies. Or better yet, wait until the next day and pretend he and Scott found it in the afternoon. He needed—
Stiles head snapped up at the noise of rustling leaves. His breath caught in his throat and his heart missed a beat or two. A few feet away, staring right at him, was a giant animal. It looked wolf-like, but heavier and larger than any wolves Stiles had seen in zoos. Wolves weren't even supposed to occur in the wild in this part of the country.
The wolf started growling and Stiles back away, hands shaking. He could have sworn that the wolf's eyes glowed red, but that was impossible.
The wolf's muscles tensed and Stiles found himself running on instinct. He scrambled backwards and then ran away from the wolf blindly and as fast as he could. Logically, he knew he wouldn't be able to outrun the animal and that it would have been better to climb a tree or even try and scare it off. But he'd started running without conscious thought and he couldn't stop now. The wolf was chasing him, gaining on him, and if he stopped now, he was dead. Despite knowing that the wolf was faster, it still surprised Stiles when he felt a heavy weight press against his back, bringing him crashing down. The fall didn't hurt too much - he'd have a few scrapes and bruises, but nothing too bad. But it did disorient Stiles for a moment. It disoriented him enough so that he didn't even realize the wolf was standing over him until the animal darted in and bit him, sinking sharp teeth into Stiles' side.
Stiles screamed and kicked out, catching the wolf in the soft part of the belly. He kicked and screamed and struggled until he realized that he was alone. The wolf was gone.
Breathing heavily, Stiles pulled off his plaid shirt and pressed it to his bleeding site. It hurt. Stiles could feel the burn of the wound and the red slickness of his skin and it made his stomach churn. He needed to get help. He needed to find his dad. He needed to go home.
Somehow, Stiles made it back to his jeep and climbed into the driver's seat. He barely remembered the drive home. His entire head felt puffy and his body moved on autopilot, switching gears and steering him home more from muscle memory and routine than anything else.
His dad's cruiser wasn't in the driveway. Stiles paused. How bad was it, really? He already felt better than he had in the woods. His wooziness was almost gone and he could walk up the stairs without a problem. The wound still hurt, but it had stopped bleeding. There really wasn't any point in going to the ER and getting grounded until he was fifty. It wasn't like this was anything life-threatening. He could make up a story about a dog bite in a couple of days and get a rabies shot. He'd be fine.
Stiles took two painkillers, cleaned the wound and slapped a bandage on it. He washed out his clothing as best as he could and then buried it at the bottom of the hamper. It was his week to do laundry anyway. His dad would never know.
Exhausted, Stiles fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
###
When Stiles woke up the next morning, he felt weird.
Well, technically, he felt good. He felt amazing. Which was weird.
His hand flew to his side. It didn't even hurt to put his hand on the bite, and when he sat up, his side didn't twinge with pain. Carefully, Stiles peeled off the bandage.
There was no bite mark. No injury at all. There was a smear of blood on the bandage, but that was it. Stiles blinked at it stupidly for a moment, then he grabbed his phone off the bedside table.
The photo he'd taken last night clearly showed a jagged bite wound on his side.
"STILES! BREAKFAST!"
Stiles flinched at the sheer volume of his dad's yell. A moment later, he shook his head. He could have sworn he just heard his dad muttering something about butter and bacon under his breath. In the kitchen.
Impossible.
Stiles threw off the blanket and headed for the bathroom. A glance into the mirror told him that all the cuts and scrapes from his fall the night before were gone as well. He had magically healed a bite wound and several cuts and bruises over night. It was impossible, but he didn't even have a paper cut when he should have had a whole chuck missing from his side.
Frowning, Stiles switched on the shower and stepped underneath the spray of water.
The weirdness only grew. After his shower, Stiles could smell blood. The only source of blood in the bathroom were his clothes from the day before. He dug them out of the hamper and nearly gagged at the smell of blood. But he'd washed off the worst of it the night before. All that was left was a faint red hue to his t-shirt and the white threads of his plaid shirt. Stiles re-buried the shirts and got dressed. He could smell things and hear things he had never heard before. Like his dad's heartbeat. (He tested it by hugging his dad, pushing his face into his dad's neck until he could feel his pulse. It matched up with what Stiles was hearing.)
After wishing his dad a good night, Stiles headed to school. His jeep reeked of blood.
Scott was mad at Stiles for getting him grounded forever, especially after he heard that Stiles hadn't found his inhaler.
"We can go and look for it after school," Stiles said. "I have the GPS data."
"Great. You can go do that while I go straight home, don't stop anywhere and call my mom from the landline the second I get home. Because, you know, I'm grounded," Scott said, glaring at him. "Forever."
Stiles sighed. "I'm sorry. Really. I couldn't find it anywhere and—oh, crap. I nearly forgot."
"What?"
Stiles looked around and then pulled Scott to the side. "I found the body," he whispered.
"WHAT?" Scott's eyes widened. "Where? When? How?"
"Really close to where we were last night," Stiles said. "It was after my dad dragged you off. And I literally stumbled over it."
"No way."
"Way," Stiles said. "But that's not even the weird part."
"It's not?"
Stiles shook his head. "I saw a wolf."
"In the woods?"
"It bit me."
"What? Show me. Did you see a doctor?"
"No." Stiles looked around again. The whole thing was weird, but it felt even weirder to talk about it. He handed Scott his cell phone. "Look at the picture. That's last night."
Scott looked at the picture and whistled. "Man, it got you good. Doesn't it hurt? How are you even at school today?"
"Because," Stiles said, "it disappeared." He pulled up his shirt and showed Scott his unblemished skin. "Gone. Just like the other cuts I had and any bruises I had. Even the one on my leg from practice the other day."
Scott looked from his side to the picture and back. "How is that possible?"
"I have no idea. But I'm gonna find out." Stiles took his phone back and put it in his pocket. "If you need me, I'll be in the library."
"Do you want me to help?"
"What's your mom going to say if she gets a call about you cutting classes?"
Scott grimaced. "That because I'm already grounded forever, she'll lock up my XBox and my TV."
Stiles patted Scott's shoulder in sympathy. "I'll go looking for your inhaler after school. And if your mom allows visitors, I'll drop by and we can do some more research together, okay?"
"Okay."
Stiles held his hand up and Scott bumped his fist into Stiles'. They split up inside the building, Scott heading for his locker, Stiles heading for the library. Nobody just developed enhanced senses and healing powers overnight outside of fairy tales and comic books, so that's where he'd start. He pulled every book on mythology and legends he could find off the shelves and dug in.
After the forth book, Stiles was relatively certain it was werewolves. (Okay, so technically his very first thought had been 'werewolf!', but that had sounded too ridiculous even for him. It didn't sound quite so ridiculous any more after being able to tell what the librarian had packed for lunch and how many people were outside in the hallway, talking.) He used one of the library's computers to find more info online. Despite the number of sites he couldn't access from a school computer, he found several reference to werewolves with red eyes, specifically alpha werewolves. So he hadn't been hallucinating the glowing red eyes. It all fit. He'd been attacked by a werewolf.
Stiles had a brief moment of panic when he realized that he was probably a werewolf now, fangs and claws and all. It was only when he realized that he was halfway through ripping up a six-hundred-page book on Eastern European mythology that Stiles became aware of what it meant to be a werewolf. He wasn't human any more. He was something else. Something he hadn't even know existed. He had super strength and better senses and god knows what else. He needed help. He couldn't just carry on like nothing had happened. What if he lost control and bit someone? What if he turned into a monster wolf like the one that bit him and went on a rampage? What if he hurt his dad, or Scott? He had zero experience with being a werewolf. How could he even begin to control this?
Could he even control it or would he turn into a mindless monster on full moon nights?
Frowning, Stiles looked at his left hand, wondering if he could grow claws or transform his fingernails or however that worked.
It didn't work. No matter how hard he concentrated, it didn't happen. His hand stayed smooth and hairless and his fingernails remained blunt and human.
Stiles sighed. He needed to go back to the woods. Maybe find the wolf that bit him and get him to explain. He quickly put his books into the bin for the librarian to shelf, except for the one he'd nearly destroyed. That one he stuffed into his backpack before sneaking out of the building.
Stiles sent Scott a short text from the parking lot, saying he was cutting the rest of his classes to go looking for the inhaler.
Driving through the woods was a strange experience. When he had the window down, he could smell so much more than he used to be able to smell. The scent of the trees and other plants were much stronger and mixed with a musky hot smell that Stiles thought must be bigger animals. He parked the jeep in the same spot as the night before and pulled out his phone. Following the GPS coordinates got him back to the place where he'd found the body, but when he looked around, he couldn't find the body or Scott's inhaler. There wasn't even a trace of his own frantic escape and the attack that had followed.
Stiles sighed and glanced around, trying to catch a glimpse of Scott's white inhaler, or maybe a trace of red blood or even part of the dead body that he knew had to be around here somewhere. But after turning in a circle several times, Stiles was sure that there was nothing around apart from trees and dead leaves. He glanced down to check his phone's GPS again, but this was definitely the spot.
When Stiles looked up again, there was a man standing between two trees about twenty feet away. Stiles backed away a few steps when the man started walking towards him.
"What are you doing here?"
For a moment, Stiles was too stunned to speak. The man was in his early twenty, with dark hair and pale skin. He was wearing all black clothing, including a leather jacket that Stiles was instantly jealous over.
"This is private property," the man added, coming to a stop only a few feet away. Stiles blinked. The guy looked familiar somehow.
"Sorry, man, I didn't know," Stiles stammered. "I was just, um. My friend lost his—"
Stiles broke off when the man pulled his hand out of his pocket and tossed something at him. Stiles reflexively caught the object. It was Scott's inhaler.
When Stiles looked up again, the man had already turned his back on him and was walking into the opposite direction.
Stiles' thoughts were racing. The only house he knew of that was that deep inside the woods was the burnt-down ruin of the Hale house. That would make the man Derek Hale, one of only three survivors of a house fire that nearly killed an entire family. But the last thing he knew about Derek and his sister was that they'd left town shortly after the fire. It seemed like too much of a coincidence for him to be back right after Stiles got attacked in the woods. Plus, Stiles hadn't heard him approach, not even with his new werewolf senses.
"Hey, wait up!" he yelled, shoving the inhaler into his pocket and starting a quick jog to catch up to Derek.
Derek still had the same dour look on his face, but there was an edge of impatience in it. "What? You got your inhaler back, what else do you want here?"
"Well." Stiles licked his lips nervously. "This is going to sound really crazy, but you wouldn't happen to be a werewolf, would you? Because I was here last night and there was this--"
A second later, Derek shoved him up against a tree with an arm across Stiles' throat. Startled, Stiles grabbed Derek's arm, but he didn't have enough leverage to push him away. He stopped struggling altogether when he saw that his hands had changed. His wrist and fingers looked pretty much the same, but his fingertips had lengthened a little and his fingernails were thicker, longer and a whole lot sharper than seconds before.
Derek lifted his arm off Stiles and took a step back. "I guess that answers that question."
"What question?" Stiles asked distractedly. He could definitely feel fangs in his mouth and his vision had a weird quality to it, like things were at the same time sharper than before, but also blurry. And everything seemed to have a slight red tint.
"If he bit you," Derek said.
"So I was right," Stiles said. "Huh." He looked at Derek. "So I'm guessing - since you're not running for the hills or screaming about monsters - that you…"
Stiles trailed off when Derek nodded, his eyes glowing an electric blue.
"Wow." Stiles watched in fascination as the claws on his hands disappeared and his hand returned to its regular human appearance. This was so cool. "Wait a second. You said if he bit me. You mean that wasn't you? There's another one?"
Derek hesitated for a moment and then started walking. "Come on. This is gonna take some time to explain." He jerked his head to the side, motioning for Stiles to follow him.
Stiles took a deep breath and followed Derek deeper into the woods.