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Stiles bakes when he’s anxious. He bakes and he cleans and he bakes some more, and while that thing is baking he starts baking something else, and right now he’s on meat pies, so he’s browning off meat and cutting up vegetables and rolling out pie crust and it’s a good thing he lives with werewolves because otherwise they would never eat all the food he makes.
And, speaking of the devil, Cora is standing at the island behind him grabbing cookies from the peanut butter cookie plate. He can feel her at the back of his neck, and he can hear the crunch of the crunchy peanut butter as she chews on one—or more—of them.
“You need to leave at least a few of those for Ry,” he tells her.
She laughs. “You have plenty left, don’t worry. And two fruit pies, a cake, and whatever you’re making now.”
“Pork pie. There’s chicken and asparagus pie in the oven.” He stirs the meat, then turns off the heat. They don’t need to cook too much, just enough so it won’t end up raw without him overcooking the pasty, because it’s thin pastry.
She walks over and touches his back, leaning her chin on his shoulder. He touches his head to hers, but even that much is getting him antsy, so he moves away under the pretense of moving his vegetables around. She steps away, giving him some space. “What’s got you so rattled?”
Stiles flinches, the hand with the knife slipping and almost cutting him. He drops it down on the cutting board with a clatter, staring down at it. “The tree is antsy again,” he says finally.
Cora swears under her breath. “You need to tell Mom.”
“I know. I just—” He scrubs a hand against his mouth. “I can feel it under my skin, and I just want to run.”
“Then run.”
He shakes his head, because she doesn’t get it and he doesn’t know how to explain it. “Not run like me. Run like—run like you, run like a wolf, run as a wolf. It—it forgets, sometimes, that I’m human. It sees me in the net, more than someone like Ry is in the net, because the metaphysics is different, because the emissary node has a perpendicular structure instead of a parallel one, and the planes don’t line up, and the tree has only known wolf and human and I am—I am not, and so it is under my skin, it’s in my bones, and I can’t—”
“Stiles, why don’t you turn and look at me.”
Stiles spins, more out of surprise than any desire to actually look at Talia, who’s standing next to the island with her arms loose at her sides, head tilted just a little. A neutral position. “Mom.”
She stares at him for a moment, likely taking in the fact that he looks like shit and has flour all over him. “Go talk to the Nemeton.”
Stiles feels his face fall. He doesn’t want to talk to the Nemeton. The only thing worse than being bothered from afar by the Nemeton is being bothered in person by the Nemeton. “I don’t want to.”
There’s another moment, and then she asks, “Do you remember when you brought home a kitten when you were ten?”
Stiles frowns at her. “Ye-es,” he draws out, confused by this change in topic.
“Do you remember what I said?”
“That you hoped it didn’t have rabies.”
Cora snorts next to him, and he tries to grin at her, though he’s not sure the muscles in his face actually succeed at that. Talia smiles, too, but says, “I told you that we were a wolf pack, and that we wouldn’t have a cat in our midst. Do you know what you did?”
“Cry?”
Now Talia’s smile broadens. “You went to the Nemeton, and you sat there and told it you wanted to keep the kitten. And then, half an hour later, you came back and told me that the Nemeton said you could keep the kitten. And do you know where that kitten is right now?”
“Sleeping in Derek’s shoe, probably.” Fang is a cat that was raised by werewolves and thinks it’s a very small werewolf, though she very much has the hiding-in-boxes instinct. Or, at least, the hiding-in-Derek’s-shoe instinct. Always the right shoe. It’s fucking adorable.
Talia nods. “That tree would give you the moon if it could figure out how to. The damn thing’s like another parent, one that gives you candy and sends you home with a sugar high. Go see the Nemeton. Do you want Derek to go with you?”
Stiles sighs, then reaches down in the back of his spine and pokes at the Nemeton until it wakes up and gives a grumpy twitch. It perks up at the idea of him visiting, even easing up on the need to run a little bit, but there’s no desire to see Derek, so Stiles withdraws, shaking his head. “No, no Derek. I’ll go alone.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” Stiles sighs again, wiping his hands on his shirt. “I’ll finish this pie, and then I’ll go. But if the tree tries to turn me into a werewolf or something, you’re paying for my therapy.”
“I already pay for your therapy.”
“Right.” Stiles walks over and gives Talia a kiss on the cheek. “I love you. But seriously. So much therapy from the tree. So much.”