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“Okay, seriously?” Derek growled finally giving into the nagging irritating need to snap at the two teenagers currently occupying his living room.
“What?” Stiles blinked in surprise, frozen on the spot half way in between the living room and his desired destination, the kitchen.
“It stinks!” Derek huffed massaging his tired eyes, slamming his book closed in annoyance when he realized that Stiles had darted into the kitchen the second his eyes shut; there was no stopping him now, he was too irritated to chase after him. Damn it, Derek didn’t know if he could take this torture anymore he knew they were doing it on purpose to mess with him.
“I blame you for this,” Derek snapped pointing a clawed finger to Elizabeth with a look of physical pain as Stiles waltzed back into the living room a couple of agonizing minutes later, looking far too pleased with himself and reeking of that disgustingly syrupy scent.
“Wha-” Elizabeth smiled mouth wide open displaying her pearly straight white teeth, feigning innocence knowing full well what she had done as she opened up her arms to challenge Derek’s comment as the werewolf in question grabbed the front of his shirt, hooking what he could over the bottom half of his face, looking completely ridiculous with it tented over his nose and his eyes narrowed and glaring at them. “I didn’t know it would be this bad!” Elizabeth giggled obviously she did know and was loving Derek’s reaction, he didn’t regret it at the time or even this morning but throwing her into the lake during the weekend, when the Pack had decided to give in and cool off during one of the hottest days of their Summer Break, was such a bad idea.
Derek had seen Elizabeth’s devious ways, she was in no way as innocent as the little brunette with dimples claimed or portrayed herself to be. It had all started last year harmlessly enough when she had mixed Stiles favourite shampoo with heavy duty hair removal cream forcing him back into the buzz cut, he was even bald for a couple of weeks and refused to remove the beanie hat at least until his scalp wasn’t shining like a beacon for all to see and that was for simply charming the Library, the rebuilt Hale estate had been filled with Elizabeth’s furious screeching and Stiles’ maniacal laughter for 2 weeks whenever she opened a book and said pages let out obscene raspberry farts with paper tongues or screams right out of a horror movie, the entire disaster was right out of the Harry Potter movie with the Red Letter from Mrs. Weasley leaving Elizabeth bright red in embarrassment or flying over the couch in horror each time.
It had taken them all a full day afterwards to remove all said charms, the fear now settled nicely in the backs of everyone’s minds every time they dared to open a book. Stiles still couldn’t help but snort and giggle every time the Pack froze when he or someone else grabbed a book, if they had ears he knew they would be pressed against the backs of their heads, waiting for a screech or cry to violate their poor sensitive ears.
After that it had become a huge war between the two with the Pack unfortunately caught in the middle, the pranks had started innocent enough with whoopee cushions, fake gum and electric shocks and other little hidden devices that one of the Pack accidentally triggered on occasion, it then quickly escalated into scaring one another with firecrackers in pans with either one trying to sleep, dolls charmed with levitation spells sending them flying from the ceiling giving out shrieks to match their victim or fake yet very realistic looking injuries from cutlery and tools from Derek’s garage. The rest of the Pack quickly learnt to keep an eye on both Stiles and Elizabeth and to keep their noses sharp, especially after Stiles’ egg door prank which had left poor Lydia sobbing hysterically, covered in extremely rotten eggs and whatever else Stiles had managed to mix into the bucket. She didn’t talk to him for 2 weeks.
Since then the prank war exploded exponentially and travelled outside of Derek’s home and in grandeur. In retaliation to Stiles filling Elizabeth’s 2014 Mazda3 Sedan with loaded ping pong balls that burst into puffs of flour at the smallest nudge that cost well over $600 to clean up, Elizabeth had dear old Roscoe moved into a no parking zone and covered the windshield with fake parking tickets, then had the jeep towed costing Stiles, or well Stiles’ Father, triple what Elizabeth had to pay to get her car cleaned to get poor Roscoe freed from his metal confinements and impending execution, Stiles had subtlety put it.
To say the tow company, the Sheriff’s Department, and the general public were unimpressed with the growing intensity of their stunts was an understatement. To add to Elizabeth’s joy Stiles stormed the day after Roscoe’s movie-worthy release into the Loft, still their den at the time, ranting about how his Dad had lectured him the entire night and took away his internet privileges for 2 weeks, the Pack had tuned him out around the time he mentioned ‘teenage urges and hormones’.
That day was definitely a win for Elizabeth.
It was only a couple of months ago that Jackson and Stiles decided to get their own payback after the previous weeks debacle, a rather innocent prank compared to everything else yet nonetheless almost got Stiles arrested for disturbing the peace and indecent exposure. Jackson was simply in it to see Elizabeth’s reaction and would never admit he wanted to get his own payback for when one of her more innocent pranks, an air horn had left him partially deaf in one ear for a couple of hours and with very little dignity left after screaming in a pitch the Pack never thought possible for the boy.
The boys were giddy with excitement, waiting for the moment when Elizabeth opened her bedroom door to find it in complete disarray; furniture stuck to the ceiling, panties hanging out of the window for all to see, make-up now decorating the walls in hideous child-like drawings all courteous of a small pack of Fae, who like the boys had hidden in the wardrobe recording the whole thing, giggling away.
Elizabeth hadn’t reacted like they expected, Derek had to physically pull her away from Jackson for her own good fearing she may punch him and hurt herself while the werewolf taunted her bold choice of underwear. Lydia had to drag him out of the house, cackling away before things got worse, Stiles had tried to apologize in-between his giggling not realizing he had crossed an unspoken line between them but Elizabeth simply ignored him and locked herself inside of her bedroom, only speaking to Lydia when they knocked on the door with pizza.
They had expected the silent treatment, at first it didn’t mean too much to them when she didn’t reply to their “hellos” in the morning during first period but then they started getting paranoid when after 2 weeks she still hadn’t spoken to either of them. Elizabeth’s counter-attacks always always bit Stiles in the arse a couple of days after his own prank but there was nothing. No stealing of clothing forcing him to run naked across the town in search for them, no towing of Roscoe (which he was thankful for), no rotten eggs hidden above doors, no creepy dolls placed creepily in shadows in the corner of his bedroom, not even a measly whoopee cushion was to be found. Adding that on top of the extreme arctic cold shoulder she was giving him and Jackson, being on edge was the biggest of all understatements of the century.
“Liz, c’mon!” Stiles had whined pathetically to his friend, wait were they friends anymore? He didn’t know she wouldn’t talk to him so he couldn’t find out and it was killing him. ‘Literally! What am I gonna do? I don’t know how to fix it if she wouldn’t talk to me, oh god what if she never talks to me ever, what if she was thinking of leaving the Pack, of moving away from Beacon Hills because of the prank!? Oh great, you just made yourself paranoid, way-to-go, Stiles,’ were regular thoughts for the poor teen, his anxiety levels sky-rocketed more when Elizabeth continued to rummage through her locker, it was like Stiles didn’t exist.
“Elizabeth, I think a certain someone would like to talk to you, maybe to apologize,” Lydia huffed, raising her perfectly sculpted eyebrows in expectation as she pointed her head to Stiles with look that screamed ‘speak to him.’
“I didn’t hear anything,” Elizabeth replied flippantly, slamming her locker closed and with books in hand calmly walked to her next class leaving the Pack in the hallway with mouths wide open.
“I don’t believe this,” Stiles threw his hands up in the air, letting gravity take them back down to slap painfully against his thighs making him wince. “I’ve tried everything, Scotty. Everything! She won’t even look at me, dude! It’s like I’ve turned into the invisible man or something. Wait, you guys can see me, right?!” Stiles panicked, waving his hands obnoxiously in front of Scott’s face.
Scott looked to his best friend with an annoyed yet sympathetic grimace, unsure of what to do he shrugged lowered Stiles’ hands to stop them from blurring his vision and patted his best friend on the shoulder, “She’s gotta talk to you sometime right?”
“Right,” Stiles nodded eagerly, rolling his shoulders and neck letting that little piece of hope build up his confidence until he was standing tall once more, well, he still flailed about like a fish out of water when he tipped over his own feet as they strolled to their next lesson. “Right, yeah of course. She can’t ignore me forever, right? Right?”
“Wrong,” Derek growled, arms tightly crossed against his chest his face scowling more than usual. “Don’t you think you’ve gone a little too far with the silent treatment, Elizabeth?” Elizabeth glared back at Derek through her lashes at the werewolf towering above her slouched form over the latest piece of homework, the dining table wasn’t the most comfortable of places to study but Elizabeth knew that if she sat in the living room she would get distracted by the comfy-ness of the leather couches, soak into the plush fur pillows and fall asleep. She also wasn’t totally avoiding the others she could hear in there, yelling about some stupid movie playing on the TV. Totally not avoiding. Nope.
“It’s justified, Derek,” Elizabeth parroted the conclusion to her earlier statement of explaining why Stiles reeked of anxiety and sadness and kept giving her the biggest set of puppy dog eyes he had ever seen since Scott. Derek complained he could even smell it before the Jeep emerged from the trees which she knew was total bullshit.
“You can’t still be angry over that,” Derek scoffed sitting beside her his broad shoulders blocking her view of the back of Scott and Allison’s snuggling heads. “It was a harmless prank, Liz—”
“Ugh, I know that!” Elizabeth hissed cheeks flushing brightly when she realized those graced with enhanced hearing were listening into their conversation by the twitching of ears and the im-totally-not-listening-im-just-finding-a-comfortable-neck-position head tilting, the devious bastard had planned this all along and she fell for it. “I just…I don’t know how to apologize, I’m too embarrassed.”
If Elizabeth were honest her fury had disappeared not long after the prank, she had actually found it quite funny after her delicates had been hidden in the back of her wardrobe away from prying eyes and her stomach was full on pizza. She wanted to apologize, to accept Stiles apology (she knew she was never going to get one from Jackson so she gave up on him pretty quickly) but her pride was too hurt to let her say it.
“You know Stiles, he’ll accept anything you give him so please fix it,” Derek smirked cockily with a soft plea in his eyes, those stupid pale green, blue, hazel, multicoloured bullshit-you-wear-contacts-and-I-will-find-proof-one-day, eyes.
Elizabeth sighed heavily, agreeing with a meek nod, “I’ll try.”
And that’s how they had gotten here, after their impromptu successful trip to the lake, where Derek’s attempt at cheering them up had been to throw the pair of them into the lake at the same time with his stupid wolfy strength, Elizabeth and Stiles were talking again, non-stop. The Pack almost began to miss the quiet when they did, talking continuously about everything they had missed out on during their little hiatus from one another, they almost missed the quiet. It had only been that very afternoon when Derek and Scott returned from meeting with a nomad Pack wanting to pass through their territory, thankfully peacefully, did Derek realize his mistake. The house smelt sickly sweet but not the good kind that made you nostalgic of the sweets you ate as a child or hunger for whatever treat was to be had; oh no this was the kind of smell that made your nose, the back of your throat burn and your stomach churn.
Scott the traitorous bastard had bolted from the house, exclaiming he needed to see Allison all the while covering his nose with the sleeve of his hoodie, eyes watering and gagging throat closing up at the scent. Derek had almost gotten away with escaping upstairs when Elizabeth fervently insisted that he help them with some translations from a book that had been salvaged from the old library. So he had to sit there, hour after hour, trying hard to focus on the translations, transferring the words from singed pages to Stiles digital bestiary and Elizabeth’s physical copy she insisted they added to the library ‘just in case. You never know, there might be a time when we won’t have access to gadgets, Der.’
“STOP!” Derek pleaded now burying his nose in the crook of his elbow, sucking in deep breaths of his own scent, of the Pack’s scent rooted deeply in the seams of his shirt as Stiles scuttled back into the living room, his thick fluffy socks padding against the hardwood flooring, another present from Elizabeth to ‘protect his little piggies from the cold.’
“What’s the matter, Der?” Elizabeth asked with a sugary tone almost as nauseating as the smell wafting from the two large mugs, one black with a Batman logo the other a red-blue-white spider web design with Spiderman’s large eyes right in the middle, sitting comfortably in Stiles’ hands. Stiles completely oblivious to Derek’s suffering sat back in his usual spot, bottom comfortably seated in a plush pillow as he slid one mug to Elizabeth, who had unfortunately decided to sit right next to Derek giving him the full view of the beverage that Stiles inhaled deeply like it were oxygen.
It had been professionally made; all thanks to the brand new Starbucks-esque coffee maker Elizabeth had managed to procure, by means unknown to Derek, as a sorry present to Stiles, the first of many, for giving him such a hard time. The boy unknowingly insisted it be placed in the Hale kitchen for everyone’s use seeing as the Pack were all at the house most of the time anyway it made sense at the time until Elizabeth had taught Stiles how to make this…abomination.
A coma inducing white chocolate Coffee with 5 teaspoons of sugar stirred in vigorously mixed with thick whipping cream instead of normal milk and all topped with a thick layer of whipped cream, white chocolate shavings, milk chocolate dust and a cinnamon stick. The smell had been bad enough for the older werewolf, even sat by the window open as wide as it would go he would still get wafts of the sugary treat every now and again that made his throat dry up but to make it worse the two teenagers were consuming the drink as if it were water.
Ever since he had come home he had counted at least 4 cups each between them, he was beginning to think the two were already or were close to becoming diabetic or would rot their teeth something fierce if they didn’t stop.
“You’re awful,” Derek whined burying his head into his arms, sucking in deep breaths of fresh air from the chilly breeze underneath the table. “You’re both awful.”
“Cheer up, Sourwolf,” Stiles moaned obscenely, his feet knocking against the werewolves, his toes rubbing up and down his warm fuzzy toes. Derek glanced up from his arms, smirking fondly at what he saw.
Reaching over, his sleeve pulled over his hand Derek unconciously wiped the top of Stiles’ lips where he sported a frothy moustache Stiles simply let him, smiling and blushing softly in thanks. Little moments like this were pretty frequent in recent months; small touches, secret smiles between them, inside jokes only they understood, an overwhelming urge to protect one another during hunts for the weekly beastly, things that had never would have happened before when Derek was darker, closed off and emotionally constipated.
The Pack had definitely helped Derek to become more relaxed, he was playful, caring, heck he even laughed, loudly, in public these days and it was a welcome change for all of them. They were no longer just a group of misfit rag tag teenagers being corrupted by a former murder suspect and his creep of an uncle getting into trouble, they were a family though they did still get into trouble but hey, with their hometown being a literal beacon for everything magical it was to be expected.
“And you say the drink is sickly sweet,” Elizabeth snorted into her mug, smirking proudly when their cheeks burned brighter, their eyes averted away from one another. Derek smiled privately into the crook of his elbow; gently knocking his feet against Stiles’ welcoming the comfort his touch gave him and his preening wolf.