Chapter Text
It had been a day. Like a serious shit-filled day. And honestly? It didn’t look like it was done yet.
Stiles scrubbed one hand from his grime-covered forehead through his hair, the other coming up to land against a tree as he stumbled. With his body trembling, Stiles slumped against the rough bark.
“Come on, Stiles. You gotta keep going, y-you can totally do this. You’ve held up a goddamn Alpha in a pool for freakin’ hours, you’ve been t-tortured by geriatric psycho hu-ugh-hunters, and, um, y-you survived a-all the suicide runs Coach makes you do. God, those are awful. Now, c-come on, dude, you’ve been h-hurt before.”
Stiles pushed himself up with his hands and began to take careful steps forward before the little determination he had built up left him. One step, another step, one more and- nothing.
Blinking stupidly, Stiles groaned as his brain caught up. He’d fallen. Like, face-first into the dirt. His arms had barely come up in time to break his fall and he had, unfortunately, smushed his face right into the mud. Why had he fallen? Stiles had no idea, just that he had suddenly found himself on his stomach on the forest floor. Though it was likely that his leg had just given way.
“Blurgh, ugh, oh, that’s disgusting,” Stiles spluttered, desperately wiping at his tongue to get the mud out of his mouth.
When he tried to clamber back up onto his hands and knees, Stiles found himself, once again, sprawled in the muck, swearing at the shooting pain in his right leg. He rolled gracelessly and rather violently onto his back to relieve the pressure. He lay there, panting, as the stars swirled above him.
Stars aren’t supposed to do that, right? Well, I mean, the earth moves, but we’re not supposed to see th- oh crap, I’m not doing so good, am I?
“Okay, o-okay. Think, Stiles, there’s gotta be some- phone!”
Hissing slightly as he jostled the injuries on his body, Stiles reached under to pull his phone out of his back pocket. It was an uncomfortable position, and his fingers were slippery with mud, and blood probably, a dark part of his mind reminded him, but he managed to grab hold of it. Holding down the power button, the phone turned on with a jaunty little tune which made Stiles giggle deliriously. It was so out of place in this dark forest where predators roamed.
“No!”
Stiles slapped a hand over his mouth, dampening the guttural sob that climbed up his throat.
No service. Again.
The phone flickered with a warning that the battery was low, and there, in the top right corner, were the words ‘No service’. Like it had the previous three (three!), times he had turned it on.
Seriously, what the hell were the phone companies doing?! People came out to the Preserve all the time. They needed service, for like, when they were in trouble. Like he was, right now!
Damn it.
Stiles couldn’t get up again. He couldn’t keep walking to try and find his way out of the woods, or to try to find a signal. It was physically impossible at this point.
“It’s okay, it... it’ll be okay. S-Scott will find me. I’m just in the Preserve! His we-werewolfy nose will s-uh-sniff me out in, like, n-no time.”
He couldn’t keep walking. There was not much to do besides wait for rescue. Well, there was one thing.
Pressing his left hand to his forehead, Stiles took a few slow, deep breaths as he prepared himself for what he was about to do. He turned on the flashlight on his phone and trailed the light down his body, trying to assess his injuries.
Oh jeez. This is so not good.
There was blood. Lots of it. Too much, in fact, way too much. Stiles was covered in it, his jeans were ripped and shredded as if a crazed fashionista had gone after them with scissors, and there was an ominous tear in the lower right of his shirt where most of the blood seemed to be coming from.
It was just claws, right? Don’t remember teeth. No. No teeth. Oh please, don’t have been teeth.
Despite his brain begging him to just ignore the possibility, his uncontrollable curiosity won out and Stiles reached down with a surprisingly steady hand to carefully pull his shirt up. Biting down on his lower lip, he sucked in air with a violent hiss then groaned as he slammed his phone, and his hand as the phone was still clenched in it, onto his face. Pain. Every slight tug of his shirt hurt like hell. It pulled against his wound, and it felt like he was tearing at his own skin. But he kept going. Stiles may not have super strength, or senses, or healing, but he had his determination, his stubbornness, so, despite the pain that made him writhe and jerk in the mud, that made him arch his back and press his fist into his forehead, and bite until he tasted salt in his mouth, he kept going.
When finally, finally, it didn’t hurt anymore, Stiles took a few moments to breathe and calm his racing heart before turning the light to his side. Everything shone with shades of red. He couldn’t see much besides blood when he twisted his neck to see. With a feeling of dread sinking into him, right to his bones, making his body feel heavy and lethargic (though that could also be the blood loss), Stiles pushed himself up onto his elbows so he could take a closer look at what he just knew was there.
A bite.
Even underneath all the blood, he could see it. Dark red deep jagged holes in the shape of sharp teeth and scratches moving from them outward as if the wolf had been dragged away from its prey, from Stiles, or Stiles had been ripped away from it, while its fangs had been embedded in his side.
“Oh, fuck.”
A bite. A goddamn bite.
He was going to turn into a werewolf, which was something he’d never truly wanted, or die, which was really not a better option.
‘You’re lucky you got bit. Without it, you’d definitely die, rather than just possibly die,’ a voice whispered in his head. ‘You better hope that it takes, otherwise you’ll bleed out before you even start to reject it.’
A voice that sounded suspiciously like Zombiewolf, the recently resurrected mad Alpha Peter Hale.
“Serusly? Am eh goong mad?” Stiles slurred, his arm dropping out to the side which sent his phone skittering away and out of his grip. “Noo! Pluse, uh, please, I don’ wanna die. Please...”
His fingers twitched a few more times in a feeble attempt to reach the phone but his eyelids felt so heavy. Stiles couldn’t keep his eyes open. Then he went limp. He was pale and still, the only visible sign of life the shallow rise and fall of his chest. Stiles had lost consciousness. And then, just about a second later, his phone began vibrating and making a series of airy whoosh sounds so quickly that the sounds tripped over each other in a chaotic jumble. The messages he had been trying to send all night long were being sent. On the phone screen, the alert for low battery flashed and, right there, in the corner, one bar. Just out of Stiles’ reach and it had finally gotten a signal, albeit wavering and weak. Stiles lay there, dead to the world, not only unaware his call for help had been sent out but also unaware of it being answered as both he and his phone clung to life.