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It was mid-November of his junior year when he realized things needed to change. He’d been released from the hospital three days earlier, and he still walked with a slight limp.
“You aren’t coming.” Derek said, no-nonsense.
“Yes I am,” Stiles responded with a disbelieving grin.
“Not if you want to live to see Thanksgiving,” Derek said. He was being logical. Stiles gave him an indignant look, and Derek wasn’t moved. Stiles tried to think up some argument, but found he couldn’t, so he looked at Scott instead. Scott looked away. So did most of the pack.
Peter just smiled at him.
“All right,” Stiles said, and nodded. He raised his hands in surrender and backed away from them. “All right.”
He’d gotten tired of arguing, tired of forcing himself into situations he obviously wasn’t needed. More than that he was tired of failing. So he got in the jeep and he drove off before Scott could follow him.
Three days later he’d passed by the doorway of the local vintage shop on his way back to his jeep from the coffee shop when he’d felt a tug. When he walked back out ten minutes later he had a cardboard box holding a paper wrapped, gaudy jewel-encrusted fox skull in hand. He kept it on his lap on the drive home, not quite sure if the box was shuddering because of the way the jeep bounced over the pits in the road or because of what it held. At home he peeled the inexpertly glued on jewels and scraped off as much of the faux-gold finish as he could until the skull looked as near to natural as he could make it.
That night he dreamed of a dozen wood paths and one deep, dark ravine.
When the next day’s sun dawned it found him at the edge of the woods, far from the Hale property. There were large dog tracks in the dirt, and when he lined one up with his shoe it stuck out on all sides.
The fox skull in his hoodie pocket shuddered against the hand he held protectively over it, canine teeth scraping against the skin of his thumb. He turned, eyes widened, to find the beast behind him. Orange-red eyes gleamed at him from a black-furred hound face as the beast stepped up onto the road beside his jeep. It’s shoulder stood level with the jeep’s canvas top.
The fox skull nipped at his fingers impatiently, so he turned with a slight stumble and he ran.
The beast behind him made no sound, but the fox skull shuddered in his pocket, vibrations he could feel through the layers of fabric, rather in the layers of fabric, setting his whole hoodie and shirt dancing as it clattered.
He raced through the forest as if he hadn’t just spent three weeks in a hospital putting his leg back together, weaving between the trees with ease. His breathing was labored, though, and his muscles ached, but the beast was behind him and the path he was on was one he’d learned when he’d run it the night before, and the fox skull snapped and shuddered in his pocket with wild abandon.
So he ran.
When he reached the end of his path, his lungs searing with each breath and his eyes clouded with sweat, the beast was on his heels, breathing hot fire against his back. The fox skull snapped, and he jolted and jumped at its command, grabbing at the low-lying branch of an oak tree. With the last of his strength he swung his legs up to wrap around the branch, and the beast skidded past underneath in a blur, its back scraping against his. At the far end of its turn, a good ten feet out, as it just seemed that it would regain its footing, it tipped over a stand of low bushes and disappeared from his view.
For the first time the beast made a sound, and it was of a horrid and soul-deadening kind that it froze him to the branch and stole the breath from his lungs.
After a long, long moment he dropped to the forest floor, wincing as his leg panged, and made his slow way to the stand of bushes. Just behind it the ground disappeared in a sheer drop, a dark ravine with a darker spot of black smoking slightly at its bottom.
When he put his hand in his hoodie pocket, all he found was a handful of off-white powder.
Later that evening Scott showed up in his room, climbing through the window as Stiles sat tapping away at a research paper for a class the next day.
“So we found it,” Scott said, almost apologetically.
“Good,” Stiles said, then shrugged and nodded as he tapped his fingers along the edge of the keyboard. “That’s good.”
Scott made a face, however, and Stiles licked his lips and raised an eyebrow.
“It was at the bottom of this, like, gorge? Or something…” Scott looked at him them, puzzled. “Like it just fell in there by itself. It was dead.”
“Maybe it looked in a mirror,” Stiles said, and laughed. It was a good joke, considering. Scott must’ve thought so because he laughed too. But then Stiles looked away and rubbed at the back of his neck. He cleared his throat and asked, “Did you figure out why, though?”
“No…” Scott said, shaking his head. Then he cocked his head, and squinted like he was remembering something, and said in an odd tone, “Everything smelled like fox though.”
“Weird,” Stiles said, and Scott agreed.
Sitting at the side of the laptop, the small bottle of powder shuddered slightly.
“Weird,” Stiles repeated again, followed it with a deep breath, and returned to typing.