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“There’s been a huge spike in heart attacks in the area.”
“Well, tell me something I don’t know.”
Stiles was clicking his way through, like, a millionth article dedicated to another dead person in Beacon Hills. And, for crying out loud, all of them were heart attacks. In the past sixty years or so there’d been happening those unexplainable jerks in the charts. Every twelve years, give or take, in a matter of maybe two months, more people died - solely because their pumps decided to take the rest of eternity off - than for the rest of the year.
Scott was drumming his fingers against his arm.
“Why has nobody picked up on that before?”
Stiles sighed heavily. He felt like he was talking to a seven-year-old. A dumb seven-year-old who has a turnip for a brain and doesn’t feel obligated to even try to use it.
“Well, it’s not like they’ve been flattened and tied into cute little bows, you know. There’s a perfectly good explanation. Every single doctor confirmed it, there was no doubt. Heart failure, that’s it. Why would anyone even check for any patterns?”, he stated more than asked, and turned back to face his laptop. “It seems we’re at the beginning of such a period now,” he added.
“Any ideas what may be causing it?”
“None, for now. I mean, several. But I dare you to go and give eighteen different explanations to Derek. So, no valid ones.”
“Are you going to find it?”
“If I can get a minute or two undisturbed, dude.”
“Um, yeah, right, sorry.”
Scott could really get under his skin. It’s not like he did it on purpose, though. He had to have his mind put to some use. Hence his questions, stupid as they may seem. They stop Scott from going nuts in the face of danger. That’s how he files his thoughts, gives them an order. Stiles dubbed it “Scott’s Brain Triage”.
One thought got a green slip. It was a ‘walking wounded’ thought. Generally useless, bearing little to no actual data at all. Irrelevant, you may say, but not quite. It’s like this old one-dollar bill you have stuck in your pocket for months. It may not save your life, but it may buy you a juicebox.
Another thought got a yellow slip. It was good. It was healthy information. The base of what Scott needed to know. Thanks to yellow ones he could begin the actual thinking process (or at least Stiles hoped it’s what actually occurred).
There were the red ones, too. These were vital. Crucial. Enough said, these were the thoughts Scott absolutely needed and deemed the most necessary for the case.
There were no black ones, though. Stiles’s never seen Scott dismiss a thought as dead. Even if it was leading them up the freaking garden path, Scott would stop to see if there wasn’t a bone to be dug somewhere near the rose bush.
That’s how well Stiles knew his friend. So well that he developed names for his thought processes. That’s kind of sad, come to think of it.
“It’s dark, I’ve gotta go.”
“Want me to drive you home?”
“You’re not getting in my pants anyway, mister.”
Derek was baffled. He’s been walking around the place where they found the last body yesterday for two hours now. The spiral he paced around the spot grew wider and wider. Hell, even the spiral had its own spirals. And nothing. His werewolf nose gave him nothing. He could smell pancakes (it was early morning on Saturday, after all), maple syrup, melted butter, coffee, cocoa, ham and cheese and oh he was so hungry. No time to eat, though.
Except for that bitter, lingering scent of death, barely even noticeable, but penetrating everything in a ten yard radius, there was nothing. Literally, nothing. No human of werewolf smell, no nothing. The terrain was clean of any footsteps, pawprints, damn it, he even started looking for hoofprints because it seemed like Satan himself wanted to go for a little trip and just scared the crap out of those people, more or less literally.
It’s been the same for four previous victims. No extra information in the air, not a single unwanted scratch in the mud or ground.
It’s like something was awfully careful about its work, he thought. Like a serial killer, making sure nobody could trace them.
That was a bullshit explanation. He exhaled, and the exhalation carried all the scoff for it he could possibly force in it. He’s never heard of any monster or any form of paranatural abomination that could - and actually wanted to - cover up their own tracks. It’s not in predators’ style, all they want is food. Not fun, they seek no entertainment with their victims. They want to eat. Which, surprisingly, also wasn’t the case, since none of the late people were even partly devoured or even lightly mauled.
Oh, he did hope that Stilinski had something better for him.
Lydia was mortified, absolutely mortified. She was forced to spend the morning with Erica Reyes, one girl she could not stand. She just made Lydia’s hair rise and pushed her right to the edge of hissing and clawing her face off. It wasn’t enough that the girl had been an object of constant mocking before, so the grudge she could be holding should be the size of an iceberg that gave birth to the iceberg which little sister sunk Titanic. Now, she was a werewolf. So the grudge, all that pain, suffering and years of laughter could be easily wiped away with a sweet, little, white handkerchief moistened in her tormentors’ blood. With tiny fangs embroidered on it.
But, there they were, sitting on both sides of the not-as-big-an-Lyia-wished table in the Hale mansion. There was Isaac on Lydia’s right and Boyd on her left. And Peter behind her back, frying pancakes and making waffles with a waffle machine that seemed older that the universe.
Honestly, his close presence and the fact that he handled their food could also add to the feelings she was flooded by right now.
Why did she ever agree to come here? Right, because it was Isaac who asked her. She knew of nobody who could resist his cuteness when he spoke of breakfast. The pictures he painted in her mind were peaceful, colourful, sweet and so Saturday-ish that she was completely unable to say no. Plus, there was always the threat that he might be hurt if she refused.
“So, how’s school?”, asked Isaac nervously. Obviously, he could feel the tension. It could be cut with a knife into small cubes, covered in chocolate and served for dessert.
“It’s summer...”, she replied, hesitant and careful.
“Oh, yeah, right.”
Only the clincking of cutlery against the tableware broke the heavy cloud of silence that settled above the table. The footsteps of Peter and crackling of batter on the frying pan kind of didn’t exactly add much to their anticonversation.
“So, you guys hunted lately? Any good spoils?”, Lydia asked in desperation.
They just glared at her, and the glare was of that kind that turns blood in one’s veins into ice, makes a sorbet out of it and pours it into pretty chalices for the glaring guys to eat with a teaspoon. Lydia let her hair cover her face and went back to her waffle.
“You have something for me?”
“Holy chocolate bust of Lincoln, Batman! Shit! Derek! Do you want me to become the next body to investigate?”
“Shut up, you should’ve gotten used to it by now. Now, data.”
Stiles managed to calm his heart by taking several deep breaths while Derek tried to drill a hole in his temple with his eyes. He shuffled his notes, scuffled his hands through what seemed like a ton of waste paper. Finally, he reached a bound file of six pages and handed it to Derek.
“What’s that?”, alpha asked.
“Data,” Stiles said, slowly mouthing every sound like he was talking to a seriously slow dog. “As you asked.”
“It’s a lot.”
“Yeah, well, there’s like five dozens of monsters that can cause such deaths. Be glad I narrowed it down to about six of them. Look, it’s not like you really gave me much to work on. You said they are dead and untouched and that was it. See, that I already knew,” he said, a bit more sternly than he intended to, turning back to his desk. “Now go away, I’ve paid my tribute.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I said, no. I’m not going anywhere unless you walk me through your scrawlings. Do I look like a graphologist to you?”
Stiles inhaled deeply, held the air in his chest for a moment and let it out with a whizz. He was hoping he could go practice lacrosse today, or maybe go out later, but it seemed like he was stuck home with the alpha. The one guy who really could, and really wanted to rip his throat out and made sure Stiles never forgot about it. And now the high and mighty Derek Hale stood over him and quietly nodded along as Stiles was trying to explain his work. The pout on werewolf’s face said absolutely nothing. He was always pouting, the sourwolf he was.
“I like those two,” said Derek after a long hour that seemed like a long month.
“What is that, Miss Supernatural pageant? You’re supposed to find the right one, not the cutest one that wants peace on Earth.”
“These two fit,” Derek growled through his teeth, clenching them so hard it seemed very possible that his enamel might just crush into pieces and start flying around in shrapnels.
“Fine, so you think it’s either a brocken spectre or a Geist. Fine, but the first one would mean that those people went on a high mountain peak during right conditions, saw a solar halo in the mist and never came back to reverse the charm. A bit too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“No. Those bodies were clean. Nothing tried to feed on them.”
“Then, it may be a Geist.” Jesus, Derek was so stubborn sometimes it’s a surprise he hadn’t died yet by trying to walk through a wall or something. “But I don’t really see the point of Geist just killing people for no good reason.”
Derek shot him a doubtful glance like it was him who spent his night researching this crap and not Stiles.
“Look, Geists are just mirrored images. Their point is to revisit certain moments in their lives and to be noticed. It’s like they don’t know they died, or didn’t accept it completely, and parts of their souls are scattered around. They move stuff, close doors and flicker your kitchen light, but they don’t make you kick the bucket. Take these notes, study them at home. Or take a course in reading with understanding, I don’t now, I don’t care. Go away.”
Derek looked abashed. He took a quick look around the room like he was looking for something particular, but, failing, apparently, he folded Stiles’ notes, stuffed them in his pocket and left through the window.
Finally, Stiles thought. How can he be so unnerving and still alive?
Scott’s phone vibrated. The buzzing’s exact location remained a mystery, however. He dug through his clothes, checked under the bed and under the pillow. Damn, the phone always found its way to the most hidden place in the room.
The desk!
The buzzing stopped and started again.
Now I’m in trouble.
Aha! There it was, under his old biology notes! What was it doing there? A mystery never to be solved.
The screen displayed Derek’s name and number.
“Yeah?”
“Lost him.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll take over, but you’re on Lydia-duty.”
A growl, mumbling, and the conversation was over.
“Hey, man.”
“Are you all nuts? Knock, for Christ’s sake, knock, people! You can hunt, you can heal, but tapping your knuckles against my door is too hard for you? What do you want, Scottie?”
“You... wanna play lacrosse or something?”
Stiles looked him up and down. He knew him all too well not to see something was off.
“Not really,” he risked.
“Fine. A round of Tekken, maybe? I bet I can kick your ass this time,” Scott insisted. He was so ruthless with that, so stern about finding them something to do, that Stiles was damn sure where this was heading.
“What’s the deal, Scott? Where’s the body? Oh, sorry, bad wording. Something’s not quite right and I know it.”
Scott looked sheepish. More than usual, that is. It was like Stiles was talking to a child about the broken vase. He knew who to blame, and the child - Scott - knew that he knew. This could be going on for a while more, but that’s basically the gist. Now, inside Scott’s tiny little potato-brain, processes started. Limping thoughts ran through, almost giving him an aneurysm, when poor werewolf-boy tried to balance his loyalty towards Stiles and his genuine, fear-stained bit of respect he had for Derek.
Oh, it was Derek’s plan alright. “Walking him through” Stiles’ thinking process? And he hoped the teenager wouldn’t pick up on that load of crap? He was hyperactive and tense, not dumb, you sad weremoron.
“Spill the beans, McCall.”
“There are no beans. Unless you have a chilli. I could go for a bowl of chilli. Let’s go get some in the city!”
“Is that a date, McCall? Because your game is so lousy I’m surprised you’ve ever got laid. Anyway, no, thanks. I don’t date liars, sweetheart. Either you tell me what’s up with all of you or get out of my face.”
Scott tried to take up this whole surprised-and-caught-off-guard look. He raised his eyebrows, widened his eyes and opened his mouth, all that made him look like a blow-up doll.
“What do you mean, all of us?”, he gasped fakely. So fake it was that Pamela Anderson’s breasts looked like they just grew on a tree in the Amazon jungle in comparison.
“Lydia texted me just before you came. She said she’s been at the worst, most tense breakfast in the history of breakfasts. She actually said it was more awkward than when she showed up to school and Jackson’s boxers fell out of her purse.”
“Wow, that’s embarassing...”, Scott mumbled, scratching his head.
“Uh, yeah,” sniped Stiles. “So?”
“There’s really nothing there, trust me, man! Why would I lie to you?”, Scott tried to address Stiles’ feelings.
“Shut up, Scottie. Come on, I’ll kick your butt in Tekken. Again.”, Stiles gave up, but was satisfied knowing that something was very much off.
Derek was there. Lydia managed to avoid every single window for some time now, but she knew. She saw his Camaro making a couple of rounds around the block before vanishing into thin air. Well, he probably parked around the corner and waited for something. The creepwolf never gave up until he got what he wanted.
But she had little to no idea what he actually wanted from her. And if there was anything, why couldn’t he just come up the the door like civilised person would? She decided not to give him this satisfaction. She hung some of her blouses in the windows upstairs, opened taps in two bathrooms and turned on music in three rooms. Plus a fan with long strings attached, which altogether made this annoying whirring sound that got on her nerves.
She took her phone and made a call.
“Scott Muriel McCall, why is Derek Hale outside my house, camping in his car like the biggest creep in the state?”, she said quietly.
“My middle name’s not Muriel...”, Scott protested meekly, trying to buy himself some time, apparently.
“Scott, darling. If I cared what your middle name is, I would’ve asked long time ago. I needed something for emphasis. Why. Is. Derek Hale. Spying on me.”
“He’s not, why would he...”
Lydia snorted.
“Scott McCall, take a note I left ‘Muriel’ out this time, I do not give a tiny, fluffy rat’s posterior if he is your alpha or not, that’s your problem, but had to endure THE most horrid breakfast one can imagine. All I need now is a bath and a book. I can do neither feeling his glare on my neck. You’ll be a good puppy, call him and get him as far away from my house as it’s possible. Missouri would be great, thanks, bye!”, she chirped, hanging up on him.
If there is anything going on behind her back, she will be furious. She could live with being a vessel for a psycho freak’s soul, she could go on living after discovering she was dating a murderous lizard-thing. One thing Lydia Martin could not - and would not - tolerate is being excluded from plans. Especially those blatantly obvious and flawed.
How did they not die miserably without her, remains a mystery.
“What.”
“Derek, Lydia’s on to you. Change of plans, quick, you need to get the hell out of there.”
“I’ll send Isaac over.”
“Dude, that’s one hell of a bathroom break. Hope you used the plunger.”
“Shut up! I needed to fix my make-up.”
“Yeah? Then why didn’t you?”
Stiles knew it was not a bathroom break. He wasn’t as dumb as he would let them think. It’s like they’ve never believed he could think on his own, without using google.
“I’ll go get us something to drink,” he said, pausing the game and running downstairs. While he was trying not to kill himself by tripping over his own legs, he took out his phone and texted Lydia. If there was a plan in motion, she must be the one to know about it.
She didn’t. She knew there was a plan, but she was not included. Ooh, this could go very badly for those furry bastards. Stiles could foresee a lot of newspaper-smacking in their nearest future.
He came back bearing drinks. When he entered his room, he was met with the sight of Derek by the window. No Scott to be seen.
“Jesus, for the love of- damn!”, he snapped, as he managed to spill half of both glasses’ worth of coke on himself and the floor. “Does stubbornness come in a package deal with teeth?”, he grunted, going to the bathroom throw his hoodie to the washing machine, to get a rag and to wash his hands. He came back and threw the piece of cloth at Derek. While it was mid-flight, he realised the consequences. But the alpha caught it and said nothing about eviscerating him in any way. “Now, you clean up the mess and tell me what you came here for,” he risked, going with the flow.
Surprisingly enough, the grumpiest werewolf in existence took up cleaning with no more growling than usual.
“I need to know how to kill those monsters you listed,” he said flatly.
“What, all of them? I thought you had enough time to think them through. Were you occupied elsewhere?”, Stiles tried to poke around a little.
“No. I just don’t know which one it could be.”
“Still?”
“Stiles.”
“Fine, fine. Sourwolf.”
A growl of irritation told him that might’ve come out a little too loud. Or, aloud in general.
He tried to research, but usually there was nothing. Not many people tried to kill ghosts of such kinds, even less succeeded. There were chants in what seemed like gibberish, not Latin, some were in Latin, some in other languages, but Stiles couldn’t imagine Derek with a large crucifix in hand, chanting exorcisms. There was iron, said to kill some of them, but mostly relating to the more... fleshful ones.
Stiles noticed in a reflection in his laptop’s case that Derek was reading one of his books. That was his shot.
“Why are you spying on us?”, he asked quickly.
“To protect you,” Derek responded automatically before he realised what he’d said. He glared at Stiles’ triumphant face with a murderous look, the kind that should be able to kill an ox through five inches of lead.
“From what?”
“Shut up.”
“From what?”
“Do your research before I rip your trachea out and make myself lunch with your epiglottis.”
“Someone’s been studying anatomy books,” Stiles snubbed at him. “Plus, that would’ve had much more impact if you hadn’t just admitted to trying to protect me. From what?”
Derek looked like he was fighting his own urges right now. One was to shut up and go back to the book, but then Stiles would probably yap and yap until someone’s head explodes. Another was to smack him in the head, render him unconscious, tie up and leave in the broom closet, but he needed his research done.
Another “From what?” came at him at full speed, crashing in his brain.
“Fine, I’ll tell you if you promise to stop that jibbering.”
“Sure, of course, no more jibber-jabber, I promise, cross my heart I’ll shut up if you tell me from-- oh, right. Sure. You go.”
Derek could almost see the boy’s excitement overflowing through his ears. Stiles’ leg was twitching, and his fingers kept clenching and unclenching on the armrest. Alpha rolled his eyes and sighed heavily.
“We think-”
“Who’s we?”
“Me, Scott, Erica, Boyd and Isaac. And Peter.”
“Why was I not included? Why wasn’t Lydia included?”
“Stiles, I swear-- We think that whatever is causing those heart attacks operates on strong emotions. Peter did his research,” Derek continued, ignoring Stiles’ pout, brought to his face by the information that someone else’s been doing research for them, “and it shows that all those people were mentioned in the newspapers at some point. There was the woman who survived a car crash as the only one, a man whose four daughters died the same day as his wife, all of tuberculosis, years ago.”
“So, it seems that all of them had to to with tragedies and death?”
“Not necessarily death. Usually something tragic, things that bring about strong emotions. That’s what causing the attacks.”
Stiles’ eyes glazed over and became hollow. He began considering what he already knew about this case, biting his lip and nodding a couple of times.
“So,” he said after half a minute or so. “You thought me and Lydia are possible targets? Her becoming Peter’s toy, witnessing Jackson’s death and transformation, him leaving her and skipping town, all that stuff, right? Why me?”
Derek stuttered, confused as to what to say to him.
“You’ve been through a lot, too. Your mom dying, your dad’s heart condition.” There you go, Mister Smoothpants, that was not too blunt at all. “And, you went through a lot of... things with that kanima case.” His werewolf senses must’ve told him it would be best to shut his piehole and let that one slide without enumerating.
Stiles glanced him up and down with a judgemental look on his face.
“And that was the thing you couldn’t tell neither of us? You had to have a constant watch on me and Lydia? Like you said, we’ve experienced a lot. Like, a lot a lot. We can take care of ourselves, you know.”
Derek was silent. Not a sound escaped his throat, not a single muscle in his body twitched, giving away his real thoughts.
“Better safe than sorry.”
Lydia heard the doorbell. She strutted through the hall to open them and saw Isaac on the porch. He was exuding shyness with every pore of his skin, carefully inspecting her threshold with his big puppy eyes, fingers intertwined and head hung low.
“Hi, Isaac. So I see you’re the one he’s sent to spy on me now. You’re not very good, you know, spying usually requires for me not to see you. Come in,” she said, moving a little to let the big wolfpuppy in.
“Oh, so you already know...”, he mumbled.
“Yeah, I do. That was a really poor example of conspiration, you know, sweetie,” she said, wondering what could he possibly mean that she could know by now.
“We did it only to protect you!”, Isaac exclaimed, relieved that he no longer had to keep the secret. “Derek was afraid you might get hurt--”
Derek? Derek Hale, afraid? That someone might get hurt? Hurting people was like his third favourite thing to do, right after sulking and throwing Stilinski onto walls.
“-- so he decided that we should keep an eye on both of you--”
Both? There were two people Derek was caring about? Oh, she might need a fainting couch. How is he able to handle so much emotion at once, oh the humanity.
“-- because, well, you two are the perfect targets for whatever is hunting Beacon Hills now.”
Wait a minute, targets? Hunting? Where was that fainting couch when she needed one! A chaise longue, at the least!
“So Derek doesn’t know what it is yet?”, she asked, again taking a leap of faith.
“ No,” Isaac said quickly, shaking his head. “Neither does Stiles, Derek was just there, taking over Scott’s watch--"
Ah, so the other one was Stiles. That made much more sense now.
Oh, except it didn’t.
“-- and Stiles didn’t find anything that’d seem appropriate.”
“Oh, that’s a pickle!”, she proclaimed. Gosh, for that role alone she should apply for an Oscar, or for a Golden Globe or something. Or for a Golden Raspberry, Jesus, it was a blessing that Isaac was so bad at picking up on her fake reactions. She nodded along, made some grunts of agreement and it was all good for him. Her heart broke a little bit, she felt a teeny tiny bit bad for taking advantage of him.
“You smell nice.”
Huh, a sudden change of topic? These weremorons were seriously lousy at all that secretive-thing. Isaac blurted out all she wanted to know, and now he tried to change the subject in such an old-fashioned, cheesy way. It would be very much pathetic if it wasn’t kind of cute.
“Thanks,” she replied, granting him the chance to see one of her prettiest smiles. “It’s my new bubble bath, raspberry. You can borrow it if you want, if the others won’t kill you because of the scent.”
“No, thank you,” he mumbled, smiling and blushing.
Well, that was a long shot, but the vision of a werewolf soaking in a tub full of pink foam smelling like fruit was just too hilariuos for her to keep her mouth shut.
“Can we please go to Derek’s house now?”, she asked. “I’m so fed up with not being in this little plan of yours.”
Isaac nodded and waited for her to gather all the thing she might need (lip gloss, phone and a brush, stuff no young lade should leave her house without). He followed her around in the hall while she was grabbing her coat and looking for her keys. He stood right behind her when she opened the door to the sight of one particular Scott McCall with his hand raised to the doorbell.
“Oh, no, no, no, McCall,” she snapped, storming right by him, har flowing behind her and thunders shooting from her eyes. Mid-walking, she pointed a finger at him and kept it that way even when her back was already turned on him. “Enough with the old switcheroo. I know what’s going on and I’m not sitting in the back, letting you guys trip over your own paws and get us all killed somehow. Now, move, get in the car. And no shedding on my upholstery!”
She knew well she could get away with dog-jokes. She intended to fully use that power today. Revenge is a dish best served in a doggy bowl.
So, they still had to figure out what attacked all the people, how did it kill them and why. They knew its pattern, which, frankly, was surprisingly plenty for the pack to find on their own. Now it was up to Stiles to find a creature that left no traces and caused heart attacks for the sheer pleasure of it. Well, that’s what he was there for.
He packed his laptop, his pills and an extra hoodie (it could get really freezing in the Hale residence sometimes) and went downstairs, with Derek hanging right behind him. When he reached to get his car keys from the hook, the alpha snorted.
“We’re not driving this joke of a car of yours. I have my Camaro parked out front.”
“Hey, you watch your tongue, mister. That’s a very reliable car, safe and comfortable, and it got all of us out of trouble more times than I care to remember!”
“Meanwhile, get in, fasten your belt, shut up.”
Stiles did all three. The last thing he wanted to become is a splatter of blood on Derek’s window. He put all his efforts into withholding his hyperactivity and reducing it to just looking at things around the car. That visibly pissed Derek off as well, but at least the teenager was silent.
As soon as they arrived at the house, Derek saw a strange car parked in the front.
“It’s Lydia’s!” Stiles saw it too and couldn’t help himself, he had to speak.
“What’s she doing here,” Derek muttered and got out of the car. Stiles barely caught up with him, because his legs decided to multiply and do all the crazy stuff they wanted to cross out of their bucket list - like killing him, for one thing.
Derek stormed inside the house like a seriously frustrated hail cloud. He smashed the door into the wall and looked around with a gaze that said “If I could make it happen, you’ll all be dead and evaporated now”. His eyes finally met Lydia’s.
“What are you doing here?”, he asked with the tone that made it impossible not to answer. Well, this rule didn’t apply to Lydia Martin.
“Having a nice early afternoon with my dearest friends. We’ll go braid our hair in fifteen or so.”
Boyd and Erica froze. After all that time, they couldn’t believe somebody actually dared speak like that do The Derek Hale. Isaac did got familiar with her style and knew already, that he wouldn’t hurt her, not since she became a member of his pack. A human one, but a member nonetheless.
“What are you doing here”, he repeated, not asking now. Demanding the answer. He gritted his teeth, almost producing sparks.
“I saw through your plan. I know you were trying to protect us,” she claimed, standing up and looking him directly in the eye. The war of characters has begun. “So, I came here to take the plan off your clumsy paws before you do something idiotic that would sent us all either to the hospital or to the happy hunting ground.”
Derek seemed (and sounded, the grunting and growling in his chest could probably crush walls) a second away from swatting her out of his way. Finally, after a long and tense pause, he deflated.
“Fine,” he said, and it was probably the hardest thing he’d done the entire year. “I brought Stiles. We need all the help we can get.”
Everyone looked right at him. Erica and Boyd, Isaac, Scott and Peter. Even on Lydia’s face an expression of susprise flashed quickly. Stiles creeped over Derek’s shoulder to get a closer look before the alpha went away and locked himself in the bathroom.
“Is he going to cry on the toilet?”, Lydia whispered so softly it was almost too quiet for Stiles to hear.
“You wish,” Derek snarled through the door. “I need a shower, Stiles, get your ass seated and start looking for something. Consult. Go!”
When Derek left the bathroom, soapy fresh and in a mood exactly as bad as before, the intelligence network had already been set on the table in the living room. Stiles and Peter were sitting facing each other, clicking and tapping furiously on their laptops. Lydia and Scott took out a large board they once brought to the house and (under Lydia’s careful management, of course) they pinned and taped every bit of information the Dynamic Nerduo could find. It must’ve been Lydia, too, who harnessed the betas to snack duty - Erica, Boyd and Isaac went to greater lengths than usual to make sandwiches, bring drinks and supply candy. Derek stood idly by this whole machine of knowledge, equally terrified of what would happen if he decided to walk right in and captivated by how well they managed to set things up in barely fifteen minutes. Finally, he made a move to the couch, where he sat next to Stiles, lurking over his shoulder.
“Don’t”, said three voices in a unison. Lydia’s, Peter’s and Stiles’.
“What?”
“Stop peeping”, said Lydia sternly. “You’ll distract him. Shoo, shoo!” She waved her hands at him not even looking in his general direction, but at Peter, who seemed to have found something useful.
Derek swallowed the affront of being bossed around in his own home and went to the kitchen. He sat on a chair by the wall and watched his betas being more useful than they’d ever been.
“What, the mean girl threw you out?”, said Erica, running by him to get more tomatoes.
Derek’s eyes flashed red for a split second.
“Oh come on, enough with the pouting,” the girl said, rolling her eyes. “She did it so that they could work efficiently. I know, I know, Mister Big Bad Wolf got his tail stepped on. Get on with it. I mean, whenever you do something like this to me, I deal with it the healthy way. By eating a box of double-stuffed Oreos.”
Derek buried his face in his hands. Why, oh why did he change a jabbering teenage girl...
“Derek Hale! Get your furry ass here this very second!”, a shrill voice of Lydia cracked its way through his air of sulking and right into his brain. He snatched a sandwich from a plate nearby and went to the living room.
“What.”
“You were the only one at the spot. What did you see,” Peter asked, eyes still fixed on his laptop’s screen.
“Nothing. All was clear, no footsteps, nothing.”
“They say in the papers that all of the victims died because of a heart attack induced by strong emotions,” added Stiles, looking away from wikipedia or whatever for a change.
“Well, maybe,” Derek nodded. “But what caused those emotions?”
Scott hid behind the board, chuckling. He knew what was about to happen.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out!”, screamed Peter, Stiles and Lydia, in unison again.
Derek growled quietly and repeated everything again, from the very beginning.
“That makes no sense. What could it be?”, said Peter hopelessly.
“I’m a werewolf, not an oracle,” Derek grunted.
“From the start,” muttered Stiles. “Kills. Doesn’t eat. Emotions.”
Stiles began blabbing to himself, rearranging all the crap they knew. This went on for a minute or so. “We need another hook. Something to help us pull the case further. The biggest unknown of the whole mess, maybe. The emotions, what were they? There are some ghosts that specialise in making people angry, for example. What did you sniff, Derek?”
Alpha’s face went blank. The system has made an unexpected operation and was terminated. His eyes were slightly moving, lips parted, but he didn’t say a word for a long moment.
“Nothing, it didn’t smell like anything. The air was clean except for the weak stench of death,” he said finally.
Three things happened at once.
Peter smacked his head, Stiles slapped him in the arm and Lydia jabbed him in the stomach with her manicured nail.
“You dumbass!”, she yelled.
“Nephew, I’m afraid you might be an idiot. I’ll disown you first thing in the morning.”
“Crap, dude! That’s like the most important thing in the whole scenario!”
Even the betas snuck out of the kitchen to listen to their alpha getting scolded like a schoolboy.
“Oh, look,” Lydia said. “There’s that muscle on his jaw that always twitches when he’s pissed.”
“That thing makes so many public appearances it should get a booking agent,” Stiles said, angry. He came back to his laptop and continued tapping.
Derek shot a murderous glance at his betas. They were the only ones he could stomp on right now, knowing that the Search Party were right. How the hell did he miss that.
“If it didn’t smell like anything, it must’ve fed. Stupid weremoron,” Stiles muttered under his breath. “Said it didn’t feed. We spent hours looking for something that kills for no good reason, and there he is, mister Forensics, hiding evidence in his bad-boy leather jacket’s sleeve. Didn’t feed, my ass. There! I’ve got it!”, he exclaimed, turning his laptop to the rest of them.
“What’s that?”, Scott asked.
“Ew, it’s one ugly whatnot,” Lydia moaned, trying to keep her decorum.
“That’s a wraith,” Stiles said triumphantly. “I know, it looks like a skull on a spine, covered in smoke, but that’s basically it. It feeds,” he added, making sure the last word gets the proper emphasis it deserves; just for the effect, he looked at Derek, too, “but not on meat. It feeds on emotions, drains them from the body, every display of it. It makes them strong enough to cause a heart failure, but then sucks in all the evidence. Plus, it operates on horror, anger or sadness, the full package. Dumbass,” he echoed Lydia’s insult, againg shooting a glance at the alpha’s face, frozen solic, except for the twitching muscle. “Aren’t you supposed to have a sensitive nose or something?”
“It is sensitive,” Derek growled. “I can smell that you had fun with yourself about three hours ago.” The ball was in Stilinski’s court.
“Well that’s not incorrect. Okay, you’re right,” Stiles sighed.
“Dude, eww, I was at your place at that time!”, Scott whined, looking absolutely disgusted.
“Shouldn’t have babysat me the whole time. Suffer like a man,” Stiles retorted, shrugging.
“So, let’s go get rid of that now,” said Derek, as soon as he sensed that the tension after his failure of the century had deflated a little.
“How, exactly, do you plan on doing so?”, Peter asked, obviously irritated.
Alpha grunted. He had no idea how. He had a fleeting thought that maybe a full moon was coming, because his brain functioned less and less efficiently with every second the whole pack was there, in his living room, rearranging their board, making food and making their keyboards suffer for their creation.
He dropped on the couch, next to Stiles - the last place that could pass as remotely comfortable left in the room.
“I’m not looking!”, he growled, seeing that Lydia’s mouth started to open. “Find out how to kill it, then,” he added, laying his head on the backrest.
“I have something,” Stiles muttered a moment later. “You see, there’s this TV show, two dudes killing ghosts and demons and stuff. They usually use rock salt and iron.”
“There are some iron pipes left in the basement,” Peter noticed.
“And rock salt is really not that uncommon to find either.” Lydia seemed pleased with how it all turned out.
“Alright, that’s a plan. Scooby!”, Stiles shouted, slapping Derek’s thigh. “Get the car and go find some rock salt. Or just salt, if you can’t find any rock salt. What matters is that it’s salt, I guess.”
Derek lifted his head at the slap and bared his fangs at him. Not that the boy was in any way impressed. Then, the werewolf stood up and went to his Camaro. They wanted salt, they’ll get their salt.
“Oh, crap,” Stiles sighed after the door closed behind Derek. “Some sites actually mention silver and ash from something called-- a sanguinary. What the hell is that?”
“That’s yarrow,” Peter said calmly. “It grows all over Beacon Hills, there should be no problem in finding it.”
Lydia looked at him skeptically.
“What? I happen to know things, that surprises you?”, he asked.
“When it comes to you, the only thing that surprises me is how little surprises me”, she said quietly. “Fine, we’ll just quickly run around and gather an armful or two, we’ll burn it and mix the ash with the salt. There, two birds, one stone. Stiles, come on.”
“Not so fast!”, shouted Erica as she bolted out of the kitchen.
“We’ll go,” stated Isaac, walking behind her. “You two stay put.”
“What? Why?”, Stiles shrieked. He cleared his throat. “What. Why,” he repeated in a much deeper voice.
“If something was to happen to you two, Derek would have us disemboweled before next sunrise,” said Boyd, which basically stunned everyone, since they almost forgot he actually could talk.
“We’ll be back in an hour, or so,” said Erica, dragging the guys with her outside.
Lydia retreated to the living room and started doing... stuff... to her nails, stuff Stiles could never possibly understand, having a male brain. There was jabbing, filing and nibbling of some sorts. Deciding she knew what she was doing, he returned to his laptop and fired up a game online.
Derek returned half an hour later, when the sun was already halfway below the horizon. The forest was a lot darker, long, orange stripes of sun striking through the needle-cover and trunks. Some light, purple and pink clouds sailed through the sky, which, together with brown trees below, silvery shine of needles and the chirping of birds is how Willy Wonka’s colon could look like inside.
Derek kicked the door, causing some grumbling from Peter, and, with a thud, dropped a heavy package on the floor.
“Twenty pounds of rock salt. That enough, Shaggy?”, he asked, looking straight at Stiles.
“What, did you rob a salt-bank, or something?”, Peter asked, eyeing the bag.
“There’s a warehouse. They keep some stuff for some kind of a factory, or something. Never seen anyone go in there though, it’s probably been closed for ages.”
“Well, the salt doesn’t go bad,” Lydia said and went to the kitchen to get a bowl or a pot to mix the salt with the ash they expected to get.
“Where’re my betas?”, Derek inquired, looking around.
“Oh, them, they’re out, picking flowers,” Stiles answered calmly.
Derek apparently didn’t appreciate what he took as a symptom of Stiles’ sense of humor (a disease he thought should be fatal), and he started growling in a manner he thought was demanding a straight answer, but at that moment the aforementiones werepups came back. Erica was humming, Boyd was marching right behind her carrying a huge bouquet of white flowers, and Isaac just sneaked shyly behing them.
“The hell are those for,” Derek asked sharply.
“It’s yarrow,” Peter explained.
“All of you, shut up. You, stop that humming! I need one person to give me the details. If I hear someone more talking some junk to me, it’ll be bad. Understood? Stiles, go,” Derek snapped, eyes flashing red, fangs exserting and all that party.
“Fine, um, yeah, alright. See, right after you left I found out that salt and iron may be ineffective. Some websites recommend silver and ashes from yarrow. Yeah, I know, how can we get silver, right? We can’t, but there’s yarrow all around, so those guys offered to go and get some, so we’ll burn it and mix the ashes with salt. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure? I can make a simple diagram or drawing so you don’t miss something.”
Derek turned away and stormed upstairs, to his room, probably deeming his quest well done and deciding they wouldn’t need him anymore.
“Hey, get your ass back here, who’s going to carry that bag, me?”, Stiles shouted angrily in the direction of alpha’s private chambers.
“Screw you,” he heard his muffled voice.
“What’s up with princess ballerina over there?”, Lydia asked, raising her eyebrows. “And you, calm down, we’ll just open it and use some of it, nobody’s going to carry the whole bag in their backs.”
“Fine.”
Lydia made sure the flowers burned completely, leaving only soft gray ash in a bucket she brought in. She then added a bowlful or two of salt and mixed it all together. She looked like an old-timey witch with her cauldron. Stiles was sitting on the couch, grumpier than ever, with his hands crossed on his chest. He didn’t even come back to his mind-numbing game he liked so much.
Derek could smell the burning plants while he was laying on his bed, looking at the ceiling. He heard the betas chatting downstairs, although he made no effort to actually recognise words. They’d never chatted about anything important before anyway. He just felt too useless today to do something productive. Sure, he screwed up big time, not noticing the lack of smells on the crime scene, so to speak, was at least unusual. But he didn’t think it would set Stiles off so badly to be this little obnoxious--
Well, Stiles had no right to behave like this. Not that Derek expected an apology or whatnot, and not like he would ever want one. He just felt hurt a bit, by Stiles’ ungratefulness. By his moodiness that brought him to saying things as he did. After all, alpha didn’t exactly do anything to deserve it. More often than not, he saved this little brat’s ass.
Stiles was pissed. Derek left them with all the hard work after being a huge disappointment today. He seriously expected more of The Alpha. How dumb one has to be to miss obvious signs, just sitting there. Derek probably would’ve missed them if they jumped and bit him in the butt. But sure, it’s way easier to just leave it all to them. First he’s just annoyingly clingy, saying it’s to “protect” them, then he just, what, swoops away and leaves them to hunt this dangerous ghost. As usual, Stiles was supposed to rescue this idiot’s damned overweening head once, freaking, again.
“It’s ready,” Lydia said, breaking his train of thought.
“Fine, the last thing is - how do we get the wraith to--”, Peter started.
“Ahead of you,” Scott interrupted, and Stiles jumped, because he seriously forgot his friend was still here. “Isaac and I analysed how the wraith attacked. It usually strikes people who wander further away from houses, where there’s nothing around. That’s the probable area that concerns us,” Scott said, pointing to a circle on a map he had pinned to the board.
“Well done,” Peter said. “I didn’t know you had that in you, kids.”
“I didn’t know you had something to think that out with,” Stiles muttered, causing the werewolves to look at him weirdly (Scott looked a bit... hurt?). “Sorry, I don’t know. I probably need sugar or something,” he said apologetically.
“So, we just go there and wait for the wraith to appear, and then, what? We sprinkle it with ash salt?”, Erica asked, appearing in the room.
“We want it dead, not well seasoned,” Peter remarked. “I say we go ballistic on its whiny transparent ass.”
“A circle, maybe?”, Stiles suggested. “Worked with mountain ash, maybe it’ll work with salt? We wouldn’t get chased around like in Benny Hill.”
They all thought for a while before agreeing it was a good idea. After all, what other choice did they have. Either try catching the wraith like a wild animal, except the cage would be supernatural, or just start randomly throwing ash salt at it. Neither of the solutions seemed really appealing, but their choice was ridiculously limited.
“Fine, we’ll try the circle,” Peter said. “Perhaps it would work without having to close it behind it? You know, we’ll make a full line, then lure the wraith in, and it’ll be trapped? Honestly, that’ll be so much easier.”
“You think?”, Stiles snarled. “Did that one work with ya, pal?”
“Does anything work with this guy as it should?”, Lydia shrugged, as always, when it came to remember Peter’s derailed mind’s work.
“We’ll need someone to close the circle behind the wraith.”
Derek’s voice took them all by surprise, as alpha emerged from his room. He wasn’t looking at any one of them, eyes fixed on a wall in front of him. He sounded plain, emotionless.
“I’ll do it,” Stiles said.
“You wish,” Peter retorted. “Think, kiddo, think. Have you ever heard of a werewolf dying from a heart failure? One of us will do it.”
Stiles looked angry, he opened his mouth but said nothing. It was true, if he came too close the wraith would kill him in an eyeblink. Nevertheless, he didn’t really care for being proven wrong right now.
Derek marched to the bucket and sifted some ash salt through his fingers.
“This stinks to holy hell,” he muttered. “We’ll have to put in in bags, or something, and each have one, just in case.”
“It’s not supposed to be a potpourri, grump-ass.” Stiles unzipped his hoodie, his face was getting red and Lydia could recognise he’s probably pissed beyond imagination.
“Shut up, or I’ll have you tied down and gagged,” Derek snapped, his voice raised, and a bit higher pitch than usual.
“Both of you, cut it out!”, Lydia shouted. Her voice penetrated walls of concrete, so in the residence everybody heard her. She had this unexplainable power in her, that made anybody listen to her and do as she pleased. She couldn’t change into a vicious beast, she had no claws (that she wanted to get dirty; her manicured nails could be deadly if she cared to risk ruining them). But what Lydia Martin had was her charisma. She could probably convince a tree to start growing upside down if she tried.
Derek snorted, which was not exactly not werewolfey, but very much cat-like, and went to the basement. Stiles frowned and sat still for longer than expected. In the meantime, betas began dividing the salt into small piles on the kitchen table.
“Who’ll bait it?”, Lydia asked, knowing the answer long before they all did.
“You will,” Peter said reluctantly. “You and Stiles. We have little more choice.”
“Is this safe?”, Isaac asked, taking a butcher’s at them over the table.
Erica nudged him with her elbow.
“Sure it’s not. What is safe out of all we do, anyway?”, she said, trying her best to sound calm, but failing miserably. Peter heard the trembling in her voice, although he needn’t have used his heightened senses. Surely, even humans could hear that.
It was well after sunset when they decided they were ready. Everyone equipped with a bag of ash salt (two for Stiles and Lydia - someone had to close the circle behind that floaty murderous creature after all), a piece of iron pipe hidden in their clothing and a fair amount of high hopes. Not much else could they bring with them, as not much more did they actually have. The lore lacked any talismans, protective runes or anything that could grant them any form of extra advantage against whatever would come to pass.
Derek lagged behind the tense parade of inexperienced ghostbusters. He was in no mood to kill something without using his claws. He felt the urge to tear something apart, to feel its blood on his hands and hear its last, wheezing breath. His depression seemed to have reached its peak - never before had he ever considered just going hunting so that he could be alone for some time. So that he could forge this painful pangs he felt inside into something.
For one moment, he believed they could all die, snapped like twigs under his shoes. He was convinced they had too little power and even less possibilities to come out alive from this one, outwitted, outsmarted by a spooky creature that made people’s hearts give up their job just like that, no excuses, no two weeks’ notice. He had just lost his hope at once.
He dragged his feet, one by one, along the path the others went. And, for a second, he hoped they would all just die, him included. Finish what he had carelessly winded up and set to motion. Just like that, poof, all undone.
Stiles was a second away from running. The chilly air could not cool down all that was boiling inside him. He was tired. Sick and tired of being the one to find everything out, of having this ridiculously incompetent werewolves at his back, Derek being the worst. Peter at least had some sense and could think straight. Betas could at least pretend they were useful. But not The Alpha, the big bad dumbass who always thought he was right and always had to have the last word.
He could hear Lydia behind him, trying to keep up, panting slightly. She tried talking him into slowing down, but he didn’t even listen. He just wanted this one monster hunting to be over so he could finally get some time to himself. No Scott, no Peter, no betas. No Derek, invading his private space with no regrets, like he was coming into his own house, his own life.
“Hey, kids, wait,” he heard Peter. He stopped and turned.
“What?”
“We’ll stay here. You two go ahead, we don’t want the wraith to flee if it sees all of us around. One of us will go and watch you. Boyd?”
“I’ll go,” they heard Derek’s rough voice. He sounded gloomy, his face looked like he’d never been able to smile his entire life.
That was enough for Stiles. He just turned back and paced off again, making Derek and Lydia chase after him.
“Hey!”, Derek shouted after him after a short moment. “Slow the hell down!”
“Why?”, Stiles growled, turning to face him.
“That’s a pretty good spot to make a circle,” the werewolf said, spreading his hands. Lydia nodded.
“Why? Because you said so?”, Stiles snapped at him. He was at capacity, unable to take anymore of his bossy, proud attitude. “Because it’s your forest? Did you take it, like you claim everything around you as yours?”, he growled, walking towards Derek and facing him, standing very close to make sure he could smell his anger.
“Because it’s a secluded, fairly open clearing. What is wrong with you?”, Derek said quietly. His voice broke a little. “What did I ever do to you to make you that angry all of a sudden? I’m trying to protect you, and you’re just an ungrateful brat. You know you could just stay at home and not go if you’re scared--”
“I’m not scared, you dumbass! I’m pissed off, because all you care about is you. Your pack, your problems, your issues. You always have to play the dark, mysterious hero, but face it, dude, you’re not one! Take a step back and let others do the job sometimes!”
Stiles was furious, but he couldn’t notice that Derek looked like he was just slapped across the face. It could’ve been the anger, but for a second he thought he saw his eyes glazing over for a split second. But his heart was pounding, his breath was short and his face was burning. He really had more important things to do than caring for alpha’s hurt feelings. They were about to face a ghost that’s killing people.
Derek took two steps back and put his hand on a tree trunk closest to him. He looked weak, vulnerable, more that he’d ever been. More than in the pool, more than when he was shot with monkshood bullet. His eyes were fixed somewhere around Stiles’ shoes, his face was pale, white as chalk. He looked, simply put, sad. Hurt, maybe, but definitely sad.
Stiles felt his knees shaking. He could barely see straight, overtaken by the fury in him. He thought he was seconds away from seeing red, literally. His heart thrashed inside his ribcage. He cared not for the wraith they were here to hunt. He, in all honesty, never had cared less about anything than he cared then about making sure Derek knew what bugged him.
“Stiles, I--”, he heard his voice like it was coming from behind a wall or something.
“You what?”, he yelled. “You what, huh? You wanted to protect me? Well you did a crappy job, dude! I can do so much better myself than I do with you dragging around!”
“We needed each other’s help... We dealt with so many thing...”, Derek continued. He sounded like putting his thoughts to words now without giving up in the middle was the hardest thing in his life.
“Since when there’s any ‘we’ in here? Since when it’s not you and the pack? You and the betas? You know what, any of your betas would make a better alpha with one hand tied behind their backs! You’re like this trash that got caught in a ship’s propeller and said ‘hey, we’re sailing’! You’re dangerous, Derek, dangerous to yourself and all who come around!”
“Do you really think so? Do you really feel I’m that useless? I know I’m a lousy alpha, Stiles. I do, I really do. Every single day I wake up and hope nobody dies because of me. I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in years, because I keep worrying. It was Laura at first,” he said, and his voice broke. “Then, it’s the betas. Now, it’s all of you. Don’t say I’m a bad alpha unless you’ve been through what I’ve been through. Then, bad gets a whole new dimension, Stiles, whole new--”
“Jesus! If I hear one more word of your crap, I swear my head’s going to explode! You’re a stubborn idiot who--”, Stiles paused to catch a breath, his hands were shaking so much. He coughed a couple of times, his throat was unwilling to cooperate in breathing and shouting and the same time. A hot flush shot through his body. “Who can’t do the simplest thing possible! You had one thing to do, check the spot where the victim died, and you screwed it up! Just like you screw up everything that we ever want you to do!”
“I don’t mean to--”, Derek protested faintly.
“Oh I know, you don’t mean to be a big werescrew-up. It’s the world that made you like that. It’s because of the stars’ bad positions in your horoscope that you just seem to attract death and misery to you. It’s because of the sun’s magnetic field that all those who come close to you end up hurt!” It’s all--”
“Guys! Jesus, what’s wrong with you?!”, Lydia shouted. She was utterly shocked, and it took her longer than usual to get her words out. She’d never seen neither Derek nor Stiles like that. Just as if something broke in both of them, something that withheld all those toxic emotions they’d had inside. “I made the circle in the meantime, you’re welcome, now could you please stop that and help? We need to get rid of this thing! Derek?”
Alpha nodded. He still looked like his world had just been shattered, torn into flying pieces, with debris all over the clearing. Lydia really wanted to say something nice, but she could think of no such thing on her feet right now. She made a note to come back to it later.
“Stiles?”, she asked.
Stiles didn’t hear her. He looked flushed, lurching two steps forward he entered the ash salt circle on the ground. His gaze was empty and he was panting like he’d just finished a very long run. He was sweating and shaking. Two more steps and, with no warning whatsoever, he fell on his knees.
Right behind him, something started showing in the cool, crisp air, making the whole clearing even colder. First two glowing eye sockets, then the rest of the skull, and the fragment of the spine attached to it like a spectral tail. The wraith was indulged in white and blue flames, which started to creep on Stiles’ shoulders as well. The boy started trembling, he supported himself on his hands, visibly growing weaker every second. The wraith was devouring him.
Lydia snapped out of her shock immediately. She grabbed the second bag of salt she had and ran to close the circle, trapping the wraith and Stiles inside. She was about to enter the magical prison when someone grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her aside.
All that happened next was a blur she barely noticed at all.
Derek lunged forward, getting to Stiles in two swift jumps. He held him close and leapt out of the circle. Right then and there, a rain of salt poured down from the sky and pinned the wraith to the ground, and an obscure figure ran up to it and jabbed it with something long. The wraith screeched, the sound that made all of them cover their ears, and exploded in a big flash, leaving just a spot of burnt grass behind.
Lydia blinked, then again, and once more just to be sure. Then the picture became clearer as she heard Erica’s triumphant shriek from above. Lydia looked up to see the werewolf girl sitting on a branch of a pine like a huge, blonde squirrel. In her hands, instead of an acorn, she held an empty bag.
Then Lydia looked down and saw Isaac, standing next to the iron pipe thrusted in the ground where the wraith used to be just seconds ago. A huge, proud smile almost literally glowed on the boy’s face as he looked up and held two thumbs up.
After that, sure that the freaky soul-sapping skull was not, in fact, planning to make a comeback as the Ghost Previously Known As Wraith, she casted a murderous glance over her shoulder. The someone who was still holding her - and the unfortunate target of her glare - was Peter. She calmly wiggled out of his grasp. From the brushes to her left exited Boyd and Scott.
“Well, you two were pretty useful, weren’t you?”, she snorted.
Scott snickered, but Boyd looked offended.
“Those three went behind our backs, before we understood what happened they were already making badges of honor for themselves,” Boyd explained quietly, as if nothing happened.
Scott looked around.
“Where’s Derek? And Stiles?”
Those words caused everyone to experience something fairly close to the beginning of a panic. They took a look around them. Stiles and Derek were nowhere to be seen. As if controlled by one mastermind alien, they all ran to the residence.
Derek ran, ran like crazy, with an unconscious Stiles in his arms. Each time the teenager’s heart skipped a beat or lost its rhythm, he felt a cold pang of guilt. His breath was short and irregular, and he was cold, so very cold Derek was scared out of his mind.
When the werewolf finally got to the house, he patted his jacket and, thanking all possible and impossible gods, goddesses and spirits, found his car keys in one of the pockets. He opened the passenger door, folded the seat and gently laid Stiles on the couch, putting his leather jacket under his head. He closed the door, got behind the wheel and started the car.
The road he made was one big lawbreaking ride. He probably managed to violate the entire code, plus some generally accepted behavior rules (he flipped two other drivers when they swerved and honked at him). But he made it to the hospital in time. He let the doctors and Melissa McCall (who always seemed to be on duty when Stiles got hurt; but then again, she was a single mother with a teenage son, barely ever had she been off duty after all) take care of him, while he sat in the waiting room. He made two trips to the vending machine and bought a total of five packs of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (but he ate one pack himself). Somehow, he had this feeling that Stiles liked them.
Three hours later, Stiles emerged from a room, waving goodbye to Mrs. McCall. He came up to Derek, who, over the whole smell of sickness and cleaning products, didn’t notice him.
“Hey, um--”, the teenager started, not knowing what to say when Derek looked up at him, looking unbelievably cute and defenceless. “Look, thanks for bringing me here, that’s for one thing. For the other... I’m sorry, Derek, really. I have a very foggy idea of what I said to you, shouted, actually, in the forest, but I know it wasn’t pleasant. I crossed a line there. Seriously, I crossed the line so bad the line is a dot to me.” They both smiled at the reference, and Stiles was glad Derek caught it. “And, seriously, I think none of that. I think you’re a really good and caring alpha, the best those kids could ask for. The best we all could ask for.”
Derek heard his heartbeat, now steady and calm. He knew Stiles wasn’t lying to comfort him, and that surprised him. He had no idea someone thought he actually was a good alpha.
“Don’t worry,” said the werewolf. “It’s nothing. I mean, I doubt myself all the time. Plus, I can barely remember anything in particular, either.” That wasn’t a lie as it is. His memories were a bit unclear. “I think the wraith got both of us and spun us a little out of control.”
The sight of hurt Derek with wet eyes flashed before Stiles for a moment.
“Oh, and hey, I got those for you,” Derek said, pushing all the candy into Stiles’ hands.
“Wow, dude, thanks! I love Reese’s Cups!”, Stiles said, and his face lit up. “Hey,” he said, grabbing Derek by the arm as he was leaving. “Do you... maybe... wanna get a coffee, or something? I feel much better now,” he added, blushing a little.
Derek dreaded the idea of drinking coffee now. It must’ve been the last thing on his mind and Stiles must’ve found it there. He would go for a beer, he could go get a bite, but he didn’t really wanted any coffee. Plus, they’d probably have to go to a gas station and drink their lame excuse of a real coffee. He looked Stiles sternly in the eye.
“Sure. My treat.”