Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

PROLOGUE

Stiles feels the moment the hit collides.

He is on the floor, surrounded by nothing but pain and death. Everything hurts, and he can barely process what is happening around him, can barely focus on anything that isn't the smell of burning, of blood, of pure and utter destruction.

There is smoke everywhere. He is on the ground, with half of his body crushed, every breath a challenge. One of his eardrums has definitely burst. He can barely hear, let alone see farther than his nose.

But the second the hit lands on Derek he knows.

He knows.

He knows that Derek has been hit, and he knows that Derek is dying.

It's weird. 

Stiles has never thought Derek would die.

Of course he has always been aware that Derek was as mortal as the rest of them. He has been tasked with rescuing Derek from the brink of death often enough to know this.

But Derek has never died.

He has always survived, always managed to not die.

Except now.

Except now, because shit has finally hit the fan, Derek has been hit, and Derek is dying.

Because everyone has been hit, and everybody is dying or dead and it's just Stiles.

It's just Stiles, because Derek was the last one standing, and now Derek is not standing anymore. Derek is not standing anymore, because Derek has been shot, and there is not even enough strength or energy in his body to save him from the earlier wolfsbane, to keep him awake long enough for...

For what?

For what?

Erica died first (brave, proud, crazy Erica). The Alpha pack kidnapped her, and then they killed her. And after they were done killing her, they took Boyd (strong, lonely, quiet Boyd).

Then Allison (fearless, lost, tough Allison) was taken out by Stiles the Nogitsune.

Stiles had joked - it had not been a joke - back then that the town was cursed.

He was right.

He is still right.

In the end, the entire Hale Pack is going to be wiped out a second time. The original Hale Pack was decimated by Kate Argent and now the hellmouth that is Beacon Hills will claim the last two members of the pack (because Stiles is pack, he is the emissary, and he was meant to save them. He was meant to protect them).

Except-

He almost laughs. Because there is one member that has, hilariously enough, survived the slaughter.

Jackson.

Jackson fucking Whittemore is still alive. He was still alive last they heard of him, so maybe... Maybe one last beta remains.

Derek's first beta, the last one standing.

Or maybe he's dead too.

Maybe he's already dead because this is Beacon Hills, and Beacon Hills is a hellmouth that has claimed everything and everyone. And who says that being in London has somehow saved Jackson?

Even Danny is dead.

A wendigo the pack had been chasing had ripped him apart right as he was leaving the town.

Lydia had not screamed for him.

She had already been dead, by then.

Stiles had not even had the strength to cry, at his funeral.

It had been a week after they had buried Malia and his dad, and Stiles had been out of tears.

And now Derek is also gone.

Now everyone is gone (Erica, Boyd, Allison, Deaton, Melissa, Lydia, dad (god, dad), Malia, Danny, Peter, Isaac, Chris, Kira, Cora, Scott, Derek).

Now everyone is gone, and Stiles is the last one standing.

And it's not funny, because Stiles was never meant to be the last one standing. Stiles should not be the last one standing, he should-

He isn't sure how his body still manages to produce tears as he hears the sound of the beast dragging itself away, a growl that sounds like a strange gurgling coming from his chest.

He wants to tell it to stop. 

To come back, because Stiles is not dead yet. Stiles is still alive, he's still breathing, and he doesn't want to go like this.

He doesn't want to be left for dead, when it has made sure to kill Kira, Cora, Scott and Derek.

Why spare him? Why let him live?

It wasn't letting him live.

Not really. 

Stiles was simply not worth the effort, apparently, to be mauled to death, and his entire body shakes with the weight of his grief.

It's too much. It's just too much.

Because why? Why them? Why him? Why...?

He wants to wail. He wants to beg the world to just end it, to just end him.

Because the sudden quiet as the beast leaves them there, as it leaves both of them dying behind is too much.

Because Derek is quiet as he dies (and Derek has never been loud, but couldn't he be now? Couldn't he die as vividly as he had lived?), and Stiles knows, knows, Derek will die before Stiles does.

And Stiles cannot do it.

He cannot feel Derek's bond snap. He cannot sense Derek's death beside him, he just cannot.

But Stiles' body is half crushed, and his breathing is harder and harder, and how can he save him when he can't even save himself?

And then Derek stops breathing.

"No," said Stiles, eyes pressed closed. "Derek... Please don't. Don't."

But Derek does not open his eyes.

Derek does not breathe.

Derek is dead.

+++

Stiles does not know how he manages to drag himself to Derek.

He does not know where the energy comes, where he finds the strength to push himself until he is laying directly next to the man.

Maybe it's not energy. Maybe it's just desperation.

Maybe it's the knowledge that nothing will matter anyway.

Maybe it's the unwillingness to lay down and die all by himself.

The Hale pack has fallen. 

The police force is a ghost of what it was.

The hospital is still reeling from the Nogitsune.

Beacon Hills, if it hasn't already, will fall soon.

It's dead.

Maybe some hunters will come. Maybe they will hear that the Hale Pack is no more, and the Argents are no more, and the Bête du Gévaudan is in Beacon Hills, and they will try themselves at killing it.

Maybe they will succeed.

After all, the pack killed many monsters before all of them had fallen.

It does not matter.

It does not matter because Stiles' pack and family are both dead, and Stiles is dying, and when the Beast is dead, more will come.

Because Beacon Hills' core is dark and cursed, and poisoned and it does not matter.

Until the Nemeton and the magic-

Stiles has closed his eyes, head resting on Derek's shoulder despite the pain in all of his limbs, but then he is opening them again.

Because...

Because they died for this town. The pack has died to protect Beacon Hills (and failed).

Stiles had only been trying to keep his pack safe (and failed), but they had been trying to keep Beacon Hills safe.

But Beacon Hills was cursed.

Beacon Hills was cursed because the Nemeton was cursed.

And the Nemeton was cursed because the blood of an innocent had been spilled.

'So the Nemeton.'

'Yes?'

'Can it be, like... fixed?'

'...Yes.'

'Cool. Let's-'

'But we can't do it.'

'Of course we can't. Why would we be able to, after you said that we could? How stupid of me-'

'You are powerful, Stiles. For your age, you are scaringly powerful. But even you are just a spark. And the amount of belief and energy necessary to exorcise the Nemeton is not something even you could do without dying.'

'But-'

'Remember when you saved Derek after he was attacked by those yetis? You nearly died. Not even you are powerful enough to save the infection that is killing the Nemeton. Not without dying.'

Stiles had still thought they could win, back then. They had all thought they could win.

Then Deaton had died.

And now everyone is dead.

Everyone is dead, and Stiles knows he's dying and for once he does not care. He does not care because, one way or another, the pain is going to stop. One way or another he and the pack are gonna be free of all of this.

He failed to protect them.

He was meant to keep them safe, and he had not.

They had wanted to keep Beacon Hills safe.

And Stiles, Stiles could try.

He looks at Derek, and pretends he can still hear his heart beating, like his entire body isn't hurting more at the sight of his... his Derek dead under him than it is at at his broken body.

"I'm sorry," he tells him, fresh tears gathering in his eyes. "I'm sorry I failed."

Then, he closes his eyes, reaching for the golden core inside of him, the centre of what Deaton had always called the source of all of his magic and energy.

He imagines Beacon Hills all around him, and the Nemeton, in the middle of it.

He imagines the magic of the Preserve, the energy that is, unknowingly, fuelling the hellmouth call for everything evil coming to Beacon Hills.

He does not blame the tree for it.

He did not ask the Nogitsune to get into him, after all.

He knows.

Stiles reaches for the magic inside of him and thinks of his pack.

His dear dead pack.

He reaches for his magic, and then he pulls.

He screams.

He screams at the pain, and he knows that if his injuries don't kill him, this will.

And it hurts, it hurts so badly Stiles should stop, but he can't, and he won't.

He won't because Derek is dead.

He won't because Derek is dead, and his Scott is dead, and his Cora is dead, and his Kira is dead, and Chris is dead, and his Isaac is dead, and Peter is dead, and Danny is dead, and his Malia is dead, and his dad is dead, and his Lydia is dead, and Deaton is dead, and his Allison is dead, and his Boyd is dead, and his Erica is dead, and they are all dead, they are all dead,

and Stiles is the last one standing, and he can't do this, he can't be the last one and god, god, god, they are all dead

And he screams, and he screams, and he screams-

Chris Argent woke up to the sound of a body hitting the ground.

His heart was racing in his chest for no reason he could understand as he sat up, eyes snapping around the room in search for the source of the threat.

But Victoria was asleep beside him, and the window was locked.

But something had woken him up, something-

The door of the room opened, and Chris blinked at the sight of his daughter in the doorway, tears in her eyes.

"Allison," he said, right as she lunged at him, bawling her eyes out. His hands were shaking as he pulled her up and she clutched his shirt in her hands, and he did not understand why he was shaking so hard as he held her in his arms. "Shh. Shh, it's okay, baby. I have you. I have you."

"Chris?" asked Victoria, looking sleepy beside him, and another of those painful feelings wrapped around his chest as he reached for his wife.

She looked incredibly confused, and Chris had no idea of how to explain himself.

So, he didn't, holding both of them close to him. 

Kira screamed as she sat up on her bed, pulling herself away from the... the thing that had been reaching for her, terrified.

It had been so close, it had almost had her and she screamed even louder as the bulb over her broke, eyes closed as she wrapped her arms around herself, terrified of the thing, the beast-

"Kira!"

She sobbed, but immediately reached out for her dad when he sat on her bed, holding him as tightly as she could.

"Kira?" that was her mom's concerned tone. "What happened-?"

"There was a beast," cried Kira, knowing she sounded nonsensical but unable to take it back. "It got me, mom. It grabbed me, and I didn't know what to do, and-"

"A nightmare," said her dad, relaxing. "She had a nightmare."

"But the bulbs-"

"Probably a fuse," said her dad, cutting her mom off. "A fuse burst and scared her."

Mom did not say anything more.

Cora's howl of pain and terror woke up the entire house.

She knew it did, because she could feel the sudden anxiety in most of the pack bonds, but she could not help it.

The scream was piercing her ears and her skull and she could barely hear her own thoughts as she howled, hands on her ears as she rocked back and forth.

Even when she felt her dad's presence over her, trying to calm her down, it did not help.

All she could do was howl in pain.

Boyd woke up wheezing, a hand pressed against his chest.

"Vernon? Vernon!"

He couldn't breathe. Something was sinking in him, ripping him in shreds and it burned, it burned -

"Vernon!"

"Erica? Erica, honey, what's wrong?"

Erica's eyelids slowly opened, wet and sticky.

Her mother's voice in the baby monitor she was forced to keep in her room was tinny and sleepy, and Erica sniffed, rubbing the wet from her face while a hand massaged her neck.

She sighed. "I'm coming, baby."

Isaac slapped a hand over his mouth before his crying could be heard.

His heart was beating so fast he was afraid the sound would wake his father but, surprisingly, it didn't.

Isaac remained laying where he was, waiting for it to subside.

It took a very long time.

Peter could not stop the scream from leaving his lips at the scream that pierced his ears.

He had been trying to sneak back home, but he could not physically move at the sound, falling to his knees with his hands over his ears.

His body, for the first time in years started shifting by itself, and Peter could not hold it back.

He threw his head back and howled.

Jackson twitched in his sleep, and turned on the other side of the pillow.

The only sound louder than Lydia's scream as she forced herself awake was the sound of her mirror and windows breaking like they had been smashed in.

Lydia did not notice.

She barely noticed anything as she writhed on the bed, kicking her sheets off her, screaming as loudly as she could a wail that almost did not sound human.

She screamed only one word:

"STILES!"

"Scott! Scott!"

Scott could see his mother was worried. He knew he was freaking her out, he knew that he needed to try and breathe. 

He knew.

But-

"Stiles!" he shouted, nails - human nails, not long and arched like in the dream - trying to claw him out of his mom's arms. "I nee- he's dying- mom-"

He kept struggling and screaming, Melissa using all of her strength to keep him down.

He only stopped when he passed out.

John Stilinski did not believe in prophetic dreams and all of that mystic stuff.

But there definitely had to be a reason why he had woken up from the worst nightmare he had in his life - a strange nightmare about demons, and kids with elongated jaws, and black wolves, and gold and blue eyes and red eyes, and monsters, and evil humans - to the sound of his son screaming as if he was being ripped apart, so loud he was waiting for the police to call to check in on them.

"They're dead," wailed Stiles, still shaking in his arms, still trying to free himself. "Scott is d-dead, I didn't save them, I couldn't save them, I'm sorry, I'm so-sorry, I'm sorry-"

He hadn't cried this hard at his mother's funeral. He hadn't cried this hard since he was a child making himself sick in the middle of the night because nobody was picking him up.

And this grief, this pain, this terror he could see in his eyes, this pain older than John could understand...

"I tried so hard- the tree, poisoned- and Ger-ard, I should have stay-ed but Derek, Derek-"

It terrified him.

John held Stiles tighter.

Paige was dying in his arms.

Derek was holding her close to his chest, begging, crying, wishing he could take everything back as the black goo kept coming out of her, and he was trying to save her, he had only wanted to help her, to keep her safe but-

For a second, Derek felt every part of him stiffen, as a strange golden something washed over him and Paige.

A cloud of some sort, coming down the Nemeton, washing everything in a strange light.

He did not even have time to wonder what it was, if hunters had found out about his actions and tracked him down.

He did not have time for any of that, because then there was a scream.

Derek's control had already been shaky.

But Derek knew this scream, his wolf knew this scream, and he couldn't stop it.

The howl ripped itself out of his throat.

And the magic exploded.

Chapter Text

PART I

Stiles had never noticed how close his house was so to the woods.

Well, of course he had noticed. He had lived in that house all of his life.

And, on the rare occasions where he and Scott had decided that the outside world was worth exploring, he remembered being sternly - and repeatedly - asked to not venture into the woods without parental supervision (as his backyard looked right into said woods, that was advice that Scott and Stiles had often ignored).

They often ended up with foxes tearing into their trash, and once a coyote had found itself on the main road in front of their home. The poor soul had been chased by Mr Irwin, the neighbour three doors down, before it had managed to sneak back into the woods. Obviously, Mr Irwin’s unlicensed gun was then seized by the Sheriff, and everyone went to sleep a little easier.

Because coyotes in the woods were less of a threat than Mr Irwin the crazy man with a gun.

So yes, Stiles was aware that he lived close to the woods.

But, oven the weekend, he had found himself being extra aware of the woods. He had found himself paying more attention to the edges of their property, not going outside but studying the trees and the shadows from his bedroom and kitchen windows, watching out for evil weird things that might be waiting to jump and eat him.

Okay, he thought, with a wince.

The nightmare was still very vivid in his mind.

"Stiles?”

Stiles glanced up. His father’s attention was still on the road, but he was eyeing him, looking worried enough that Stiles rushed to clear his face from any of the previous upset.

“I’m fine, dad,” he promised, giving him a smile. “Honest. Scout’s honour and all.”

“You were never a scout,” said his father, not looking particularly convinced by Stiles' words.

Which was what made him such a great detective and great father. His ability to use his nosiness to keep everyone else safe and Stiles on the path of truth and honesty and minimum mischief.

“I still have honour.”

“That is extremely debatable.”

“Wow. Et tu, father?”

The man chuckled, and Stiles totally did not fist pump at the way his shoulders relaxed as they spoke. Maybe he was tooting his own horn a bit, but Stiles was pretty sure that this meant he'd make an awesome criminal.

He wouldn't.

But he totally could.

“What do you have today?”

Stiles jumped at the opportunity given, giving him a not-so-quick breakdown of his classes for the day meant to last the remaining drive.

He understood why his father was worried.

It wasn’t like Stiles did not have nightmares. Stiles was an eleven years old boy with ADHD who had been in the room when his mother, having suffered for dementia for close to two years, died and who had spent the following year and half taking care of himself as his father struggled to see the end of the bottle.

Nightmares had quickly become normal, in the Stilinski household.

But the nightmare he had had Thursday night... Stiles shuddered just thinking about it.

It had been the most terrifying nightmare Stiles had ever had, stirring the most awful and painful emotions he had ever felt.

He did not even remember exactly what had happened in the dream, but he remembered his pain. He remembered how hurt he had felt, how terrified and upset he had been. how hopeless everything had seemed.

He remembered thinking that he was the only one left, and that everyone - everyone - else was dead already. Thinking that he was the last survivor, holding the body of someone that he did not remember but that his heart knew.

He remembered feeling emotions he had never felt before, a desolation, a drive he could not even understand how his brain had conjured.

It had been 100 times worse than loosing his mother, 100 times worse than wondering if he was about to lose his father.

And it hadn’t been just that. 

Over the pain, and desperation, and terror, he remembered dreaming of houses burning down, and wolves chasing him in the woods. Of old men with swords, and little girls with crossbows. Of lizards pushing him in a swimming pool and a row of terrifying teeth around his wrist.

And monsters. Monsters of all kinds, of all types, with names he knew and ones he could not remember, and then the tree.

The tree.

The tree was the most confusing of it all.

Because while the horrible nightmare had happened on Thursday and that was it, the tree had featured in all of his dreams since.

It had just... been there. No matter what he dreamt about, no matter how long or little he slept for, he always ended back to the creepy and ominous tree.

Though he supposed calling it a tree was a bit generous. 

It was just a stump of a tree.

An alive stump.

An alive stump that, for no reason he could think of, Stiles kept dreaming about.

And that, for no reason at all, Stiles had yet to mention to his father.

He and his dad did not usually keep secrets from one another. Stiles had never enjoyed lying to him, and lately the thought of lying to the man made him feel a bit sick.

Still, he couldn’t seem to find the words to describe his dreams to the man.

What was the Sheriff supposed to do about Stiles seeing a tree in his dreams?

At best, he’d ignore it and hope it went away by itself.

Worst case scenario, it ended up with a hospital trip and Stiles discovering that he had the same disease as his mom.

And Stiles did not want to take the chance. He did not want to ask anybody to check, because he had already checked. He had done his reading when his mother had first been diagnosed, and he had done the maths.

Any child of a person with familial FTD has a 1 in 2 chance of getting the gene that caused said illness.

Stiles only believed in betting when he had more than a one in six chance.

He did not trust 50-50.

“Here we go,” said his dad, stopping behind the school. He turned to Stiles, concern back in his eyes. “Are you sure you’re okay? If you want to take another day off–”

“I had the weekend, dad,” said Stiles, unbuckling his seatbelt. “And I have my phone. I’ll call you if I feel weird-er than usual. Or if I get a surprise quiz I am not ready for. Promise.”

“Be good,” said the Sheriff, gently rubbing his head with his knuckles. “No hiding from tests, and don’t do anything stupid.”

“Ask for something that is within my control, daddy-o,” joked Stiles, stepping out of the car.

“Try not to do anything stupid?”

Stiles sighed, pretending that agreeing was a very big favour he was making to the man. “Fine. I’ll try. See you later?”

“Tara will pick you and her sister up. Love you!”

“Love you too,” said Stiles, closing the door behind him. He ignored the snickering and ran up the stairs to the entrance while waving.

The Sheriff never drove away until he saw Stiles safe and sound inside the building, but while normally Stiles would wait for this and then go outside to wait for Scott, he did not need to do so today.

Because Scott had somehow made it to school before him.

He saw his best friend standing near the window and clutching his bag straps, staring out impatiently and having somehow completely missed Stiles' arrival.

Stiles had the most odd feeling of déjà vu at the sight of him; but it was hard to focus on that with the way his heart started to beat.

Stiles was no stranger to an increased heart rate. He took Adderall and, unfortunately, an increased heart rate was one of the many side effects of the medication.

But this was not normal. 

Because he could breathe normally, but his chest hurt, and his eyes were stinging, all of a sudden and, before he could even think, he found himself tackling his best friend in a tight hug.

Scott yelped, trying to free himself before he realised it was Stiles.

And then, instead of pulling away or complaining, he hugged him back as tightly and desperately, pressing his face in his neck in a way that should feel more uncomfortable than it was.

Stiles did not care.

"Get a room!"

Stiles did not even bother flipping off the mocking, just holding Scott tightly against him.

When he had woken up from the nightmare, his father had been there. Stiles remembered - thankfully not very clearly - some of the nightmare, the terrifying feeling of loneliness and being alone.

The man had been holding him, eyes red and worried, and Stiles had let himself relax in his arms, relax in the knowledge that his dad was there (alive) and that, so long as he was there, Stiles was safe.

And he knew Scott was also fine. He had spoken to Scott on the phone the next morning as soon as his dad had deemed it an acceptable time to call the McCall house. They had spoken for a while, both of them talking of nothing while their respective parents pretended they weren't listening in on the conversation.

But it was different, hearing his voice and feeling him in his arms. It was different from hearing Scott's heartbeat against his chest, hearing the slight wheeze in his breathing, smelling his body axe spray, feeling the grip of his arms against Stiles.

It had been just a nightmare. A terribly frightening nightmare, but just a nightmare.

Stiles knew this. Stiles had told his father this, when he had spent the weekend looking at Stiles like he thought he was going to break.

But it wasn't until he had Scott in his arms, alive, safe, fine, that he truly truly believed it.

"Thank god you're okay," said Scott, slowly easing his hold on Stiles. He leant back, but he still kept his arms on him, and Stiles did the same, studying his friend closely for any sign of... anything. "I had this nightmare on Thursday night-"

"Wait, what? You had a nightmare?"

"Yeah, it was so scary," said Scott, shuddering. "It was like, freaky, and you were hurt- ow!"

"Dude!" nearly shouted Stiles. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It was just a nightmare," reasoned Scott, rubbing the non-injured arm like the big faker he was. "Plus, mom would have made it a big deal."

"It is a big deal," stressed Stiles. "I had a nightmare as well. On Thursday."

"Dude," said Scott, eyes widening in surprise.

"Dude."

"Wait, is that why you didn't go school on Friday? I thought you were sick."

"I was sick," said Stiles, feeling his cheeks warming slightly. He subtly checked that nobody was looking at them, before pulling Scott towards their classroom. "I did not sleep at all and I threw up and dad said that he almost called the hospital because I was like in hysterics or something. I didn't want to tell you over the phone." He shrugged. "It's embarrassing."

"It's not," said Scott, eyes wide and empathetic. "I also was sick because of the nightmare, that's why I didn't go to school. I gave myself an asthma attack over it."

"Dude."

"Dude."

That was so weird. That he and Scott both had a bad nightmare on the same night and had gotten so sick because of it that they had not been able to go to school the next day.

"You know what that means?" 

"What?"

"That we are soulmates," said Scott, giggling when Stiles pushed him away, fake gagging.

"Ew! I don't want to be your soulmate. I want to be-"

"Lydia's soulmate," finished Scott, rolling his eyes.

"I was going to say your bro-mate," corrected Stiles. "But since you don't want that..."

"Well, what kind of proposal was that?"

"Who said I was proposing? I proposed the first time we met."

Scott waved his fingers in Stiles' face. "There is no ring here, though, is there?"

"We sealed it with a fist bump and curly fries, as god intended."

"Excuse me."

They both moved aside, and Stiles stopped for a second as Caitlin walked past them and into the classroom.

Scott pulled him along after her, and Stiles let him, automatically moving towards his seat even as he looked around the room.

It was weird.

Stiles had lived in Beacon Hills all of his life, unlike Scott. Scott had moved here with his mom in third grade, but Stiles had been born and raised here.

His parents knew everyone. His father had been a deputy and then the Sheriff, and his mom had ran the afterschool club at the library. There were little town festivals every year, and while there were a couple of different kindergartens, there were only two middle schools and one high school.

Stiles knew basically everyone in town, and everyone in town knew him.

His mom's funeral had been filled with people, and almost everyone in town had come to offer their condolences. Even the teachers in class had known without him needing to say a word.

So Stiles knowing everyone in his class should not be surprising or confusing.

He had gone to kindergarten with most of them and, for the most part, they had been in the same classes since first grade.

Scott was his only real friend, but he knew the rest of them as well. He had gotten invited to several of their birthdays, even gone to some of his other classmates' houses for homework and non homework related reasons.

He knew these people.

But why did he feel as if he knew them? As if he suddenly knew them in a different way than before? As if he could comfortably call several of them his friends with no hesitation?

That was weird.

Right?

He had not gone to kindergarten with Caitlin. They had sat together once in a science class, and she had not spoken to him at all during that hour. And yet, he looked at her, and he felt as if he knew her.

That was weird, right?

Or Cora Hale. Cora Hale, who had only joined this year, and who scared the crap out of him and most of everyone else in school. Why did he look behind him, see her staring at him with her annoyed expression and felt the need to smile at her as if they were friends?

"Dude," whispered Scott, frowning at him. "Why are you smiling at Cora? Do you want to die?"

"She's not evil," whispered back Stiles, even as he turned around.

"She bit Greenburg!"

"And who's to say he didn't do something to her first? Greenburg's weird."

"Hale is weirder," said Scott. "She-"

"McCall, Stilinski," said Ms Capri, slamming a stack of papers on the desk. "Lovely to see you both recuperating. Not so lovely to hear you bickering and whispering and disrupting my peace."

"Sorry, Ms Capri," they chorus, ignoring Jackson and his little crew laughing and making faces at them.

"Speaking of absences," said Ms Capri, "I have the test of papers for those of you who weren't here on Friday, please come collect them.

"Vernon Boyd," she read out, as Stiles and Scott stood, "Cora Hale, Isaac Lahey, Danny Mahealani, Lydia Martin, Scott McCall, Erica Reyes, and Stiles Stilinski."

"Uh, a lot of people were missing," said Scott, as they moved through the desks.

Stiles made a general sound of assent, looking at the other students approaching the desk with a frown on his face.

Again, there was nothing technically... wrong with any of them. Sure, it wasn't often that so many students were absent at the same time, but it wasn't completely unheard of, either. Case in point, the chicken pox incident in second grade.

And other than Lydia and Danny, who everyone knew, it wasn't like Stiles knew any of these students particularly well.

But there was something about this particular group being the one who had been absent that gave him a feeling like... a feeling like a thunderstorm was about to start. He looked at Cora, and brushed past Vernon Boyd, and Danny passed him his paper, and he felt like the hairs of his neck were standing up.

He shivered.

"Are you okay?"

Stiles blinked from his paper to find Erica standing in front of him, holding on her paper a little too hard.

Stiles knew Erica Reyes. She was a quiet girl who he did not personally know very well but who had been in his classes since they had started middle school. She had epilepsy, and did not really have any friends in school, often eating her lunches alone in the library.

As far as he was aware, he had not spoken more than two words to the girl in his entire life.

"Uh?"

Her cheeks turned a little red as some of the other students started to return to their seats.

"Because you weren't in... Uh, I just- sorry-"

"I'm okay," he said, before she could rush away to her seat. "Feeling much better now. Thanks for asking, Catwoman. You?"

It was probably the longest sentence they had ever exchanged, and even though he had never had reason to speak to her, Stiles felt weirdly bad at the surprised smile on her face.

"I'm okay too. My mom was just worried, and kept me home. I'm glad you're-"

"Stilinski and Reyes, sitting in a tree," sang Jackson, causing some of his friends to start giggling. "K-I-S-"

"Shut up, Jackson," said Lydia, Scott and Cora at the same time.

Scott speaking up was not unexpected. Despite how much Jackson and his crew teased and lowkey harassed them, Scott and Stiles always had each others back.

Cora and Lydia speaking up was surprising, however. Both of them acted like they were too good for school, and both of them usually ignored teasing and harassment not aimed at them personally (not that there were many people stupid or suicidal enough to go against them). 

Plus, neither of them happened to like him that much. Lydia ignored his existence, and Cora... well, Cora ignored everyone.

Jackson's mouth snapped closed, and he looked as confused as Stiles felt, as they moved towards their seats.

Erica also sat down, almost completely hidden from view in her seat in front of Cora.

What had just happened?

+++

As class progressed, Stiles fell back into his favourite 'this class is so boring but I can't talk without risking terrible consequences' hobby: people watching.

Which was not as creepy as it sounded.

Despite what many thought, Stiles was perfectly able to sit down and do nothing but observe. He did not enjoy it, and doing it on command was a bit complicated.

But when he chose to do it, it was quite easy.

So Stiles let Miss Capri's words wash over him and focused on the rest of the classroom.

As usual, Lydia was the first person he found himself noticing. But not like usually, when he was staring at her because she was so pretty and so clever and so awesome and he ended up daydreaming about their happily ever after.

Today, there was something... strange going on with Lydia. 

Normally, she was sitting back on her chair, pretending not to pay attention to the class and looking perfect (she did a great job at it).

Today she looked like she couldn't fully focus. She was tapping her pen lightly against the desk, and she looked a bit tired.

And she kept glancing at him.

He knew he should be elated at this; it was his dream come true, after all. Lydia noticing him, and then being unable to pay attention to anything but him as she finally agreed to be his girlfriend and wife forever.

But this was not that. Lydia did not look happy, and her going from probably not even knowing his name to this was... odd, to say the least.

Something was up with her.

Jackson had noticed it too (which was surprising, considering how self-absorbed he normally was).

Jackson and Lydia were not necessarily friends, but they were the most popular kids in their year, and their groups always sat at tables next each other all the time at lunch. 

They also hung out together sometimes when Jackson wasn't with his goons or Lydia with her ladies-in-waiting, and talked about... pretty people things, most likely. 

Yes, Stiles liked Lydia. Yes, Jackson was a mean and annoying person. Yes, Jackson was pretty to look at.

All three of these things could be true at the same time.

Jackson kept frowning at Lydia, and the only time he and Stiles made eye contact, he glared at him.

Nothing super unusual from him.

Danny was acting normal as well. He seemed a bit more distracted than usual, but despite his absence, he appeared to be just fine.

Then there was Vernon Boyd.

Like Erica, Boyd (as he preferred to be called) had been around Stiles since they were kids. He lived on the other side of town from Stiles, but they had seen each other often enough at the library back when they were younger.

They weren't friends, but they did say hi to each other if they saw one another in passing. But when Stiles glanced at him, the boy looked away.

As if he had been staring at Stiles.

Or Scott. Stiles glanced at his distracted friend, who was punctuating his rubber with a pen.

Uh.

Isaac Lahey was sat behind him, which made it awkward to study him and figure out what he was up to.

Stiles turned around, pretending to reach into his bag, and glanced at the blond.

Isaac stared right back at him, one eyebrow raised.

"What?"

"What?" parroted Stiles. "Just looking for something in my bag."

Isaac looked at the empty air in front of him, and then at Stiles' bag.

Which was by his feet. 

And not behind him.

"Um..."

Isaac leaned back, putting a hand on his neck where Stiles hadn't noticed a still healing scab. "I just fell," he said, oddly defensively.

Stiles had not even noticed it before Isaac had mentioned it, but he was, suddenly, certain that the other was lying.

"You-"

"Stilinski," said Miss Capri, sounding irritated. "The board is this way."

"Sorry," said Stiles, turning around quickly and plastering a smile on his face while Jackson's friends laughed.

Jackson did not laugh.

Weird.

"Why are we going outside? It's warmer inside."

"There are also more people, inside," Stiles pointed out, dropping his tray on one of the outside benches. "And people have already been acting weird."

"You have been acting weird," childishly replied Scott, even as he sat down with him. 

"Yeah, but I'm acting normal weird. I'm always weird. My weird is non weird, it's normal to you because you know I'm weird. But people. People are acting weird weird."

"Like who? We- What is that?"

Stiles turned the English homework page upside down, so that the scribble he had been working on looked clearer. 

"Is that a tree? Dude, Mrs Hammond will be so angry, you know she hates us doodling on our papers!"

"Forget Mrs Hammond for a second," said Stiles, waving him off. She was not that scary, compared to some English teachers he'd had.

Though... he had only ever had Mrs Hammond as an English teacher.

Who had he been thinking of? T-

"Stiles," called Scott, impatiently. "Why's my name on the tree of people acting weird."

"Right," said Stiles, archiving the thought for later. "These are all of the people who I noticed have been acting weird. And in red are the people who were not in on Friday."

"How do you know who wasn't in on Friday?"

"Because Miss Capri made us collect our Maths test papers from class today."

"Oh, right," said Scott, focusing on the names again. "Wait, why is my name on the tree?"

"Because you're acting weird as well," said Stiles, which immediately made his friend pout.

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm not!"

"Erica Reyes asked me how I was," said Stiles, instead of answering. He pointed at the underlined name. "Lydia and Cora defended me and keep staring at me, one more obviously than the other. I caught Boyd looking at us at couple of times. Danny looks tired. Isaac is... giving me weird vibes."

"Giving you weird vibes," said Scott, sounding very judging.

"Yes, and I know it sounds weird, but it makes sense, shut up. Jackson is also giving me... vibes."

"Right," said Scott. "And why is Theo Raeken's name on the side of the page?"

"Oh, I don't like that kid."

"Why not?"

"He's going to grow up and become an evil person," said Stiles, with no hesitation. "I can just tell."

"And Jackson isn't?"

"Jackson is a douche," corrected Stiles. "A capital d Douchebag. He's that now, and he will always be that. But he's not pure evil. Theo Raeken will be. He will be pure evil."

Scott looked like he couldn't believe his ears. "Now you are being weird."

"Probably," said Stiles, grabbing his apple with a sigh. He twirled it in his hand, watching the few students playing with a ball in the courtyard. "Scotty, something is off."

Scott paused mid bite, sensing the change in tone, and made a 'go on' move.

"I don't know. Everything is normal, and seems normal, but I have this weird feeling that something has happened, and I cannot figure out what or why. I have this sort of tingle in my head that's just... I don't know.

"Is it not weird that so many of us were sick on the same day and now those same people plus a couple more are acting weird? What if..."

He did not even know how to finish the sentence. What if what? Nothing had happened.

Everything seemed fine.

Was it weird? Or was Stiles finding a beehive out of a singular hardworking flying insect (he did not remember the saying)?

"Maybe we all drank something and had hallucinations and got sick," offered Scott. "If we all ate the same food from the cafeteria, maybe we all got accidentally dosed with something. Or poisoned. Maybe we ate some spoiled meat at lunch on Thursday and it gave us hallucinations."

Boyd and Danny rarely ever ate from the cafeteria, and he had never seen Erica in the cafeteria at all, but he did not say that.

"Maybe," he answered, glancing back at the tree he had drawn. 

Something was going on. He wasn't sure of what yet, but he'd figure it out.

"By the way, can I copy your English notes?"

Chapter Text

When it came to being the son of the Sheriff, there were both many perks and many downsides.

Unfortunately, as he chewed on the back of his pencil and looked around bored, only the downsides were coming to mind.

The main downside being the fact that it was Monday afternoon and Stiles was sat at some new deputy’s desk doing homework when he could be at home or at Scott’s doing... well, also homework, but other stuff as well.

Probably.

He understood why he was here, of course.

Stiles was an independent child. He had had to be, because as soon as his mother got sick, things had taken a turn.

His father had never neglected him, per se. But between Claudia Stilinski being in hospital, being the Sheriff, and trying to keep the family from sinking under the weight of the medical bills, there had not been much time for him to spend with his hyperactive spaz of a child.

And Stiles was fine with it. Really, he understood why it had been necessary, and had never resented his father for it.

Did it suck? Well, duh. Was it lonely? Sometimes.

But Stiles got it; he had never complained, and never would.

Still, the Sheriff had felt guilty about it, and felt guilty about leaving him home alone too often. So, if he couldn’t stay over at Scott’s, chances were that he ended up at the Station or out patrolling with him.

That was how Stiles had spent his evenings and his summer since his mom had passed away: by himself, over at Scott’s, or at the Station, and he didn’t mind (... too much).

Normally, Stiles could get away with saying that he’d be okay at home by himself, but Tara had picked him up after school, and here he was.

Bored out of his mind, failing to concentrate on the English paper in front of him while the new deputy did his work and tried to act like he knew what he was about.

“The quicker you finish this, the quicker you can do something more fun,” he said, nudging Stiles’ paper.

Stiles studied him for a moment, deciding he was probably more interesting than his homework.

“Don’t I technically have seniority over you? Cause you only just started working here, but I have been here longer than a third of the people currently on the force.

“Though there is the argument of seniority versus ranking,” he continued, tapping the pencil on the desk. “After all you have a gun and a boring uniform, and I don’t. Though I could probably get a uniform, if I asked. I wore a deputy costume for Halloween when I was like six. Anyway, point is that if something happened and they said ‘new guy, seven four eight’, you wouldn’t have a clue of what they were saying, would you? I would. You would need to defer to me. Does that not automatically mean that I naturally outrank you-”

“Not until you can legally carry a gun, you don’t,” said Tara, lightly hitting his head with a book and ignoring his yelp. “Seven four eight just means there’s a mouse in the bathroom, boot. Stiles invented it.”

“You are taking all the fun out of this, you know that, Tara?" he complained, launching a packet of brand new post it notes at her head. He missed. "And the fun of learning for new guy! You are robbing deputy What’s His Face of the opportunity to live laugh love learn alongside the rest of the force - which, by the way, makes you a thief and I could have you arrested for that -  you are taking away from him his chance to fully develop into the butterfly-”

“Just ignore him,” said Tara, while deputy What’s His Face continued to look supremely confused. “Stiles, can we trust you here alone for a second? I need to run boot here past a couple of things.”

“Ta-ra,” said Stiles, leaning more uncomfortably on the chair in an attempt to look super innocent. “You know me.”

“Uh-uh,” she said, expression not changing. “Which is why I say this: behave.”

Stiles lifted his pinky in promise, and Tara rudely rolled her eyes, pulling Deputy What's His Face with her a few tables away, nearly colliding with Deputy Seshka.

It was weird. It shouldn’t be, because nothing had changed, but it still felt weird, how busy the Station was. How many people were roaming around, talking to one another, sitting at their desks, answering phone calls.

Stiles knew these people, and they knew him. They had literally seen him grow up. Stiles’ picture and report card from last year was on the common fridge alongside some other family members’.

You could point at any person in the room, and Stiles could probably tell you everything about their lives plus two or three secret facts.

And yet, when he had walked in with Tara, he had paused for a moment, surprised to see them all in the room.

It was–

“- The Hale kid!” snapped a voice.

Stiles’ head turned in direction of the arguing, and he found Deputy Crane trying to look calm while talking to a middle aged and very angry man. “He was with her! He brought her to the hospital. Why aren’t you questioning him?”

“Mr Krasikeva, we have spoken to Derek,” said the deputy, sounding already annoyed. “He has told us everything he could. He confirmed your daughter’s story; he has no idea of what attacked her.”

“Bullshit!” 

Mr Krasikeva was the husband of Mrs Krasikeva. She worked at the mart near the library where mom used to do all of her shopping, and Stiles remembered they used to spend so long chatting to each other in Polish while Stiles silently – and not-so-silently - tried to get them to leave and go home.

He had not realised Paige was their daughter.

He paused mid-tapping, a frown appearing on his face.

... Who the hell was Paige? And why did he know she was their daughter? 

“Mr Krasikeva, I assure you we are doing our best to figure this out,” interrupted Deputy Crane. “We want to get to the bottom of what happened to your daughter, and to keep her and the town safe. But I can assure you that Derek Hale had nothing to do with this.”

“You have to–”

“If, however, you’d prefer to hear this from someone higher up,” continued the Deputy, “I would advise you to speak to the reception so that she can book you in to speak to the Sheriff himself. Okay?”

Mr Krasikeva did not look like he found this okay at all, but he had no chance to complain, as the deputy expertedly steered him in direction of the receptionist.

Then he turned towards the doors, and Stiles allowed himself one look at Tara and Deputy Clay- Deputy What's His Face before he was rushing after him, nearly tripping as he did so.

“Ezra!”

“Stiles,” said the deputy, frowning as he held the door for him. “Should you be here?”

“Are you going out on patrol? Awesome, I’ll come with–”

The deputy’s hand on his shoulder felt like a steel trap. “You will do no such thing. What do you want?”

“Nothing,” said Stiles, doing his best to look completely innocent. “Just wanted to chat with my buddy. My dude. My deputy bro. My deputy buddy dude bro. My-”

“You give me a headache,” complained the man, releasing him. “You are also not convincing me to bring you on patrol with me, so you might as well tell me what you want.”

“Are you going to see the Hales?”

“You were– what am I saying. Of course you were listening.” He shook his head. “You know I can’t talk to you about this, Stiles.”

“Yes, but if the Hales are dangerous...” said Stiles, leadingly. “Cora is in my class.”

“The Hales are not dangerous,” said the Deputy, waving him off. “Mr Krasikeva is only looking for someone to blame. And you should know better than to listen to gossip.”

Stiles did know better than to listen to gossip; he had simply been hoping to trick him into telling him more by feeding into the rumors.

He doubted the Hales had anything to with whatever had happened with Mr Krasikeva's daughter.

The Hales were considered a bit weird because they lived in the Preserve, and some believed they were a cult because they home-schooled their children until they were ten years old, but his parents always said they were nice people.

And his parents were very good judges of character.

“Look,” said deputy Crane, misunderstanding his silence. “The Hales are not dangerous. They can be weird, but so can literally everybody else in this town. Whatever animal attacked Mr Krasikeva's daughter, I sincerely doubt Derek had anything to do with it, or that he is hiding anything. He was pretty upset about the whole thing. Now had it been Peter...” He made a face. “You’ll be–”

“Paige was attacked by an animal?” asked Stiles, surprised. “She was bit?”

“And I have already said too much,” said the deputy, patting him on the head. “Goodbye, Stiles.”

“But–”

“Goodbye!”

“I really don’t get why you people insist on keeping things from me! I’m gonna find out anyway! And then you– you are not even listening to me. And now you are getting into your cruiser.” He leant against the door, not-pouting. “And driving away. Keep your secrets, then. Enjoy your secrets while they last! Meanwhile I... I'll just keep talking to myself. Like an idiot. And I’m going to stop now.”

The cruiser pulled out of the driveway, and Stiles watched as it got on the road and turned to the left.

But instead of going back in after that, he couldn’t help but note the woods on the other side of the Station.

Beacon Hills was surrounded by woods. Stiles had known this since he was a toddler and they had their first ‘how to survive mountain lions/cougars/bobcats/black bears/snakes/and-everything-else-that-hides-in-the-preserve attacks’ talk.

The Preserve itself stretched across half of Beacon Hills.

But lately, Stiles had become more and more aware of the woods and all the roads of town that lead towards them.

All roads led back to Rome, except in Beacon Hills. 

In Beacon Hills, they led back to the Preserve.

Or rather, to something in the Preserve.

Did the tree even exist? The tree that he did not remember ever seeing but that had been plaguing his dreams for days, was it even real?

Dad said it best: once it’s an accident; twice is a coincidence; three times is a pattern.

And four times?

Four time meant it was time to investigate.

And what better way to investigate than going into the woods?

The Preserve could be dangerous, but that did not mean it was malicious.

If one could even describe something inanimate as ‘malicious’.

Stiles tilted his head, considering.

Was the Preserve inanimate?

Because... it did not seem inanimate to him. It seemed almost overwhelmingly alive.

The wind was like its breathing. When the trees shook in the air, it seemed like they were talking. When the branches reached out and the critters and animals ran, it almost felt like they were reaching for him.

And when it stayed still and silent?

It felt like it was listening.

Stiles could almost swear he could hear it reaching for him now, listening, talking.

Under the soles of his shoes, it felt like he could hear the heartbeat of the Preserve.

The heartbeat of Beacon Hills.

It was-

“Stiles!”

Stiles jumped, turning away from the woods.

His father was staring at him from the window of his office, and Stiles could not quite make out his expression from the distance.

From the distance.

Because he was, inexplicably, no longer standing at the door of the precinct. Instead he had, somehow without noticing, walked across the parking lot and was standing on the side of the empty road.

“What are you doing?”

Stiles felt as bewildered as the man did.

“I don’t know.”

- And when he turned around, the tree was there.

The tree.

Stiles wasn't sure of how. He wasn't 100% of where he had been, but he knew he had been nowhere near it.

And yet, here he was now.

And here was the tree.

There was an odd noise coming from it, a buzzing of some sort, like static, and Stiles instinctively tried to take a step back.

Then another.

And another.

But no matter how hard he tried to run, the tree was always behind him.

Stiles had had a general maybe inkling of an idea of finding Cora and asking about Paige and what had happened to her.

Not because he believed the Hales had anything to do with what happened to her, of course. He did not think that the Hales - or Derek - would hurt her.

But he did believe the Hales had something to do with it, because... well, he did not know why.

He just had a feeling that while they had not hurt her, they might know something about what had hurt her.

Still, he had not expected to get the chance so soon.

“For this presentation, I will be personally breaking you in trios,” said Ms Hahn, their history teacher. The class groaned, which she ignored completely like the witch she not-so-secretly was. “Each trio will choose one topic of discussion from what we have already studied, and will prepare a presentation for the rest of the class. It will be graded.”

Lydia made a face, which Stiles could not help but echo.

Call him a nerd or whatever, but he cared about his grades, and he did not want to be stuck with someone who was going to make him Stiles do all the work by himself.

Or someone who was going to ruin his work.

“Henry Camacho, Jared Greenberg, Jackson Whittemore.”

Stiles closed his hands, as Jackson started whining, wishing with all of his heart to be put with Scott.

“Vernon Boyd, Isaac Lahey, Erica Reyes.”

Scott McCall, Scott McCall, Scott McCall-

“Cora Hale, Scott McCall,” Stiles glanced up, hopefully, “And Stiles Stilinski. Danny Mahealani-”

“Yes!” cheered Stiles, punching the air and interrupting Ms Hahn.

She gave him an unimpressed look as several people in the room giggled. “Do I need to change your group, Stiles?”

“I would never wish to burden you in such a manner or waste-”

She rolled her eyes. “Sit down, Stiles.” Stiles did, before she could change her mind, already turning to Scott.

“Danny Mahealani, Lydia Martin and Heather Hoffman. Rachel-”

“Dude-”

“Dude,” said Scott, eyes wide and worried. “We are in a group-”

“I know, right? I hate when teachers pick groups, but–”

“Dude!” hissed Scott, interrupting again. “We are in a group. With Cora Hale.”

“Oh,” said Stiles, turning to glance at the girl. She was already looking at them, and she did not look pleased. “Well... that’s... uh.”

“Okay,” said Miss Hahn. “Now go on and sit with your group, so that you can start planning the topic of your discussion. Come on, now, let's move guys.”

Scott shot Stiles a worried look, but Stiles shrugged, acting less nervous than he actually was.

He had hoped to speak to Cora. He hadn’t expected it to happen so soon, though.

But clearly someone was granting his wishes whether he wanted them granted or not, so he moved alongside the rest of class until he found himself in front of Cora’s desk.

He wasn’t scared of her. But he could not deny that she did make him nervous.

“Hey,” said Scott, waving a hand from where he was basically hiding and using Stiles as his personal human shield.

He doubted she would do it in front of so many witnesses, but if she killed him, he was totally haunting Scott’s ass.

Cora did not answer, one eyebrow raised in judgement and expectation.

Clearly the Hale brows of doom were genetic.

Which... was a weird thing to think of, when Stiles had only ever spoken to one Hale face-to-face in his life, and that was Cora.

“Er, we are in a group? Together? For the project? Which... you know about? And I’m not sure why I’m asking?” he cleared his throat. “I’m going to sit down and try this again.”

He pulled the chair behind him and sat down in front of Cora, Scott hastily imitating him.

“You’re Cora. I’m Stiles. He’s Scott. We all knew this beforehand, but now we know for sure. We are doing this group presentation together. Because I don’t know about you, but I want to pass history. Hi?”

Cora stared at him, and for a moment Stiles worried she was not going to say anything. Or that she was actually mute and he hadn’t known before. Which would have been a shitty thing of him not to notice.

Even though he had heard her speak before.

Maybe she had gone mute recently.

“You are very weird."

“You're not mute! Nice. Not that it wouldn't be nice if you were mute. It's okay to be mute. Some people wish I was mute. Which is-"

"Stiles," interrupted Scott.

God bless him. And also curse him for seemingly being willing to let Stiles continue to speak despite this.

"What I meant to say, how am I weird when you're the one who always sits in the back and scares half of the people in the by doing nothing but breathing.” He winced. “Not what I was meant to say. Sorry.”

“I don’t care,” she said, and even though her expression looked like she was telling the truth, he had a feeling she was lying.

It made him feel bad.

People had sort of avoided him, after his mother’s death. As if being half an orphan was a disease they did not want to catch.

It had been incredibly lonely, and had it not been for Scott, Stiles did not know how he would have survived.

Humans were naturally social creatures.

Cora’s parents might be alive and well, but if people’s assumptions of her and her family kept them away from her...

Well. No wonder she was always sitting alone and glaring at people.

“So,” said Stiles, giving her an expectant look. “You have good grades in history. Any idea on what we should research?”

“How would you know that I get good grades in history?”

“Well, duh,” said Stiles, pointing at the rest of the classroom. “Miss Hahn did not put us in groups at random. Example: Erica, Isaac, Boyd. Boyd gets top grades. Isaac does decently. Erica does not do so good. Lydia, Danny, Heather: Lydia top of the class, Danny does pretty well, and Heather is flunking hard. Jackson does annoyingly well, Henry skates by, and Greenburg has the worst grades in the class. Me, you and Scott: I have top grades, and Scott is... doing his best.”

His best friend pouted, and Stiles patted him on the shoulder in encouragement.

“Which means you are at least decent.”

Cora stared at him in that creepy manner of hers for a few seconds, and then she glared. “You are smart,” she said, accusingly.

“I am hurt by your surprise.”  

“You always act like an idiot.”

“He’s definitely not acting,” said Scott, snickering and avoiding the slap fight before it could start by moving away.

“I am book smart,” offered Stiles. “And trivia smart. And useless smart. My mom used to say that I’m her silly genius, who knows a lot about everything and nothing.” 

Scott moved closer again, squeezing his knee in silent support, and Stiles smiled, swallowing the knot in his throat that always formed when he spoke of his mom out loud.

“Your mom is dead,” guessed Cora. When Stiles nodded, she frowned. “That sucks.”

Stiles smiled, somewhat amused by the very dry response.

But Cora looked like she meant it, unlikely some other people, and Stiles... appreciated that.

“So, any opinion on what subject we want to do?”

Because thankful or not, there had been enough talk about death and emotions for the rest of the academic year.

“I’m fine with anything,” offered Scott, while Cora shrugged.

“Not good enough,” said Stiles, ripping a page out of his notebook. “I am not carrying this entire project like I did when I was grouped with Henry.” He shot the unaware boy a glare, thinking back about how he had tanked his grade by failing to read the notes Stiles had created. 

"You are still going to take over the entire project," complained Scott, even as he took the piece of paper.

"Everyone write one topic they would not mind presenting," he ordered, passing Cora the other piece of paper. "Then we'll scrunch the papers and put them in this bottle. We'll shake the bottle and the first piece of paper that comes out will be what we do. Fair?"

Cora gave him a strange look at that, like he had done something she did not expect and she was not sure she liked all too much.

But she did not say anything, simply keeping her head up almost... challengingly, even as she did as asked.

The Hales were weird.

Or maybe it was just Cora.

+++

"My house is free," offered Stiles, as the lesson came to a close. "But my dad is not always home, which I'm assuming would be an issue?"

"Three teenagers alone in a house for over an hour?" Cora sounded amused. "I don't think my mom would approve."

"When my mom is home I'm good, but she's not always home," said Scott. He was much more relaxed than he had been at the beginning, and so was Cora.

Not that she was smiling or anything of the sort.

But she was not silently staring or looking annoyed, which Stiles counted it as a win.

Though she appeared a little tenser, now.

"There is always someone at my house," she carefully offered. "My mom, or my dad, or my uncle, or my older siblings. So, if you want... Or we could do the library. It's-"

"We have to ask our parents first, but I think that's cool," said Stiles, glancing at Scott. He nodded, and Cora seemed to relax again. "You live in the Preserve, right?"

"Yeah. Once we decide a date, I'll give you directions. It's not hard to find."

"Cool," said Stiles. "So you guys' backyard is just... the Preserve?"

"Of course not," she said, sounding amused. "There are property lines."

"How can you even tell?"

"We can tell," she answered, cryptically.

Hales.

And speaking of weird Hales, "Oh, Mr Krasikeva came by the precinct yesterday."

"Mr Krasikeva? Is that-" 

"Paige's dad," agreed Stiles. "He was asking about how the investigation was going and whether the police was questioning your brother Derek. Since he was apparently there when... the animal? Attacked her? Bit her."

"Oh," she said. "Derek is-"

"Not being investigated, as far as I know. Which is really not much. Because I was eavesdropping and then Ezra left, and he wouldn't tell me more or let me come patrol with him and he kicked me out. Well. He left. And then he verbally kicked me out. And left me. And then I almost went in the woods but that doesn't matter."

Cora looked still seemed confused. "Why are you telling me?"

"I am not sure yet," admitted Stiles. "I think it's because I like you. As a friend," he added, when her eyebrow raised in classic Hale judgement.

Which... was not really a thing. 

He frowned.

What was up with him?

He raised his head when he felt Cora's hand on his wrist, warmer than he expected it to be.

It felt a bit like he got shocked when their skin touched, but Cora did not let go.

Her eyes were actually quite earnest as she looked at him.

"Thank you, Stiles."

Stiles' smile came surprisingly easy.

"You're welcome, Cora."

She smiled back.

Chapter Text

Stiles was not sure of where he had been before, or what he had been doing.

But as soon as he turned around, the tree stump was there.

He was surrounded by trees, but the stump was the centre of attention - both to him and in the strangely creepy picture he was currently in.

There was a strange... energy that surrounded him when he put his eyes on the thing, and he stiffened, reflexively. IT was like the tree had some sort of... aura, that made his ears buzz like he was underwater, and made his teeth ache worse than that time on Halloween where he had scarfed an entire packed of sour gummies.

It hurt, hurt enough to bring tears to his eyes.

He had to move.

He needed to move.

He wanted to move, to get away from the tree, but he couldn’t seem to be able to make his feet move.

That's when he heard the sound of flies.

“... Stiles!”

Stiles jumped on his seat, painfully hitting under the desk with his knee.

“Ow,” he complained, glaring at Scott. “What was that for?”

“Dude, class ended like five minutes ago,” said Scott, looking as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to be annoyed or concerned. “What were you staring at?”

Stiles looked around, and... uh. Scott was right. Not even their teacher was in the room anymore, just him, Scott... and Lydia, Jackson, Danny, and Myah.

Lydia was sat at her desk, writing or drawing something while the other three hovered awkwardly around her, Jackson and Danny looking especially worried.

“Is she okay?”

All three of them – four if you counted Scott’s gaping expression beside him – looked at him, as if shocked that he would dare to speak to them.

“Mind your own business, Stiles,” said Jackson, recovering quickly and scowling at him. But the scowl disappeared just as quickly, as Lydia glanced up then, looking over in surprise. “Lydia?”

Looking over at Stiles in surprise.

Stiles blinked, uncertain of what to make of the unwavering way she was staring at him and Scott.

Mostly him, however.

Okay, only him.

It felt like she was looking into his soul, and Stiles couldn’t help but stare back, unwilling to be the one to break the eye contact.

She was less so.

She blinked and turned away, and Stiles breathed out, feeling strangely dizzy as time started moving again.

“Dude,” said Scott, as Lydia started to pick up her stuff while Jackson glared at them both. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Stiles, also picking up his bag.

Something was going on with Lydia, he had noticed this since Monday.

But something was going on with him too. Something was definitely going on with him, because Lydia had looked at him – blatantly and creepily stared at him, actually – and he had not embarrassed himself. He had not felt his heart race in the way it usually did when Lydia was involved. He had not spent the entire time looking at her imagining their wedding and how he'd fight off Jackson when he objected.

In fact, it had been days since he had sat down and daydreamed about Lydia or Lydia and his children.

He could argue that it was his weird dreams about the tree getting in the way and confusing him, but he did not daydream of the tree at school.

... Right?

“Do you have packed lunch or are we going in the cafeteria?” asked Scott, as they walked past the library. “I really don’t want to tempt Jackson anymore than we already have.”

“What is he going to do? The most he has ever done is make fun of us. And if he wants to play at verbal humiliation, I could spar with him as if I was holding onto the Ordon sword itself.”

Predictably, Scott laughed.

“Dude, you suck at Zelda.”

“I do not suck at Zelda,” he protested. “It’s impossible to suck at Zelda.”

“You play it wrong.”

“I play it the Stiles way; and who are we, really, to say that the Stiles way is not how the videogame gods intended for us to play it from the beginning? Hi.”

“Hello,” said the lunchlady, smiling as she proceeded to pile their lunch trays with various amounts of the poisonous matter that the school insisted on calling nutritious food.

Stiles had taken to cooking whenever he could, following his mother’s passing, and he could confidently say that this was not real food.

What even was a taco surprise? What was the surprise? Why was there a surprise in the taco? Nobody wanted a surprise in their taco! People wanted taco in their taco!

He did not say that out loud, though.

The last time he had, the lunchlady had given him a nasty glare and refused to serve him for over a week.

Which would have been perfectly fine with Stiles, had she also not refused to serve Scott, just because he had laughed.

Scotty was a growing boy, he needed food, and had yet to learn the art of using an oven or a stove without burning the house down.

Stiles blamed his dad for it (for no other reason than he really did not like Scott's dad).

But it was as it was, so he kept his mouth shut, and carried his tray away once Scott had gotten served too.

“I am shocked you kept your mouth shut,” said Scott, as soon as they were out of hearing range.

“Dude,” said Stiles, with feeling. “You have no idea how hard that was. Why would anyone put a surprise in a taco? Nobody wants surprises with Mexican food! Is the surprise going to appear now or when you are in the bathroom, crying your eyes out as you–”

“Stop,” wheezed Scott, holding his tray with one hand. “You are going to make me cry.”

“Yeah, well-” started Stiles, leading him towards a table, before pausing as he noticed something.

“Stiles?”

Or rather, someone.

"Hello? Earth to Stiles?"

Erica did not usually sit in the cafeteria. Stiles had never seen her in the cafeteria, and while he did not really talk to her, this was one of the things he had noticed often enough to be sure of.

But today, she was.

Here.

In the cafeteria.

Today, she was sitting alone at a table with her packed lunch, looking incredibly anxious as she shot the people around her nervous glances, as if she was afraid of a prank or worse coming her way.

And while Jackson had only ever put his hands on Scott once before Stiles had made sure he (and his friends) would never do so again, kids could be cruel.

Stiles and Scott had each other, if someone came after them, and they would do anything to protect the other.

Erica did not have friends.

Because kids could be cruel.

He found himself walking towards her table, pulling Scott along, before he could even fully think about his actions.

He heard his friend stumble and complain as they walked, but he did not pay him any attention, only pausing once they were in front of a very wide eyed Erica Reyes.

“Hey,” he said, grinning at her and putting down his tray beside hers. “How’s it going?”

“Uhm,” she said, turning a little red as she looked between him and Scott, who was awkwardly sitting in front of Stiles. “Hi...? What, uh... uh?”

“What do you have? We have got some mystery diarrhoea maker-” Scott slapped a hand over his mouth as he giggled, “Full of whatever because the lunchladies see the health guidelines as a suggestion board for things they should avoid at any time. I once saw a hair in my soup.”

“It can’t be that bad,” said Erica, shoulders going down a bit as she smiled. “At least you get some variety.”

“That is what the government wants us to believe,” said Stiles, preening when Erica also covered her mouth to hide her snort. “Because I don’t know about you all, but their beef, chicken and lamb tastes the same. Either they are fake, or I know I don’t wanna see what sort of inbreeding is going on in their farms.”

“You are ridiculous,” said Erica, smiling at him in a way that made Stiles all the more glad he had decided to sit beside her. “Oh, there they are.”

Both Stiles and Scott turned to find Boyd and Isaac not too far from them, looking at their table with a worried expression on their face.

Ah. Maybe that was why Erica was in the cafeteria. Discussing stuff with her presentation group partners.

But Erica did not kick them away, simply gesturing for the empty seats beside herself and Scott, looking strangely excited.

Both exchanged a look with the other, before slowly approaching the table.

“Boyd, Isaac,” said Stiles, smiling at them both and pretending he wasn’t looking at Isaac’s face for more bruises. “What’s up?”

“Nothing?”

“Are you asking me?”

Isaac glared, even as he put down his tray beside Erica’s. “Nothing. What are you doing here?”

“We were just talking about the stuff the school cafeteria insists on feeding us,” said Stiles, purposefully misinterpreting the question.

Truth was, he did not really have an answer.

He had just seen Erica sitting alone, and his legs had brought him next to her before he could even think about it.

But he did not think she would like that answer very much.

“Think of it like this,” said Erica, a wicked gleam in her eyes. “By the time we are done with middle school, we will be immune to most type of poison.”

“Oh my god?”

“You are hilarious,” announced Scott, as the rest of the table erupted in giggles and snorts. Even Boyd was chuckling, and Stiles had never seen Boyd laugh before.

Erica blushed, but she looked very proud of herself despite that.

“Not fair that you keep your awesome commentary in your head most of the time and deprive us,” added Stiles, gently bumping his shoulder against hers. “You are too funny for that.”

“Well, if you insist–”

“I don’t know if this isn’t more funny or pathetic.”

All five of them stiffened, looking to where Jackson was standing with his little posse.

His eyes were, unfortunately, fixed on their table, and he had that expression on.

The type of expression that made Stiles want to punch him in his annoying face.

“Is this a case of five nerds sitting together in order to create one super nerd, or did you just figure out that the sum of your coolness is equal to zero because you all lack it?”

Erica immediately wilted at this, impotent rage in her eyes, while Isaac avoided his eyes. Even Boyd hunched over, while Scott glared at him annoyed.

And while Stiles considered Jackson a passing annoyance and a capital D in the 'douchebag scale', he did not like that.

“How come you know this basic math but still bombed the last test?” 

Jackson’s eyes narrowed at this.

“You said something, weirdo?”

“I know you have enough money to afford cleaning your ears,” said Stiles, and Erica pressed a hand against his arm when some people chuckled and Jackson’s ears reddened.

“I wouldn’t talk about money when it is my money keeping your dad in his position.”

Immediately, Stiles was standing up, barely noticing the way Erica was trying to pull him back by the arm.

“Don’t threaten my dad.”

“Or what?” asked Jackson, now seeing he had struck true. “What are you going to do, Stiles?”

Stiles’ hands clenched together, eyes fixed on Jackson even as the wind started blowing more strongly in the cafeteria.

But before he could answer or do anything, Jackson stumbled, nearly losing his balance and crashing to the ground.

“What is–” he started, words dying in his mouth as soon as he saw Cora standing there.

She did not look particularly impressed. “You bumped into me,” she said, sounding annoyed.

“You pu-” started Jackson, just to pause.

Just to pause and take in Cora, and how shorter, thinner and generally smaller than him she was.

He probably mentally calculated how embarrassing it'd be of him to admit that she had pushed him - the answer? very embarrassing - and annoying or not, Jackson was not bad at maths.

“Freak,” he spat instead of finishing the sentence, viciously stomping towards his table, trailed by his confused posse.

Stiles watched him walk away until Cora settled her tray between Boyd and Scott, sitting down as if she belonged.

“You are not a freak,” said Erica, after an awkward and silent second of them glancing at each other. “Jackson is.”

“Thanks,” said Cora, looking up from her tray to give her a smile. “You’re not a freak either.”

“Everyone’s a freak,” said Stiles. “Which means-”

“Nobody’s a freak,” finished Boyd, nodding. “I like that.”

“Have you ever seen this old movie, Revenge of the Nerds?”

“Is nerd better than freak?”

"Depends."

"On what?"

Erica, Boyd and Isaac made sense. They had a project together, and perhaps they had planned on lunching together so that they could work on it at the same time. Or maybe they had simply hoped to get to know each other better over lunch, now that they were in the same group.

Scott and Stiles always had lunch together. It was expected.

Cora... Stiles was not really sure of how Cora normally spent her lunch. She had that ‘cooler than everybody else’ air about her, and most people were scared or found hanging around her nerve-wracking. Before the whole group discussion the other day, Stiles had been among the ones who found her nervewrecking. And creepy. And weird. And many other not so flattering things.

And while Stiles and Scott were planning on going to her house after school for the presentation, their interactions in school hadn’t changed because of that.

Or hadn't changed yet.

Boyd never talked to anyone, let alone Scott or Stiles. And while Isaac did have some friends, he was more of a loner.

In conclusion, this group did not make sense.

And yet, Scott was talking to them more easily than he had ever done with any other stranger. Erica was reaching out to Cora and the others, letting a sharp and wicked sense of humour run through. Isaac and Boyd were speaking more now than Stiles remembered ever hearing from them.

And Cora Hale was actually smiling.

It did not make sense for them to sit together. It did not make sense for them to sit together and seem to actually enjoy each other’s presence. To actually find each other fun to be around.

Stiles looked over Scott’s head to find Jackson and Lydia both staring directly at them.

Jackson was frowning, rather than scowling. And Lydia...

Lydia just looked confused.

It was weird.

Something was just... going on.

And he could not have told you if it was a good or a bad something.

“Why weren’t you guys in on Friday?”

The conversion stopped at the table, and Stiles winced as they all turned to look at him in confusion.

“Uh?”

“Friday,” he still repeated, tapping his fingers on the table. “So many people were not in on Friday. Scott and I were theorizing that we might have been accidentally poisoned at school, because both him and me were like... hallucinating Thursday night and were too sick to come in on Friday. And all of you guys also weren’t in.”

“I don’t eat cafeteria food,” pointed out Erica. “But... yeah, I was sick as well. I had this weird hallucination that I had a bad seizure and somehow snapped my own neck. And when I woke up I couldn’t move or anything.”

“Like a night terror,” said Boyd, and Erica nodded. “I had one as well.”

He didn’t go into further detail.

“I had something similar, I think,” said Cora, looking at Stiles with a strange look in her eyes. “I don’t know really what happened. But it felt like my body was... out of my control. And I kept hearing this scream-” She pursed her lips. “It was weird. But I didn’t eat at the canteen on Thursday.”

“I, uh, wasn’t in on Thursday,” said Isaac, when they all turned to look at him. “I was uh, sick, on Thursday and on Friday.”

“Oh,” said Erica, before turning to Stiles. “Do you think it’s something we drank? We all had gym on Thursday morning, right?”

“Right,” said Stiles, forcing himself to look away from Isaac. He was paying attention to his food, while Cora was not even pretending not to be staring at him.

Isaac was 100% hiding something.

“Maybe in the water? We all drank the water.”

“Sure,” said Erica, doubtfully. “But not everyone got sick.”

“Plus why would anyone try to drug middle school children?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Stiles. “It could be a case of domestic terrorism. They usually start with a controlled sample before going after their real targets.”

He got four blank stares at that.

“My dad’s a cop, I know these things, I’m just saying. Am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that the six of us plus Lydia and Danny were the only ones to get sick?”

“Maybe? I mean... people get sick all the time,” said Erica, glancing at the others in confusion.

“I don’t know,” said Cora, finally looking away from an increasingly uncomfortable Isaac. “I don’t normally get sick. Stiles has a point.”

“What does ‘I don’t normally get sick’ even mean?”

Cora did not answer, instead studying Stiles. “What are you thinking?”

He was thinking about whether he was glad that Cora seemed to so readily believe him or not.

On one hand, he knew he was not making any sense, which brought into question just how smart she was and why would she trust him.

On the other hand, he was glad, because while it made no sense and he could find no logic to it, Stiles knew something was up. It was some sort of weird sixth sense, one of those instances where he was 100% sure of something without having any sort of basis.

Hell, the only thing he did have was a weird dream about a tree that refused to go away.

Not much for a reliable source.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m still thinking. I just think it’s not a coincidence.”

“Few things in Beacon Hills are,” said Cora. “Or so my mom says.”

“Blame it on the moon, would say mine,” said Boyd. Cora frowned, and he elaborated. “You know... lunatic? It means like affected by the moon or something.”

“Moonstruck,” corrected Stiles. “The word derives from lunaticus meaning 'of the moon' or 'moonstruck'." They all stared at him. "What? I read it in a book.”

“Was that book the dictionary?”

Stiles ignored Scott, focusing on Boyd. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Thursday was a full moon,” explained Boyd. “Mom says that on the full moon, people go crazy.”

“My dad says the same,” said Stiles, brows furrowed in concentration. "He always gets the weirdest cases on full moons."

Normally, he would discount something like moon cycles and moon shape as irrelevant to whatever he was thinking or researching.

But his starting piece was a connection between people who barely knew one another somehow missing school on the same day, possibly because of an illness/poisoning/nightmare. And, when they came back, said people started acting weird.

On top of that, Stiles kept dreaming about a damn tree he was pretty sure was in the Preserve.

Maybe it was a coincidence that it had all started on the night of a full moon.

Maybe, it was not.

+++

“So, can I ask now?”

Stiles looked at Scott as they walked towards class. 

“Ask what?”

“What happened to our usual seating arrangement?” He pointed towards the canteen. “You just decided to sit beside Erica Reyes.”

Scott did not look immensely upset by that, but he did look confused.

“Do you not like Erica?”

“She’s fine, I guess. I just don’t really know her. Or Isaac. Or Boyd, or Cora.”

“Cora’s gonna be our partner for the presentation, so we might as well get to know her, right?”

“I guess,” said Scott, still seeming uncertain.

Stiles paused, pulling his friend out of the way to study him.

“I don’t know why I went to sit next to Erica,” he admitted. “I just saw her by herself, and my feet moved of their own volition.”

“Because you felt bad or because she asked you how you were on Monday?”

“Both? Neither? I don’t know,” he admitted. “All I know, was that I enjoyed having lunch with her, you, and the others, and it did not feel weird. They’re all fun. We had fun. Right?”

“I guess,” said Scott. “Isaac is funny.”

Stiles wouldn’t necessarily agree with that, but Scott McCall had a unique sense of humour.

And by unique, Stiles meant weird.

“Isaac is weird and hiding something,” he said. “But sure. I guess that if you look at it in a certain way and ignore everything he has ever said and just squint very hard and imagine a whole other conversation in your head, he is pretty funny."

"Stiles."

“Just tell me this, Scotty. It wasn’t bad, hanging out with them. Was it?”

Because, it might have only just happened, and it might not make sense, and it might be the fruit of something else, but Stiles had... enjoyed sitting with the group.

He had liked Erica's cutting remarks, and Boyd's dry sense of humour, and Cora's insights, and Isaac's witty comments.

He had enjoyed hanging out with them.

Genuinely so.

And he'd really hate giving it up because Scott had not enjoyed it.

Which he would - no questions asked.

Okay, maybe some questions. But, if Scott was uncomfortable, or didn't like it, Stiles would let it go.

“I guess not,” thankfully said Scott. “I thought it was going to be awkward, you know? But Erica was kind of funny, and it felt like we were already friends. Like we already sort of knew each other.”

“Right,” said Stiles, pleased. “It wouldn’t be too bad doing it again, right?”

“Right,” agreed Scott. Then he shot him a look, a little nervous. “I’m still your best friend, though, right?”

“Dude,” said Stiles, throwing an arm over his shoulder. “You’re my bro- mate. For life.”

Scott's smile could have lit up the entire school.

Chapter Text

It wasn’t the firefly that scared him.

The firefly in itself wasn’t scary. Stiles liked fireflies, and he liked chasing them.

But while it continued making that buzzing sound that seemed to be scraping at the insides of his brain, the firefly was not moving.

It was floating a couple of feet or so above the tree, and just… levitating.

And it was staring at him.

Which made no sense. A firefly’s eyes were too small for them to stare at you, let alone for you to realise it was doing so.

Stiles was definitely too far to notice the firefly staring at him.

And yet he could feel it. 

He could feel the thing’s eyes on him, could feel its malevolent energy, could feel… something from the insect.

Something dark, something dangerous, something bad.

Something that terrified him.

He knew that if he blinked, or if he looked away, the firefly – the thing – would not hesitate in taking him down.

In hurting him.

The tree was not dangerous. It wasn’t violent. It wouldn’t hurt him.

The firefly – the whatever it really was – would.

It would hurt him, given half the chance.

So Stiles did not turn around, and did not blink. 

He stared right back at it.

“Laura is here.”

“What?” Stiles stood up, looking around for an unfamiliar head of dark hair and judging eyebrows, but he could see nobody around that looked like a Hale. “Where?”

Whatever the hell ‘looking like a Hale’ actually meant. He had a feeling it was more of a vibe than an actual look.

Or maybe it was both.

“There,” said Cora, pointing at a car pulling onto school grounds just then. She did not look impressed. “Late, as usual.”

“How did you even see the car coming?” asked Stiles, perplexed.

Cora just shrugged, following the blue car as it drove until it was parking in front of the building.

Stiles did not know much about cars, but he was somewhat surprised by the choice. He didn’t know why, but he had imagined her to drive a sleek and sexy black car.

But it wasn’t. It was blue, and had a comfortable feel to it, as if it was several years old.

As little as he knew about cars, he supposed it wasn't a bad one.

And then there was Laura.

She pulled down the window of the car and Stiles was, for the first time in his life, faced with Laura Hale.

She did not look that much like Cora, was the first thing he noticed. At least not from a distance.

Okay, that was a lie. Not looking like Cora was the second thing he noticed.

The first thing he noticed were the hot pink streaks in her hair. They were very bright, very pink and very hard to miss. 

She also had a pair of white sunglasses on top of her hair, and a friendly smile that made him immediately inclined to like her.

“Get in losers, we are going shopping!” she called, opening the passenger door.

“Ever since she watched Mean Girls, she has become more insufferable than usual,” said Cora, rolling her eyes and going down the stairs.

Laura, for whatever reason, flipped her off as she descended.

Another point for the 'the Hales are weird' chart that had come to life in his head.

“Shotgun!”

Stiles and Scott exchanged a look before following after her.

"Sorry about her," said Laura, as Cora climbed in the passenger seat. "When you have siblings and cousins, shotgun becomes the most important rule of the kingdom. Hi! I'm Laura. And you're Scott and Stiles, right?”

“Yeah,” said Stiles, offering her a smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“And you. Now put on your seatbelts, both of you, before your father arrests me.” She turned around, sighing dramatically. “I would not last one day in prison.”

Cora snorted derisively, and then yelped when Laura smacked her head in retaliation.

This made her older sister snicker, and Stiles was struck with how... normal she looked. 

It wasn’t like he had thought all of the Hales were weird and would act weird at all times.

Except he had, and now seeing Laura like this, with colourful hair, playing music, and sniping with her younger sister...

She was so normal.

As if someone had cut out a stereotypical older sister from a movie and handed her to the Hales to raise.

“Are you guys always so quiet?” asked Laura, glancing at them as they pulled onto the main road. “It's freaking me out. Oh, I got you guys something.”

“Nah, you just creep them out,” said Cora, this time dodging the hit. “Hands on the wheel, or I’ll tell Sheriff Stilinski you nearly killed his son. And I’ll tell uncle Peter you nearly crashed his car.”

“This isn’t your car?” butted in Stiles.

“No,” said Laura, seeming pleased that he was talking. “I might or might not have gotten in some trouble, last year, and lost my rights to getting a car of my own. But dad said he’d match my money and help me get a Camaro for my birthday so fingers crossed. Cora, give your friends the drinks I picked up for all of you.”

“Thank you!” said Scott, accepting the drink. “Dairy Queen, sweet.”

“You don’t have allergies, do you? Cora said you didn’t.”

“You could have still poisoned the drinks,” pointed out Stiles, before his brain could stop him.

Laura did not look offended, though. 

“Sure,” she agreed. “But why would I poison my younger sister? They are the same flavours. How would I have ensured that she took the non poisoned one?”

“Easy, familiarity. You have known her all of her life, so if she habitually picks the one of the left, you could have made a safe bet that she would this time as well. Of course, that hinges on you wanting Cora to survive. To avoid being guilty, you would have to let her die or get injured as well. Otherwise, you have circumstantial evidence against you.”

He took a sip of his drink.

Laura turned a quizzical look to Cora, who was biting the inside of her cheek to not laugh. “Are we sure he’s in your grade? I’m pretty sure he’s smarter than I am.”

“Like that's hard.”

“Bitch,” said Laura, affectionately. Scott still snorted some of the frozen slush up his nose, and Stiles patted his back to keep him from choking. “Please don’t ruin the car, Uncle Peter is not above making me and you clean it with our tongues.” Scott, of course, gagged at this, while Stiles snickered, just picturing Scott having to lick the car clean. “And Mr future detective, if you have just explained all of the ways I could have killed you and gotten away with it, why are you drinking it?”

“Lack of motive,” explained Stiles, slurping loudly. “You don’t know enough about me to want me dead. Normally I need to start talking. Which I did.” He paused. “You might now want to kill me.”

She laughed, shooting him a smile through the rear-view mirror. “Nah. Any friend of Cora deserves to stay alive. Until, of course, she pisses me off enough for me to want to make her hurt.”

Friend of Cora.

He supposed, after the two lunches together and the fact that they were in a presentation group together, they sort of were friends.

It was strange.

At the beginning of the week, the only friend Stiles had had was Scott, and Scott’s only friend had been Stiles.

Both of them had been quite happy with this arrangement, never looking or needing a third party in their dynamic.

And they still didn’t need anybody else.

But adding Cora (and Erica, Boyd and Isaac) to their lunchtime configuration had not been bad. It had not been hard, or caused any strife or uncomfortableness in their dynamic.

He wouldn’t say she (or the others) fit in like a glove. That implied, in his opinion, that there was an empty space needing to be filled – which was not the case.

But it made for a comfortable surrounding. It made for discussions about games or movies Scott hadn’t seen with others. For discussions about animals that Cora was more than happy to follow with Scott. It made for snarky sniping between him and Isaac that amused the rest of the table greatly.

It was nice.

So yeah. Maybe he was Cora’s friend. Maybe he was Cora’s, Boyd’s, Erica’s and even Isaac’s friend now. As was Scott.

Maybe they were all friends now.

Or maybe they were strangers that had clicked after one too many moments of forced proximity.

Whatever it was, it worked.

Stiles was not about to complain.

“Woah.”

Scott’s gasp drew his attention, and then Stiles couldn’t help but echo him.

“Woah.”

The Hale house was gigantic. Or at least the biggest house Stiles had ever seen, even bigger than Jackson’s house or Danny’s.

It looked like it was at least three stories high – he said at least because there was what looked like an attic on top of that but that could very well be another floor – and it looked very old movie like. Like in those movies with the old British people who drove around in carriages and horses.

It was very beautiful.

Even as it stood alone, surrounded by trees that should, by all means, make it look creepy, it looked like something out of a fantasy novel.

It was–

Stiles blinked and, in a moment, the house in front of him transformed. Where before had been grey and painted walls, suddenly everything appeared burned and charred. The door was broken with a red painted mark on top of it, and half of the ceilings falling apart.

The stairs were falling to pieces, and the windows were gone. 

Even the walls had or were falling apart.

All of it had been burned down.

He could almost smell the burning wood, almost hear screams of the people trapped, almost-

He flinched back, blinking again, and then everything was back in place.

The windows, the steps, the walls, the paint.

Everything back to normal.

As if nothing had been messed up to begin with.

“Stiles?” Laura placed a hand on his shoulder, looking concerned. “Are you okay? Your hear- You look freaked out.”

He breathed out, quick and short breaths, eyes wide as he glanced between her and the perfectly fine house.

“You didn't... You didn’t see that?”

Scott, Cora and Laura all had similar expressions of confusion on their faces. “See what?”

Hallucinations and delusions are relatively common as Alzheimer's progresses, but relatively uncommon in FTD.

Uncommon did not mean impossible.

“Nothing,” he lied, forcing himself to smile. “I thought I saw a bird coming for us. I think I mistook your doorknob for it.”

“Right,” said Laura, matching his smile easily while Cora continued to look at him like she did not believe him.

This ability of hers of looking like she knew when he wasn’t being 100% truthful was getting annoying quickly.

“Come on, then,” said Laura, leading them towards the house. “I think mom is still home.”

Her assumption was correct.

By the time Stiles had managed to step into the foyer, the earlier enthusiasm had returned, and he was face to face with one Mrs Talia Hale.

Mrs Talia Hale was a tall woman, with long dark hair, tanned skinned, and easy smile that immediately put you at ease. 

Cora made a beeline for her mother as soon as she walked in the room, wordlessly hugging her with no shame or embarrassment whatsoever. 

Which wasn’t like bad, or anything. But Cora had this image at school, and seeing her all but nuzzling in her mother’s side was... weird.

Then again, Stiles was realising more and more than Cora’s ‘image’ did not quite align with the actual person. Just like the images of everyone else, he included.

“Hello, darling,” said Mrs Hale, squeezing the back of Cora’s neck gently.

She smiled at them both next, warmly, and something about her motherly aura made him miss his own something fierce.

“Stiles and Scott, right?”

“Uh, yeah...”

“Hi, Mrs Hale,” greeted Stiles, rolling his eyes at Scott’s awkwardness. Cora might have appeared a little creepy at the beginning, but her mom looked cool and sweet. “Nice to meet you. Your house is really nice.”

“Thank you, Stiles,” she said, pleased. “I take great pride in keeping it this way. And call me Talia, both of you. I hear you have a project? Are you hungry?”

“I got them slushies on the way here,” said Laura, knocking her shoes on the side. She picked them up just as quickly, when her mother shot her a look.

“We are fine, mom,” said Cora, taking off her shoes as well. “If we’re hungry later we’ll tell you.”

“I might need to head out later,” warned Talia. “But Peter, Laura and Derek are home. Ask them if you need anything. Stiles, Scott, Cora will show you the spare slippers. Cora, you guys can take the living room or the library for your project, but Derek is in the library right now.”

“You guys have a library?" That was the coolest thing he had heard in so far. "Wait, of course you guys have a library, your house is huge. Can we see it?”

“After we are done,” said Cora, handing him and Scott slippers. “And after Derek is gone.”

“Cora,” said Talia, in a reproaching tone. She rolled her eyes, not apologising, and Talia turned to look at the two of them. “Anyway, good luck in your project. Scott’s mom is picking you both up, right?”

“Right.”

"Good," she said, putting a hand on both their shoulders. "Let me or the others know if you need anything."

"Sure. Thank you, Talia."

She smiled back at him and Scott, before letting them go and disappearing deeper inside the house.

As soon as she was far enough, Stiles turned to Cora.

"Your mom is awesome."

Cora looked immensely proud. "I know."

“We are not putting that on the posters.”

“Fine,” easily said Stiles. “We don’t need to. I will just–”

“We are not adding that to the presentation, Stiles,” said Scott, sounding as exasperated as Cora. 

“What? But why? It’s so interesting. The Egyptians did not even have proper indoor plumbing, according to most accounts, but were the first to not only create a medical book, but also to mention management of urinary incontinence with–”

“Please stop!” moaned Scott, slamming his head against the table, hands pressed against his ears. “I don’t want to hear anymore of this, Cora make him stop, please.”

“Ms Hahn said that we need to focus on the stuff we were taught,” added Cora, also looking disgusted. “We are not presenting urinary incontinence–”

A louder groan from Scott.

“To the rest of the class.”

“It’s interesting,” complained Stiles.

“It’s nasty,” argued Scott, glaring at him.

“Both things can be true at the same time,” said Cora, crossing her arms. “We are not doing it.”

Stiles pouted, even as he – very reluctantly – striked out the note he had made for himself on the notebook. 

“I thought we made me leader,” he still complained because his disapproval had to be noted. He was very disapproving. And disappointed. 

“But this is a team and not an dictatorship, and we have the right to vote you out.”

“That’s how coups starts. You should definitely watch out for those.”

All three of them looked up, surprised to find another person had joined them in the room.

And as soon as Stiles’ eyes fixed on the man’s pale blue ones, his heart started racing.

As previously stated, Cora was the only Hale family person he actually knew. He knew Talia by sight, and he might or might not have met one of Cora’s cousins before.

But as soon as he looked into those pale blue eyes, Stiles knew with a deep certainty that he was staring at Peter Hale.

And not only that: he was staring at Peter Hale, and Peter Hale was dangerous.

It wasn’t like when he had looked into Talia or Laura’s eyes. Talia had this stern but warm mom vibe to her that made Stiles immediately like her a lot. She had the feel of a woman who wasn’t to messed with when she got angry but that also would only get angry at you out of love.

Laura Stiles liked. She was just so cool, and she did not tell him to shut up when he started rambling at her in the car, and she loved her sister. She just gave him older sister vibes.

But Peter Hale looked at him, and Stiles felt a strange cold feeling creep up his spine and making him straighten up.

But not in fear. Had it been fear, it would have been irrational, but at least it would have made sense.

Ever since his mother’s death, he had these flashes of... fear that he couldn’t control or figure out the origins of.

Fear he would have understood.

But this was different. This was like looking in the eyes of some sort of predator or vicious beast and knowing that only its self control and the metaphorical – or not – glass were the only things keeping you alive and unharmed.

Peter Hale, who Stiles had never met before, instinctively made Stiles want to keep him as far away from his neck as possible.

And he seemed to notice it too, because he glanced at Scott for a moment, but he focused on Stiles for way too long.

“Uncle Peter,” said Cora, sounding annoyed. “What do you want?”

He turned away from Stiles, and he had to push down the instinct to let out a deep sigh of relief at this.

What the hell?

“What do I want? Can’t an uncle simply come and see what his niece and her brand new friends are up to?”

“Not when mom is still angry at you for the other day,” sniped Cora, and there was a flash of annoyance in Peter’s eyes.

“That is water under the bridge,” he said, waving her off. “Me and Talia have made up, and now she trusts me to feed her cub, the son of the Sheriff, and the one I don’t know.”

Good. Stiles moved to cover Scott from Peter, a move that did not go unseen by the man and that actually seem to amuse him.

“Don’t call me cub,” said Cora, cheeks reddening a little.

“Why? You used to love that,” said Peter, fooling absolutely nobody with that innocent tone of voice of his. “Oh, I see. Is it to keep face in front of your new friends? Can’t have two little... soft things like them see how non-threatening you are, can we?” He smiled, not so nicely. “I mean, is it not already obvious? He’s already bossing you around, what with that little type A alpha personality of his.”

He shook his head, ignoring the growing glare on Cora’s face. “No wonder your sister’s position is so unthreatened. Neither of her siblings–”

“Peter,” snapped Laura, having also somehow used her Hale powers of silent moving to sneak up on them. She no longer looked as amused and carefree as earlier, a glare firm in place. “Leave her alone.”

“Oh, I was simply joking,” said the man, with a big smile. “Cora knows that, don’t you? She’s a big girl. She doesn’t need–”

“I did not ask what she does or doesn’t need,” said Laura, not backing down. “Let them do their work and stop trying to make everyone miserable just because you are.”

Peter sneered, the hit clearly landing. “You know, I am still your uncle. Older than you, higher up than you. And your mother put me in charge of getting the darlings something to eat.”

“And she put me in charge of you,” said Laura, teeth a little gritted. “Should we call her up now and see what comes first for her?”

For a second, the two of them stared at each other, looking equally as pissed off.

Stiles had the mental image of two dogs being held back by invisible leashes.

“That won’t be necessary,” eventually said Peter, rolling his eyes quite dramatically. “I guess I will go bother Derek, for a change.”

“If he throws you in a wall, I’ll tell mom you deserved it,” warned Laura, at the same time Cora said, “Just leave him alone.”

“Fine, fine,” he said, sighing again. He put a hand over the back of Cora’s chair, on the back of her neck, but instead of pulling away as he had expected her to do, she let the touch linger. “Chocolate chip cookies are on the table over there. Made them myself this morning.” He looked at Stiles and smirked. “I promise there is no poison, Stiles.”

“How did you–”

“I told him,” quickly said Laura, a smile plastered on her face. Her eyes, though, still looked annoyed, following Peter as he walked out of the room.

“He needs to leave Derek alone,” said Cora, looking over at Laura. “He–”

“Derek’s mad at me,” said Laura, walking back out the room. “You can try mediate that yourself, if you–”

“Ugh, pass.”

Laura’s laugh followed them, trailing off as she went back wherever it was she had been before.

As soon as she was gone, both Stiles and Scott were looking at Cora, failing to look anything but extremely curious.

She glanced from one to the next, and groaned. “You are not going to leave this alone, are you?”

“Of course not,” said Stiles, scoffing. “It looked like you were about to scratch each other’s eyes out. Your uncle?”

“Yeah,” said Cora, frowning at him for a moment before answering. “He’s mom’s younger brother. He finished college, came back home, and has been making an extreme nuisance of himself since he’s been back.”

“Is he...” Scott looked around uneasily for more stealthy footed Hales. “Dangerous?”

“Uncle Peter?” Cora snorted, shaking her head. “He likes to think he is, but he’s just... weird. He likes scaring people and acting creepy. Dad says that it’s because he’s so much younger than mom and so close in age to Laura, and it’s given him an inferiority complex.”

“I can see that,” said Stiles, which made Cora laugh. 

“Don’t let him hear you say that,” she warned. “But anyway, normally he tones it down around strangers. But from what I've heard, his ex from High School came back into town, and...” she didn’t finish but waved her hand tellingly.

“Oh,” said Stiles. “He still loved her?”

Cora winced, and made a so-so gesture. “It was complicated, and all I heard came from Laura and from mom - when she shouted at him about what he did to Derek.”

“What did he do to Derek?”

Cora winced again, making a face. “We should probably eat the cookies before they get too cold,” she said, standing up from the table. “And then get back to Ancient Egypt.”

“Aw, come on,” complained Stiles, as Scott stood up all too eagerly. “It was just getting interesting.”

“I’m not supposed to tell."

“I was just about to unveil the family secret,” he complained. This, for whatever reason, made Cora suddenly choke on her cookie – from laughter or from surprise, he couldn’t quite tell.

The Hales, he decided, were most definitely weird.

But, as it turned out, he found them interesting.

So there was that.

Chapter Text

Stiles wouldn’t say that he had gotten used to the tree, because that was not true.

The thing had creeped him out from the beginning, and it continued to do so.

He was not any less confused by it than he had been at the very beginning of its infiltration in his mind.

But, at the same time, he did not immediately freak out or freeze in fear, when he found himself turning around during another bland and forgettable dream to find the stump directly behind him.

It was not the stump itself that made him startle, when he turned around today, his surroundings turning dark like he was lost in a forest.

It was not the weird feeling in his bones and teeth and in his brain the longer he observed the tree. 

It wasn’t even the buzzing of the fly that everything in his body and mind begged him to get away from (because the tree was not normal, and there was something... strange about it, sure; but the buzzing fly was a warning, a dangerous premonition, and that Stiles needed to stay as far away from it as possible - it was dangerous).

That unsettled him as it always did.

But it did not freak him out as much as the figure in the red hoodie did.

One second it was nothing but Stiles, the stump, and the firefly, alone in the loud silence of the clearing.

The next, the fly was trapped under a glass jar, and Stiles was jumping in surprise at the sudden arrival of a new character in his dream.

He couldn’t have told you where the figure had even come from. He hadn’t heard or seen him/it move/approach; it hadn’t made a single sound.

He couldn’t see the person, from where he stood. All he could see was the dirt on his dark pants, and the red of his hoodie, the back of his head hidden by said hood. His hand was also visible from where it was holding onto the glass jar on top of the firefly, and it looked not only dirty, but also... bloody.

Stiles’ stomach turned.

He knew he should get away, that he should try to run, now that the firefly was gone.

But his curiosity would one day get him killed, because his mouth moved before he could even figure out what he wanted to ask.

“Who are you?”

His voice was shaky, but not by any means low. 

Yet, it seemed like the other person did not hear him. They did not turn around, did not speak, did not make any sound.

Stiles had no idea of how long he stayed where he was, waiting, before he woke up.

Stiles yawned, rubbing his eyes as the classroom started to shuffle around him.

“You okay?”

He rubbed his face one more time, nodding tiredly at Scott.

“Just tired,” he explained, forcing a smile. “Still not sleeping all that well.”

“Still the tree?”

“What tree?”

Stiles and Scott both looked up at Erica, who was hesitantly standing behind a chair on his left, holding onto her bag nervously.

It was still a bit weird how not weird the entire situation felt.

Apart from the few times they had sat together at lunch, it wasn’t as if they interacted much outside of the cafeteria.

They might smile and wave in class, but it was not as if they went out of their way to interact with each other. They didn't really have much opportunity for that since, while Stiles and Scott’s seats beside one another were a constant in most classes, the others were usually sat all over the room.

But, at the same time, it did not feel out of character for her and Boyd to be standing not too far away from them as the class was split into two groups for the art exercise the sub wanted them to do.

It should.

But it did not.

“I have been dreaming about a tree,” he explained, pushing out the chair in invitation.

Immediately Erica brightened up, dropping beside him while Boyd sat next to her.

Cora and Isaac were on the other side of the room, sitting at the other table, and Stiles found himself inexplicably disappointed by this.

At least they were with one another, he thought, which was as inexplicable and odd a thought as the previous one.

“Well, it’s not really a tree. It’s more of a stump. Which... I guess a stump is considered a tree. Right? All stumps are trees, but not all trees are stumps. I think? I don’t know.”

“It’s okay to be silent, sometimes,” said Scott, patting him on the shoulder.

Erica and Boyd snickered while Stiles reached immediately to slap him back.

The slapfight ended with Miss Substitute teacher dropping their A4 papers on their desks, her scathing look definitely aimed for Stiles and Scott in particular.

“Now that everyone has their papers, let's talk about your work,” said the teacher, standing near her desk and looking over at them all expectantly. “As you can see, I have divided you in two groups. Each group will have a different topic and medium, and you will have to try and represent the concept given with said art medium.

“Group on the left, your topic is dreams,” she said, pointing over at Stiles’s table for the kids in the room (Greenburg) who still did not know their rights from their lefts. “Group on the right, your topic is nightmares. Your tools are at the centre of their tables.”

Stiles looked at the various sets of oil pastels in front of him dubiously. 

He wasn’t much of an artist, but he doubted giving a bunch of twelve and eleven years olds oil pastels was a smart idea for clothes and faces and the safety of the rest of the classroom.

And as per the topic itself,

“What if our dream is a nightmare?” he questioned, interrupting whatever she was about to say next. “Do we change desks?”

“I want to change desks!”

“Me too, can we–”

“Nobody is changing desks,” said the sub, shooting Stiles a poisonous glare. “Everyone is staying where they are. And Stiles, just follow the instructions.”

“I’m just saying, what constitutes as a nightmare? Do we have to wake up crying for it to be a nightmare? Does that mean that dreams can never be scary? What are the parameters–”

“Stiles, you can either sit there and draw one of your dreams, or you can explain to the principal and your father why you have to paint things at home instead of being in class.”

Stiles wanted to let her know that his father wouldn’t be at home after school but at the precint, so her assumption was a bit incorrect, but Erica pinching his leg made him think that it was probably not a good idea.

So he just smiled, instead, biting his tongue really hard.

Erica looked extremely exasperated when Stiles glanced at her to complain.

“Why do you have to antagonise all the teachers all the time?”

“He’s not antagonising,” said Scott, grabbing a red pastel. “He’s got ADHD; his brain moves too fast and he likes asking questions. He doesn’t do it on purpose.”

“Thank you, Scott,” said Stiles, grabbing a dark green pastel.

Stiles didn’t care that much about having ADHD. But without explaining what it was and what it meant, many people did not realise that he wasn't just doing things with the goal of pissing others off (at least not always); most of the time, he just couldn't help himself or his own curiosity, and people misunderstood it for him being a bad person.

And that was a bit upsetting.

But Erica did not ask Scott or Stiles to explain himself further, and neither did Boyd. They just nodded like that made sense, picking their own pastels and papers instead.

It made something inside his chest feel like it wasn’t being squeezed really hard anymore.

It was nice.

He looked down at his paper as everyone started working, and his good mood quickly disappeared.

He was a bit at a loss. 

The only thing he remembered, as of late, was the tree. He knew he had dreams other than those involving it, and he knew that other things happened before he ended up face to face with the tree.

But he never remembered them, and looking at the paper now, he had no idea of what to draw.

“Dude,” said Scott, when Stiles started trying to peek a glance at his paper. “What are you doing?”

“What are you drawing?” asked Stiles, still trying to sneak a peak. “Come on, let me see.”

“No, nosy,” said Scott, slapping his forehead away very much harder than necessary.

Stiles grumbled, looking over at Boyd and Erica instead.

“What are you guys drawing?”

“Myself without seizures,” said Erica, fully focused on not letting the oil pastel smudge her paper. 

All Stiles could really see was blonde hair and a strange amount of leather clothes.

“Cool.”

She smiled, before going back to her work.

Boyd either did not hear him or was ignoring him, and Stiles sighed, doodling around on his paper.

The only thing he could think about was that damn tree, that had been doing nothing but occupy his dreams and make him tired whenever he woke up the next day.

He did not understand it, really.

He was pretty sure he had never seen the tree before. So why would he be dreaming about it? He must have seen a picture of it, or seen it face to face somewhere, but as hard as he thought about it, he could not recall.

So his mind might have just... conjured it. Which did not make sense, unless...

Unless there was something wrong with his brain.

And Stiles did not want to think about that, thank you very much.

Because if he did, then he’d have to look into it. And looking into it meant talking to his dad about it, and Stiles did not want to have to say anything regarding this to him.

Because he knew the fear and the years it would take off his life, and he couldn’t – wouldn’t – do that to him over a mere possibility.

Not until he had something concrete.

But if it wasn’t something he had seen before and he wasn’t sick, what choice remained?

What linked this tree and the nightmare from the other Thursday, and other people in his class getting sick, and Lydia acting weird, and other people acting weird – less weird than Lydia but still weird?

He did not know.

He did not know, and it was getting very irritating, because Stiles was very much not a fan of not knowing. He liked knowing things, he needed to know everything.

Because last time he hadn’t known something, people had died. And Stiles did not want to go through all that again.

He couldn’t lose everyone again.

He blinked, pausing mid scribble. 

Not everyone, he corrected himself. He had lost his mom. It had hurt a lot, and he missed her like crazy, but he had lost one person. Not enough to count as–

“What is that?”

“Uh?” said Stiles, blinking over at Erica. She was staring at his paper, and Stiles followed her gaze.

“Is that the tree from your dream?” asked Scott, also leaning in to look at the paper.

Oh. He had been so focused on the tree and what it meant that his hand had just ended up drawing the damn thing.

And it was, though–

He turned the drawing around, so that what had looked like a tree with lots of branches turned into a stump with many roots instead.

“Oh,” said Erica, looking vaguely confused by the all green drawing. “I see what you mean. Stump, not tree.”

“Which is the same,” said Scott.

“Stumps are trees, but not all trees are stumps,” said Boyd, also looking at his drawing curiously. “Have you seen this before?”

“No,” admitted Stiles, grimacing at the green on his fingers. He hadn’t even changed pastels, just drawn the entire thing in dark green. “Has any of you guys?”

“Not really–”

“Isn’t that curious,” said the substitute teacher, stopping behind him with a surprised expression. “Stiles, this is your drawing?"

"Uh, yeah," said Stiles, looking up at the teacher. 

“It’s interesting how you and Lydia drew the same thing,” she said, glancing at the nightmare desk. Lydia’s head whipped around as soon as she spoke, and her and Stiles stared at one another, surprised. 

“Is it the same tree?” continued the woman. “Did you see it together, and had very different experiences around it?”

“Of course not,” snapped Lydia, sounding strangely angry by that idea. “You said to draw a nightmare, and I drew one. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Right,” said the teacher, looking surprised. Her voice turned quickly apologetic. “Nobody has to talk about anything that makes them uncomfortable if they don’t want to, of course. Good job, Stiles.”

"Thanks," he said, as she moved past him, making noises of assent at a couple other drawings.

Stiles' attention, however, was fully on Lydia and the stiff way she was now sat.

Jackson was staring at her, brows furrowed, and so was Cora, but Lydia did not meet anybody’s eyes for the rest of the class.

+++

Stiles wasn’t particularly surprised when the class came to an end and Lydia cornered him before he could leave the classroom.

He had expected it, and purposefully had Scott and the others leave ahead of him.

“What is that?”

He looked up from his closed backpack and while he was mostly curious and worried about her, he could not deny that his heart started to beat a little faster when he saw her standing so close to him.

He couldn’t help it. 

It was Lydia Martin.

“Uh?”

“The tree,” she snapped, pointing at the stump. “What the hell is it?”

Lydia did not look too hot, though. She looked normal, from a distance.

But standing so close to her, Stiles could not help noting that she looked as tired as he felt. Her eyes looked like she hadn’t slept in a while, and she kept tapping her foot like he did when he couldn’t wait for someone to answer fast enough.

“Are you okay, Lydia?”

She crossed her arms around her chest, staring at him without answering.

Lydia was as stubborn as she was pretty.

And she was very pretty.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “All I know is that it’s not a tree. It’s a stump.” He turned the image for her to see better. Lydia took in the details of the image, and when she pulled hers out to compare, Stiles snuck a glance.

It was... eerily similar to his own. Lydia was way better at art than he was, and yet the tree looked like Lydia had made a perfect copy of it.

Only, instead of green, Lydia had used bright red on everything.

It made him shiver.

She turned it around, and then stilled when she saw the ‘tree’ turning into the same stump with roots Stiles had drawn.

“I have never seen it before,” he continued. “I don’t know what it is.”

Her eyes snapped on him, annoyed. “You drew it.”

“So did you,” he pointed out, before he could stop himself.

Clearly, Lydia did not like that response very much, because she didn’t stop to listen to more. She shot him a look he couldn’t quite read, and then stomped out of the room.

“Wait,” he called, nearly tripping in his rush to follow her. “Lydia, wait!”

She did not.

By the time Stiles made it to the door, Lydia had disappeared in the sea of students.

Because of course she had.

And Stiles could not really fault her for that, could he? 

He did not know if she had been dreaming about the tree like he had, but he was ready to bet she had been dreaming about something.

Something to do with the tree, probably, if not what Stiles was seeing.

She had thought Stiles would have answers, and instead all she had gotten was more question.

She was scared, was his conclusion.

Stiles was mostly confused by his dreams. The tree made him uneasy, but mostly because he did not understand it.

The fly, that definitely scared him.

But the stump itself? It was confusing, more than anything.

But Lydia had looked scared of the tree. Or scared about how the tree managed to get into her brain and in Stiles'.

Maybe it was not as passive and silent in her dreams as it was in Stiles’.

Maybe.

He considered the hallway for a second and then, instead of going right, towards the cafeteria, he turned left.

+++

The library was not particularly full, at lunch time, but it was not empty either. There were many students around, some of them doing work, some of them reading, and a few having lunch.

Stiles and Scott had spent a few lunches in the library before, but they were not unpopular enough to have to be there all the time.

Still, he was known enough that the librarian waved and smiled at him when she saw him and nobody else reacted to his presence.

Most of the books in the school library were aimed to middle schoolers. Fictional novels for teenagers and high schoolers, textbooks, academic books, encyclopaedias and anything else they might use to prepare for tests and presentations.

But, in the far corner, there were what Stiles called in his head the 'forbidden’ books. Tomes that were technically there for the teachers, fictional and non fictional. Material about psychology, literature, and the like.

Stiles did not stop walking until he found himself in the not-so-forbidden corner of the library, studying the various books and titles.

He wasn’t necessarily sure of what he was looking for. And unfortunately, no matter how hard he looked, there did not seem to be a ‘Solutions to all of Stiles Stilinski’s problems’ book sitting there waiting for him (maybe he could create it, one day; he had a feeling he might have to change the name a bit before he could publish it).

Which meant... He sighed, looking at each title closely for anything that caught his eyes.

The Interpretation of Dream sounded interesting. As did The Story of the Hills (Beacon Hills' history). 

Almanac of the Mind sounded like a mouthful, but he took it out anyway. It could be interesting.

He paused in front of a book with the title 'Legends of the Bete and more', shivering a little. He pulled it out carefully, and despite the silver and red cover of the book, and its position in the library alongside everything else, he had a feeling he was now holding something he shouldn’t.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh my god!” shouted Stiles, the book – and him – falling to the ground painfully. “Ouch.”

Erica, the cause of his ungraceful startle, winced - though she did not look very sorry as she looked at him on the ground among his books.

Mostly confused, which was fair.

“You’re a harpy,” he still said, massaging his back.

“You startle way too easily,” she answered, sitting down to the ground next to him. “Why are you not at lunch?”

“I was talking to Lydia,” he explained, carefully moving the red cover book away from her. “About the tree. That we are, for whatever reason, both dreaming about.”

“Maybe she’s making it up,” suggested Erica.

Stiles raised an eyebrow, confused. “Why would Lydia make up a nightmare regarding a stump I was dreaming about when she didn't even know I was dreaming about it until today? Also, it’s Lydia. She does not care about me.”

“Well, she's stupid then,” said Erica, looking quite annoyed. “She should pay more attention to you, if you are willing to pay attention to her. And if she doesn't, well, she doesn’t deserve it. The attention or you.”

“No offense, Erica, but Lydia is... Lydia,” said Stiles. “She could do and have whoever or whatever she wanted. I’m lucky she even talked to me.”

“She’s the lucky one,” insisted Erica. “You are awesome.”

Stiles smiled, a little confused by her vehemence but unwilling to start an argument with her about Lydia.

“Thanks, I guess. Oh, I’m trying to figure out the meaning behind my dream and the tree,” he added, pointing vaguely at the books next to him. “I’ll probably be here a while-”

“I can help,” said Erica, picking up a book.

“You don’t have to. You should have lunch-”

“Do you want me to leave?” questioned Erica, sounding both annoyed and worried.

“Of course not, you’re my friend,” he said. “I’m just saying that–”

“Then shut up and let me help,” said Erica, picking up the book again. Her face was a little pink, probably because of how hot the library was. “I want to help.”

“Thank you,” ended up saying Stiles, smiling when she saw her lips twitching.

Erica really was awesome.

There was a limit to how many books you could check out at the same time from the school library. This meant that by the time Stiles got home, he only had five books on him.

But it was five carefully selected books, and Stiles dropped them all on the floor of his room as soon as he got home.

Still, it wasn’t until his dad was gone for work that Stiles started doing his own work.

The first thing he did was go to his parents’ bedroom. He ignored his mother’s empty side of the room, and went directly to the table and drawers that made up his father’s home study, robbing it of paper, post-its and pens.

Then he spread the papers around his room, and started making notes.

He made a note of everything that had happened the Wednesday before that nightmare. The friendships, who spoke with who, who didn’t, how his own father and Scott acted, and what Stiles’ dreams had been like before that.

Then, he noted down Thursday. He wrote as much as he remembered about his dream, and then linked other papers with the names of the other people who had been absent. He put a question mark on Lydia and Isaac (Lydia because she hadn’t told him anything, and Isaac because he was lying about something) and added notes about Isaac’s weird behaviour, alongside his weird injuries – which, now that he thought about it, had been happening since before the nightmare.

Then, he wrote down his dreams and everything else that had changed since his nightmare.

He wrote down detailed notes on Scott, Cora, Erica, Isaac and Boyd. Then, he added Lydia and her nightmare and, after a moment of hesitation, Danny and Jackson. 

Jackson might have not been sick, but Stiles knew he wasn’t imagining how close to Lydia he suddenly was. Closer than usual, which could not only be jealousy talking.

Partly. But not only.

And Danny had not been acting much weirder, but twice now he had smiled and waved at Stiles when their eyes met.

It could just be that Danny was nice, but Stiles was pretty sure Danny had not interacted with him like this since their kindergarten days. 

He wrote for so long that, by the time he was done, the room was dark enough he was squinting to make out the pages and all he had written.

Which was... a lot more than he had planned when he had come home.

He hadn’t even added the information he had gotten from the books, yet, and all the papers took up a good percentage of his room.

There was a lot of everything, and a lot of nothing.

Just things he had been told, memories, and things he had noticed.

No conclusions of any kind, just a lot of hypotheses.

Well... one conclusion, corrected Stiles, looking at the piece of paper in the middle.

If he wanted an answer... he had to go into the woods.

And find that damn tree.

Chapter Text

The man appeared as silently as he had the first time around.

One moment, it was Stiles, the stump, and the fly.

And the next, the fly was trapped under a glass jar, and the guy in the red hoodie was standing in front of him.

It was as jarring as it had been the first time around.

This time, however, Stiles took the time to actually observe the man, instead of getting his attention.

Took the time to observe what he could, of the guy.

He was tall. He looked taller than Stiles' dad, but he was also smaller than him.

One of his hand, resting over the jar with the fly, was bloody, like last time. But, no matter how hard Stiles looked, there did not seem to be any bleeding wounds on his knuckles.

So, either he had wiped the blood from somewhere else on his body or...

Or it wasn't his blood.

There was also a bat next to him, resting against the stump.

It was a silver looking bat, and there was blood on the top of it, where one would hit it against the ball.

Stiles did not think any of that blood was his.

Still, he did not run.

He remained where he was, staring at the man's immobile back, waiting silently.

For what, he wasn't sure.

He just... waited.

Cora had an actual library in her house.

She (and her mother) had said this before, of course, so it wasn’t like Stiles was completely surprised by the information.

He was, however, definitely surprised by the size of the library.

Normally, when someone said they had a library, Stiles imagined a bookcase standing against the wall of a cramped studio, more or less filled with books.

He didn’t imagine the room Cora walked them in that afternoon, just one floor down.

Most of the room was books and bookcases.

On the opposite side from the door, there was a medium sized bay window seat – minus the window, as the room was on the basement level. There were, however, a number of drawers under it, filled with books.

Then there were two desks in the room: one in the corner of the room, secluded, and with a small table light to illuminate whatever one was reading; the other was in the middle of the room, a little longer, with four chairs around it.

But other than that? 

It was just books.

Everywhere.

It was an honest to god library, and Stiles was still not sure of how he managed to pay attention to anything regarding the presentation while surrounded by temptation as he was.

Maybe he didn’t, and that was why Cora agreed to take a break only a few minutes after they started working.

Whatever the reason was, Stiles did not care. Why would he care, when he finally had the chance to sneak a look at what books occupied the library of the Hale family?

He wondered, briefly, if there was a secret passageway hidden anywhere. It was definitely the sort of thing he’d build if he got his own library: a secret passageway into an even more secret library. 

Or something like that.

There were mostly books in English, both fiction (fantasy, sci-fi, romance and more) and non (biographies, travel journals, academic texts); but there were also a lot of books in not-English languages, some with translations beside them and some without. Some languages he recognised (Spanish, French, Latin-and-or-Greek and even Polish), but many he didn’t. They looked a bit like hieroglyphics, but not like any their teacher had taught them.

The main topics of English non fiction books he found were psychology and mythology, interestingly enough.

There were books about the 'human condition', about 'understanding the psyche', 'nature vs nurture', 'psychological evolution of humankind'; then there were books about the Greek Pantheon, the Celtics, the forces of nature associated with magic and deities, the origins of the world, Loki and the Norse world, and whatnot. 

They were actually well organised, which made Stiles believe that rather than this being where every book the family owned stayed, there was someone actually taking care of the place.

In fact all of the books he saw were in excellent shape, unlike at the Beacon Hills library or the school. They were clean with little dust on top of them – at least from what he could see. The bookshelves was very tall, and Stiles... was not.

He didn’t open the books, however, even when he saw titles he recognised, or ones that he was pretty sure were in Polish.

He kept circling them curiously, until he got to the last bookcase.

It was the bookcase farthest away from the door, beside the small table in the corner of the room, and the books there were... interesting. 

The bookshelves were the same colour as all the others, but it seemed to Stiles as if it was made of a different material. There was an odd... feeling, for lack of better word, coming from the shelf and, for some reason, it brought the stump to his mind.

Even though he was pretty sure it was not made of that wood.

The feeling... it was like a vibration of sort, coming from the wood of the shelf, like the sound of a refrigerator running.

But when he put his hand on it, nothing happened. No stinging, no sharp zapping, no burning.

Nothing.

“What are you doing?”

Stiles jumped at Cora’s sudden presence beside him, elbowing the books hard enough to hurt.

She did not even pretend to be sorry, just looking at him curiously, waiting for an answer.

“You are incredibly creepy,” he still said, rubbing her elbow, because it was very important she knew this.

“So you’ve told me.”

“And I'll tell you again until you stop." She just smirked. "And just browsing. I like your library. Do you think I can borrow any of these books?”

Cora shrugged. “Depending on the book, you’d have to ask mom, Uncle Peter, or Gabe.”

“Gabe?”

“Gabriel,” she clarified. “My cousin.”

“Cousin,” repeated Stiles, trying to make the maths. Because Peter did not look like he was old enough to have a kid who could take care of a library, unless–

Cora snorted, shaking her head. “Mom and Uncle Peter have a sister,” she explained. “Aunt Alice. She’s the middle child.”

Oh. Stiles hadn't known that.

“And Gabriel is her son?”

“Yep. He’s the second oldest, after Laura, by a couple of weeks. Laura was born premature, so Gabriel argues that technically he should be the oldest.”

“Does he also go to Beacon Hills High?” wondered Stiles, glancing at the wall instead of the books, trying to figure out if he had ever seen/knew this 'Gabriel'.

Most of the walls had bookcases leaning against them in, but this one didn’t. Instead, it had a fake hearth and, over it, what looked like a particularly old map of Beacon Hills painted on it.

“He graduated early. Laura says he did that to spite her, and everyone secretly agrees. But, if you ask him, he would probably say yes. He’s nice. Nicer than Laura.”

“Laura is nice,” argued Stiles, observing the map with some curiosity. There were roads highlighted, but the more he looked at it, the more he realised it was less of a map of Beacon Hills, and more of a map of the Preserve that included Beacon Hills on the East side of it.

The lakes were noted, as well as some other things he couldn’t quite make out. 

There were symbols painted all over the thing, colourful objects penned or highlighted that did not make much sense to him.

Part of it, he was pretty was because the thing was not written in English. 

What language it was, he couldn’t tell.

“Laura is not nice,” said Cora, scoffing. “She’s an ass. She’s just pretending she's nice, just to make you guys like her. And that thing is in old English. With some Celtic and Latin, I think?”

“Uh?”

“The map,” she explained, nodding towards it. “It’s the map of the territory, from back when Great Granpa Erasmus made his way to the new world.”

“Wait,” said Stiles, now definitely intrigued. “You can trace your family tree in Beacon Hills all the way to the Colonial times?”

“Yep,” said Cora, now looking pretty proud. “Great Granpa Erasmus married Great Gandma Liluye, who was part of the Maidu tribe living in these lands before their arrival.” 

“You know, considering how history is written, there is actual cause to believe that Great Grandma Liluye did not so much marry–” He glanced at Cora, and quickly closed his mouth. “Er… you were saying.”

She shot him a look full of suspicion, before continuing. “Great Granpa Erasmus founded Beacon Hills. And the Hale family has been here since then.”

“Wow,” said Stiles, impressed. “So your family has been in Beacon Hills since like... the beginning? Did Great Granpa Erasmus adopt the Hale name or did he already have it by the time he got here?”

“Mom says that it’s actually the surname Great Grandma Liluye decided on,” she explained. “And Great Granpa Erasmus agreed and took the surname as well.”

“Woah,” said Stiles. He wasn’t exactly envious, but he could not deny a certain level of curiosity over this. All he knew from his family was that his father was the son of Polish immigrants, and his mother had been adopted by an American family when she was really young, and that they had met after university in Beacon Hills. 

“My dad did the same thing,” she added.

“What do you mean?”

“Nana is mom’s mom. Alexandra Hale. Mom, Aunt Alice and Uncle Peter are all Hales. Dad took mom’s surname when he married her.”

“Oh,” said Stiles, surprised. “My mom took my dad’s surname. Is it a tradition in your family?”

“Not exactly. Aunt Alice has kept her surname, and Uncle Kei – her husband – kept his own. Gabe, Becca and Jess go by Hale-Ito.”

“And you, Laura and Derek go by Hale,” said Stiles. “Is it a thing–”

“The three kids per person? Nah. Aunt Andrea’s only got Felix.” Stiles stared at her blankly. “My dad’s sister.”

“There are a lot of you,” he said, eyeing the map again. “Do you all live together?”

“Hell no,” said Cora, laughing. “Uncle Peter and Aunt Alice would kill each other and themselves if they had to live together, I just know it. As would Gabe and Laura. 

“It’s just me, Derek, Laura, mom, dad, and Uncle Peter.”

Stiles did not see how that was ‘just’ considering the amount of people Cora had just rattled out, but he did not say so. 

The Hales were clearly a big family, and used to being that. Everyone had siblings, and their Thankgivings, Christmases and family reunions were probably extremely boisterous affairs.

Considering the state of his own family and how he had spent Thanksgiving last year in the precinct with his dad and a couple of similarly lonely deputies, Stiles could not deny he was a bit jealous.

“Who made the map?” he ended up asking, instead of diving into that particular depressing part of his personal history.

“I think Great Granpa Erasmus’ first son. Usually, by the time we get to this part of the story, I start falling asleep.” She glanced behind her, and reached for his arm. “Come on, Scott is coming back from the bathroom, and we have a presentation to finish.”

“Yes, I’m coming–” started Stiles. But then he was stopping not even a full step in, eyes fixing on one particular word.

It was written in white, but the map was so old and the languages used so all over the place, it wasn’t surprising he hadn’t noticed immediately.

It was directly in the middle of the map, as if the whole map had been drawn/created around that particular point.

There was no insignia indicating what it was, only a white dot and the name.

“Nemeton,” he said, brows furrowing. “What is the Nemeton?”

Why did that sound like a word Stiles should know? Why did it sound both so foreign and so familiar at the same time?

Why did it feel so odd and yet so easy, coming out of his mouth?

“Nothing that you should concern yourself with,” and had Stiles already said that he hated the Hales and their ability to move so quietly and quickly you didn’t realise they had until they were literally behind you?

Because, as he promptly startled and fell back on his ass, he felt the need to say it again: he hated the Hales and their freakish ability to move so quietly and quickly you didn’t realise they had until you found them literally standing or speaking from behind you.

“What the–” he started, looking up to let his annoyance be heard, and then.

And then he stopped.

And stared.

Stared.

Because, see, Stiles knew Cora. He had known Cora for a few weeks now, having met her for the first time this year in school.

He had met Laura when she had driven them to the Hale house the first time. She was pretty, and she was funny, and he didn't know her very well. He liked her, though.

He had met Talia Hale when he had met Laura. He had seen Talia Hale around town before, though he hadn’t really known who she was. Similarly, he had a vague idea that he would probably be able to recognise Mr (Antonio) Hale if he saw him somewhere, even though he didn’t know him.

Peter Hale had given him a strange feeling, when Stiles had seen him. He wasn’t sure of where it had come from or why he had reacted the way he had, but he had looked at him and found something that he just... somehow recognised in him.

It was worse, when he looked at Derek.

Because it was Derek, standing over him, looking down at him.

It was Cora’s older brother, Derek Hale, a guy who Stiles had never met in his life, a man he did not know.

A guy that, as soon as Stiles set his eyes on him, made him feel like he was suddenly choking on air, like his hands were itching and so were his eyes, that made him want to say... something.

What, he didn’t know.

It wasn’t the strange fear-adjacent thing he had felt with Peter.

It was some sort of exhilaration, some strange joy that made no apparent sense.

He looked at Derek, and everything in him screamed like he knew the guy. Like he was his friend, like he was someone Stiles cared about, like he was–

“Stiles?”

Stiles blinked at Cora, who was looking at him particularly weirded out.

Because Stiles was sitting on the ground, and staring at her older brother like a complete creep. An older brother who he had never met, and who–

“What do you mean it has nothing to do with me?” he asked, pulling himself back to his feet, words finally registering.

Derek had been looking at him as strangely as his sister had, but his expression turned annoyed again when Stiles spoke.

He had that effect on people.

“It’s an old map belonging to my family, talking about elements of my family history,” said Derek, shooting his sister a glare. “Family history that has nothing to do with strangers Cora goes to school with.”

“But it’s a map of Beacon Hills and the Beacon Hills Preserve,” pointed out Stiles. “And that belongs to the County.”

“Except the part of it that is private Hale property.”

“Just because your great great great someone several times removed founded a town while pillaging and chasing gold five centuries ago, it doesn’t mean that everything currently in there belongs to you or the rest of his supposed descendents. I’m pretty sure that’s why we got governments and stuff. Laws. Legislations. You know. Rules.”

Derek did not look overly impressed by Stiles’ words.

“What I mean is that that Nemeton thing – whatever it is – is not on Hale property. Is it?”

“It doesn’t matter where it is,” said Derek, arms crossed around his chest. “What matters is that it has nothing to do with you.”

Now Stiles was getting annoyed.

“And you know that... how?“

“You didn’t even know what it was before you read the name a second ago. You still don’t know what it is!”

“There are a lot of things I don’t know about that have to do with me. Only by knowing what it is and where it is, will I be able to exclude it from the list of things that have to do with me. Or include it.”

“Nice try,” said Derek, sounding sarcastic. “No.”

“You can’t tell me what I can or can’t do.”

Derek’s eyes narrowed. “Want to bet?”

“As amusing as watching a cub try to goad Derek into a fight it,” came Peter’s voice, “Talia might be a little disappointed, was she to come home to dinner not being prepared or you guys not actively working.”

“You guys need bells,” said Stiles, a hand on his chest as he turned to face Uncle Stealth. 

“My apologies,” lied Peter, sounding not sorry at all. 

But Stiles did not get to call him out on it because, as soon as he saw his uncle standing there, Derek’s entire body language and expression changed.

He made a weird sound like... in his throat, and glared, marching outside without a look back.

Cora stared at her uncle.

“What?” complained Peter. “I apologised already. He needs to get over himself.”

“Did you say sorry?”

“Not exactly, but–”

“Then you didn’t apologise,” said Cora, turning back to Stiles. “Sorry about Derek. And my uncle.”

“How is that fair? I haven’t even done anything, this time.”

“It’s fine,” said Stiles, as he and Cora joined Scott back at the desk. “But you could make it up to me by telling me what it is about this Nemeton thing has your brother in such knots?”

“I don’t know what it is.”

“I do,” said Peter. Who was still there, looking at Stiles in particular with a curious expression. “Why do you want to know so badly?”

Stiles shrugged, acting like he felt more brave than he actually was.

Peter did not scare him. He was strange, and possibly dangerous, but he did not scare him. And he was not going to let the man think he did.

“I am curious, and I like knowing things.”

“And, while in a library with countless of rare tomes, you fixated on an odd word on a old map instead of one of my books?” Peter arched an eyebrow. “Stiles, I’m hurt.”

“You would give me one?” Stiles turned to face him fully, much more intrigued than before. “One of your books? Would you lend me one if I asked?”

He gave him a considering look. “I don’t see why not. I think you’d find plenty of interesting answers in them.”

Something about how he said that, with an emphasis on ‘interesting answers’ made it sound almost like Peter was not being fully metaphorical about any of this.

Like he knew something he most likely should not know about.

And Stiles thought back to the books he had borrowed from school, and the cards full of his scribbled handwriting hidden under his bed, away from his father’s prying hands and eyes.

He wondered if he could get some sort of answers to his many – and growing – questions inside of the library.

He hadn’t considered it before, but the Hale library seemed to have in general better literature than the one in school.

And before his attention had been taken by the map, he had noticed some of the titles on the bookshelves.

Speaking of, “What is the bookcase made of? The one at the back?”

Cora shrugged, clearly as confused and bored with this line of questioning as she had been with everything else.

But Peter?

Peter looked strangely delighted.

Like Stiles had just done a trick he had thought he could do but hadn’t, so far, seen.

“Now you ask the right questions,” he said, hands behind his back. “Unlike every other bookcase in this room, that one is made of rowan.”

“Rowan. What’s–”

“Oh dear,” said Peter, tilting his head in direction of the door. “Sounds like Laura is calling. Better make myself scarce.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” protested Stiles, as Peter moved towards the door.

“I’m sure you didn’t!”

Stiles looked away from the door to Scott and Cora, who were busy actually doing their work instead of paying him any attention.

“What is rowan?”

Neither of them answered, pointedly working on the poster.

"Rude."

Stiles could not do anything but imitate him.

“You kids hungry?” asked Melissa, dropping her bag and her keys on the side. “I could pull-”

“No thank you, Mrs McCall,” said Stiles, following Scott up the stairs. “Peter made us non-poisoned chicken pasta.”

“Oh, uh- good then? The offer still stand– door open!”

“Ugh,” said Stiles, throwing himself on Scott’s bed as soon as he got in his friend’s room - first. “Hey!”

The exclamation that followed was because, instead of being a sore loser and taking the floor, Scott threw himself on top of Stiles, and he was heavy.

“You snooze you loose, dude! Get off me!”

“My bed,” said Scott, pulling himself further up and trying to push Stiles off. “My rules.”

“Oh come– ow, my spleen!”

“Stop kicking– what even is a spleen? Hey– Oh my gosh, you’re the worst.”

“Here,” said Stiles, shuffling around until they were both laying on the bed. They were probably a little too close to each other, but between his mom’s death and the Divorce (because Rafael McCall was a piece of dried poo, and that meant leaving him deserved capital letters) they had spent too many evenings in each other’s bed to be awkward about it anymore. “Fine?”

“Fine,” agreed Scott, before heaving a deep sigh. 

“The pasta?” guessed Stiles.

“The pasta,” agreed Scott, with literally stars in his eyes. “And the whole…”

“Dinner thing,” finished Stiles.

Yeah, he got it.

Talia Hale had insisted on giving them dinner early since they were going home soon. It meant that while Cora, Stiles and Scott had been eating with her, the rest of the house had slowly started joining the table.

First Laura, with loud complaints about them not inviting her from the beginning. Then Peter, who had sat down on the counter instead of with them at the table, but had joined in the conversation as well.

Mr “Call me Antonio” Hale had joined towards the end, having come in while they had been in the middle of the meal. 

The only person who had not joined the family meal had been Derek – having ignored both his mother and his father’s calls.

Stiles would have thought it was because of him, and started feeling a little bad, had Peter not gotten a glare from Laura and an unimpressed look from Talia when he said Derek was 'exaggerating' and 'needed to get over it'.

Clearly something was going between the weird uncle and the stuck up nephew, something most of them knew about but that nobody was willing/able to deal with.

It made Stiles curious.

Because he was normally curious, not because it had to do with Derek.

Though it did have to do with Derek. The guy had been super mean and rude to him for no reason, and he was totally annoying, but Stiles was as confused and intrigued by his reaction to him as he had been with his reaction to Peter Hale.

Out of scientific curiosity and an impossible need to solve all and any puzzle, mostly.

All in all, it had been a nice dinner. A bit of an awkward one, but Stiles had appreciated it.

The Hales, no matter how weird they could be and the slight animosity between some of them, liked each other. They were a family, and they enjoyed each other’s presence more than most families Stiles had seen out there.

And the only child being raised by one parent in him and Scott both envied and loved it.

So it was not just about the pasta.

But neither of them was going to explain it any further – not to themselves, and definitely not to each other (or anybody else).

They understood each other anyway.

“You’re basically my brother,” he said.

Scott beamed, and headbutted him harder than he meant to.

“Same.”

They understood each other.

Chapter Text

“This is a bad idea.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” said Stiles, not even bothering to turn around.

“Seriously,” said Scott, grabbing onto his sleeve to stop him. “Are you sure we should be doing this? You know my mom and your dad would both freak if they found out.”

Most likely. Stiles failed to imagine a universe in which his dad would be at all happy to come home and hear from Mrs McCall that he had been running around in the woods with Scott and no parental oversight.

It was the sort of thing that usually made him sigh very deeply before he sat down at the kitchen table for a very long time, loudly debated with himself if it was legal or not to lock his own child in prison.

It was a familiar expression. Stiles had seen - and put - it on his face plenty of times in the past.

But it wasn't like he was going in blind or actively looking for trouble. He was prepared.

He had water, paper, pen, an apple, Mrs McCall’s first aid kit, and Scott’s back up inhaler, and a bunch of other things packed in his bag just in case anything went wrong.

Which he was pretty sure his father would take as proof of premeditation rather than something to be proud of.

"All this means is that we have to make sure we don't get caught."

"We will."

“You don’t have to come,” pointed out Stiles, moving closer the the edge of the woods and jumping over a large log. “You could just go back home and stay there while I go on my adventure. No one will know you ever left, and you won't get in trouble with your mom. You can just cover for me, or do something equally as boring.”

Scott looked at him as if he had just told him to eat roasted cauliflower (it was very bad). “I can’t just let you go alone.”

“I know,” said Stiles, looking at him very smugly. “So, it's decided: let’s go.”

“If I’m eaten by a mountain lion or a bear or... whatever else lives in the Preserve, I will totally come haunt you,” grumbled Scott, shooting one last longing look at his own house before following him. 

“I wouldn't let you die without avenging you,” promised Stiles. When this made Scott look at him in very hurtful disbelief, he reached for a branch and brandished it around more confidently than he felt. 

“You are more likely to hit me than anything else,” complained Scott, ducking past a dangerously close hit and picking up a branch himself. “Just... Let’s just make sure we can find our way back and don’t spend too much time in there. Okay?”

“We have time,” said Stiles, moving forward with a confidence he did not actually feel. “Your mom left right after breakfast. Dad called as she was leaving. She called us when she got to work. This gives us at least three hours before she or dad calls the house to check on us. So we have until noon before we should at least start making our way back.”

Scott blinked.

“If I had your brain, I would pass all of my classes. Even maths.”

“If you had my brain, you would have the same problems I have, and will thus find yourself in this same exact position, just in my place.

"Unless you believe my person and my mind are not one and the same. Do you think that who you are as a person would change the way you understand and think about things? Would it change the contents of your nightmares and dreams?”

Scott stared at him, bemused, and Stiles shrugged.

“Been reading a lot about dreams, lately,” he admitted.

“Because of the tree?”

“Because of the stump.”

Scott looked around the trees surrounding them.

“Is that what we are looking for, today?”

“Basically.”

He had been looking forward to today. 

It was Saturday, which meant no school. He had slept over at Scott’s following their previous evening at Cora’s house, which meant they got to spend the majority of Saturday together, without their parents separating them.

Not that Stiles wouldn’t have gone into the woods alone, if necessary. He wasn’t scared of the woods.

But he had more nosy neighbours than Scott did, and his nosy neighbours had the bad habit of telling the Sheriff if they saw his son sneaking out alone into the woods - especially Mr Irwin.

Funny how that worked out: one kid sneaking into the woods by himself? Suspicious. Two kids? Clearly shen-an-igans.

It worked out well for him, though, so now here he was.

In the woods.

Looking for the metaphorical needle in a haystack, wherein the needle in question was a tree stump that kept sneaking its way into his dreams and kept him from having restful sleep.

What was the haystack, then? His dreams, or the forest?

“You know, it’s actually not that hard finding a needle in a haystack,” he said, scratching the side of his nose. 

“What?”

“Needle in a haystack,” repeated Stiles. “You know, the saying? It’s supposed to be about how hard it is to find something. But finding a needle in a haystack wouldn’t be so hard, if you had a magnet in hand. Hay is not magnetic, needles are. Boom, you’ve won.”

“Maybe the person who made the saying did not have a magnet,” said Scott.

“Magnets were first discovered in China many many many many many years ago, but the first person to use them did it in the 1600s,” explained Stiles. “And hay is natural. I don’t know when needles came about though, so... maybe at their time it made sense?”

Scott smiled, very pleased with himself.

“Where are we going, anyway?”

“I’m not sure,” said Stiles, continuing forward. “I don’t actually know where the stump is.”

Technically, he didn’t even know that it did exist. For all he knew, he had dreamt the whole thing up.

But he couldn’t help but think about the word on the map in Cora’s house.

NEMETON.

He didn’t know what it was, and nobody had explained it either.

But he just knew it was connected to the tree, and to everything else Stiles had been experiencing.

There was a link. He just had to find it and follow it.

“So... If you don't know where it is, where are we going?”

“I don’t know.”

“How do you know we’re going the right way?”

“I don’t.”

Scott hummed thoughtfully. “So you don’t know where you are going, you don’t know what you’re looking for, and you don’t know the way?”

“Pretty much,” agreed Stiles. 

“You’re a crazy person, you know that?”

He was very aware.

Aware in a way that wasn’t completely playful or sarcastic.

Because it had started with 'just weirdness' with his mother too, hadn’t it?

It had started with saying odd things.

Impulsive decision-making. Change in moods. Tiredness and apathy.

Depression.

And then... then everything else had started.

The hallucination. The confusion.

The voices.

Stiles.

He paused suddenly, cocking his head to the left.

“Stiles?”

“Did you hear that?” he asked, even as he moved forward.

“Hear what?”

“I heard...” he frowned. “Something.”

He could have sworn that something had called his name.

Or someone.

What would be better? That someone in the woods had called out his name or that something in the woods had called out for him?

He wasn’t sure.

“I didn’t hear anything,” said Scott, following closely behind him. “Stiles?”

He could almost feel it, now. 

In fact, now that he thought about it, he had been feeling it since he had stepped into the woods.

He had even felt it at Cora’s house, hadn’t he? When he had stepped out of the car and he had had that horrible vision of her house, he had felt it.

Just like he had felt it that day at the precinct, when he had almost ended up in the woods without realising.

A strange pulsating feeling under his feet. Something like a... heartbeat, beating under the soil of...

Of everything that made up Beacon Hills.

He pressed the branch on the ground as he stumbled over raised roots and broken branches, and tried to see it, tried to figure out where the heartbeat was coming from.

He tried to picture it, in his head, the heart that was making said sounds to begin with.

It wasn’t a scary sound. It was quite... calming, actually.

Like when you randomly put a hand on your chest and could feel your own heartbeat under your fingers.

It was comforting, and Stiles was ready to bet he could lie down on the ground and just fall asleep to the sound.

In fact, he was almost certain he heard that same sound in his dreams, right before he found the tree. Like, no matter what dream he was in, the sound lured him right towards the tree.

Because the tree wanted to be found. 

It wanted to be found by Stiles specifically.

Or the tree wanted to find Stiles?

He wasn’t sure. All he knew was that the tree was out there, and the pulsating under his feet was leading him towards it.

He could tell–

“This is private property.”

Stiles jumped at the sudden feel of a hand on his shoulder, the sight of Derek Hale standing in front of him feeling like a jet of cold water over his head.  

The older boy was looking down at him, a glare on his model face, looking every bit as annoyed as he had the last time Stiles had seen him.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay out of the woods?”

Which was the day before.

What the hell was he doing in the woods?

"What are you-"

“St-Stiles,” gasped Scott, almost tripping as he rushed towards him, face red. “Dude, s-so... not cool.”

“What?" Stiles turned to face him, immediately concerned. "Scotty, are you okay?” 

Scott looked a little worried but mostly annoyed as he held up a hand, taking a lungful of air from his inhaler.

“Wh-why did you just take off like that?” he demanded, still breathing hard. “I kept calling you and you didn’t stop!”

“I’m sorry,” said Stiles, feeling immediately super guilty. He knew Scott struggled with walking too long and/or too fast sometimes, and he–

He looked around, massaging his jaw thoughtlessly. It ached in a similar manner that it did in his dreams, but there was no tree around.

Well, plenty of trees. But not the stump he was looking for in particular. 

Just the preserve, Scott and...

And Derek Hale.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, even as he opened his bag to get the bottle water for Scott. “Are you following us?”

“This is private property,” said Derek, looking quite unimpressed, arms crossed around his chest.

“This is your family’s property?” Stiles blinked around, trying to see if he could spot the house. When he didn’t, he turned back to Derek, eyes narrowed. “Bullshit.”

“I don’t care what you think,” he was informed, Derek’s expression not changing. “So how about you go back home?”

“You don’t tell me what to do,” immediately said Stiles. “The Preserve belongs to everyone. If I want to walk around it, you can’t make me stop.”

“You would be surprised,” said Derek, scoffing.

It was annoying how he managed to make that face and still not look ugly.

The Hales were really unfairly good-looking, from Cora to her Mom to her grandmother (or the pictures he had seen of her). 

Even Peter Hale was a bit pretty. Creepy, yes. But kind of pretty.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you need to get out of here,” said Derek. “The woods are not safe.”

“You are in the woods.”

“I am also older than you both. And my mom has no problem with me wandering inside our family property. Can you say the same?”

Derek was clearly bluffing, but his bluff had merit. If he decided to go and blab to Mrs McCall or his dad about finding them in the woods, wandering around, they would be grounded until forever.

... Scott would be, at least. Stiles was a great lawyer for himself.

And Scott was clearly even less enthused about being here than he had been at the beginning – a feat. 

Stiles felt too bad and contrite about having apparently ran off without checking he was behind him to risk making him more angry at him. 

He and Scott rarely fought, but when they did, they both ended up miserable.

This? Was not worth starting a fight.

And frankly, the fact that he had been so focused on chasing... a feeling, a sound that wasn’t even a real sound, was not something he wanted to continue.

He had been completely absorbed by a sound or a feeling that clearly nobody else had been able to hear. Scott had followed him – not any other sound or feeling.

Meaning that ‘sound’? That ‘feeling’? It had been completely in Stiles’ head.

He had imagined it.

He had hallucinated it.

“Are you okay.”

Stiles looked up at Derek, who was looking at him too closely, and forced himself to glare at him.

“I’m fine,” he said, taking the now empty water bottle from Scott. “And we’re going. You can leave now.”

“Because you know the way home, right?” Derek pointed at the thick wood area they had come from. “You know how to get back without getting lost?”

Scott looked anxiously between the two of them, and Stiles narrowed his eyes at Derek.

“You think that just because you’re pretty you’re always right about things, don’t you?”

“I don’t see how the two relate,” said Derek, starting towards the woods.

“They do,” said Stiles, taking a hold of Scott’s sleeve and pulling him along him. “Once is a accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a patter. Lydia Martin, Jackson, and now you.”

“Dude,” said Scott, sounding both horrified and amused.

“What? Being annoying and rude doesn’t mean that Jackson isn’t pretty.”

“Or that I’m not pretty,” said Derek, dubiously. “Something that you’ve implied like three times already.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “As if you don’t know. I bet you model in the summer and after school so that you can afford a car.”

Derek looked back at him like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with any of the words he had shared – an emotion Stiles was very used to provoking in people.

“Why pretty? I’ve been called handsome, but pretty is a bit...”

“What’s wrong with pretty?” demanded Stiles. “You can be handsome, and you can be pretty. You don’t have to be a girl to be pretty. You just have to be... pretty. Pretty things are pretty. Like your eyes.”

“My eyes?”

“You have pretty eyes,” explained Stiles. “Like Lydia. Not that your eyes are like Lydia’s. Lydia's eyes are different than yours, hers are more brown. But Lydia’s got pretty eyes, and you also have pretty eyes. You know?”

“I don’t,” said Derek. “Is Lydia your little school girlfriend?”

“I wish,” said Stiles, mournfully. “Lydia would never settle for me.”

“She totally would,” said Scott, because he was the best friend in all of the world. “You are awesome, and in ten years she is going to be married to you because she has finally realised just how awesome you are.”

“Ten years? That's oddly specific.”

Stiles had almost forgotten he was there, and felt himself blush a little at the very judgemental expression on Derek’s face.

“What’s it to you?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Just trying to figure out if you’re safe to be around my sister, considering the whole...” he did not finish, just making a general gesture to encompass the whole of Stiles.

Again, this was something Stiles was too used to to bother calling it out.

Scott did it for him by glaring.

“Well, I’m also questioning if Cora is safe to be around considering she shares genes with the whole of...” he replicated the gesture, though it looked a lot less suave from him than it had from Derek.

Damn pretty people.

They always made things look a lot easier than they ever were.

“You planning on ditching her because of me?” 

He still had that look that made him want to fight him on his face – pretty or not, something about him just brought out Stiles’ fighting instincts – but Stiles had a feeling his question was not fully a joking one.

“No,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Clearly, the awesomeness of Talia Hale went in every one of your siblings and skipped you. Where did you learn to be such a downer?”

“You bring it out in me,” said Derek, pushing a large branch up so that Scott and he could safely pass. “Clearly, you are too stubborn and irritating to be alive.”

“I would think that too, but I am also too smart to be alive,” said Stiles. “It’s because of whatever reason you are mad at your uncle for, isn’t it?”

Derek’s expression went immediately blank, all of the earlier playfulness gone from his face, and Stiles nearly kicked himself for speaking.

Clearly not a topic Derek had shown himself to be open to discuss.

“I just said that because Cora told Laura to tell your uncle to leave you alone and she said that you were mad at her too," he quickly added. "And then yesterday, in the library, you left when he tried to talk to you and–” Scott slapped his hand over Stiles’ mouth, and Stiles sighed. “Thnks dud.”

“You’re welcome.”

Derek did not speak again, but he did walk them all the way to the edge of the McCall’s property.

He left as soon as they were in the garden, but Stiles was pretty sure he was still in the woods when they went inside and locked their doors.

Which,

“Hey,” he said, looking at Scott perplexed as they walked in. “How did he know where you live?”

Scott shrugged.

The first thing he did, once he was home (without his dad or Mrs McCall being any the wiser as to what they had been up to in their absence) was add three pieces of paper to his mind map: one reading Hale family, another reading Derek Hale, and a third one reading Peter Hale.

He connected the Cora Hale A4 to the Hale family one, and then started getting to work on Peter and Derek.

He didn’t know much about either of them, but there were two things that he had noticed but previously overlooked/thought unnecessary to add.

1. Paige Krasikeva had gotten attacked/bitten by something while she had been out and about with Derek. This had happened on the same day they had all been sick;
2. Soon after, maybe even that same day, Peter and Derek had had a fallout. A big fallout that had most of the family on Derek’s side of things.

He hesitated for a second, then added ‘ex in town’ for the Peter Hale paper. He wasn’t sure how much that mattered, but better safe than sorry, right?

He looked at the whole of it for a second, and fixed a couple of parts until he was satisfied.

Then, he started writing down the feelings and his general experience in the woods looking for the tree.

Something that he wasn’t sure he was feeling positively or negatively about.

Because on one hand the feeling hadn’t been bad. He had been completely unscathed, and his emotional state had not necessarily changed. He had felt like he was drawing closer and closer to what he was looking for – until Derek Hale and his stupid perfect face had stopped him.

On the other hand, Stiles had been almost completely unaware of everything else. He had been completely entranced by the feeling and a sound that wasn’t there, and hadn’t stopped or even thought about Scott until Derek had physically stopped him.

He had held him back physically, and Stiles had not even noticed him until his hand had been on his shoulder and his face in front of him.

Scott had been struggling to breathe and follow him, and Stiles hadn’t even noticed. Scott had forgiven him already for it, because he was awesome, but that did not change what Stiles had done.

Or what Stiles hadn’t done.

And it was scary.

That was scary, because Stiles remembered hiding in the bedroom wardrobe. He remembered holding himself as still and silent as he could while his mom screamed bloody murder around the house, throwing things and calling out for him like a woman possessed. He remembered remaining hidden until his dad got home and managed to calm her down. Until his dad pulled him out and then his mom was crying and apologising and holding him tight.

Sometimes, Stiles did not get to the wardrobe fast enough. Sometimes, she was too fast, and his dad got home too late.

And sometimes, he had the bruises on his body hidden with long sleeve so that nobody - not even her or dad - would notice.

He looked at Isaac’s name among the papers for a second, and then went to his desk, quickly locating a very familiar book.

He had thought about throwing it away, after his mother’s death.

Then he had learnt that FTD could be genetic, and had read it so many times he had basically memorised it.

Behavior and/or dramatic personality changes, he wrote down.

Socially inappropriate, impulsive behaviour. 

Impaired judgment.

Apathy.

Lack of empathy.

Decreased self awareness.

Loss of interest in normal daily activities.

Emotional withdrawal from others.

Loss of energy and motivation.

Inability to use or understand language; this may include difficulty naming objects, expressing words, or understanding the meanings of words.

Hesitation when speaking.

Less frequent speech.

Distractibility.

Trouble planning and organizing.

Frequent mood changes.

Agitation.

Increasing dependence.

Then, he slowly highlighted the things that he related to.

All in all, it was far less than Stiles had feared. Which either meant he didn’t have FTD, or that he was in the early stages.

Which actually brought him right back to where he had been to begin with.

He needed to find that damn tree.

+++

This time, when the stump appeared, Stiles was startled.

Over the past couple days, Red Hood (as he had renamed the guy with the bat) had become a new permanent fixture in his dreams.

He either was there when Stiles ended up here, or he appeared not too long after.

He always did the same stuff: he came, he trapped the firefly, and then he stared at the stump and ignored him.

It was weird, and he didn't understand it, but he had gotten used to it.

Today, however, things were different.

Because instead of standing with his back to him, Red Hood was sitting on the stump.

The jar with the firefly was next to him, and he was giving him back.

Still, it looked as if... he was holding something.

Or someone.

He couldn't tell, from where he stood what it was, but he was pretty sure he heard a whisper.

'Found you'.

Chapter Text

“Okay, we got the soy. What else do we need?”

Stiles pulled out the shopping list from his pocket again, looking through the various items he had scribbled during the week.

The shopping list was technically a joint father and son effort but, truthfully, Stiles was the one who actually took care of it and made sure it was up to date.

“Scallops, spinach, and sweetcorn.”

Which of course led to the terrible faces the Sheriff was currently making as he pushed the trolley towards the necessary veggie aisles.

“You know, most parents are fighting tooth and nail to get their children to eat vegetables,” he complained, picking up a bag of sweetcorn. “Why do I have to beg you to bring a carton of ice cream in the house?”

“You don’t have to beg to buy it,” said Stiles, switching the bag his dad had gotten for the one they normally used. “You just have to ask before actually eating it. Besides, we have ice cream at home.”

“This dynamic feels increasingly wrong,” said the man, shaking his head. “If I want to eat ice cream, I should be allowed to eat ice cream.”

Stiles made the mature choice to ignore his father, instead scanning the aisle for spinach.

He was used to the argument, but they did not move him anyway.

He had one parent left, and he had heard the doctor’s concern about his father’s cholesterol. He might not have been able to keep his mother alive, but he could keep his dad alive and well.

He couldn’t stop the bullets and the bad guys, but he could make sure his arteries weren’t clogged by too much junk food.

And if to do that Stiles had to act abnormally for his age, regulating his father’s food consumption and learning how to cook at 10, then that was what he was going to do.

He had one parent left.

He was going to keep him alive and well.

He didn’t tell him that, though. Because he knew the guilt his father still felt about having to try and raise him by himself while working full time, and he didn’t want him to know about his worries on top of all that.

“Found the spinach,” he said instead, bringing out the big convenience bag from the freezer. “The scallops are going to be at the front, though.”

“I still think alphabetised shopping lists are a bit crazy even for you,” said the Sheriff. “Why not ordered by section?”

“I have a lot of time on my hands.”

“Yeah, well–”

“Sheriff Stilinski!”

His father being stopped while they were out and about was not abnormal. 

Beacon Hills was not huge, and his father was the Sheriff of the small town. Everybody knew everybody.

Still, Stiles was surprised to see Mr Krasikeva and his daughter walking towards them.

He had seen the father only once, since he had had that go at Deputy Crane about Derek and his daughter, and Stiles had wondered what he had been up to.

Okay, that was a lie.

The only thing Stiles had wondered was regarding the investigation regarding Paige's attack and how it was going. The girl's name was, after all, on his 'what is wrong with me and these people' board.

The circumstances behind her attack were strange, after all.

And now, her she was.

Paige Krasikeva.

She looked... remarkably normal, standing beside her father as he chatted to his.

Brown hair, brown eyes, freckles, pale skin... she looked very plain. Just another face in the supermarket.

Nothing about her made him stop and stare.

And yet, there was just something... familiar about her.

Not in the way the people in his class were familiar. Not even in the way Peter and Derek Hale had had him react as if he knew them both.

He had no such recollection of Paige, no feeling of ‘I know her’. But there was something about her, something he couldn’t quite explain but that made him feel drawn to her.

“Hi,” he said, moving a little closer to her.

Paige’s wandering eyes returned to him, and she smiled – a surprisingly genuine smile.

“Hi. Stiles, right?”

Well, that was surprising. He hadn’t expected her to know him.

“Yeah. Are you okay?”

Her smile wavered for a second, and she glanced over at her father – still deep in conversation with Stiles’. Then she smiled again, a little lest happy than before.

“Sure. Why are you asking?”

Stiles thought about his options for a second, then decided to go for the truth. 

“I’m not supposed to eavesdrop, but I heard your dad when he came in the precinct,” he explained. “He said that something attacked you? Was it a mountain lion?”

“Moun– no,” said Paige, shaking her head. “I mean, I don’t really know. I don’t even remember being attacked, or what I was doing, just...”

“Being bitten,” finished Stiles, eyes tracking the way she held her wrist closer to herself. “Can I see?”

She looked at him strangely, continuing to hold her arm.

“Er... I’d rather not? I don’t like showing the scar, it’s ugly.”

“Are people at school making fun of it? You should ignore them. Most people we go to school with are never going to leave Beacon Hills. They are not even going to get to college. Beacon Hills is made up of many stupid people who need to mind their own business.”

“And you?”

“I'm excluded, my dad’s the Sheriff,” he said. “I can pay attention to everyone’s business.”

“Doesn’t sound right,” she said, but she was smiling and no longer holding her arm protectively.

Stiles pushed down the urge to pull at the sleeve of her shirt to see the bite mark for himself, but only barely.

He was really curious.

“What does Derek say?” 

Just like that, Paige’s smile and good humour disappeared. 

She crossed her arms, frowning down at him. “Why are you asking about Derek?”

“I’m friends with Cora,” he said. “She’s his sister. She told me about how you two were together when it all happened.”

“Maybe,” said Paige, still looking at him in suspicion. “I don’t- Look, I don’t remember much of what happened that day, and Derek and I don’t talk anymore anyway. I changed high school.”

That... was surprising.

The only other high school anywhere close to here was outside Beacon Hills county. 

Meaning that either by choice or because of her parents, Paige had decided to pack up and leave town to avoid having to answer uncomfortable questions.

Or to avoid having to talk to Derek.

He remembered how closed up and silent he had gotten as soon as Stiles had mentioned Paige.

“Maybe–”

“Dad,” called out Paige, no longer looking at him and arms still crossed. “I really need that book.”

“Right,” said Mr Krasikeva, moving back a little. “It was nice to see you, Sheriff.”

“Yes, you too,” lied dad, with that face he put on when he had to deal with people asking him work stuff outside of work. “I will let you know anything I find.”

“Thank you,” said the man, walking away with his daughter. “You have my number, and–”

“Don’t worry, Mr Krasikeva, I’ll call you.”

Stiles waved at Paige as they walked away, and then immediately turned to his father once they had left the aisle.

“No.”

“But I didn’t even say anything yet!”

“I am not telling you anything regarding any active investigation,” said the Sheriff, pulling their cart along. “So go ahead and get it out of your head already.”

“I could help,” protested Stiles.

“As soon as you finish all of your schooling and become a police offer, I will accept your help. Heck, I’ll even put aside all of these cases you’re so interested in for you to solve. God knows we don’t have any leads.”

Stiles perked up. “So you still don’t know what animal bit Paige?”

The Sheriff shot him a look, but then he surprised him by actually answering.

“We know what bit her according to the animal traces left behind," he corrected. "But it doesn’t make much sense, so we are still working on it.”

So clearly not a mountain lion. 

It could have been many things, to be honest: a bear, a raccoon, a deer, a snake, a fox...

But the thing that confused Stiles – and probably everyone else – was the fact that neither Derek nor Paige claimed to know what had bit her.

If a bear had bit him, Stiles would have known it was a bear. He wouldn’t have been confused. He would have thought ‘wow, a bear! Ouch, the bear bit me!’. And then, when the police asked him what bit him, he would have said, ‘it was a superbig super scary bear’.

But Paige said she didn’t know what had bit her.

And Derek said he had been with her – from what he had heard of the report – but also didn’t know what had bit her.

One of them was lying – had to be.

For some reason, Stiles had the feeling Derek was lying, but he didn’t like that idea.

He didn’t believe Derek would let something bite Paige and then lie to the police and everyone else about it.

He liked Paige, didn’t he? He wouldn’t want something bad to happen to her, would he?

It was just–

“Oh, sorry,” said a woman, bumping into them with her cart. “Didn’t see you there.”

Stiles lifted his head to say that it was fine, but then he looked at the woman.

When he had seen Derek, Stiles had had the strangest feeling of deja-vu and euphoria. Like he knew him, and seeing him had filled him with happiness.

When he had seen Peter, he had felt a sense of danger. Not fear, exactly, but a strange knowledge that the man in front of him could be very dangerous if provoked.

When he looked at the woman, the raw feeling that started in his chest at the sight of her made him recoil so hard he would have fallen, wasn’t his dad behind him.

His hands turned clammy, his breathing went faster, and panic started growing in his chest.

She didn’t even notice him. 

She was on the phone as she picked out items, and she wasn’t even looking at them, but something about her had everything inside of him shaking.

Some people looked like they’d hurt you if you hurt them.

Some people looked like they’d hurt you if you hurt their families.

She? She didn't look any kind of way, but Stiles knew she would hurt you for fun.

“Stiles? Son, are you okay? You are shaking.”

He was. He was shaking, and even after they turned aisle he couldn’t stop shaking.

He couldn’t help the way his hands were sweating, the way his heart was pounding, the way his lungs were constricting.

“Stiles? Stiles, what’s wro–”

He couldn't stop it. He couldn't stop himself, couldn't control anything, could barely think.

“Derek,” he said, the words coming out of him without any direction. “We need to get to Derek’s… house, and C–cora, and Uncle Pet-ter and Laura.” His voice broke, but he tried to focus on his father. “We need to g-go to them, dad, we need to go right now, we–”

“Stiles, slow down–”

“No!” he might be screaming, right now. He didn't know. All he knew was that they had to go now, before she- “No, dad, she’s going for them, she’s going to hurt them–”

“Stiles–”

He was hyperventilating. And he was struggling to breathe, and shaking, and people were looking at him and he knew – he knew that he was having a panic attack, and that he was in public, but he could only focus on two things:

1. Kate Argent was dangerous.
2. He needed to get to the Hale house.

“D-Derek,” he forced out, trying to make it make sense, trying to make his father understand. “We ne- need, dad you don’t understand,  please, daddy, the Hale house–”

“Okay,” said the Sheriff, holding Stiles’ face in his hands. There was both concern and fear in his eyes as he looked at him. “We’ll go. We’ll go see Derek, and the Hales, but Stiles, kiddo, I need you to breathe. Okay? Breathe for me, kid. Breathe.”

“D-Derek,” was all Stiles could say, taking lungful of air. “We need to g-get to his house.”

The Sheriff tried to talk to him as they drove to the Hale house, but Stiles couldn’t answer.

All he could feel was a weird painful and hard thing in his chest everyt ime he thought about the Hale House, every time he thought about that first time he had seen it, when it had looked all burned out and destroyed.

They weren’t hurt, he knew they couldn’t be hurt.

But something in his head kept saying what if they were? What if she had done something to them? What if she had hurt them?

And he didn’t know why. He didn’t know why he knew that woman’s name, and he didn’t know why he was more afraid of her than it made sense.

He didn’t know why the thought of her hurting the Hales – hurting Derek – seemed so tangible, so real, and so painful.

He didn’t know, and trying to open his mouth and explain it, trying to make it make sense made him feel like he was about to puke. Or cry.

His heart was beating too fast, as they got closer and closer to the road leading to the Hale house, and when they stopped, he could hardly breathe.

The house was standing.

The house was standing as tall and untouched as it had been the last time Stiles had seen it.

Nothing had been touched.

And Peter Hale was leaning against the porch, holding a book in his hands and staring at the Sheriff’s car quizzically.

The sound Stiles made when he saw all of this was half a relieved sigh and half a wheeze, and he pushed the door open as soon as the Sheriff’s car stopped moving.

“Stiles!”

He nearly tripped jumping out of the vehicle, but he didn’t stop, running and barely breathing until he had crashed against Peter Hale.

Who, surprisingly, had moved as soon as he had seen Stiles running, and had caught him without a single moment of hesitation.

“Hey there, cub,” he heard him say, voice softer than expected. “You’re okay, yeah? You’re okay.”

His arms were wrapped all around him, and he felt… almost familiar, and steady, and whole, and Stiles’ next exhale came out in a sob.

He didn’t know what was wrong. He didn’t know where this fear, this terror that he was going to find everyone gone (Derek gone, Cora gone, Peter gone) had come from.

All he knew was that even though Peter made him nervous, the thought of losing him had terrified him to his core, and for some reason, seeing Kate Argent had made him think he was gone. 

“Shh,” said Peter, patting his head. “You’re all right, cub. Breathe.”

He could hear his father hovering somewhere over Peter, and he knew he was freaking him out. That he was worrying him.

But he couldn’t help it. The tears wouldn’t stop, the fear wouldn’t stop, and it was weird, and it should be embarrassing, but he didn’t care: he held right onto Peter, and cried.

+++

“There we go,” said Peter, once Stiles had exhausted all of his tears and he didn’t quite feel like his chest was going to break anymore. 

His voice was very soft, and when he pulled Stiles away from his chest to look him in the eyes, he didn’t look quite as scary or creepy as he had been the first time he had seen him.

“Better?”

“Yeah,” said Stiles, avoiding looking him in the eyes and glancing around nervously instead.

He found his dad and Talia standing not too far from one another, she looking understanding while his dad appeared nervous.

“Stiles,” he said, as soon as he saw Stiles glancing at him. “Son, are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said, still not quite looking up. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” said the Sheriff. “Just... what’s wrong?”

What was wrong?

Stiles had no idea.

He had no idea of what was wrong, he had no idea of what had caused this, he had no idea of what had caused the dreams, of what had caused the nightmare, he had no idea of what on Earth was wrong with him.

He... didn't know what was wrong.

With himself or with anybody else.

“I was worried,” he ended up saying.

“Worried? About what?”

Stiles shrugged.

“Stiles–”

“All that crying must have worked up quite the appetite,” said Peter, standing up and putting a hand on his shoulder. “How about we go check out that everyone else is all right and then have dinner all together? Alice always makes too much food.”

Stiles’ felt a surge of hope in his chest, and looked between the three adults almost pleadingly.

The Sheriff frowned, looking a little embarrassed.

“I don’t know–”

“Oh please,” said Talia, smiling brightly at him. “There is always space at the table for more people. We’d love to have you.”

The Sheriff looked behind her and at Stiles, clearly conflicted. “To be honest, I haven’t finished the shopping. Stiles can stay, but I should go and finish that.”

Immediately, the painful feeling in his chest returned. He couldn’t let his dad go, alone, unprotected.

He could get hurt. There were people out there, things out there, that could hurt him, if Stiles wasn’t there.

But Stiles couldn’t leave the Hale house, not yet. He had to make sure – make sure that everyone was fine. That nobody was coming to hurt them, that they were safe–

But he also had to make sure his dad was safe. He couldn’t–

“How about I go with you, Sheriff?” suddenly asked Talia. She was looking at the Sheriff, smiling easily. “My husband is at home, and Alice has been complaining about all of the things I forgot to store for her. Maybe I can find all she needs, while you pick up and finish your shopping.”

Again, Stiles relaxed at those words, immediately relieved.

If Talia Hale was there, then his father was safe. Talia Hale was strong, and nobody fucked with her.

Not even Kate Argent.

She couldn’t hurt her, if Talia knew she was there, and Talia would know she was there.

Talia always knew, and not because she was a mom.

“Sure,” said his dad, but he was looking at Stiles, rather than the woman. “You okay looking after Stiles? You-”

“It’s fine,” assured Peter, patting him on the head. “Cora and the other cubs are upstairs with the others, so I won’t be overwhelmed.”

“If you’re sure,” said the Sheriff.

He sounded worried. 

Stiles hated worrying him. Hated the way his father was looking at him like he was scared he was going to break, hated everything about it.

But he couldn’t help it. 

He had to stay. He had to stay and make sure she didn’t come here, and it didn’t make sense. None of it made sense, and he knew none of it made sense, and he knew that his own behaviour was erratic (like mom) and unexplainable (like mom) and that he needed to get a grip, but he just.

He just.

Had to. 

Had to make sure everyone was safe.

“Okay,” said the Sheriff, giving him a one armed hug that quickly enveloped him whole when Stiles hugged him back. “Okay. Just, if anything’s wrong-”

“Peter will call Talia,” said Stiles, his voice making both him and his father wince. “You will be okay.”

“It’s not me I’m worried about,” muttered his dad, still looking worried as he leant back. “Be good.”

“I wouldn’t allow anything but,” said Peter, which had both dad and Talia looking at him like they didn’t believe him one bit.

Normally, it would have made Stiles giggle.

This time, not so much.

Instead, he just watched, apprehensive, as his dad and Talia got in his dad’s car, that same nervousness starting in his chest all over again as they drove away.

Was it really safe? Sending him towards her? Maybe–

“Well, come in then,” said Peter, pulling him towards the door. “Let’s go make sure everyone is okay.”

He said it like Stiles’ concern was normal, not like he sounded crazy or weird.

It made Stiles feel a little better.

They walked past the door to the kitchen, where Stiles noticed a woman and a guy he hadn’t seen before working the food.

“Hey,” said the woman, who looked like a female version of Peter with only slightly longer hair. They were, according to Cora, many years apart, but they could have easily passed for twins, in his opinion. Their eyes were the same exact shade, but instead of cold, hers made her look… calm. Like tranquil waters instead of unforgiving ice. “You’re Cora’s friend, right? Scott or Stiles?”

“This is Stiles,” said Peter, resting a hand on his head. “Stiles, that busybody over there is my other sister, Alice. And that there is–”

“Gabriel,” said the boy-man next to her. He was much taller than both mother and uncle, and did not look much like either of them, with his tanned complexion and dark eyes, but he had a nice smile. “Hi, Stiles.”

His hair, he noted, had white streaks in it.

“I like your hair,” he said, forcing his voice to sound normal. “Did Laura get her pink first?”

Gabriel looked surprised, while both Alice and Peter snorted at the same time. 

“I see you have discovered the rivalry already,” said Alice. “Tell me that you love apple pie and I’ll exchange Gabe for you.”

“I am so hurt,” complained Gabriel, putting down the apple he had been peeling. “See if I help you again. I chose to do this for you.”

“I spent nine months carrying you,” she said, making him groan. “I am just saying–”

“This calls for a strategic retreat,” said Peter, indicating the living room. “Laura is at softball practice, but Cora and the others are here.”

“Stiles!” called out Cora, jumping on him as soon as he stepped in the room, as if she had known he was there. “Hey! How a– what are you– hi!”

There was obviously no way she had heard him crying or saw him coming, but Stiles had the strangest feeling, as she gave him a quick once over and stood very close to him, that she somehow knew.

It did not matter, anyway, because seeing her, completely okay, made that bad feeling in his chest almost disappear completely.

She was okay.

He had known she was okay, just as he had known Peter was okay. He had seen the house in one piece, and he had known everything was fine.

But now he knew.

Now he saw the living room painted in its usual pastel green, and the rugs and furniture where it was meant to be. He saw the non blackened floor board, and he saw everyone in the living room (alongside Cora, two little girls he didn’t recognise, her dad, and a guy he was guessing was Gabriel’s father) and his chest relaxed a little bit more.

“Doesn’t matter,” said Cora, not waiting for answer before beckoning him to the carpet with the other two girls. “You need to help me beat them.”

“Before he does that,” said Peter, “Stiles, these are Angelica and Jasmine, Cora’s cousins and Gabriel’s sisters. And this is Ken, their dad.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Stiles, a little nervous despite himself. 

More Hales.

There were so many of them, and while that was a good thing, it made him feel all weird inside.

“You’re Cora’s friend, aren’t you?” asked the older girl, Angelica. “The one who’s doing the project with her?”

“One of her friends,” said Stiles, glancing around. “What are you playing?”

“Go fish,” said Jasmine, smiling at him. She was younger than Angelica, but probably older than Cora and him both. “You know how to play?”

“Er, yeah. I always beat Scott when we play.”

“You’ve never played against Angie,” warned Ken, chuckling. “She might look sweet and innocent, but she is very much not.”

“She doesn’t look very innocent to me,” admitted Stiles.

Angelica looked taken aback by this, while Cora snorted and Jasmine started to giggle also.

But she spoke before Stiles could apologise, not looking all that upset. 

“I see why you and Cora are friends,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I will eat you in one piece like the wolf did with little Red Riding Hood.”

“Angelica,” chided Ken, but Stiles wasn’t really worried.

Or really paying attention.

“Laura is coming home soon,” said Peter, now sat on the couch next to his brothers in law, the book from before back in his hands. “She should be back soon, though. You–”

“Where is Derek?” he blurted out, before he could finish.

This seemed to take Peter by surprise.

But only for a second, and then he was pointing in the general direction of the stairs. 

“In the library,” he said, closing his book.

Was it weird, if Stiles asked him if he could go to the library? Peter had taken him to see Cora and hadn’t acted like it was weird, so maybe–

“Oh, speaking of library,” said Peter, slapping his forehead overexaggeratedly, “There is this book I wanted to show you. Come with me.”

“Stiles,” complained Cora, as he promptly stood up. “You’re supposed to help me wipe that smug look from Angie’s face.”

“Jokes on you, I hide a second, smugger look under this.”

“I will ruin you.”

“You can certainly try!”

Their jeers followed them all the way to the basement floor, and then they were walking inside the library.

Derek was there.

He was sitting on the bay bench, holding a book in his hands and looking completely whole, relaxed, and unbothered. A little tense, maybe.

But fine.

He was fine.

The relief that washed over him was almost powerful enough to knock him over, but thankfully there was a wall beside him to keep him upright.

Derek was fine.

“I feel like I am seeing you more often than I am seeing my own family, these days,” complained Derek, slowly looking up from his book.

He did not make eye contact with Peter.

“Individually or collectively?” asked Stiles, walking inside without further hesitation. “Because if it’s individually, then you need to speak to your family more often. But if it’s collectively, you need to really see your family more often.”

“Or maybe it means that you are around way too often,” said Derek, flatly.

He did not sound like he really meant it, and Stiles grinned.

“What are you reading?”

“The Picture of Dorian Gray,” he said, looking at the book in distaste. “Compulsory.”

“What’s it about?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I am reading it,” said Derek. “As in, currently. I don’t know what it’s about, yet.”

“Comprehension means that you should, at the very least, have formulated an idea,” pointed out Stiles. “That’s why teachers give out tests based on one chapter or some pages from a book. And you have read several pages.”

“Maybe I started reading from the middle.”

“Why would anyone do that? That’s worse than like reading the last page of a book before starting it.”

Derek looked equally disgusted. “Who reads the last page of a book before reading the first?!”

“One of the librarians. She ‘doesn’t like surprises’.”

“Then why be a librarian? The whole point of a book is the surprises.”

“I know! She is so weird.”

“Okay, you saying that sounds a bit...”

Stiles pouted, but it was hard not to smile, as they continued sniping and arguing.

He didn’t even notice Peter watching him as they spoke.

Finally, he relaxed.

Chapter Text

“Okay,” said Cora, pushing her notebook to the side. “If I take the whole part about the civilisation itself and their architecture, then that gives each of us two parts to present. Right?”

“Right,” said Scott, looking up from the poster. “But your part is long.”

“She doesn’t have to say everything that’s on the paper,” pointed out Stiles. “Just enough to make Ms Hahn think that we have worked very hard and know everything there is to know about Egypt."

"It definitely feels like it," said Cora, glaring at the poster like she held it responsible for her current situation.

"That's the spirit."

“It’ll be weird,” said Scott, looking a little worried. “We will be in front of the whole class.”

“Yeah, but they will be presenting too,” said Stiles. “They won’t be mean to us when they know we could be mean back. It’s coun-ter-in-tui-ti-ve. Mutually assured destruction.”

Scott relaxed a little.

“Though if they go first and we are nice, they have all the chances they want to be mean and rude. They– ow!”

“We’ll be fine,” assured Cora, acting like she hadn’t just pinched him. “We can just let Stiles start rambling about whatever, and nobody will bother us.”

“I feel like I should be more offended about that than I am,” muttered Stiles, still looking around the poster. There was just a bit of colouring left to do, but for the most part, “I think we are done.”

Cora and Scott both cheered, high fiving one another.

“We actually worked faster than I thought we were going to,” he continued, still checking if there was anything else that he might have somehow missed. “I can’t believe we are basically done.”

Unlike many of his classmates, he didn't mind studying. He liked learning new things, so he hadn't found spending time focusing on the project particularly bad or annoying. He had enjoyed it, even, and could not wait to share the more obscure facts with everyone who would - or wouldn't willingly - listen (if there was one thing people needed to know about him, it was that he loved obscure facts).

However, as he looked at Cora and Scott congratulate themselves and each other on the work, he couldn’t deny that the learning aspect wasn’t the only thing he had enjoyed about the project.

He had liked working with Cora.

He worked with Scott all the time, had been working with Scott since the first time they were in a class together and a teacher said the dreaded 'partner up' command. They were used to working together, they had a dynamic. They knew their strength and weaknesses, and overall how to work with one another.

Cora should have clashed with them. Thrown a wrench in the well oiled partnership they had developed.

But she hadn't. Cora had, somehow, managed to just click with them (alone and together).

It had been confusing, when she (and Lydia) had stepped in to ‘defend’ him from Jackson.

It had been even more confusing when she had joined them at lunch, alongside Erica, Boyd and Isaac.

Nobody had kicked anybody out, but it had been weird.

Both surprising and, oddly not so surprising.

But now?

Only a couple of weeks had passed since everything (or just something) had shifted, and their efforts had mostly been on their joint project, but what had formed between them? 

What had somehow formed among all six of them and cemented between the three of them in particular?

It was... friendship.

Stiles had only ever had one friend.

Now, he had two.

Maybe he actually had five.

“We can still hangout, right?” Cora and Scott turned to look at him, and Stiles shifted, feeling a little nervous all of a sudden. “We can still be friends, right? Even if we don’t–”

“Well, duh,” she said, punching him on the shoulder. “Aunt Alice has met you. That is basically a contract in blood, and it means you are not allowed to disappear from my life without her approval.”

Scott looked at the two of them, confused.

“Aunt Alice?"

Right, he thought, cringing slightly.

He hadn’t really told Scott what had happened to him a couple of days ago.

How he had panicked at the sight of a random blonde – Kate Argent, insistently whispered his mind – and had ended up crying and struggling to breathe without any explanation until his father had driven him over to the Hale House, where he had ended up spending the rest of his evening following a strange urge to personally check that every single member of the family was accounted for and uninjured.

Nobody had spoken of that night: not Stiles, not the Sheriff, not the Hales.

Stiles had pretended to fall asleep as the Sheriff had driven them back home, and the next morning they had both been too busy with school and work to really talk.

The Sheriff had tried after that, of course. Tried to ask him if he was okay, and tried to get him to explain why he had acted like he had, but Stiles was a master evader.

He was very good at talking about nothing until people stopped asking him questions.

Cora hadn’t brought it up either, which was far more surprising. She had accosted him and Scott at school like usual the day after, but had made no mention of what had happened or his strange attachment to her uncle and brother.

Nobody had asked him about it, and so Stiles had not needed to speak about it to anyone, let alone Scott.

Problem was, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to think about what had happened.

Hell, he wasn’t sure what had happened. He hadn’t even put it in writing, he was that confused.

All he knew was that it linked the Hales and the blonde lady together.

How they were connected was not, however, something his brain seemed inclined to tell him about.

He refused to think about his mother, and the confusion that had plagued those first months of her illness, when Stiles and his dad had still been able to ignore the signs and act like nothing was wrong.

He was not sick.

He didn't think he was.

He just somehow seemed to be both wary of Peter Hale and to find a strange solace in his existence. And he was similarly able to despise Derek and find himself strangely struck by the older boy.

He just... liked the Hales.

Which was not normal.

They were just a – pretty large – family in Beacon Hills. What was more special about them than the Mahealanis, the Martins, the Whittemores?

Their size?

They weren’t the biggest family in Beacon Hills.

Just the one his brain seemed decided to obsess over the most.

None of these were things he was very ready to explain to Scott. So he was very glad when the door of the living room opened, and Peter walked in.

“Oh, hello there.”

Not just Peter, however.

Peter, and Alan Deaton.

“Hello, Miss Hale,” said the town vet, smiling at all three of them. “Mr Stilinski. And...”

“Scott,” said Scott, a little nervous. “Scott McCall.”

“Nice to meet you,” said the man. “I’m Doctor Alan Deaton. I’m a vet, at the animal clinic.”

“That implies that there is more than one vet,” said Peter, running a hand over the back of Cora's chair as he passed. “You’re the only one.”

“You have animals?”

Peter smirked. “No domesticated pets, no. But we do live in the Preserve.”

Cora rolled her eyes, though she was smiling. “Dr Deaton is friends with mom. They used to go to school together, or something.”

Stiles inspected the man from top to bottom with a particular critical eye. “He looks old.”

“Why, thank you, Mr Stilinski,” said the vet, in a dry tone. “Always a pleasure.”

Peter’s eyes seemed to sparkle a little as he paused with a hand on the back of Stiles’ chair, touching the back of his neck as he did so. “You two have met?”

“He helped my dad on a couple of animal related accidents,” said Stiles. In fact... “Like with Paige?”

The only person who twitched at the mentioned of Paige was Cora.

Peter looked as unaffected as ever, and the vet just nodded in agreement.

“Mh,” said Peter, in a tone Stiles couldn’t figure out was more smugness or disappointment. “Interesting.”

“Is it?” asked Deaton with the same placid half smile, looking at Peter with the look that read of a man who was very used to the other’s shenanigans.

“Quite," said Peter, still looking very smug. "Now let’s go, sister dearest is really impatient to speak to you.”

Deaton did not seem completely convinced of Peter’s intentions, but did walk towards the door after waving at them.

Peter followed after him, just pausing long enough to meet Stiles’ eye and wink at him.

Wink at him?

What the hell.

“Your uncle is weird,” he said, turning to face Cora.

“He likes you,” counterargued Cora, and now she was looking at him like he was a puzzle to be solved. “That’s... extremely rare.”

“It is?”

“Uncle Peter doesn’t like most people. He usually hates most strangers.”

“Why?” asked Scott, seeming to be undecided on whether he was sad to be overlooked or grateful. “And does he not like me?”

“More like he doesn’t find you too interesting,” said Cora. “Which, when it comes to Uncle Peter, is basically a point in ‘I like you’. As to why... well, he had a bad relationship in the past. It went very badly.”

“The one with the ex that’s in town?”

Cora nodded. “He found out something his ex knew and kept hidden from him, and it hurt him a lot. And then, when he thought he could forgive him, the ex broke up with him and is now married to someone new.”

“Yikes,” said Scott, looking appropriately sad. “That sucks.”

It did. However, something about the way Cora had said it...

The blonde woman’s face flashed in his head.

“Is her name Kate?” Cora looked at him blankly, so he clarified. “The ex. Is Peter’s ex a blonde lady called Kate?”

“No,” said Cora, shaking her head. She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “The name is Chris.”

Scott nodded, but Stiles’ eyebrows both into his hairline.

The way she had just said that... He was pretty sure she did not mean Christina.

Rather, she had probably meant something like Christopher.

He had never met someone who was in love with guys. His mother had spoken to him about it before, about how love knew no gender and no barrier, and it just happened, and Stiles had never had reason to think otherwise.

But she had also told him about how not everyone understood, and how many people were bigots about who other people could or could not love, and he understood why Cora was being all weird about it and not saying it outright.

They might butt heads, but he was her uncle, and she did care about him.

“Love is love,” he said, sagely. “Did you know that my celebrity crushes are Rachel Weisz and Brendan Fraser?”

“Who?”

“They are the guy and the girl in the Mummy movie,” said Scott. “He’s the ex soldier, and she’s the historian lady.”

“Oh,” said Cora, relaxing a bit. “That’s... nice.”

“I like Angelina Jolie,” said Scott, sighing. “She’s so pretty.”

“I like Brad Pitt,” said Cora, blushing a little. “But Anna Kendrick is also kind of pretty?”

“Everyone in Hollywood is fake and pretty,” said Stiles. “It’s how the big machine of capitalism moves. If they weren’t pretty, would we sit down and watch them do ridiculous moves and ridiculous feats?”

“There are loads of animations with ugly characters. We watch them all the time.”

“No, Cora, don’t give him–”

“I am glad you asked,” said Stiles, grinning evilly. “I watched a documentary on this. It starts with–”

“Hey, relax-!”

“Shut up, Laura!”

Derek appeared a second later in the living room, looking extremely red faced and visibly annoyed.

The most likely reason of his annoyance – Laura Hale – appeared behind him a second later, looking very amused by whatever stunt she had just pulled.

“Your face is red,” he informed him.

“Shut up,” said Derek, grabbing a bottle of water from the minifridge. “Stop being in my house.”

“Derek-” started Laura, but the boy just flipped her off before marching out again.

Laura cackled, following after him with decided steps.

Stiles glanced at Cora, who looked just tired of it all already.

“Are they okay?”

“Derek is disgusting, and Laura is annoying,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Siblings.”

Scott and he could not relate, so they just stared at each other in confusion.

Which reminded him, “My documentary, right.”

Scott groaned.

Sleeping – and staying – asleep had started being a problem for Stiles when his mother got sick.

Then, after her death, his dad had started working all sorts of different shifts and well... after you lost one parent, it was hard to fall asleep when they were outside working at a job that included catching armed lunatics.

Beacon Hills was calmer than big cities, but they had their weirdos.

It had gotten worse as of late. Since that day, since the weird dreams started, it had become increasingly harder for Stiles to find any rest in his sleep.

He struggled to fall asleep, and when he did, the sleep wasn’t that restful.

Which meant that, as soon as his dad picked Stiles and Scott up, he was half asleep on the passenger seat.

He woke up when they got to Scott’s house, but his eyes were falling closed before he could even say goodbye to his friend.

He heard his father sigh before he felt the man’s fingers in his hair.

“What is going on with you, kiddo? You’re worrying me.”

Stiles was not awake enough to answer that, but he was awake enough to feel bad about it.

He didn’t mean to worry his father, which his actions weren’t really proving.

In his defence, had he known what was going on, he would have already done everything in his power to fix it.

But he didn’t.

He had one lead, and that one lead had been interrupted by Derek Hale.

Derek Hale.

Maybe that was who Stiles was supposed to go with. Maybe if he convinced him, he could get him to take him to the woods, and then he’d find the tree and get all of his answers.

It hadn't been hard, getting from Scott’s house to the tree.

He just had to focus for a little while, and follow that strange feeling that had led him the first time around.

Either the feeling was a symptom of FTD or...

Or it was something else.

Something else that Stiles did not understand yet, but that wasn't dangerous.

What had it ever done but lead him to the stump?

It wasn't necessarily dangerous.

All it did, over and over, was take him here. Take him to the tree, the stump, the whatever not so lifeless piece of wood in the forest.

To the stump and to Red Hood.

Who was, this time, facing Stiles.

Well, not exactly facing him.

He was sat on the stump, and he was positioned so that Stiles could see him head on.

But his head was bent, and between that and his hood, it was impossible to see his face.

Not impossible to see the man laying on his lap, however.

A guy with a large tattoo on his naked back and dark hair, and who was facing away from him.

Stiles had a cold feeling in his stomach at the sight of the man.

The way he was laying so still, and the way the guy in the red hood was holding him...

It was like he wasn’t breathing. 

It was like he was dead.

“He’s not.”

The guy’s voice was not what Stiles had been expecting, and he jumped automatically back when he heard it.

It was strangely familiar, lower in tone than he had been expecting. At the same time, it was far younger than Stiles had been expecting.

The man was not a man.

Or he was a man in the sense that he was male.

But not in the sense that he was an adult.

Or, if he was an adult, he didn’t have the voice of one.

“Who are you?” he asked, looking between the man and the guy laying on his lap, heart beating a little faster in his chest. “Who is he?”

“He’s not dead,” said the guy, not glancing up or moving. Even the jar and the buzzing firefly were still and silent beside him. “Not anymore.” 

“What... what do you mean?”

Still, the guy didn’t glance up.

“I fixed it. We fixed it. Almost.” He ran his thumb over the cheek of the man, and over other parts of his face Stiles couldn’t see. “You can crack the code.”

“What... what code? What do you mean we fixed it?” Stiles took a hesitant step forward. “Who are you?”

“I don’t exist,” said the guy. “Not any longer. I’m just a memory. A shadow left over the Nemeton.”

Nemeton.

“I know that word,” said Stiles, eyes drawn to the stump. “It’s the tree. It’s the Nemeton, isn’t it? Like in the map at Cora and Derek’s house.”

“Cora and Derek,” repeated the guy. 

“And Peter.”

“And Peter,” he agreed. “You are almost there.”

“Almost there? Almost where?” the guy didn’t answer and Stiles took another step forward, a little annoyed. “Why are you playing games? Just tell me what’s going on. Am I... am I going crazy? Like mom? Are you real? What are these dreams? Can you just... can you just tell me I am...”

He wasn’t even sure of what he was. He wasn’t even sure of what he was asking.

All he knew was that his life had been slowly spiralling out of control and he needed some of that control back.

He needed to figure out what was going on, he needed–

Lydia appeared out of nowhere.

She did not appear as quietly as Red Hood had or normally did, but she still scared the crap out of him.

Mostly because while he had had dreams about Lydia before, no one had ever appeared in one of these dreams.

No one he knew at least.

“Lydia?!”

Her hair was in complete disarray, covered in leaves and little pieces of wood. Her pijama – a long green shirt and very short shorts – was equally dirtied, and her feet were bare and filthy.

No socks, no shoes, no coat.

She did not even appear to hear or notice him. She looked half asleep as she stumbled in the clearing, eyes glazed over.

“Lydia,” he called, moving towards her. “Lydia!”

Even when he touched her, and wrapped his arms around her, Lydia did not appear to notice him.

She kept shaking and trying to walk, trying to move towards the stump as if she was drunk.

But she didn’t smell like the drunks that sometimes his dad had at the precinct.

She smelled like she always did.

“Lydia,” he said, shaking her, heart beating a little too fast. “Lydia, wake up! Lydia!”

She wasn’t asleep, but she wasn’t awake either.

She was just... there.

Silent and almost limp like a ragdoll.

It was scary.

“Help me,” he said, turning to Red Hood. Who was sitting right where he was, facing away again. “We need to call someone, we need to do something!”

“Why?” Red Hood sounded genuinely curious. “Isn’t this a dream?”

It was.

It was the same dream Stiles had been having for weeks, now.

But...

But Lydia had never been in one of his dreams before.

And Lydia had been dreaming about the tree as well.

Except Lydia had been having nightmares about the tree.

She had been afraid, about whatever the tree had done in her memories.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, still shaking her. “Lydia, wake up. Wake up!” He turned to the Red Hood, more afraid. “We need to wake her up.”

“Are you sure?”

He said it like it was a genuine question.

Like what Stiles answered was important and would change things.

He didn't really care - all he wanted was for Lydia to wake up already.

“Yes. She needs to wake up, Lydia? Lydia!”

“Lydia,” said Red Hood, in the same tone of voice as earlier. But Stiles' jaw ached at the sound of her name from his lips, and the buzzing sound started ringing in his ears so loudly he had to look away from the girl and Red Hood both, momentarily letting go of her. "Wake up, Lydia.”

He did not shout or speak particularly loudly. 

It was barely conversation level volume.

But it worked.

Lydia’s eyes appeared to clear up, and Stiles breathed out as she focused on him.

“Lydia,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You scared me. You–”

Her eyes fixed on Red Hood behind him, and Stiles frowned as something like fear or horror appeared on her face.

He didn’t have the chance to do or say anything else.

Lydia screamed.

+++

Stiles startled awake, his hands going to his ears at the splitting sound of the scream.

It was something he had never heard before – something he hoped he didn’t have to hear again.

It was chilling, and painful, and piercing, and made him want to run away from and towards the sound at the same time. Like he knew it couldn't be anything good, but needed to see it with his own eyes.

It was like he could feel the scream in his own bones.

“Stiles? You okay?”

He made a pained sound, trying to focus on anything but the last notes of the scream. “I–”

“All units, respond,” came from the radio. “We have a missing child situation on Ocean Plaza. All units, respond.”

Stiles did not hear his father swear or even his answering as he turned the car around.

He might have said something, but he just wasn't paying attention.

Because he knew that address.

The Martin's lived on Ocean Plaza.

Lydia lived on Ocean Plaza.

Lydia was missing.

Chapter Text

"Where is she? What have you done with Lydia?!"

Red Hood did not so much as twitch from his previous position.

He was once more sitting on the stump, the other guy laying on his lap and his face hidden from him.

Everything looked the exact same way it had before Lydia had appeared in his dream.

The guy, Red Hood, the stump, and the firefly.

No change.

"Dude, come on," pleaded Stiles. "Where is Lydia? You said you would help me wake her up, but she's not here! She's gone!"

Nobody knew where she had gone. Not the police, not her parents... no one.

It was like Lydia had simply disappeared.

"Please," he said, trying not to sound desperate. But he could still remember the scream, the fear and emotions in that sound... "Where is she? Where is Lydia?"

Still, Red Hood didn't look up. He kept looking at the figure in his lap, stroking his hair and face, looking like the image of complete bliss.

Apart from the blood on his knuckles, on the guy on his lap, and on the bat.

"Please," he begged. "Just... I just need to find her. You said you'd help me! That you would help find Lydia, so just-"

He did not expect an answer, to be honest. It was the second night in a row that Stiles was back in this exact scenario, begging Red Hood to tell him where Lydia was.

The previous night he had done nothing, no matter how loudly Stiles tried to beg or annoy him (and believe him, he had tried really hard to annoy him).

Tonight had started similarly. But something must have changed at some point, because Red Hood abruptly turned his head towards the woods.

His face was still impossible to see, but the way he had paused was unmistakable.

"What? Can you hear something?" He took a hesitant step forward. "Is it Lydia? Where is-"

"Listen," said Red Hood.

The wind blew through the trees.

Stiles woke up.

“I know how to find Lydia.”

The way all five of the table occupants turned their heads at the same time to look at him was very funny, but this was not funny business, so Stiles did not laugh.

On the outside.

He laughed a bit on the inside, and promptly felt bad about it.

“What? How?”

“She’s in the woods,” he said, taking a seat between Erica and Scott. “I think I can find her.”

“Great,” said Erica, in a tone of voice Stiles had learnt didn’t actually mean she meant her words. “Tell the police, and they’ll find her.”

“The police won’t find her.”

“Isn’t your dad the Sheriff?” asked Boyd. “Won’t he believe you if you tell him?”

“He would,” said Stiles, now playing with the carton of chocolate milk in his tray and not quite looking up. “But he won’t find her.”

And, to be completely honest, he wasn’t very at ease with the thought of his father in the woods.

His father was the Sheriff of Beacon Hills. He knew how to handle himself. He had been handling himself for years, at this point.

The first day on the force, they trained you for the Preserve because that was where good leads and possible suspects went to die and disappear.

He carried a gun, and knew how to use it. He had even tried to teach Stiles a bit about shooting.

And it wasn’t like he would be alone. Sheriff or not, there were rules, and unlike Stiles, his dad tended to follow the rules.

Especially in a case of a missing eleven years old girl.

His fear of his father being in the Preserve and what could happen to him while he was there was completely irrational.

And like all other irrational fears someone could have, no amount of logical thinking seemed able to convince Stiles of the fact that his father would be fine. 

Telling him to look for Lydia specifically in the woods? He couldn’t do that.

There were things a lot scarier than bears hiding in the Beacon Hills Preserve. He couldn’t explain it, and couldn’t name examples, but a distinct shudder ran down his spine at the thought of his father, in the woods, with nothing but his gun.

He thought of Red Hood and the firefly, and shuddered.

“You think you can find her?” asked Cora, looking interested.

She did not look at him like she thought he was crazy. She just appeared mildly intrigued.

“Yes,” he said. “With you guys’ help.”

“Am I the only one who thinks this is insane?” questioned Isaac, as usual ready to rain on Stiles’ parade. “You think Lydia is hiding in the woods, and instead of telling the police, you want the six of us to go and find her? How do you even think you’re going to find her?”

“He’ll find her,” said Scott, nodding gravely. “I mean, I don’t like this and I would prefer not going into the woods at all; but if Stiles says he’ll find her, he will.”

“Dreams aren’t real,” argued Erica.

She had never mentioned the books he had checked out from the library to anyone, but it was clear that she had known exactly what they were.

Because Erica was far smarter and more observant than most people gave her credit for.

“My uncle says some dreams are real,” said Cora. “He says there are people who are more sensitive to things, living in Beacon Hills.”

“According to the origins of Beacon Hills, the town was found on some powerful ley lines,” added Stiles, which appeared to surprise Cora a bit.

The others looked less intrigued.

“Magic?”

“You don’t believe in magic, Boyd?”

He shrugged. “I think Beacon Hills is a strange town. But without any proof...?”

“I can find Lydia,” he said, decidedly. “It’s been over forty eight hours since she went missing. That is too long for anyone to be alone in the woods. You don’t have to believe me, and you don’t have to come. But I think that together, we can find her.”

“But how do you plan on doing that?” wondered Scott. “Our parents aren’t just going to let us go into the woods alone, especially if we tell them we are going to look for Lydia.”

“Then, we don’t tell them,” said Stiles, giving them a smirk. “I have a plan.”

"I hate it already," claimed Isaac.

Stiles ignored him, and then got to explaining.

+++

“Is everyone here?” asked Erica, rushing inside towards him all red in the face.

“Cora and Isaac are still not here,” answered Stiles, frowning at her face. “Are you okay?”

“I told my mom I was going to the library to study when I’m actually going into the woods with my friends,” she said, rolling on the balls of her feet. “It’s crazy. I’ve never lied to my mom before.”

“Never?”

“Other than white lies about being fine when I wasn’t, no.” She shrugged. “It’s not good practice to lie to your mom when you have a disease like epilepsy.”

Stiles supposed that was true.

So, “You don’t have to–”

“I already lied,” she interrupted him. “I’m coming with you guys. Let’s see if your... dreams about Lydia can help you find her.”

“I wasn’t dreaming about Lydia,” he clarified, frowning slightly. “I was dreaming about the tree. Lydia was just there.”

As soon as he had woken up with Lydia’s scream in his ears and the radio saying she was missing, he had known where she was. His father had driven them to the Martin residence to speak to an hysterical Mrs Martin, and it had taken all of Stiles’ self control not to barge out and announce he knew where Lydia was.

He had hoped that his father or his deputies would find her easily. After all, he couldn’t be the only one in town with the knowledge that she was in the woods.

And technically, he wasn’t.

Deputies immediately started searching the woods around her house and the footage they could find. 

But they found nothing.

They found nothing, and after his second dream about Red Hood not telling him where Lydia was and just telling him to listen to the wind, Stiles knew he had to act.

Erica frowned. “Is that different?”

Considering the fact that Lydia had also been having nightmares about the tree?

“It’s different,” he said. “It’s– what is he doing here?”

Jackson Whittemore smiled as Isaac waved at his older brother Camden.

“I heard you are going to look for Lydia. I want in.”

“You heard,” repeated Stiles, looking from him to a chagrined Isaac. “You heard 'how'? How did he hear, Isaac?”

“It’s not my fault,” said the blond, in a voice that made Stiles 100% sure it was his fault. “He was in his room and heard me tell Camden that me and my friends are going to go look for Lydia.”

“You told your brother?”

“My dad knows I’m done with my project,”  he said, playing with the ends of his sleeve. “If I tell him I didn’t actually finish it and needed to go to the library to put the final touches he will be angry and think I’m lying to him. And he doesn’t like it when I lie.”

Something weird happened then.

Jackson’s lips pursed in an angry way even though he looked pointedly away from Isaac.

And Isaac sort of curled in himself, as if trying to make himself deliberately smaller, less than a target.

Stiles had used to do the same thing, in his mother’s worst moments.

“He just thinks I’m out with Camden, now,” he continued. “He doesn’t mind that. But I needed Camden to know in advance, just in case we need rescuing or something. In which case my dad will really kill me.”

“Hey,” called out Cora, running towards them. “Sorry I’m– Why’s Jackson here?”

“To help, obviously.”

Neither Cora nor Isaac or Erica or Stiles looked particularly impressed by this, so he rolled his eyes. “I want to find Lydia too. Believe that?"

“Surprisingly, yes,” she said, turning to Stiles. “Shall we go?”

“Scott and Boyd are–”

“Here,” said Boyd, he and Scott finally re-appearing. “Every-”

“Why is Jackson’s-”

“I also care about Lydia, and I heard you were looking for her,” said Jackson, irritated. “Are we going to go, now, or is someone else going to come out and ask why I’m here?”

“Why are you here?” asked Erica, smirking when Jackson glared at her.

But he didn’t say the usual mean things he would have at school. He just rolled his eyes, and then looked between Stiles and Cora impatiently.

“Lydia?”

“Just... don’t get in the way,” said Stiles, strangely not feeling as annoyed as he should have.

Sure, leaving Jackson behind would cause more problems than help (because he was bound to go and tattle on them), but that shouldn’t mean that Stiles didn’t mind having him around.

He didn’t particularly like Jackson. 

The guy was a douche, and he had done his best to make the lives of many of the people he was currently standing with miserable.

Stiles should want payback, or just want him gone on principle.

The rest should also be out for blood.

But they... weren’t. 

Nobody was jumping in joy about him joining them, but nobody was particularly annoyed by this either.

Even Scott was walking behind him and not looking like he wanted to trip and/or kick him.

He made a mental note to add a card with Jackson’s name when he got home.

“Wait,” said Cora, as they reached the main doors of the library. 

“For wha– oh,” he said, noticing Peter Hale.

He was standing almost chest to chest with another man, but it didn’t look like they were having a particularly civilized conversation.

The man Peter was standing in front of looked almost as angry as Peter, who had one finger in his face and was clearly spitting venom at him. 

The other guy kept trying to interrupt, but it didn’t sound like Peter was giving him a chance, so he kept clenching and unclenching his fists.

Stiles looked from Peter’s angry and slightly red face, to Cora’s equally annoyed expression and the glint of a silver band on the man’s clenched fist.

So this was Chris.

He was taller than Stiles had expected.

The argument did not last long. As soon as Peter was done with his rant, Chris tried to start his. But Peter simply ignored him, turning his back on him and walking off towards his car.

Chris nearly followed him, but stopped after three steps, choosing to try and call out to him instead.

Peter flipped him off without turning around.

“Was that your uncle?” asked Jackson, as Peter started his car and quickly drove away from the building. 

Cora nodded once, and since it was clear she had no interest in explaining any further, Stiles opened the door of the library.

Chris looked over at them as they left, and there was a moment where his eyes met Stiles’ and he felt a little strange.

It was almost like when he had seen Peter, but at a lesser scale. Like the man was dangerous, and could hurt; but it felt, at least to Stiles, like it would take him a lot more than it would take Peter for him to decide on murder.

“Just ignore him,” muttered Cora, not turning in his direction. “He doesn’t actually know any of us. He never met me.”

Stiles did as said, putting an arm around Scott’s shoulders as he did so.

Again, Chris reminded him of Peter.

And he did not like the idea of either of them alone with Scott.

His friend beamed at him, unsuspecting, and they all continued in direction of the woods.

Chris got into his car, and drove away.

Stiles had not considered the various personalities he was taking into the woods with him.

“Can you walk faster?”

“Did anyone bring any water?”

“Stop pushing me–!”

“You did that on purpose!”

“So are we just supposed to trust that he knows where he is going?”

“Still think this was such a good idea?”

Stiles glanced at Cora, who was walking side by side with him and being the only person who was not complaining or starting an argument with anyone.

“You can’t choose your friend group,” he said, which made her snort.

“I think the whole point of a friend group is being able to choose who is or isn’t in,” she said, “But I get your point. Careful.”

“Thanks,” he said, kicking the branch out of the way so that nobody would trip over it. “You are very comfortable in the woods.”

“I live in the Preserve. And my brother is not the only member of the family who likes going around it by himself.”

“You like the woods,” he surmised.

“What’s not to like?”

“The bugs, the insects, the predators and the things that go bumping in the dark.”

She smiled. “I don’t think the animals are the most dangerous things in the Preserve.”

Stiles thought back to his dream, and the firefly specifically.

“Neither do I.”

She looked at him curiously, but that’s when he felt it.

The living heart beat under his feet took him by surprise, but he had been expecting it, this time. He paused where he was, causing Boyd to nearly crash into him too.

“Stiles, what are you–”

“Sh,” said Scott, quickly moving to stand beside him. “Are you hearing the voices again?”

“He hears voices?!”

Stiles ignored Jackson and Scott both (though he really was going to need to have a chat with his bro about things he should or should not be sharing with the Jacksons and non Scotts of the world).

Instead, he focused on the sound, and the feeling.

The last time, he had focused on it from the outside. He had let all of his attention focus on the silent pull, ignoring anything and everything else.

The temptation was still there. He knew that Lydia was where the stump was, and he knew that if he listened, the heartbeat would get him to the tree.

But he remembered losing Scott, and he was not going to do that again.

So instead of allowing himself to focus fully on it, he let himself be pulled forward by the feeling and–

“Oh,” he said, surprised.

“Stiles?”

He stared, baffled, at the red string wrapped around his finger. 

A string that started from his finger but continued further into the woods, connecting him to...

Well. Either to the tree or to Lydia.

“What are you looking at?” asked Cora, looking at him extremely closely. 

In the shade of the trees, her eyes seemed to glow a little amber.

In the shade of the trees, everything surrounding him seemed to be shining a little brighter, seemed to glow a little inhumanly.

In the shade of the trees, everything surrounding him looked a little... magical.

Stiles looked down at the string that he knew, from the way everyone was shifting and waiting in confusion, only he could see.

What if he wasn’t crazy?

What if there was an answer to everything that had happened and the answer was...

He couldn’t even say it.

It was insane.

It had to be insane.

And yet, here he was, hearing sounds others couldn’t, dreaming about a tree he had never seen, dreaming about Lydia and knowing where she was, and somehow making a string only he could see appear.

Either he followed the string and it led nowhere, which meant he was crazy.

Or he followed it and he found Lydia, which meant...

Which meant something different.

“Come on,” he said, swallowing and taking a step forward.

“Where? I’m sorry, does nobody else think this is weird?”

“Nobody asked you to come, Jackson,” said Erica. “You can go right back, and we won’t mind.”

“He hears voices. Is nobody going to talk about it?”

“Beacon Hills is special,” said Boyd. “And weird. Weird and special things happen in Beacon Hills. Weird and special things have been happening in Beacon Hills.”

“Not this weird.”

“No? Then why and how did Lydia end up in the woods? Does Lydia look like someone who goes into the woods by herself for fun? In the middle of the night or otherwise?”

Jackson did not answer this, falling quiet.

In fact, as Stiles followed the tingling under his feet and the red string, everyone fell silent.

Cora and Scott were close enough that he knew he wasn’t marching past them anymore, but they were also quiet.

All he could hear was the sound of breathing, the wind rustling through the wind and his heartbeat, drumming alongside the one under his feet.

Oh, and the strange buzzing of the tree.

Just like in his dreams, he couldn’t figure out the second he started hearing it.

It wasn’t like a gradual shift or a gradual change.

One second he had been walking and following the string.

The second, his jaw had been aching, a feeling he had started to associate with the stump, and he had realised he was close.

He was close.

It was one thing to feel like this every night in his dreams. The aching, the buzzing and then the stump.

It was another thing to feel this in real life. To walk into the Preserve and feeling the same exact feeling, hear the same noises, in the daylight.

“Stiles?” asked Cora, looking at him in concern. “Are you okay? Your hear– you look like your heart is going crazy.”

“How does someone look like their heart is going crazy?”

“Sh,” said Stiles, looking around him. “We are close.”

This time, not even Jackson asked him how or if he was sure. 

Like in the dream, the tree appeared out of nowhere.

He just followed the string, turned past a tree, and suddenly here it was.

His breath stuttered in his chest as soon as he saw the massive stump with his own eyes, as imposing and shockingly alive as it had been in his dreams.

In fact, it felt more alive now than it had felt in his dreams, more imposing.

And so was Lydia.

Instead of Red Hood and the firefly, it was Lydia laying on top of the stump, in her yellow pyjama set, appearing fast asleep.

“Lydia!” shouted Jackson, running up to her with Isaac and Scott in tow. “Oh my god!”

“How did you know she would be here?” he heard Erica ask, but it was faint.

The red string was wrapped around one of the roots of the tree.

Stiles knew he should probably run and see if Lydia was okay. That he should be calling the police, his dad, the hospital... just someone who could check on her.

But he didn’t.

Come here, seemed to say the tree. You have arrived. Now, come.

Come where, he wasn’t sure.

“This is the Nemeton,” he heard Cora say, and part of him thought that it made sense.

Of course the stump was the Nemeton.

It was the Nemeton.

It had been the Nemeton all along.

He bent down, and reached for the root the red string was connected to.

“Wait, Stile–!”

Cora called him out too late.

His hand wrapped around the root, and the energy – the magic – slammed straight into him like a waterfall of electricity, burning his mouth and hardening his jaw.

If he had opened his eyes and had been able to focus anything other than the energy and the pain, he would have heard Lydia scream at the same time as he did.

As it was, he only managed to last a few seconds through that violent storm of magic and pain before he lost consciousness.

Chapter Text

Stiles woke up with a gasp.

He was sitting up as soon as his eyes had opened, trying to catch his breath and feeling like he was still drowning, staring around as he tried to get his brain to understand what was going on.

A moment ago he had been outside with his friends. Then, a loud and painful sound had burst in his ears and behind his eyelids and it had hurt so much and he–

He wasn’t in the woods.

Stiles stopped what he was doing, looking around him in confusion.

He was no longer at the stump in the Preserve, and Scott, Erica, Cora, Boyd, Isaac and Jackson weren’t there with him.

Instead he was somewhere that looked like a gym but not one he had ever been in. It was filled with balloons and lights, and on the wall, the words Winter Formal were painted on a banner.

There was a table with food and drinks, and a bunch of chairs and things that one would expect to see at a party.

Except for the part where the room was completely empty.

Stiles had watched enough horror movies to know it was a bad idea, but also really did not want to be jumpscared, so he stood up, looking around a little nervously.

“Hello? Is anybody here?”

There was no response.

“Jackson, if this is your idea of a prank, I will do something very evil to you and your hair. Scott, if you are in on this... I will not talk to you for like–”

“Ngh.”

Stiles literally jumped out of his skin.

“Oh my god!”

He had thought he was alone in the room, but now that he looked more closely there was a second figure in the gym.

There was a girl, laying among the balloons, in a beige dress. She was face down, which meant her face was impossible to see, but her hair–

He knew that hair.

He would know that strawberry blonde hair anywhere.

“Lydia!”

The girl remained laying on the ground as he ran to her, and did not stir until Stiles was dropping on his knees and shaking her. “Lydia, wake up!”

He turned her around to make it easier for her to breathe and finally – finally – Lydia opened her eyes.

She looked as disoriented as he felt, as she forced herself in a sitting position, frowning at him and her surroundings.

“Stiles?”

He smiled, a little embarrassed. “Hey. You scared the crap out of me.”

She continued to frown, looking around her. “Where are we? Why are you wearing that?”

“I don’t know where we are. That banner says Winter Formal, so..." he paused, and then shrugged. “Yeah, I have no idea. Last I remember, I was in the woods looking for you–”

Lydia’s head turned to him, an alarmed expression on her face.

“What?”

“Er... you disappeared,” explained Stiles. “You went missing the other night, and I had... a hunch that you might be in the woods. So me, Cora, Isaac, Scott, Erica, Boyd and Jackson went to find you and we did. Only now, I don’t know where we are anymore.”

“Jackson,” she repeated, sounding surprised. “Jackson helped you guys find me.”

“I found you,” corrected Stiles, because that was a very important distinction and Jackson already had so many things to his name that he hadn’t earned. “Jackson came with us when he figured out we were going in the woods. He–”

“You found me,” said Lydia, now looking at him closely. “You had a ‘hunch’ that I might be in the woods.”

Lydia wasn’t the smartest student in their year for nothing, and Stiles had the feeling trying to hide things from her wouldn’t go well for him or for anyone else.

Plus she was the only other person he knew who had dreamt about the Nemeton. 

He didn’t know what it meant, especially since her dreams had been nightmares, but it had to mean something.

“I dreamt about you,” he explained. “In a non fun but non creepy way? Well, a little bit creepy. But creepy like creepy, not creepy like ‘men’ creepy. Creepy like-”

“Stiles.”

“Right. It was my dream with the Nemeton, and you appeared inside of it,” he explained. Lydia stilled, eyes growing very wide at his words. “I tried to wake you up, and you screamed really loud and I woke up and I found out that you had gone missing. And after that–”

“I don’t wanna hear anymore,” said Lydia, standing up. She was shaking, but not from the cold, considering the temperature inside, and she was not looking at him. “We need to get out of here.”

“Out of where, exactly? I have no idea of where we are.”

“The High School gym,” explained Lydia, walking towards the door, heels tapping the ground at every step. 

Lydia was wearing pastel coloured heels that complimented her dress.

The dress was pretty. It made her look very pretty, but it didn’t look like something that had been made for a kid.

More like something made for an adult that had been shinked so that a child could wear it. 

Similarly for the shoes she was wearing and the bag he could see in her left hand.

Or the shoes Stiles noted he was wearing when he looked down at himself. And the suit – because, for whatever reason, he was wearing a suit and dress shoes, something he hadn’t done since his mother’s funeral.

“We are at a formal,” he said, as they approached the door of the gym. “And we are dressed the part.”

Lydia didn’t pause or turn around, but Stiles knew he was right and didn’t need her to confirm this for him.

“This isn’t real.”

At this Lydia did turn around, one hand on the doorknob.

“This is a dream,” she said, looking pained. “But Stiles? All of this is real.”

Then, she opened the door.

Instead of the row of lockers he had expected – considering the whole ‘high school gym’ thing – they were met with rows upon rows of mirrors that had even Lydia pausing in surprise.

Which was perfect, because it meant Stiles could quickly rush to position himself in front of her.

“What do you mean this is a dream but this is all real?”

“Have you still not figured it out?” she asked, looking annoyed. “My dreams, your dreams... they aren’t just dreams.”

Yes, that was something Stiles was aware of. 

He knew that his dreams couldn’t just be dreams. Not when the tree he had been dreaming about appeared, not when Lydia screamed in his dream and disappeared in real life, not when a ‘feeling’ brought him all the way to the tree he had been dreaming about for weeks.

He knew there had to be something that connected all this, an invisible thread that he was yet to figure out.

But he didn’t know what it meant, yet, and saying it was real... was that really correct?

What happened inside of their dreams didn’t really affect the outside, right? 

At least in his case.

“Nothing I’ve dreamt about happened,” he said out loud. “I don’t know the... Red Hood guy. I’ve never met him or the guy he was holding in his arms.”

“Yes, you have,” said Lydia, and unless he was once more in a dream of his and dreaming Lydia up, she shouldn’t have been this sure. “I have. Or better yet, I will.”

“You will,” repeated Stiles. “Right. And how exactly...?”

Lydia stopped in front of the nearest mirror, looking especially tense as she looked at it.

She appeared like she already knew what was going to happen, and Stiles found himself wondering.

He had dreamt about Lydia stumbling in his dream with the Nemeton, and she had screamed and disappeared in real life.

What if now it was him who had stumbled into Lydia’s dream?

They had found her on the Nemeton, and then Stiles had felt pain and now he was here. 

Perhaps–

The image in the mirror rippled like a rock had been thrown in a lake. And where before Lydia and Stiles had been standing, wearing clothes that fit them like a glove but couldn’t possibly be theirs, someone else appeared.

Or rather, several someones.

It was a classroom full of students – all of whom appeared in High School. 

It was hard to make out most of them clearly, apart from two sitting closest to the last window of the classroom – a red head and a brunet.

“You’ve got it?” asked the brunet, leaning forward a bit.

“Stop breathing over my neck,” instructed the red head. She waited until the teacher had turned around, and then handed over a small translation, turning around slightly. “I think Allison’s dad might know more.”

“Bestiary?”

“Family history,” she corrected. “Allison’s necklace? It was made by her ancestor after they slayed the Bête du Gévaudan . That’s how the family business started. Kate gave it to her when she came to Beacon Hills.”

The brunet paused, looking at her with a raised eyebrow. “Allison was walking around with a necklace gifted to her by her pyromaniac paedophile aunt bad touch?”

The red head shrugged. “She had problems. And unlike someone we won’t name-” she made deliberate eye contact with a guy sat a little farther from them, who was blatantly listening in, “I might be her best friend, but I am not afraid to call out her mistakes or problems. Let me know if you find something.”

“You got it. ”

Stiles turned to Lydia, who did not look particularly surprised beside him.

“Was that the two of us?” He looked at the mirror, where the image had already dissolved. “And Scott?”

“I can’t control what I see,” she said, looking uncomfortable. “Most time it’s people I don’t even know or recognise. I–”

“Slow down,” said Stiles, shaking his head. "What-"

He wanted to ask questions, both about Lydia seeing him and ‘Kate’ who was ‘Allison’s’ ‘pyromaniac paedophile aunt bad touch’. Especially if this ‘Kate’ was the same ‘Kate Argent’ that Stiles had seen at the supermarket, and that the guy in plaid – a guy he had a feeling was him – had clearly hated.

If Lydia knew something about it, about who Kate was and what she did–

But it was dawning to him that Lydia’s dreams had been nothing like what Stiles had been going through.

All he had had was a confusing tree and Red Hood, who was making himself slowly more clear as they day passed.

Lydia hadn’t had that.

“I woke up from a nightmare,” he started, looking at her carefully. “I don’t know what prompted it, I don’t know why. I considered that we had been poisoned. Accidentally,” he added, when she looked at him disbelievingly. “Like in an act of domestic terrorism.”

“They would have no reason to get the children when they could get the teacher,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Kids getting sick for no reason isn’t unusual. Teachers missing work en masse is bizarre and worrying.”

“Depends on what they are trying to achieve,” pointed out Stiles. “If they just want to test that things worked, or if they want to send an initial message.

“But anyway, it was a bad nightmare. And I was so sick I couldn’t come in the next day.”

“The day Ms Capri gave back the maths test,” realised Lydia.

“Yep. And then some of us weren’t in the class, and when I asked around, it turns out that everyone apart from maybe Isaac had a nightmare on that Thursday evening – a nightmare so bad they couldn’t come in on Friday.”

“Apart from Isaac?”

Stiles nodded. “I think Isaac also had a nightmare, but I think there is something going on with his dad and brother. Don’t know what yet, but I’ll figure it out. 

“The only people I didn’t ask where you and Danny.”

She hesitated for a second, and then she nodded. “We also had... very bad dreams that night.”

He wanted to press and ask her to elaborate, but Lydia looked very uncomfortable. And considering how scared she must already be, Stiles didn’t want to upset her further.

“Everyone says that they are fine now, and that nothing weird happened since,” he continued. “But weird things have been happening to me. Weird feelings, weird reactions-”

“To people you shouldn’t know?” asked Lydia. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

Was it wrong that it actually made him feel better, knowing that he was not the only person around losing his mind? At least if he was declared crazy, there were two of them.

“And I have been having dreams.”

“About the stump in the Preserve.”

“The Nemeton,” agreed Stiles, watching the way she shivered at the name. “I’ve been dreaming about it, in the woods, emitting... a strange energy. And an... evil firefly that lives in its roots. And... Red Hood.”

“Red Hood,” repeated Lydia. 

“He never shows his face,” explained Stiles. “And he never told me his name. All I know is that he is strong, wears a red hood, has blood on himself that I don’t think is his, and uses a bat.”

“I know his name,” said Lydia, but her expression was troubled. “But I can’t tell you.”

“What? Lydia–” 

“I keep dreaming about people dying,” she blurted out, which effectively shut him up. She looked very agitated now. “I keep dreaming about people I know and don’t know dying, and I keep screaming out their names when they do. And then I am at the tree, and I just don’t understand, don’t know what it wants from me. Or what she wants.”

“She? Lydia, she who? Who do you see?”

“I don’t know who she is,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what she is. But she is always at the Nemeton, calling out my name, telling me to-” She stopped, turning her head to the mirror.

“Telling you to what? Lydia–”

“Look,” she said, pointing at the mirror as it also started rippling.

“Lydia. Lydia, stop!” 

“No!” shouted the red head, struggling forward. Her dress was ripped in several spots, and her hair was a mess. She had tears in her eyes, which made her make up appear especially botched.

And then there were the injuries. She had scars and bruises everywhere on her form you could and couldn’t see.

Despite what had happened to her, the woman looked fully aware and steady. She was like a woman possessed as she forced herself to walk through the branches and towards her target.

But she didn’t get to.

A brunet, who looked just as injured as she did, rushed forward and grabbed her by the waist, one arm catching the arm with the bottle.

“Lydia, stop! Stop–”

“Let me go! Stiles, I said let me go, let me–”

“You can’t-! You know you can’t-”

“Damn it,” she said, starting to struggle less so that she didn’t accidentally let go of the cocktail in her hand and set them both on fire. “Damn it, damn you, damn this whole town! Damn this whole– fuck this whole-”

Her words broke off in a sob, and the brunet’s hold on her twisted in something less controlling and more gentle.

“I know,” he said, pushing her head into his clavicle. His eyes appeared wet with tears, and his lip was split. “But she’s dead, now, and we–”

“There’s going to be another,” she said, pushing slightly away from him. “There is going to be another, and another, and another, and we will all die. The entire town will die, because of that damn tree, and there is nothing we can do. We cannot save it. We cannot save Beacon Hills, not so long as the tree is poisoned and living. We need–”

“We are not killing the Nemeton.”

The brunet’s voice was final, with no space for disagreement in it, but that did not stop her.

“It might be our only way, Stiles. That damned tree is–”

“You don’t understand Lydia,” he said. “You have never understood. You are not what I am. You are as much a member of the pack as I or any of the wolves, but you do not have the connection to the land that we have.

“The Nemeton is magic. It’s not like it has magic: the Nemeton itself is magic. It’s the magic of Beacon Hills. It is Beacon Hills itself. To damage the tree has been to damage the town. Do you have any idea of what would happen to the Town if you destroy it or burn it? What would happen to magic? It would hurt you, and you're a banshee: can you imagine what that would happen to the wolves, to me?”

“So what?” asked Lydia, deflating and looking defeated. “We just let the damn thing kill us instead? Because the way I see it, either we leave it do its own thing and it kills us, or we kill it and it kills us. So we’re just going to die either way.”

“No,” said Stiles. “We just have to fight. We just have to. To fight.”

She looked at him for a few seconds. 

“Deaton is dead.”

The brunet blinked, looking away. “I know. But we can still–”

She didn’t wait to hear his answer. She left the bottle in his hands and walked away.

“I know Deaton,” said Stiles, eyes wide. “I met him, he... wait magic? Wolves? Did he say 'banshee'?”

Even Lydia looked disturbed, considering the expression on her face right then.

Stiles had questions. A lot of questions.

Because why was he seeing an older version of himself and Lydia together? Why had they been hurt? Why did they speak about magic and wolves and the tree being Beacon Hills?

How could the stump be the entire town? Did it have roots that reached the very centre of Beacon Hills?

And why was it ‘territory’?

“This is private property,” had said Derek.

"Great Granpa Erasmus founded Beacon Hills," had said Cora. "And the Hale family has been here since then."

The map in Cora’s house with the Nemeton sitting dead in the middle of it.

The town had been founded by her ancestors.

Did this mean they had planted the tree? Did they put something inside of it?

Poisoned, had said the Lydia inside of the mirror. And it was cut, both in the mirror and now.

Did it mean that it was already poisoned? Did it mean that bad things were going to start happening? 

Did it–

“Why are we seeing this?” he asked, looking up to Lydia. “Why am I seeing this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw the tree,” he said. “I saw the tree a bunch of times, and Red Hood. But nothing happened. He never answered my questions, never told me anything. He just stood or sat there.

“But you... you are seeing the future. And future deaths and...”

“Magic doesn’t exist,” said Lydia. She sounded uncertain. “And people can’t see the dead or the future.”

People couldn’t see the future, no.

“But people can remember the past,” he said, slowly. 

Lydia frowned, confused. “They are... older than we are. Not younger.”

“I know,” said Stiles, rubbing his head. “But why? Why this? Why us? Why are we seeing things but seeing different things? Why not the same thing? I don’t get it.”

“That’s what you don’t get?” asked Lydia, sounding upset. “Stiles, we are somehow stuck in a high school wearing clothes that aren’t ours, communicating and seeing ourselves older than we are now. Nothing makes sense!”

“Lydia–”

“No,” she said, pulling away from him and marching towards the gym door. “I don’t want... this! I don’t want to see dead people, I don’t want to see you and me being friends, and I don’t want to be... weird! I don’t want to be like you!”

Stiles knew that Lydia and he were not friends. He knew that whatever the him and the her in the mirrors had going on was nothing like what they had now. He knew that the dreams were currently the only things linking him and Lydia together.

He knew that, at the end of the day, he hadn’t spoken so many words to Lydia since they were in preschool.

It still hurt to hear her say that.

It hurt a lot.

Then Lydia opened the door of the gym and a wall of water slammed against them and that hurt more, as suddenly they were drowning.

Where had he heard that before? 

He wasn't sure.

But then, he wasn’t drowning.

He wasn’t, because a moment later he was emerging from a the water and drawing a large gulp of air, as laughing was heard all around them.

“Lydia,” he called, gasping for air and trying to get the water out of his eyes. “Lydia, are you–”

"Stiles-"

“She’s fine,” he heard, as he wiped his face. “Stop being dramatic.”

He knew that voice.

Stiles blinked again, but now it wasn’t because of the water in his eyes.

He could see Lydia, no longer panicking in front of him.

And he could see the people standing all around the swimming pool – because they were now in a swimming pool – around him.

He knew who they were.

He shouldn’t, because they all looked like they were seventeen or older, but he knew who they were.

Erica was sitting with her legs in the water, wearing a bikini, looking older and healthier than he had ever seen her, and Boyd was laying on a towel beside her, his head on her lap.

Isaac was on the swimming chair in a t-shirt and shorts combo, the only one who looked dry, pointing his camera at Stiles' face. Scott was sitting at the end of the chair, very close to him, laughing himself silly at Stiles' face.

Jackson and Cora were in the water as well, with her holding onto his neck in a way Stiles wasn’t so sure was fully playful, while Danny egged them on from the other side of the pool.

There were three other girls, barely visible through the kitchen's window, but what Stiles noticed was the man standing near Erica, offering him his hand.

Not the man.

Derek.

Derek Hale.

“This is why Lydia shouldn’t put wolfsbane in people’s punch,” he said, unimpressed. “Come on.”

“W-what?" asked Stiles, trying to get the water out of the sleeves of his hoodie. "What is going on?”

Derek frowned, looking a little worried. “Did you hit your head? Jackson–”

“I didn’t push him that hard,” he complained, rolling his eyes. “He’s fine.”

“This isn’t right,” said Lydia, taking a step back when Peter Hale emerged from her house, holding a tray of purple drinks. “You...!”

“What did I do now?” complained Peter. “You spiked the drinks. You need to stop blaming me for the stuff you did.”

“Maybe if you didn’t bite her and control her,” said Erica, very pointedly. 

“Or bite me,” added Scott.

“Or offer Stiles the bite,” continued Isaac, pausing when Derek’s eyes turned bright red and he whirled on Peter. “Oh. I guess you never knew that part.”

“Seriously, nephew? It was just an offer. You know I would never bite him without your consent.” He glanced at Stiles. "Or his, of course."

"Peter learned a new word, everyone," mocked Jackson. "Let's give him a-"

“This isn’t right,” said Stiles, taking a step away from Derek. “This is wrong.”

It hurt, when Derek looked hurt and surprised, but Stiles knew this wasn’t right.

It should be. It made sense for it to be right.

But there was something wrong here.

Everything else had felt like a memory. It was in the future, and Stiles knew this because they were older. 

But it felt like a memory.

But this? This wasn’t a memory.

This wasn’t right – it wasn’t real.

“Lydia,” he called, reaching for her. “Lydia, this–”

She reached for his hand just as he did for hers, interlocking their fingers together.

“Stiles, what are you–”

"Stiles-"

Stiles' palms started tingling, and when he turned around, there it was.

The stump.

The Nemeton.

“Oh thank god,” said Stiles, finally breathing out as the woods appeared all around him.

He was no longer wet, and he ran a finger over he comfortable red hoodie he was wearing, immensely relieved.

It wasn't like he had been scared, in that swimming pool.

Before he had realised it was wrong and panicked, the image had been... nice.

It had felt nice to look around and see all of his friends, and Peter, and Derek.

It had felt nice, when Derek had looked worried for him and offered him his hand.

But it had been wrong.

It had been like a dream, and it had not been real. 

Everything else had been real, according to Lydia, but that?

Not real.

Painfully not real.

"I don't..." started Lydia, taking a step back. "Stiles-"

"It's okay," he promised, taking her hand again. She didn't pull away, so he continued. "I promise you we are safe. The Nemeton is the heart of Beacon Hills. It won't hurt us.” 

"You don't know that," she said, still looking afraid.

“I do," said Stiles. She was right, of course: he couldn't know that.

But he did, and he knew that he was right. He just knew it.

"You can trust it.”

Lydia didn't call him out on his words.

She just looked at him, lips pressed together as she thought it through.

“You trust it,” she determined. “Like future you.”

“Yes,” he said, even though he wasn’t sure that was the right answer.

Future her, after all, did not trust it.

Maybe–

“Okay,” she said. She looked back to the Nemeton, and then back to him. “Okay. If you trust it... then I'll trust you."

Then she glanced at him again. "And I’m sorry for calling you weird and being mean. You aren’t weird.”

“It’s okay,” he said, sheepishly. “I am a bit weird.”

“But in a good way," she said, looking strangely serious. "I think it’s fine that you’re weird.”

It wasn't really a compliment, but Stiles knew enough about Lydia to know that she meant i as one.

So he just squeezed her hand, and she squeezed his back.

She looked at him for a moment longer, and then she sighed.

And they reached for the Nemeton at the same time, the sleeve of his red hoodie looking bloodied as it touched her denim jacket.

+++

They startled awake at the same time, surrounded by their immediately relieved friends.

And Peter and Talia Hale.

And the Beacon Hills Police Department.

Stiles immediately wished he could pass out again.

Chapter Text

Everything happened very fast after they woke up.

Stiles wasn’t given a chance to do more than answer a few questions by his father before he and Lydia were dragged into separate ambulances – how had the ambulance made it so far into the Preserve, he wasn't sure – and taken away.

There were loads of lights and more questions, and Stiles answered them as well as he could - though his mind was completely disengaged from the whole ordeal.

It had been real.

It was all real.

It did not make sense, because he had clearly passed out, and none of the things he had seen had involved him as he knew himself.

But it had been real.

He knew it had been real, and it wasn’t just because of the look on Lydia’s face when she had made eye contact with him before they were loaded on the ambulances.

The hoodie he had been wearing...

He was Red Hood.

Or an older version of him was Red Hood.

An older version of him that was trapped somehow, either by the Nemeton, or...

Or inside his head?

His mother liked to quote a line from an old play: 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'

It meant that just because you didn’t understand something, it didn’t mean that it wasn’t real.

Stiles did not understand this one bit.

But it was real, which meant magic was real.

Magic was actually real.

He hadn’t stopped before to actually wonder if magic was real or not.

He had assumed that it was, because he did live in Beacon Hills, and weird things happened in Beacon Hills. But he had never thought that magic was something he could actually sense, something he could actually see with his own two eyes.

And he had most certainly never imagined that magic could be linked to him in any way.

Because there were several discoveries Stiles had made, during that time with Lydia dreaming about the inside of Beacon Hills' High School.

One: magic was real.

Two: the Nemeton was magic.

Three: the Nemeton had been trying to get Lydia and Stiles’ attention for a while now.

Four: the friends he had suddenly made were far more connected to him than he had previously considered (including, unfortunately, Jackson).

Five: Stiles could do magic.

He could do magic. In fact, he had done magic, he realised, a little giddy.

The red string that had manifested and led him straight to Lydia, that hadn’t been an hallucination or his overactive imagination. He hadn’t known exactly where Lydia was, so how could he have imagined the way to her?

He hadn’t retraced his steps, hadn’t gone right then left, hadn’t walked the same route several times.

He had been taken directly where he needed to go by the heartbeat – the Nemeton’s heartbeat, he now realised – and the red string.

He and Lydia had been linked, and the only way for it to make sense was magic. 

He had hoped really hard to find Lydia, he had imagined himself making his way to Lydia, and in the end he had managed it.

That was magic, wasn’t it?

That was–

“Ow!”

“Sorry,” said Mrs McCall, not sounding all that sorry. “Just need to get this last bit of blood and then you’re good to go.”

“Good to go where?”

She looked at him, her expression very worried now.

“Weren’t you listening? Stiles.” He gave her his most innocent and sorry smile, and despite having dragged her son into the woods, this seemed to win her over. “MRI scan, Stiles. To make sure you’re really okay.”

“But I’m fine.”

“That’s for the machine to determine,” she said, stepping back with too much blood for Stiles to be comfortable with. He sort of wanted to ask for it back, but he had a feeling that would just make her belief that something was wrong stronger.

What had Scott told her?

Scott knew very well what they were supposed to tell parents and what they were supposed to keep to themselves – a skill born out of many times of getting in trouble with their parents.

But what would everyone else say? Especially Isaac and Jackson?

Jackson did not look like he had ever tried or needed to lie to his parents, which meant he would bomb this.

And Isaac... well, Stiles was starting to have a feeling about Isaac, and he did not like that feeling one bit. And he did not want to imagine what it meant for Isaac to get into trouble with his father, if his feeling was right.

And then there was Cora.

Stiles paused, stilling as best as he could as the doctor started taking stuff off him.

Cora Hale.

There was something about her, something about what his older self had said in those mirrors.

Lydia, according to his older self, was a 'banshee'.

He, according to his older self, had a ‘connection’ with the land because of his ‘magic’.

And so did the ‘wolves’.

They were a 'pack'.

Stiles was 100% sure that there were no wolves in Beacon Hills.

And the way his older self had been talking... he hadn’t meant literal wolves, Stiles knew that for sure.

But he had also said something about biting. Which reminded him of Paige.

Paige had been bitten by something she couldn’t remember.

“Okay, Stiles,” said the doctor, with a smile on his face. “We are going to need you to stay as still as possible once you are in.”

Stiles nodded, glancing at the window as he did so. It was already dark, with only a sliver of moon in the sky, and he felt terrible about–

“Oh my god!” he said, sitting up and nearly kicking the doctor in the face.

“Okay,” he heard him say. “That is definitely not what we want happening inside of the MRI machine. Stiles, Are you okay?”

The cycle of the moon went: new moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, and waning crescent.

Today was a waxing crescent.

Lydia had gone missing on a new moon.

And the nightmare that had affected so many people had happened on a full moon.

And what did you get when you put full moon, people being bitten, a 'pack', and wolves who were not wolves together?

You got werewolves.

You got freaking werewolves.

+++

Stiles woke up to find his father standing beside his bed and immediately felt terrible.

The man had huge bags under his eyes, and looked like he hadn’t had a good sleep or a good meal in days. 

And still he was on his feet as soon as Stiles started squirming on the bed.

“What’s wrong? Does anything hurt? Are you–”

“I’m okay, dad,” he promised, patting his hand. “Don’t worry.”

Wrong thing to say.

“Don’t worry?” asked the Sheriff, a little bit of colour - red - returning to his face. “A girl went missing in the woods, and then I get a call from Talia Hale telling me that said girl and my son were passed out in the woods, surrounded by a bunch of his classmates, and you think I shouldn’t worry?”

“I’m fine?”

“You are,” said the Sheriff, but he didn’t sound particularly pleased by that. “Melissa and the doctors confirmed that you have nothing other than slight case of anaemia and need some serious sleep. Which means I have no idea of what is actually going on with you.”

And here came the gut wrenching guilt.

Stiles did not like keeping secrets from his dad. Stiles did not, in fact, keep secrets from his father if he could help it.

But how did he explain to him something he wasn’t done explaining to himself?

How did he open his mouth and tell his father about magic, and banshees, and werewolves, and older selves?

Beacon Hills was Beacon Hills, but his dad was a rational man. 

He needed proof to believe in things, and Stiles... well, he didn’t exactly have proof right now.

And he couldn’t really tell his father that Lydia was a banshee and that he suspected the Hales to be werewolves.

Oh yeah.

He had done his best to stay still in the MRI machine, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been busy thinking.

That friend group in the swimming pool had consisted of himself, Lydia, Scott, Jackson, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, Danny, Cora, Derek Hale (?!?) and other people he hadn’t recognised.

Peter Hale had appeared for a few moments, though he hadn’t joined them (thankfully; that would have made things much weirder than they already were).

The Hales had been mentioned in the dreams, especially Derek.

Derek had been with Paige when she had been bitten.

Cora sometimes acted like she could hear things nobody else could hear, or moved faster than a normal kid should be able to do.

Derek had found him when he had been going to the Nemeton.

And according to what he had found out, it was Talia and Peter who had ‘just happened’ to find them when the entire police force had been out in the woods looking for Lydia.

Did that scream ‘werewolves’? Maybe not.

But Stiles had decided to start trusting his gut feelings, and his gut feeling was telling him the Hales either were or were involved.

He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, however.

His older self had sounded like he was friends with werewolves, like he liked them or understood them or something.

And Stiles really liked the Hales. They were all very cool and nice to him.

But if Stiles was right, werewolves had bitten Paige and an older version of Lydia.

And that wasn’t good.

But he couldn’t tell his father any of this, because then he would get involved and Stiles couldn’t risk his father getting hurt because of something he had found out.

“I’m fine, dad,” he said, immediately feeling ten times worse when his father’s disappointment grew. “I have just been having some weird dreams and nightmares.”

“Nightmares?” the Sheriff appeared alarmed. “Stiles, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I did not want you to worry,” said Stiles, shrugging. “They weren’t super bad.”

“Still,” said the Sheriff. “I would have–”

“Dad, no,” he immediately said, sitting fully up. He was really not about to let him feel guilty about something that was fully Stiles’ fault. “If I don’t tell you, you can hardly be expected to know what is going on with me. I am sorry for not telling you.”

He sighed, running a hand over his forehead, and Stiles’ guilt increased.

Here he was, telling his dad that it was his fault he hadn’t told him more, knowing full well that he was not planning on telling him anything anytime soon.

“Just... tell me, from now on,” ended up saying the Sheriff. “No matter how small or non important what is happening seems, I need you to tell me about it. Okay?” He ran a hand through Stiles’ hair. “I am your dad, Stiles. It is my job to protect you.”

“And it’s my job to protect you,” he said, but while normally the Sheriff rolled his eyes or laughed, his dad shook his head resolutely.

“It’s not. It has never been, and it will never be your responsibility to protect me. I am the adult, in this scenario. Kids shouldn’t have to protect adults.”

Stiles did not agree with that one bit. Of course it was his job to make sure his father was okay. If his dad protected the town, and protected Stiles, then who was left to protect him? Who in the whole town loved him enough to keep him safe apart from Stiles himself?

Nobody.

But he was pretty sure his dad wouldn’t like him saying that, so he just hugged him, making sure he did not respond.

If the Sheriff noticed the non-answer, he was too busy hugging Stiles back to say anything about it.

Stiles could not sleep.

His father was gone, because visiting hours were over, but Stiles had not been released yet.

Stiles was pretty sure this was Melissa’s way of punishing him for his actions.

This solitude also meant that Stiles had no idea what had happened since he had passed out in front of the tree and what was going on with his friends.

His dad had told him ‘not to worry about them’, and that was it.

Stiles was not made to ‘not worry’ about things. Stiles always worried about things.

And people.

Which meant Stiles was now fully busy worrying about things and people, and especially his friends.

And Lydia.

He turned yet again in the bed, thinking back about Lydia and all she had spoken about while they had been in that weird space within their minds.

She had been mean, but mostly she had been scared.

Stiles’ experiences with the tree had been weird, but Lydia’s?

She had seen the future, and she had seen the dead. She had seen all sorts of people die, and that had to be scary.

And now she was most likely alone in the hospital, laying in an empty room with nobody around, afraid to fall asleep again.

He wished he could sneak out of his room and to hers just so that he could hold her hand and promise her they were going to figure things out.

If only so that he himself didn’t have to think about what dream awaited him tonight with his older self.

His older self who was scarier than the firefly and who had a bloody bat that he used to beat and kill people–

He squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on Lydia again. She was somewhere in the hospital, and she needed him to just be with her, to help her.

But how did he get to her without...

He paused, eyes flying open again.

In the woods, he had been looking for Lydia. For the Nemeton, yes, but Lydia specifically.

Then the red string had appeared around his finger, and led him straight to her.

But the red string hadn’t just appeared in front of him, had it?

It had been in his head, before appearing in his hands. He had followed it barely looking at it, sensing, instinctively, the pull of it.

He hadn’t really paused to think about, but he could still feel it. He could still sense the tug of the Nemeton, the tug of the red string.

Just behind his eyelids, and under the skin of his fingers, and in the corners of his jaw.

Out of reach, and yet present.

But it wasn’t just that.

He wasn’t sure of how to explain it, but if he went backwards, if he moved towards his chest – the origin of the string – it wasn’t alone.

There were multiple strings.

Multiple strings leading in multiple directions, all connected to a strange bundle under his chest. All tangled together, and yet different, and Stiles knew, instinctively, where the strings led. He knew without looking, without touching, without thinking, which string was which, and he also knew exactly which one led to Lydia.

There had to be a reason for that dream that wasn't a memory.

He closed his eyes once more, heart beating a little faster than before. 

If he was right...

He imagined himself running a finger over the tangled mess of strings, and then pulling the one that he knew was Lydia’s.

Once.

Twice.

...

Three–

Stiles?

“Stiles?”

His eyes snapped open, his concentration shattering immediately.

“Oh, come on,” he complained, turning to the doctor with a glare. “I was just–”

It was not a doctor.

It was Cora and Peter, slipping inside of his hospital room on quick and very light feet.

“Stiles,” said Cora, quickly approaching his bed. “Are you okay?”

He should be scared, realised Stiles, as Peter closed the door behind them.

If he was right – and part of him still thought he was living in some sort of very complex and confusing dream – then either the Hales were wolves (werewolves!) or were, somehow linked to werewolves.

And werewolves had bitten future Lydia and Paige (again, if he was right).

That meant that werewolves were possibly dangerous.

But if Stiles was magic, then there was a reason behind his weird feelings and reactions.

They had to be linked to magic and to those future versions of himself and Lydia.

His future self had been ‘like the wolves’. Friends, with the wolves.

And his feelings told him to protect the Hales, to check on them, that they needed to be safe.

“Stiles?”

He looked from Cora to Peter, who was watching him with that same strange look he had been using for a while now.

The look of someone who had suspicions that were slowly being proven right.

“Do you believe in magic?” 

Peter smiled – that smile that knew a lot more than he said. “Yes, Stiles. I believe in magic. You?”

“I think I do,” he said, looking at Cora. 

She looked very excited, which Stiles had not expected.

“Do you think that’s how you found Lydia?” she asked. “Did you use–”

“Coraline,” said Peter, putting a hand on his niece’s neck. “Stiles must be tired. We just came to check on him, not to inundate him with questions. Though I do have one for you,” continued Peter.

“You’re contradicting yourself.”

“I am a hypocrite, what can I say.” He sat on the side of Stiles’ bed, and looked at him with his blue eyes – blue eyes that seemed to shine electric in the dark room. “How did you find Lydia? Or better yet, how did you know she was in the woods? Cora wouldn’t say.”

She shrugged at his surprised look. 

“You didn’t look happy that Scott told us. I wasn’t going to do the same.”

“I am not so considerate,” said Peter, with a very creepy smile.

It should frighten Stiles more than it did.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I am still trying to figure it out.”

“Still trying to figure it out,” said Peter, humming speculatively. “You are a quick learner, if that’s the case.”

“Maybe,” said Stiles. “Do you believe in time travel?”

At this, Peter actually paused, looking surprised for the first time.

“Time travel?”

Stiles hadn’t really thought about it until now, but now that he did... he couldn’t unthink it.

Because there were two possibilities, weren’t there?

Either Lydia and he had started to somehow get visions of their futures, out of nowhere.

Or... they had gained memories of their future selves.

Meaning that somehow, part of their memories had come back to them.

And that... that would make a whole lot of sense, didn’t it?

It explained why suddenly Cora and Lydia had felt the need to defend him from Jackson. Why suddenly it made perfect sense for Stiles to sit with Erica and Boyd. Why nobody really protested Jackson joining the search for Lydia. 

Why being all together made so much sense.

And it must have happened that night they had all had those nightmares, he realised. It had linked them, that experience, and that was why their reactions had been so visceral. It explained why they had reacted as they had, and–

A cold feeling ran down his back.

What if... what if those nightmares hadn’t just been nightmares?

What if that terrible nightmare with everyone dead and everyone hurt and Stiles left all alone had been a memory?

What if that had been how everything ended?

Nothing was a coincidence.

There was no way they had all had terrible nightmares on the same night, and there was no way he had dreamt all that blood and pain and destruction on a full moon, and the Nemeton. It had to be linked, it all had to fit together, which had to mean-

“Stiles?”

Stiles looked up at equally worried looking Cora and Peter.

Well, Cora looked more worried than Peter did. Peter looked like he had ten different ideas running through his mind at the same time.

“I have never heard of time travel,” he said, when Stiles’ eyes fixed on him again. “But not even I know everything about everything.”

“I have never heard you say something like that ever.”

He ignored Cora, and pulled out a book from his shoulder bag.

“I have been meaning and trying to give this to you for a while, now,” he said, placing a book on his lap. “I think this might be of some help.”

Stiles stared down at the tome, picking it up.

The title read Selkies, sirens, stregoi and more.

He looked back to Peter, who was smiling a little enigmatically.

He totally knew more than he was saying, but Stiles was too curious about what the book actually said to worry about calling him out.

“We’ll leave you to it,” said Peter, standing back up. “You should come by the house, once you are released. If your father doesn’t lock you at home, that is.”

“Oh,” said Stiles, turning to Cora. “How is everyone? How is Isaac?”

“Isaac?” she asked, sounding surprised. “I don’t know. The deputies called everybody’s parents, and they picked us up at the precinct. Erica’s parents were super angry with her, but we all agreed not to say anything. Not even Jackson blabbed – even though he really wanted.”

“What did you tell them? And how was Isaac’s dad?”

“We told them we wanted to find Lydia for ourselves, and mom pointed out that we did manage to, so Boyd’s mom and Jackson’s dad were a bit proud. Isaac asked them to call his brother, but I left before he was picked up.”

“Oh,” said Stiles.

Well, that told him absolutely nothing. 

“I thought you didn’t like Isaac,” then added Cora.

“I don’t,” said Stiles. “He’s still my friend.”

That shouldn’t make sense. 

But Cora just nodded like it made perfect sense, and Peter started looking like he was thinking really hard all over again.

But he didn’t share what he was clearly thinking about.

“Let’s disappear, before an orderly shows up and starts asking unnecessary questions like why is an adult alone in a room with two kids without permission or why we are sneaking into Stilinski’s hospital room to begin with.”

Stiles snorted while Cora made a disgusted face, but she did listen.

And then she pulled herself over him, pressing her cheek against his and squeezing his neck a little hard.

“See you tomorrow,” she said, pulling back like this was totally normal and she couldn’t see how red Stiles had become.

“Uh, yeah,” he said, definitely not stuttering as Peter patted him on the head. “See you tomorrow.”

She just smiled, leaving Stiles stare after them like a fool.

He had noticed they were a very touchy feely family, but that was a lot, wasn’t it?

Like, more than a normal human a lot.

Cora liked him, that was clear, but she didn't like-like him.

It would make sense for her to hug him and touch him if she liked-liked him, but if she didn't... why would she?

She wouldn't.

Unless she was special.

Unless, maybe, she was a werewolf.

If she was a werewolf...

That changed things, didn't it?

That changed everything.

Chapter Text

If there was one thing Peter Hale liked to pride himself in, it was knowing better than everybody else.

This wasn’t a claim he made lightly.

He was, most often and by design, the smartest person in the room. 

He was supposed to be. It was part of the... special skill set that made him perfect as the Alpha’s left hand.

It also helped that everyone he was surrounded by was a complete idiot.

Well... He glanced out of the window, where Talia’s cubs were chasing one another in their beta forms, trying to take one another down.

Not everyone he surrounded himself by was an idiot.

Cora was shaping herself to be much smarter than either of her siblings, that was for sure.

Laura was – very and terribly slowly – finally pulling herself out of the idiocy and foolishness of her childhood (and adolescence, in his opinion). She had finally started to pay attention to her mother’s lessons about what being an alpha was all about, and seemed to have decided to bury the hatchet of her rivalry with Gabriel. She still spent too much time creating and causing nonsense, but Peter was hearing less of it.

Which left Derek.

Peter did his best not to grimace at the thought of his nephew, watching as he ‘allowed’ himself to be pinned down by Cora.

It wasn’t like Peter disliked Derek.

He couldn’t have disliked any of his nieces or nephews if he tried, and it had nothing to do with them being pack. He loved them, and he would gladly lay down his life for them without a second thought.

But Derek was currently one of the weakest links in the pack.

Not because he didn't love the pack, or because he would willingly cause any of the members of said pack trouble or pain.

No: the problem with Derek was that he felt too damn much.

He loved too much, cared too much, trusted too much and too easily.

Talia had coddled him, allowed him to grow too soft.

One could argue that this was because he was the middle child, a middle child born between two very bossy very alpha sisters, but Peter's situation had been similar to his - worse than his, in fact, because Peter's sisters had been several years older than him too. Talia and Alice had been ten times worse than Lara and Cora, in childhood (and now).

Derek was supposed to be the head beta to Laura’s alpha, her future second in command. He was supposed to be more ruthless than her, the enforcer, the one who didn’t care about getting his hands dirty if it meant keeping the pack safe.

But Derek was the guy who refused to catch rabbits on their full moon runs because it was ‘cruel’ and ‘he didn’t want to scare the rabbits’. He was the guy who saved little creatures and brought them to Deaton to heal. He was the one who preferred to chase birds over trying to take down the deers and the mountain lions in the Preserve.

He had hoped to help him get rid of this attitude by now, had hoped that dealing with Paige would have helped him come out of his shell. Get that ruthless streak he knew was inside of him to finally come out.

But it hadn’t happened. If anything, it had made everything worse.

Peter was self aware enough to admit that he hadn’t foreseen the whole thing with Paige and how it had unfolded.

He had miscalculated: he had not realised the depth of Derek’s feelings for the girl.

And he had definitely not expected any of what had happened after Paige had been bitten.

He ran a nail over the the glass of the window, just to make all three of them glare up at his window, before going to his chair.

In Norse mythology, life had the shape of a circle.

They believed that the end of life was the start of a new one, and thus the beginning and the end were one and the same.

Circle. Centre. Dot.

The dot at the centre of the circle was one Miss Paige Krasikeva surviving a bite that should have, by all means, killed her.

Peter had known, when he had dangled the proverbial carrot in front of Derek, that there was a 50-50 chance of Paige surviving. 

In his mind, if she survived, it’d have made Derek much more malleable than before – especially if Paige ended up in Ennis’ pack because of the bite.

If she died, Derek’s sorrow might have been used to change him into what the pack needed him to be.

He hadn’t considered how much Derek loved her.

And he hadn’t expected Paige to survive... unchanged.

That wasn't supposed to happen. The bite either turned you or killed you.

And yet, weeks after she was bitten, Peter could not catch a single change to her scent. He had gone by her window, stalked her through the town, 'bumped' into her in shops and the like, but nothing: other than some confusion and fear, there was absolutely no change in Paige.

Peter had left her and Derek in that cellar under the Nemeton, the girl slowly dying from a bite that did not take, knowing Derek would do what needed to be done.

Then, he had been wrecked by a pain he could not describe, a sound like a scream or a very highpitched hunter whistle bringing him to his knees, forcing him to shift and howl as he hadn't in years.

A pain that, he later heard, Cora and Derek felt too.

He hadn't gotten his bearings and control back until much later, until he had woken up at home with Ken watching over him, and the sound of Cora's crying and Derek's sobs audible through the walls.

Talia had come down to see him, despite his claims of being completely fine, and between reassuring him and herself that everyone was fine, laid it onto him, explaining that Paige was alive and well - "No thanks to you! Seriously, Pete, what the hell were you thinking?!" - , and that she was being taken to the hospital with no memories of what had happened.

It made no sense.

Peter had consulted tomes, contacts, Deaton, even Ennis himself; nothing explained how in the hell she had survived.

At least nothing had explained it until that little boy.

The little magical boy that Cora had brought over to their house.

Stiles Stilinski.

From the first time he had seen him, Peter had been intrigued.

He was used to people finding him off-putting and creepy. He did it on purpose, so it was more than expected that people recoiled from his presence in fear.

But Stiles Stilinski hadn’t done that. No, he had leant towards his friend, to protect him from Peter.

Already that was unusual.

The little spark of magic that had rippled when he had looked the boy in the eyes, that had crackled the air with electricity Peter knew the boy had felt?

That had been interesting.

As had been Stiles' reactions to Peter following that first meeting.

He found him creepy, yes. He had heard him say so to Cora - proving himself unaware of werewolves or enhanced hearing. And from the way he still ‘protected’ his friend from him whenever he showed up, it was clear he didn’t really trust him, and found him dangerous.

But he did not appear to find Peter as a threat – or not as a threat to himself.

The day he had arrived to their house in tears, anxious about something he couldn’t name or explain, Peter had considered the possibility that the boy might be a little more than a very perceptive child or just someone in accidental possession of a magical artefact. 

Because he had known, without pausing to think, that Peter would keep him safe. He had known that despite his behaviour and all, Peter would never hurt a child, and would never hurt him.

And then he had looked for Laura, Cora and Derek.

He had looked that everyone was safe in the house, but his heart had only reacted to the sight of Peter, mention of Laura, and sight of Cora and Derek.

While his reaction to Cora - his classmate, friend, and partner in a group project - made sense, it was much more difficult to puzzle his feelings for Laura, Derek, and himself.

Again: intriguing.

Almost as intriguing as the fact that he had not only managed to gather and convince a mismatched group of children to come in the woods with him to search a runaway, but he had also actually managed to find  the girl.

He had gone in those woods convinced that he would find her, according to Cora.

And still, he had been surprised he had found her.

And he didn’t know what he was.

Peter had never been one to leave a mystery unsolved. 

Whatever this Stiles Stilinski was, it was clear he had some powers of sight.

Whether he was on their side or would shape himself to be a thorn in his side, well that had yet to be determined.

Peter did not trust people.

He did not like people.

He had liked one person, and it had ended up with him being a werewolf hunter and his father threatening to kill him.

But Stiles Stilinski...

Peter did not think he was dangerous. 

He didn’t know what the boy was – and Stiles had clearly no idea either – but he liked him.

He wanted to trust him.

And if he was proven wrong again, well... He lifted his left hand, letting claws appear.

He’d deal with the issue as any other proper left hand would.

Cora’s friend or not.

“Alright,” said John, rubbing a hand over his face. “Lay it on me.”

“It’s actually not bad,” said Melissa, closing the door behind her. She was holding paperwork in her hands, going through the pages rather quickly. “In fact, it’s really good.”

John hated hoping.

He had learnt, after his wife’s death, that hoping accomplished absolutely nothing. No matter what you wanted or hoped, things were going to happen according to numbers, statistics and the order of the universe.

And he knew already way too much about statistics and the so-called karma.

But he also knew that Melissa would never lie to him about anything, especially anything that had to do with Stiles.

She had promised it, back when Claudia had been sick. She would take stuff from the doctors and brought it to him, with no sugarcoating and no false reassurances. She said it as it was. 

So when she said, “Stiles is fine,” John couldn’t help the big sigh of relief he let out.

Hope did nothing.

But it was human to hope, even when you knew better, and John clung to that.

“He’s fine,” he repeated, blinking rapidly. “He’s not sick, he’s-”

“He’s fine,” she said, with another smile. “His temperature is a bit lower than I would like, but that’s just because they were out there for so long and he hasn’t eaten any proper food since. Mentally and physically, he is fine.”

She hesitated.

She hesitated, something that immediately had John freezing again. He knew all about hesitations, and he–

“It’s fine,” she quickly said. “It’s just that I and the doctor both agree Stiles should probably speak to someone.”

“What? Speak to someone? Like–”

“Like he was supposed to after his mom’s death,” she said, looking at him with a sad expression. “The history you gave and the few things we managed to get from him... while there is no sign of FTD or any other sign of dementia on him, the nightmares, and the panic and anxiety attacks you have described are definitely something that he needs to check out.

“It could be just his way of coping with his mom’s death, but I’m thinking it’s early anxiety. Nothing to worry too much, from what you’ve told us, but still. Worth checking it out.”

Anxiety. John remembered reading something about it, during those months he had still thought Claudia could beat her illness, but he had no real memory of what it was or what things it caused.

“It’s what you would do?”

Melissa glanced at the door for a second, before taking a seat beside him on the bench and glancing over at Stiles.

They were on one of the paediatric areas of the hospital, and the waiting room outside Stiles’ room was currently empty (though his door was slightly open... just in case. Just in case).

He looked completely peaceful as he slept, splayed all over the bed with the blankets having somehow managed to pool all the way down to his feet.

He looked just as he had when John had arrived to that stump, surrounded by scared kids and-

“It’s what I did do,” said Melissa, nodding. “Originally, I don't if you know, Scott's asthma diagnosis was an anxiety diagnosis.”

“Really? How?”

Anxiety couldn't have anything to do with breathing, could it?

Stiles could breathe fine, he-

His thoughts immediately stopped as he thought back to that grocery trip, and then again to that terrible nightmare.

Melissa hesitated. “Scott didn’t get asthma until after I kicked out Rafael,” she then revealed.

She had been living in Beacon Hills back then, but John could not really remember much of back then.

As far as he could remember, Scott had always had an inhaler - something Stiles had made sure to remind everybody.

Thought, to be fair, Claudia had paid more attention to the friendship between the two kids than John had. He had never really paid attention to Stiles’ relationship with others until after.

Until lately.

Until the day before, when he had walked in the woods to a heart attack surrounded by the oddest group of kids he had ever considered.

Before the sight of Stiles passed out in front of the tree had registered and instantaneously stopped his heart, John had just been confused by everyone else.

He had recognise Scott, of course, and Cora Hale. 

And he had quickly spotted the red hair of the missing girl he had been looking for for hours.

And of course, he knew who Erica Reyes was - he knew her father, and he had been called to deal with accidents involving her seizures.

Everyone else had been a complete stranger.

He had never seen them before, let alone heard Stiles mention their names.

And yet, without them telling him, something in his brain had clicked.

Lahey, he had thought, looking at the tall blond boy in the back. 

Whittemore, the one who looked actually afraid.

Boyd, the one who had told him they were both alive and breathing.

He didn't know them.

He could barely remember the faces of their parents.

And yet, he hadn't needed them to confirm anything.

Isaac.

Jackson.

Vernon.

He had just known.

And yet still, when he had put names to faces and tried to get an answer out of them regarding how and why they had gone into the woods and found a missing girl (once he had made sure that Lydia Martin and Stiles were both going to be okay), you would have thought they had been best friends all their lives, with the way they refused to budge.

They should have been scared of him and his authority. They should have been terrified of the idea of him calling their parents.

And they had been, 100%.

And they had still been able to stand right where they were, refusing to answer, refusing to allow themselves to be intimidated.

If it hadn’t been so irritating and worrying, John would have been impressed by the kids’ loyalty.

And then there were the Hales. 

So helpful Hales, so reliable Hales, so convenient Hales.

“I’ll book the appointment,” he said, tiredly. He had known, sooner or later, than he would have had to deal with Stiles’ feelings regarding his mother’s death.

He just hadn’t thought they would have been causing him so much sickness now, after years of nothing.

But you know better, whispered Claudia’s voice in his head. Claudia was always in his head, always the heart to his brain, the truth he hated seeing. She had died, but she lived on inside of him, and in his - their - memory of her.

You know that it’s not me. You know it has nothing to do with me.

John thought back on the dream he and Stiles had had that one night - that one full moon - the nightmare that had startled them awake.

A dream of monsters, of blood, of crying kids - they were just kids - and death.

A dream with Stiles crying, Stiles pleading, Stiles dyin-

He shook his head, refusing to think about it.

It had been just a dream.

Just a nightmare.

That was it.

“How about Martin? How’s she? I know you can’t discuss patient details,” he quickly added when she frowned, “But I’m asking as the Sheriff who tried to search for her for weeks without finding her. Is she physically and emotionally well?”

“She’s okay,” said Melissa, standing up. “She was actually better than we all expected.”

Then she snorted.

“Nothing,” she said, when he looked at her questioningly. “Just think it’s insane how most of the town tried to find this girl, and in the end it was Stiles, Scott and their friends who found her.” She shuddered. “Let’s make sure they don’t know this, otherwise we’ll never hear the end of it.”

John smiled, but he couldn’t quite laugh.

Stiles, his friends... and the Hales.

This was now the second time a Hale was at the centre of an unexplainable mystery.

And considering Stiles’ newfound interest in the family, he wasn’t sure he liked that.

One thing Talia had come to learn about Beacon Hills was that nothing was ever as it seemed.

Things often made more sense in hindsight: when you looked back on them, the real shape behind everything started to emerge.

“Thursday,” said Deaton placing a nut on one side of the table, “Cora is paralysed by the pain of a scream only she can hear. Peter is similarly immobilised in the woods, in some sort of psychosomatic pain. And Derek and Paige.”

“Ennis bites Paige,” said Talia, nodding. She had gotten all the information out of Derek and Peter, and she was less than impressed with both their judgement and opinions. Nonetheless... “She starts to bleed out. She is supposed to die. Derek takes her to the old cellar under the Nemeton in a mix of hysteria and terror, not knowing what he was going to do."

She did not look at Deaton when she said that.

She might be the alpha, but he was her emissary. And he knew her well enough to know when she was lying.

She didn't want him to tell her if she was lying to herself.

She preferred not to know.

“And then an energy that I still don’t know the origins of blasts the Nemeton,” said Deaton. “An energy that we believe is connected with what happened.”

“Energy that stopped Paige from dying or turning,” finished Talia.

She hadn’t noticed, when she had arrived to the cellar after hearing Derek’s screaming. All she had heard was her son in pain and smelled blood, and that was what had driven her.

Once she had made sure that both he and Paige would be well and weren’t going to die, she had taken them out of the room.

She hadn’t noticed, hadn’t even sensed the magic in the room.

She had felt the electricity, yes: but she had thought that to be the Nemeton’s magic.

She hadn’t considered it could belong to something else.

Until Deaton had come by after being informed of Paige’s magical survival and Talia subsequent memory alteration (no matter how many looks this got her from Peter or Derek, she had a job as the alpha of the pack, and their squabbles and idiotic ideas were not going to get in the way of it).

“Then, Stiles Stilinski,” continued Deaton.

“Stiles Stilinski,” she repeated, because that was clearly the crux of the problem.

The boy was something. Something they had yet to understand.

Talia did not think Stiles was dangerous, or even much of a problem.

She had liked him from the moment he had walked in her house, all limbs and mouth. Everything about him had been as safe as a little boy could have been, and she had especially liked the way he had made Cora come out of her shell and smile.

Cora – like Derek – had never been known for making friends easily. And the fact that he had reached out to her, in the form of their project, and made her relax and smile so easily? It had been a plus for her.

Laura had liked him too – as much as Laura liked anyone who was younger than her. She thought he was funny.

Peter and Derek liking him, well. Those were not things that Talia had honestly expected.

Peter... Peter did not like anyone.

And still, he had been clearly intrigued by Stiles – which meant that, as far as all were concerned, he liked the boy.

Derek... Derek you wouldn’t have been able to tell he liked Stiles if you weren’t his mother. If you couldn’t see the way Stiles was the first person he had enjoyed arguing with since the whole Paige thing. If you couldn’t see the amusement oozing off him even as he maintained a blank face and tried to argue with a child.

She had seen it, that day Stiles had come home in fear and panic, smelling of anxiety.

The way Derek had been clearly listening in from the moment Stiles had stopped at their door until she had driven away with the Sheriff.

And later, when she had gotten home with the Sheriff, the easy way that both he and Cora had sat at each side of him, the three of them arguing and playing with their food under the watchful eyes of Peter.

And now, he had found himself at the Nemeton with a missing girl the Sheriff department had been looking for weeks.

A missing girl on their terroritory that neither Peter nor Talia had smelled or noticed or felt the presence of.

“What is he?” she asked.

Like she said before, she liked Stiles. 

Cora and Derek liked him, and Peter liked him, and Laura and Antonio liked him, and even Alice and everyone else in the pack liked him.

She liked him.

But he was at the centre of very odd things happening in this town, things she didn’t understand, that had Deaton and Peter both studying old books and ended with a classmate passed out on the Nemeton, and a girl who didn’t turn and didn’t die even as he had been bleeding on the roots of the Nemeton, and magic seemingly awakening all over in Beacon Hills.

Magic awakening in the Nemeton.

Deaton tapped a finger on the desk.

“He has a strong will,” he ended up saying. “A strong belief in himself.”

She did not interrupt him.

"He bursting with something," he continued. "I haven't been close enough to him to say with certainty, but the very air around him seems to shine. He moves so much, and talks so much, like he's bursting with energy.

"In physics, potential energy is the energy held by an object because of its position relative to other objects, stresses within itself, its electric charge, or other factors. Someone who attracts potential and burns it-

"No, not burn." He looked back to Talia. "Spark.

“Tell me, Talia: have you ever heard of a spark?”

One would think that not running into your ex boyfriend as soon as you dropped into town wasn’t too much of an ask.

Chris would have liked to think that it wasn't too much of an ask.

And yet the universe seemed to disagree with him because, as soon as he had driven into Beacon Hills, it was like he couldn’t go anywhere in town without accidentally running into Peter fucking Hale.

If it weren’t for the fact that the man seemed to hate seeing him more than Chris hated seeing him, he would have genuinely thought Peter was stalking him. 

Beacon Hills was small, but certainly not that small, right?

Then again, he supposed that they did run in pretty parallel circles.

Hard to have a hunter without the hunter’s hunter.

“Big brother, what are you doing here?”

Chris kept his eyes on the gun he had been systematically re-assembling.

“I could ask you the same thing. Gerard's long gone – so why are you in Beacon Hills?”

“Why are you?”

Could he detect a little of a knowing edge in her tone?

He didn't think so.

There were a lot of things that Chris Argent did his best not to think about so that his sister, Kate, could never guess at.

One was how much he actually did not like his father.

The only people who had ever had a clue of his true feelings for one Gerard Argent were himself and his mother. 

He had always been his mom’s son. Kate always been her daddy’s daughter.

And as much as he loved her and she him, he did not want to see what would happen if she was made to choose between him and Gerard.

The second thing he liked not to think about was Peter Hale.

Kate hadn’t been in Beacon Hills with him and Gerard during what his father like to call his ‘confused years'. She had never known about her brother’s ‘inclinations’, as Gerard called them (whether this was his ‘bisexual’ inclinations or his ‘dating a werewolf’ inclinations, Chris had never bothered asking).

All she had seen was the pain that had followed Peter finding out that Chris was a werewolf hunter when Gerard had threatened to shoot him full of wolfsbane after Chris had unceremoniously broken up with him - though she hadn't known those details.

All she had known was that her brother had gotten his heart broken by someone.

Maybe he hadn’t deserved that pain. 

Peter was the hurt party, between the two of them.

Peter was the one who hadn’t known about Chris family secret (Chris had known about Peter's).

Peter was the one who had been broken up with out of nowhere.

Peter was the one Gerard had threatened with a gun designed to hurt him.

Chris had either caused the pain, or stood aside as his father inflicted it.

He had no right to it.

But it didn’t mean that leaving Beacon Hills had been easy.

It didn’t mean that leaving Peter had been easy.

He understood, of course. Gerard aside, relationships the kind he had been picturing for himself and Peter ended in tragedy and deaths for everybody involved, friends and foes.

Gerard would have never stood for his only son married to a wolf, and he knew that Talia would have killed him, had she known of him beforehand.

He did not approve of Gerard’s methods, but he knew the man had been right.

And despite how rushed and very not chosen his marriage with Victoria had been, he had grown to love the woman.

Now she and Allison were his entire world - the reason he was in Beacon Hills to begin with.

“I’ve been trying to find Gerard,” he explained, “But he skipped town. Then I found you right as I was about to leave.”

He hadn’t expected it.

He had spotted her car near the diner by the library the other day, and had a little doubletake when he had recognised her plate.

Of course, because the universe liked to laugh at him, he had ran into an annoyed Peter Hale right as he had prepared to go see what she was doing in Beacon Hills.

“The wife wanted you to investigate what happened?”

He raised his head, finding her smirking at him as she towelled her hair off. 

“Come on. What did you think I was here for?”

“Nobody ever knows what you’re up to, Kate,” he said, crossing his arms. “Did he tell you anything?”

“Just that Deucalion broke the truce,” she said, shaking her head. “Didn’t really go into detail, said his pack was going to unravel without an alpha.”

“And you didn’t offer to go with him?” Somehow, he doubted that. “Why?”

“I just finished an assignment and according to him, a need to get my head back on straight if I want to lead this family one day.” She rolled her eyes, moving to get the hair dryer. “You know. Typical dad.”

Chris had never heard Gerard use those words towards him, but he didn’t say that.

“I was going to leave,” she continued, “But then I met this cute guy and... you know. Thought I could score myself a date.”

A shiver ran down Chris’ spine, reminding him of the third thing he did not think about: the weird nightmare that had woken him and Allison so many nights ago, and the strange feelings and emotions that Chris had been experiencing since.

Feelings that had him stare at a woman in nurse scrubs a little too long in the vegetable aisle.

Feelings that had him smile calmly at the Sheriff in a way that was way too familiar and comfortable for him.

Feelings that had him look at a group of children walking by and feel the oddest sense of deja vu.

Feelings that made him look at Peter Hale, who he hadn’t thought about since Allison’s birth, and have butterflies and a strange feeling of yearning coming alive in his chest.

Feelings that made him look at Allison as if she was going to disappear any moment, and that had him end every conversation with her or Victoria with I love you.

Feelings that had him look at his sister and immediately feel as if he couldn’t trust her.

Feelings that scared him, and that he didn’t understand.

“Really?” he asked, shaking off those feelings, that strange emotion. “What’s his name?”

“Adrian Harris,” she said, picking her necklace with the Argent family crest on it. “He’s former military turned chemistry teacher, and he’s very fine.” She turned to glance at Chris. “He’s going to teach me to make poisons.”

That was correct.

Chris had looked up information on the guy as soon as he had seen him and Kate talking in the diner.

She had told him the truth.

“You already know how to make poison.”

“And that, Christopher, is why I’m going to be the Argent matriarch, and you’re just going to shoot at things.” She winked at him. “I’m the brains of the operations, big bro. Trust me.”

Then why did he still feel like she was lying?

Chapter Text

The second the bell for recess rung, Scott found his table surrounded.

It had been, for as long as Scott cared to remember, himself and Stiles. Stiles and him. The two of them.

Stiles had made the first step, reaching out to him one day at the park, and that had been that. They had become inseparable, and Scott had held on to him as tightly as he could, to make sure he was not left behind.

Was he bullied in school? Not really, not ‘bullied’. But he was made fun of by a couple of people (one of whom was, in fact, standing around his desk with everyone else).

Point was, Scott was used to it being him and Stiles. Did he long for popularity? Did he want more people to like him and less people to make fun of him?

Of course he did.

But he had never felt the need of ‘more friends’. He had never really asked for anything more than Stiles, because Stiles was friend enough.

Stiles was several friends all at once.

Stiles was his best friend, and Scott would be forever grateful for him.

The first time Stiles had sat at a table with Erica Reyes, Scott had been confused. But mostly, he had been worried.

For years, he had known that Stiles was doing him a favour by being his friend. He had known that Stiles was cool and funny enough that if he wanted to make more friends, he’d easily get them.

So when he had seen him with Erica Reyes, and then with Cora Hale, he couldn’t deny a part of him had worried.

A part of him had thought they were now going to steal his best friend from him, and while he had been more than ready to fight them for it, he had known the only way to win was Stiles making a decision.

And Stiles had made a decision – a decision Scott hadn’t really understood, and that now left him surrounded by students who, just a couple of weeks ago, he would have never spoken more than a hello to.

“Well?” asked Jackson, sounding annoyed. He kept glancing around the room, where some of his friends were looking at him in confusion. “Quickly, do you have any updates?”

“All I know is that they’re okay,” he said, shrugging. “Mom says it’s against the law to tell me things about patients, so she couldn’t.”

“Really? But she’s your mom, and Stiles is your friend,” said Erica.

“I think it’s also because she’s mad at me,” he said, starting to pack up his bag. “She’s punishing me by not telling me about Stiles.”

His mom had been pissed when she had been called to pick him up at the library. 

She had shouted at him about going in the woods by himself, and then shouted even more when he had tried to say he wasn’t alone or that they had found Lydia in the end.

So Scott had smartly stopped talking.

She had only said that she was so angry she needed to think about his punishment, so now Scott entire life hung in the balance of how bad her work was going to be today.

“Which means he’s fine,” said Boyd.

“Uh?”

“She wouldn’t use information about your best friend against you unless your best friend was well. She’d feel guilty.”

Scott supposed Boyd was right – in the past few weeks, they had found out that Boyd was very smart, and he was usually right about whatever he said.

Well. Stiles had discovered this.

Stiles had discovered a lot of things, in the past few weeks.

He gathered his items and bag, following after the others as they chatted and moved to the canteen. He heard Jackson order them to tell him if they heard something about Lydia, but did not bother replying or watch as he went off.

Scott was worried.

He and Stiles had always told each other everything. There was nothing they hadn’t shared, no thoughts left unspoken between the two of them. Stiles knew all of the secret feelings Scott had about his father leaving, and Scott knew all of the things Stiles was afraid to say about his mom’s death and the Sheriff's reaction to it.

It had been the two of them against the world.

Soulmates, as Stiles had joked that Monday after their nightmares (before they had realised half of their class had had a similar nightmare).

And now, for the first time in a very long time, Stiles was keeping things from him.

He was keeping secrets.

Scott could tell, no matter how hard he tried to hide it from him. He could tell by how hard he tried to keep his mouth shut about people and things, he could tell by how sometimes he didn’t look at him quite in the face when he said things, he could tell by how often he found him with other people, whispering or talking. 

If Cora hadn’t mentioned her aunt, Scott would have never guessed that Stiles had been to her house without him. And he still did not know why his friend had been there.

He supposed, part of it was because he hadn’t asked.

Maybe, if he asked, Stiles would tell him.

The problem was that Scott had never needed to ask before.

They were best friends: normally, it was Stiles who offered information, no matter how much Scott did not want to hear it.

This change... he wasn’t sure what to think of this change.

All he knew was that he was worried.

“Scott,” called Isaac, tapping him on the shoulder, “You okay?”

“Uh, y-yeah,” he said, quickly focusing on the blond. “Sorry, I was just– hey, what happened to your shoulder?”

Immediately, Isaac slapped down the collar of his shirt, hiding the bandages Scott had noticed, and stepped back.

“J-just tripped,” he said, smiling. “Hit something. Come on, sit down.”

Scott did, sitting beside Cora. He did not understand why Stiles said that Isaac was annoying, in his opinion he was fine and as nice as everyone else they sat with at lunch.

Maybe it was just that Stiles was a bit of a rude person, and Isaac could be rude back.

“What happened when you got home?” asked Cora, who was also staring at Isaac. “What did your parents say?”

“My mom said that next time I should leave the woods for the police,” offered Boyd with a half smile. “My sister was mad I didn’t take her with me. They weren’t angry, though.”

“Neither was my mom,” said Cora. “I mean, she found us herself. She was more worried about Stiles and Lydia than she was about us going around in the woods.”

“Lucky,” said Erica, arms crossed. “My mom got so mad. She kept saying that what if something had happened, and she even tried to get me to leave school or stay home today. But dad said that I finally had-” she cut herself off, turning red. “He just argued with her, and he won.”

“Am I the only one who got in trouble?” asked Scott, pouting. 

“Isaac,” said Cora, still looking at him, “Did you get in trouble?”

Did Cora also not like Isaac? Cause she never acted like Stiles did, she was much more relaxed than he was.

And yet, the way she was looking at him now...

“I wasn’t grounded,” he said, focused on eating his lunch. “Dad was mad that the police called him, so he made me clean the fridge and the kitchen, but I wasn’t grounded.”

“Lucky,” said Scott, earning a quick and strange look from Isaac. “I almost hope Stiles has been grounded as well, just so that I’m not alone. What happened to Jackson?”

“He wasn’t grounded,” revealed Isaac, surprising them. He shrugged. “Sometimes, he plays lacrosse in his garden and we sort of talk. He said his parents didn’t know how to react so they let him off with a stern warning.”

Didn’t know how to react? What did that even mean?

But Cora did the thing Stiles always did, shaking her head at him before he could ask, and he found himself not saying anything.

Maybe she was more like Stiles than he had originally considered.

Being in the hospital was horribly tedious.

“I don’t remember how I ended up in the woods.”

Lydia had never been a particularly sickly child, and none of her dead grandparents had been sick enough to merit a prolonged stay in the hospital.

The longest she had previously stayed in one had been when a friend of her mother’s had been giving birth and Natalie Martin had parked herself out of the hospital room for hours to wait.

“I don’t remember if someone took me there.”

It was boring.

Being at the centre of the attention of both her parents was fantastic, don’t get her wrong.

It had been a while since they had agreed on something or paid any direct attention to her, so she did enjoy having that.

It was, however, what had brought them together that she was not comfortable with.

“I don’t remember.”

Thing was, Lydia did remember.

Lydia remembered a great deal of what had happened.

Lydia was however not an idiot.

She was very aware of how smart she was.

And she was smart enough to know that ‘I see dead people and hear voices’ was the best way to get herself thrown into a mental facility.

“I woke up in the woods. ”

Maybe she belonged in a crazy house. Maybe she needed to be put in a room for her safety and for the safety of others.

Because normal people did not get chased by people who weren’t there. 

Normal people did not look at their bedroom and see the woods. They did not start walking in confusion, trying to escape the ‘woods’ and wake up to the sight of...

“I don’t remember anything. I’m tired. ”

She was tired of the dreams she did not understand.

She was tired of seeing people she knew older than they were supposed to be, deader than they were meant to be.

She was tired of seeing people she had never met before bleeding out as she screamed herself hoarse.

She was tired of dreaming about wolves chasing her in the woods.

She was tired of seeing wolves saving her from things she knew and that she didn’t.

She was tired of screaming herself awake more often than not.

She was tired of seeing blood on her hands and not knowing if it was hers or not, if it was real or not.

And she was tired of the damn tree.

She was tired of the tree, that stood silently there before she was supposed to wake up, roots reaching towards her in a way she didn’t understand – in a way she did not want to understand.

She was tired of–

Her eyes snapped open, a sudden almost probing like feeling in her brain and heart.

It wasn’t pain, not really. It wasn’t even discomfort. 

It was foreign touch, but it felt familiar.

It felt almost like–

“Stiles?”

The name hung in the silent room for only a couple of seconds, louder than the silence itself.

Then Lydia blinked again, and it was like it had never been there to begin with. The feeling was gone and Lydia felt her lip trembling a little.

Of course it wasn’t Stiles – or any real Stiles. Stiles was in another room, also being looked after because he was acting just as crazy as she was.

He was just as crazy.

It was crazy.

But why then, had she held his hand and trusted him and then woken up again?

Why had he and the others found her before the police had? How was he also dreaming about the tree? How was she seeing her old self and his old self together?

She did not know Stiles.

She had not previously even claimed to like Stiles.

And yet even before that drawing of a tree, she had felt unconsciously linked to the boy.

From the moment she had woken herself up screaming his name, it was like a link of some kind had created itself between the two of them.

It made no sense.

It wasn’t a crush. 

She would know if she had a crush – or if she had a crush on Stiles.

Erica Reyes had a crush on Stiles – it was obvious to everyone.

Lydia did not.

And yet, she felt like she knew Stiles. She felt like she could trust Stiles. She felt like Stiles knew her and she knew him, that he understood her and she understood him.

It made no sense.

None of this made sense at all.

It didn't make sense, and she didn't want it.

"Lydia? Honey, are you awake?"

Lydia closed her eyes immediately, pretending to be fast asleep.

She knew her mother meant well. She loved being at the center of her mother and her father's attention, for once.

But she didn't want to have to answer any more questions, she didn't want to have to lie about having no explanation.

She just wanted to rest, to just close her eyes and forget everything.

She almost laughed.

Closing her eyes and forgetting everything wasn't really possible when everything she wanted to forget was waiting for her to fall asleep, was it?

She needed...

She needed...

She needed to deal with it.

Her eyes opened and she stared into the darkness, lips pressing into a thin line.

Stiles.

She needed Stiles.

Derek could not wait for Laura to be done from High School.

For many reason (the threat that having a ‘cool’ sister brought to his social life, for one), but mostly so that his parents would finally stop insisting on her driving him to school.

He appreciated the whole environmental footprint and the problems with the ozone layer and whatnot; but if he had to wait for Laura’s softball matches or training before he could go home for a whole other year, he was going to explode.

He had been subliminally trying to influence his parents all year to get him a new car for his birthday but for... reasons both within and outside his influence, he doubted he was going to get one this year.

“Hurry up, Laura,” he muttered, knowing she could hear him loud and clear. She was on the field now, and it sounded like she was more busy chatting with her friends about some cute boy in the last year than anything else.

She did not respond, but he knew she heard him.

As well as he knew she was probably going to try and drag the entire thing for longer just to punish him.

And this was the person his mother had chosen as the possible next alpha of Beacon Hills following her? She was already bossy as hell, could you imagine what she would do with the actual alpha spark in her?

The only upside to it all would be whatever battle of wills would start between her and Uncle Peter, which had his mood immediately improving.

Then he grimaced again because, ugh: Uncle Peter.

That was one of the biggest downsides of being in a pack, in Derek’s opinion.

This inability of his – of anyone, really – to keep a grudge.

Uncle Peter had nearly got his girlfri– his ex girlfriend killed.

He had lied to him and manipulated him, and almost caused Paige’s death.

That Paige had survived and not turned was a miracle (not a disappointment, no matter what some part of him thought).

Because, like his mother had said, if that hadn’t happened, she would have either died or been forced to join Ennis’ pack through a bite she had never asked for.

A bite was a gift, and Derek (and Uncle Peter, and Ennis) had taken this choice away from her. Had forced something she had never thought of on her, simply because they thought they knew best.

Uncle Peter had manipulated him into what could have easily become the biggest regret of his life, and Derek should hate him. Derek should swear to hate him until the end of time, until Uncle Peter was dead and buried.

And maybe, if they hadn’t been pack, Derek would have been able to.

If Uncle Peter had been just his uncle, Derek would have been able.

If Uncle Peter had been someone he couldn’t feel at all times, someone he couldn’t hear at all times, someone he couldn’t smell at all times, someone he didn’t know the way he did, he would have been able to.

But Uncle Peter was all of these things.

Uncle Peter was pack.

And Derek... well, no matter how much it hurt, he had never been able to hate someone outright, and even though he doubted he’d trust Uncle Peter like he had before, he couldn’t push him away or hate him for what he had done.

It was messed up.

But it was pack, so Derek was stuck walking outside of the high school waiting for his sister, missing his girlfriend while knowing better than to go near her again, and contemplating forgiving his uncle.

It was–

Her laugh registered first, and then Derek spotted her.

Sitting in the passenger seat of a dark BMW, laughing with her whole body and her hair dancing in the wind, was the school guidance counsellor.

Miss Silver.

Even though she couldn’t see him, even though she was not even paying attention to him, Derek felt that mix of confusing emotions twisting in his gut as soon as he noticed her.

She was new, the guidance counsellor. She was replacing Mrs Dunham, who had apparently broken her hip falling down the stairs of her house, and she was the most amazing woman Derek had met in his life.

At first, when he had been referred to her following the ‘accident’ with Paige – as everyone in school liked to call it, because of course it was High School, and of course there were rumours – Derek had expected to hate her.

He had seen Mrs Dunham sporadically, and he had hated her.

But Miss Silver was nothing like Mrs Dunham.

Miss Silver was beautiful, and funny, and she smelled nice, and she looked at him. She looked at him and listened to him like Paige used to before she left, like he really mattered and she really cared about him.

She smiled at him when she saw him, she laughed at some of his jokes, and she even told him some herself.

She was much more than just another teacher.

It was impossible not to have a crush on her.

Everyone in school had a crush on her, even some of the girls.

But she smiled at him the most – even some of the other guys in class said so – and she always said hi to him the most. She saw him the most because of the Paige Incident, but Derek liked to think it was more than that.

It wasn’t - he knew it wasn’t.

There was clearly a guy in the car with her, making her laugh like that. She was probably going on a date.

But still... he couldn’t help it.

She was beautiful, and awesome, and she listened to him instead of making assumptions, or telling him he needed to think more before he acted or whatnot.

She cared about him – more than for just her job, in his opinion.

It might have started because of her job, but now it wasn't just that - he was sure.

And it was nice to be cared about like Miss Silver did. To have someone care for you not just because you were pack, not just because you had known each other for a long time and they had to.

She did it because she wanted to. Because of her job and because she wanted to.

Or maybe, he thought as the car drove away, or maybe he just had a crush on his teacher and was looking for excuses to like someone so soon after Paige left him.

Maybe Paige had left him and he was now desperate to find someone to throw all of his feelings at.

It wasn't like he could get closer to Paige again: Uncle Peter had made sure of this, Paige's dad had made sure of this, his mom had made sure of this.

Even Paige had made sure of this.

As if summoned by his thoughts of Paige, Derek heard the familiar sound of Uncle Peter's fancy Alfa Romeo approaching.

Moments later, Uncle Peter pulled up next to him, Cora smiling smugly on the passenger seat.

Things would have been so much easier if he could hate Uncle Peter.

“You getting in or would you rather wait for Laura?”

He did not.

So, he ignored Cora altogether and sat down in the backseat of Uncle Peter's car.

“Why are you here?”

“We went by the hospital to see Stiles,” she explained. “Is that what you do when Laura is not done? Angst all over the sidewalk?”

“Why is Stiles in the hospital?” he asked instead of paying her attempts at mocking him any attention. “Did he talk himself into a coma?”

Uncle Peter met his eyes in the rear-view mirror, a smirk on his face.

“I thought you were not so fond of the young Stilinski.”

He was not not fond of Stiles. 

The kid was just... well, it was hard not to worry about him, wasn’t it?

In the little time he had known him, Stiles had come to his house in tears, panicking over something he never bothered explaining, and almost ended up lost in the woods in his search of the Nemeton.

Neither of those were healthy actions.

And now he was in the hospital.

It was easy to worry about him.

And as for the arguing, well, he just had something about him that seemed to prickle Derek in the wrong places.

He just had a way or making him argue that nobody other than maybe Uncle Peter had. Only, instead of making him want to punch him in the face, it made Derek want to make fun of him until he exploded.

And then there was his scent.

Derek pointedly looked away from his uncle's eyes.

Scents were important to wolves.

It was how they found pack, how they foresaw attacks, how they marked each other. The same way humans navigated the world through their eyes, werewolves used their scents.

A scent could tell you everything about someone before they even told you their names.

As soon as he had scented him the first time, Derek had had the strangest feeling.

It had been the very first time Cora had brought him home. 

Derek had been in the library, angrily reading and trying to suppress his rage at Uncle Peter - for what he had done to Paige - and his mother - for what she had not done to Uncle Peter.

He had heard them come in, but hadn't cared enough to investigate, too busy feeling angry and sorry for himself.

In fact, he hadn't come out till the two (Stiles and Scott, he had later learnt) had left the house.

He had walked into the living room, still furious at his uncle, and then the scent had slapped him right in the face.

It wasn't a particularly unordinary scent.

Stiles' scent was like the scent of petrichor and freshly cut grass, with a hint of fresh cold wind.

Smells Derek was used to, living in the Preserve, scents that, in themselves, hid nothing special.

And yet, as soon as he scented it... calmed him down.

He remembered how confused he had been.

He had walked in, ready to pick another fight with Uncle Peter or Laura or his mother; then, Stiles' scent had hit him and, instinctively, his heart rate had slowed. The heat of his anger had lowered, the wolf pacing inside of him had stopped.

It had been sudden, and disconcerting, and unexplainable.

As unexplainable as the fact that, as soon as Cora had started talking about her friends at dinner, Derek had just known which one of them the scent belonged to.

Cora had said, 'Stiles', and Derek had known.

He had just known.

Which was weird.

Very weird.

And then he had met Stiles in his library, watched him trip over his own feet and stare at him, and thought: here he is. 

Stiles.

It was weird.

“He found the Nemeton and Lydia," explained Cora. "You know, the missing girl? Yeah, we went into the woods together - me, him, Scott, and some of our friends - found her and the Nemeton, and when he touched the Nemeton he passed out.”

That explained... nothing.

"What?"

"Yeah," she said, turning to face the front. “Also, we think he knows we are werewolves.”

That made- wait, what?

“What?!”

Chapter Text

“I know who you are.”

This time, when Red Hood appeared, he was alone.

He was still sitting on the Nemeton, and his bloody bat was still on the ground in front of him, but the half naked guy with the tattoo was not passed out on him.

It was just him, and Stiles.

And the firefly; but for once Stiles did not care about the firefly (well, he did; but he was not going to ask questions about it just now).

Red Hood did not dramatically lift his hood as Stiles had hoped. He just rested his chin on his palm, making a ‘go on’ sound.

It was so weird.

Stiles had of course imagined what he would be like as an adult.

Everyone did, right?

Normally, his imagination gave him one of two results.

One, a very cool very rich very handsome version of himself. Married to Lydia Martin, with a cool job as some sort of police officer/detective/agent where he wore a suit and tie instead of a uniform and always managed to catch the bad guy in the end.

The second version was just him, only a little taller and ‘more mature’.

Red Hood was neither of those versions.

In the dreams/visions he had seen with Lydia, Red Hood had not been that much older than him. He had looked around Derek’s age, and Derek was, according to what he had heard from Cora, turning 16 on Christmas day.

And yet, he was completely different from Stiles.

He was more than a cool guy, more than a badass.

He glanced at the bloody bat on the ground, and shivered.

He was... a killer.

He was someone who had and could hurt.

Was this really who Stiles was destined to become? Was the potential of hurting others inside of Stiles too? Was he going to hurt other people, and if so, why?

“I don’t want you to be me,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest as if to protect himself. “Why are you me? Why are you like... like this?”

Red Hood made a sound like a laugh, but even with his hood on, it was clear to see that he wasn’t smiling.

“Life is tricky, Stiles,” he told him. “You make one decision, one possibly bad decision, and you lose complete control of your life.”

Even knowing it was him, Stiles was still struggling to match the voice to himself.

It didn’t even sound like him.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“If you hadn’t approached Scott that day in the park, none of this would have ever happened,” said Red Hood. “None of what you are experiencing would have happened, and none of what I’m experiencing would have happened.”

“It’s not Scott’s fault!” he said, immediately incensed. “He didn’t–”

“I’m not saying it is,” interrupted Red Hood. “I am saying that meeting Scott was the first piece of the domino.”

“What domino?”

“The domino of fate,” said Red Hood, before his lips pursed in a grimace. “I hate magic.”

That was... not what Stiles had been expecting.

“You hate magic? Why? You’re magic.”

“I did something I wasn’t supposed to do,” said Red Hood, lips turning normal again. “It caused something I didn’t expect to happen. But because magic is magic, and all magic has a cost, I can’t just come out and tell you what is going on. I can just help guide you, help you find your way.”

Stiles wanted to know. He desperately wanted to know what had happened, what was this mystery wrapped all around Beacon Hills, what it meant for him, for Lydia, for the Hales, and for everyone.

But,

“I don’t want to become like you,” he repeated. “I don’t want to kill people.”

Red Hood did not move or react outwardly to the accusation.

“Neither did I,” he said. “Until I realised there were things and people in this town I would do anything for.

"Even die.”

Immediately Scott and his dad’s face popped in Stiles’ head.

He loved them more than he loved himself, that was true. 

He’d do almost anything to make sure they were safe, to make sure nobody could harm them.

But... would he kill for them?

He... didn’t know. He didn’t think so. He had never imagined he’d have to, never imagined a situation in which he had to kill somebody to save someone he loved.

He killed people in video games all the time, but his dad was a police officer, and his mom was dead.

He knew what death did to people, he knew what death looked like.

Could he do that to another person? Could he cause that pain to someone else?

He didn’t think so.

He couldn’t.

But Red Hood was standing in front of him. The evidence that Stiles had done so, that Stiles had been presented with the choice and he had chosen to kill.

If you believed Red Hood, of course.

Real or not real, magic or not magic, Stiles couldn’t just assume he was telling him the truth always.

It wasn't like he always told himself the truth, was it?

He didn't see what Red Hood had to gain by lying to him, but then again, what did he have to lose?

Whatever was going on, it was already obvious Red Hood knew more about it than Stiles did.

And as his dad would say, it meant he had his own motivations regarding what he told him - magic or not.

“What are you?” he ended up asking. “What am I?”

He and Red Hood might be one and the same, they might both be ‘Stiles’, but he refused to recognise that and call him by their name.

“Where would the fun be, if I could just tell you the answer?” asked Red Hood, sounding irritated again. “Thankfully, the answer is right in your hands.”

Stiles looked down at his empty hands pressed against himself and blinked.

“I don’t have anything in my hands.”

This time Red Hood moved his head to look at him closer, making his face easier to see for the first time since Stiles had met him.

It was a collage of pain and bruises.

His skin was pale, paler than Stiles'. He had a cut on his left eyebrow, and bruises all over the right side of his face. There was a scar, running from his jaw to his neck, and marks all over said neck. Both his eyes were black, with what looked like either bruises or huge bags under both of them. His lower lip was split.

And yet, it was like looking in the mirror.

His eyes, brown like Stiles'.

The moles dotted around his face, the same as Stiles'.

The nose - Claudia's nose, Stiles' nose.

It was one thing to know that Red Hood was a version of him.

It was another thing to look in front of him and see a mirror.

If Red Hood noted Stiles' reaction, he didn't show it. Instead he leant closer, squinting at him in suspicion. 

“I cannot have been this slow.”

Slow?! Had he just called him slow?! That was so–

“Stiles, wake up!”

Stiles startled awake, nearly tipping off the bed from the way he had managed to somehow almost throttle himself within the cocoon of blankets.

As soon as his brain started to run past the foggy memories of his dreams, however, he was scowling at the door of his bedroom.

Red Hood was so lucky his dad had woken him up. Otherwise he would have found out very quickly why nobody called him names.

As if Stiles could ever be a threat to someone who killed people.

Yeah, well, he could still annoy him or something.

“Stiles!”

“I’m up!” he shouted back, even as he threw himself back on the bed. Which pushed the book he had apparently been cradling to sleep on his face.

The book.

Stiles shifted around so that he could see the cover better.

Selkies, sirens, stregoi and more.

He had started reading it as soon as Peter and Cora had left his room, while in the hospital.

And as soon as he had started reading it, he had been unable to put the book back down.

'Magic was real' was something that while not fully comfortable with, he had by now accepted. Magic was real.

Werewolves, well. He knew they were real. He had come to accept that they were real. That not only were they real, but that he very possibly knew an entire family made up of werewolves (food for thought: was everyone in the Hale family a werewolf? Could werewolves only give birth to werewolves? Were non Hales also werewolves? Had they become werewolves when they had decided to marry the Hales? Could a non werewolf be with a werewolf? What happened if genetics did something funny and you were born human to two werewolf parents? There were so many questions).

But if werewolves were real and magic existed, then it meant that everyone in the book he was reading also existed. And if not every single one, then a good majority of them.

What was the limit, after all? Werewolves meant vampires had also to be real. And if so then why not sirens and mermaids (who, according to the book, were very different). Why not seers? Why not selkies?

And, most importantly, what if the book told him what he was? There was no way Peter had just happened to give him that particular book out of nowhere.

Peter had to have some sort of guess as to what Stiles could be, and he probably thought that the book in his hands–

Uh.

The book in his hands.

Red Hood had said ‘the answer is in your hands’ and then said something about Stiles being slow.

Maybe it was because he had meant that literally.

Still, Stiles had been asleep! How was he supposed to remember how he had fallen asleep or if he had been holding a book as he slept?

It was rude to just assume.

Also that made him think: just how much could Red Hood see? Could he see everything even when Stiles was awake? Or did he live inside of Stiles’ brain?

He hoped not.

That would be–

“Stiles!”

“I’m up!”

That was better pondered later.

+++

Stiles hated the hospital. He hated the smell of it, the look of it, and he hated that he had been stuck in it.

He had been immensely grateful to be discharged as soon as he had.

Still, as he walked in the kitchen that morning and found his father on the opposite side of a big spread of non heart attack inducing food, he felt the need to rush and hide back in the hospital.

At least there he would be spared whatever inquisition Sheriff John Stilinski was quite obviously planning.

“Look at you eating your greens,” he said, slowly putting down his school bag. “I am so proud–”

“Sit,” said dad, arms crossed around his chest and a towel hanging over his shoulder. “We need to talk.”

“Right now?” whined Stiles. “Can’t it–”

His words died under the look he was given, and Stiles sat down on his chair, where his cereals and two plain slices of toast were waiting.

His dad meant business, and it was clear from the way he sat down in front of him and went straight for the coffee.

“Dad–”

“I’m going to talk,” he interrupted. “You’re going to listen. Eat your toast.”

Stiles felt more like cereal, but he picked up the toast and nibbled at it, watching him with big wide eyes as he did so.

“You are my son,” he started. “I know you. Sometimes you act like I don’t, like I can’t see what's going on in your head, but just because I don’t immediately call you out on things like lies and skirting around the truth doesn’t mean I don’t know exactly what you are doing.

“I do. And maybe it’s on me, for letting you get away with the lies. It’s on me for not confronting you  from the beginning, for not making sure you told me everything you needed to tell.

“Well, from now on I don’t plan to make the same mistake again. From now on, Stiles, I expect the truth about things. The truth about dreams and nightmares, about where you are going with who, what you are doing and whatnot. Okay?”

Stiles did not really want to start this agreement with a lie, but he could not really say no either way. His dad had his serious face on, and ‘I won’t take no for an answer’ tone.

But how did Stiles even come and tell him ‘hey dad I think I have magic inside of my head – I don’t have proof, but I have been able to do things that humans are not usually able to do’.

He just... he needed things to be ready before he told his dad anything. He needed to have everything exactly where it was supposed to be, he needed to know for sure what he was, what he could do, and how much harm he could cause.

Because Stiles hated thinking about it – had done his best not to think about it since he had noticed his red hood as he ran with Lydia – but he was Red Hood. 

Red Hood lived somewhere inside of him.

Someway, somehow, a guy who killed people with a bat and didn’t even bother cleaning the bat lived inside of him.

Where was Red Hood’s dad? How could he allow it? Did he allow it or was he just nowhere close enough to tell him to stop anymore?

He didn’t know.

He didn’t want to know.

“I want you to tell me when you’re not feeling well,” continued dad. “Whether you're seriously ill, whether you’re having a nightmare, whether you are can’t sleep – you need to tell me.

“It’s not baby-ish,” he added when Stiles opened his mouth. “Melissa said it could be a sign of anxiety. Do you know what anxiety is, son?”

Stiles did know what anxiety was. 

According to what he had read, anxiety 'usually involves a persistent feeling of anxiety or dread, which can interfere with daily life. It is not the same as occasionally worrying about things or experiencing anxiety due to stressful life events. People living with GAD experience frequent anxiety for months, if not years'.

Symptoms included: feeling restless, wound-up, or on-edge, being easily tired, difficulty concentrating, irritability, having headaches or unexplained pains, difficulty controlling feelings of worry and having sleep problems.

He could see how some of his behaviour could be linked to anxiety. He could see ow some of his actions were born out of anxiety.

But things triggered anxiety, right? It didn’t come out of nowhere. And sure, his mother’s death might have started it; but those dreams that weren’t dreams, those feelings that he couldn’t explain, those were also the cause behind it.

And he couldn’t explain that to a doctor.

Still, when his dad said, “We will see about getting you to see someone,” Stiles did not say no, because he didn’t think he was being given a choice here.

“You are no longer allowed to go into the woods alone or with one of your friends,” continued dad. “You have never been allowed, but I am making it extra clear now. You cannot go into the woods alone, you can’t’ go into the woods with a friend, you can’t go into the woods with an enemy, you can’t go into the woods with a classmate: you can’t go into the woods.”

“What about with you?” he asked because he was unable to resist. “Can I go into the woods with you?”

His dad hesitated for a second, and then nodded. “So long as I verbally acknowledge that you are coming into the woods with me.”

“What if a serial killer abducts me and takes me into the woods? Technically I–”

“You’ll be grounded,” he said. “So make sure you let the serial killers know not to take you in the woods. Anywhere else in town is fine.”

“Dad, I can’t just round up all of the serial killers,” complained Stiles. “Some of them don’t have a phone.”

He shrugged. “Then I guess you and the serial killers are both screwed,” he said, nonchalantly. But he was smiling a little as he said that, and Stiles counted that as a win. “Oh, and you’re grounded for the next two weeks.”

Nevermind.

“What?! But why?!”

“Grounded means no videogames, no TV, and your butt only in school, my car, the house, and the precinct. Nowhere else.”

“Dad!”

He did not answer.

Stiles supposed he had to pick his battles.

As soon as their first lesson was over, Stiles’ desk was overrun by his friends.

He was surprised and impressed that they had survived the entire class without saying anything.

He was surprised and impressed that he had survived the entire class without saying anything.

He had had to rush to school because the breakfast and the talk with his dad had taken longer than they had anticipated, which meant Stiles had only escaped late detention because his father had flashed a smile and his badge at the gate.

Then he had had to sit like he wasn’t bursting at the seams to say something and like he couldn’t tell the entire class' attention was on him.

Which it was.

He wasn’t sure who it had been, but it was clear that the beans had been spilled about who had actually found Lydia in the end.

“Well?”

“What happened?”

“Are you okay?”

“How’s Lydia?”

“Are you–”

“Wait,” said Stiles, looking over their shoulders. Many of the students were blatantly trying to eavesdrop, but quickly looked away when caught.

Danny also made to walk away, but Stiles just beckoned him towards them with a finger.

That scene in the pool... both he and Lydia had felt weird about it. Had not really understood why those people, why all together.

But in the end, Stiles had found that it was all people he felt a certain positive way about. With Jackson being the exception, but even he had been absorbed in the group without much fuss.

Danny had been in the dream too.

And everyone knew, where Jackson went, Danny followed.

“The doctor said I’m fine, and I’m grounded,” he started.

“The doctor grounded you?”

“No, idiot,” said Jackson, rolling his eyes. “His dad grounded him.”

“Don’t call Scott an idiot,” said Stiles and Isaac at the same time, both shooting Jackson a dirty look.

He just made a face back, while Scott looked at both of them, grateful.

Stiles glared at Jackson just a little bit longer to make sure Isaac had no illusions about who Scott McCall’s bestest friend actually was, and then he continued.

“I wasn’t really allowed out of my room that much – especially not on my own, but Lydia is fine.” Immediately, Jackson and Danny were paying more attention, Jackson no longer glaring. “I heard that she was a bit dehydrated, and very hungry, but the doctors said she had like a small amnesia.”

“She lost her memories?!”

“Not all of them,” he reassured. “Just the ones about how she got into the woods and what happened there.”

“Typical,” muttered Erica, shrugging when Jackson and Danny glared at her. “What? I’m just saying it’s convenient.”

It was very convenient. It was especially convenient when Stiles knew for a fact that Lydia was lying.

Not that he was planning on saying that to anyone, of course.

He was lying to his father himself.

“She was released at the same time I was,” he continued. “But I think her parents probably wanted to keep her at home for longer, just to make sure.”

“What about you?” asked Scott, looking concerned. “Dude, you just found Lydia and like, immediately collapsed.”

“How did you find Lydia?” asked Danny, looking at him curiously. “The police had been searching the woods for like more than a day without any luck. And you just... found her?”

“I don’t know,” he said, noticing just how many of them were looking at him waiting for a real answer.

All of them except for Scott, who thought ‘I sensed it’ was an accurate and believable answer, and Cora, who knew better.

How much she knew, since Stiles himself didn’t know, he wasn’t sure.

He didn’t think Peter know. He probably had a guess, because he hadn’t looked surprised when Stiles had asked about magic, but he had looked surprised at the mention of time travel.

And if Peter didn’t know, then Cora didn’t know.

Then again, wouldn’t Cora be more likely to dream up an impossible scenario than Peter would?

Ugh. Her poker face was way too good for him to try and figure it out.

“The tree,” suddenly said Isaac, like the angel he had never been for him. He looked at Stiles like he had just figured out something. “Like with the substitute teacher, you and Lydia drew the same tree. You guessed she was going to that tree.”

“A tree?” asked Danny, brows furrowing. “But she said–”

“What happened to your neck?” interrupted Stiles, inclining his head closer to Isaac.

Like he had been shocked, the blond jumped back, slapping a hand over the large purpling bruise on his collarbone.

He hadn’t really paid Isaac much attention, too busy thinking about everything he had to explain to the others, but now that he did...

His stomach sunk.

Isaac’s lower lip looked a little cracked. There were bruises on his collarbone. There were several plasters on his fingers on both hands.

“I’m fine,” he said, placing his other hand over his fringe. Stiles saw a bit of a red bump, but he hid it quickly with the fringe. “Just fell down the stairs.”

“Stairs?” asked Scott, nose scrunched up. “I thought you said you fell.”

“Y-yeah,” said Isaac, looking very uncomfortable. “I meant that. I just also fell, and I hurt myself.”

Stiles knew what it was like growing with a parent who loved you and who accidentally hurt you.

He had had to cover plenty of injuries from his mother before.

Nobody had known about it, not even Scott.

Because then words like 'abuse' came out, and Stiles had known that it wasn't his mother's fault. She had just been sick. 

If Stiles had hidden better, none of it would have happened.

But Isaac's dad didn't look sick. Stiles had seen him around town, had seen Isaac around him before.

He didn't think that Isaac's dad was like his mom at all.

He didn't think Isaac's hurts were like his.

But who could he tell?

Isaac was hiding his hurts, and lying about them. If Stiles told a grown-up... Would that help or make things worse?

If someone had found out about his hurts, would it have helped him or made things worse for him and his mom and his dad?

He wasn't sure.

He needed-

“So, do you think Lydia is going to come tomorrow?” asked Jackson, unexpectedly breaking the awkward silence that had settled as Stiles stared at Isaac.

"Maybe," he said, now observing Jackson closely.

Could it be that Jackson knew something more than he said?

Out of all of the people standing around him, Cora and Isaac were the only ones he didn't make fun of. He was scared of Cora, which made sense, but Isaac?

It didn't make sense that he never made fun of Isaac.

Unless he knew something that made him decide not to attack Isaac like he did everyone else.

He was Isaac's neighbour, after all.

... Would investigating this count as disobeying his father?

Chapter Text

"The Skogsrå is a type of Forest Nymph, indigenous to the Scandinavian forests - and what one would call a Chimera

Normally female, she appears in the form of a small, beautiful woman with a seemingly friendly temperament. 

From the front, she is undistinguishable from any village girl. But seen from behind, her skin will appear like a tree bark, and an enormous and poisonous tail hides. 

Those who are enticed into following her into the forest are never seen again. It is said that any human man who had intercourse with the Skogsrå became an introvert, as his soul had remained with her. If the seduced man is a hunter, he may be rewarded with good luck in the hunt, but should he be unfaithful to the Skogsrå, he will be punished with numerous accidents."

There were a lot of supernatural creatures hiding in Scandinavia and in its mythology, had found Stiles.

Maybe the Scandinavians were very predictable and uninspired and just chose to start the names of any supernatural creature they spoke about with the letter 's'; or maybe, something about the ice and snow of the north seemingly attracted all sort of supernatural beings.

Maybe the snow just made normal things appear strange enough to need some sort of supernatural explanation.

It did bring to question whether magic existed all around the world, or if it was concentrated in particular parts of the world. Did ley lines exist? How did one find them? Did they just follow the country with the most supernatural sightings and hope for the best?

In so far, those countries were Japan, Ireland and ‘Scandinavia’ (they never specified which country).

And what about Beacon Hills?

He had done his research, before putting the Nemeton on one of his many many cards (what had started as a way to visualise everything going on around him had become a proper project now that took half of his bedroom when all of the cards were spread out). 

According to research, a Nemeton was a sacred space for Ancient Celtic druids. They performed their festivities, rituals and spells around the tree, and it was apparently very important for the magic of whatever place it was in.

It only featured in Celtic religion, in so far, but Stiles did not know what Celtics religions or the Celts themselves had to do with Beacon Hills.

They were from Europe, weren't they? And they had lived many years before Europeans found America.

How did it make sense?

And why was there nothing about Beacon Hills in the book?

He had read almost half of it by now, but there was no supernatural creature that came from Beacon Hills or North California.

Not even the Nemeton was discussed in the book, which was a bit annoying.

Stiles was sure that if he were to try and break into the Hale’s library, he would find a lot more answers than he was currently finding in this book.

In so far, all he was getting from it was a lot of curiosities he hadn't known he had satiated.

“What secrets do you hold?” he asked the book, looking at it with narrowed eyes. “Red Hood said that the answer is in here. Where is it? You–”

The knock on the door startled him, making him drop the book right on the ground.

“Stiles?”

“Come in!” he called, kicking the book back under his bed with his foot as the door opened.

It wasn’t like he was keeping the book a secret from his dad.

His father knew he had a book that had been given to him from the Hales.

His father did not, however, know what the book was about or what topics it covered. Stiles had done a good job at keeping the cover from showing when he was holding or reading it around his father, so all he knew was that Stiles had a very big and old looking book that the Hales had for whatever reason agreed to lend him.

Yes, it was close enough to lying that it made his stomach hurt, but it wasn’t, technically, a lie. 

His dad looked from Stiles' perfectly innocent face to the rest of the room, as if waiting to see clear signs of disobedience or rebellion, but he found nothing.

“Stop doing that with your face, it’s creepy.”

“I cannot believe you would call your own child creepy,” said Stiles, dramatically. “Your own child? Your own flesh and blood? Pain does not describe what I feel right now, father. I am bereft. I am–” He paused at the sound of a muted laugh from behind the door, looking at it oddly. “Is someone else there?”

“Yes,” said the Sheriff, and pushed the door open further to reveal Cora and Talia Hale.

Standing in front of his door.

Looking into his room.

“Cora!” he said, definitely not red as he pushed his dirty clothes hamper in the corner of the room. “I- we- what are you doing here?”

“Homework,” she said, like it was in anyway normal and reasonable, walking inside of his bedroom.

She dropped her bag on the ground and then looked at him expectantly.

“Where should I sit?”

Stiles stared from her to his father.

Who looked like he sort of wanted to laugh at him, but didn’t, trying instead to look stern.

“Don’t lock the door.”

Stiles just stared, unsure of what else he was supposed to say or do.

“See you later, Cora,” said Talia, “And hi, Stiles.”

“Hi,” he said – definitely not squeaked. “And bye.”

“And bye,” she said, as they left – leaving the door open.

Stiles waited to hear their feet on the landing before he turned to look at Cora in bewilderment.

“What are you doing here?”

“Homework,” she said, positioning herself on the floor. “Why?”

Stiles shook his hands all around, trying to make sense of her words. Even waving them side to side was making their meaning not apparent to him at all.

“This is my house?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No! I just...”

Just what? 

Just wasn’t expecting Cora or anyone to decide to come hang out with him during his prison sentence/solitary confinement/house arrest?

Or maybe, just wasn’t expecting to have to deal with Cora one on one after his suspicion – after his knowledge – of the fact that she was a werewolf had basically been confirmed.

Last time, it had been her and Peter in his hospital room in the middle of the night being weird and giving off/acting like they knew that Stiles knew and that they were okay with that.

But now it was just him and Cora.

“Thank you for the book, by the way,” he started with, sitting on the floor across from her. “It’s... very interesting. Insightful. Is there a word that means insightful and interesting at the same time?”

“Insightfulteresting,” said Cora, looking at him probably in the same way he looking at her. “And you found... the answers you were looking for? About... magic?”

“I found... some answers,” he said. “About magic. And things that are magical. I am still trying to figure out if there are answers about... people that could be magical.”

“People that could be magical,” she repeated. “As in people that can do magic?”

“As in people affected by magic, rather,” said Stiles, looking at her very closely. “People that because they have... a certain magic in them. Can do things that... normal people can’t do.”

“Like spells?”

“Like spells,” hedged Stiles. “But also not really. Do people really need spells to be able to transform?”

She stared at him in the eyes. “Do they?”

He stared at her exaggeratedly. “Do they?”

“Do they?”

“Do they?”

Cora Hale was definitely not the kind of person you wanted to get in a battle of wills with.

Stiles however was just as stubborn as the girl, if not more.

If he wanted to get to the bottom of something, he would make sure he got to the bottom of whatever it was.

She was a strong adversary for sure, but in the end even Cora Hale was no match for the annoyingness that was one Stiles Stilinski with a bone to grab.

“Werewolves,” she conceded.

Technically it was not an admission of anything. It was just one word, with no inflection, no indication if she was saying they existed or that she was one or what.

Still, Stiles fist bumped the air, a yell of joy erupting from him that had Cora looked at him in bemusement.

“That doesn’t sound like homework!” shouted his father from downstairs.

“Sorry!” he shouted back, before pointing at Cora. “I knew it!” he whisper shouted. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. Werewolves are real, and you are a werewolf, and your family is made of werewolves.”

Cora winced, and then crossed her arms.

“And?”

Suddenly instead of excited, she looked wary.

Like she was expecting...

Oh. When he had first found out about werewolves, Stiles had been worried. After all, in so far, all he had known that indicated werewolf activity outside his dreams, was that Paige had been bitten by one.

She had been bitten by one while in the company of Derek, and then lost all of her memories of the accident, most likely blocking them out due to trauma.

And from his dreams, he had gotten almost contrasting responses.

On one side, werewolves had bitten a future version of Lydia. A future version of Peter had also hurt a future version of Scott.

On the other hand, the other him had called werewolves his friends. He had claimed to be like them, even though he fought with a bat.

That version of himself had been Red Hood. Red Hood who said he would kill for Scott and dad, and who walked around with a beaten up face and injuries and a bat covered in blood and spikes looking wicked and incredibly dangerous.

Stiles did not really know Red Hood. 

All he knew of him was that he didn’t want to become like him.

He didn’t want to become dangerous, and he didn’t want to hurt anyone, friend or not.

But he also knew that he didn’t want to lose anyone the way he had lost his mom.

And if there was some way for him to make sure he didn’t lose anyone else, if there had been a way for his to save him mom, to hurt someone else to make sure she was fine….

He wasn’t sure what he would have done.

All he knew was that the answer wasn’t easy, and he felt bad about trying to decide it now.

But, as he looked at Cora, sitting in front of him looking worried that he was going to change his opinion about her now that he knew what she was, he knew what his answer was.

“Okay,” he said, pushing the door almost closed before rushing under his bed again. He picked up Peter’s book to put it back on the bed, and then pulled out the neatly stacked pieces of papers he had been filling since everything had started.

Cora frowned, and Stiles ignored her, pulling almost everything out until the floor was once more covered.

It didn’t take long for her to notice what exactly he was trying to show her.

“Oh my god,” she said, eyes widening as she looked at the various pieces of paper. “Did you make this?”

“Yeah,” said Stiles. “Tried to make sense of everything that has been happening to me. And around me.”

“To you?”

He rummaged through the pages until he found the one he was looking for, and then pulled it on top of the rest. 

“Thursday 07/09/2006,” he read out. “I wake up from a terrible nightmare. A nightmare in which I imagine my friends and family dead, everyone gone and just me as the only survivor, before I also died. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but it was one of the worst nightmares ever. I made myself sick over it.

“After I go to school, I find out that Scott also had a similar nightmare, and was sick about it too. And I find, as the weeks pass, other people who have had the nightmare – people who, around that time, also start to act strangely.”

“Erica, Isaac, Boyd and me.”

“And Lydia,” he said. “And I have this feeling that Jackson and Danny must have also had something.”

“Because they came to talk to us?”

“And because Jackson asked us if he could come to the woods with us, and while nobody was happy, not a single one of us actually said no. We let him come.”

“We didn’t have a choice,” said Cora, but it didn’t sound very convinced.

“We could have lied. We could have tricked him. We could have refused to go with him. Maybe we didn’t think of any other option then, but there were choices. We just didn’t take them.

“Anyway, on top of that Lydia and I are having weird dreams with the Nemeton in the dream.”

“The Nemeton?”

He nodded solemnly. “That’s why I was so fixated on the tree when I heard the name. I didn’t know what it was, but I immediately knew it was linked to everything else I had been dealing with until then.”

“And then when you touched the Nemeton...”

“I don’t know what happened,” he admitted. “I didn’t know it was going to happen until I opened my eyes and I was inside the High School gym. And– what?”

“You said high school,” she said, looking at him with a wide eyed look. “And I remembered. Peter and Derek.”

“Peter and Derek?”

“They also had a... nightmare. Only...” she paused, looking up at him conflicted.

“It’s okay that you’re a werewolf,” he found himself saying, and he meant it. “I mean, you won’t bite me, right?”

She scoffed, shoulders going down slightly. “Of course not. The bite is a gift. We don’t just bite people.”

“And Paige?”

Cora shrugged. “Only m– the alpha can turn a person by biting them,” she said, getting more comfortable on the ground. “And my alpha didn’t bite Paige. It was another one, who m– my alpha kicked out of Beacon Hills.”

“Your Alpha,” he repeated, immediately fascinated., “Who is your alpha? And what are you then?”

“I can’t tell you who the Alpha is,” she said, though she did look apologetical about it. “She has to tell you herself.”

“She,” repeated Stiles, Talia’s face immediately appearing in his head.

Cora looked like she definitely hadn’t meant to say that, and even though Stiles really wanted to play the guessing game until she told him, he bit his lip.

There was time for that.

“So on the day Paige got bit–”

“That Thursday, we didn’t just have a nightmare,” she explained. “At least, I didn’t really have a nightmare. I had a... feeling.”

“A feeling?”

“A bad feeling,” she insisted. “It was like someone was screaming really high inside of my head. And I couldn’t control myself or my shift, and I kept seeing and smelling things that weren’t there.” She bit her lip, looking away from him. “I don’t know. It was bad. And Peter and Derek had...” She paused, her expression changing to one of chagrin. “Yeah. You know.”

“What?” asked Stiles, looking at her in confusion. “Peter and Derek had nightmares?”

“I just realised I’m not really supposed to be telling you about them,” she said, looking towards the window. “You should speak to them if you want an actual answer. I can’t tell you about it.”

That was... a very strange change of conversation.

He wanted to investigate this further, but before he could, Cora was suddenly standing up, a look of surprise on her face.

“Is that...” She trailed off, marching towards his window – walking over a bunch of discarded pages – and looking surprised. “Is that Lydia Martin?”

“What?!”

Stiles stumbled behind her – way less elegantly – just in time to see Lydia’s mom’s car pulling up to park just behind Talia’s.

The door opened a few seconds later and Lydia got out of the car, helped down by a very worried and fussy mother.

“What is she doing here?” asked Cora, looking at him in utter confusion.

Stiles had no answer.

+++

To say his father was confused to be depositing Lydia Martin to his bedroom door minutes after similarly dropping Cora was an understatement.

He didn’t say that, though.

He just gave the same embarrassing warning he had when dropping off Cora, and then walked away with the parents, shaking his head as he did so.

“Cora,” she said first, looking like she wasn’t very surprised to see her.

“Lydia,” answered Cora, trying to look the same and actually doing a pretty good job at it.

“Stiles,” he said. They both looked at him and he sat down on his bed, embarrassed. “It was the only name left.”

Lydia crossed her arms, turning to face him fully, holding the book against herself.

“A banshee is a female spirit in Irish folklore who heralds the death of a family member, usually by screaming or wailing," she recitated. "Because of this, she is also called the wailing woman..

“I have only screamed someone’s name once,” she continued. “I have had dreams about an older version of me screaming a lot of people’s names. I have had dreams about hearing voices, and seeing a lot of people dead. I have been hallucinating and dreaming and having nightmares of people I know, people I don’t know, and people that can’t exist. And a few days ago I went into the woods while in those trances and ended up at that tree, and if it wasn’t for Stiles, I might have been... stuck. Stuck in there, all by myself.”

She pressed her lips together, trying to find her words – which was very un-Lydia Martin of her.

“I don’t know you. And I haven’t really been nice to you – or even spoke to you. But you have helped me, and an older version of me and an older version of you who could maybe one day exist trust each other. I want this to stop and for it all to go away, and I think you are the only way. I think trusting you is the only way.

“No, I know trusting you is the key.”

“Um,” said Stiles, when she finished talking and just stared at him expectantly.

Frankly, he had no idea of what to say.

It was like his entire life had been thrown upside down and things that would have made him jump of joy only a couple of weeks ago had his chest beating faster but not in excitement.

He wanted to help. He wanted to figure out what he was, what Red Hood was trying to tell him.

He wanted to help Lydia.

But he didn’t want to have the whole responsibility of everything on his shoulders.

How could he by himself figure everything out?

He had also liked that he was smart, that he was quick. His mom called him her little genius, and he did pretty well in school.

He was curious. He liked knowing everything, liked figuring out the truth behind things.

But this... This wasn't just curiosity.

This wasn't just a mystery.

Because Lydia was seeing dead people, and Red Hood had a bat covered in blood, and Stiles dreamt about a tree and there was magic, and in the nightmare it ended up with everyone dead.

Everyone dead, and Stiles alone.

He didn't want it to end that way again. He didn't want to die alone again.

But how could he fix it alone?

He was smart, but he wasn't that smart. He couldn't do it alone.

Alone.

"Stiles?"

He glanced back up to see Cora and Lydia looking at him, both of them appearing a little worried.

Then again, he realised, looking between the two, he wasn’t really alone now, was he?

He wasn't alone anymore.

He had Cora and Lydia. He had Scott. He had Peter, and maybe Talia. He had his dad. He had his friends.

There were people who could help him, who would help him.

He wasn’t alone.

He breathed out through his nose, and turned to Cora.

“Does your uncle have a B book?”

“My uncle has all of the books,” she said, glancing at Lydia. “And if he doesn’t, he knows where to find them.”

“Peter Hale,” said Lydia, shuddering slightly. 

“Yes,” said Cora, looking suspicious. "You know him."

"Older me did," she said, and she did not look happy.

Cora's confusion grew, but Stiles smiled helpfully.

“He’s creepy,” he reassured her. “But he’s not the bad guy.”

“He won’t hurt you,” agreed Cora, after a second. “Mo– my alpha wouldn’t let him, and Stiles wouldn’t let him. And I wouldn’t let him either.”

“But he likes me best,” said Stiles, smirking smugly.

“He’s still a werewolf,” said Lydia, sighing. “But fine. I guess– what?”

Cora looked at Stiles, and he immediately shook her head. “I did not tell her anything.”

“He didn’t need to,” said Lydia, sitting on his chair and showing them her notebook. “I told you, I’ve been seeing things. And hearing things. And having nightmares. Not everything made sense, because Scott isn’t a wolf...” She looked at Stiles expectantly, and he quickly shook his head, perplexed by her words, “But some things do. You and Derek and Peter are all born wolves.”

“Are you seeing the future then?” asked Cora, surprised and confused. “Is Scott going to become a werewolf?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “You don’t have to be a wolf to be in a pack, right?”

“Right,” she said, still looking at Lydia weirdly. “It’s so weird that you know that.”

Again, Lydia just shrugged. But she was looking at the ground, finally starting to notice the words scribbled on the various papers.

“Did you make these?”

“Mh?” Stiles shook himself away from the daydream of Scott as a werewolf – in his head, he wanted to imagine a cute little dog, but he kept getting this weird image of sideburns, traffic light eyes and disappearing eyebrows – and focused back on the conversation. “Oh, yeah. I’m guessing my nightmares aren’t as vivid or self explanatory as yours. I’ve been trying to figure out what is happening, and who it’s happening to.”

“The pack,” she said, absently.

“Pardon?”

“The pack,” she repeated. This time she raised her head, looking at Cora and Stiles’ bewildered expression. “The swimming pool, Stiles. The lunch table. The excursion in the woods to find me. You even have most of their names down.”

And he did, he realised.

Scott.

Cora and Lydia.

Erica, Boyd, and Isaac.

Jackson and Danny.

... Derek?

Derek had been in the swimming pool, but he hadn’t been at the lunch table or in the woods with them.

Also,

“Does that make Peter our alpha?”

“Of course not,” said Lydia, getting off the chair to inspect the papers more closely. “You are the alpha of the group. Does this mean I have to sit at lunch with you guys now?”

“You don’t have to,” said Cora.

“I don’t mind,” she said, handing Stiles her notebook. “It’s just that I know Erica doesn’t like me. All I have gathered is in that notebook, by the way. It’s... neater, than this.”

“Can we go back to the part where you said I’m the alpha?” said Stiles, because he felt they had gone past that way too easily. “I’m not?”

“Yes, you are,” said both of them at the same time. 

“Even Peter says so.”

“But...”

He trailed off when they just stared at him like he was wasting their and his own time with his questions.

Clearly arguing with them was not going to be helpful to anyone (so much for being the leader)

So, he just sighed, and started reading Lydia’s notebook.

Chapter Text

“‘Sky women’ is a common word to refer to many supernatural beings that the ancient Slavs believed existed in nature.

Most of them women, these supernatural beings come in many forms, and the same name of any single being can be spelled or transliterated differently according to language and transliteration systems. 

Some times, these being are nymphs (no distinction between what type of nymph); some other times, they are actual goddesses. It is said– ”

“What are you reading?”

“Jesus!” gasped Stiles, slamming the book shut immediately and hard enough that Scott jumped. “Scotty, you scared the crap out of me!”

“I was calling your name,” said Scott, a little chagrined. “I thought you were just pretending not to hear me.”

“I wasn’t,” said Stiles, re-opening the book in a search of the part he had paused at. He did not want to miss a single chapter, in case that was the chapter the answer he was searching for was actually hiding in.

Red Hood had made it clear, the last time Stiles had seen him: the answer was somewhere in the book.

+++

“Can you not give me a hint? This book is big.”

Stiles had gotten tired of standing, and was now sitting on the ground, trying his best pleading voice with Red Hood.

Red Hood was once more alone, and sounded as tired as Stiles felt, when he spoke next.

“Even if I wanted to – and trust me, I really want to – I couldn’t. I told you, magic has a–”

“Cost, and is tricky and any other synonym for the word,” finished Stiles, sighing. “I just want to know what is happening so all of it can stop.”

“Stop?” Red Hood sounded amused by the word. “What makes you think figuring out what is happening and what you are will magically stop things from happening?”

“If I know what’s happening, I can fix it,” reasoned Stiles. “And if I can fix it, I can... be free of it all. Or something.”

Again, Red Hood looked amused.

He even smiled, but not in a way that Stiles found reassuring. 

Rather, it looked a bit like it did when adults were making fun of a mistake you were making.

“You are... something, Stiles. Something that you will find in the book, and will be explained to you.” He rested his chin on the palm of his hand. “What makes you think that whatever you are is going to stop bothering you as soon as you figure out what it is?”

Stiles did not like the way he said that.

He made it sound like, whether Stiles figured things out or not, things would continue to happen to him. He would continue to feel as confused as he was now, and he would continue to be unable to stop things.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Did you finding out that Cora and the Hales are wolves stop them from being wolves?”

It hadn’t, of course. All it had done was clue Stiles into what was going on in town, but of course it hadn’t stopped them from being wolves and doing what wolves did.

“So what makes you think that figuring out what you are is going to stop you from feeling the way you are?”

Stiles did not really have an answer to that.

So, he glared.

“You are not really making me want to keep trying to figure this thing out, but at least I’ll know. I’d rather know what’s happening to me, even if I cannot fix it, than live with it without knowing what is happening.”

He wasn’t talking only about the so called magical powers, and Red Hood knew it.

They both knew that, if the choice was between knowing that their mother was sick and not knowing?

The answer was easy.

Red Hood made a sign as if to say he heard and understood him, or maybe that was just Stiles’ imagination once again.

“The answer is in the book,” he then said. “That is as much as I can tell you. You will find it in there, whether it’s two sentences under a big header, or whether it’s a large chapter with pictures and whatnot.”

“But how will I know? How will I find out that it’s what I am? What if I have already read it, and just skipped–”

“You haven’t,” said Red Hood, and he sounded extra certain of that. “If you had, you’d know. As soon as you read those words, as soon as you read the header of the chapter, you will know exactly what it is. You will know it’s what you’re looking for.”

He sounded very sure of that.

“I thought magic made everything more complicated than it needed to be,” said Stiles, and Red Hood snorted.

“Let’s just say that magic might be stubborn and complicated, but we always make a lasting impression.”

He winked at Stiles.

Stiles just stared back at him, frowning. 

“What is that even supposed to mean?”

Red Hood had not answered.

Stiles would never understood how he had turned into that man.

+++

But he had, and even though he was mostly scared of him, when it came to this particular topic, Stiles trusted him.

Trusted him to know what he was talking about, if not necessarily trusted him about being honest about what he was talking about.

“What is the book?”

Stiles dog eared the page, before shooting Scott a smile he hoped didn’t look guilty.

“Just some old legends,” he explained. “Cora’s uncle lent it to me.”

He hadn’t lied, not really. But Scott’s face shuttered for a second before he smiled again, and immediately Stiles felt awful.

Scott was not Stiles’ dad. Yes, he didn’t understand what was going either, but Scott had heard Stiles say that he heard voices and just nodded.

Stiles had nearly left him behind in the woods, and Scott had only been mad at him for a little while.

Stiles had said he was going back into the woods to find a girl the rest of town had been unable to, and Scott had come willingly, without questioning him.

He hadn’t questioned him because he knew Stiles had reasons for what he was doing. He knew Stiles wouldn’t do any of this without some sort of belief that he was doing the right thing, some sort of proof that he knew what he was doing.

And because he knew that Stiles would tell him about what he thought. There had never been a problem of Stiles not telling Scott what he was thinking or doing, rather the opposite. Stiles always told Scott a lot more than Scott probably wanted to know.

But he hadn’t.

Lately, Stiles had been doing stuff that made no sense, finding answers that nobody else could find, and he hadn’t told Scott any of it.

He was telling Cora stuff, and Lydia. He was hanging out with Cora without Scott, seeing people in Cora’s family without Scott, was on a name basis with her family members and just all around doing things without Scott.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough, he was doing things without Scott, and then not telling Scott about them until someone else did or the topic accidentally came out.

Stiles couldn’t even remember the last time he had spoken to Scott about any of this.

Lying to his father... Stiles knew it was necessary. Until he had proof, until he knew what was going on for sure, he couldn’t tell any of it to his father.

But Scott wasn’t his father.

Scott was his best friend.

He grabbed his arm as Scott made to go to his seat, and gave him an apologetic look.

“I’m sorry,” he said, when Scott looked up at him. “I’ve totally been a shitty best friend, haven’t I?”

Scott’s shoulders relaxed, but he kept his kicked dog expression in place to inflict maximum damage to Stiles.

“You have.”

“I’m sorry,” repeated Stiles. “A lot of things have been going on, and now I have other people’s secrets to carry – which I cannot tell you about.”

“But you can tell me your secrets,” clarified Scott. “Right?”

“Right,” said Stiles. “And I haven’t. I’ve been trying to figure things out and... look. Let me make it up to you. Next time you can, come over to my house, and I will try to explain what I have. Without revealing secrets that aren’t mine to tell. Okay?”

It should be anxiety inducing, an admission like this. Telling Scott that he was going to explain the weird dreams, and his draw to the tree, and his papers and the fact that he was maybe magic should be terrifying. He had strings in his head that he could see/sense when he concentrated hard enough, and they were connected to his friends and family, and Stiles was apparently alpha of a pack Scott didn’t even know he was a part of.

Instead, when Scott smiled brightly and nodded, telling him he promised, all Stiles could feel was a weird sort of excitement.

So far, Stiles had done everything in his power to keep things away from his father, to make sure his father had no knowledge of what Stiles was getting involved in. He had spoken to Cora and found out that she was a werewolf, but that was personal. Werewolves might be central to what was going on, but they were a family secret for Cora and her family, a family secret Stiles had no say over.

He had found that Lydia was a banshee, but Lydia wanted to figure things out so that she could ‘put a stop to things’ and 'make them all go away'. She ‘trusted’ him to help her, but Stiles had the terrible feeling that this was not going to end the way she wanted it to.

But Scott, Scott was different.

Scott had no skin in whatever was going on – apart from the dream – and it was going to be Stiles’ chance to see a reaction like the one he had first had, when he had initially realised he might have magical powers.

That was exciting, no matter how he put it.

Scott was going to be so excited, and even though Stiles had no idea of what he could actually do, he knew Scott would sit with him so that they could figure it out together, so that they could try and find out all the ways in which what he was now and what could do was cool.

That was exciting , and–

The entire class fell silent as the classroom door opened.

Lydia had just walked in.

Stiles was not sure what he had expected of Lydia’s return to class after her disappearance act in the woods.

The entire class was spent with him and half of the class stealing glances at her, trying to determine what was up with her or if the rumours they had to have heard from their parents and other family were true.

Stiles for his part was just trying to see how Lydia was.

She hadn’t mentioned any plan of coming to class the last time he had seen her, so he couldn’t tell for sure if she was alright with the decision or not.

Then again, Lydia was... well, Lydia.

What did anybody really understand about Lydia?

When the bell rung, Stiles was ready to pack his stuff and get to lunch. He wanted to get to the bottom of this issue, and to do that, he needed to get to the bottom of the book.

Which meant he needed to get back to reading it, so that when Scott and he had their talk, Stiles would have something real to talk to him about.

But he did not get the chance to.

Before he could pick up his bag and go, there was the sound of a chair being dragged over.

When Stiles looked up, Lydia was sitting in front of him, arms crossed and looking as if this was totally normal and there weren’t several members of their class staring at her in shock and confusion.

Stiles was one of the people staring in shock and confusion.

“Er... hi, Lydia?”

“Hi,” she said, then turned back. “Jackson, Danny. Cora and the others.”

“We have names,” said Erica, glaring at her as she pulled a chair and sat down right next to Stiles. “And I know you know them.”

“I do,” said Lydia. “But I also knew that if I said the others, you would know who I was talking about.”

“There is no need to be rude,” said Cora, beckoning Isaac and Boyd over. “If you can’t be nice, you can just leave. We don’t need any of that.”

“And we don’t need any of this,” said Jackson, stopping next to Lydia and glaring at Cora. “Why are we here?”

“Stiles and I have questions,” said Lydia, smiling at Danny when he sat down. “And you guys have answers.” She turned to the other members of the class who were loitering around curiously. “Do you guys need anything? If not, how about you leave the room, Theo?”

“I was going,” mumbled Theo, pulling along one of their classmates and rolling his eyes.

Stiles and Lydia made eye contact and then made the same face.

“I do not like that guy.”

“Me either.”

“Because he’s evil,” said Scott, repeating the sage words Stiles had told him last time he had seen Theo Raeken.

He had no idea of why he got such strong emotions from some shrimpy guy he barely interacted with in class, but it had not changed the longer they were in class together.

Something about Theo Raeken was rotten in the core in a way Jackson Whittemore could never be.

“He’s weird, but he’s fine,” said Danny, looking between Lydia and Stiles, while Jackson glared at him.

“What did he do?”

“It’s a long story,” said Lydia, waving him off. “Sit down, Jax.”

Did Stiles smile or snort or chuckle when Lydia said ‘Jax’? No. He was a good guy, he’d never.

It did not mean his lips did not twitch slightly – and he knew that if he looked at Scott, the same thing would be happening.

It was just funny hearing someone calling him Jax and him answering to it, he wasn’t even sure of why.

“Shut up, Stiles.”

“I haven’t even said anything!”

“You thought it!”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Just because you never do it doesn’t mean you can be angry at people who think, Jax.”

Jackson stood up, face growing red, but Lydia stopped him with a hand, glaring at Stiles as she did so.

“Seriously? This is important.”

“I’m sure it is,” said Erica, unimpressed. “Are you going to ever tell us why?”

“What did you guys dream about the night of the seventh of September?”

Wow, okay. Lydia was just going for it.

Several people around startled, surprised by the direct question, while Jackson frowned, appearing confused.

“What?”

“The night of the seventh September 2006,” repeated Lydia. “Some of us had a nightmare. I am pretty sure everyone who is currently sitting here had a nightmare – or maybe more weird dreams after that day. I– Stiles and I are trying to figure out stuff out, and we need to find out what you dreamt about that night.”

“I don’t understand,” said Danny. 

“How are we meant to remember?”

“Oh, if you had a nightmare that night, you wouldn’t have forgotten,” said Stiles, and turned to glance at Scott. “I know I had one, and I will... tell you about it.”

He leant back on the chair, and when Scott and Lydia both nodded at him, he started speaking.

“I can’t remember exactly what was going on,” he warned. “What I really remember are the feelings I felt that evening, that night.

“There was a lot of darkness. It felt like I was underwater while also being in the woods, and it felt like something dark and evil was chasing me. I couldn’t really see what was around me, but I could smell it... like something bad, or like when a rat dies. Or when blood dries and it start smelling really rotten and bad.

“I remember smelling gunpowder, and like... wet dog. And I remember, most of all, feeling like I was the last person around.” Stiles swallowed, now not looking at anyone. Just thinking about the dream made him feel terrible, like he was once more stuck in it. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I saw you guys... dead. Except it wasn’t you guys, not really, but...

“I don’t know how, or why, but I saw you, Scott.” He looked at him. The last time he had described things, he had left it intentionally vague, but now he was trying to explain the real thing, the real feelings he had. “I remember seeing you, and you were hurt and bleeding. And I saw Lydia, and she was gone, and so many of you, hurt and gone-

“In the end, there was just me. Even my dad was gone, and I was alone, with...”

Stiles paused.

In the end, it had just been him, that was true, but now that he really tried to think about it, now that he tried to remember... there had been someone else there. He hadn’t really seen his face or anything more than his hair, but he had been there. 

He had been dead, he knew that for sure. It had smelled like death and destruction all around them, and Stiles remembered the desolated feeling of being the only one left alive – and also being about to die despite it all.

But that person... that person laying dead right next to Stiles... who had it been?

Who was he? Why did his heart hurt so bad when he tried to think about it?

“With someone,” he settled for, not looking at anyone else. “And then I died, but things were still bad. I died, and it felt like everything was dying and everything was worse, and–”

Erica’s hand on his brought him back to attention, and Stiles drew a long breath.

He had half expected to have Jackson laughing or making fun of him, but even he was looking at Stiles seriously and worried.

“So, yeah,” he finished, forcing a smile. “That’s what I dreamt.”

“That’s almost what I dreamt,” said Scott, not even a second later. He was sitting on Stiles’ other side, and was looking at him as he spoke, looking a little nervous.

Stiles felt another rush of love for his best friend.

Especially as he started going further into details, telling something that was both similar and still very different from what Stiles had described.

The feelings were the same.

Fear, darkness. Being alone. Being terrified. He could smell death and knew people were gone, and being alone, and the pain.

But Scott had not seen anyone dead. He knew that people were dead, but he had felt something like blood in his own teeth and under his fingers, and hadn’t known who was dead.

Hadn’t known who killed what.

Then it was Erica and then Boyd’s turn.

The things the two of them spoke about were closer to what Scott’s spoke about than what Stiles spoke about. The blood, being alone. Feeling themselves die.

Stiles glanced at Lydia when Boyd was done talking, and found her looking at him already.

She didn’t say anything, did not even really acknowledge their interaction, but Stiles found himself remembering her question the other day.

Her question about whether Scott was also a wolf.

He still did not know much about werewolves, and Cora hadn’t told him much either.

But lore said that werewolves were either born or made.

Cora was probably a born werewolf.

What if Lydia hadn’t been wrong, when she had asked about Scott being a werewolf? What if someway somehow Scott had become a werewolf? Was going to be a werewolf? If her visions were right, and her visions were the future, then...

Then maybe Scott had been/was going to be a werewolf.

Maybe Scott, Boyd and Erica had been/were going to be werewolves.

Not Stiles, though. Stiles was not a werewolf, Lydia had never considered him one. She had considered him the ‘leader’ the ‘alpha’ of the group, but not a werewolf.

And when she had spoken about killing the Nemeton, Stiles had said ‘the wolves and I’.

He could have been talking about the Hales, that was true.

But it was also true that Stiles could have been talking about another group of werewolves.

Another entire pack.

But... if Talia Hale was the alpha, and to become a werewolf the alpha had to bite you, then why would Stiles be their alpha? Why would Talia Hale bite Erica, Boyd and Scott?

And Isaac, he mentally added, as the blond also started sharing his story.

He was a lot more hesitant than Erica and Boyd, and kept looking around as if he thought someone was punking him, but his story was the same. 

Which meant he had lied last time.

Or maybe he was lying now.

Stiles did not think so.

Cora’s version came after, and she was definitely lying. She said something about how she had felt, and how she couldn’t move, but she did not mention the whole ‘wolf’ aspect of it where she hadn’t been able to control her shift.

Which he couldn’t really blame her.

Despite the fact that every one of them was sat together at lunch time talking about weird nightmares they had all had at the same time on the same day, he did not think mentioning werewolves was going to help anyone.

Lydia though was surprisingly honest about hers.

“Stiles?” said Jackson, looking between the two of them in confusion. “You dreamt about Stiles?”

“I dreamt about death, and blood, and people dying – people I knew, people in this very room, and people I didn’t know,” she corrected. “But I woke up screaming Stiles. I think...”

She hesitated.

“That he was dying,” finished Danny, a look in his eyes Stiles wasn’t sure he could understand.

It was always hard understanding Danny.

He was nice, one of the nicest people in class.

But he was friends with Jackson.

And Jackson was not one of the nicest people in class.

“Mine was not like yours,” then started Danny, and Stiles leant in forward a bit. Now that was a story he had not heard before. “My nightmare. I mean, it was.

“I remember I was scared. That I was terrified, like the darkness was chasing me. 

“But I also remember... eyes.” He shuddered, not looking anyone in the eyes. “I remember these red eyes staring at me from behind, as I did my best to run. Chasing me everywhere I went, and whoever I managed to run past, I could just hear them being teared apart.

“It was horrible. It was like I could hear the sound of bones being crushed and–” He cringed. “It was awful. It was awful, but then the red eyed monster caught me and I.” He held himself tighter. “Yeah. I think I died.”

“Red eyed monster?” asked Cora, looking at him worried. “Are you sure?”

Danny nodded, not looking at her. 

“I remember the eyes. It was like a rabid animal – it was terrifying.”

Cora looked away, and even though Stiles tried to make eye contact, she didn’t meet his eyes.

“I...” Jackson paused, and everyone looked over at him.

His cheeks were red, and he wasn’t looking at them.

“I didn’t have a nightmare. Or I did, and I don’t–”

“Jax,” said Lydia, putting a hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t matter if yours wasn’t scary or if yours didn’t worry you or what. Just tell us what you dreamt of – it’s important.”

“Or you wouldn’t be here,” said Stiles.

Jackson looked a little dubious, but then he sighed.

“I did not have a nightmare, not really. But I remember... pain.

“I don’t know how to explain it. But at first, it was just a weird dream. There were snakes in my eyes, and my hands had blood, and I died and came back to life and Lyd– it was weird.”

Did he just almost say Lydia?

“Then everything was fine. I was happy. But I was alone and one by one I felt this weird snapping feeling... you know when you let go of an elastic band and you hear that snap?” Everyone nodded. “I heard it, but I also felt it inside of me. It was like a burning feeling, and it made me want to... I don’t know.” He shrugged, still a little red. “It made me upset.”

“That’s not the same thing,” said Erica. “His–”

“Is very helpful,” interrupted Cora. This time, when Stiles looked at her, there was a look on her face like she knew exactly what Jackson had described.

“Why us?” asked Boyd. “Why the same or similar dreams? What does it mean?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Lydia, and she looked at Stiles. “But it has to mean something.”

“It’s just a dream,” said Jackson, but it did not sound very sure.

“Once is a accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern,” said Stiles. “Something happened to us. I don’t know what yet, and I don’t know how. All I know is when, and who. And even the when I’m a bit shaky on.”

“Gasoline,” said Lydia, tapping her fingers on a table.

“What?”

“Throw a match on the gasoline,” said Stiles, picking up his book again. “And it’s going to light up everything it comes into contact with.”

“All it takes is a–”

Stiles lost his grip and the book fell on the desk spine first, causing it to open on one page.

“Spark,” he read, at the same time as Lydia said it.

It was like an electric shock. A firework moment, a light bulb turning on and exploding at the same time.

Lydia was talking, and so was Cora and the others, but all Stiles could see and focus on was the word in front of him.

Spark.

Well.

Red Hood had said he would know.

Chapter Text

Almost every human being has a spark: the possibility, the potential of having magic. However, most human’s spark is so soft and shaky, they will never be able to do anything with it.

A true spark is a human with an incalculable amount of untapped magical ability. With the strength of their spark and the power of their belief, they are able to create, destroy and manipulate the reality around them.

Sparks are rare, and almost impossible to find – as often, sparks are born to families and lineagies with no magical power to speak of, which makes it hard for them to be noticed.

It is believed that sparks are often found in territories drenched with ley lines and magical possibilities, especially if many other magical creatures live in the same territory.

Many sparks move on to becoming powerful mages or emissaries to the Nemeton.

Stiles had read the passage on sparks so many times, he could easily recite it off by memory.

It was all he had done, really.

From the day during recess where he had noticed the chapter title and felt a visceral connection to it, all he had done was read and re-read the same five lines, in the hope of them revealing more than they already had.

He wasn’t sure if he was more disappointed or more excited.

On one hand, if sparks were what the book said and their power was their ability to ‘believe’ then that was awesome. Stiles had a lot of imagination, and if he could make and change stuff just by believing in it hard enough... the world would be his oyster!

He could just imagine all the things he could do. Turn his homework completed without having to write anything, make it Christmas everyday, make the nightmares disappear from both his and Lydia’s minds.

And the book said he could become a mage if he wanted! His book did not have an ‘m’ page, but according to everything he had read so far, mages were super cool and very awesome at magic.

So yeah, that was exciting.

On the other hand, nobody had ever heard of a spark before. 

As soon as he and Lydia had said the word at the same time, they had proceeded to read the passage together while their friends stared at them as if they were crazy. But while Lydia had nodded as if it all made sense, part of him had been... a little dissatisfied.

The chapter did not say a whole lot. It did not say what exactly Stiles could do, or how he could do it. It did not explain anything about his skill set, and left more questions than it did answers.

Plus, Lydia was a banshee. Even if you weren’t super educated on magic or the supernatural, people knew what a banshee was. A wailing woman, omen of death and all that.

Nobody knew what a spark was. Nobody knew how to find a spark. There were probably a lot of sparks who were never even found, and who had done nothing with their abilities.

And a little part of him wondered if he had gotten it wrong.

Yes, he could see/feel those lines if he concentrated hard enough. Yes, he had found Lydia in the woods.

But that was it. That was the extent of his ‘abilities’ and they could easily be seen as nothing but luck.

What if he wasn’t one of these ‘true sparks’? What if he was just one of the unknown ones, and had just gotten lucky with his abilities actually somehow manifesting?

It was all so confusing.

So was the fact that, for the past two nights, Red Hood had not been at the Nemeton did not help.

Stiles found out he was a spark and that he could potentially become ‘Emissaries to the Nemeton’, and suddenly Red Hood was no longer hanging around? It was convenient and unfair.

And it made him wonder, too.

He had been immediately drawn to the idea of becoming a mage, but what if there was a reason Stiles and Lydia were drawn to the Nemeton? What if there was a reason they dreamt about it? What if there was a reason they both drew the tree? What if there was a reason why Red Hood always appeared on or near the Nemeton?

What if Red Hood was already ‘emissary to the Nemeton’?

Did that mean Stiles was also already that?

Did he even have a choice to be something different?

He hoped he did.

Not for any real reason other than the fact that ‘mage’ sounded much cooler than ‘emissary to the Nemeton’. What did the Nemeton need to have emissary for? What could a tree possibly need people to say for him?

He snorted at the irony.

“What?”

Stiles shook his head, turning to Lydia strapped in beside him.

“Some trees talk enough to need messengers,” he explained.

“Touche’,” she said, which was concerning.

How had he gotten to the point where he said something that would make no sense to anyone other than maybe Scott, and have Lydia Martin basically nodding in understanding while his father looked at him through the rearview mirror like he did not understand how he had managed to help bring him to life?

To be fair, though, his dad had been looking at him like that almost all of his life.

And maybe his dad’s expression had more to do with the fact that he was inexplicably driving Stiles and Lydia Martin to the Hale house than with anything that came out of Stiles’ mouth.

That was a distinct possibility.

In an universe where Stiles had not woken up due to a scary nightmare and figured out he was a spark – a spark! – the first place he would have gone after being released by the long term solitary confinement known as ‘grounding’ would have been Scott’s house.

But they weren’t in that normal and boring universe.

They were in a universe where those things had happened, and so Stiles was off to Cora Hale’s house in the company of an equally (but, at the same time, less so) confused Lydia Martin to get some real answers.

He hoped nobody asked him whether he’d want to exchange the two universes, because he really did not know the answer to that question.

Talia Hale was already at the door when they stepped out of the car moments later, a big smile on her face that looked completely natural and welcoming.

As she exchanged pleasantries with his dad, Stiles found himself wondering about the woman.

Was the fact that she was an alpha that made her so motherly, or was the fact that she was a mother that made her so alpha-y?

Because it was very obvious she was the alpha, even as she spoke with his dad. Everything about the way she stood, and the way-

“You’re staring,” hissed Lydia, kicking his shoe.

Stiles would have told her how much he was not, but then his dad gave him a hug and he had to bite his tongue.

“Be good.”

“Dad, it’s me,” Stiles said, in a very innocent tone of voice.

"Again," said his father, looking very unconvinced - this was what made him such a good Sheriff –, "Be good."

Stiles promised, and kept his face as innocent as possible as he watched the man walk away.

Walk away and leave them both alone in the den of the wolf.

With the wolf in charge.

“Stiles,” started Talia, once the door was closed. “I find myself liking you quite a lot, and not only because you are the first friend Cora has brought home.”

“Mom!” came Cora’s voice from somewhere further inside.

Talia ignored it. “It is clear to me that you are a special kid, even more special than I previously thought. And from what I can see, you seem to like my family and not wish them any harm.”

She paused, and after a beat Stiles realised she wanted an acknowledgement.

“Yes, ma’am,” he hastily said. “I would never try to hurt you. I don’t think I could if I wanted. Not that I want to. I don’t want to. I’m just saying I also probably can’t. I do not-” Lydia put her hand over his mouth, and Stiles sighed in relief. “Sthmks.”

Talia looked like she wanted to smile or laugh, but she forced herself to keep her expression even.

“Thank you. However, sometimes we don’t mean to cause harm, but we do. Often just by saying the wrong thing to the wrong person. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

That, Stiles did understand. 

There was a reason after all, why werewolves had been a secret for so long. A reason why Cora had decided to let him guess rather than straight up tell him the truth of what she was.

“People get scared of what they don’t know.”

She nodded gravely.

“And sometimes, if they are scared enough...” 

“They hunt it,” finished Lydia. She stood up straighter, and offered Talia her hand. “I’m Lydia Martin. I also know the family secret, and I promise I will not tell anyone.”

“Nor will I,” said Stiles. “I would offer you my hand, but you already know my name.”

She chuckled, even as she shook Lydia’s hand.

“I don’t need your hand to know you’re telling the truth,” she said.

“Wait,” said Stiles. “You can tell when people are lying? Is that a thing? Is that a werewolf power? What else can you do? Can you communicate in their heads? I have so many questions–”

“And I’ll be glad to answer them,” she said, looking like she actually meant it, and wasn’t just saying it to make Stiles be quiet. “But I think Peter and Cora are the ones you are here for. And they are getting impatient.” She winked. “Power number one: I can hear very far.”

“Superhearing? That is so cool. It’s–” Stiles paused.

If Talia had superhearing, then Cora probably had superhearing too.

And if Cora had superhearing, a lot of things made a lot of sense.

When they walked into the library, she nodded at him mockingly.

“I heard everything you and Scott had to say about me that first day, yes.”

“It doesn’t count,” said Stiles, pretending his cheeks and neck were not scorching hot and red. “We didn’t know you then. And we didn’t know you could hear us. How far can you hear?”

“Pretty far,” she said. “But I’m gonna hear even farther when I grow up. Let’s just say there is no such thing as privacy if you live with werewolves.”

“What she said,” agreed Peter, though his eyes were on Lydia. “The elusive Miss Martin. Finally, we meet.”

Lydia did not look very excited to meet him.

She was standing beside him, but as soon as Peter addressed her, she had taken half a step back, her shoulders pressing against his.

She was staring at Peter with a strange look in her. It was almost like fear, but at the same time, she looked... angry.

When Stiles had first seen Peter Hale, he had had a reaction to the man. In the end, he had settled for 'this man is weird, but not dangerous to me at the moment', but at the beginning, his feelings had been confusing.

Something between nervousness, and distrust, and a strange loyalty.

Lydia's reaction wasn't like Stiles', but it was not that different, either.

She feared him, and she did not like him. And back when they had been... in that place, the swimming pool, she had flinched at the mention/sight of Peter Hale.

Whatever she had seen of Peter Hale was not something good.

Still, Peter Hale was not a bad guy.

Or maybe he was a bad guy, but Stiles was pretty sure he would not hurt them.

He was maybe evil, but he was pretty sure he did not hurt kids.

The way he had immediately hugged Stiles, and tried to help him...

No. He was weird, and creepy, but he wouldn't hurt them.

He took her hand in hers, hoping not saying the words but looking at her in the eyes.

Lydia squeezed his hand back, forcing herself to take that step forward again and relax.

Peter was still watching them both, clearly curious about the girl’s reaction, but he surprised Stiles by not saying anything about it.

Honestly, for someone who the entire family claimed was mean and creepy, Peter had been nothing but nice to Stiles the whole time he had known him.

“What are you doing?”

“Finishing an article,” he explained, eyes back on the several pages in front of him. “The settler–colonialism of Israel: how the victim became the aggressor, and other parallels between 2000s Israel and 1930s Germany.”

Stiles blinked at him. “I don’t understand.”

“I would be surprised if you did,” he said. “There are grown people sitting in position of power who do not seem to understand that if you bring a bunch of people into someone else’s home and decide between you and the newcomer that the place is now theirs, the actual homeowner might get angry and do everything in their power to get their house back.”

He pushed his paper away. “But let’s talk about the two of you.”

“I know what I am.”

There were probably more suave and dramatic ways to go about it. Stiles had even gone through some of them in his head on his way to the Hale’s house, but his mouth was sometimes quicker than his head.

“Do tell.”

“I’m a spark.”

Every time he said it out loud, he felt like it should provoke a reaction. Something big, like a lightning bolt appearing in the sky, or a chorus of awe and surprise.

As the only people he had ever told were Lydia and his own reflection in the mirror, he hadn’t gotten much of that.

Peter though knew much more than Stiles and Lydia did, and he rewarded him with a widening of his eyes and an aborted startled move.

“A spark,” he said. “Of course. Of course, this makes perfect sense. Why didn’t I think of it?”

“Because sparks are rare,” said Lydia, and Peter nodded, as he stood up.

“Because sparks are rare.” He moved towards the books, and they followed behind him. “They aren’t just rare. Sparks haven’t been seen in... forever. The last spark we saw in our lands, was the one who planted the Nemeton. We haven’t had another in our territory...” He paused, turning to Stiles and Lydia. “How do you know? Have you done anything...?”

“Not exactly–”

“He just knows,” said Lydia, challengly. “Sometimes, people just know things.”

Peter nodded like that made complete sense, and looked at Lydia curiously.

“And what are you? A nymph of some sort?”

“A banshee,” she corrected, and again Peter appeared surprised.

“A banshee. I thought Laurel–” he paused, looking at Lydia more closely. “Laurel Reed’s daughter.”

“Um, her mom’s name is–”

“How do you know my grandmother’s name?” 

Peter’s eyes cleared. “I see. You’re Laurel’s granddaughter.” He looked between her and Stiles again, and Stiles could almost imagine the cogs spinning in his head. “Lydia Martin and Stiles Stilinski. A banshee who can see and hear the dead, and a spark who’s power is his belief. And a Nemeton in the woods who claims them both.”

“You know a lot,” said Lydia.

“These woods belong to the Hale family,” he said. “It is my job to make sure there is nothing around that could hurt the members of my pack.”

“And what about the Nemeton,” asked Stiles. “Is that also under your protection?”

“Not exactly.” Peter turned back to his books, seeming to be looking for something in particular. “We cannot protect what we can’t truly comprehend. It was the druid’s to keep safe, but I have a feeling that the tree has gone and found himself new protectors.”

“I don’t want to protect the tree,” said Lydia. “I want to make it stop bothering me.”

“I’m afraid that ship has long since sailed,” said Peter. “If the tree–”

He paused once more, and turned to look at them a little strangely.

“A spark who’s belief is his power,” he repeated. “And a banshee, who can hear and see the dead. And the Nemeton, on top of the ley lines, who claims them both.”

“You said that already.”

“You make sense,” he said, pointing to Stiles. “You have, somehow, connected yourself to the Nemeton. But you... you can see and hear the dead. And the Nemeton has been... you have been seeing dead people?”

Lydia looked over at Stiles and Cora, who both nodded encouragingly.

Peter looked and acted a little scary, but he would not hurt her. Stiles would not allow it, and he knew Peter wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t hurt a kid, Stiles knew... Stiles believed it.

And apparently when he believed in something he made it magic or something, so there.

“Yeah,” she said. “People I know and I don’t. I see them all older, and sometimes they die.”

It clicked.

“People who haven’t died,” Stiles said. “People who haven’t grown up and died, but that you remember dying.”

“When you say remember–”

“What if it happened?” he asked, heart starting to beat a little faster, Peter, Cora and Lydia staring at him. “What if what we are seeing, what we are feeling is because something happened?”

And god... That made a lot of sense, didn’t it?

“What if the nightmare and the dreams are not just that? What if those are memories of what happened?”

He had been the last one standing. Stiles’ dream ended with him alone, with the Nemeton, dying. And Lydia had woken up that night, screaming his name.

Lydia was a banshee.

And Red Hood was stuck at the Nemeton.

And he couldn’t tell him what was happening because magic was ‘tricky’.

“Everyone died,” said Lydia, eyes wide in terror. “The people in my dream. You guys. And we all dreamt about it. We all-” She turned to Peter. “What did you dream about?”

Stiles almost worried Peter wouldn’t say a thing.

He was suddenly looking at them in a way he was pretty sure was not friendly, as if he was assessing what type of trouble they might actually be, and his eyes had gone very cold.

He looked scary.

But he wasn't scary, repeated Stiles to himself, stubbornly. 

Peter wouldn't hurt him.

He wouldn't.

“I came to your house,” he said. Peter’s eyes snapped to him. “When I saw that lady, Kate Argent, I ran to your house to check on you all. To check on you, and Laura, and Cora. And Derek.”

“Kate Argent,” said Peter. His expression had changed, but his brows were furrowed. “You didn’t tell me her name.”

Hadn’t he? He had thought he had.

He didn’t like her. He wasn’t sure of why but if what they thought was true, if really someway somehow they now had memories of things that had happened – things that had gone horribly wrong – then Kate Argent was involved.

Peter opened his mouth, but then he closed it again. 

“I was in the woods,” he said. “I was awake, I wasn't having a nightmare. I was going home from- I was coming home.

"Then, all of a sudden, there was this... sound, energy, whatever it was. It felt like it had just slammed into me, and... I lost control.”

“Lost control?”

"I couldn't see anything," he said, looking troubled. "I couldn't hear anything. It was like something was trying to rip my wolf out of my body, and I couldn't control myself or the shift. I just completely lost control, and I was then completely my wolf."

"And that's... not normal."

Peter shook his head. "Despite what werewolf hunters like Kate Argent might have you belief, the wolf is part of us. We are both our human and our wolf sides. We are connected, it's never one or the other. It's always one and the other, from the moment we learn how to shift by ourselves.

"But that night... it was like my wolf wasn't my wolf anymore. It was as if I was two people, like a part of me was stuck somewhere else, reacting to something I couldn't see or understand."

He shook his head again. "I blacked out almost the entire night. So did Derek, as a matter of fact."

"This is insane," said Stiles, sitting down on the floor. Lydia looked very pale, and Cora looked confused too, but he couldn't bring himself to try and offer either of them support. "This is like. Crazy. Super crazy. Insane level crazy. Eichen house level crazy."

"We get it."

"No, you don't," he snapped, looking up at Cora. "Because if any of this is true... then a version of us died. A version of us lived all those horrors and destruction and terrible stuff and now me and Lydia are somehow... linked to it? What does this even mean? Is it a parallel universe? Is this time travel? Is it-"

"Time travel," said Peter. Stiles looked at him, and he made a face. "That's what you called it, isn't it? Last time, you asked me what I thought about time travel, whether it existed or not."

Stiles had.

But he hadn't meant it literally. He hadn't thought...

That he had timetravelled.

That he and his friends had ended up time travelling without knowing or remembering it.

It felt crazy to even think about it.

"It doesn't make sense," he protested.

"The world doesn't make sense," said Peter. "And I'm afraid things are about to make even less sense."

Stiles did not see how that could be possible, but Peter had a grim expression on his face.

"I need you to tell me everything you can about Katherine Argent."

Chapter Text

The Nemeton was there.

As silent and powerful has it had been since the beginning, standing in the middle of the woods – in the middle of Stiles’ mind.

But it was alone.

The magic was still there – that buzzing energy from the core of the earth that had brought him there to begin with. Now he knew that it was, in fact, the ley lines of Beacon Hills.

But that was it. 

The Nogitsune was gone, and Red Hood was nowhere to be seen.

Yet again.

“This isn’t fair,” said Stiles, when standing there waiting did not make the other him appear in front of him. “For weeks you have been in my mind. No matter what I said or did, or how little I wanted you and understood, you kept coming in my head. But now that I need you, now that I actually want to talk to you, you are nowhere to be seen.”

The woods remained quiet.

Stiles glowered at the darkness surrounding him.

“You have to explain this to me!” he insisted. “You time travelled? You are from a different universe? You are... my future? What does any of it mean? Am I meant to become you or stop myself from being like you?”

Still silence.

“Are the things I dreamt about real? Am I going to die? Is everyone going to die? Who is Kate Argent? And why do only Lydia and I remember everything?”

Peter had explained – or at least given his opinion – but that wasn’t enough.

Not when there was someone who had probably given them the nightmares that they could talk to; the one person who could actually explain what they were all going through and why.

But the moment Stiles needed him, the moment he was actively looking for him to come and explain it all, he was nowhere to be seen.

“Please! I just... I just want to understand!” He refused to cry even when his voice broke, wiping his eyes aggressively. “I don’t want to be alone again! I don’t want people to die, and everything from my nightmare to happen. Everything from their nightmares to happen. Please, just help me understand.”

His voice echoed in the vastness of the woods.

The woods remained quiet.

Red Hood did not show.

“You look terrible.”

Stiles looked up from his apple to find Lydia standing over him.

Considering the fact that he had chosen this particular spot in the library in the hope that nobody noticed or found him, this was unexpected.

“How did you find me?”

“Cora told me you'd be here,” she said, sitting down next to him. “She said that you ‘smelled miserable’. She would have come, but she wasn’t sure she could have helped much.”

“Did you just say–”

“Yep. Apparently hearing stuff that is very far away isn’t enough, they can smell it too. And they can smell emotions.”

“All emotions?”

How would that even work? Did emotions have smells? Did different emotions have different smells? How did they know what emotion smelled like what?

Dogs could apparently sense fear, but he had never heard of them sensing anything else. 

Which brought the question, who had better sense of smell? Dogs or werewolves? 

Could werewolves solve crimes the way dogs could?

So many questions.

He was sure that if he asked Cora or Peter or perhaps even Talia, he would get the answers. But he did not really want to ask much more of them.

He had received enough answers, in his personal opinion.

“I didn’t ask,” said Lydia, popping her fruit pouch open. “You are scared.”

There were many ways he could respond to that statement.

Then he remembered he was talking to Lydia Martin, and determined there was only one, really.

“Aren’t you?” he asked. “We have just found out that maybe our nightmares and the visions you have been having are real things that happened. That people we like and care about...” the word was too heavy for his tongue. “Were gone. That we were gone. Because terrible things happened, and everything we loved was destroyed.

“And not only those terrible things happened in the future. Somehow someway we suddenly remember all of them. There are werewolves, and banshees, and sparks, and mages, and Nemetons and there are hunters and monsters too.”

Stiles had made two not so pleasing discoveries, the day before.

One, had discovered that Peter’s ex partner was Chris Argent.

Two, the Argents were a family of werewolf hunters.

Meaning that his reaction to Kate Argent, in the context of Stiles and Lydia potentially having visions and reactions to things that may or may not have happened in the future/alternate reality, was not a good thing.

Especially if his reactions to Kate Argent had been terror and an uncontrollable anxiety that had led him to check in with the Hales to make sure they were all alive and well.

He wanted to believe that maybe he had overreacted. That his reaction to Kate was like Lydia’s reaction to Peter.

But did he want to risk it?

Peter seemed convinced that there was something to the theory. Cora had been confused, and Lydia hadn’t really outwardly reacted.

But Stiles... he couldn’t bring himself to be excited about any of it.

How could he?

The idea of the future had always been exciting. Had always been something to look forward to. Even when he had met Red Hood and realised who and what he was, he had been hopeful. Had thought that perhaps there was something he hadn’t seen, but that it didn’t, at the end of the day, mean anything.

But now...

Now he wasn’t even sure what to believe.

Because then were his feelings and reactions his own anymore? Or were those things Red Hood wanted him to feel? Things he wanted him to react to?

Was Red Hood trying to make him into what he was? Or was he trying to save Stiles from what he had lost?

And were any of his feelings his anymore? Was his friendship with Cora real at all? If Red Hood hated Kate Argent and found her dangerous for the Hales, were Stiles’ feelings towards the Hales real? Or were they just things Red Hood wanted him to feel?

And the ‘pack’. His friends.

Clearly they had been Red Hood’s friends. If what had brought them together were those nightmares and the feelings – feelings that were not really his – then were they really his friends? 

Sure, it felt real. Sure, it had made sense for them to be together. But were any of those feelings real or was it all just what Red Hood had wanted from the beginning?

“I think Red Hood wants you to realise something for yourself.”

Stiles looked up from his apple, frowning at Lydia.

“What?”

“Red Hood isn’t coming to your dreams anymore is he?”

He wanted to ask how she knew.

Then he determined she was Lydia and had been amazing even before she had started having visions, and didn’t bother.

“He helped you figure things out,” she said, tapping her finger over the pouch. “He spelled out that you were a spark. He has been trying to put things into perspective to you since the beginning, trying to get you to figure out what was going on.

“If he wanted to mislead you or trick you, he wouldn’t have bothered.” Stiles frowned, and she gesticulated impatiently. “Manipulation works best when the other party doesn’t know they are being manipulated. When magic was already making it hard for him to communicate with you, why do his best to tell you things when not knowing them would have made you more malleable and reliable?”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” he said. “I’m stubborn.”

“He is you,” said Lydia, but she didn’t sound like that was an insult or a bad thing. “If he wanted to keep it from you, he would have figured out how. But he didn’t want to do that. Why? Why try so hard to make sure you know everything?”

Stiles had been wondering that too.

At first, he had just believed Red Hood was a manifestation of his own brain. That something had happened to him, and his brain was making him see Red Hood to make it make sense.

But now...

Why would someone as powerful as it said in the book, someone who’s power was his ‘belief’ make all of this happen (in theory)? Why send his... memories back in time, why rely on a bunch of kids and hope they would get the answers in time?

It didn’t make sense.

It was almost... stupid.

Unless...

Unless there hadn't been any other way.

Unless he had had to.

“Because he didn’t have any other choice,” he surmised. “It was the only way–”

He paused.

Red Hood said that there were people he would do anything to protect (his father and Scott).

And... at the end of the day, so would Stiles.

If everyone was gone, and hurt, and he was the only one left... if every terrible thing had happened, how did a person make it better? How did he fix it?

“Prevention is better than cure,” he said.

Lydia nodded. “I don’t think they are trying to manipulate or hurt us. The future us, and the Nemeton, and the visions and nightmares. I think they are warnings.”

Warnings.

Peter Hale is not a bad guy, but he is dangerous.

Kate Argent is dangerous.

Talia Hale is powerful.

It was  a warning, yes. But it was also a covert way of saying ‘don’t make the same mistakes I did by trusting or not being wary enough of certain people’.

“Look at how wrong things can go.”

Lydia nodded grimly, and Stiles was almost glad to see that despite sounding like she understood everything, she was holding her fruit pouch a little harder than before.

She wasn’t as confident as she appeared.

Good, because Stiles wasn’t either.

“I’m scared,” he confessed. Lydia glanced back at him. “I know that this is like... super bad, and all. That they wouldn’t like, ask us for help if it wasn’t dire. But I don’t... this is so much. Like... Beacon Hills being destroyed and everyone dying and we are the only ones who can stop it?”

The idea was scary and too big for his head to wrap around. All he could think about was that moment in the nightmare he remembered the most visibly, that moment when he was the only one left and he was choking on that feeling of being alone and surrounded by death.

It hadn’t been real, not to him. He hadn’t actually been there.

But even the memory of that feeling made him want to throw up, made him want to curl up on the ground and hope for it to go away, for someone else to fix it.

Except nobody else could fix it. Nobody else could or would, because he was the spark, and Lydia was the banshee, and the Nemeton and their future selves were expecting them to do it all.

“I... I can’t do this by myself.”

“Nobody said that,” said Lydia, frowning. 

“Uh?”

“We don’t have to do all of it alone,” she explained. “Nobody said we had to.”

They hadn’t, but it was implied.

“We can’t tell my dad,” he reminded. “Or even your parents. What are we going to tell them? That in... maybe five years the whole town is going to die? And that we know about it because of nightmares we have, and because we are a little bit magic?”

“I don’t know if banshee count as being magic since they don’t actually manipulate magic,” started Lydia, “But that’s not what I meant.

“Me and you might be the only people with powers, but we have a pack.” She raised an eyebrow. “We have friends.”

They... did. 

Their friends. The group that, for good or bad reason, Stiles had managed to help create.

Lydia had said that in her visions, they had been werewolves too. Bitten, not born like the Hales, but still werewolves.

That’s why they were a ‘pack’ to begin with.

They weren’t wolves anymore, that was true. But Stiles knew that they would still believe him if he told them all this. That they would trust his words and not go and tell their parents or call him crazy.

Because they all had weird nightmares.

Because they had all shared their nightmares and had yet to make fun of each other for it (not even Jackson).

Because they had all followed Stiles in the woods when he said he could find Lydia.

Because they had been shocked when he found Lydia, but none of them had told anyone about the how or demanded an actual explanation.

Because Scott had told them Stiles ‘heard a voice’ in the woods, and none of them treated him like he was crazy.

They definitely could not do everything by themselves.

They were kids and, sooner or later Stiles would have to tell his dad things. And Peter (and possibly Talia) already knew some of it anyway.

But he had them.

He had his friends.

That meant a lot. That meant more than a lot.

And... There had to be a reason the memories came to them. Why specific people had nightmares, similar and not. Why the Hales (including maybe Derek) felt what they felt.

There had to be a reason for it all.

“Speaking of friends,” then said Lydia, “Is it just me or Isaac...?”

She didn’t finish.

She didn’t need to.

Stiles sighed. “I’m working on it.”

“Dad, I have a question.”

“Oh boy.” They were at a traffic light, and Stiles could feel the way he was studying him, even though he refused to glance up. “I was wondering what was cooking up in your head. Is this a ‘you can still drive without risking a car crash’ or is this a ‘you might want to pull over’ type of talk?”

Stiles considered it for a second.

“It’s not about me,” he offered, “But it might still make you upset. But you can drive. I think?”

“Oh, boy,” he repeated.

“You are the Sheriff,” started Stiles. “So if I tell you something, you have to do something about it. Even if everyone involved wasn’t ready for you to do things. Right.”

A pause from his father.

Still, Stiles did not dare look up.

“If it was a serious situation,” he said, eventually. “And a real situation. If something was happening to someone and you let it slip, I would have to do something about it.”

“What if something was hypothetical?”

Another pause.

“Stiles–” He stopped himself. “If it was hypothetical then I suppose I wouldn’t have to. But Stiles–”

“So, if hypothetically I knew someone who was having a bad time at home,” continued Stiles, “But his hypothetical father – let’s say that, hypothetically, he was a boy – is a respected person that everyone believes and trusts. How do we hypothetically protect that person?”

“You’re right,” said the Sheriff, tapping a finger over the steering wheel. “I do not like this conversation.” He sighed. “But hypothetically, it depends on how much of a bad time the boy is having.”

“Multiple people have seen him with bruises and other injuries,” immediately said Stiles. “But he always has excuses.” A beat. “Hypothetically.”

“He’s protecting the abuser,” said his father, sounding resigned. “If he’s not ready to tell anyone how he actually got hurt, it would be hard to get him out of the house. He wouldn’t turn on the abusive father.”

“What if someone went and checked and scared the father?”

“It wouldn’t help,” admitted his dad, as he moved towards the parking lot of the diner. “For one, we would need a real case. No hypotheticals involved.” He gave Stiles a look through the car mirror that made him squirm a little. “Second, if we do not discover any proof of actual abuse and the child is not willing to testify, we would have to leave him there. The only thing we would achieve is making the parent angry and then leave the kid with the angry parent.”

That was definitely not what Stiles wanted.

“So basically, in a situation like this,” he then said, “There is no way to fix things?”

The Sheriff sighed again.

“A situation like this is complicated,” he corrected. “And there are a lot of variables to consider. The most important variable – the abused kid – is also the one that is less stable and hard to predict.

“Some kids, despite protecting their abuser, jump at the chance of a saviour. Some kids will accidentally - or on purpose - end up showing signs of their abuse that ends up with the local authority taking them away. Some kids, though, hide their abuse and support their abuser. It’s hard to predict.”

To Stiles it sounded like what he had said, but with more words, but he didn’t say so.

The Sheriff did not add anything either as they climbed out of the car and made for the diner, which Stiles was grateful for.

He couldn’t decide if Isaac would or would not protect his father. Considering the fact that he hadn’t told anyone anything, the signs pointed to the fact that he didn’t want anyone to know about what was happening. If so, why? Did he still love his father, or had he been threatened to not let the proverbial cat out of the bag?

Or was Isaac just waiting and hoping for someone to notice it and bring it up to him? Maybe what Stiles needed to do was approach him and ask him directly what was happening at home. He hadn’t shared when around many people, but maybe he would do it if it was one on one.

Though he didn’t exactly like Stiles all that much...

Perhaps he could ask Lydia to ask him. She had figured it out all by herself too.

Or Cora. Isaac seemed to like Cora, and she seemed to like him. And even though she had never said anything, he was pretty sure Cora knew about what was happening to him. Now that he knew she was a wolf and could tell when people were whispering secrets to themselves or lying to others, some of her actions made him think. 

Or even Jackson. Jackson was Isaac’s neighbour. If something was happening to Isaac, Jackson could possible be a witness. He had probably seen some of what had happened, and his father was a lawyer. He hadn’t come forward before, but maybe...

He didn’t know why he turned around.

His father was in front of him, waiting in the queue, and Stiles had been trying to find a solution to the ‘Isaac problem’. Nobody called his name, and he didn't feel anything in particular.

Maybe he heard his voice. Maybe he somehow just sensed his presence.

Whatever the reason, logical or magical, Stiles found himself turning around.

And locking eyes with Derek.

Derek Hale.

For a moment, Stiles was pleased. 

Derek was there! He had not seen him last time he was at the Hale house, and he was immediately moving to say hi to him.

Then, he noticed how wide Derek’s eyes were. And how red his face was.  

And the fact that he was seating at the diner, sharing his table with someone else.

Stiles felt a strange feeling in his stomach, until he looked in front of Derek and saw... her.

Her.

Her.

Kate Argent.

The same feeling of dread he had felt the first time started building in his chest, but it wasn’t just that, this time.

This time it wasn’t just the sight of her blonde hair and face that made his heart go fast and his hands go clammy.

The panic that seized his throat was at the sight of Derek sitting in front of the woman.

He didn’t know why Kate Argent was dangerous. He didn’t know if Red Hood was right or exaggerating or whatnot.

But he knew that the first time around, the sight of her had made Stiles go all the way to the Hale house to check that all of them were alright.

To check on the Hales. To check on Peter. To check on Laura. To check on Cora. 

To check on Derek.

And now she was sitting there.

With Derek.

A hunter was sitting with a werewolf.

This hunter was sitting with this werewolf.

“Hey, Stiles,” said Derek, looking still red and nervous and embarrassed. “How are you–”

“We have to go.”

He did not look at Kate Argent as he spoke, just at Derek.

He focused only on Derek, trying to force his head and heart and lungs to co-operate for a second.

“What?” Derek looked confused. “What do you mean–”

“We have to go,” insisted Stiles, trying to make him understand. “Remember? We said that we were gonna go. To that place. The other time. That we had to go, and you said that we were gonna go and now we have to go. Come on!”

“Stiles,” said Derek, frowning as Stiles grabbed his wrist. “What are you talking about?”

“Is everything okay, Derek? Who’s your little friend?”

Her voice repulsed him. It was all wrong and too sweet, and it made Stiles want to retreat in his shirt and hide. He didn’t want her to look at him, and he didn't want to look her.

And he hated the way she said Derek’s name, the way Derek’s face turned even more red, and he turned his face her way.

“Uh, that’s my sister’s friend,” said Derek. “He’s a bit of an oddball.”

He had to make him listen. He had to make Derek understand his words and believe him.

But how?

He couldn’t just say ‘she is dangerous’. Just because he knew this, and Peter believed it, didn’t mean Derek would. Especially if she was right there, ready to trick him or lie or something.

He couldn’t say she was a hunter. Why was Derek out with a hunter anyway? Did he know what she was? Was she hiding it from him?

Did she know he was a werewolf?

If her brother had dated Peter, chances were that yes. She would know.

Why would a hunter go out with a werewolf? Why would an old hunter go out with a teenager? Why was Derek there? How-

How did he make sure Derek knew he was telling the truth? 

If he could talk to him in private, he could convince him. If he could tell him everything while he was away from her, then maybe he would listen.

But to tell him things away from her, he had to get Derek away from her.

Derek wasn't going to leave just because Stiles said so, and Stiles did not want to wait until later today or even tomorrow to tell him everything.

He needed to know now.

But how?

How did he tell him in private? How did he–

Lydia.

“Stiles, are you okay? You look a little pale.”

It should have been hard.

It had been hard with Lydia. He had had to focus on the strings, and find Lydia’s one. Then he had had to focus on what he wanted to say, and he had had to try a couple of times to make sure it worked.

He had not been training his powers. He had not even really tried, since that first day.

However, as soon as Stiles focused on trying to reach Derek’s thread, it was there.

Like a connection that Stiles had used before, a string he had played with over and over again, familiar and simple.

He tugged on it as hard as he could.

You cannot trust her, he tried to say, knowing he sounded desperate. He wasn’t sure if he was thinking really hard or actually talking in his mind, but Derek’s startled jump and the way he stared at him were proof it had worked.

“Derek? Are you okay?”

“How–”

Derek, she is dangerous. I don’t know who she said she is, but you cannot trust her. I don’t know how to explain it, and it doesn’t make sense, but she is going to hurt you. She is going to hurt your family, and I know it sounds insane but please believe me. Please leave.

His head hurt. He wasn’t sure how much he had actually said or sent or if he had just been creepily staring at Derek in silence the whole time, but–

“Right,” suddenly said Derek, clumsily slapping a hand on his forehead. “I totally forgot. Miss Silver,” he turned to Kate, and Stiles refused to do the same, “I did promise him that I would–”

“It’s not a problem, Derek,” she said. Her voice sounded completely normal and understanding.

But when Stiles finally made the mistake to glance at her, she was staring at him with a look that made him shiver and look away immediately.

“Do you need me to give you a ride home–”

“Dad said he’ll drop us off,” said Stiles, this time giving in to the urge of pull him by his wrist. “He’s the Sheriff, so it’s okay.”

“It’s fine,” agreed Derek, giving her a smile Stiles hated seeing. "I'll uh... See you at school?"

"Of course," she agreed. "Bye, Derek. Bye-bye, Stiles."

Stiles might have muttered something, but he really could not have been sure.

All he knew was that as soon as Derek stood up, he was pulling him all the way to the cashier, where his father was paying for the dinner.

"Stiles, what are-" He blinked. "Derek?"

"Uh, hi, Sheriff, I-"

"Derek needs a ride to his house," said Stiles, looking up at his dad. "We can drop him off on the way."

His father frowned. "We can?" Stiles looked at him, and his father shook his head, turning back to the cashier. "I guess we can. How much do I owe ya?"

He might have said something more, and Derek might have also said something, but all Stiles could focus on was Kate Argent dark presence behind them.

She remained at her table the entire transaction, and Stiles could just feel her eyes on his and Derek's backs the whole time.

It wasn't until they were out of the door with today's dinner secured and Stiles' hand still wrapped around Derek's wrist that he finally relaxed.

“Okay,” said Derek, as soon as the door was closed behind them and the Sheriff was enough steps away. “What the hell just happened?”

Chapter Text

The book on the origins of Beacon Hills was a book Stiles had checked out of the school library during his first weeks of researching. He had never had the chance to actually sit down and read it but, apparently, when the choice was between reading the book and doing homework, the answer was easy.

Not that the book was particularly interesting.

After finding out about how long werewolves – and possibly other supernatural creatures – had lived in Beacon Hills, reading about the first mayor and the first European settlers was a bit boring.

He was playing a game of ‘guess if this person might have been a Hale/werewolf/some-supernatural-being’ as he went through it, but the stakes were low, since there was no one to tell him if he was right or wrong with his assumptions.

He kept alternating between that and the book on the Bête, which Stiles found much more creepy and scary.

La Bête de Gevaudan.

The book was more of a collection of stories than a book. It seemed to be a collection of tales from a number of different - but related - hunters (Stiles was pretty sure it was the werewolf kind, even though it was not specified) and how they all kept trying to get this huge monster-creature-being they called Bête (Beast in French).

So far he had met–

Stiles startled, glancing up at the window.

It was closed, and there was no birds standing on the windowsill or anything. Yet, he could have sworn–

A second rock against his window made him jump sightly. He had not imagined it! Someone was throwing rocks against his windows!

But who on Earth would throw rocks–

His thoughts came to a stop as, after scrambling close enough to see outside the window without the person outside noticing him, he saw Derek.

Derek Hale.

“What the hell,” he muttered, standing up properly and opening the window. “What are you doing? My dad’s home!”

Derek was standing near the trees, making it a little hard to notice him if you weren’t already looking in that direction. He was holding a bunch of rocks in one palm, and was looking at Stiles like he was the one who was being annoying/rude.

Derek put a hand over his lips, and indicated for Stiles to step back.

At first Stiles did not move, confused as to what the other was planning to do.

Then Derek glanced left and right before he trotted closer to the house.

Certainly he wasn’t–

But he was.

Stiles stared, dumbfounded, as Derek scaled the tree closest to his window with barely any effort at all. He landed on the pitched roof in front of his bedroom with a soft thud and then proceeded to climb through Stiles’ bedroom window.

Stiles stared at him, utterly confused, as Derek wiped invisible dust from his clothes.

“You’re going to catch flies,” said the werewolf, glancing back at him. "Close your mouth."

“You climbed through my window!” hissed Stiles, looking at the closed door of his room in worry. “My dad’s home!”

“He’s asleep,” said Derek, rolling his eyes as if Stiles was the one being ridiculous. He moved past Stiles and sat down at his desk chair, before looking at him expectantly. “You owe me an explanation.”

Stiles would have loved to argue against this – Derek Hale had literally just broken into his house through his bedroom window! Wasn’t that, like, illegal? – but he supposed he did have some stuff to explain to him.

They had not had much chance the other day, considering the Sheriff had been driving and there was no real chance to say ‘I’m magic and I think the lady you were eating with is evil’ in such close quarters.

“It’s a long story,” warned Stiles. He looked at his room, feeling a little embarrassed about its state, before foregoing any cleaning attempt and settling on the floor.

It was Derek's own fault for coming by unannounced and uninvited.

He could deal with some mess.

“I have time.”

Stiles pulled out the various papers from under his bed. They had multiplied as of late, following all of the discoveries he, Lydia and Peter had made, and he had started storing them in old shoe boxes under his bed.

“The night of the seventh September,” he started. “The night someone – an alpha werewolf, most likely – bit Paige.”

Derek startled, eyes widening. 

“How do you know that?”

“I know a lot of things,” said Stiles, waving him off. “Point is, something happened to me that night. Something happened to a lot of us.”

Without going into too much details, he explained about the nightmares, and the people who had suffered them. He added what he knew and had gathered from Cora, about the reaction this had had on three particular wolves in the Hale pack.

Then he explained his research, and his dreams and nightmares since. His strange relationship with people in his class he had previously all but ignored. His relationship with the Nemeton. Lydia going missing, and Stiles being able to find her.

The realisation that the Hales were werewolves, and the book Peter gave him.

The final puzzle that allowed him to figure out what he was, and Peter’s theory on how and why this was happening to them.

Derek took it all as well as expected.

“That makes... no sense,” was the first thing he said once Stiles stopped talking. “You are magic? And this... Lydia girl is also magic? And you know the future?”

“I don’t know the future,” huffed Stiles. “But I seem to have some... keen sixth sense. Lydia has visions of the future.”

“Visions focused on the deaths of certain people.”

“Well, yes.” Stiles shrugged. “We are still figuring out what has happened and why us and all of... that.”

“The details,” said Derek in a highly sarcastic tone. “Which means you don’t know anything.”

This time it was Stiles’ turn to glare.

“In your opinion, is it normal for a bunch of middle school kids who barely interacted, and three members of the Hale family to have very familiar experiences on the same night? Or is it normal that, following that event, said people find themselves inexplicably drawn to one another?”

Derek made a face. “I am not inexplicably drawn to anyone. Let alone you.”

“I told you to come with me and you came with me.”

Not that Stiles wasn’t immensely grateful for that. He wasn’t quite sure what he would have done, had Derek chosen not to follow him.

“Because you started panicking and smelling scared and you spoke inside my head,” said Derek. “Not because I am ‘drawn’ to you. You are a toddler, and I don’t even know you.”

Those words stung, but Stiles pretended he couldn’t feel it.

It wasn’t like Derek was wrong.

Well, he was wrong about Stiles being a toddler. That was just him being mean.

But he did not know Stiles, and owed him nothing.

Just because Stiles felt oddly protective of him (and the rest of the Hales), didn’t mean there was any sort of relationship between the two of them.

He came with you, said a voice in his head. He could have told your dad that you weren’t well, or something, but he came with you.

Did that prove anything, though?

“Well. that’s what I have,” he said, a little defensively. “Magic and theories.”

“Magic,” repeated Derek, though this time he did not sound as mocking. “Have you been practicing? What can you do?”

“The book Peter gave me says sparks work with the strength of their belief or something,” he explained, reaching for the book from under his bed. Derek’s eyebrows went really high, and Stiles glared. “Shut up. The book says that sparks can become emissary to the Nemeton or mages and basically they are usually powerful. 

“But I have not found anything that teaches me how to do things, and Red Hood has not shown up to help either.”

“And by Red Hood you mean the older you that you dream about,” said Derek.

“So you were listening. Good for you.”

Derek ignored the jab. “What about the speaking in my mind? Cause that was freaky.”

“I don’t really know how it works,” admitted Stiles. “All I know is that I had to find the string that was connected to you and through that I could speak to you. It work with Lydia, so... what?”

“String,” said Derek, brows now furrowed. “Connected to me?”

“Oh, yeah. There is so many and when I close my head and concentrate, I can almost see them. There are a lot of them, which is weird, and some of them are just on the floor, where I cannot get them. There is one for Lydia, one for you, Scott, Cora, Erica... even Peter.”

“What colour are they?” Stiles opened his eyes and found Derek looking at him with an expression he wasn’t sure was fascinated or not. “The bonds– the strings.”

“Orangey? Yellowy?”

“Gold?”

“Oh,” said Stiles, looking at him in surprise. “Yes, gold. How did you know?”

“And where are they?” Derek did not exactly look worried, but he was perturbed. “Where do they come from?”

Stiles considered this for a moment.

Then, he patted his chest, where his heart was.

“Behind my heart, I think. It’s hard to describe, but I think they start or finish there.” Derek continued to look baffled, so Stiles put down his hand, looking at him worried. “What?”

“You are not lying,” he marvelled. “Cora wouldn’t tell you this.”

“I didn’t mention this to Peter or Cora,” he confirmed. “I didn’t really have time to. Seriously, what is it? You’re making me nervous. Is it bad?”

“It’s not bad,” assured Derek, shaking his heads. “It’s just... what you’re describing sounds a lot like pack bonds.”

“Pack... bonds?”

Derek nodded. “Werewolves are pack creatures. A strong pack is one where the betas and the alpha care deeply for each other, where despite rivalry and whatnot, relationship are strong and cemented among all.

“A sign of a healthy pack is healthy pack bonds,” he continued. “Which are, in lay man terms, strings that connect two wolves to one another. The alpha’s bond will always be the strongest, but any beta would have bonds with everyone else.”

Stiles blinked, absorbing this.

“So am I a beta or an omega?”

“You’re not a wolf,” said Derek in a slightly snappish tone. “Which means you shouldn’t have a bond.”

“I told you,” said Stiles. “If the time-travel theory is correct, then I was in a pack. In a pack with other wolves. Do humans in packs not get pack bonds?”

“Not the type that they can manipulate,” said Derek. “They can feel them, but communicating through them? Only the more–”

He trailed off.

“The more what?” asked Stiles, looking at him wonderingly. “Tell me. You can’t leave me hanging.”

Derek made a face like he was in pain.

“Der-ek. I’m going to be annoying until you tell me. And if you already think I am annoying, you are not ready for what I can do when I’m motivated. And your silence is motivating me. Re-motivating me. It’s–”

“The more... magical members of the pack,” said Derek, looking very unhappy. Stiles blinked at him, and he sighed. “Only the more magical members of the pack can manipulate pack bonds.”

Oh.

Oh.

“Which means–”

“Don’t get smug–”

“I’m not–”

“Your face is–”

“Admit it, admit it, admi–”

“It doesn’t make you completely right,” said Derek, crossing his arms. “You are magical, fine. Talking in my head already proved it. Doesn’t mean that you are also right.”

“It sort of does, dude.”

“Don’t call me dude,” said Derek. “And you have still to explain what does any of this have to do with Miss Silver.”

“Miss Silver? Who is Miss Silver?”

“Seriously? You dragged me away from her and you don’t even know her name?”

“Dragged you...? But I-” Stiles paused. “The lady you were with at the diner? That’s not her name.”

“She’s my guidance counsellor,” said Derek, rolling his eyes. “I know her name.”

She was his guidance counsellor, realised Stiles, with growing horror. She was in school with him every day.

No wonder she had let him go without any real fuss.

She could speak to him or do evil things to him whenever she wanted.

“Derek,” he said, turning to look at him very seriously. “Werewolves can tell when people are lying, right?”

“Uh, yeah. When you lie, your heartbeat usually gives you away. A little blip in the rhythm that...” He shook his head. “Not important. Yes, we can.”

“Actually, very important and I want to hear more about it later,” clarified Stiles – already, he had so many questions forming in his brain, but he couldn’t get distracted now – “But I need you to use your power. Activate it.”

“I... don’t need to activate it,” he said, looking at Stiles weirdly. “You really care to know?”

“Well, duh.” Stiles rolled his eyes. “Being a werewolf sounds so cool. Like I know you probably hear and smell things you don’t want to, sometimes, but still. You can run super fast, and hear super far, and do all sort of other cool things Cora hasn’t explained yet. I want to know all about it!” Derek kept looking at him like he didn’t understand him – Stiles was, as previously stated, very familiar with the expression – but Stiles had a point to all this. “And if you don’t need to activate it, then listen very carefully.

“Your teacher’s name is not Miss Silver.” Derek’s smile disappeared, and Stiles stared at him as earnestly as possible, trying to make sure his heart did not accidentally lie about him lying. Could that happen? If you were too nervous and your heart reacted to that, could a werewolf think you were actually lying?

Another question to ask later.

“Her name is Kate Argent. Katherine Argent. Like little sister of Chris Argent, Katherine Argent. Like daughter and sister of werewolf hunters, Katherine Argent.” 

“You’re–”

“Not lying,” urged Stiles. “You can hear my heartbeat! You know I’m telling the truth!”

Derek looked from Stiles to the rest of the room, brows furrowing.

He opened his mouth a couple of times and then closed, his scowl growing.

Stiles wanted to speak, but he decided it was best to wait for Derek to react.

He was actually impressed he had not immediately jumped right back out of the window (he did not point it out, though: Derek was definitely the type to do something like that out of spite).

“How do you know?” He finally turned to Stiles, his frown still in place. “You don’t know her. How could you know who she is and who her siblings are when even I don’t?”

“It’s... complicated,” admitted Stiles, sitting back on the ground.

Derek also sat down more comfortably, expression severe and arms crossed.

“Try.”

Stiles sighed.

“I don’t remember the day, exactly, but I went grocery shopping with dad. We were just buying things that we were out of, and I think we had gotten to the S part of the list – yes, I alphabetise our shopping list, don’t make that face, it’s a very smart system to remember everything – and we were like... at scallops? I think we were at the scallops part. We were walking towards the seafood section, I think, which means–”

“Stiles,” interrupted Derek. “Focus.”

“Right. Sorry.” He tapped his fingers over the box, a little nervous.

He didn’t know why he was so nervous about the possibility of Derek not believing him.

Peter believed him. And Cora believed him, and so did Lydia.

If Peter believed him, then Talia would believe him too, since he was her left hand man... wolf.

Between the two of them they would totally deal with Kate Argent, whether Derek believed him or not.

Sure, Derek not believing him might cause problems if he decided to still be around her after Stiles was done talking.

But he did not think that was the whole reason behind his nervousness.

He wanted... wanted Derek to believe him.

Derek had decided to follow Stiles out of that diner, and it had made him feel... strange. He had been happy, and grateful, and some other things that confused him.

If Derek did not believe him... if Stiles told him everything and he decided that Stiles was a liar and he decided to choose Kate Argent over him...

Stiles did not want that to happen.

The very idea made him want to cry.

“Stiles.”

“I ran into her in one of the corridors,” said Stiles, focusing on Derek again. “She did not even notice me, I don’t think.

“But as soon as I looked at her, I felt... awful.” He shuddered at the memory. “Not only did I know immediately who she was, I was... worse than scared. I wanted to get out of there immediately before she saw me or touched me, and then...

“It was weird because, more than how nervous I was, I was scared about you... guys. The Hales.”

Derek frowned. “My family?”

“Uh-uh. I was so scared and couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t calm down until my dad drove me all the way to your house. Until I saw that your family was fine, that Peter was fine, and Cora was fine. And you.”

“Me?” Derek’s eyebrows rose up. “That’s when you came into the library while I was reading The Picture of Dorian Gray, wasn’t it? You were– it was that day.”

Stiles nodded, twisting his hands uncomfortably.

“Maybe there is no time travel. Maybe this is all a big coincidence or a misunderstanding. But for some reason I knew that Kate Argent was dangerous and I somehow know that she is Kate Argent. I didn’t know she was a hunter until I mentioned her surname to Peter–” He paused. “Also, 'Argent' means silver.”

“What?”

“Argent,” repeated Stiles. He picked up the book on the Bête from the top of his desk and opened the last page, where the glossary was. “‘Argent: late Middle English; silver; silvery white.’” He glanced back up at Derek. “She literally used a synonym for her surname. It’s like if you started going by ‘Healthy’ instead of ‘Hale’.”

“... What?”

“Healthy,” repeated Stiles. “In certain British and Scottish dialects, being in good ‘hale’ means being in good health.”

Derek stared at him.

Stiles stared back.

“What?”

“Why do you know that?”

“Why don’t you know that?” He closed the book. “Point is, as soon as I told Peter that the person that made me upset was ‘Kate Argent’ he connected her to... you know. The guy he was dating.”

“I didn’t know he was a hunter,” said Derek, frowning as he picked up the book on the Bête. “Peter never explained it. He just let everyone assume his dad was against him being gay. What is this book about?”

“Book– oh. Er, it’s about this monster slash Beast that terrorized the south of France back in the 18th Century. Apparently it was a man-eating animal – which I think means not a werewolf – and was impossible to catch. This book is like a collection of diary entries of hunters trying to get him, but in so far, they all end up dead.”

“Hunters,” said Derek. “Normal hunters or...”

Stiles shrugged. “They were trying to get what they considered a man eating monster, so I don’t think they were just normal hunters. But they never say werewolf hunters–” He paused at the pinched expression on Derek’s face. “What?”

Again, he looked like he really did not want to say what he was thinking about.

But then, he did.

“The cover design on the front,” he explaining, tapping the cover. “Miss Silver’s necklace is the same.”

“It is?!” Stiles took the book from his hands, studying the cover. He had not really paid much attention to it, because it was stylised and kind of creepy. The only thing he had thought, upon picking it up, was that the Beast looked nothing like that. 

“It can’t be a coincidence,” said Stiles, looking at Derek again. “That her name is a translation of Argent, like the hunter family, and she has a necklace that shows a Beast that has killed many hunters before.”

“She could be a shifter of some kind,” said Derek, but he sounded much more defeated already. 

“Wouldn’t you know if she was? Can you tell if someone is a werewolf or not?”

“I can tell if someone’s a werewolf,” said Derek. “And I can tell if someone’s not human. She smelled strange, but she smelled human.”

“Strange?” Stiles made a face at the thought of Derek smelling Kate. “Like what?”

“I don’t know,” said Derek, putting a hand over his face. His shoulders went down. “She really is a hunter, isn’t she?”

He sounded defeated, rather than angry or anything of the sort. Like he believed Stiles’ words, but...

“Are you okay?”

Derek chuckled, not looking up.

“The first person I actually manage to open up to following everything that happened with Paige turns out to be a werewolf hunter.” He shook his head. “A hunter who probably only pretended to like me and care about my problems to use it against me. Because there is no way she got close to me for anything other than me being a werewolf and Hale. God, I’m so stupid.”

“Derek–”

He glanced up, and Stiles was surprised to see just how upset he looked.

“It’s fine. It’s whatever. It’s–” He sighed, forcing himself back on his feet. “I guess I can go ahead and tell Uncle Peter and mom so that they can realise how much of a fuck up I am and–”

He paused, making a slight noise of pain as Stiles slammed into him.

Stiles did not pay attention to his reaction, holding him tighter in the sudden hug, arms wrapped around his stomach.

“...Stiles?”

“You are not a fuck up,” he said, looking up so that he could glare at him properly. “It’s not your fault that an ugly old woman tried to trick you to get some sort of information on your family or werewolves. She’s a hunter: it’s her job to try and trick you. But we managed to figure it out before she could find out anything big, so we’re okay. Right?”

“I... guess?”

“Right,” said Stiles, resting his chin on Derek’s stomach. His neck was starting to hurt, but he had a point to make. “Your life sucks. But that is not your fault.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“She took advantage of you when you were in a bad situation, and that just makes her all the more horrible. It’s not your fault: it’s hers for being ugly and creepy and evil.”

“She’s not ugly–” Stiles glared, and Derek stopped. “Fine. She’s ugly.”

"And creepy and evil."

Derek's lips twitched a little.

"And creepy and evil."

Stiles nodded in agreement.

“I know I’m just a kid,” he continued. “That I am just Cora’s age. But everyone else in your family is a werewolf, and no one else outside of them knows that you are a werewolf. 

“But I am different. I am a spark, I know the family secret and would not tell anyone your secrets. So... if you need someone to help, or talk to, you can talk to me. I can help. Or something.”

Derek stared at him for so long that Stiles had to look away. But he did not release him from the hug, which meant he was rewarded moments later by Derek returning the hug.

Uh.

He hadn’t expected this.

“Thank you, Stiles.”

It made his heart feel all warm inside, long after Derek was gone.

Chapter Text

“Derek is being weird.”

Stiles, who had been paying attention to the discussion between Erica and Scott on whether Batman was better than Iron Man or not, turned around with a frown.

“Uh?”

Cora glanced around to make sure nobody was paying her any attention, and then turned back to Stiles.

“Derek,” she repeated. “He is being weird. And so is uncle Peter, but Uncle Peter is always being weird.”

Stiles turned to face her fully, all of his attention on her.

“Weird how?”

She took a forkful of her spaghetti, thinking about it for a moment.

“Something happened to Derek, I think,” she ended up saying. “He came home smelling miserable, and then locked himself in his room. I tried to see what was happening, and so did Laura, but nobody would say anything, and Derek wouldn't let us in. Then Laura took me out of the house because apparently mom, dad and Uncle Peter needed to talk to Derek in private, so we went to Uncle Kei's house.

“When we got home, the atmosphere was all... weird. I don’t think Laura knows what happened either, but–” she paused, and her eyes narrowed. “You know what happened.”

“No, I don’t,” said Stiles. Her eyes narrowed further, and Stiles remembered too late that werewolves could tell when you were lying to them. “Shoot.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t– ugh.” He looked around again and then sighed. “I didn’t do anything. But I think I know what is happening.”

Cora stared at him expectantly.

Stiles cringed.

“I don’t think I can tell you.”

“What?! Why not?!”

“It’s not– It’s not about me,” explained Stiles. Erica was now looking at the two of them in confusion, so he lowered his voice a bit. “It’s not my secret to tell. It’s Derek’s thing.”

Cora crossed her arms, looking unhappy.

“He’s my brother.”

“I just found out something, by accident, and I told him about it. But it’s something about him, a secret.”

“We are a pack,” she said, still looking unhappy. “Pack doesn’t keep secrets from each other.”

He wasn’t sure if she was talking about her and Derek, or her and Stiles.

If she was talking about her and Stiles, that was hardly true. Half of their supposed pack did not even know they were in a pack. Stiles hoped to be able to speak to them (particularly to Scott) soon enough, but he needed more time first.

If she was talking about her and Derek,

“He’s your brother,” he agreed. “And he’s in your pack. But he told the alpha, and the alpha decides when it’s the right time to tell stuff to the rest of the pack.” He lit up. “And I am also your alpha. Technically. So you can’t make me tell you anything.”

Cora’s eyes had narrowed, and she did not look very happy as she shoved the spaghetti in her mouth.

“I don’t like you,” she ended up saying, once she had swallowed the bite.

“Sorry,” he said, hesitating for a moment before taking her free hand. “If it was just about me, I’d tell you. I basically told you everything about me, at this point. You and Lydia know as much as I do. This is just–”

“About Derek,” she finished. But she was not glowering anymore, and Stiles relaxed.

It was weird how Cora's emotions - how the emotions of all of his friends - affected him.

One of them was sad or upset, and it immediately made his happiness dim.

Weird.

“Have you asked your mom what's going on?”

“I have,” said Cora, huffing. “She told me to focus on planning my birthday party.”

“Birthday party?”

She nodded, now looking strangely focused on her food.

“Next week’s my birthday,” she admitted. “Mom said that I can throw a party if I want. I just have to invite... you know, people.”

Cora always looked and acted so uncaring. At the beginning, her aloofness had appeared like confident.

And Cora was a confident girl.

But she was also a lonely girl, in Stiles' opinion.

She just hid it well. Even he had thought, at the beginning, that she just did not like people and didn’t care about them.

But it turned out she was as uncertain as everyone else they went to school with.

Just because she looked and acted cool did not mean she actually was.

... She was a little cool, though.

“A birthday party?” he asked, louder than necessary. “How cool! Right, guys?”

“Uh?”

“Cora’s throwing a party for her birthday,” he explained, turning to the rest of the table. “Next week. She said we are all invited.”

“Really?” asked Erica, turning to Cora with a very hopeful look on her face. “I’m invited as well?”

Cora had looked a little embarrassed when Stiles had spoken, but she shrugged when Erica turned to her.

“I mean, of course. We are... friends. Right?”

“Right,” said Erica, taking Cora’s hands in hers. Cora looked even more surprised than before, but Erica was too happy to notice it. “When is it? Tuesday?”

“Monday,” she corrected, and finally a smile appeared on her face. She glanced at Stiles and at the rest of the table. “You can all come right after school. My mom can pick up some of us, or something.”

“Cool,” said Boyd, Scott showing her a thumbs up. 

The only person who wasn’t jumping up and down in joy at the prospect of being invited was Isaac, noticed Stiles.

He was sitting beside Scott and was frowning at the plate in front of him, lips pressed together.

Cora noticed too.

“Isaac? Are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah!” he said, forcing a smile. When Cora – and everyone else – continued to look at him in confusion, his shoulders slumped. “It’s nothing to do with your birthday. I just... Well, it’s my birthday.”

“Today’s your birthday?!”

“Not today,” he quickly clarified. “On Tuesday. Day after yours.”

“Ah! Cora is one day older than you, dude! Wait, are you throwing a birthday party as well?”

“What if we throw a double party?” asked Cora, before Isaac could speak.

“Uh?”

“It would be cool,” she said, glancing at Stiles. “Right? Instead of having two different celebrations, we can just have one for both of us. My mom would love that.”

“But it’s your party,” said Isaac, sounding unsure. “Don’t you want to celebrate your birthday by yourself?”

Even as he said that, he looked... hopeful, in Stiles’ opinion. As if he wanted it, and suddenly he wondered if Isaac had been planning on throwing a party for his own birthday at all.

He had a feeling he hadn’t.

Cora seemed to see the same, because she shrugged.

“Two birthdays in one sounds awesome to me. Plus your friends are my friends anyway. What do you think?”

“I have to ask my dad and my brother,” said Isaac, biting his lower lip. But he was already opening up, and there was a hint of hope on his face. “But if your mom says it's okay–”

“She will,” said Cora, standing up. “I’m getting more bread. Anyone want more?”

Everyone shook their heads, ready to discuss more ideas for the upcoming birthday parties. Stiles would have joined, was it not for the sudden kick to his leg.

It did not hurt, but he did jump at bit, hitting the table with his knee and looking at Cora in betrayal.

Cora was looking at him with a bit of a crazy eye.

“More bread, Stiles?”

He did not want more bread, but he also did not want Cora to hit him again.

“Maybe a little more,” he said, for everyone else’s sake.

It did not really matter, seen as none of them was paying them any attention.

“That hurt,” he complained, as soon as they were out of their friends’ hearing range.

“Isaac,” she said, turning to face him. “He was hopeful. But he smelled scared when he mentioned telling his dad.”

Stiles decided to be mature and let go of the kick for the time being.

“I don’t think he was planning on having a birthday party,” he agreed. “And I don’t think he considered being able to come to yours.”

“You think his dad would have... would have what?”

“I don’t know,” said Stiles. He glanced at their friends’ table, where Isaac was now grinning and looking excited as he joined in Scott and Erica’s discussion.

Even when he was with them, it was rare to see Isaac actually happy. There were always shadows under his eyes, always a certain degree of nervousness around him.

It made Stiles feel terrible – and god knew how Isaac himself felt. He was the one who had to face the actual abuse and whatever else was happening in his house.

“Do you think his father will let him?” asked Cora. 

Honestly, Stiles wasn’t sure.

On one hand, he might decide that ISaac wasn’t allowed to be happy and have friends, and say no.

On the other hand, he had to play the part to make himself look like a good dad. He had to pretend to be nice to Isaac. And he could not imagine anyone who would willingly say no to Mrs Talia Hale–

“Your mom,” he said, turning to Cora.

She stared at him.

“Uh?”

“Your mom,” he repeated, suddenly feeling excited. “The family secret!”

“Stiles, what are you–”

“My dad can’t do anything,” he explained, quickly. “Not without Isaac saying things for himself. Because his dad might lie, and then Isaac would get in trouble. Most adults wouldn’t be able to scare Mr Lahey. But your mom could.” He gave her a look. “Your mom could be really scary.”

Cora did not look too certain.

“It’s supposed to be a secret,” she said. “Mom wouldn’t risk revealing it, even for Isaac.”

“She doesn’t have to reveal it,” pointed out Stiles. “She just needs to scare him. How would you feel if you are a bad person and one night something you have never imagined could be real entered your bedroom and threatened to snip snip you if you hurt your son again? I’d be scared.”

“Oh,” said Cora, eyes widening. “Oh!” She turned to look over Isaac again. “That could actually work.”

“I know,” said Stiles, feeling a little giddy. He had been so worried, trying to figure out a way to help Isaac that did not end up putting him in more danger, he felt so stupid about not having considered this before.

It was perfect.

“But...”

His stomach sunk.

“But...?”

“Not my mom,” said Cora, shaking her head. “Mom is too nice.” She smiled at Stiles. “Uncle Peter.”

Oh, that was devious.

Uncle Peter was creepy, but Stiles was already very sure he’d never hurt a kid.

Someone who was hurting a kid, though?

He could already see how Peter would go off on them.

“And he wouldn’t just scare him once,” added Cora. “He would make sure Mr Lahey is behaving.”

“And maybe he could even collect ‘evidence’,” said Stiles. “Find proof of what is happening. This is amazing! We could actually–”

“I know,” said Cora, a small smile on her face. “We could actually help Isaac.”

It had felt nice, telling Derek and Peter what he knew about Kate Argent.

Like he was fixing something, somehow. A bit like pushing an unaligned piece of a jigsaw puzzle.

It was different here.

They hadn’t spoken to Peter, yet, and they hadn’t done anything yet, but it felt like they were actually helping Isaac. Like this small moment of realisation, this small idea they were having could have actual impact on Isaac and his life.

That they could help him.

And would help him.

“You should come to my house today,” then said Cora, picking up a bread roll from the lunch lady. “After you invite Lydia... and Danny and Jackson, I guess, to my birthday party.” She handed him a bread roll. “I’ll tell Laura to wait for you to ask your dad.”

“Do I have any choice in any of this?” he asked, as Cora swiftly started walking away again. “I didn’t even want a bread roll!”

Really, this ‘alpha’ business was much less glamorous than he had been lead to believe.

Stiles did end up at Cora’s house after school.

His father had not appeared particularly surprised by his request, and had allowed Laura to drive him over.

The first person he saw when he got out of the car was Peter, standing at the door with his arms crossed impatiently.

“Stiles,” he said, smiling at his approach. “You’re here. Perfect.”

“Uh, sorry?”

“He’s here to help me out,” said Cora, frowning at her uncle. 

“I’ll give him back,” said Peter. “But I have to talk to him. Or, rather, we have to talk to him.”

Stiles looked between him and Cora with a look of confusion, but it was clear that whatever reason she had for inviting him over was not this one.

“But–”

“It’s important,” said Talia, appearing behind her brother. “We must discuss a couple of things with Stiles. Then he can go on and help you with your birthday preparations.”

Cora did not look convinced.

Stiles, however, had an idea of what they wanted to talk about.

He wasn’t exactly excited about it, but he still nodded at Cora to show he was fine with this.

Her frown did not disappear, but she did not argue.

She just huffed and walked away from the door, towards the back of the house.

“It’s okay,” said Talia, when Stiles looked after her worriedly. “Cora has a temper. Come with us? You’re not in trouble.”

“Talia just needs to hear certain things from you,” said Peter, putting a hand on his shoulder and steering him inside of the house. “Apparently she doesn’t trust my words enough.”

“You know that’s not it, Peter.”

Stiles barely listened to their talking and arguing, following them instead towards the kitchen.

Only they did not go in the kitchen, passing the door and moving towards one of the rooms Stiles had never been invited in before.

The door opened to a very cosy looking study that seemed fresh out of those historical shows his mom used to love watching so much. There was even a big brown piano in a corner and a marble bust on the desk, and Stiles was suddenly hit with a wave of sadness and pain.

It did not happen often but every now and again, he would suddenly see something that reminded him of his mother that made his chest go all hard and tiny. Especially if it had been a while since Stiles had last thought or spoken about her.

“Stiles?” He felt Derek’s hand on his other shoulder. “You okay?”

Stiles nodded, forcefully wiping his eyes.

Thankfully they were not wet, so he looked up at Derek, who had appeared at his left.

“Yeah. Just... My mom.” He shrugged, and didn’t really say much, but Derek seemed to understand him anyway.

He pulled Stiles along and Stiles followed, sitting on the chair beside him before attempting another quick look at the study.

He hadn’t noticed upon entering, but other adults were in the room: Derek’s father, his uncle Kei, and another woman he did not recognise but who looked a bit like Derek’s father.

“Stiles,” said Talia, sitting down behind the large desk, “This is my husband’s sister, Andrea Kent, and I’m sure you remember Kei Ito – Alice’s husband.”

“Gabe’s dad,” he said, waving at the two. “Hi.”

“Hi, Stiles,” said Andrea, smiling.

She had the same smile as Derek’s dad, and Stiles found himself smiling back.

“Guys, as I explained before this is Stiles. He is...” She did not finish, giving Stiles a look.

For a second he was confused, but then he understood.

She was giving him a chance.

Talia probably knew already what he was – either by realising herself, or Peter had told her – but she hadn’t told the others yet. She was the alpha, and she made all of the decisions, but had decided to not make this decision for him.

She had decided to give Stiles the choice of whether he wanted more people – people he really did not know – know about him.

It made some of the nervousness he had been feeling since they had said they wanted to talk to him go down.

He did not know them. Even Antonio and Talia – he might have talked to them every now and again, but he did not know them.

He cared about them, sure. 

But not like he cared about Cora, and Derek, and Peter.

At the same time, they were Hales. They were all one big pack, and they cared for each other.

When Stiles had explained how he felt with the gold bonds in his chest, Derek had talked about it being like pack bonds.

Stiles did not know or like Jackson that much, but he had a bond with him.

If the bond with Jackson broke- if anything happened to it, happened to Jackson...

He’d hate it.

These people were Derek’s family. Pack, and family. He had known them all of his life. His aunts, and uncles, and their spouses, and their children...

They were all connected.

If something happened to one of them, it’d affect them all.

They’d all move to fix it, to help.

Just like Stiles’ friends – Stiles’ pack – had moved as one to go and find Lydia, and then lied together to protect Stiles and Lydia.

Peter nodded when Stiles looked over at him.

“I’m a spark,” he said, looking at the others. “It means I’m like... connected to the Nemeton. And I have been having... feelings? Like emotions? It’s... It’s hard to explain.”

“Just explain it any way you can,” said Talia.

“Like you told me,” added Derek, when Stiles looked unsure.

Stiles was still doubtful. “You said I was not believable.”

“Yeah, but I’m a stupid teenager,” said Derek, going a little red. “They are all smart.”

“You’re smart too,” protested Stiles. “You’re just mean to me because you enjoy annoying me.”

Derek did not disagree, smiling and relaxing a little next to him.

Talia was also smiling when Stiles looked at her, and it definitely worked to make Stiles feel more at ease.

He didn’t tell them everything he had told Derek.

He didn’t even tell them everything he had told Peter.

There was too much he did not understand still, and too much that was just speculation and maybes and ideas.

But he told them what he could.

He told them about the night it all started. He told them about the dreams of the Nemeton and the nightmares that followed. He told them about his feelings towards certain people and his feelings towards the Hale pack.

He told them about finding out that he was a spark, and he told them about Kate Argent.

“Kate Argent,” said Antonio, a frown on his face. “Chris’ sister.”

“Gerard’s daughter,” corrected Peter, arms crossed and a glare on his face.

“A hunter,” said Talia, shooting Peter a quick look. 

“Why are we bothered?” Mr Ito looked between his sister in law and Stiles. “No offense to your... precognition, Stiles, but we cannot just kick a hunter out of town for no reason. You said you were never going to be one who blamed a child for the sin of the father, Talia.”

“Which is stupid,” added Peter. “Especially when it comes to hunters.”

“Peter.”

“A hunter is a hunter,” he said. “I’m not saying all of them are evil. But I am saying that a hunter raised by hunters is going to behave like a hunter. Hippos cannot be tamed.”

“One could say the same thing about a werewolf,” said Talia.

“A werewolf raised in a pack will not go out of his way to look for hunters to take down,” said her brother. “A hunter will. It’s the whole reason they exist.”

“This is not the time for this discussion,” said Antonio, before Talia could continue the argument.

Which sucked.

Stiles would have loved to hear who would win.

Werewolves were not monsters, this was something he had already decided. He had a few moments of worry after finding out they were real, but he did not think they were evil. They could be dangerous, but evil? Not by nature.

Hunters... 

Part of him thought like Peter. If you were raised to kill ‘bad’ werewolves, that would be your goal. You would look at every werewolf, looking for proof that they were evil so that you could kill them.

Still, the idea that every hunter was evil... it did not sound right.

Kate was evil. He did not like the name ‘Gerard Argent’ – it gave him weird vibes – and Chris Argent had been a little weird, when Stiles had seen him.

But were all hunters evil and dangerous because they were hunters?

He didn’t know.

“Kate Argent did not attack us as a hunter,” agreed Talia, after staring down Peter for a few seconds, “But she did approach Derek.”

“What?” Mr Ito and Ms Kent turned to Derek, looking surprised. 

“What do you mean she approached you?”

“She became a guidance counselor at Derek’s school,” said Talia. She looked very unhappy, and her lips were pressed hard together. Her eyes looked a bit red, but not like she had been crying. More like the irises had somehow turned a dark shade of red. “Pretended her name was Ms Silver and started accosting him at school.”

“What the hell!” Ms Kent was standing up now, looking around the room in shock. “Derek...?!”

He seemed to shrink on himself, uncomfortable.

“I didn’t know she was a hunter,” he said, avoiding eye contact.

“It’s not his fault,” said Stiles, glaring up at the older woman. She glanced at him, startled, and Stiles scowled more. “She tricked him. She was supposed to be a teacher and pretended to be his friend and nice to him. How was he supposed to know?”

“Stiles–”

“No! I told you it’s not your fault, she can’t say–”

“Stiles, Andrea is not saying it’s Derek’s fault,” interrupted Talia. She was holding her hands up placatingly. “She is just worried that... she might have hurt Derek. She does not blame him–” She focused on Derek. “We don’t blame you. None of us blames you.”

“I should have known,” said Derek, avoiding her eyes. “I should have–”

“Derek, it’s not your job to be always on the lookout for hunters,” said Antonio, before Stiles could bring his two cents. “You are supposed to go to school and trust your teachers. You are supposed to trust your guidance counsellor, when they tell you they want to help you with your trauma.”

“We are the ones who should have noticed,” added Talia. “I’m the alpha. And Peter’s my second in command. And we have betas in the pack who are old enough. 

“You can’t be blamed for missing something all of us missed too. None of us noticed Kate Argent in town, or the fact that she was a hunter. That’s on us. Right, Peter?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“We can’t pretend that a bit of awareness of his surroundings–”

"Peter,” said Stiles, Talia and Antonio at the same time.

He rolled his eyes.

“We don’t actually blame you. Thanks to Stiles we found out about her before she could sink her weapons in you, and thanks to you we have an open channel with her. We can–”

“We are not using Derek,” said Talia.

“Oh, come on.” Peter looked at her disbelievingly. “He’s in the perfect position!”

“He’s a child!”

“He’s not a child.”

“I’m not,” agreed Derek, looking at his mother hopefully. “I can help. I can–”

“You are never going anywhere near that woman again,” said Talia, and this time her eyes were definitely red.

Like bright red where they had been brown before.

Nothing else changed about her face or anything, but Stiles knew this was what Cora had described the last time she had spoken about ‘alpha’ powers.

Derek’s eyes turned golden-yellow when she looked at him, but he looked down before Stiles could really see them.

“And you will not bring this idea up again, Peter.”

Peter’s eyes turned blue – a bright electric blue – instead of gold. He did not look happy at all, but he was still the first one to drop his eyes.

Why were Derek and Peter’s eyes different? Did the blue and the gold mean something in the same way red meant something?

Talia turned back to Stiles and Derek, and her eyes went from red back to their normal colour.

“We will discuss what to do next,” she said. “But neither of you will need to worry about Kate Argent. We will deal with it.”

Derek did not look happy with this turn of events but Stiles was, for his part, very glad.

He definitely did not want to deal with that woman ever again. He was happy to leave it to the adults.

“Alongside your father.”

Pause.

“Uh?” Stiles looked at her in confusion. “My dad?”

“Yes,” said Talia. “I think it’s high time we tell him what’s going on. Don’t you think?”

Chapter Text

Red Hood was back.

Stiles had spent the last week worrying and hoping, wishing that eventually he’d turn around and see the tree and his least favourite projection of what his future self was going to be again.

He had almost convinced himself the man was gone for good.

That whatever Red Hood needed to do had been done, and now Stiles was supposed to do things by himself.

Which was why he jumped when he turned around and found him sitting cross legged on top of the Nemeton, seemingly focused on cleaning... something Stiles refused to recognise from his bat.

“You’re back,” he said, trying to look at him without looking at the bat. 

“Was I missing?”

“Were you– dude!” Immediately, Stiles’ relief turned into annoyance. “It’s been days! I found out that maybe you time travelled somehow and I have to fix things and then you disappeared!”

This time Red Hood did glance up, a frown on his face.

“I did not time travel.”

“What?”

“I did not time travel,” said Red Hood. “Time travel implies that I am you. There would be little need of this whole charade, had I time travelled.”

“I don’t mean time travel in the literal sense,” said Stiles, though he sort of had. This entire situation was complicated and confusing, and he was trying to find the best words to describe it in a way that made sense. “But you are a future version of me. And this all happened before.”

“Not exactly,” said Red Hood. 

“But I recognised Kate Argent. As soon as I saw her–” he paused, surprised at the way Red Hood’s face snapped up at the name.

Normally, Red Hood’s face was covered. Between the shadows of the forest and the hood over his face, it was hard to really make out his face. 

It made him seem all the more mysterious, all the more dangerous and scary.

When he looked up and the hood slid off a bit, Red Hood’s face became all the more clear.

Despite the blood on his clothes and his bat, and the things he had seen in the mirrors while passed out with Lydia, Red Hood’s face was remarkably clean of wounds and injuries.

His face was pale, and he had moles all over. His hair was plastered over his forehead, and there was no hint of a beard or a mustache on his face.

It was like Stiles was looking at a mirror.

A creepy mirror that gave him the heebie jeebies immediately.

It was one thing to know that Red Hood was a future version of him.

It was another thing seeing that he – a future version of him – was Red Hood. 

“Kate Argent,” he repeated.

He looked angry.

Every time he found himself at the Nemeton, the magic surrounding it made Stiles feel weird. It made his jaw ache, and his bones tingle, and all around feel like he was surrounded by electricity.

When Red Hood said Kate Argent’s name, it was like all of that suddenly amplified. His eyes seem to burn brighter, and the energy seemed to shift and change under his mood, under his thoughts.

Magic.

Stiles knew he was magic. 

He knew Red Hood also had magic.

He knew Red Hood was strong and powerful.

He hadn't expected how much.

It was kind of intimidating.

“I told Peter Hale about her,” he said, flexing and unflexing his fingers. He felt like he had pin and needles in them. 

As abruptly as it had started, that electric energy coming from Red Hood disappeared.

Instead, he was staring at Stiles in almost shock. 

“You told... Peter Hale?”

“You have been no help,” said Stiles, crossing his arms. “So I’ve been trying to get other people to help me. Cora. Lydia. Peter. They–”

He stopped.

He had to, considering Red Hood wasn’t listening to him.

He was apparently too busy laughing.

Yes.

Laughing.

As soon as Stiles had stated that Peter, Lydia and Cora had been helping him, the man had burst into giggles.

Pure, uncontrollable giggles, the kind that had you holding your stomach and throwing your head back, as you tried and failed to breathe through them.

He sounded so amused, so free, so careless as he laughed. Even with the bat at his feet, even with the blood on his knuckles from trying to wipe it, he sounded so... young.

That was the word he was looking for.

The youngest deputy on the force was 24 years old.

Red Hood looked and sounded younger than him, and for a second Stiles remembered him and Lydia finding themselves in the High School gym.

He remembered the swimming pool and how, apart from Derek, none of them had looked older than Laura Hale.

Laura was 19.

“Oh, that’s so good,” said Red Hood, wiping his eyes and still giggling. He smeared some blood on his brow as he did so. “It’s what she deserves. A sane-ish Peter Hale sicced on her ass. The damn paedo.” He smirked at Stiles. “Good job, mini-me.”

“So you are a future version of me,” said Stiles.

He had a lot of questions for Red Hood, but this was probably the safest.

“Something like that,” he admitted. “Not anymore.”

A frown.

“Not anymore?”

Red Hood just smiled.

It was, Stiles realised, the first time he had seen him smiling so honestly. Not a smirk, not a mean laugh, no: an actual smile.

He looked like Stiles’ mom.

“I used a chess table.”

“Uh?”

“To tell him,” explained Red Hood. “I used a chess board.”

Oh. Stiles had almost forgotten about that.

“Did it work? Did it help?”

Red Hood made a face. “Not really,” he said. “Then again–”

Stiles startled awake, hitting his knee against the table hard enough to hurt.

“Ow!”

“Stiles,” said Lydia, appearing in his field of vision with a frown on her face. “Are you okay?”

What was Lydia doing–

He was in class, suddenly realised Stiles.

Most of the class was standing and chatting among themselves, and Lydia and Scott were at each side of him, watching him with frowns on their faces.

He had fallen asleep.

In class.

“Miss Capri did not notice you falling asleep,” said Scott, as he wiped his face self consciously. “So you won’t get in trouble.”

“Why did you fall asleep?”

“I did not sleep well last night,” he admitted, picking up his bag and putting everything away. The rest of his friends were clearly already done and waiting for them to hurry up and follow.

“Why?” Scott looked at him worriedly. “Are you getting sick? Did you have another nightmare?”

“Not a nightmare,” reassured Stiles. “Just... thinking. You know the thing I still have to explain to you? The secrets that are not mine?” Scott nodded. “Well, the person who has the secrets wants to tell my dad about them.”

Lydia looked surprised while Scott frowned, confused.

“And that’s... not good?”

“It’s not bad,” said Stiles, because it wasn’t.

In fact, if he thought about it from a calm and unbiased point of view, he knew that this was a good thing.

His father knowing more about what went on in Beacon Hills could only help him. He was the Sheriff: it was better that he knew what exactly he was going up against when he chased something in the woods.

Maybe, had he known about the supernatural, he would have been able to find Lydia by himself, Nemeton or not.

It was, objectively, a good idea to let him know, and Stiles could see that.

But what Stiles could also see was that his father was... well, normal.

He was not a spark. He was not a werewolf. He was not magic, and he did not have any powers. 

All he had was authority, a scary face when he got angry, and a gun.

Werewolves seemed to be good. Stiles was pretty sure sparks were good too, and so where banshees.

But Red Hood had faced things and possibly people that he had had to fight with a bat. A bat, not a gun.

Plus, Stiles had ended up reading the whole Selkies, sirens, stregoi and more.

And some of the things described in the book... he did not see them being stopped by a gun or a stern talk from the Sheriff.

Was it so bad that he did not want his father mixed up in that? That he did not want him to be in danger? 

He had one parent left: was it so bad that he wanted to keep him safe?

It was an impossible argument, and he had spent the entire night trying to find an answer.

He still did not have one.

“I don’t think you can stop... certain people," Talia Hale, "From telling what they want to tell,” said Lydia, as they started after their friends. “And remember what I told you.”

“You say a lot of things.”

“We are not supposed to be doing everything by ourselves,” she said, ignoring his comment. “We are meant to get help when we can.”

“I don’t remember you saying that.”

“I do,” said Cora.

“You weren’t even there!”

“So you do remember,” said Isaac, looking smug.

Because of course Isaac jumped at the chance to disagree with Stiles whenever he could.

He would have called him annoying or said something equally mean, but he had made himself (and Scott) a promise that he’d be nice to Isaac today.

His birthday was tomorrow, but since the party was today, this was going to be his gift for the boy.

And he could not deny it was... nice to see the smile on Isaac’s face.

He did not realise how used he was to seeing Isaac looking bored or sad until he saw him smile almost uninterrupted for the whole day.

And this was just from Talia Hale ‘requesting’ (more like telling) that Isaac celebrated his birthday at the Hale house.

What was going to happen once Peter Hale decided to pay his dad a visit?

“Stiles!”

“Dad!” called Stiles, rushing towards the car. “Hey. Hi, Talia.”

“Hi, Stiles,” said the woman, standing beside his father. Before Stiles could even start to panic about whether or not she had taken the time they were waiting outside the school to tell him everything, she shook her head discretely. “Your dad, Mr Whittemore and I were just deciding how to get us all over.”

“There is nine of you, right?” asked Mr Whittemore, studying the group with a curious eye.

Stiles had only ever seen the man in passing before, and was a little surprised by the easy going smile on his face.

He had, for some reason, expected him to be a huge jackass.

Maybe he was only a jackass to people who were mean to Jackson, he supposed.

“Three per car should work,” said Talia, looking around the group. “I'll leave it to you guys to decide who goes where. Shall we?"

+++

The Sheriff drove Stiles, Scott and Erica, while Cora, Isaac and Boyd went with Talia, and Jackson, Lydia and Danny went with Mr Whittemore.

As soon as they were in the car, Scott and Erica sucked him into a conversation about Bat Man and Iron Man with Erica taking the time to bombard his father about his job too.

It left Stiles no time to worry about him knowing things about the supernatural.

In fact, by the time the car stopped at the Hale house, most of his earlier tiredness and nervousness had evaporated.

It was end of November, so it was a little colder than usual, and the air was a little damp, but he doubted any of them could feel it, as they rushed out of the cars.

The front and backyard of the Hale house had been clearly decorated in red and yellow motifs.

From the birthday cards Cora and Isaac had distributed the previous Friday, it had been clear the theme was going to be ‘Harry Potter’, but he had not expected something this elaborate.

The first thing they did was be ‘sorted’ in three teams: Gryffindors (Cora, Scott, Boyd), Ravenclaws (Lydia, Danny and Stiles) and Slytherins (Jackson, Isaac and Erica).

Stiles had not been so sure about certain choices in sorting, or the lack of Hufflepuff representation, but apparently there were not enough people around for sorting or enough people who had actually watched the movie (thankfully, Cora and Isaac promised that the day was going to end with watching the first movie completely – much to Jackson, Lydia and Scott’s dismay).

They had proceeded to play several different games – including a very interesting mixed game of quidditch – to win ‘points’ – snitch shaped chocolates.

It was actually fun.

By the end of the first game the Slytherins had the most points. Isaac kept cackling and cheering every time his team won, Lydia had a bit of mud on her clothes, Jackson and Erica developed a weird handshake, and even Boyd was shouting and screaming with everyone else.

“Cora looks happy.”

Stiles glanced behind him at where Peter Hale was standing, a videocamera in his hands.

The Gryffindor and Slytherin teams were playing a tie breaker game, and Danny and Lydia were discussing strategy on the side while Stiles had gone to get himself some water.

Cora pointed two fingers at her eyes and then at Erica who slid a finger over her neck in a ‘I’m going to kill you’ gesture in response.

“Sure.”

“She is,” insisted Peter. “You did not really know her back then, but even you must see the difference between how she was when she started school and now.”

He did.

He remembered how ‘creepy’ he had thought her back then, how he had been nervous about sitting at the table with her to discuss the project.

She could still be a little mean/creepy when she wanted to be, but Stiles was definitely not scared of her, now.

“You helped,” said Peter, snapping another picture of her. “And now you guys want help for him.”

Isaac.

“You’re going to, right?” Stiles turned fully to look at him. “Help him.”

“I’m not a monster,” said Peter. “But I do so hate people who hurt and abuse children.”

Stiles had never allowed himself to think all of those words together.

It had made it easier to allow himself time to think, that way. If he thought of it as helping Isaac in general, then he did not have to spend time wondering what Isaac was suffering while Stiles was busy ‘thinking’.

“I didn’t know what to do,” he admitted, voice a lot quieter than before. “I kept seeing the bruises, and the cuts, and–”

Peter put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

When Stiles looked back at him, Peter’s brows were furrowed.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“But–”

“But nothing,” he said, and he put the videocamera down so he could focus fully on him. “I know that you are stronger than even I know. That you know things other people don’t, that you grew up faster than others and understand the world better. 

“But you are still a kid. And as much help as you can be, as good as you can be, there are still things that need to be handled by adults. There are still things that adults need to be in charge of.”

Stiles glanced away, but Peter turned his face back towards him.

He flashed those electric blues at him, and while they had no actual hold on him – Cora had given him the rundown on what it meant when her mom/the alpha flashed her eyes – he did stop trying to look away.

“The entire blame lays at the hand of this Coach Lahey. He is the one who raised his hand against his child. He is the one who abused and scared his child. He is the one who needs to pay.

“You and Cora went above and beyond by telling me. Now, the adult can actually do something about it.”

The bad feeling did not exactly leave him, but Stiles nodded.

At the end of the day, he could not undo Isaac’s pain.

But he had told someone who could make sure it did not happen again. Someone who could help.

And maybe this happy and laughing Isaac he saw today would become the norm because he had said something.

“It’s why we need to tell your dad.”

The good mood rushed out of him.

“I know,” said Peter, as he turned to frown at him. “You want to keep him safe. You want to keep him protected. You are scared of what is going to happen when you tell him.” He gave him a sideways look. “Am I close?”

Stiles narrowed his eyes, and Peter smirked.

“That’s nice,” he said. “Very sweet. Very cute.

“But then, what happens when someone comes around trying to teach you to control your powers?” he raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to sneak out of your house to learn? Are you going to lie to him about needing to come to our house on a weekly basis to learn?

“Or are you just not going to learn? Are you going to just try by yourself? Use the library books and your dreams and do a whole trial and error thing as you try to work things out? 

“What if something goes wrong? What if you accidentally hurt yourself? What if you accidentally hurt someone else? What if you hurt him? What if–”

“I get it!” Stiles glared at him, fists shaking slightly. “I get it.”

Peter did not even pretend to be sorry.

“I like you, Stiles. Not as much as I like my nieces and nephews, but I do like you. I’d be pretty upset if something happened to you. Almost as much as I would be upset if something happened to Cora or the others.

“But I have an inkling I would not be able to hold a candle to how your father would feel if something happened to you. If something happened to you and he couldn’t understand it, because it was supernatural and nobody ever told him about the supernatural.

“And I don’t think you would be happy if something supernatural happened and he couldn’t fix it because he didn’t understand.” Stiles was trying very hard not to look as upset as he felt, but it didn’t work, because Peter’s face became gentler.

“Pack cares for each other,” he told. “Pack protects pack. Your father is your pack, and you care for him. Because I care for you... I care for your dad too.”

“You care about me?”

Again, Peter gave him one of those long looks that Stiles did not really understand.

“You are a special one,” he ended up saying. “And you protected Derek.”

Stiles frowned.

“I did not protect Derek.”

Again, a smirk.

“You two have a bond. A strange one, full of bickering and antagonising each other, but you have a bond nonetheless.” He tilted his head. “He listens to you. And you, somehow, understand him.”

Stiles wasn’t sure what he was talking about or where he was going with this.

“You managed in a matter of weeks something I have not managed in almost sixteen years. I can concede defeat when necessary.”

Stiles still did not understand what Peter was talking about.

“Am I going to have a teacher?” he asked instead. “You mentioned a teacher before. Is someone coming to teach me magic? Or how to be a spark? Is it going to be another spark? How–”

“Calm down,” said Peter, shaking his head. “You will find out when the time comes. For the time being, I’m going to go ahead and confirm with Talia that you have agreed with her telling him the truth- you have, right?”

Stiles still did not like it.

At least, he wouldn’t have to do it himself. He wasn’t sure how Red Hood had managed to mix telling the truth and chess, but Stiles was grateful he did not have to do that.

He would just have to make sure he was close throughout.

So he nodded.

“Good. So we’ll make sure Talia tells your dad the truth, and I’ll deal with dear Isaac’s dad.” He gave one those smiles that were very creepy to look at. 

“And me?”

“You?” He nodded towards his friends. “You go ahead and be a kid. It’s what you should be doing anyway.”

“Not a kid,” muttered Stiles, but that did not stop him from immediately rushing to where Lydia and Danny were standing, clearly waiting to tell him their strategy.

Stiles couldn’t tell you who won, in the end (Cora insisted it was her team, while Jackson said it was theirs; Danny and Lydia did not argue, but told Stiles they had definitely won). The bad thing about points being chocolate was that kids tended to eat them.

It hadn’t really mattered, anyway.

Once they had exhausted themselves running around, Talia had called them all in the dining room, where even more decorations had been arranged. Pillows and blankets (all red and yellow, of course) were all over the floor, and that was where they had ended up with plates of chips, snacks, and Harry Potter themed candy and cakes.

Two cakes.

One said ‘you’re a wizard, Isaac’, while the second said ‘Cora Hale and the 12th  birthday’. Both were apparently the work of Alice Hale, and Isaac actually looked like he was going to cry when he saw it.

Instead, he had hugged Cora super hard – taking her completely by surprise – before doing the same with Talia – for definitely longer.

They had sprawled on the blankets with the foods and drinks and Cora had turned on the first movie.

Scott managed to fall asleep before Draco and Harry could even meet, and Stiles ended up valiantly defending him from Cora and Jackson’s attempts at drawing on his face as he slept.

Somehow, Erica managed to give him a moustache without him seeing.

Lydia ended up half laying on Jackson at some point during the movie. Danny, Isaac and Erica kept throwing food at each other and trying to catch it with their mouths. Boyd and Cora kept quoting lines of the movie at each other before they could happen.

All of them were relaxed.

All of them were happy.

And seeing them so happy and relaxed, seeing them so carefree... it was weird, but it made Stiles feel happy.

It was right.

“Are you asleep?”

“No,” he said, turning his head with a smile.

Derek was sitting behind him on the couch, a bag of fresh popcorn in his hands. 

Stiles couldn’t have told you when he had shown up. He did not care.

All he knew was that it was right, and when Derek showed up, it was even more right.

“Why are you making that face?”  

Stiles just smiled, reaching for Derek’s popcorns.

Derek pulled them away.

Obviously, that turned into a fight.

(He ended up abandoning Scott for the popcorn, which meant the boy ended up becoming Isaac and Erica’s art project. On the other hand, Danny also ended up becoming one, so really – all was well.

And Stiles got the popcorn.

Clearly, a happy ending).

Chapter Text

“Interesting.”

Stiles looked up from where he had been carefully studying the board, blinking at Red Hood. “Uh?”

The boy-man shook his head, eyes still fixed on the chess board.

“Peter once said that chess is my game,” he then said, after Stiles made his move. “I forgot how young I learned.”

Stiles did not see how he could have forgotten.

Chess had been one of the few ways to keep his mother calm, at one point. It seemed to quiet the voices in her head, and it was one of the best ways for Stiles and her to spend their time.

And then later, at the hospital, it was how they had passed the time. When Stiles had no homework to do, and when she had no exams to be submitted to, they had played the game.

He had beaten his mom several times before – despite that never being the goal for their games. Their goal had been to make the game last as long as possible, rather than win.

But he had not considered that he had gotten good at it.

From the way Red Hood was reacting, maybe he was.

“I’m going to beat you.”

Red Hood made a noise like he wanted to laugh.

“You can try.” He moved his rook. “Have you told dad, yet?”

Stiles wasn’t sure if this was an attempt at making him lose his concentration or if Red Hood was being earnest.

He made sure to make his move, and then shook his head.

“Talia is going to speak to him,” he said, looking up again. “She said she would.”

“Talia Hale,” said Red Hood, eyes on the board. “Smart. Better than me, at least.”

“You told him while playing chess, right?”

“No.” Red Hood moved his pawn. “I used the chess board to tell him what was what. To explain what a spark was, what a werewolf, banshee, kanima, kitsune, etcetera was.” He glanced up and smirked a little at the face Stiles made. “You’ll figure out everything in the end, don’t freak out on me now.”

“I’m not freaked out,” said Stiles, looking back down at the board. His eyes narrowed when he realised what Red Hood was trying to do with his rook, and even more when he realised the only moves he could do. “Ugh.”

“What’s the matter, Sti?”

“Don’t call me that,” he said, not looking up. He considered the pieces for a second. Then, with extreme reluctance, he moved his queen back. “I hate you.”

“I can imagine,” said Red Hood. “He didn’t believe me anyway.”

Stiles looked at him then, surprise. “He didn’t believe you?”

Red Hood shrugged, not looking back at him.

“I made some mistakes. I spent a couple of years lying to him – and not very well. I got him in tons of trouble, and even caused him to lose his job for a while. People died, and I still did not tell him stuff.” He moved his horse. “He sort of gave me an ultimatum. I used chess pieces to explain the supernatural, and it did not go over that well.

“Then, I tried to get Cora to shift to prove things to him, and she passed out on me instead.” He made a face at this. “Your tur– son of a bitch.”

Stiles smiled, putting a hand over his mouth. “You swore.”

“I’m adult,” said Red Hood, “And you’re a little shit.”

“I’m just better than you,” said Stiles, smugly. “It’s okay, it’s not your fault. How did dad end up believing you?”

He did not understand how and why Red Hood had decided to lie to him for so long.

He had told his dad a few lies already, and he did not like it very much. It made him feel very bad, and he could not stand the face his dad made when Stiles lied and he knew Stiles had been lying.

And Red Hood had somehow spent a ‘couple of years’ lying?  

It was crazy to him.

“The universe came in clutch,” he said, though his smile and smirk were both gone now. He was focusing on the board, but he did not look all that focused. “It’s hard to deny it when you’re trapped and about to be made a human sacrifice courtesy of a Darach and you see a werewolf while trapped. The crazy words of your son come back to bite you in the ass right then.”

When he looked up and saw whatever expression on Stiles’ face, he quickly put both hands up. 

“I am 80% sure it will not happen again. With your spark, the emissary and Talia and the Hales around, there is no way any of that can happen. Dad will be fine.”

He sounded more confident than he had any right to be, but it worked to make Stiles’ heart calm down a little bit.

Still, he couldn’t help but be a little nervous about all of this.

Also, ‘Talia and the Hales around’? Did that mean that they hadn’t been around with Red Hood? Why?

He wanted to know, but he also didn’t want to ask.

“What about Scott?” He made his move and looked back at Red Hood. “How did you tell him?”

“You haven’t?” Red Hood looked surprised by this. “Really?”

Stiles shrugged, a little awkward. “Not all of it is mine to say. How did you tell him about werewolves?”

Red Hood looked like the question was a little funny, but he didn’t laugh.

“Things were a bit different,” he ended up saying. “Let’s just say that we learnt together as things went on. I never had a chance to try and keep anything from him, and I never tried.”

Stiles’ eyes narrowed. “You answered that like a politician.”

“What can I say? I’m an amazing liar.” He put down the horse again. “Check mate.”

“What? How did you–

“Stiles?”

Stiles opened his eyes with some difficulty, immediately groaning at the sight of the early morning light through the curtains.

“I know,” he heard, from somewhere to his left. “Come on, I’m making eggs.”

If anything, that only made Stiles groan louder.

His father’s idea of ‘making eggs’ was sunny side up, and sunny side up only. Could he not have an omelette or a fully fried egg, for once? Surely that wasn’t illegal.

But what did he know: his dad was the Sheriff, not him.

As he heard him go downstairs, memories of the dream returned, making Stiles’ expression change.

Red Hood had been sitting on the ground, when Stiles had walked into the clearing (from a dream in which he was actually in the Harry Potter world and the hat had decided to sort him in Slytherin with Lydia). His back had still been against the stump, but it was the farthest Stiles had ever seen him from the tree.

Did it mean something? Was it supposed to mean something?

He hadn’t had time to ask, and Red Hood hadn’t explained the why either.

He had just invited Stiles to join him in a game of chess, and he had seen no reason not to agree.

Now though, he couldn’t help but think of it all. 

The way Red Hood had sat. The board game. The things they had talked about.

Most importantly, Talia Hale and his father.

Mostly, his father.

He had never considered that his father might hear the truth and not believe him.

He had thought he’d think him crazy, if Stiles brought it up to him with no proof, out of nowhere. But outright hearing Stiles explain everything to him and not believe him?

It made no sense.

His father had seen Stiles randomly go into hysterics and demand to go to the Hale house, and he had taken him with barely any questions asked.

Not only that, he had known that Stiles was safe enough to leave him behind with the Hales without thinking more about it.

Red Hood... If Stiles was a lighter, Red Hood was a blaze.

If everything Stiles was experiencing felt like jumping in a large swimming pool, what Red Hood had hinted at – what Stiles and Lydia had seen – was like jumping in the middle of the ocean.

Things had not just affected him. Things had affected him, and his friends, and his family, and Beacon Hills.

And maybe his dad and the Beacon Hills police force, too.

So how had his father not believed him? How had he thought Stiles was lying to him, not telling him the truth?

I spent a couple of years lying to him – and not very well.

That was what Red Hood had said.

Stiles’ dad could almost always know when he was lying. If he knew Stiles was lying, and Stiles knew his dad knew but kept lying anyway, and the Sheriff knew he was getting lied to despite Stiles knowing that his dad knew he was lying...

It wouldn’t be pretty.

He’d get used to thinking Stiles was lying yet again.

After all, what was more believable? That the supernatural was real or that Stiles, after ‘lying for a couple of years’, decided to give another stupid lie?

This wouldn’t apply to him, reasoned Stiles, sitting up and crossing his legs.

Red Hood’s dad had believed some of it after seeing a werewolf. Apparently Red Hood had used Cora – and how odd it was, hearing Red Hood talk about Stiles’ friends so easily – to show him, because he had known even his dad couldn’t not believe someone shifting in front of him.

Talia would tell him everything, and then she’d shift, and dad would have no choice but to believe him.

It was a perfectly neat affair.

Stiles wouldn’t have to do or say anything until everything else was done, and he wouldn’t go through what Red Hood had gone through.

He turned, letting his legs hover over the floor.

That was good.

Better than anything Red Hood had gone through.

After all, Stiles had told his dad a few lies already. Maybe his dad had given up on him telling him the truth just like Red Hood’s had. 

The mere thought made everything inside of Stiles’ stomach twist, and it made his chest hurt.

He did not want his dad to think Stiles did not tell him the truth.

He did not want him to think that Stiles wanted to lie to him, or anything like that.

He did not want his dad to act like Red Hood’s dad.

He had kept secrets, yes, but that was because he didn’t have the answers. Because he had been confused, and had wanted to find out everything before anything else came to light.

And he had, he supposed. Sure, there were a lot of holes and things unexplained, but he knew a lot. 

And Peter was right – not telling his dad put his dad and him both in danger.

Stiles had to protect his dad but... but his dad had to protect Stiles too.

Stiles did not have to like it, but it was his dad’s job. If he could have, Stiles would have done anything to protect his mom, and his dad would have too.

And Stiles knew his dad felt about him as much as he felt about his mom – which was as much as Stiles felt about his mom (his dad said it was more, but that was impossible).

He wanted his dad to trust him.

And his dad wanted Stiles to trust him.

Focusing on his dad’s string came a little harder than focusing on Derek’s. Not because it was hard to find it, but rather because it was... a little different than the one between him and Derek, or the one between him and Lydia.

It was a brighter orange – almost red – but it was harder to grasp, to manipulate.

Stiles focused as hard as he could, and tugged.

Something crashed downstairs.

Dad. Can you hear me? Uh... please don’t freak out but I–

There was a sudden rush of steps up the stairs, and Stiles’ concentration broke.

He opened his eyes just in time to see his dad in front of his room, breathing heavily and staring at him with wide eyes.

Stiles cringed a little on himself as he looked at the man, the look on Red Hood’s face coming to mind.

For a second, when he had spoken about his father not believing him, Stiles had seen how hurt he had been. Something like when you ate something bitter had washed over his face.

It had hurt him, that his dad hadn’t believed him.

Stiles knew it would hurt him too and hoped, with all of his heart, that it wouldn’t happen like it did for Red Hood.

“Stiles,” said the Sheriff, looking all strange – like he was scared, almost. “Did you...?”

He didn’t finish.

“I did,” he said, voice way too low. He sat a little straighter, but he couldn’t look his dad in the eyes, even as he raised his voice a little. “I can... do things. Like magical things. Sometimes.”

“Magical things,” repeated the Sheriff.

Stiles couldn’t make out his voice, but still did not look up.

“Yeah. Magic is like... a thing. And I can... do it.”

“...You can do magic.”

Stiles felt it was redundant answering, so he said nothing.

“Since...”

Again, he did not finish.

Again, he did not need to.

This time, because his dad answered before he could.

“The nightmare,” he said. “That night you woke up sick. Right?”

Stiles nodded.

What did it mean that his dad hadn’t called him a liar? What did it mean that he was following the clues and making connections?

It sounded like he believed him. It did not sound like he thought Stiles was making it up, it sounded like–

“Oh,” he said, at the sudden feeling of his dad’s arms.

Which were around him.

And his dad’s cheek was pressed against him.

And his hair was tickling the side of his temple.

Oh.

His dad was hugging him.

Slowly, Stiles reached out to hug him back, heart beating faster.

“Dad?”

“God, Stiles,” he heard him say, and then he held him even tighter. “Why...?”

“I wanted to make sure,” he said, holding him tight too. “I wanted to know what was going on. I wanted you to... not think I had gone crazy.”

His dad leant back, his a look of confusion on his face.

But then it cleared up in understanding.

He hugged him again.

“Oh, kiddo.”

Stiles wasn’t quite sure what was going on right now. 

It did not look like his dad was angry, but it was hard figuring out what he was.

He clearly wasn’t happy.

But he wasn’t angry.

Was that a good thing or not?

He couldn’t tell.

Eventually his dad let go of him, sitting down on the floor in front of him. It had to be uncomfortable (his dad complained all the time about his back hurting if he sat on the couch ‘wrong’), but he didn’t complain.

“I wish you had told me beforehand,” he said. “I know why you didn’t. God knows I know why you didn’t tell me before. But I wish you would have, and that I would have been there for you.”

Stiles did not tell him again why he couldn’t. He didn’t explain why he had kept everything secret, or why he was telling him now.

“Do you–”

“I believe you,” said his dad, and he couldn’t know what Stiles knew. His dad had never been in the dreams, and Stiles did not think– had not considered that his dad could have had the nightmares. 

And yet, there was a weight in the way he said that. There was a look on his face as he looked at Stiles, an odd decidedness. 

Like he knew this was something important that he needed to say, something important that Stiles needed to hear.

But he couldn’t know what Stiles knew.

Could he?

“Dad...?”

His dad shook his head.

“Beacon Hills has always been a strange town,” he said. “A strange town where things sometimes don’t make sense and, sometimes, make sense in very illogical ways. Things don’t happen as they should. People know things they shouldn’t. 

“And then there is the Preserve.” Again, he shook his head. “We went over those woods so many times. We combed through them with dogs, and experts, and people who knew that place the best.

“And yet, it was you and your friends who found Lydia. Who found an area nobody else had seen before and knew Lydia would be there.” He looked at Stiles with a thin smile. “I knew you were special. I’ve always known you were special. But when you found Lydia... And even before that...

“I didn’t think magic,” he said, and he laughed a little bit. “But I knew you were special. I think I’ve known you were special, that many people in Beacon Hills are special.” He gave him a half a smile, exasperated and nervous at the same time. “I have to have a chat with the Hales, don’t I?”

Never let it be said that his dad wasn’t very smart.

There was a reason he was a Sheriff, and there was a reason Stiles was his son.

His dad put a hand in his hair.

“Now you’ve told me,” he said. “And I believe you. Tell me, what can you do?”

“Why are you so happy?”

Stiles glanced over at Scott, not even trying to hide his smile.

“Who says I’m happy?” he asked, slinging his arm over his friend’s shoulder.

Scott smiled too, though he tried to push him away.

“Maybe the fact that you keep smiling like a fool?”

Stiles snorted, not letting go of his friend.

His father had taken the whole thing much better than Stiles had expected. He had listened to everything Stiles had to say and supported him, never let him doubt that he believed him and his words.

Even though he knew that he was worried, and that he thought the entire things was very weird, he had looked generally happy about everything Stiles had to say.

By the time he had driven him to school, he had even been joking about not needing phones to call him anymore, and appeared relaxed.

It had gone beyond well, and Stiles couldn’t stop smiling.

His father now knew everything, and Stiles didn’t have to lie to him anymore.

Sometimes, he wondered about how things had gone for Red Hood. How it had ended up with the nightmare vision he had – because the more he thought about it, the more he was sure the nightmare was how everything had ended, how Red Hood’s future had gone.

He wondered the steps the snowball had taken to become the avalanche at the end.

He did not know if he and Red Hood had started from the same exact point. But if they had, they had clearly been making different decisions and twists and turns.

Red Hood’s footsteps had led him into the nightmare.

Because of this, Red Hood was showing him where the footsteps led, and making him walk in a completely different direction instead.

Which meant that Stiles was, step by step, going farther and farther away from the nightmare.

If the nightmare was a soup, one of the main ingredients had been Red Hood lying to his dad and his dad not believing him.

Stiles had not put those ingredients inside his soup. So his soup was going to taste different.

It might end up being a good soup.

Stiles did not mind soup.

“Stiles?”

“Soup,” said Stiles. “I’m going to make a better soup.”

Scott made a face. “I don’t like soup.”

“What do you mean you don’t like soup?”

“I don’t like it.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t.”

“That is not a reason! I have seen you drink soup before!” Stiles knew this because Mrs McCall made the best Caldo de Res. Stiles wasn’t sure what it was, just that it was yummy and Scott always finished his plate.

“Because mum makes me, duh?” He rolled his eyes. “Also, you can’t drink most soups. You have to eat it halfway through, and I don’t like that. I don’t want to eat something I’m supposed to drink.”

Stiles stared at him for a second, trying to figure out if he was messing with him or not.

“You–”

He stumbled and nearly fell when something crashed against him.

“Hey!” he called, at the same time as Scott shouted, “Stiles!”, but instead of disappearing the weight remained on him.

The person, he then realised, noticing the way his body was suddenly being squeezed.

And the blond hair at the top.

“Isaac?”

Isaac pulled away, and Stiles was momentarily worried at the way his eyes looked a little red.

“I don’t know what you are,” he told him, way louder than necessary. “I don’t know how. I don’t know what you can do, and I don’t know why you do it.

“But I know you had something to do with it.” He held Stiles’ shoulders almost painfully. “Thank you.”

Stiles was uncomfortable, and his shoulders were achy.

Also, he was confused.

“What?”

“I am not stupid, or blind, or deaf,” said Isaac. “I see you and Cora. I see you whispering, and I hear some of the confusing and weird things you say." Oh... “I don’t know what the thing was, last night. All I could see was the blue eyes in the dark–” Oh, “And how sharp his claws were-” Oh! , “But I know you sent him. You sent him to scare my... to scare him, and when he told Camden he can’t leave me behind and that friends and brothers and pack is supposed to help and protect each other, I knew you sent him. 

“Don’t say anything,” he said, when Stiles opened his mouth. Stiles was grateful – he hadn’t been sure what he was going to say. “You don’t need to. You–” He shook his head, and blinked away tears. “You’re annoying. And rude. And, sometimes, kind of mean.”

“Hey,” protested Stiles.

“But you’re my friend.” His hold became less bruising. “You’re my... pack?”

Despite the confusion and the uncomfortableness of it, Stiles couldn’t deny that.

He nodded.

Isaac’s smile made his face brighter.

“Thank you. So much, Stiles, thank–”

Stiles’ eyes were getting itchy, that’s why he hugged Isaac next. Just to wipe his eyes over the boy’s shirt.

No other reason.

Why Scott joined them, he wasn’t sure.

He didn’t argue, though. 

Chapter Text

“Ugh.”

“Stop complaining,” said Lydia, flipping through the book in her hands.

Stiles glared at the side of her head.

“How are you not curious? You have to be curious. I’m literally dying over here!”

She did not even deign him with a change in expression.

Stiles turned to the other side of the library, where Cora was sitting.

“You–”

“No.”

“I don’t like you guys,” he complained, letting himself drop to the ground.

Seriously. Their parents were on the other side of the door – and several walls away – talking about the supernatural and the fact that it was real, and Stiles wasn’t even allowed to hear reactions/see them do it.

Obviously his dad had listened to Stiles tell him everything he knew.

But there were things Stiles did not know, things that Talia knew because she was alpha, and that she was probably currently telling him.

What if she was telling him secrets about being a werewolf that Stiles did not know about yet? Things that Cora did not know yet?

Peter had been way too happy about the chance of speaking frankly with his dad. 

He had said that ‘having law enforcement on their side could be helpful’, but he had said it with a smile Stiles had come to learn he was plotting.

And he had also come to learn that a plotting Peter wasn’t always so good.

Especially because, “Your mom is there. Are you not worried or confused or even a little bit suspicious?”

That had come out of the left field for Stiles, but he supposed he should have seen it coming. The whole point of telling the Sheriff was that Stiles was special, and his dad deserved to know how or why.

He just hadn’t considered that Talia would make the same rule for Lydia and her mother.

Lydia hadn’t appeared worried about bringing Natalie Martin along for the ride, but sometimes it was a little difficult to know what the girl was thinking or planning (even for him).

“I bet you’re just hiding it,” he said, and glanced over at Cora. “Can you smell if someone is curious?”

“Curiosity doesn’t have a scent, Stiles,” she said, and she even had the audacity to roll her eyes at that.

“You say that as if it’s obvious.”

“Think about it this way,” said Derek, walking into the library. “If it brings on a certain physical change – makes you heat up, tremble, redden, etc. – then it most likely has a scent. If it’s a change in the way of thinking or looking that someone close enough to you wouldn’t be able to notice, chances are we can’t smell it.”

Stiles considered this, tilting his head to the side. 

That made sense, he supposed. Being embarrassed – you blushed. Being scared – your heart went fast, and sometimes you became pale. Being angry – you could tremble all over, or become really red.

He wondered if having a crush had any sort of smell. Hanging out with someone you had a crush on had to show in the way your body and face reacted. Being in love was not really an emotion like being scared was, but it was an altered state of being.

But, people who were in love weren’t always feeling in love, were they? Only when they looked or thought about the person they liked.

Right?

That would make sense.

Stiles considered asking that question, but paused. It felt a little embarrassing, especially if he had to ask with Lydia there.

“Go on,” said Derek, kicking him in the shoulder. He was cross legged on the couch behind Stiles, foot against Stiles’ shoulder. “I can see you want to ask something. Ask.”

He and Cora then gave him that creepy stare of theirs. The one with the eyebrows and all.

“Your eyes,” he blurted out. Derek’s eyebrow rose with the beginning of his judgement, and Stiles quickly corrected himself. “I mean not these eyes. Your other eyes. Your wolf eyes. They are gold. But your mom’s are red, and Peter’s are blue...?”

“I’ve been wondering about that as well,” said Lydia, finally looking up. Now that he could see her face properly, she did appear a little worried. “I know red eyes are alpha eyes, but what’s up with blue and gold? Are there other colours?”

Cora glanced at Derek, and he only hesitated a second before speaking.

“Werewolves only have those three eye colours,” he ended up saying. “Alpha werewolves always have red eyes. It’s a way to show all wolves that you are the alpha. If an alpha flashes their red eyes at you, they are basically exercising their power over you, and it feels a bit like a heavy weight being put over you. Impossible to ignore.”

“Like hypnosis?”

“Kind of, but also not,” said Derek. “If my mom flashes her eyes at me, I do have to submit. She is the alpha, and to not submit would be akin to challenging her. Something that I’d never do.

“Don’t think about in terms of human submission or domination,” he added, when he saw the look on Stiles’ face. “It is nothing like that. It’s a... hierarchy thing, in itself. The submission is natural and expected.”

Stiles wasn’t sure he really understood – or that he could really understand, but he nodded.

He certainly did not expect Lydia, or Cora, or the others to obey him. But Cora had been as sure as Lydia had been, when they had called him the alpha. Did this mean she expected to never challenge him? For him to make her submit?

He shuddered, and decided not to think about it.

If Cora decided he was being a bad alpha and she wanted to challenge him, he’d totally let her do it and have the title.

“Then there is gold eyes,” continued Derek. “For the most part, people with gold eyes are beta or omega werewolves. A newly bitten werewolf, or newly born, will have golden/amber eyes. Think of it as default state.”

“Beta and omega?”

“A beta is anyone who follows an alpha. So, Cora, Laura, my cousins... we are all mom’s betas. Even you and Lydia, in a way. You don’t have to be a wolf to be a beta.

“An omega is someone who doesn’t have a pack, someone who is alone. They can have gold eyes too, but they are always a little crazy and very dangerous. They aren’t very strong – because they are packless – but they are the second most dangerous type of wolf after an alpha.”

“It’s because wolves are pack animals,” added Cora. “A pack needs an alpha to be strong, and pack makes an alpha stronger. To be without a pack, is a sure-fire way for a wolf to go crazy.”

“So no omega wolves.”

“No omega wolves,” he agreed. Then he sighed. “Blue eyes... Blue are for a wolf who has taken the life of an innocent.”

Stiles and Lydia stilled in a way that could have been comedic, had it not been for the topic at hand.

“Or rather someone the wolf considers an innocent,” continued Cora. “More like guilt, than out of a general good versus evil, innocent vs not innocent scale.”

“So Peter,” started Stiles, very carefully. “He...”

“Killed someone,” agreed Derek. 

“Or several someones,” said Lydia. She was very white.

“Or several someones,” he agreed.

Derek and Cora looked a little awkward and nervous. 

He knew and he and Lydia both were sitting a little too still, and were looking a little too pale for it to be healthy.

Derek and Cora didn't say anything else.

None of them spoke for a while.

“Ah, here he is,” said Alan Deaton, walking into the library. “The spark.”

Peter was walking behind him, and Stiles felt Lydia tensing up beside him at the sight.

He didn’t.

When Derek had explained the meaning of blue eyes in a werewolf, he had of course been nervous. Who wouldn’t be, when told a man you had felt safe and calm around was actually someone who had killed an innocent person before?

It had made sense, too. It explained why Lydia had always been wary and nervous around him, why Stiles had initially felt like Peter had the potential to be very dangerous and scary.

It explained other things too, things Derek and Cora hadn’t mentioned, but Stiles had been able to notice by observing the Hale family and the way they worked.

Talia Hale was the alpha, but she wasn’t the one who got her hands dirty. She ruled, but every ruler had their secret left hand who did all of the bad things for them.

Movies had them be the ‘evil servants’ but Stiles had always wondered about that – if they were so evil and bad, how had they gotten so far in life and their careers?

The King/Queen/main character had trusted them to be there.

And if he was correct, Talia Hale had trusted Peter to be at her side and deal with the things she did not want to deal with.

That made him dangerous.

But... But did it change anything?

Stiles wasn’t sure it did.

Because he had always thought Peter was a little crazy. Cora had told him from the beginning that her uncle was a little ‘unhinged’. The only thing they had kept a secret was how far Peter was willing to go.

Still, that meant Peter had been dangerous from the moment Stiles had met him. Peter had had blue eyes from before Stiles had even arrived on the scene, had always been dubbed weird and dangerous from even before Stiles and the others had had their dreams and nightmares.

And still, despite Peter being all of these shades of black and grey, Peter had been the one who Stiles had felt safe with, safe enough to hug. Peter had helped Stiles calm down, and taken him to see the other members of his family when Stiles had needed to. Peter had believed him about Kate and everything else, and was going to deal with her to protect Derek. Peter had kept Isaac safe.

Which meant Peter wasn’t a bad guy.

He was probably a very bad guy in the eyes of the law. He had no doubt that if dad knew about the killing, he wouldn’t be happy and would try to arrest him.

But Peter was only bad to those who were bad to his family, if he understood correctly. He wasn’t bad to his family – Talia trusted him around them. He wasn’t bad to children – he protected them. He wasn’t even bad to strange boys who acted strangely – Stiles’ existence proved this.

Stiles wouldn’t say he ‘trusted’ Peter, but he wouldn’t say he ‘feared’ Peter either.

And so, when he came in, he did not tense.

“Can I see my dad?”

“In a moment,” said Deaton, smiling and sitting down at the desk in the middle of the library. “Why don’t you join me, Stiles?”

Stiles shot Peter a quick look – because he knew, despite the blue eyes, Peter wouldn’t let him get hurt – and once he nodded, he moved.

He sat on the opposite side from Alan Deaton, watching as the man put down several objects between them: a pile of dark powder, three very dewy petals, some herbs, and an empty glass.

“Do you know the meaning of affinity?”

“Yeah?” He glanced at Lydia, who had come to stand on his other side, and the others. “It’s like the thing you’re better at?”

“It’s ‘a natural liking for and understanding of someone or something’ or ‘the degree to which a substance tends to combine with another’,” said Lydia.

Stiles nodded, pretending he had known. “And it’s that.”

“Good,” said Deaton. “In magic, it means the element – or elements – your magic – your spark – is most attuned to. Different sparks are attuned to different things: the immaterial world, the physical world, the ying, and the yang.”

“Okay,” he said, wondering if he needed to write this down somewhere. “Are you going to be my magic teacher?”

Peter scoffed at the idea, and Deaton rolled his eyes.

“It would be a disservice to your abilities. I’m a druid, and I would never be able to help you with anything but parts of the physical world, when it comes to magic.”

“And he’s a terrible teacher,” added Peter.

“Agree to disagree,” said Deaton, not glancing at him. “But before we try this, how about you show me what you can do? Talia mentioned something about communicating with others?”

“Yeah,” said Stiles, brightening up. “I can do it with Dad, Cora, Derek and Lydia. I think I can also do it with Peter.”

“Talia?”

Stiles shrugged. “Maybe? She doesn’t have the orange string.” Deaton nodded, and Stiles had a feeling that if he’d had a notepad, he would have scribbled in it like the therapists in movies did. 

Instead, he pushed a piece of paper face down on the table, towards Stiles.

“I want you to look at the words I wrote down, and try to speak those words in people's minds, if you can. I put down their names, too.”

That didn’t sound too bad.

Peter herded Lydia and the others away from Stiles as he turned the paper around, so that they wouldn’t be able to read for themselves.

Then, once he had memorised the words, Stiles closed his eyes.

The first, the easiest to find.

Strawberry.

“Strawberry?” asked Derek.

Deaton nodded in approval.

Eichen House.

“Eichen House,” said Lydia.

Another nod.

Butterflies in the sky.

“Butterflies in the sky,” said Cora.

How many moon phases are there?

“Eight lunar phases,” said Peter. Stiles frowned, turning to glance at him, and Peter smirked. “Oh, sorry – I thought I had to answer.”

Deaton sighed. “Peter–”

“How many moon phases are there?”

“Good,” said Deaton.

A-R-C-O-I-R-I-S.

This time, it took a few seconds before Deaton’s phone buzzed.

As he checked for Stiles’ dad’s response, Stiles closed his eyes once more.

Finding the orange lines – pack bonds – between him and everyone else had been simple. It was easy, now, after the previous tries, especially since he had spoken to many of them before.

Derek had explained pack bonds to him – at least how they manifested for wolves.

Derek and Cora were part of Stiles’ pack, according to the bonds he had with them. But they were also part of Talia Hale’s pack. They had bonds with each other, and bonds with Talia and all other members of the Hale pack.

Which meant that Stiles could, potentially–

Ah, he thought, feeling super satisfied when he found the vibrant red bond between Derek and Talia.

“Spelt out,” said Deaton. “Accident, or is because you don’t know the word?”

Holding on to it was harder than manipulating the orange one, but Stiles was stubborn.

Alan Deaton, emissary of the Hale pack.

“Don’t know the word,” he then said, opening his eyes and rubbing his temple. It ached a bit. “What does it mean?”

“Rainbow in Spanish,” said Deaton, as his phone buzzed again. “Very well–” He paused, glancing at Stiles in surprise. “I thought you said you had no bond with Talia.”

“I don’t,” agreed Stiles. “I just... looked for it.”

His brows grew pinched. “Looked for it? How?”

“I followed my bond with Cora and Derek back to her,” he explained. 

He did not think it was a big deal, but the way Deaton was looking at him made him re-evaluate.

“Just now?” he asked, staring at him. “You hijacked the pack bond in less than ten seconds?”

Stiles looked back to Derek – who, alongside Cora and Lydia, looked confused – and Peter – who appeared particularly smug.

“... Yes?”

“A disservice,” ended up saying Deaton, blinking a couple more times. “Me attempting to teach you anything would be a disservice.”

He shook his head, and then focused on the objects in front of him.

“A spark’s power is rooted in their belief; with nothing but the power of your mind and imagination, you are able to create, destroy and manipulate the reality around you.” With a kind of badass flick of his fingers, he pulled out and turned on a small lighter. “I’m going to light up those leaves there. I want you to stop the fire from spreading, and I want you to do it with these objects.”

Stiles frowned at the powder, flower petals and empty glass.

“With my hands?”

“With your magic,” corrected Deaton. “I want you to imagine stopping the fire when all you have at your disposition are these objects here.”

Again, Stiles stared dubiously in front of him. “Magically?”

“Yes. I don’t want you to think about it too hard, or even think of it as making magic. These elements are very susceptible – why, I think even Peter could manipulate them into action.”

“Then what does it help? If anyone can do it?”

Deaton smiled. “Indulge me.”

Stiles just stared at him.

“Affinity,” then posed Lydia. She had moved back beside him. “He’s going to judge you based on what you pick and how you use it. Or what reacts to you.” She looked at Deaton. “Right?”

The man did not respond.

He just looked at Stiles expectantly.

Stiles had never before considered how much he disliked fire.

He had never really thought about fire per se, other than on the stove while cooking.

But now, as he watched Deaton slowly lit up the pile of leaves on the desk, he felt a strange feeling all over his spine.

His eyes remained opened for a second, watching the burning leaves, the rapidity with which they were burning, and his shoulders went up.

He did not like it, he thought, lips pressed together.

He did not like it one bit.

Deaton continued to look at him expectantly, and Stiles forcefully closed his eyes.

He did not like the fire. He did not like the fire just burning on top of the table, risking burning the wood under it.

What happened if Stiles did not manage to extinguish it? What happened if it burned the desk? It would take the chairs, next, and then the bookshelves, and the books, and then the whole room would be on fire before anyone could stop it! And then the house, and he could almost see it.

He could almost see the remains of the house, burned and charred. He could just imagine the door broken, and painted over – inexplicably red.

He could feel and hear the sound of cracking wood under his feet, of the ceiling threatening to give.

And the smell – it should not be so clear, so thick. Smoke faded but still heavy in the air, still heavy in every remnant of the house, even in the woods surrounding it.

It would shine so bright, people would think it was a star. People would–

“Alan.”

“Stiles,” said Deaton, in a weird voice. “Try to stop the fire. You have to stop the fire from spreading.”

Stop the fire, thought Stiles, squeezing his eyes harder. Stop the fire, with the objects on the table.

Stiles would never allow a fire like that to happen. He wouldn’t let it happen again.

He would smash the fire barehanded, if he had to. He would squeeze any remnant of dew from the petal and extinguish the blaze. He would cover the remaining ash, like a blanket of some sort. And fire couldn’t exist without oxygen, so he would take the oxygen – cover the entire thing with the glass.

He’d make sure nobody could get close, nobody could touch or try to restart the fire. He’d make sure.

“My god,” he heard, after a few seconds.

Stiles’ nose twitched. He sort of wanted to open his eyes, but he wasn’t sure–

“You can... you can open your eyes,” said Deaton.

He sounded even more confused than before.

When Stiles opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was that a lot of the top of the table was burned. Much more than Stiles had expected.

But the fire wasn’t burning anymore.

The petals were completely black. Not black like they had been burned, but black like.. They were suddenly dead.

The empty glass was cracked.

And the powder...

Stiles looked at the small amount on top of the blackened leaves.

Then, he looked behind Deaton, were a dust of black seemed to have been drawn. It ran in a circular pattern, and Stiles turned, standing up to see where it went–

And promptly falling to the ground, legs suddenly giving out.

“Stiles!”

Lydia was the only thing that saved him from faceplanting.

“Ow,” he complained, feeling suddenly dizzy and weak. “What–”

“Apparently, I still managed to underestimate you,” said Deaton, sounding disbelieving. “And you are much more powerful than anyone should expect a kid your age to be.”

“Are you okay?” asked Derek, he and Cora standing right behind the black line – which had somehow wrapped itself in a circle all around Stiles, Lydia, Deaton and the table. “Stiles?”

“I’m dizzy,” he complained.

“Talia and your father will bring down some juice for you,” said Deaton, also standing up and helping Stiles to walk across the black line.

They messed it up as they did, and Derek and Cora nearly fell face forward too.

Stiles had questions. Loads of them.

Peter looked scheme-y, Deaton looked freaked out, Lydia thoughtful, and Cora and Derek just awed.

He had many questions.

But first, some juice.

Then, a nap.

He deserved it.

Chapter Text

Stiles liked learning. 

He liked hearing something that was vaguely interesting and then spending hours (days... weeks, even) trying to find every scrap of information on that topic.

His mom had always encouraged his ‘patchwork learning’. She said it gave him a little bit of knowledge on everything, and that one day he was going to kill it at trivia because of it.

So, learning in itself? Not a problem.

He craved it, welcomed it.

He groaned, letting his head fall back on the table, and turned slightly to glance at his friend.

“Scott,” he said, as dramatically as possible. “I need you to shoot me.”

Scott did not even look up from his book.

“If I shoot you, who is going to shoot me ?”

He made a very good point.

However, it was hard to think about it when he turned back to his geography textbook.

He liked geography well enough, but he mostly like the geography where they focused on different countries and why they were cool or potentially ran by evil people with terrible agendas. Not when they were talking about what was under each layer of Earth and why there were volcanos under water.

Okay, scratch that. 

Volcanos underwater sounded really cool, as did the knowledge that they were on a rock filled with magma as they floated through an empty universe.

But the textbook made the entire thing boring as hell, and their teacher did not help. He was a weird man who spoke so slowly and quietly, it could put the most attentive of students to sleep.

Stiles had seen Lydia fighting the urge to close her eyes in his classes.

“We need to be responsible,” said Scott, eyes still on the book in his hands. “You said this was going to help both of us with the test.”

“It is,” agreed Stiles. “But it’s boring.”