June 30th - Zippy was born July 21st / 22nd - Loranna was born
1988
Derek was born
1994
March 13th - Matt Petrova II was born June 15th - Jackson Whittemore was born
1995
January 14th - Cora was born March 8th - Lydia was born April 1st - Malia was born April 19th - Stiles was born August 19th - Scott was born
1998
January
Hales go on a family trip to Wisconsin to celebrate wolf time. Thalia gets shot by hunters. Heals up in the hospital when doctor removes arrow. Spurs doctor to believing in werewolves.
2002
November 5th - Loranna loses her nuclear family. December - Loranna wakes up Matthios to avenger her family. Looses the ability to werewolf up and was pretty much a human for a bit.
2003
Peter goes and convinces Derek to ******** things up with poor Paige Age of the Argents. Shoot those werewolves! Or sleep with them...that works too. Oh look, a new doctor has moved into Beacon Hills and he's interested in Thalia Hale.
2004
Hale fire. Damn it Peter, this is all your fault...or Derek cause he can't keep it in his pants around crazy chicks. Nope, all Peter's fault still. Tate Car Crash - Full moon...poor little Malia. December (late) - Zippy's immediate family dies...has to nom on them to survive.
2005
Stiles' mom (Claudia) dies of frontaltemporal dementia
2011
Fall Semester - Season 1
Stiles is 16.5 Allison Argent turned 17
2012
Spring Semester - Season 2
March 8th - Lydia turned 17, WORM MOON DAMN IT
Fall Semester - Season 3A+
Derek got bussaaaaay with another crazy lady. Malia is 17 Stiles would would have had his 17th B-day
2013
March - April
Vampires, Oni, Oh my March 8th - Lydia's legal now...the world better watch out. April 1st - Malia is legal April 3rd - Allison Argent Died/was made into a vampire. April 19th - Stiles is legal. April 23rd - Tulio lost his mommy...again. April 26th - All the vampires were finished off.
General Werewolf Ranking
PAST HALES
DEAD HALES Talia Hale HMC - Born - (LUKE EVANS) - Victor Hale HMC W - Born - (Jessica Marais) - Gorgette Blessington-Hale This would have made Cora and Derek 1st cousins (by law) to Loranna and Zippy if Lilly was still alive. HMC child - Born - (Molly Jackson) - Lilly Hale Papa Hale - Bitten - (Nyle DiMarco) - Gabriel Kane-Hale PH S - human - (Sophia Bush) - Lacey Kane PH S T - human - (Ava Cantrell) - Odette Kane PHS kid - Human - (levi miller) - Nathaniel Kane
It wasn't everyday that people came over that weren't exactly blood related and for little Cora Hale, it was most certainly an exciting new experience. She knows the concept of having a circle of friends, having made a few whenever her father and uncle treated her to going out to the park or going for ice-cream. Being home schooled wasn't sunshine and rainbows as most kids thought it out to be. It was boring and the lectures seem to go on for hours without anyone else to distract you from the continuous blabber of the tutors. So, when Laura and Derek came home, excited and a bit nervous asking permission for their friends to come sleep over, Cora instantly supported the idea. However....
"No Cora. You can't come in with us...It's for big girls only." Laura said with a stern frown, a hand full of pillows and blankets. "Besides, you're still learning how to control your shifting you big baby."
A small pout formed on the six year old's lip, looking up with pleading eyes as she tried the maneuver her Uncle Peter told her to use whenever things don't go her way. The fact that she carried a small pillow and a blankey only served to increase the puppy dog look.
"No Cora. Go downstairs and bother Derek or something."
Rolling her eyes, Cora stomped all the way downstairs, ignoring the excited squeals of teenage girls once Laura returned to the room. Her light brown eyes stared hatefully at the door before poking out her tongue and running downstairs, hopping the last three steps.
Feeling a new sense of enthusiasm, the little werewolf ran into the living room where her big brother had his own version of friends. She vaguely remembers him saying something about being teammates and according to her father, teammates are something closely related to allies. Peeking through the a small sliver of opening between the sheets acting as drapes to keep them from peering through the glass doors closing off the entrance to the living room. A small hand rose up to knock against the pane glass, her eyes following a figure standing up and approaching the door.
Cora stood back to let them open it and grinned happily when it was one of her brother's friends. "Hi", she said, waving with three fingers; two holding tightly onto her blanket. The teen waved back, smiling amusingly before stepping aside as Derek pushed through, closing the panes behind him and staring down at her.
"What are you doing?" he asked her obviously annoyed as he furrowed his eyebrows.
"I want to play too." she answered back cheerfully.
Derek's brows drew together as he frowned, looking back over his shoulder as his teammates snickered. He knew what they were probably thinking. Oh, how cute wittle Derek playing with his wittle sister. As his frown folded in deeper he turned to look back at his little sister.
"We're not playing Cora," he said in as firm a tone as he could without sounding too mean.
The little girl blinked in confusion, not understanding how they were all laughing and horsing around if they are not playing. She scrunched her nose in confusion before looking up at the teen and giving him an incredulous look. Cora dutifully ignored him after and side stepped him to enter the room, dropping her pillow beside the one that opened the pane door. She was about to sit down when all of a sudden she felt herself being lifted off the ground and whirled around to stare back at the entrance.
Set down by the stairs, the six year old turned to glare at her brother, pouting angrily now.
"Stay." he ordered, turning around to head back inside and closing the doors behind him once again.
"No fair," she muttered, kicking the floor and crossing her arms. When the doors opened, a small spark of hope ignited inside her instantaneously only for a pillow to hit her right smack on the face before falling down on the wooden floor with a light plop.
Crestfallen and biting back tears, the little werewolf dragged her feet towards the kitchen where her father was making late night snacks for the teens. She heard the light, humming coming from him and recognized it as the lullaby her mother sang to her every once in a while when she did her nightly rounds.
The older man stopped when he noticed her enter the room. "Hey sweetbunny, what's wrong?" he asked, but before she got to reply Derek came running in and asked for the snacks to which her father simply stared at him unamused being ordered around like some maid. Derek raised his hands in defense and scrambled back into the living room. Looking back down at her, Cora forced a smile and shook her head.
"Nothing daddy," she said, knowing her father knew she was putting on a brave front. However, he didn't push and instead returned to making the snacks, opening up the oven to check on the cookies. "Okay bunny, but you know you can't stay in here right? Your mother will kill you if she finds you in here." Ah, right, how can she forget. Last time she was forced to run a few miles as punishment for being along in there. Apparently, something about being around sharp objects and being in the way.
Nodding, Cora walked out of the kitchen and paused by the stairs, wondering where she would go because she was getting tired. She wasn't allowed upstairs, even though Laura and her share a room, and Derek banned her from the living room. She sighed tiredly, the rush she was feeling moments replaced with heaviness. With a heavy heart and tears in the brim of her eyes, Cora took a seat in the last step of the stairs before laying down on it and covering her face with her blanket as she held back the tears to sleep.
Peter smiled to himself as the door was closed behind him. Popcorn had been thrown in his hair by his lovely niece- the eldest one. One second he had practically been pulled into the room by some of her friends under the guise of trying to figure out what College was like, and the next he made a joke about the movie they were watching - Titanic. Well more specifically the poor sap character named Jackie or something like that. Apparently that type of talk was worthy of having pillows thrown at him and handfuls of popcorn. And he took a moment to pick it out, snacking on it as he laughed to himself.
At least, before he went, he scored that Reese's cup...and two phone numbers. Not that he was going to do anything with those - standards and all. But it did keep the ego in healthy condition to be able to get them without Laura noticing.
He quieted and slowed down when he found a very familiar bundle wrapped up on the stairs. Peter slowed his decent to stop on the stair below, sitting down next to the sleeping child. He put his leg out in case she started to fall when she woke up as he slowly pulled the cover off of the sleeping Cora's.
Saltine mucus and water filled his nose as he tucked the blanket under her chin. Tears. Peter's features relaxed into a more neutral tone as he used her blanket to wipe the minimal evidence away. He got up for a second to get her pillow before taking his spot again and putting the fluffy thing under her head. Waking up with neck pains was a b***h. Somehow being a werewolf didn't reduce that.
Cora must have fallen asleep sometime between the sniffling and tearing because the next thing she knows, something is being tucked under her head; something soft and snuggly as she buried her face deeper into it. The little girl cracked an eye open, blinking away the haziness as the figure beside her cleared. "Uncle Peter," she mumbled, her voice laded with sleepiness as she rubbed an eye, lifting her head off the pillow slightly.
For a moment, she was confused from her surroundings, wondering why she was on the stairs before hushed squeals from upstairs and boisterous cheers came from the living room reminded her exactly why. Her eyes dropped down to her lap, her chest feeling heavy and the urge to curl in on herself once again returned. However, she paused, pushing those sentiments away when she saw something icky and gooey stuck on the edges of her blankets. "Ew...Uncle Peter," she repeated but this time in an accusatory tone as she showed him her stained blanket.
When Laura's voice rang out from the rest of the girls, Cora dropped her hands and sighed heavily, looking up at her uncle. "I'm not allowed to play with them."
Peter looked at her for a moment. His face shifted as he looked between where the boys were being rowdy behind the double french doors and the general area of where Laura and her friends would be. He looked back down to Cora as though he had weighed a very important matter.
"Why would you want to play with them?"
Cora tilted her head and gave him an 'are you kidding me' look. However, after a couple of seconds with him staring down at her with the same expression she sighed and pouted, crossing her arms around her.
"I don't know...because Laura and Derek are? They are having fun with their friends and I wanted to play with them too. And you know I don't have many and I only see them when I go out and not for very long. Besides, it's not fair. It's my room too. And...and...I just want to be included."
"But you don't want to be included in their stupidity do you?" Peter asked as he continued to sit beside his youngest niece with his famous smile.
His eyes almost seemed to twinkle at that notion as he held back laughter behind his amused smile. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the package of reece's, giving her one of his favorite treats known to man.
"Because last I checked, you were better than making goo-goo eyes over an actor or joking about touching a rim. Which, apparently, your brother Derek failed at and smacked his face right into the ground."
Cora snorted, taking the treat from the older male and biting into its delicious surface as she stared at Peter. "But you do that all the time and you're not stupid. Not the falling part though, you're too cool to fall like Derek." she said, poking her tongue out at the doors before shoving the rest of the cup into her mouth.
She was silent for a moment, her eyes glancing at him once in a while before turning to face him fully again. "What's a rim? Is it about cars?"
Peter smile of amusement deepened as he chuckled. "It's a sports thing. Your siblings are too dull to have something as cool as cars. Nope, instead they'd rather be stereotypes. Sports sports sports for Derek, and boys boys boys for Laura."
Cora reciprocated the smile and lifted her stained fingers at her Uncle Peter. "And chocolate and ice cream for us, right!"
"And reece's," Peter said as he tilted the last of his share towards her before finishing it off. "I think we have the better thing here, don't you?"
The little six year old smiled, nodding in agreement. "Yup. Laura and Derek can suck it." Cora said, giggling into her hands after.
"There's a good girl. I'm sure both of your siblings do a lot of sucking and you don't want to get mixed up in that do you?" Peter smiled as he stood up on the stairs. "How does pizza sound? My treat."
"Huh? Laura doesn't like lollipops. Is eating them bad?" Cora frowned at that and hoped it wasn't. She liked lollipops and would occasionally steal one from Derek's bag whenever he had any. At the mention of pizza, the girl's head shot up and nodded briskly. "Mhm! Pineapples, don't forget the pineapple!"
"I know, pineapple or bust. But we're getting it to go. There's supposed to be shooting stars. So go get your warmest coat, and tell Laura to stick it," maybe encouraging sibling strife wasn't the best way to go but it was the most fun. For him.
Peter waited with his hands in his pockets at the bottom of the stairs while Cora went to do her thing.
Cora smiled and quickly grabbed her things before bolting up the stairs, almost tripping on her blanket once or twice before bursting into the room. You can easily hear Laura shouting her name when the rushing footsteps stopped momentarily and the firm and serious, "Laura you can stick it."
"Oh my god, you little brat! PETER!"
With her red coat in hand, and a guilty, deer in the headlights expression, Cora once again jumped that last flight of stairs and grabbed Peter's sleeve, dragging him out of the door as Derek peered through the curtains.
"Mm, I think that went well, don't you?" she giggled, slipping into her red coat as the chilled air bit into her skin -which honestly barely bothered her much as long as she doesn't stay out too long.
"It always goes well with me," Peter said, his charming smile back in place as he and Cora headed out.
His car wasn't too far away - behind the house with the others. The metal machine contrasted against the darkness of the forest around them.The silver of the powerful looking frame shown in the moonlight, more at half mass than anything else.
"Buckle up sweetheart," the twenty-something year old said after getting in the car, waiting for Cora to follow instructions.
After that he took off heading for the best mom and pop's pizza place that Beacon had to offer. Which happened to be next to his other favorite place - the bowling alley.
Upon seeing the silver mustang, Cora grinned and ran up to the vehicle, finding it funny that her mom and dad and siblings would keep saying that silver was bad for them but her Uncle Peter practically in love with the color. She hopped inside and nodded, buckling up and shaking her foot in anticipation as she stared out the window.
It wasn't long before they arrived, surprising her when she was in the middle of explaining how boring her math tutor was (which happened to be some distant relative from something, something).
She pointed at the bowling alley, turning excitedly towards Peter, almost jumping up and down in glee. "Can we go there next? Please!? Pretty please Uncle Peter?! I'll buy you more Reese's!"
Turning to look down at her to see what she was wanting to go to next, Peter raised an eyebrow. He never took her for someone who liked bowling. But then again she was a little six year old - she probably like anything that didn't have to do with math and tutoring family.
"And when did you get a job Cora?" Peter asked as they continued to walk into the pizza alley. "Because if you're not careful and you let Thalia know that...she might start charging you rent."
Little Cora rolled her eyes humorously, "Pfft, Uncle Peter, don't be silly. Derek leaves his change lying around all the time. I have a jar full of money. I heard momma say it's always good to have a conti-contingy plan? Dad said it was like a back up. 'Sides, not my fault Derek doesn't take care of his money." she informed him as they entered the place. She was able to smell the pizza from outside the place and finally inside, she was all but drowning in the intoxicating smell of it. Except olives...she hated olives. And one person was walking out with one in toe.
"Blegh...olives." she scrunched up her nose in disgust, eyes following the woman as she increased the distance between them. She turned to Peter and gave him a stern look. "Don't get olives...but don't forget the pineapples," she reminded gently.
"Oh I don't know, olives and pineapple make a great combination," Peter teased as he held open the door for her to walk in. Once they were in, he ruffled her hair a bit. "Don't worry kid, I know. No healthy things. Except for pineapple."
When he got in to the shop, the person greeted them. It was more of a family restraunt, done in that neighborhood friendly way so of course they were greeted. That he expected. What he didn't expect was a tight feeling in his chest over...
"Will you and your daughter be dinning in or out?"
"Out," Peter said instantly, without pausing to even think of that as he stared at the women as though she'd grown an extra head. "Hawaiian pizza, extra pineapple. To go."
"What size?"
For that he looked down to Cora so she could chime in her two sense if she wanted.
Oh yeah, Cora can die here. She'll love to die with the smell of a freshly made pizza drowned in pineapples...and ice cream. She inhaled deeply as Peter made his way to the register where the woman greeted him. She approached them and was going to go out of her to correct her when Peter answered. Cora turned to him and shrug, smiling brightly as she thought it was probably a ploy to get a discount. She honestly doesn't remember that being a discount option but maybe it's new.
When asked what size, she saw her uncle turn to her in question and flashed the woman a big smile. "Large please. This big!" she said, raising her arms and extending as wide as she can go.
The lady chuckled, nodding at her, "Yes ma'am. That will be $20.65 please." she told Peter.
Cora pulled on Peter's sleeve and pointed at one of the vending machines, "Can I have a quarter to get a bouncy ball please? Just one. Laura hid my other one as training and I can't find it."
Peter looked down at the six year old werewolf girl as he collected his change. Without looking at the woman, he handed her back a dollar bill. It was pretty much understood what it was for at this point. And before Cora had time to get antsy there was a few extra quarters in her hand - the dollar plus the one he got back in change.
"Try getting two this time. One as your back up - your contingency," Peter advised as he leaned against the counter. "And you should see if you can beat Derek's score at the street fighter game while you're over there."
Because violence pretty much solved all their issues. Until Thalia found out that's what he was teaching her youngest. Then violence only solved her issues.
"Oh,...Okay! Thank you!" she said, running off to the vending machine. The woman at the register aww'ed and rested her chin on the palm of her hand as she stared at Peter. "How cute. How old is she?"
"Six," Peter answered as he looked over his shoulder at the woman.
From across the room, you can hear Cora squeal happily, holding up a cobalt blue ball with yellow, green, white, and spotted black ball and another clear glitter ball before running over to the street fighter game.
"Aren't you a little young to be having kids though? You don't look older than twenty now that I get a good look at you." the woman chuckled.
Oh look, that charming smile was back on his face. "I'm not as young as you might think."
She watched Cora with a smile before turning back to him. "Pizza should be done in 5 minutes."
Nodding, Peter wondered away from the counter.
After changing the dollar into quarters, Cora began to insert them into the arcade game, pulling up a chair to get better access to the controls. Her fingers quickly flew towards the buttons as the characters jumped, kicked, and punched each other, frowning when her character's health was low.
"Combo breaker," Peter said from right behind the unsuspecting child, his smirk speaking to him knowing just how much it would have thrown her off.
"What?" The girl glanced back only to quickly whip her gaze to the screen again and watch her opponent finish her with a swift punch. "Aww, Uncle Peter, you distracted me. No fair." Not that she was going to win anyways but she's a bit too proud to admit that.
She turned to Peter, pouting and crossing her arms across her chest. "I wanna see you do better." she challenged, handing him a quarter.
Peter pointed to the screen where the word Hale1 blinked over and over again. Then he pointed down the line to make it clear to Cora that wasn't her brother. In fact, Derek was down at 5 where DHale sat.
"You might have time for another match if you really try. Otherwise it's time to pack up and wait the next few minutes for the pizza."
Cora growled, shoving the quarter into the game and glared at Peter for a second before turning back to the game. She was trying in the other game. But for some reason, she can't...furiously pressing buttons...get the other's...fiercely jiggle the stick handle...health down.
The girl frowned as the words K.O'd filled the screen with her player on the floor. However...she did manage to get the other's health down to a third. So some improvement.
Turning to the older male, the six year old frowned before having a determined gleam. "Not a word. Just wait, I'll beat your score one day....Just not today." Hopping off the chair, Cora looked up at Peter and showed him her bouncy balls, hoping to take the attention away from the failure.
_________________________
The box of quickly cooling pizza lay between them as they over looked beacon hills. The lights below glimmered in the dark, flickering here and there as the town continued with it's rural city beat. Up above the stars did their things as well. Almost as well as what the pizza did in their mouths.
"Woah, slow down. How many pieces you planning on having kiddo?"
The pizza paused halfway towards her mouth as Cora gave him a look. The kind of look in which you can't believe they even asked you that.
"Uh...all of them," she stated matter of fact, reaching for another slice and setting it on top of another, creating a sandwich of pineapple and cheese before taking a rather large bite off it.
"Jo edin any?" Cora pushed the box closer to him in a kind of gesture telling him that if he doesn't hurry, she'll literally eat the rest of the box herself. A small piece of pineapple fell from her lips as she swallowed the large portion before taking another bite. There was probably a couple more slices left and at the rate she's going, they'll be gone in 12 bites.
Peter pulled what was probably his third piece from the box and bit into it. Yeah he may not have been as hungry as she was but damn, where did that kid put it all? That was a large pizza!
"You should probably check to see if your mom is looking for you yet."
So maybe taking her out of the house without telling mother or father might not have been the best move. But to be fair he lived in a house full of werewolves. Eavesdropping was expected - when it didn't happen it was kind of strange.
He cast a blue eye over in her direction as he finished off his next bite. "Try closing your eyes, narrow down the senses and focus."
The little girl groaned with a mouth full of pizza, sending small chunks of pineapple flying. Why does everything good somehow turn into an exercise? It's not like they'll be dying soon or anything, she has all the time in the world to learn. But no. Everybody picked on her because she was behind in literally everything! Even her darn shifting control.
Grabbing a slice, she took a bite before setting it back into the box before doing what she was told but not before sending Peter an annoyed glance.
"Wouldn't Laura and Derek tell her I left with you?" she complained, trying to narrow down her senses but finding it difficult as the pizza infiltrated her nose and slightest sound caused her to get easily distracted.
However, after a couple of seconds, she seemed to get it down with minor difficult as tried to zero in on the desired target before a roar erupted her ear canals causing her to jump and cling to Peter in surprise.
Seems like her mother wasn't too pleased. "Maybe dad said she'll give us food poisoning with her cooking again?" she hoped, as she swallowed thickly. "Um...I think it's time to go home."
"Next time, can we go to the bowling place thing?"
The morning was quiet, not even the birds seemed ready to break it with their cawing. Peter smiled as he pushed some wayward brown hair out of his eyes. Not his of course, no his was kept to a respectable level. It was Olivia's - the woman who had pretty much kept him busy enough for the last few months. She was one hell of a woman. Enough to actually keep him interested and...dare he say it...loyal. The thought was weird considering that he wasn't exactly known as a one woman man. But then again that was pretty much because he couldn't afford to be because of his family. He couldn't exactly bring anyone back to meet his family. After all, the people he dated tended to be humans and that was a no no for a serious relationship. At least, one that he wanted to be honest in. Humans weren't allowed to know that they were werewolves. It was pretty much their only enforced "law".
"You're in a good mood this morning," Olivia said as she turned over, resting her head on the crux of his arm and chest.
"I have every reason to be. I have a soft bed and a beautiful woman to share it with. What more could I want?" The grin on his face was pretty much s**t-eating.
She smiled and relaxed, stroking circles on his bear skin. "Well, for starters more time would be nice. Are you sure you have to go on this trip?"
Peter nodded against the top of her head. It wasn't a trip he could avoid. Besides he wasn't sure he wanted to avoid it. The trip would give him a chance to run. Not for like a health reason purpose, but actually run like the werewolf he was. To go through a forest without fear of the hunters that seemed to just love passing through. And he'd get to meet up with others like him - other werewolves - that weren't from his direct family line. It wasn't an opportunity that they got very often.
"And what if I get myself into trouble why you're away? Who's going to tell me to be more careful while you're gone?"
"You have the number for the hotel. You can probably reach me there. Unless you lost that card like you lost my keys sweetheart."
"I didn't loose them," Olivia said as she pushed herself up on his chest to face him. "I just misplaced them and didn't want to look for them because you hid the fact that you had gotten shot from me Peter. What kind of person does that?"
He stared at her for a moment. There was an inner fire in her that kept him amused. A sassy, fiery woman. It really was too bad that she was human. Then again, sometimes her humanity was cute. Like when she'd found out he'd been shot by a hunter's arrow. She'd pretty much raced to the door to block it when he'd made to leave, and then when he looked to the window she'd tried to block that too. Like he couldn't have just moved faster than her, or moved her out of the way.
"A werewolf," he replied.
She flicked his nose. "A dead wolf the next time that happens."
"You wouldn't kill me."
"What makes you so sure?"
"I'm too pretty. Besides, you wouldn't want our kid to grow up fatherless would you?"
He idly reached down to touch her flat stomach. Very flat, no baby bump at all. Olivia rolled her eyes at him and went to lay down on her back. She still didn't believe him. Apparently some half a** doctor had told her she would have difficulties getting pregnant. Something about some complicated egg things. The doctor was human of course. So Peter was pretty sure that his opinion was worthless in the wake of a werewolf pregnancy. He was sure that the medical staff was going to s**t bricks when she went in for delivery. Because if he had his way she wasn't going to have to deal with all that blinding, near death pain level s**t that humans went through to give birth.
"So have you picked out a name yet?"
"Peter, I'm not pregnant. I know you have a good sense of smell but you're full of it. We've been using protection and you know it. So stop trying to freak me out."
Peter shrugged from his resting position. He slid his arm behind his head as she got up from her spot. She had work to get to - something about a work situation and a guy she had to meet. Tate something or other, he stopped caring.
"Remind me to tell you I told you so in a few months."
She grinned back at him. "But you'll be lying because that'll be my line."
________________________________________
By the time that two o'clock had come around, Peter enough drinks in him to kill a horse. Another perk of being a werewolf - he'd never gotten drunk before. He'd tried numerous of times of course because what person told that they can't do something doesn't end up trying at some point? He, however, had to act at least a little bit tipsy as he got into the hotel. After all he pretty much smelled like he drank the entire bar. Which wouldn't be too far from the truth...just an exaggeration.
The hotel lobbyist looked at him for a moment, and Peter had to wonder why. He was pretty sure he wasn't showing his a** pretending to be drunk too much. His walk was a practiced ungraceful and the expression on his face was only just a little over exaggerated. By the time he got to his room, however, he figured it out. And he silently cursed the scent of alcohol that left him blind sighted.
Olivia was there...and she looked pissed.
Peter slowly corrected his walk so he didn't appear to have that drunk swag as his brows drew together in concern. "What's wrong?"
She looked at him and he knew that he must have done something seriously messed up. Because the next thing he knew, his face had been hit. Not one of those half-hearted swings. But a full on slap to the right area with enough force to get him to turn his head. Damn that stung.
Turning to look back at her, Peter wiped the blood from his suddenly split lip with his thumb. He sucked on the blood for a second as he watched the fire in her eyes turn them such a dark brown it almost looked black. Oh she was royally pissed alright. And he had no idea what he'd done to deserve it.
"Hello to you too," he said after a moment.
"Hello? Hello? Is that all you have to say to me?" Olivia raged at him. "You're not even going to try that whole 'Wait! I can explain!' bullshit?"
"I'm afraid you'll have to tell me what I need to explain. You've been here a lot longer than I have."
"We'll let's see. Why don't we start off with the fact that you told me that this was some big important event you can't miss? Then we can move on to the fact that this big important event meant you going out to drink? And from there we can move on to the fact that you're screwing another woman behind my back. Or maybe the fact that you're married."
The last two sentences had been whispered for some sense of decency sake. But to Peter it was as though she had screamed in his ears at the top of her lungs. He opened the door to his hotel room and pulled her in. It wasn't exactly the best buffer against sounds but at least it would get them out of the prying eyes of humans that passed by. He'd already given up on the idea of having privacy from his family. There was no way they weren't already listening in.
"...wait. Rewind that, and pause. What?"
"I came here looking for you to call you a smug know it all and so you can say I told you so, but I found her."
"Her?"
"Don't play stupid. We both know you're anything but stupid, Peter. Thaia. Thalia Hale. ******** she answered your door in a robe and she still had her ring on!"
"...my sister?"
The clocks seemed to stop working in his head. She thought he was having sex with his sister? Worse that he was married to her?
Olivia stepped back with her mouth open. A disgusted expression appeared clearly on her face. Mixing with all that rage he had to say it was not an attractive look.
"That's sick. You're sick. Is that some ******** up werewolf thing or something? Because damn it, you're sister?"
As soon as she uttered the word werewolf, Peter's stomach dropped. His eyes widened and his mouth opened a little. s**t. No. s**t. Damn. ********. The golden rule. The only ******** damned rule. And she had to go and open her mouth about the truth he'd told her.
No. No. Thalia was not going to lay one claw on her. No. But...how could he stop her? What could he do that would stop his law abiding sister from doing as she had always done?
"Well?"
"Olivia...be quiet."
He bowed his eyes. And received another slap. Then another. He hadn't even noticed that she'd gotten close enough for the first one honestly. It was on the third slap that he caught her wrist. His eyes were lowered, messy bangs from the night of partying with his cousins (distant, very distant...well, he was sure they were related somehow at least) hiding the pained look in his eyes.
"I can't believe --"
And before she had time to finish that statement, Peter kissed her. There really was nothing else he could do at that point. Olivia had a fiery temper and that was one of the things he had liked about her. When she got going she was fierce and determined. She'd already made up her mind that he was guilty, so he was. And he was guilty - just not of the disgusting things she placed on him.
He was guilty of liking a human, his human who called herself Olivia. He was guiltily of liking honesty. And he was guilty of mixing the two up. He was guilty of telling her the truth about him - that he was a werewolf. He was guilty of breaking that law of his pack and he couldn't take it back now.
Neither could she. Thalia would know. And she would uphold the law. Olivia had known him for far too long to simply have her memories erased. They couldn't do that without ripping away a large portion of her life. They coudn't cover it up that way. Oh god.
Peter felt sick to his stomach as he backed his fiery little human up against a wall, his lips still locked with hers as his hands went to hold her tightly to him.
Thalia was going to kill her.
No. No. He couldn't let that happen.
Peter pulled away and hid the look of despair on his face by letting his eyes flash supernaturally blue. She'd always been facinated by that. Now, though, Olivia was having none of it.
"You're so sexy when you're wrong," Peter said with a confident smirk. "You think I'd be desensitized to it by now, but somehow I'm not."
The woman who he'd just thoroughly kissed looked at him all piss and vinegar like. "What?"
"Thalia Hale is my sister. My older sister. She was probably just in my room because her bathroom was taken up - my nephew Derek is in her room too and he can be quite the bathroom hog. I am not sleeping with her - that's disgusting that your mind went there, by the way - and I am definitely not married to her. "
Oh, look, now she realized her mistake. Maybe not her fatal one (the whole slip of werewolf off of her tongue) but at least she'd gotten something out of all of this.
"Oh my...oh my god," she looked so flustered and shocked that Peter really just wanted to laugh.
Now wasn't a good time though. He needed to make sure that Thalia didn't uphold pack law and kill her for knowing about them being werewolves. When she looked up at him with those eyes of hers, he knew that no matter what happened that it was going to hurt. But it would hurt less knowing that she'd be alive.
"Don't worry, I know how you can make it up to me. I did say that you looked sexy as hell when you're wrong, didn't I?"
Olivia rolled her eyes at him, shoving playfully at his chest. Peter smirked and moved in closer. His hand went to her hair and he didn't bother letting go of her all night.
________________________________________
The next morning, Peter could feel the disappointment in Thalia's stare. And her anger. And every other negative thought she'd ever had about him. They'd never quite gotten along with the whole age difference, and it was never more obvious than it was now.
"Do you know what you have done?" Thalia asked in a dark, whispery tone.
"Don't I always?" Peter retorted.
He resisted the urge to look back to check on the sleeping Olivia. After what he'd put her through, she needed the sleep. Besides if he saw her now, knowing that he was going to have to leave and never look back, it would be harder. Especially since her words from last night had sunk in. She'd come to tell him that he had a right to say 'I told you so'. Which meant that he was right about her being pregnant. He was going to be a father. Him.
The thought was terrifying. Only just overshadowed by the fact that to save the both of them he had to give up that right. Thalia might stay her hand if she knew that Olivia was pregnant. It was one of the by-clause in that antique of a rule. Only until she had given birth. If the child ended up a werewolf they'd be safe...if the child ended up a human, Olivia would meet an unfortunate end. He'd get to keep the kid but loose her. Their child would grow up without a mother. And he'd have to live under an alpha that had killed her all for the sake of some ******** law.
Thalia stood up sharply. She turned around for a moment so she could take a deep breath.
Peter knew himself well enough to know that he could never let that happen. And he knew that he rather liked living too. That he wanted all of them to live. So he'd done the unthinkable and Thalia was pissed at him for it.
"It's only supposed to be done by an alpha Peter."
Peter snorted. "Like you? You would have killed her, Thalia, admit it."
"Yes. To protect the pack."
"To uphold some law that has so much dust on it, it should be thrown in the garbage you mean."
She stilled and her eyes gazed back to Olivia. Peter held fast. He couldn't look. Not now.
"What I do, I do to protect everyone. I wish you could understand that. I wish you would stop acting out and see that what I do, I do because it is the right thing to do."
She must have saw the pain and restraint in his features somehow. His hard-a** of an older sister sighed. There was a look of calmness to her face that he didn't quite trust.
"What's done is done. I can't change the fact that you took all her memories of you, of us, away even if you had no right to do that. Even if you shouldn't have been able to do that. You have always done what you've wanted Peter...and I hope this is what you want. Her life is spared because she will not remember who and what we are. But you are to never see her again. Never to go near her again. And never to talk to her again. Do you understand me?"
Peter nodded. He'd been expecting as much.
"I'm serious Peter. If you do...there will have to be some more consequences for you."
Rolling his eyes, Peter grabbed his stuff as Thalia headed out the door. Drama queen. He'd gotten all of his stuff together as quickly as possibly and headed to the door. He stopped, his heart pounding in his chest, and took in a deep breath. It was like something was holding him in that room. The idea of actually walking out now that he had no more time hurt him in almost a physical way.
And against his better judgement, Peter looked back just in time to see her turn over in her sleep and place her hand on her lower abdomen. Then he walked out of both of their lives and never looked back, quietly shutting the door as to not disturb her much needed healing sleep.
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Posted: Sat Jun 14, 2014 4:46 pm
Instead of investigating the tragedies that had started to occur in Beacon Hills right away, Peter decided to get some sleep. And when all the hustle and bustle died down he actually got to work. Besides with a cold trail there wasn’t much to go on. But Peter was nothing if not resourceful and clever. Besides whatever had been out in the woods hadn’t exactly covered their tracks. There was blood and other things all over the woods for those who knew how to look. It even led Peter back to what looked like a burrow the size of a human body. Obviously abandoned…but it was covered in dead animals. And it smelled. Worse than anything he’d ever encountered. But whatever had made it had left long before he got there. In the end he’d been left with one trail to still follow up with. Too bad that trail just happened to give him a bit of guilt. Again, stupid morality that he thought had been burned along with the rest of his family.
Which was why he had gotten in Lydia’s room early Monday morning. For someone who knew about the supernatural she sure didn’t try to protect against it. Then again, Peter wasn’t sure if some of the usual protection would affect her or not. Were Banshees equally disarmed by Mountain Ash? Or were they immune as they were from a lot of other things? He’d have to consult his bestiary at some point. Probably do that afterwards.
Of course when he went to visit her, he remembered to bring earplugs. And a sound counseling headset. Because she was a Banshee after all and he had no desire to lose his hearing. Which came in handy as she woke up with a banshee wail. Death...death...and more death. Busy time for Beacon Hills once more.
"D-Do you mind?"
With a small grin as he casually sat in her chair in the corner, Peter replied with a cheeky: ”No, not really.”
"It's a bit creepy to enter a younger girls room unexpectedly, Peter.”
”But you’re not just any girl are you Lydia?” The tone of slight admiration in his voice was deployed for the best of effects. Or at least that’s what it seemed to render most days.
Even as she got up to go to her closet, Peter remained casually lounging in her chair. She could pretend that everything was normal, that she was any other girl, by picking out the outfit she was going to wear to school that day. But they both knew better than that. Though he was starting to think he knew much better than she did. Shame. It limited her usefulness. Unless of course he tried to help her be more useful to the cause of protecting his city. But that would take time and a relationship he was pretty sure he’d burnt down with the girl when he awoke the Banshee inside.
"Can you make it quick, I've got places to be."
With a role of his eyes, Peter got up and crossed the room. ”Obviously.”
He was, perhaps, a little too close for most people’s social conventions. But that was half the fun. Besides it would be interesting to see how she reacted to his presence just because he knew he put out a little bit more body heat than most guys she had “dated”. He didn’t touch her, in fact he reached around her and into her closet. Peter pulled out a light blue dress before leaning back so she could see his choice. It would help soften her eyes, bringing out the more spring tone all the while complimenting her fair skin.
”You should go with this one,” He held it up to her, tilting his head. Yep. Still had it. ”It would go with that white knit you like to wear to the games.”
Of course he had a feeling that since he had pulled it out, she would deny it. Maybe toss it in the trash. Regardless, he couldn’t help the urge to meddle. He stepped back and put it over her bed before turning back around.
"You are such a creep."
”So, can you guess why I’m here Lydia?” Peter put on one of those ‘I-am-amused’ smiled as he looked at her, keeping a respectable distance this time. ”You’re a smart girl so hopefully you’ve figured it out by now.”
"Plant litter, mainly Tsuga heterophylla on my floor and your shoes explains that you've been to the forest." With her hair brushed, Lydia stood and walked closer to Peter, crouching at his shoes. She picked up some of it form her carpet and examined it. Her eyes widening a bit. "Not just any part either. What did you see?"
Lydia looked at Peter with hard eyes, forcing back tears because he could have been the person that killed the two of them and guess what she was alone with him in her room. Maybe he had some kind of sick need to dress her up in something nice before tearing into her with those claws. That was something that hit Lydia, with that she spoke up again.
"Claws, extend them." She said in a demanding tone.
And there was that tone he so adored. Like she was the woman in charge of the world. It was far more suiting to her than that glassy eyed damsel in distress look. Although it was far too easy to put her in a state where she was the damsel in distress.
Staring directly at her, Peter raised one of his hands from his crossed arms. With a small flick of his wrist he unfolded his fingers. Claws with the fingers, of course, and about as clean as could be.
"So Nancy Drew," Peter spoke up in a light drawl, lowering his arm back down to his cross state, "you mentioned something about a specific part of the forest? Well, you're right."
He shifted his stance with a slight nod. Lowering his arms, Peter locked his arms behind him and let out a deep breath. He'd already figured out how to best approach this while waiting for her to wake up. And so far it was playing out just how he wanted. More or less. Actually better than he planned considering she was doing a much better detective job than he thought. At least on the physical evidence. She hadn't started putting together the other things just yet.
"And it has to do with that lovely little scream of yours Friday night," he took a half pace towards her desk.
There were a few different things on her desk. Most noticeably advanced topics. Various different language context too. She was a brilliant girl. He just wished she'd have a bit more of her brain dedicated to finding connections rather than clues. Maybe they could work on that.
Turning back around to look at her, "Something has been attacking the town, leaving it a mess. And lately it's been dropping bodies. But there's a problem..."
There was always a problem even with the best of plans. His life was proof of that. Thankfully back up plans had been in place when his plan had utterly failed. He wasn't exactly where he wanted to be but he was getting back on track.
"Friday was the first death," Peter nodded towards her. She should know that better than anyone. "But the police never found the body. The trail was still there...but that's all it was. A trail. There was nothing to find."
He relaxed his arms as he walked closer to her.
"And in my experience most dead bodies tend to stay that way. They don't get up to move away from the scene. So there's our problem." He stopped a foot away from her."But you Lydia...you can help with that little problem if you want."
He flicked his eyes to her clothes before looking back to her despite already heading to her door. He didn't worry about her mother - she wasn't exactly the most observant women. In fact she was almost negligible. Really, everything that her daughter got up to right under her nose...but then again who was he to really judge? Stopping at her door, hand on the knob, Peter turned back around to look at her directly in the eye.
"He certainly didn't have a pulse.." Lydia muttered to herself as she paced a bit in a little line towards her things.
"But first, you should get dressed. If you decide to help, meet me at the coffee shop down the street by the bank," He looked away as he opened the door before looking back to her. "Remember to bring some more sensible shoes and a warmer coat."
Lydia turned back to Peter, his hand on the door and then swiftly leaving her alone. "Yeah, I'll do that."
____________________________
It was beyond easy to tell when Lydia walked into the coffee shop. Even over the rich aroma of his coffee and bagel. It was even easy to see her over the local newspaper he had picked up waiting for her to arrive. Of course he didn't make it obvious that he'd been keeping an eye out for her. No. He still wanted her to get into the habit of trust him enough to seek him out, even if they started off small. Baby steps and all that. For now at least.
When she finally sat down across from him, Peter folded up the paper and put it to the side. He'd been enjoying the delicate morning air and the environment of this particular coffee shop. His jacket was folded neatly beside him on the seat and there was another serving of food and drink by where the newspaper now sat. Unlike him, she wasted no time getting down to business.
"So, what's next Peter? Coffee and talk about the dead bodies walking about or..?" She asked, her look unwavering form Peters blue eyes. “Also, would you mind answering a couple questions for me?"
He folded his hands in front of him with a patient look on his face. "First...you have breakfast. We might be walking for a while, depending on how this goes."
He reached out beside him to pass her the drink and the small plate of food. Chai tea, just how she liked it, and an English muffin with her favorite spread. There was also a handful of assorted fresh fruit on her plate, cut up as was the custom for most food industries. Except for the raspberries and black berries of course. He'd like to see someone make a nice looking plate with those mangled.
"And while you're doing that, we'll talk."
“Thanks,” even though she was trying to behave for the sake of getting to the truth, her voice still managed to come with a sarcastic tone.
He waited for her to at least take the first bite of her muffin. Like he said - they might be walking for a little bit. And he didn't exactly know if they'd be in the area for a lunch break when she finally did get hungry. He was already expecting to have to stop once or twice to give her a moment to rest her feet. The forest was quiet the expanse and though Lydia had proven she was made of stronger stuff than she looked, she was still much more delicate than Peter was truly used to dealing with. Besides it gave him a moment to enjoy his coffee (French vanilla and cinnamon sugar with a touch of whip cream to temper out the dark bitter taste).
"So what did you want to ask about?" Peter brought up as he sat his cup back down.
“I’ve been thinking and researching, since you know. The bite, makes you a pack right? So you have a pull to your alpha.”
Peter raised his eyebrows to look at Lydia in a form of surprised. He wasn't necessarily shocked by her question - he knew it would come eventually. But he was surprised that she thought to ask him so publicly. Especially after what he'd done to her - all the best intentions of course but she was the one to suffer for them. Leaning back in the booth, Peter spread one of his arms over the seat and relaxed the other shoulder back into it as Lydia stirred her tea. He didn't want to answer right away for few different reasons. Like how Lydia seemed to be trying to figure out how to phrase more questions. Ones he had a feeling that were connected.
“In Irish folklore, the banshee is a warning of death for family. So technically when you awakened the banshee with your attack that tied you to me and that’s why I could bring you back; so to speak?”
"I'm impressed. Most teenagers would have given up after finding out that the banshee was a warning of death. Especially if they were in your shoes. The whole 'I know best because I'm living it' thing. I don't know many teenagers that would take the time to research into it," Peter answered smoothly as Lydia played with her spoon.
She leaned back and took a long drink of her hot tea, scalding her tongue and roof of her mouth. It caused her to flinch. She solved that with another bit of fruit. When feeling alright, she responded to Peter, unknowingly feeding yet another way to get on her good side. "I couldn't just sit around and wait for Scott or Stiles or even Allison to tell me."
On Peter’s part, what he said was true of course. He didn't know of many teenagers that did research just because they could. Especially when it was about a subject that they could experience and assume that they knew best in. He believed that it was a type of arrogance based on naivety. It's where Lydia and Stiles stood out to him - they did the preliminary research even though some of it might have been wrong.
“I scream at any supernatural death, so it tied me to the other supernaturals in our area? Would I become a werewolf if things flowed like they had with Jackson? Are you at least thankful that you’re here? I mean it took a lot to bring you back honestly.”
"Oh I'm very thankful to be alive. Anything else is depressing," the older man started in before sipping on his slowly cooling drink and finishing off his beagle.
He looked down at his watch. It was 7:30 am. Most of the students would be clearing out very soon and very quickly. which would thin down the crowd a bit. Especially since most of the blue collared jobs would be leaving soon. Then again there wasn't that many people to begin with.
"Which is why I'm going to help you Lydia," he said patiently. "But you should be careful of what you say and to whom. Not everyone is nearly as friendly as I am."
He let that sink into her head as he continued to drink his coffee, idly making sure that she was in deed eating. He remembered taking Cora out before school some times and she would just push the food around her plate when she had decided that she was not going to eat just to be stubborn. It was when she was really young - barely elementary age - of course. Back when he was still in High School himself and they'd been on a time limit. College had killed his family outings and when he finished there had been a lot of distractions. Then the whole fire thing...and the hellish years that followed. Now his family was gone and what was left was pretty much all grown up.
"Yes, because you're just a ray sunshine."
He was just going to let that one go. They had bigger issues to deal with.
"As for the whole Jackson thing - no. Jackson has always been a tool so he was recreated in the image of one. Once he got over that issue he went through the normal expected change," Peter filled in.
"That makes sense, he was kind of.." Lydia realized how casually she was talking with Peter now, and it kind of caught her of guard because usually she would run for the hills. She let her words fade, she wasn't going to keep on talking about Jackson. It was the best she didn't.
Oh he knew Lydia had loved Jackson. She'd been the one to call him back and bring him back to himself after all. And there was a large chance that somewhere in her heart she still loved him. But Peter didn't care too much about that at this point. To him, Jackson was a tool - a very self-centered, arrogant tool that he couldn't believe Derek had given the gift too. What had his nephew been thinking? Maybe he had been hoping that the little p***k would die after all.
"You Lydia, you are much more exceptional than any of them," he said setting down his cup. "See, all I did was apply the spark if you will. And yes, you felt the shock of it. But after that you healed and you came back stronger than before. You came back as what you were always meant to be. And fortunately for the both of us that gift is one that was mutually beneficial."
"The only benefit of this is that I'm getting some kind of answers."
Peter shrugged ever so slightly at her answer. If that was the only thing she could see right now, that was fine. He'd just have to open her eyes later. Just hopefully not too far. That would spoil all the fun. And what was amusing was the fact that Lydia was trying to assert her independence with paying for her own food and drink. Rolling his eyes, Peter pulled out his own wallet and laid out a bill larger than it needed to be before he got up. He grabbed his jacket and put it on as Lydia rearranged her plate.
"Our best bet is to take the highway, leave the car in carpool, it's a short walk to the forest form there."
"Just through the woods to grandmother's house," Peter said with a dry sort of humor.
He held out his hand to her to assist her from sliding out of the booth. His eyes flickered down to her legs briefly. Pants, well that was certainly more practical than her usual dresses.
"Shall we go?" His attention was back to her face as he made a very small motion with his hand to remind her that he wouldn't bite if she took it.
He'd already bit her, no need to do it again.
_________________________________
At 8:00 am, the time when the first bell rang at the High School, Lydia and Peter arrived to the location. It was almost easy to overlook when walking through the woods. If, of course, you didn't have highly advanced senses. The opening was blocked from sight after a small gap by a fallen log, bent over and slowly decomposing. And it was dug into the face of a hill in the shape of any large creatures burrow. Only... much larger. Human sized type large.
"And this is what I found," Peter said as he motioned to the hole in the ground. "Be careful where you step. There are pieces of animal carcasses everywhere."
And to be honest the place smelled worse than anything he had ever smelled before. He was trying to block it out, really he was, but even with that conscious effort it turned his stomach. Unnatural. An abomination far darker and more twisted than anything else they'd seen yet. But it wasn't like he would let that deter him from his goal - this was Peter after all.
"Whomever was here, they weren't very tidy." Lydia commented to his information, but she was a little concerned on the lack of decay in some rather than others.
Stepping behind Lydia, Peter let out a deep breath. "So Lydia...tell me. What do you feel about this place?"
Oh what a familiar ground they were on once more.
Lydia wasn't ignoring him so to speak but she was in investigator mode. In her dream their wounds where large, faced down or not she could guess that they had bled out. These animals where mangled as the rabbit had been, how that kid had been. Lydia's stomach churned as she walked about, following what kind of path she could make out. She wasn't an Argent nor a werewolf, she kind of wasn't the best at tracking, but she could follow blood. Most of it lead to the human sized tunnel.
"Does that look ritualistic to you?"
"It looks like something from the stone age," Peter said with a dark tone of disgust in his voice as he made sure to breathe in through his mouth as subtly as he could.
She agreed, it wasn't just dug out, it was supported, even if it was covered in rotting carcasses. Lydia was examining when she came to the conclusion, "This thing isn't completely brainless so to speak."
He stepped lightly over the place, staying clear of the more gushy parts. The animals had not simply been eaten, they had been massacred. Like something had enjoyed ripping into them. It hadn't been about food, not like a wild animal. It hadn't been entirely about survival. This had been about inflicting pain on the animal as it died. At least no one could say that Peter had ever done that - he'd never intentionally drawn out someone's death just for the sake of bringing them pain. When he wanted someone dead he killed them, and they usually deserved it.
Apparently he wasn't the only one put off by all of this either. In fact, Lydia looked like she'd barely been able to hold down her lunch. Good thing there had been a thirty minute delay between when she'd eaten and when they got to this place. Otherwise he had a feeling it really would be the new decor to this hole in the wall. But he could tell from how she was moving, towards something with a bit of urgency, that she'd found something of interest.
Curiously, Peter moved around until he was standing a few feet behind her. When she stood back up she had stems of vivid green leaves, slightly hairy if he was right. But over all the stench of the area he couldn't tell what it was. Just that it looked like a familiar. Then again these woods and most things in it were familiar to him - he'd grown up here just as Derek and Cora had. Just like Scott and Stiles too - only a bit more acquainted with the forest than they were. And by a bit he meant a lot.
She held out a branch of the very green plant and painstakingly said, "If it's it this bad for me you must be really enjoying yourself. Mint will mask the smell for a good amount of time."
And she was being shy. Strange even for her. He had to wonder what was going on in that pretty little head of hers. He hadn't been able to tell since he'd risen but he had a good feeling that it had to do with him. Seeing as he was the only one out there to see her, that was his safest bet.
Reaching out for the branch, there was a small brush of fingers as Peter brought her offering back to him. Mint. That's why it looked so familiar. The hairy little leaves had somehow managed to survive whatever had stomped through here. Surprisingly resilient plant wasn't it?
"Thanks for the paper shield."
Peter stepped back away from the main messy area as he lowered the herb down away from his face. He let if fall to the ground at his feet. It was a nice thought but with all of this he could barely even smell the plant when it was right next to his face. He was just not going to breath in through his nose - that much had been decided a while ago.
"Welcome."
"Would you mind stepping back here?"
He waited till she was until he let out a deep breath. And in through the mouth. Horrible...but not as bad as though he used his nose. Although he wasn't sure if tasting it or smelling it was worse. But he was just doing his best not to think about it.
"You're going about this wrong," Peter said honestly with a light roll of his blue eyes. "You're only using your eyes. That is not what sets you apart. If that's what I brought you out here for, I could have brought an expert."
She had some snippy comment to that he was sure, so he patiently waited until she let whatever she wanted out of her system.
"Think. Use that brain of yours. What do you have that most other people don't?" One of these days she was going to get it. And when she did it would hit her like a sack of bricks. "You are a banshee, Lydia. You're connected to death. Look around you, what do you see?"
Hopefully the answer for her was a lot of death. If not maybe she was blind. As well as a few other things. But he knew better than that. She was smart. She just wasn't exactly on board with the whole supernatural train yet. He blamed Scott.
Taking a few steps closer to her, Peter looked down. It was easy to forget from a distance when she was dressed her Lydia-best but she was remarkably small when she didn't have on heels. Just five feet and three inches.
He was close, probably closer than most people would find acceptable given the circumstances. But it wasn't like he was going to stain her honor or anything as barbaric as that. He just wanted to try and get her to stop focusing on her weak human senses and focus on what really mattered.
Putting a hand under her chin and the other on her shoulder, Peter tilted Lydia's face so she could stare up at him. "I need you to focus on that extra thing you have. That tingle in the back of your mind. Not the sight of what's around you. And certainly not the scent. But the feeling. Connect to it. But don't let it take over. You're in control remember? Because who is Lydia Martin if not the girl that controls her own fate? Can you do that Lydia?"
"O-Of course I can."
She was still averting her eyes. Which he honestly didn’t care about. He was just satisfied by the fact that he had her full cooperation and attention. Nothing worse than someone who wasn’t paying attention or was trying to make things harder than they needed to be. Thankfully Lydia wasn’t making this more complicated than it needed to be as she got right to work. Or at least what he assumed was getting to work. She closed her eyes and he slowly let go of her chin and shoulder, moving back a step as well.
He watched as her body jerked as though something had frightened her. Hopefully that meant it was working. If not this whole wasting time thing was going to get old really fast. He did have better things to do after all.
"Friday."
Peter rolled his eyes. Well, that was informative. But then he watched her mouth part as though preparing for a scream, a breath taken in so quickly. His hands went to his pocket for the earplugs. They wouldn’t be as good as having them plus the mufflers but with any luck he wouldn’t get his ears popped today. Didn’t want to suffer through that. Still, it was going to hurt. And he was prepared for that.
It didn’t happen however. The scream looked to be caught in her throat. And then suddenly she was shaking. It started out subtle but then soon it was her whole body. And the scent of blood hit his nose. Funny how he somehow managed to pick up on that out of all the mess. Especially when he couldn’t even smell anything else – and for a werewolf that was saying something.
Either way, blood meant that something was going wrong. Peter stepped forward with his eyes flashing between blue and red, like a police car. His claws flicked out as he went to her neck.
Most of the area was white. Dead things all around him and it seemed to flicker in and out violently. Like a black and white TV that was short circuiting. There was the sound of screeching – like a Bat had decided to try and burst people’s eardrums.
"Peter make it stop."
As he walked closer to the vision version of Lydia, the area cleared. It morphed into a very familiar surroundings. The one they were standing in. Only it was still a bit cleaner and there was something else, another presence.
Peter’s eyes flickered around. And though he didn’t notice it, to Lydia he probably appeared much younger than he currently was. Like he had appeared to her when he had been temporarily deceased. Well, when he wasn’t giving her nightmare worthy visions of what he looked like upon his death.
”Open your mind. Relax. Let it play out without trying to change anything.”
Oddly enough, she felt very cold when in thisslow motion spectrum. She didn't get it. "Okay, Okay I'll try."
He wasn’t sure how to advise her from here. Normally he didn’t care if these memory shares were painful because at least werewolves could heal. But this was the mind and body of a banshee and he didn’t know the outer limits. Pretty damn close to human probably. Which meant that too much stress in her mind could cause large complications. Or worse if his hand twitched even the slightest while his claws were inside of her, she could die.
Then again…he also didn’t know why he appeared as he was, nor why he could see her as he could. Normally when he reached into the mind of the other they saw through each other’s memories. This was more like when he’d left a large impression of himself inside of Lydia’s mind than anything.
Then suddenly the environment snapped in with sudden clarity and he could tell there was something wrong. Glowing silver eyes stared out at the two of them from the dark. Knowing. Waiting. They were coming closer. That should not be possible – this was a memory.
When Peter's anxiety spiked, she felt it too. "What, is that."
”You need to leave this. Now Lydia,” The commanding tone was more from Adult Peter than Teen Peter. ”Lydia…get out now.”
The two figures…female…glowing silver eyes were stalking closer. And they seemed so very hungry. Before Peter completely pulled away from the connection he saw a flash of red in the dark
With a pant, Peter Carefully pulled his claws out of Lydia’s neck. His eyes widened in surprise as he tried to put together what he had just seen. He felt drained. Physically and mentally. Very drained. Like he had just come back to life once more. Still, he was in better condition than Lydia who collapsed into his arms.
By the time Lydia would wake up it would be Forth period at the High School – Lunch time. Or at least lunch time for half of the students. She would find herself in the passenger seat of her car, laying in the reclined position. He propped her head up with her jacket (the softer of the two) and covered her up with his. After all it was still a cool day. Her keys were in the arm of the passenger door and anything else she brought with her in the back seat. Peter himself was no where to be found there.
He made sure she’d live but that was good enough for him. He had much…much more important things to see to that did not involve walking her to her classes. Like figuring out what type of creature fit the description he had just seen while invading a banshee’s death vision. Whatever it was did not seem like it would be good news for them…
To say that Peter was more of a night person would be an understatement. He was, after all, a werewolf. Born and bred. However, not all werewolves were night people. He liked to think that it was his special thing - out and about at night. The only reason he probably had anything resembling a normal schedule was because of school. Though at this point he wasn't in school so that took away that explanation for why he was awake most of the day. The only other one was it was the perfect time to stalk look after one particular girl, because he was usually expected at home at night time in order to maintain the cover of normality. Talia's rules, it was always Talia's rules.
Peter never was one to follow all the rules though. Which would explain why he was resting his back against the tree, about a mile or so out from a quaint house in the forest. There weren't many of those actually - houses in the forest. Mainly because his family owned a stack in the Beacon Hills preserve. This one was special though. It belonged to one Mister Tate. The same mister Tate who was currently raising Peter's daughter.
It was her eighth birthday, and before they could do anything really fun - like blow out the candles on her birthday cake - they had decided to play a game of hide and seek. Every other child had chosen a safe place to hide. Some were behind couches, others in closets, and so on and so forth. However, Malia lived in the forest. She knew the best place to hide was outside. So when she had the chance, she reached her small hand up towards the knob on the backdoor and escaped. She giggled to herself as the brisk air tickled her cheeks. The parents would never find her now. Her eyes scanned the area as she walked away from her home. It was dark, and she could barely see where she was going. A part of her wanted to turn back and go home, but the childish side of her wanted to impress the parents and her friends.
She trudged on into the night, keeping close to trees. Only once did she trip over a branch. The sound of it snapping sending her into a small panic. Her ears perked, and she looked around. Maybe it was time for her to head back home. No one had come looking for her yet, so she had probably won the game by now. She turned around to head back, but then stopped in her tracks. Backward looked forward, forward looked backward, and sideways looked exactly the same too. Her brows interlaced and she swallowed dry. Then she thought she saw something. There, just to the right of that tree. What was that? Not weighing the consequences of her actions she took a step forward to get a better look. She sighed in relief when she saw it.
"That's a big kitty."
Farther back, hidden as he always had to be, Peter watched as Malia spotted the cougar. He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. It certainly was a big kitty. A big kitty of death. He waited to see when she would turn around and run. He was already going to have to deal with the hunting cougar. It was hungry and she looked like such the good little pray. A small boned, thin skinned and soft human all for the eating. He understood the cougar's perspective but he couldn't understand Malia's step forward. Her survival instincts must have kicked in by now, right? Even humans had those.
....Why wasn't she running? Better question, why hadn't she even turned back around yet?
As her vision adjusted to the rather large feline, she took a step back. That big kitty looked really angry. Her breath caught. She hadn't done anything to it, but it sure seemed to think so because it was slowly come towards her. It looked like her daddy did when he drank that yellow stuff out of his bottle. She knew what happened when he did that, so like any kid, she turned and hightailed it in the opposite direction as a scream escaped her lungs. Was she foolish enough to look back? Yes, curiosity wouldn't let her do otherwise, and as she did she fell over a tree stump. She could feel the tears stinging at the corner of her eyes, but she got back up. She had to run, or that big kitty was going to eat her.
He could smell the slight traces of blood when she'd fallen to the ground. Peter watched for a moment, moving through the forest faster than she could. If she could get away on her own then he wou--
Damn it.
Moving out of the shadows, Peter arched over the pouncing cougar. His claws sunk into the feline's side, pulling the hunting animal with him. They landed a bit away from where Malia had gotten back up from, just to the side. He kept his back to her so she couldn't see the shift in his face, though he couldn't hide the claws that sprouted from his hands. Let her think it was just some guy with creepy long nails - better that then the truth. The truth could get everyone into deep s**t.
"Sweetheart, get home." He didn't have time to say much more as the cougar started to pounce.
Malia only stopped running when she turned to hear why the cougar had growled so ferociously. She thought for sure it was right behind her, but it wasn't. Now, there was a man behind her and somehow he'd taken the big kitty down. She had heard him tell her to go home, but she couldn't move. She was so terrified, and it was one of those moments where you wanted to look away, but you couldn't. Eyes trailed to his hands where she saw sharp long nails. Didn't he know he was supposed to cut those.
Peter caught its jaw and one of the paws with his own hands, but there was always that tricky second set of talons. The shirt covering his shoulder was sliced to ribons, as was the skin beneath it.
Another scream left the small girl's lips, and she finally took a step back against a tree when she saw the large feline attack the man. Peter's arm arched up, smashing down into the cougar's head. The large animal fell to the ground, still fighting for its life. Following the motion, Peter kicked the large cat, sending it flying to the side and into one of the trees. He heard the ribs and spine crack. Dead, finally.
"Mister, are you okay? It was all she could think to say after what she'd just seen, small frame trembling.
He peeked around his shoulder, glowing blue eyes turning to look at the trembling child before looking back to the animal he had just killed.
"I'll heal. Why didn't you go home?"
Peter rolled his head as the muscles settled back into place, letting him look human once more. He turned to look back at her as the glow of his eyes faded. She looked so young, even for an eight year old, standing there shivering. And tiny, so breakable. No wonder the cougar thought she'd have been an easy meal, that was no surprise. The fact that it persisted even when he stepped in was what was surprising.
The young girl simply stared at the man. The answer was obvious to her. She was lost, she was scared, and she didn't know how many of those kitties were outside right now. She was safer with him than she was without him. She shrugged, "Why didn't you?"
"I don't know if you realized this or not, but I'm safe out here. You are not."
He was just going to overlook the real possibility of hunters shooting him up with wolvesbane laced bullets and arrows. Peter made a memo to himself as he thought about that - he was going to have to rip the mountain lion up and scatter it around in areas heavy with scavengers. He didn't want to frighten the locals with dead felines. Frightened humans tended to attract even more hunters after all.
She looked down at the ground at his reply, then looked back up at him. "I'm lost," she put on a brave face "but I'm no scared. With that she turned around and started stomping back towards what she thought was home. In reality, she was going in the opposite direction, but it was all okay because she was the leader here. She played in the forest all the time. That was until about ten steps ahead when she heard leaves rustling. She gasped and her eyes widened before she reluctantly ran back to the stranger. Caramel brown eyes stared up at him.
"Raccoon," Peter said calmly as he pointed back to the rustling area.
She wouldn't be able to see it because the thing had realized it was walking into a dangerous area. He doubted she'd ask too many questions about how he knew though - she was eight years old. Unicorns were probably still a real thing to her. Okay...so that wasn't exactly too far fetched in his own world but still.
"Come on sweetheart," Peter said as he put his hand on her shoulder, twisting her around to the right way. "Your house is this way."
The small child smiled at the fact that she didn't have to ask him to help her. It was a small win in her eight year old mind, and as they walked ahead she slipped her small hand into his. Marching, she startled to ramble, "I like that word, but I'm a big girl now so daddy doesn't say that word to me anymore. Do you know it's my birthday today? I'm eight years old!" She hopped giddily as she said that before continuing, "I bet mommy is cutting my cake right now. I really like cake. It's so yummy! I'm gonna share with my friends, but I want the big piece because I'm the birthday girl." She stopped talking for a minute. The mister had saved her from the mean kitty. "You can come, too. Do you like cake, Mister?"
"No," Peter said simply. "Reese's are my thing."
Yeah, he was going to have to think about the whole dropping her off thing. He couldn't exactly say he found her wondering in the woods. It was supposed to be off limits during the dark anyways. So he'd have to explain why he'd been out there as well. Not to mention that would just create a hassle that could get back to good old big sis. Maybe if he left her a few yards into the tree line? No, that wouldn't work either. She'd find the deadliest snake asleep under a rock and try to befriend it the moment he left her alone.
"Besides, I'm not much into birthday parties. But congrats on turning eight...that's one whole year more that a cougar hasn't eaten you yet."
"You're weird, Mister. Everybody likes cake, but I really like Reese's, too! I don't like cougies-couga-big kitties because that one tried to eat me. That was so mean. Didn't it know it was my birthday today?" She only let go of the man's hand to climb over a log. Her mom told her not to, but she wiped her hands on her shorts. She frowned before grabbing the man's hand again. "I got hurt. Now mommy is going to put that white stuff on it. I don't like the white stuff."
"It helps it heal," He informed her, looking down with a bit of a smirk.
Though the shirt on his shoulder was torn and bloodied, the skin underneath had patched itself back up nicely. He doubted she'd have seen the amount of damage that the cougar had done, not that it really made a difference. But it was good to know that she wasn't going to be able to spout off tales about people having their arm nearly ripped off. It might not have been that bad actually, but he knew that kids were born to exaggerate. Cora did it often enough and they were about the same age. Almost exactly the same age actually, that was kind of the weird part.
"You need it to help heal. Not everyone can be like me," Peter continued on.
A small nod came from her as she tried to understand that the white stuff that hurt actually helped her heal. "If it helps me it shouldn't hurt so much." It was only a small mutter under her breath as she kicked at a rock.
"Sometimes things get worse before they get better," Peter said as he helped her over the next small slope.
She cheered up quickly as she remembered something from her picture book. "Mister, you're like a superhero. You beat that big kitty up. I saw it like in my book." She went through a few motions, karate chopping the air and letting out a small giggle. "I like you, Mister." She was an honest kid.
"You should," the adult werewolf said with a self confident smile. "I'm very likable. But I'm no superhero. I'm pretty much the opposite."
The little girl's lips pursed at his comment. "Nu uh. You can't be the bad guy. You did it wrong, but you can be like the big bad wolf. When we get to my house you have to huff and puff and blow my house down. Okay, Mister."
"If I huffed and puffed and blew your house down, where would you live?" His mouth turned into a smile. He wasn't about to deny the big bad wolf part.
A sigh left her small frame. She had seen people building houses all the time when she was in the car. Well, when she wasn't asleep in the car. "That's easy. When you blow the house down, the real good guys will come and make it again. Look at all these sticks. They can do it just like the little piggy did it. Duh, Mister. I think you should take my book. You really really need it." she said, mistaking him for the one who wasn't in the know.
"In all your books the wolf dies," Peter pointed out."If I died, who would save you from the big bad cougars of the forest?"
He was right. She hated when adults where right. "Well, this is my story, and I say the big bad wolf gets saved by little red riding hood. So, there." She could be right, too. She looked ahead and spotted her house up ahead. She tugged on the man's hand breaking into a little run. "Look, Mister! We made it! We made it. That's my house. Come on, you need to blow it down now." The girl had forgotten all about the party.
Well he wasn't about to do that. He did, however, have to do something. He grabbed her up into the air by her hand with ease. Peter swung the girl by her arm until he had her full attention. That way they could stop before they got within ice sight.
"Do you trust me, Malia?" Peter asked as he sat the girl back down.
The little girl was startled as she was suddenly dangling by her arm. She looked at the mister in front of her. He knew her name. See, he was a superhero. To his question, she answered, "You aren't supposed to trust the bad guy, but since this is my story, yes. I trust you, Mister."
"Good girl," Peter said as he knelled down so they could see pretty much eye to eye. "Now, I need you to not scream. No matter what. Alright?"
When he had her confirmation, Peter spun Malia around and put his hand over her mouth. He needed to get ot her pass out and this seemed like the less painful of the options available to him. He held her close as she reacted to the short-term suffication.
"When you wake up, this will all seem like one weird dream," He said, his tone calm despite how the situation may have seemed.
And when she was finally out, Peter picked her up. Such a small thing to give him all these troubles. Looking down at her for a moment, Peter saw a lot of her mother in her. He missed Olivia. She'd been fun. But Malia had been a lot easier to find, and a bit more important all things considering. So he'd given up on trying to go out and find her for now.
Stepping around the house by way of the treeline, Peter laid the unconscious Malia into the back of the unlocked car behind the last row of seats. That was a good enough hiding place and safe enough for her until she woke up or was found. With that he closed the door back and walked far enough away to wait it out. He'd let Talia think he was out having too much fun if anyone asked what he was doing out so late at night. Right now he had a sleeping child to watch over to make sure she didn't get herself eaten by nighttime predators.
Scott looked through the sparsely packed trees. The trunks lined the area around him, but only just barely. It was really the branches that did all the covering. The pine needles ever green above him as he looked around the area. What he was looking for was the same thing he'd been trying to find for the last week. He needed to find some trace of the creatures that had been destroying his town and murdering the people in it. Even if it was the people that few people cared about, the stragglers around the fridge that no one really missed. The ones that sometimes just seemed like background litter. They were still people and he needed to make sure that no more of them died. The frustrating part was that all he seemed to be able to do for the last week was keep trying to find them. Like right now. He'd fallowed that putrid stench into this little grove of evergreens, someone in the forest. Then it was gone. Like it hadn't been there.
The young alpha's brows drew together as he tried to pick up the scent. It didn't work. He looked behind him to see the one person he trusted more than he trusted himself.
Tall and Lanky standing in the jeans everyone would have sworn were hand-me-downs (even considering the only other person who they could have been on were his father), stood said trusted male. His hands ran up and down his arms to keep warmth to flannel covered skin. Beacon Hills never seemed to have a happy medium when it came to temperature or weather in general. (considering most of california is facing drought and every other episode of tw there is rain)"Is something wrong? Did you lose it?" the male asked his friend, walking behind him.
"Yes," Scott said in frustration. "I keep loosing it."
Equally as frustrated, Stiles huffed out a sigh. "Hmmm." he started, letting his jimmy newtron like brain to think, think, think. "Well, I suppose we could always back track a little - again." he motioned with a point of his finger behind him. "Or you know not. Could just - keep going one direction, and make an map of the woods here."
"A map wouldn't help Stiles."
"Always helps Dora." He muttered under his breath, knowing just how helpful he's been.
Scott's jaw shifted more as he tried to think of what he could do. His teeth grated against one another as he looked around, trying to catch sight of something. Nothing. He couldn't see anything helpful. It was like everything had just vanished. If he had thought finding Peter had been hard originally...it was nothing compared to now. At least then he sorta knew what he was dealing with. Kinda. Derek had at least been able to teach him things here and there on the go. Now he had nothing to go off of except for the fact that it was a vampire. Or so claimed that one strange man by the name of...well it was something with a "Ma" sound in it. All he knew was that they liked to wreck things, eat and kill people, and couldn't be found. Other than that he was lost in the dark.
"This isn't getting us anywhere, Stiles," Scott said tersely. "I don't even know why I can't track them. I've gone up and down wind....followed everything. And there are so many dead animals around that you'd think they'd smell up the town. But every time I come out here...every time we come out here, it's like they up and vanish. How can they do that?!"
Okay, so he might be a little worked up. To be fair, they'd killed Allison a few days ago. He hadn't quite forgotten that. He wasn't even sure if he could ever forget that.
Stiles knew Scott like the back of his hand - or really any part of his hand, it really didn't matter. The boy walked up and placed both hands on the boy's shoulder's bringing him to look at him straight in the eyes. "Hey, Scott, listen. First, you have no idea how aware of the animals I am, but for the sake of being a friend, you need to breathe, okay. We've been doing a lot of the same thing, and it's getting a little redundant, we just need to jazz it up a little. Ya know, take a scenic route for the sake of trying something different. We're working with something brand new, we always do. We have to take a new route." Stiles released his friends shoulder and let his hands swing beside him.
"What new route? All the routes end up the same way. A dead end," Scott said as the visual of Allison's dead body getting zipped up ripped through his mind like lightning.
"I can see that - and quite frankly i appreciate the pun, thank you. But there is a trend, Scott. We need to think different. Be different." Stiles still wasn't quite sure where his thoughts were going. He had a habit of running his mouth faster than his mind could keep up (no matter how fast that worked). "We don't even know anything about these bastards. What we do know, is that they're good at hiding. I haven't found much online about them, and i'm assuming that is why."
"Most of the supernatural world is good at hiding, Stiles," was the grumpy teenager's reply.
"Then why all of assuden do they make themselves so visible? I remember a year ago when I thought Werewolves were good holloween costumes, and now, my best friend has to dress down to not be one."
Scott gave Stiles a tired, withering look. He wasn't angry at his friend but right now he wasn't exactly in the joking mood either. There was a hole in his chest and an ache somewhere he couldn't even begin to describe.
"This isn't even about the Vamps, is it?"
"Yes it is!" Scott said quickly.
It was kind of truthful. They were the ones to kill everyone. They were the ones who had ripped his soul into pieces and let him see it's bloody carcass as someone shipped it to the morgue. To Scott, it had everything to do with the Vampires. He couldn't let them kill anymore people like they had Allison. The look in her eyes...she'd been so afraid. Even standing in the forest with Stiles as he was, the look in his mind's eye made him freeze.
"It's all their fault," he said as his shoulders slumped over, his eyes towards the ground as he clenched his fists. "That thing killed her and I wasn't there. It's killed a lot of people and I haven't been there to try and stop it. How can I stop it if we don't even know where it is? Or what it wants?"
Stiles sighed again. "Scott, you're only one person." he began. "Even if we knew where it was, even if we knew what it wanted, there is no way you can be everywhere at once." The lanky teen made his way back over to his friend. "If you want to stay out here all night looking, we can, but we're not solving anything out here. But if we went home - we don't even have to do that - but you can't hide from me what is really bothering you, Scott."
Childishly he wanted to say he could, or at least put up shoulder roll to brush it off. He couldn't though. Somehow it felt wrong.Especially considering that Stiles was being serious for once. That didn't happen very often. The last time he'd seen Stiles behave like this, seen this look in his eyes that was far too old for their own good, was when he had been about to light himself on fire. Stiles had stopped him from doing that and he'd taken such a risk for that too. Besides, it wasn't like it had been a secret that he had loved Allison. In fact, he all but sang it off the roof top when they'd started dating. (which stiles remembers the melody too) And now that she was dead people it wasn't a secret that he was hurt, that he was torn apart. What he didn't know if people knew was how angry he was. It was like a burning coal deep in his gut, mixing and feeding off of the pain. It felt like it was burning him alive from the inside out and trying to sear it's way through his stomach. He just didn't one-hundred percent know who he was angrier at - the vampire or himself.
"It's going to be dark soon," Scott brought up, knowing at the very least that they attacked at night. "We should probably get back to town."
Once Stiles was safe back at his house, with his father who at least had some guns, then Scott could head back out to see if he had missed anything. Who needed sleep...on a school night...yeah. He didn't need sleep. He needed to find the thing that had killed Allison (and all the other towns people too).
Crossing his arms against his chest, Stiles gave Scott a nod. "We head back now - stay back - think - sleep." he listed. "And if you smell anything, we head back out."
"Yeah...sure," Scott said with a sigh.
Yep, one hour. Then he was going back out even if he had to lie to his best friend about it.
Stiles took a step toward Scott, placing a hand on his shoulder again, aiming his glance into the other's eyes. "We're gonna find them Scott. It's inevitable."
"Unless they kill us all first."
Normally he tried to be optimistic, really he did. It was usually Stiles' role to be the one with all the comments of doom and gloom. Oh how times had changed.
Stiles shook his head. "Wrong, cause if they're killing us, we've already found them. Jokes on them." He said, patting his friends shoulder, before walking back in the direction they came from.
Scott followed Stiles, hands in his pocket and head down. The jeep was a ten minute treck back through the woods which meant that plenty of leaves fell prey to their stomping around. Even if it was supposed to be spring, Beacon Hills didn't seem to know that. Scott never really paid too much attention but the simple truth was that their whole area was just a strange place to be. With the vampires on the loose it was a dangerous place to be too. Not that was a recent development. In fact before the vampires there had been plenty of other things waiting to kill the poor residence of this strange place. Things like murdering werewolves and evil tree-huggers that earned the name Darach. Yeah, the weather wasn't the only strange thing in this town.
Of course, Scott being Scott didn't dwell on that bit too much. His brain was elsewhere. With all the deaths...and his friends. Even the new ones he seemed to be picking up recently. Most especially his thoughts stayed to Stiles who was the designated driver (not that the teen would have let anyone else drive his baby around) for this trip. If he couldn't save Allison, a girl who was a trained hunter and could usually handle herself, how was he going to save Stiles?
As the thought lingered like sour milk, Scott leaned his head against the inside of the door. He banged it a few times as they drove just to feel something. Maybe he'd get a good idea if he hit his head a few times. It worked in the cartoons. Too bad real life couldn't be as easy as a TV show.
Then it hit him like a pile of bricks. The scent.
"STOP!" Scott hollered out.
Stiles let his jeep click to a stop forcing both teens forward in their seats. "WHAT!" he said, breathing heavily, looking around like he'd just drove over a child.
By that point, Scott was already unbuckling his seat belt and hopping out of the jeep. His body rushed through the familiar clusters of trees, he even batted back a low hanging branch or two of the newly green covered branches without thinking about it.
"Why me." Stiles groaned, flickering his hazards on and basically falling out of his jeep and starting in the direction Scott had taken off in. He didn't bother holler to have him wait for him. It wasn't like Scott had gotten something this - evidently important - before, and Stiles knew how great a runner he was. The boy tripped over every bush and branch thrown at him, getting swatted and cut a few times, but indifferent about the effects - on his face anyway, he was inwardly screaming in pain. His jacket caught on a branch, and pulled him back some, and turning back he groaned, shrugging his jacket off, and continuing forward. "You owe me a jacket." he whispered through harsh breath as he continued through the forest. Scott really was so much faster than him. "I need to invest in adrenalin shots." he said falling toward his friend.
Scott looked at his winded friend surprised, "Stiles, you were supposed to stay in the car!"
"I'm not suppose to do anything - What are we chasing - besides my breath?" He said winded, and hunched over to breathe in less dense air.
Casting one last glance at his friend (both worried and a little panicked) Scott looked around. He knew exactly where they were. He just didn't know why they were at the Hale house. Why did everything always come back to this place?
"I caught something," Scott said as he tried to figure out just what it was that he caught.
"Great." Stiles said still wheezing and holding up a weak fist in the air with gratitude. "Where to next?" he said, continuing to take in hazy breaths.
"You should probably go back to the jeep," Scott said as he took a few steps forward. "...out of the two of us, you're probably the best with ketchup."
Stiles laughed some and shook his head. "Back to the jeep - yeah right." Stiles hesitated to give Scott the mission alone, and rose again. "I'll just - yeah - go back to the jeep - through - the bushes and things"
Scott groaned lightly under his breath. He hadn't thought about it that way. The sun was already on the cusp of going down. If he'd caught this weird scent out in the middle there was no telling where they were. Gah, why did Stiles have to follow him?
"Just stay close."
Stiles let a smile consume his face, and he saluted his friend, walking closer to him. Nothing in him thought following Scott was a better idea than finding his jeep again, but it was an equally bad idea finding his way back to the jeep - alone. "Should have grabbed my bat." he said softly walking forward.
Scott didn't say anything as he pressed forward. The old, burned house had an eery feel to him. Not just because of the fact that the sun was setting. There was just something about it that gave him the goosebumps. It was like something had clung to the walls and hadn't let go. And it wasn't the dust or smoke either.
The door creaked as they pushed it open. A pit formed in his stomach as he moved through the darkened hallway. He'd been to this place before obviously. After everything that had gone on it was a surprise he hadn't been to it more often. Still, it gave him the creeps. Which was probably why he'd avoided it every time he went through a run in the woods to chase after this creature.
If Stiles didn't think Scott was on a suicide mission, none of this would have come to pass. The way the house barely stood, and more importantly the fact that it use to house the Hales, made Stiles hate it. Not only that, but geographically, it sucked. Stiles kept close, just like Scott asked, and his heart leaped every time his friend moved forward, deeper into the horrible manor.
The sound of a footstep made Scott swing his head to look down the hall. With darkness setting in he couldn't really see anything. He didn't even smell anything else either....
"Did you hear that?"
Stile s' eyes widened as he turned to his friend in response. For once Stiles was lost for words. There was nothing in him that could even muster out an uh-huh, instead Stiles gave it a worried look and a nod. Taking in a deep breath, "Could it have just been me? Please say yes. I don't exactly have the lightest step in the world."
"I don't think that was you, Stiles."
"Yeah, I didn't think so."
Scott swallowed as he looked down the short hallway with a heavy stare. Okay. There was nothing down there. Nothing that could have made that sound. It was just all this tension getting to them. The house was old and quite literally falling apart. It had been burned to a crisp basically. Some rustling like the sound of shuffling feet should be the least of his worries. Unless those feet were attached to killer claws and a wicked bite. Then he'd worry. Until then...
"Come on," Scott tried to put on his best unaffected face.
He was a werewolf. He was an alpha werewolf...he could face weird sounding old houses. He'd faced worse. Right? The thought wasn't comforting to him as he moved past the banister and towards what used to be french doors. Scott touched the damaged wood as he past, a chill going down his spine. This place probably would have been worth more than a million dollars before the fire. It probably would have been the kind of home he'd walk in and be awed by. Now all he wanted to do was get out. Too bad he didn't think he was done there yet.
One more step and he finally hit something. His foot sunk into a damaged plank. Scott shook his foot and broke it loose, looking at it strangely. Oh yeah...the basement. Or whatever they'd consider the place that Kate had used to stash Derek while she tortured him.
There was that smell again.
"Whatever it is...it's coming from down there."
That didn't sound like a line out of a horror movie at all. Nope. Never. That was just the nerves talking.
"Isn't this when the audience yells 'DON'T GO DOWN THERE SCOTT AND STILES!' cause, -whoo- i really don't like this idea." Stiles said uneasily as he kept up.
"Do you have a better one?" Scott tossed up. "Besides...they'd be yelling for you to go back to the car not me."
"Okay - i'll give you that one. Just - can't we come back at a less eerie time? Like when we can actually see what's down there - with natural light?"
"I don't think natural light could get down there," the werewolf pointed out as he looked down. When he looked back up at Stiles, his eyes glowed hot with the red of an alpha. "Besides, I can see just fine."
It was a different type of seeing, granted, but he could still do it. Plus it would come in handy if something tried to jump out at them. This wolf vision seemed better suited to pick out movements than pigments.
"Alright, great. There is never gonna be a good time to get to this - but it's a damn good thing you can see."
Grinning slightly despite everything, Scott bent down and opened the hatch up without breaking a sweat. The scent teased him and the feeling in the pit of his stomach tightened. Death and decay waited for him down there. What was the one thing he probably shouldn't do? Go down there obviously. What was the first thing he did? Yep...right down those steep stairs.
"Great - if you thought all routes lead to dead ends before, this one really leads to one." Stiles spat out as he hesitated to follow. "You know, maybe I'll sit this one out, I'll wait for you out -" He was cut off by a creaking noise behind him. "COMING!" he hollered through a hushed voice following his friend into what felt like the ground.
Most of everything in front of them was under too much darkness to make total picture of. Stiles squinted his eyes a bunch to see if the different eye positioning would make anything any better like it occasionally did at the eye doctor, but not an image came to view. He wasn't completely blind, he was thankful Scott dressed in light colors that night. Stiles stayed close behind his friend; head and eyes still moving quickly to take in what he could. If the house felt at all creepy, this was an all new level of horror. There was nothing familiar about the place they were in, but Stiles was already slightly more comfortable, considering he wasn't dead yet. He may have been half dead, or almost dead, but he could still hear his uneasy breathing, being the mouth breather he was.
"If what I smell is anything like what you pick up for vamps, my condolences for having to follow it." Stiles whipped his eyes around to try and see what Scott was seeing, knowing what he could pick up in all his human flesh was a small fraction of what Scott was seeing.
"This? This isn't nearly as bad. The one that attacked at the clinic smelled like everything decaying all at once."
"Glad you know were to reference it." Stiles pestered. "Haven't we been down here long enough?"
Sliding the heavy doors open, Scott could imagine it how he'd seen it the first time. There metal fence like wall was still up, straps and all. Last he'd been in here Derek had been strapped up to it. The shocking device had been moved at least. Though all the tools for carving someone up still lay out on the table. At least some of them did. Most of them were on the ground with a bunch of other things that Scott didn't want to know the use for.
"Maybe..." Scott admitted.
It was kind of a stupid plan. He didn't even know what he'd come down to find. Just that there was a weird scent, one that he had to follow. It had been the only new thing he'd found in a week. It was only right that he had at least tried to see where it led. Looked like it went to another dead end though.
"Okay - good. We made no pro- wait." Stiles went to turn out of the door, when he caught sight of something, one of the only things he really could see. "Check this out." Stiles started, making his way toward what looked a hole in the ground, but with it a could have been a gravestone. "Jinkies." Stiles stated, turning to Scott as he approached it. "Don't suppose this is the source of our evils. That or someone died trying to dig to china."
Scott followed Stiles, his eyes moving all over the place. The hole seemed darker than it should have been some how. Like the point in the universe where no light could get through. Empty and full all at the same time. Scott shook his head as a dizzy feeling took over and forced him to relinquish his red based vision.
Then the smell started in to Scott's nose. Yeah there was definitely something up with this hole. It smelled like a badly cared for animal den that had at least a hundred things dead with something fermenting and decomposing all at the same time.
"That's the smell," Scott said with a gag, feeling dismally sick to his stomach.
It was one thing to chase the left overs. It was another to have it practically rubbed in his face. He wasn't sure why but the longer he stayed the stronger it seemed to get. Was the world tilting on its side or was that just him?
"Scott -" Stiles began reaching to what looked to be glowing on the dark ground. After a layer of dirt was removed, Stiles discovered a label, or name tag like thing with a photo ID. "It's Peter's old nurse." Stiles Recalled, pulling the object into his hands, and handing it up to his friend. "The day we found out Peter was your alpha, and the day he died - well - I remember seeing her shoved in the back of his car. Dead."
"I think I'm going to be sick," Scott announced as he staggered back.
Information aside...Scott really couldn't stand to be there anymore. It felt like his face was going to explode from so many different things hitting him all at once. Even his lungs felt like they were trying to break free. It was just as bad as being in a room full of wolvesbane. The only difference was that Scott didn't know why. At least the wolvesbane had made sense when he accepted that he was a werewolf.
"Go - I'll catch up with you." Stiles said, still looming over the hole, and working to continue his discovery. The boy took a few steps back, pulling his phone lose from his pocket, and snapping a few photos. Stiles Shoved his phone back into his pocket, and then also placed the photo ID in there too. "Try to hide now." he said under his breath. "Least now you have a name." Stiles turned to his friend that was obviously hindered by his overwhelming senses. "Come on, let's get out of here." he urged, taking hold of Scott's shoulders and leading him back in the direction they came.
Stiles lead Scott back through the forest, almost thankful his jacket got caught as a sign they were going the right way, and helped him back to his jeep. "Scott, this is good - really good - I mean, we found something. Like a big something. There is a lot to add to our drawing boards now." Stiles felt a new level of excitment, but past the feeling, he turned to look at his friend. "Hey, you alright? Do you need to puke? Do werewolves puke?"
Apparently they could and do. Scott stopped on the way to the jeep and leaned against a tree. He emptied out all the contents of his stomach. Which, admittedly, wasn't very much. He hadn't been eating well in a few days either.
Stiles made a face, turning away not only from the wretching but the sound the contents made as they hit the ground. "God -" Stiles said feeling sick to his stomach all of a sudden. "Alright, just - take it easy." Stiles said, walking over to his friend and rubbing his back. "Tell me if you're gonna puke again." he asked. "Let's take a second. No rush." Stiles said, walking over to his jeep and turning the hazards off to save battery. "You good?" he asked, walking to the trunk and taking a waterbottle out of the pack he kept in there, and walking it over to his friend.
Scott nodded tiredly. Being sick really took a lot out of someone, even if that someone was a werewolf. Accepting the bottle of water from Stiles, Scott used it to swish around in his mouth a few times before he spat each sip back out. Great, now all he could taste was his own sick. This night kept getting better and better.
"That was it, the smell," Scott pointed out as he squeezed his eyes closed. "But a lot worse. A lot, lot worse."
He couldn't begin to describe how the room had seemed to change on him either. Nor how the hole seemed to be sucking everything inside of it and making the room spin. It had to be something to do with...oh hell he didn't have any idea what it could have been from. Just that it had happened.
"Really now? I thought we'd really missed it. " he shook his head, walking back to his jeep and climbing in. "Gotta at least try to beat cerfew before my dad beats me." He said.
"Just tell him you were with me," Scott said weakly as he climbed into the passanger side.
"That does surprisingly always seem to work." Stiles said, starting his car after a few tries. "I call it the Scott card. I've had to use it a lot lately."
"What can I say? Your dad loves me."
Maybe the joking would get his mind off of what had just happened. Truth be told though, Scott knew he needed to focus on the information that they had just found. It was important. He knew that. He just couldn't remember what Stiles had said or why it was important. Scott figured out that he could find that out when they got to one of their houses.
Nodding and driving, Stiles chuckled. "Loves might not be the word. He loves pizza, he trusts you, which in prospective is stories higher than love." Stiles admitted, continuing to drive back to town.
"Whatever you say Stiles," Scott said as he leaned his head against the inside of the Jeep's door.
His eyes felt incredibly heavy. How had he not noticed that earlier? Probably had to do with the fact that he'd only been sleeping two or so hours for the past week. Oh well he could sleep later. Right now...right now they had to get back home and ---
Nope he was out.
Stiles smiled at the sight of his friend asleep, or so he thought, in his car. "I love when I can just talk to myself - about what ever I want - because no one is listening." He paused, waiting to see if Scott would respond. After nothing came from his friend he continued. "So, Scott, you owe me a new jacket, say nothing if you will replace it." Another pause. "Great, I want it to be the same kind - I want it to feel like It's the jacket I had before. I think there was a pack of gum in the pockets too - so - might as well replace that too - eh?" Stiles continued, as he made his way back to the Mccall house.
Snuuuuaaaaa. Oh look, werewolves could snore. Or maybe that was just a Scott thing. Either way his head had slipped to using the seat belt as a hammock.
Stiles made it to Scott's house in no time, parking in the driveway for a little while. He didn't know what kind of friend he would be to wake his friend from probably the only sleep he'd get if he was going to get any. Stiles turned off the engine, cut the lights, and stayed in the Jeep, pulling out his phone and looking over the photos on his phone in his car. Once he'd examined them a while, Stiles pulled the ID out of his pocket and started to look it over, turning it over a few times to see if there were any marks. He glanced back and forth between the physical evidence, and the photos, trying to make note of everything he was looking at. Stiles quietly reached over and grapped a pen out of his glove box, and closed it back, placing it in his mouth - yeah, that was better. Stiles found that it helped him focus.
The boy could only scan things so much, before he was overwhelmed by tiredness himself. Turning to his friend, Stiles sighed, placing his phone and the Photo ID back into his pocket, and leaning back in his seat, letting his eyes close.
in Scott's opinion there was far too much reading to do. Sure he had assigned himself a summer's reading list when Allison had gone off to Paris but now he was actually busy. Especially as he and Stiles had found that nametag a few days ago. They were finally getting somewhere...then homework came in to destroy it. It wasn't like he could put it off any longer either. There was a paper due tomorrow and he still felt like he was floundering.
Setting his book down, Scott turned to the person who was supposed to be helping him with this whole thing. Then again he was supposed to be helping to focus his partner in crime and he hadn't been doing that. They were both pretty much at fault for how little work either of them had gotten done.
"Got any brilliant ideas?" Scott asked to Stiles who had taken residence up on his bed.
Stiles had become over occupied with a few things. He had three penicils working, one in his left hand, the other in his right, the third being grinded away in his mouth, and at the sound of his friend's voice, the boy looked up from the massive book that was laying beside him on the bed. Stiles released the pencil in his mouth to give him a grimace. "You mean better than my last plan? he asked. Stiles had come up with the idea of focusing more on the modern aspect of it all - knowing just how distatched he was on anything secular. "I can't even remember the last book I read for pleasure.' Stiles was still set on drawing the connection from Homer - the lad who decided to piece together this massive eye strainer - to Homer simpson. The connection - they both had Homer in their name somewhere.
"You mean other than the one under your bed?" Scott teased in only the way a friend could, balancing backwards on his chair.
Stiles chuckled. "Wouldn't it be a treat to write a paper on that, Scott?" He continued, pulling the pencil back into his mouth and circling a lot of the 'important' parts of the book - like the names, and places. Stiles felt utterly hopeless when it came to processing through this paper.
"I don't think the teacher would appreciate it too much. Don't want to turn her mad and turn her evil do you?" He questioned with a grin.
Stiles nodded, focused somewhat on his paper. "uh-huh." he musterd through the pencil in his mouth.
"Yeah...we have enough evil," Scott mused to himself, looking up at the ceiling. "Evil...evil...what about doing something about evil? I mean these gods could just take him home right? So why don't they?"
Stiles rose his gaze back to his friend, spitting the pencil back out of his mouth. "They're not ready for his surprise party." Stiles said with a fake smile. "If we wrote about evil, we could litterally draw a connection to anyone in this world. Everyone has a little evil in them." he continued, still looking toward Scott.
Scott shrugged. Stiles was right. Evil was kind of a big subject. They could probably write a book on what they had seen in this world. That wouldn't help though, they had to find some other book to compare it to.
"Hey, Stiles what time is it?"
Stiles flumbled on the bed, turning onto his back and sliding his hand into his pocket and pulling the screen to his face. "It's - nine forty-seven." Stiles read, placing his phone on the bed beside him.
Tilting his head, Scott stood up. Well that was too early. His mom shouldn't be home yet. But if the sound of the fridge opening up was any indication then she was back.
"Mom's home," Scott announced, still slightly confused over why she was back so early.
Stiles turned back to his book. "Do you think she has food with her?" The boy continued to do what circling he started in the school owned book he wasn't suppose to be marking up.
"She's going into the fridge, I don't think she brought anything back with her. Come on, I wanna see why she's home early."
Besides, he'd take any distraction he could get from homework. Maybe when he came back it'd magically be done for him or something. A boy could dream, couldn't he?
Stiles sighed in relief, dropping the pencils in his hands, and lifting himself up from the bed. "Could use some leg stretchin'." the boy smiled, walking over to Scott and patting his shoulder, before limping out of the room due to an asleep foot.
"Yeah yeah," Scott said distractedly as he started out his door.
That heart rate didn sound like his mom. But who else could get through the rowan wood? Who else would want to get through it even if they could? That would make them human. What human would come into his house and raid his fridge if not his mom?
"You don't suppose Loranna would give us any extra credit if we drew some sort of connection to her?" Stiles started, turning into the kitchen.
"Why is she e--" Scott stopped when he saw just who was in the kitchen.
Definitely not his mom. Nope. In fact, it was a speak of the devil moment. Loranna stood, relaxing against the counter and drinking some ice water. How did she get in?
Stiles stood sort of stunned. "Guess I could just ask her -"
Turning to snap a look at Stiles as though he had all the answers, Scott looked back at the woman. "How did you get in here?"
Even he couldn't get through his door when everything was all closed up.
"The window was open," Loranna answered calmly, setting down the glass. "Those special wood trims must be more common in California. Couldn't have been easy to do."
"Window?" Oh look, the accusitory stare right at his best friend. "Stiles I thought you said you got it all?"
Stiles scratched his head looking back and forthe between alphas. "My bad?" Shifting his footing, the boy took a step forward. "I know a reason for you to come in here could have been because you could, but - are there motives behind your visit otherwise?" Stiles asked crossing his arms.
"Why so serious?" Loranna asked in a mocking voice. "You're going to get wrinkles at a young age if you don't smile more."
Stiles' heart fluttered some at the reference to batman. But to be silly, the boy threw on the fakest most strange looking smile he could muster. "Because you could, to save us from becoming wrinkled young farts, and - anything else?" Stiles continued.
"And to offer you a plan to trap the bastards who are ruining this town," Loranna said casually.
Scott jumped right on that, figuratively of course. "Wait. How?"
"well you could have started with that." Stiles muttered under Scott's words.
"I could have," the redhead said as she tilted her head, lifting the glass up. "But I was thirsty and a girls got to drink. Then you jump in here demanding to know what I was doing and never gave me time."
Grumbling lightly to himself, Scott shifted forward. If she had a way to trap the vampires then he was all ears. It was a better thing to do instead of homework. Much better.
Stiles nodded, still crossing his hands, piecing things together like he normally did. "Alright, sorry for inturrupting your thieft, please, proceed."
"How are you two with danger and insane plans?" Loranna started off.
"Well on a normal scale, I like sticking to ignoring the problem until it all just blows over - but that doesn't even seem to be an option here. But - I mean, Scott and I both have died - so - i guess that goes to show off our 'insane' side of planning." Stiles said with a wink at the end.
"Then this will be right up your alley. Come on, let's go sit down."
Scott really didn't know what to say when she sat the glass in the sink and proceeded to his living room like it was her own. What kind of a person did that? Other than Stiles. But he didn't count. He was more like a brother anyway so it was practically his home too.
Loranna sat on the armrest of the chair and slipped backwards into it, kicking her feet up and stretching. Stretching felt so good after the nice little jog she'd taken to get to his house. Plus the look on Scott's face when he saw the antics was amusing. He looked shocked and maybe a little irritated.
"So what's this big plan?" Scott asked as he stood by the coffee table.
"We go clubbing."
Stiles stalked over to the pair, catching what she said and laughing with responce. "Clubbing? Can't say we haven't done that before. But are there even any clubs still - available - right now?" Stiles asked, sinking into the couch.
"Downtown, across the river. They like to move it around so they can't get busted for encouraging the breaking of curfew."
"How do you even know about it then?" Scott asked with an ingredulous look. "No --- Why would going to a club help catch it?"
Stiles stood back and listened.
"When you want to catch your dinner in the woods...but you can't track anything, what do you do?" Loranna spoke up without offering them the answer.
Scott shrugged. What did he know about catching dinner in the woods? There was that time when he thought he'd eaten a rabbit...raw. Then he found out he might have killed someone before discovering that nope, wasn't him. He'd been trying to help the person excape Peter's wrath. That was the extent of his hunting - swished before it began.
"You don't mean -" Stiles started, drawing a connection. "But-"
Scott looked back confused. "Mean what? What does she mean?"
"She's saying you're suppose to lure it out with bate -" Stiles complteted. "or essentially, that we all meet up at some club - to be the 'bate?'
Loranna smiled as she twisted around in the chair, planting her feet firmly on the carpet. "Bingo. Give it up to the brains of your duo."
Stiles shook his head. ["I hate this plan." Stiles stated bluntly. "Nope, I hate it. Sounds like it's a death wish. We're all going to die. Last thing I remember discussing was thinking of a way to stop the killings, not summon all of our deaths." Stiles let his gaze file between Scott and Loranna again, still firm in his objection.
"I thought you were good into the risky gambles, Stiles?"
Scott took a seat on the couch, leaning his head back. What other choice did they have at this point?
"...what else?" Scott asked, looking back at his English teacher.
Stiles' mouth gaped at the sheer fact that Scott was still playing. "You're not seriously considering this, Scott? Putting our lives at risk for the sake of saving the rest - that was one thing - this - this would be killing everyone and there is no coming back from the dead this time."
"We're not going to die," Scott emphised.
"At least not easily," Loranna added with a wicked grin.
Stiles' glanced shifted away from them both for a brief moment before turning back to scott, and scooting forward on the couch. "Okay - say we go with this plan - which as long as I have a say, human votes count as double a werewolf vote - Say--" he started,
Loranna edged in, "Why? Because you're a breed that likes dying?"
the boy paused, glaring at Loranna briefly, "Say we're at the club, dancing, drinking underaged, wee whoo party time. How do we know that the Vamps would even flock to us? They don't typically come to kill us seperately, why would they want to kill us as a group?"
Scott had to agree. That was a good question. Especially considering that they had a hard time even getting near one, much less actually finding one.
"Oh baby boy. You don't know your vamps very well do you? tsk tsk, you didn't listen in class did you?"
Stiles' head turned sideways, already backspacing what he'd planned on saying before. "Listen in class?" he asked.
"She brought up Dracula in class," Scott said in a quiet voice, trying to figure out what she was talking about this time.
Stiles turned to Scott then back to Loranna. "Quite frankly, I would much rather be writing a two page paper referencing themes ideas and characters in Dracula to modern characters." Stiles stated. "But besides the Dracula reference, what else did you say?"
"Yadda yadda yadda single minded, strong drive, yadda yadda yadda," Loranna summerized what had been brought up in class.
"I knew most of the stuff you said in class was filler - anyway, single minded, strong driven. Even so, what would make a bunch of supernatural teens mixed in with drunk people at a Beacon Hills Speakeasy even the slightest bit attractive to a Vampire?" Stiles asked.
"I take back that smart comment. Think Stiles. What could the supernatural want with the supernatural?"
"A - new --- twilight movie?" Stiles continued. "I mean, it's not like they could - wait - could they?" Stiles continued, asking the question, assuming Loranna was on the same page.
"Why...trying to hide something you don't want people to know?" Loranna teased, leaning forward in the comfy chair.
"What are you two talking about?" Scott was starting to feel a little left out.
What did Twilight have to do with any of this? Was there a teenage girl involved or something? Last he knew...they killed the teenagers too. Just like they had Allison. Besides if what he and Stiles found out was right then the vampire had something to do with Peter's old nurse.
"Well, all i can think of is this side of the supernatural want's the other side of the supernatural to stop killing people - while the other, just seems to be building an army, and feeding cause they need to eat. I guess some of their tactics were strategized - going after certain people, like Allison." It was becoming clearer. "Aaaaaaand all the more reason to hate this plan."
"Why? We know they've been killing people, Stiles."
Nope, his logic jumping button seemed to be broken. To him it felt like Stiles and Loranna were speaking in a code. Sure it was in English but it wasn't in any form that was understandable.
"You're cute. Slow but cute. Rely on the cuteness because honey this world spins fast," Loranna teased Scott with a smile, relaxing back in her chair as Scott glared at her.
Stiles turned to Scott. "Have I ever steered you wrong?" he asked. "Don't answer that. Just take my word on this - this plan isn't a good idea. We should use figurative baseball bats and make a pinata out of it, beat it to the ground, forget all about it, and be excited about the candy that comes with it being destroyed." Stiles suggested, swinging his hands in the motion of a baseball bat.
"One problem with that plan baby boy. You can't find them. You have to be able to find and catch them before you can break them open like a pinata."
Stiles kept his hands out like he'd started to swing at the pinata with the bat. "It meaning the plan. We're hitting the plan like a pinata, because it's better shattered and forgotten then actually taken into consideration."
Loranna rolled her eyes. "I meant how are you going to take care of the vampires if you can't find them then?"
Stiles motioned placing the bat agaisnt the couch. "We may not have found the Vampires just yet, but the other day we found a clue - and it's a promising clue."
"Even if we know who it is, that isn't going to help us find them now," Scott spoke up, still a little confused as to what turned Stiles against the plan entirely. Other than the obvious normal risk factor.
Flinching back to Scott, Stiles shook his head signalling him to stop agreeing with Loranna. "It gives us a face to reference."
"Do you know what they'd look like now?" Loranna asked as she looked directly at Stiles. "They'd have rawred out by now. Plus that whole mind trick makes it hard to spot them."
"Mind trick?" Scott's voice rose up.
Loranna waved him off. "Not the important part right now. The important part is finding and killing them."
Killing seemed harsh to Scott. Really harsh. It probably showed on his face. If he couldn't kill Duecalion, why should he be okay with killing the vampire? The nurse was just another victim...even if she was going around killing people. Sure he might have thought about it but who wouldn't have in his situation?
"Stop her. No killing."
Stiles let his head tilt back, before looking back at Loranna. "Alright, drawing what's been said together, we've got, becoming bate at club, finding the vampires that are hard to spot in the hardest place to find people in the planet, and then making peace with them in a way that spares their lives, but still convices them to stop killing."
"Peace is never and was never going to be an option," Loranna said as she once more shifted, her face serious and a little appologetic. "Vampires aren't like us. They are beasts. Revenge is it. That's literally what they come back from the dead for. Revenge, blood, killing. It's not capable of moving past that. And they just get better and better at it the longer it stays here."
Stiles nodded. "You're right, this plan is sure fire. But just so we can be efficiant, get ahead of the inevitable, why don't you go ahead and kill me now."
"Why would I kill such a cute baby boy like you?" Loranna said in a straight voice, tilting her head before looking back to Scott. "You might want to watch him. Your human seems stuck on the idea of dying."
"Well, quite frankly, the idea of being eaten deeeefinitely makes me uneasy. I'd so much rather take claws to the throat."
"Kinky.I guess that explains why the two of you are connected at the hip. Pity, all the cute ones are gay."
Scott looked at her, shocked by everything that kept slipping out of her mouth. Wasn't she supposed to be their teacher? What kind of a teacher said things like that?
Stiles turned to Scott and eyed him some, then shook his head. "It's the heroism thing."
"Stiles," Scott practically hissed out.
"Seriously, Scott, there is no harm in just simply - making out or something. Just for science sake -"
"Let's just get back to the plan," Scott brought up uncomfortably. "So you wanted to go to a club...when there's a curfew...and somehow find them there. How? Why would she come if we're there anyways? For revenge? Wouldn't she know it's a trap?"
"That's why we bait the hook with a lot of bait."
"How much bait we talking?" Stiles asked.
"Everyone...everything," Loranna said and made a slight hand movement, gesturing appropriately. "Anyone who is or knows about the supernatural that's willing to go for starters. You two are the last ones that I know about to make up your mind."
"WAIT! last ones - you told everyone about the plan already - but that would mean you didn't come to suggest something, you came to invite us. God I hate being picked last for everything.
"Hmmm, take it as a compliment baby boy. I made sure that the plan would work before I came to offer it to you. Well, offer it to Scott."
"Me? Why me?"
Loranna stared at him blandly. Really. This slow thing was kind of sad at this point. He had seemed better than this in class. Maybe she'd just caught him at a bad time. But by the smell of the two of them when she'd come into the house, she didn't think she interupted anything more...pressing...than homework.
Stiles gave Scott a look of similar feeling. "Why would she need me? My claws get bitten off with nerves - who else would she be. . . god, never mind."
"Why wouldn't I come to tell you about a plan involving the people around here?"
"Why would you?"
"You're a slow puppy aren't you?" Loranna asked, looking to Scott. "Aren't you supposed to be the mythical true alpha?"
"Well, he didn't become a true alpha from brains and good ideas." Stiles chimed in raising a finger.
Scott sent a heated look to Stiles. It was more with a mild sense of betrayl than anything. He didn't take it to heart, not really. Stiles liked to tease everyone. It's what made him so quick to bounce back when something didn't exactly go his way.
"What does being an alpha have to do with coming here to tell me about this plan of yours?"
"...very...very slow puppy," Loranna said in a slow, slightly confused tone. She turned to Stiles and prompted him to explain it to his friend with a flick of her wrist.
pointing a finger at Loranna, "Okay, first, stop calling him slow - We're still mush brains from the paper you assigned us - second." he started, turning to Scott. "regardless how little we do things together, Scott, you're an important asset to her, and her brilliant plan. It's like all or nothing in this case. A yes alpha vote, means a yes pack vote."
"You make it sound like I'm trying to manipulate you into being tools," the redheaded werewolf said calmly as she rested her elbows on her knees. "I mean right now you're right but come on, I have a bit more respect than that. Otherwise I'd have just had Cora talk about going out because she found a club or something when all of you are at the school."
"Remind me to mail you a thank you note for making your presentation better then a messenger Cora."
"She can be convincing when she wants to."
Scott somehow doubted that the Hales (Peter didnt' count) could be convincing of anything they didn't believe in. He didn't see them as the acting type. Then again, he wasn't the one who had watched charmerDerek distract the now dead/sacrificed woman at the front desk of the police station.
"We'll never know." Stiles retorted.
"So are you going to go or not?" She asked, her tone calm despite the fact that this was a rather heated subject. "It'll be safer than you might think. A club allows us to gather in one place and there is a literal strength in numbers. Not to mention the music provides a cover for sounds of a struggle and I don't think most people would be out paying attention anyways."
"I don't know..." Scott said as he tried to piece together what could happen in his mind. It didn't seem like a pretty picture. But what alternative did they have. "I'll think about it."
"Think quickly, you don't have too much time. Especially if you're wanting to get those papers done before class."
"When are you going?" Scott asked.
"Tomorrow night."
"Can I write my obituary instead of the paper?" Stiles pestered. "I'll most likely go to better use than the nonsense I'd write for the other topic."
"Nope," Loranna said as she stood up slowly. "When you live through this, you still have to contend with the human life baby boy. Unless you plan on going to live off the land in the woods somewhere then you need to graduate high school."
"I'll be sure to ask the vampire that's eating me to write a nice one for me then."
"No one is going to eat you, Stiles," the young alpha said in a tired voice.
"Oh you wish someone would eat you," Loranna teased from her standing position. "You could ask Scott to do that later. Just remember the claws to the throat, Scott."
Scott couldn't do much more than gap at her statement. Teacher. Really? Teacher. No. That was wrong on so many different levels. Teachers didn't...joke about sex. Especially with students. As far as Scott wanted to know they didn't even have any. Too bad his nose knew different. That had forever scared his mind.
"Loranna - before you leave -" Stiles started, completely unphased by the sexual banter.
Loranna made a noise in the back of her throat, prompting him to continue.
"Do you think you could maybe - give us a helpful nudge in the right, possibly A grade, direction for these papers?"
"Focus the paper. You only have two pages. So pick one character from the first half. Or one subject theme, whichever. Then pick something you can parallel it to in something recent. Last hundred years should be recent enough. Compare and contrast them, but remember summerize the position of the modern thing up as you summarize the thing from the odyssy."
"Alright thank you - that was super helpful. Oh, and I still hate the plan."
"Well the plan loves you," Loranna teased as she slowly started to pass around the coffee table. "Pick Dracula for all I care. Bram Stoker gives you a lot of things to play with. You could probably wiki it up to get a good two pages."
"I think Renfield is the Stiles of the group - maybe I should pick up his lifestyle." Stiles joked.
Loranna ruffled Stiles' hair up as she passed. "Remind me to teach Scott to hunt. If you have to eat bugs to live...he really is the slowest puppy I've ever seen."
"Hey!" Scott objected as he turned in his seat.
"Right after you remind me about that thank you note."
"Can do baby boy," the redhead responded as she got to the entry way. "By the way, right hand window in your mom's room."
With that, Loranna was out of the door and leaving the boys to stew in their own thoughts.
Scott sat on the couch for a moment and blinked. "...wait...she got in from mom's room?"
He hadn't even smelled her. Or heard her or anything until she got to the fridge. Maybe he really did need Ethan to teach him how to hide his scent soon. Then they could work on the other things. Too bad none of them really had the time.
Stiles pulled his phone out of his pocket. "Ten Fifty-four. How much do you think we could write before class tomorrow?"
Scott groaned to himself. "There goes sleeping."
Stiles sighed, "guess it's good i have clothes here."
Scott nodded and started back up the stairs. This paper was going to kill him before they could even get to the club.
It was a rare day when both mom and dad were home but much less putting in time and effort to host something for him. The idea of a birthday alone sent Stiles in a spin of energy; jumping off the walls was an understatement. In the kichen Claudia Stilinski was wrapping up a massive cake in tin foil, as (we'll go with John) John Stilinski finished dumping ice into a large cooler. "What's this for?" Stiles asked, pulling a cloth off the counter that was under the work of his mother. "Whoa, whoa whoa, Stiles -" Claudia caught herself, lifting the cake, and letting the cloth fall ontop of her son. The women glanced down at her son - who was still wearing his pajamas, and sighed. "Honey, go put your clothes on. I laid them out on your bed for you." she said, folding the cloth, and putting it back on the counter. "John, would you help him get ready? We need to be at the park -" she paused to look at her wrist watch. "ten minutes ago." John Stilinski grabbed his now six year old son by the hand, and led him to his bedroom.
Wiggles couldn't be contained in the excited boy, a massive smile creeping on his face, as he jumped over to his bed, and started to test the bed springs. "Are we gonna eat that cake?" he asked his father. "Yup." John retorted. Stiles giggled with excitment. "Are we gonna eat candy?" he asked. "Yup." Another small retort, followed by another spert of happiness. "Is it just gonna be me at the birthday? Am I gonna get the whole cake?" John paused to look up at his son. "Don't you want to share the cake with your friends?" He asked, taking Stiles' hand again, to stop him from jumping on the bed, and lifting him up to place him down on the floor again, pulling his pajama shirt off his head, and pulling on the new one. Stiles nodded to his dad. "I'll eat half, and then my friends can have the other half." Stiles said, almost in all honesty.
John smiled. "We'll have to see about that. We all know what sugar turns into when it comes to you, little guy." his said, patting his son's head. "Now, take your pants off, we gotta put these ones on." he said, holding out a pair of shorts that were laying on the bed before.
"I don't want to wear those pants." Stiles said, having no problem with the taking the pants off command, but was no fighting the other half. "I don't want to wear any of my pants, I want to wear just - just - no pants." he said, running up and hugging his dad's torso.
"Well, you have to wear pants, Stiles, your friends will all be wearing pants, your mom and I are going to wear our pants, and you can wear these special birthday pants. Do you want to wear the special birthday pants?" he asked.
Stiles turned up to his dad and smiled. "Okay - but no underwear." he said, taking those off, and then taking the pants from his dad and sliding them on.
John Stilinski shrugged. Was underwear really that nessisary? "Alright, kiddo, let's get our shoes on. Do you want to wear your scooby ones?" he asked, grabbing a pair of scooby doo shoes from under his bed, wait - not a pair these were two different shoes. "Stiles, were is your other scooby shoe?"
By this time, Stiles was already far preoccupied by other things in his room. An entire new layer of mess had surrounded the toy box now emptied, that his mom just got finished filling. The boy had two toys in his hands, using one to brutally smash the other, making sound effects with his mouth, and then dropping the "brutally injured" toy and making a maniacle laugh in all it's glory. "Die like all your brothers die!" he said, kicking the toys around him, and then dropping the other toy.
"Stiles -" his father called "Come on, we're already late for your party." he said, walking over to grab his son's arm. "As soon as you get home, you can go right back to that - what ever that was." John led Stiles into the kitchen again, and asked him to pick out some shoes.
With the new instructions, Stiles skipped off back to his room, reaching into his closet and pulling out two shoes - cause two is some right? - and walking back into the kitchen, sitting down on the floor as he tried to pull them on his feet. One left footed spiderman shoe on his right foot, and one left footed scooby doo shoe on his left. Once the shoes were on, he stood and walked back over to his dad, pulling on his arm. "Let's go to the birthday now!" he said excitedly.
John Stilinski witnessed the work of young Stiles and sighed. "Son, at least the get the right spiderman shoe."
Looking down at his feet Stiles shrugged. "It's gone." he exclaimed, "These are the last shoes."
"He's right, John, I have no idea where his shoes have ran off too. He's been wearing that combo for a couple of days now." Claudia chuckled, pulling her purse over her shoulder. "We'll look in the car and see if there are any right shoes in there, alright buddy?" she smiled, leaning down to kiss her son's cheek.
Stiles pulled away and wiped it off his cheek. "Ew mom." he said, walking to the door, and opening it. The boy made a beeline for the car, and tried to jump to reach the door, but couldn't reach for the life of him. Soon enough his father was scooping him up into his arms, and opening the door, and planting him to his carseat, as Stiles roared with laughter every step of the way. "Are we going to the birthday now?" he asked.
John chuckled. "Yup." he said, kissing his son's head again, only to get the same reaction as when his mother kissed him.
- - - - - - - - -
Claudia was thankful no one had shown up earlier than she had, and had only started to set things up.
Stiles on the other hand, had taken off and was already halfway across the monkey bars by the time his mother looked up to see where he'd gone. "Is this the birthday?" he asked.
Claudia smiled. "Just wait, your friends will come soon." Claudia laid out a table cloth on a park table, and started to sting a happy birthday sign between two trees.
On the other side of the clearing, was a simple sandbox. There was nothing about it that set it apart from any other sandbox, not even the little boy inside. Though it was obvious by looking at him that something was awry. His thin sweater-coat had the buttons out of place, creating those looped gaps. His shoe laces were sloppily tied, obviously done by inexperienced hands, and his socks didn't match. The fact that he had socks on at all was a wonder considering that this little boy had dressed himself. In fact, he'd taken himself to the park too.
His mommy and daddy were supposed to, but then his daddy had started drinking...what was that stuff called again? Hop-scotch? Yeah, hop-scotch. His dad started drinking some hop-scotch, why he had no idea because that was a girl's thing, and then his mom had gotten into a big fight. There had been yelling back and forth as the little boy got himself dressed. By the time he was done they were still yelling at one another. Then when his dad had left, slamming the door behind him in his smelly rage, his mom had gone upstairs and locked her bedroom door. Today was the day that they were supposed to go to the park though so he'd tried to get her out. Only she didn't pay attention to him so he'd decided that he could take himself to the park. After all, he was a big boy now! Five turning six. He could spell his name and everything all by himself.
Speaking of his name...
He pulled the stick in his hand across the sand as the hot Californian sun beat down on his sweater covered back. S C O T. The young boy paused to look at the writing in front of the sandcastle he'd just finished. Something was off. His name didn't look write. With a face of concentraition, he stared at the sand writing long and hard. Ah-hah! He figured it out. His name needed another T!
Erasing what he'd done before he sat about redoing it. S C O T T. Scott. The boy grinned proudly at his work and went about writing his name on the side of his sandcastle. Now the whole playground would know that it belonged to him - Scott. Not any other old kid. It was his name on it which meant he owned it.
Stiles leaped down from the monkey bars and waddled little legs over to his mother. "Mommy who's birthday is this?" he asked, looking around and seeing no one he knew.
Claudia turned down to her son in confusion. "Stiles, this is your birthday." she told him, kneeling down to him. "Don't worry, your friends will be here, Heather's mom just called me, and she's on her way, okay."
Stiles smiled. "This is my birthday!" he asked with a smile. "I can do what ever I want?!" smiling still wider than you can imagine. "I can go on the swings now?" he asked.
"Stiles you can always go on the swings." she said with a chuckle. "Here, look over there - in the sandbox. Is that one of your friends?" she asked, pointing over to the sandbox.
Stiles' eyes beemed over to the sandbox, where he over looked the boy, but instead fixed his eyes on the clump of sand, that was clearly a sandcastle. "That's a nice castle." He said with a smile, almost out of impulse, walking over to the boy in the sandbox. "Hey - this is my birthday, and I don't know who your are, but this is gonna be my sandcastle too." he told the boy, crossing his arms.
Scott shook his head. "No. It's mine. My name is on it."
Stiles looked over the castle and saw the name clearly. "That can be my name. It has a S at the start, that is like my name."
"Nut-uh. S C O T T. That's my name, not yours," Scott said as he pointed to each letter individually.
As Scott pointed out the letters to him, Stiles pouted. "But this is my birthday." he complained, letting his arms fall in disapointment. "I can do what ever I want."
"No you can't!" Scott objected. "I made it, it's got my name on it. It can't be yours too. It doesn't work like that."
Grunting, Stiles shook his head. "You have to give me it!" he said, crossing angry arms against his chest. He didn't quite understand the concept of birthdays, infact the last one he went to, the kid at the party who's birthday it belonged to, was quite the jerk. He took things away from the other kids, just like Stiles was attempting to do to Scott. "Why can't you give me it?"
"Cause it's not yours," the young kid argued. "And I don wanna to give it to you. Even if it's your birfday."
With everything in him, Stiles wanted to badly to just kick it over to make the kid pay for not giving it over to him, but that would be working far against him - there were better ways to get him to give it up, though nothing a six year old could think of. Stiles was jumping slightly from the need to pee, and then suddenly, an idea formed in his little head. With out another word, the boy smiled, and unzipped his pants.
"Whatcha do---" Scott eyes widened as he watched what was about to happen. "No!"
And with out another noise of satisfaction, or a complaint about being un-able to have the castle, Stiles began to pee on the castle in front of him, and continued to pee in hopes that the boy who claimed the castle before would just leave.
Scott stood up, small fists clenched. He pushed forward and slammed his hands into Stiles' shoulders. His chest heaved up and down with rightous indignation that only small children could muster. Or that might have been the fact that he was having a hard time breathing. Probably a bit of both.
Stiles stumbled some, peeing just about everywhere in sight on accident, on himself, some on scott even maybe. But before the boy had time to react, he was being sent backward onto the ground, pants undone, eyes started to water. "b-but this is my birthday."
"You can't jus....just," Scott heaved as he felt the constriction around his lungs.
It was like he couldn't breathe. His mom had warned him to be careful when he was in the park, not to exert himself. Especially when all the flowers started to bloom.
"just can't...I can't..." his breathing came out in huffs as he gripped onto his misbuttoned sweater. "Where...where...hailer...?"
Stiles watched in the blurriness of the tears in his eyes, what was happening to the boy infront of him. Really, what was happening to the boy infront of him. "Hey - are you okay?" he asked, pulling himself back on his feet. Stiles fixed his pants, and then looked around. "MOMMY!" he called, "MOMMY!"
Claudia Stilinski mad a mad dash over to her son and the other boy. "Oh no, hey, honey, where are your parents?" she asked, kneeling over to take Scott's little face in her hands, demanding his attention. "Try to calm your breahting, it's okay." Unaware that this wasn't a panic attack that she was dealing with, Claudia looked around in a panic to spot any other parent in the park, only to not see anyone over the age of sixteen. "Did you come here alone?" she asked. "Stiles - go get Daddy." she said, turning to Stiles.
Stiles nodded, taking off in the awkward clumbsy way he always did, running for his dad, and pulling the man's arm. "Daddy!" the boy said, tears now brimming from his eyes, falling over his chubby cheeks. "Daddy, i was mean, and now the boy is gonna die!" Stiles cried, pulling harder in the hopes that his father would follow.
"Die?" John said, giving the boy a strange look.
Claudia stayed with Scott. "Can you asnwer me?" she asked. "Where are your parents?"
"Hop-----scotch," Scott rasped out. "fight...cry..."
Nodding, Claudia placed her hand on the boy's chest, feeling his racing heart against her palm. "We need to call an ambulance." she said under her breath. The women stood looking around for John. "JOHN! Call an ambulance, It's his breathing." she said, she leaned back over to him. "Can you try to take a big deep breath in and hold it? God - what is that smell." she said, looking around them, to see the wet sandcastle beside them. "Definitely urine. Okay, can you tell me your name?" she asked, before seeing the name on the castle. "Scott, is that your name?" she asked.
Scott nodded but the movement felt like it was going to send his head rolling off his shoulders. His body ached and his head felt light. He couldn't breathe. Where was his breathy-pump? Hailer, something about hailer. He needed it just like his mommy said he would when he went outside. But he didn't have it. It was back at home with his mom. All he had was his bike. Oh no his bike. If he went to the hospital then he'd leave his bike and it'd get ruined. But he couldn't breathe!
"M-mom," Scott started. "H-home. breathy thingy. Red."
Claudia was trying with all her might to understand what she was being told, but she couldn't. His voice was so quiet against his heaving, and all she could audibly hear was the sobs of her son back with her husband. "We don't know where you home is, Scott - But we're gonna get you to the doctor and they will help you breathe!" she said, taking firm hold of his shoulders. "It's okay, Scott. You're going to be okay."
Stiles wailed, crying big puppy dog tears as his father was on the phone with who ever answered the phone when you put it to your ear. "I don't want him to die daddy. I don't want him to die." Stiles chanted. "I'm sorry for being mean!" He hollered through tears. "I don't want to ever be mean. I don't want my birthday ever again!" he cried louder and louder.
John called for an ambulance and then took his son's hand, dragging him over to where his mom was. "Claudia, we have one coming, are we just going to leave everything here?" he asked. "I can pack it all back into the car."
Claudia nodded. "Honey. I'll call as many parents as I can saying the party is cancled, just - stay with him okay. Come on Stiles - help mommy put the balloons in the car."
"I hate my birthday! I haaaaaate my birthday!" Stiles cried hugging his mom's leg and letting tear flood down his cheeks. Claudia made her way to the table, and took the signs down, and started packing up the cake again, bringing it back to the car, and placing it all in the trunk again. The ambulance made good timing, and the parametics dragged Scott away.
Claudia threw the car keys back at John, and then climbed aboard the ambulance with Scott to have someone there with him.
- - - after scott gets better - - -
Stiles was still in hushed tears sitting in a chair at the hospital. Young Scott McCall's mother was called and warned of the situation, but the Stilinski's waited, Claudia had to apologies for her son's behavior.
Scott's head turned in the bed as his breathing slowly sped back up. His eyes fluttered open as he let out a deep, stale tasting breath. As he looked up to see the other young boy cryin in the seat he smiled, crooked but not yet because of an uneven jaw. Not that he knew he'd get an uneven jaw later.
"Pee boy."
Stiles looked up at the sound of the other boy's voice and tears started to rush again. With another wail, Stiles brough his hands to his eyes. "DONT CALL ME THAT!" he cried, leaning into his mother's arm.
Claudia too looked up with a sigh of relief. "You're okay!" she said with a smile, rising from her seat, only to let Stiles' head drop and hit his chin on the arm rest. "Hey, your mommy is on her way. Next time you want to go to the park, you should make sure your mommy is coming with you okay. Even if she's busy."
Stiles rose, rubbing his nose, and now hurting chin, over to the bed that was way taller than him. "Sorry for being mean to you - and for going pee on your castle." he said quietly through a pout on his face.
"It's okay," Scott said in a tired voice as he continued to lay in bed. "Nes time you wanna have a castle...just ask. We'll build one together okay?"
"We can make a better more bigger castle with two kids!" he said, leaving his upset persona behind, though his voice still nasaly.
"Super Sand Castle. It can have two s," the young boy said, his smile hinting at the inside story that had already formed. "Scott...and...and..."
His fact scrunched up as he realized that all he knew was that the kid's name started with an 'S'. That and he liked to pee on things. Somehow, Scott didn't think that had much to do with his name.
"Scott, and Stiles!" Stiles joined in with a smile. The boy rubbed dried tears off his face, and let out a sigh with his smile. "Biggest most bestest big sandcastle, and it can have my name with your name and no body will pee on it."
"My name then your name. Like Batman and Robin," Scott said as he turned to look up at the ceiling, a grin on his face.
"YEAH! BATMAN! I GET TO BE BATMAN!" he smiled.
"No. Scott then Stiles like Batman then Robin. You're Robin first. Then I'll be Robin."
"No please. You can be Robin both times, and I'll be Batman!" he said covering his face half way like he had a cape. "I'm Batman!" he said in a deep voice with a hazy giggle.
"But you look like Robin!" Scott insisted as he started to sit up.
Stiles stopped in his tracks and pouted. "I want to be Batman." he said, feeling the tears again. "I don't want to be Robin."
"You cry a lot," Scott said in a matter-of-fact tone when he saw the look on Stiles' face.
Stiles wasn't having a good day at all. The boy pouted and walked back to his chair, sitting down and sniffling to himself. "I don't want to be Robin. And I don't cry a lot!" He said in an angry pout.
"Yes you do. But it's okay, you can cry Stiles. Everyone cries."
"But I can be Batman." He said, stilling his pouty kind of position. "And you can be Robin."
"We can be Scott and Stiles. We don't have to be Batman and Robin. We can be new, and better. Very very very much better."
"You can be Scott, but I want to be Batman."
"You can't be Batman if I'm Scott. You have to be Stiles!"
"I don't want to be Stiles!" he pouted again. "I jus wanna be Batman!"
"Then why aren't you wearing his shoes?" Scott questioned back in an innocent tone. "Spiderman isn't batman!"
"My Batman shoes are gone."
"If you don't have batman, you can't be batman," the young child countered with his highest level of logic.
Stiles felt his blood boil some, but mostly let it out through tears. The boy kicked his feet, and tore off his shoes, throwing them on the ground and crossing his arms against his chest. This wasn't right? He could always be Batman if he wanted to be Batman. Why were the rules different now? Stiles wanted to badly to be Batman, and this new kid, that he still felt like he almost killed, said he couldn't - under any circumstance - be Batman. "I can only be Stiles then?" he asked.
"What's wrong with being Stiles?" he asked as he swung his legs back and forth over the bed. "I like Stiles. You should like being Stiles too."
"You can be Stiles. Can I be Scott?" Stiles asked.
Scott looked at him strangely and shook his head, his mop of dark hair catching in the air. "I don't think it works that way Stiles. You can't be Scott if I'm Scott. And I can't be Stiles if you're Stiles. We can't just switch. ...where would we sleep?"
Understanding the logic, Stiles continued with his imagination. "I could sleep at your house, with your toys, and you can sleep at my house with my toys."
"But my mommy tucks me in at night. What if she can't find me at your house?" His eyes widened in childish innocents. "What if Santa Clause can't find us?"
Stiles rose an unsure eyebrow. "I'll just be Stiles, okay." he said, falling back into his seat with defeat. "You win. You be Scott, I'll be Stiles."
Scott grinned. "And we'll be awesome together. Right? As long as you don't pee on my castles anymore..."
"As long as you don't pee on any one's sandcastles any more." Claudia budded in. "Or on anything that belongs to someone else - or anything that isn't a toilet." she continued.
Stiles nodded. "Okay." Stiles slumped back into his seat.
Claudia still kind of wondered when Scott's mother would come - or if she was coming. As it seemed the habit of beacon hills, when the devil is thought about they appear. Even if this person wasn't anything like a devil the saying seemed apt when Melissa rushed through the door. There was a messy uniform on her and dark circles as deep at the tear stains down her cheak. Scott hopped off the bed and held his arms open as Melissa rushed in.
"Scott, Scott. I," Melissa's words rushed out as she held onto her child.
"Mom, can't...too tight," Scott said as he flailed.
Claudia took Stiles' hand, and walked over to the women who'd rushed in. "This is my fault." she started. "My name is Claudia Stilinski." She said, trying to make some sort of conversation, be the right thing to do, considering she'd just brought the other women's son to the hospital. Or little Brother, it was hard to tell - but the boy said, mom - so.
"Uh...Melissa," the young mother said as she slowly let go of her kid. "Can you tell me what happened?"
"It's nothin' mom," Scott said abashed.
"Nothing...Nothing? Scott you're in the hospital. That's not nothing."
Claudia swallowed hard, clenching her son's hand a little harder. "Well - the doctors said it was an asthma attack." she said. "But - I think it was partially my fault. You see - My son was talking to your son, and then the next thing I notice, I'm being called over because Scott can't breathe." Claudia said nervously. "I don't know a whole lot else, Stiles, can you say anything about what happened?"
"He peed on my castle cause he wanted it," Scott said instantly. Then the look of 'oops' past over his face as though, somehow, he knew he wasn't supposed to say anything.
Stiles looked over at Scott and then up at his mom, and his face burning bright red he stod silently. Claudia nodded. "I had a feeling that was most of the story." Claudia said with wide eyes. "I'm really really sorry. My husband and I will cover any and all hospital costs."
"You don't have to do that. Really. His dad has some great benefits...I'm just glad you found him. I was looking everywhere for him. We were supposed to go to the park and I guess when we didn't...uh, you don't want to know that. Anyways, thank you. I'm just glad he's," Melissa shook Scott lightly. "okay."
Claudia nodded. "If we weren't there - things may have looked differently. But, what's done is done, right?"
"Right," Melissa agreed. "What's left to do is figure out what was going through my son's head to begin with..."
"Moooom," Scott whinned.
Stiles hid his face behind his mother's leg. "And to find another date for Stiles' - oh crap! THE CAKE!" Claudia said looking down at Stiles. "Stiles, the cake is still in the car - " like telling her son is going to do anything. Claudia turned to Melissa and Scott. "Do you guys want some cake? I'm going to have to make a new one anyway."
"Cake?" Scott asked excitedly as he looked up to his mom. "Can we talk after cake?"
Melissa sighed. His puppy dog eyes were top notch and he used them like a weapon against her each and every time. "...I don't know, Scott. You kind of ran off on me. Runaways don't get cake."
Stiles pulled his mom's shirt. "Dad said I can have half of the cake - can we give the other half to Scott?" he asked.
Claudia shrugged. "We have to be considerate to what Scott's mom says, and if she says no to cake, then we can't give them cake, okay."
Stiles pouted. "I hate my birthday. I don't want my birthday again ever." he said, walking back to his seat, and sitting down with another pout.
Claudia chuckled nervously. "It hasn't been completely lousy, has it? I mean, you made a new friend." she said pointing to Scott.
"And got to pee in public. Like a dog," Scott said with a grin and he slowly tried to wiggle out of his mother's hold.
"That will never get to happen again, only because it's your birthday, Stiles." Claudia said, almost in hopes that this could possibly be an end to a problem they'd faced a while now with Stiles and public urination. "No other days can you pee in public."
Stiles rose an eyebrown in confusion. "But what am I suppose to do if I have to go pee?"
"Tell your dad or me, and we'll take you to a bathroom." Wow, this is progress on more levels than a person can tell. "And now, we're gonna have cake. And maybe we can have some of your friends over for dinner."
Stiles smiled some. "Can Scott come over for dinner?" he asked.
"That's a question for his mom - who - we - just - met - after almost killing her son." like mother like son in a few, well more than a few years. Quite intellectual, but - still on the slower, socially awkward side. "Why don't we let Scott and his mom talk."
Stiles nodded. "They can talk." he said, swinging his legs in the chair.
"Alone." Claudia continued, walking over to pull her son out of the chair. "God, we need to change your pants." she said putting him down again, and then taking his hand, and walking toward the door.
Young Stiles Stilinski had always been an observant kid. Though, sometimes being a slooth made your dreams turn into nightmares. As quickly as the storm came, so was she taken. Stiles couldn't close his eyes with out thinking about it - he could turn his head with out seeing it - he couldn't much as look at himself with out feeling it. She was gone - like really really gone. Not just gone in the sense that his father would say, eyes red, leaving evidence of tears from the hours he'd spent questioning all that is good in the world, and Stiles didn't blame him. If there was something right in the world, than why did good people have to leave so early? Why did he have to live the rest of his life with out hearing her voice again, or feeling her touch. Soft shaking hands he remembered holding till the moment she didn't recognize him. Her brilliant eyes turned a stale brown after a while. The words on her lips started to turn into nonsence, and her cognition didn't hold on any longer than her life did.
Stiles sat in a daze eyes focused on nothing as the world moved around him. The room was full of pity, pity Stiles didn't want. People had gone on and on about the memories of Claudia Stilinski, whom stiles only really knew for eight short years. Little did they know who she'd become. The void of a person she was when she left. Regardless the fact that her mind didn't hold any sense of memory, there wasn't a passing moment when she stopped loving him. Love he didn't deserve. The love that a women could only give. She didn't much as know why he was there, who he was, or really even if she'd seen him before, but he remembered being thanked for spending time with her even though he didn't have to. But that wasn't true, Stiles clung onto the moments he had with his mother, and he had to be there, regardless what she knew.
After the stories of memories was a presentation of all the things she'd accomplished, earned, done. There was even a slide about him and his dad up there - but Stiles couldn't bring himself to pay attention. Nothing could make him want to be here, in an uncomfortable suit and tie - with a room full of people he didn't know.
The ceremony had gotten so intense, that there was a brief moment that Stiles felt himself leaving. His chest became tight, and he couldn't bring himself to take in any air. He knew what this was - it was another one of those - 'just breathe, Stiles' was all anyone told him to try and pick him back up. 'just breathe'
Scott followed behind his best friend, ignoring his mother who tried to get him to sit back down. It didn't matter what people wanted him to do - it rarely ever had with him. The fact that Stiles had gotten up and wondered away from the ceremony meant that he was going to as well. They were practically attached at the hip after all. So when he found his friend, he'd been ready to talk about anything...anything other than the funeral they just left. Him losing his mom was not a good subject. Or so Scott had been told. Repeatively. In two different languages...he'd only understood one of them but he got the gist of what his mom had been trying to express.
Which meant that he'd picked out a whole lot of other topics to talk about with his friend. It wasn't until he actually saw Stiles, in with some of the trees around the cemetary, that all those topics didn't seem to matter. In fact, it looked like his friend was choking with all of the motions his upper body was making. Or was having an asthma attack. Stiles didn't have asthma though so that didn't seem right.
Walking up to the taller kid, Scott held out his inhaler with an imploring look. "Take it, it helps you breathe."
His head was pounding in his skull, and all that could be heard was the hiccuping sound of suffocation. Stiles leaned over onto a tree before turning to Scott with a look of panic, then looking down at the inhaler then back up at him. The boy dove at his best friend, falling some and taking the inhaler, unable to even concentrate the muscles to life the inhaler to his mouth. "c-can't" he hesitated. Stiles brought his gaze up to Scott's eyes, eyes concentrating to stay open.
Scott moved forward and took the inhaler from Stiles. He held it in his hand for a moment before repositioning it in front of Stiles' mouth. The movement felt weird - he'd never had to help someone else take his medicine before.
"Open your mouth and when I push the top down, suck back a breath," the eight year old Scott instructed.
Stiles' body shook with a nod, gasping to even suck in one breath. With everything in him, the let his mouth hang open, more than normal, holding onto Scott with a powerful grip. This was his shot at living, and he was taking it.
"Okay...one...two...three!" Scott said.
On three he pushed down so the medicine could go out into Stiles' mouth. He may or may not have hit half of his nose, but for his first time it wasn't too bad of a shot.
With every ounce of focus, Stiles chocked in a horrible breath, leaving it in coughs an irritation from the medication. Stiles wanted to say that it was the sorce of all answers, and all his problems were solved, but that was far from the truth. Best it did was distract him from what had sent him into this state of panic. "Is not - its not - working." Stiles studdered, falling back at a tree, and holding himself up with it, using every and all muscle he had.
Scott moved forward, concern written on his young face. He held onto Stiles to try and help him stand but it was just easier to take to bended knee. He held onto his friend who was seizing up. What happened? What went wrong? The inhaler always worked for him. Gripping tightly onto his shoulder, Scott started to stand up on his own once more.
"Stay here. I'll go get my mom, she's a nurse now. She can fix you," Scott said with conviction in his voice. "But you gotta stay right here first okay?"
Stiles wasn't going anywhere, and with a nod, he much as waved him off, feeling his vision blur, and tears start to stream his face. 'just breathe, Stiles.'
Looking back down at his friend one more time, Scott gently placed his inhaler next to Stiles. Just incase he needed it and it worked this time. He could make it back to his mom without it. He knew he could. It would just need to work. Determined, Scott started back as quickly as he could. His lungs burned obviously, he was a severe asthmatic, but this was for Stiles. For Stiles he could do this. He would do this. There was no fail option.
Getting back to the party, the eight year old was able to rasp out, "Stiles, dying, forest. Help mom."
"Scott...what..." Melissa's mind caught up with what her son was trying to say. "Stiles?... John!"
Propriety could be damned. These boys were going to be the death of her one day. Or at least cause a severe mental break down. She reached for the extra inhaler she carried around incase Scott lost his and helped her son take it, all the while trying to get him to calm down enough for the medcine to take effect so that they could go help Stiles.
John Stilinski hadn't been any better off than Stiles on the emotional aspect of this wreck, but hearing his name in what sounded like a panic, snapped him clear out of what he'd personally been allowing himself to feel. The man, turned to Melissa, and began closer to her. "What?" Sheriff Stilinski asked.
"Scott says something happened to Stiles, in the woods."
Scott nodded as he tried to catch his breath, "Shaking. He can't breathe. The inhaler didn't work."
John felt his heart sink. "The woods!? Oh god - okay - Scott, can you take us to him?"
Scott nodded and looked at both set of parents before hurring back off. He was probably going against doctor's orders at this point, not to mention his moms, with all this running but oh well. Stiles needed help and the medicine wasn't helping. At least Scott had medicine to help. Stiles didn't. Hence why Stiles needed more help. Hopefully he didn't get in trouble for it later. His mom always picked the worst times to make him be in trouble.
The young boy led the pair back to where Stiles was, near that tree. They played in the woods enough to know it. Maybe not like the back of their hands but...kind of like the playground. Just with more trees and animals that came out at night to gobble children up.
Stiles could hear the sounds of feet hitting the ground behind him, but he couldn't bring himself to look that direction. His sides ached from the tension on his ribcage, and his body shook, and sweat like it couldn't function normally. He could hear the sound of his father's voice, and his shoes crushing the ground.
"STILES!" the man yelled from the moment they'd cleared good sound walls from the funeral. "STILES!" he shouted again, and as his eyes laid on the small boy, perched against a tree - well sort of - his feet carried him off, reaching out for his hiccuping son.
Scott pulled on his mom's hand even as he felt himself wheezing. He brought her to the other two and tried to smile.
"Told ya I'd get mom. She'll make you better now."
A look of panic was plastered on the small boy's face, turning first to Melissa McCall, and forcing his father away form him, for room to try to breathe. He couldn't be hugged - no - that would make it impossible. "t - " thanks wasn't a reality right now.
John wasn't sure he was fit to instruct someone through something like this - much less his son - but with everything he knew about panic attacks, he gave Stiles the space he wanted. "Just Breathe Stiles, take in a deep breath, and hold it - right Melissa?" John asked, turning toward Melissa.
Stiles had almost accepted the fact that he was about to die - but it was better than what he was feeling. This had to be death.
Checking over his state, Melissa bent down and nodded. "Deep breaths. Hold, release. Do it with me. Deep breath....hold....release."
She tried to help guide him through it, just as she'd been instructed to do. She used a calm, slow tone with extremely simple sentences. As she spoke she started to do as she instructed him to do, making sure that it was clear she was following her own instructions for him to see.
"Good. Now, when you breath in, put your arms in the air. Breathe out, start to lower them."
Repetition movements to help calm his shaking body would help give him something to focus on as well.
"Now come on, Stiles. We'll get through this. Just do as I do. Breathe...arms go up....hold...release....arms go down. Breathe in, arms go up....hold...release with arms going down."
Stiles had to try. If it meant living - then he would try. It was hard - very hard - at first. His body told him that taking in a breath and holding it was impossible, and he'd lost concentration a couple times and gave into the idea of needing another very shallow hiccuped breath, but Stiles worked to focus himself. It took an alarming amount of time to feel himself calm down, but his head was so light, he felt like he was leaving anyway. His eyes started to flutter, and he went to reach for something, but instead fell backward, and landing on the ground.
John Dove to catch his son, only to barely miss, but pulled him into his arms, once he was out. "Thanks Scott. You're a big helper. And Melissa. THank you too." He could feel him breathing, and it was really really calm.
"Is Stiles going to be okay now?"
"He should be. It just looked like he was just having a panic attack," Melissa answered honestly.
John nodded. "Fortunately we're not too unfamiliar with those. Claudia had pretty bad anxiety."
"Well then I guess that's something else he inherited from his mom, huh?" Melissa attempted humor.
A soft chuckle to relieve tension later left John nodding, pulling his small boy in his arms, and lifting them both up, letting Stiles drape over him like a sleeping child. Which he was.
- - - - post funeral, perhaps at the McCall house - - - - to get out of the Stilinski house - - - -
Stiles was draped on Scott's bed as he came back into consiousness, head still throbbing and spinning some. He recognized the room as Scott's and accepted his inhabitance of the bed. He wasn't quite sure what'd happened, and he was almost sure he'd just woken up from a horrible nightmare. Something so horrible it felt like it'd taken a while to develope. How long was he out?
Scott sat at the end of his bed on the floor, moving back and forth as he did battle on his oh so important game. Which was why he didn't notice that Stiles had woken up. He needed to beat the stupid gym leader! He'd been trying since they got back to his house and he still hadn't won yet. It didn't seem fair - they were too strong.
Frowning at the device as the classic sound continued to play, Scott sat it down. He leaned all the way back and tilted his head onto the bed. Now that he was paying attention he could feel Stiles moving. Jumping up and turning around with a smile, Scott made eyecontact with his return-from-the-dead friend.
"You were asleep forever!"
Stiles pulled himself up, in his light headness, and rubbed his burning eyes. "Do you remember why I went to sleep? he asked, unable to recally the reason himself.
"You got attacked," Scott said instantly then realized that didn't sound 100% correct.
"Attacked?" Stiles asked.
"Yep. Well you were attacked, or something. But it's okay, you're better now. Apparently it's---uuuuh, nevermind." He just remembered the taboo on all things dealing with Mrs. Stilinski in time.
Stiles shrugged. "I had a - really - scary dream. Is my mom here? Or my dad?" he asked.
Scott fidgeted nervously. "Your dad is down with my mom. Drinking grown up stuff and being boring."
Stiles nodded, pulling himself toward the end of the bed and sliding off. He looked down at his outfit and then back up at Scott's. "Why are we all dressed up?" another question later.
Nope, nope, abort abort! Scott reached down to grab his gameboy advanced and smiled. He handed it to his friend and stood beside him pointing at the little figure of the person he was trying to beat.
"Want to help me win? You're better at these games than me."
Stiles focused his attention to the small screen. "Is your geodude at least level 20?" he asked. "Do you have a wingul? Does your Geodude know Magnitute?"
"I think," Scott said as he mentally patted himself on the back.
Stiles questioned the honesty of it all, he should be set in stone, unless his attach choice was horrible. "Does your wingul know water gun? What was your started pokemon? And how far is he?" Stiles pulled up a couple different files to see what Scott had done, noticing the geodude was only at level seventeen, and a couple of other things. "You need to go to the pokemon hospital, and then train your geodude to at least level twenty, and while your at it, maybe level up your wingul some too - it's best if you can get it to evolve into a peliffer before you face the gym leader. The weakest pokemon in his deck in level 20, and you don't want yours to be any less than the weakest, you actually typically want yours to be at least five levels stronger than the strongest, which in this case is a 31. So if you can get your geodude up to a 36, your golden.
"But that'll take forever."
Stiles nodded. "It takes a long time, but it'll help you on your way to the next gym. Here, I'll show you a quick way to level up your rock pokemon." Stiles walked into a cave with the pokemon character and started to run around wild in it. "So, Geodude is a rock/ground pokemon, which means he is super effective against anything fire, electric - which the gym is the electricity gym - poiosn, ice, and fly. So if you find a pokemon that is one of those things, then you're a sure fire success with a chance of not getting hurt at all, which means less trips to the pokemon hospital. though, before you go to the gym, be sure to visit the pokemon hospital anyway, just so you can gain back all your uses. So, in a couple of hours of running aorund in this cave that is mostly bats, and hitting them with Rock Throw will usually be an automatic KO. If you run into an Aron in the cave, use Magnati-no, magnitude. Sure fire KO. If it's touching the ground, just use Magnitude. That's why if you have a wingul or a phellifur or what ever it's called as your partner pokemon, you won't affect it, using magnitude. But if you use wave, you'll probably KO your geodude." Stiles said handing the gameboy back to Scott.
Scott nodded, trying to take in as much as he could but he knew he'd never be able to keep up with Stiles' knowledge on the game. He played it much more casually than his friend had. In fact, he'd been the one to borrow this game once Stiles had already beaten it.
"I'm hungry. Want to go grab something from the fridge?"
Stiles nodded eagarly. "I thought you'd never ask!" the boy said, walking toward the bedroom door, shrugging off the jacket he was wearing, and throwing it on the ground in Scott's room. In a strange sense of comfortablity, Stiles walked down the stairs, and turned into kitchen, and cracked open the fridge waiting for Scott to join him.
It was evident that John had been crying some, sipping coffee now at the kitchen table with Melissa. John watched his son make his comfortable way into the McCall's fridge. "Stiles -?" his father questioned.
Stiles turned around to face his dad. "Yeah dad?" he asked.
"What are you doing?" he asked
"Well, Scott and I are hungry - so - this is typically where people find food." Stiles reasoned, turning back into the fridge.
John couldn't make sound but instead turned to Melissa apologetically. "I - I'm sorry."
"It's okay, John. Boys, I have some snack packs in the cabnet. And there's a few sandwhiches left over from the...there's a few sandwhiches in the fridge, they're the things with foil over the top" Melissa said in a mothering tone. "Take what you want."
Stiles smiled looking down at the beautiful Sandwiches from the - - beauitufl sandwiches - - after you show them off once the foil is gone. Stiles nodded. "I feel like I haven't eaten anything my whole life!" he said, grabbing a plate of the sandwiches, and taking a couple into his hands. "What do you want Scotty?" Stiles asked.
"Is there any salami ones left?"
Stiles turned his attention back to the sandwiches. "Uhm - probably. just have to bite into one and find out." he joked. Stiles shoved a few sandwiches into his mouth and chewed like a chipmonk, and once he'd swallowed, he turned to his dad. "Dad? Where is mom?" he asked.
The room stood still.
John's eyes widened, and before he could make a sound he looked over at Melissa. "Uhm -"
Melissa nudged John with her elbow. It was something that none of them wanted to admit allowed but Stiles needed to know. He and his dad needed to talk about this at some point. Although if he wanted to wait a week before even broaching the subject then she wasn't going to object. She didn't really have a right to do that. As a nurse however, she was pretty sure that the whole quick-rip bandaids off bit was going to hurt a lot. The sooner it hurt though the sooner they could start to let the wound air out.
Stiles felt the tension in the room. "What? Is she like - getting christmas presents or something?" Stiles said almost joke like.
"Uh, Stiles do you want to go back and play pokemon with me?" Scott asked in his best attempt to distract his friend.
He didn't know what else he could do. He didn't want to see Stiles get attacked again by whatever it was. Panic or something. Yeah, panic attack. That sounded right. Whatever that was, he didn't want to let Stiles go through it again.
Stiles nodded. "Uh-huh. she really must be getting Christmas presents then. I'm prone to good guessing." Stiles said turning to follow Scott. "Though, it's a little early for that."
"Stiles -" John started. "Hey, before you go up with Scott, could you, sit down with us for a second, and talk?"
Stiles turned back to face his father and Melissa, then flinched back to Scott. "okay - I'll meet you up there?" he said almost as a question, before walking over to the kitchen table, and taking a seat.
"Yeah, I'll wait on the stairs," Scott said, pointing in the general direction of the stairs before heading out of the dinning room.
John took in a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Stiles." he started.
Stiles felt his eyes widen. "Oh my God." he said. "Oh my God - Oh my God. NO!" Stiles started. "Wait - no, you're not -"
John sighed, reaching his hand over across the table for his son's hand. "A second, Melissa?"
"I'll just huh...be in the living room," Melissa said to excuse herself from the father and son moment.
"Dad - no - I mean, no seriously this can't be true." Stiles said, feeling his eyes well up with tears. "You're not -"
"Stiles, it's okay. I know you would eventually remember, don't worry though okay. We're gonna be fine."
"You're leaving mom?" he asked. "It's true?" he asked. "Remember that you - you told me you were leaving mom? When? And For Melissa?"
"Leaving mo- Stiles. I am never going to file a divorce with your mother."
Stiles started to feel himself calm down. "Oh - then what is it? I don't get it."
John couldn't do this - he was worked over the idea of him leaving his mother, what would he do if he knew his mother left them? "Maybe you should just go play with Scott. We can talk about this later."
Stiles shook his head. "No - what are you talking about dad?" Stiles couldn't think straight. What could have possibly happened?
shaking his head too, John patting Stiles hand with a reassuring smile. "You're worked up, we don't need to talk about this right now. Okay. We'll talk about it when we get home." hoping the fake smile would calm some nerves in both of them.
Stiles sighed. "Alright. If it's I'm not getting that skate board for christmas, it's totally okay." he said, scooting his chair out and then walking to the stairs. "Okay, let's go - " he said in almost a melonchally (sp?) tone.
"You remembered huh?" Scott said in what he hoped as a sympothetic voice. Hey, he was only eight...give him a break.
Stiles looked up with a curious look. "Remembered what?"
"That you're mom's," Scott looked around as though someone were going to come in and yell at him, "Uh....That your mom died."
Stiles' face turned from curious to heartbroken in a split second. "Whu-" Stiles felt his stomach flip inside of him. "I'm gonna -" and like any eight year old would, Stiles turned away from Scott running with all he had to the bathroom, barely making it in the room at all, before losing the sandwiches he just started to digest, and then a couple times more - and another time.
Scott ran after him and hovered over as his friend literally spilled his lunch. "Stiles! Stiles! MOM! STILES IS SICK!"
John rose from his seat, running up the stairs to the bathroom, only to watch Stiles throw up again. "Okay - Stiles, try to make it over to the toilet okay. And lift up the seat."
Stiles did as his father asked, sick litterally all over the floor.
"Melissa, we're gonna need a few towels, maybe a mop, mmm definitely a mop." Sheriff Stilinski turned to Scott. "Did you - tell him?"
Scott nodded with a look of panic and fear over his face. "He was sad so I thought he remembered. He asked what so I told him. Then he got sick. Is he going to be okay? I don't want anything to happen to him."
John let a small light hearted chuckle lose, patting the kids head. "Don't worry kiddo, he's going to be just fine." John turned to watch Stiles Throw up again! "Melissa?" he called out.
"Uh yeah, one minute," Melissa called out, sorting through the linen closet. "I know they're in here somewhere...he didn't use them all..."
Having a drunk for a husband made towels a hot comedity in her house. Especially when he got sick in the morning or late at night from all the so called 'stress' he went through. She didn't understand how she could make it through a pregnancy with less puking than he did in half that time.
"Ah-hah, here they are," Melissa said as she pulled back triumphetly, two smaller body towels clunched in her hands.
John stilinski got down on his knees, accepting the towels from Melissa, and using them one at a time, to clean up the mess Stiles had made. "She's - dead?" the poor boy asked. John looked up and nodded slowly, only to watch Stiles puke - again.
"It's okay kiddo, we're gonna be alright." the man consoled, cleaning vomit from the floor as he did so. "Scott, could you go get Stiles some water?" he asked.
Scott nodded enthusiastically and ran off. He could at least be a little helpful. Especially since he had made this whole thing worse. He climbed up onto the counters to reach the cups because he didn't have time to find the stepping stool in the kitchen. Then into the fridge for the cold water. Stiles liked cold water right? He hoped so. With the glass half full, Scott hurried back up to Stiles and his dad. His arms outstretched as he prosented the water to the older man, trying to not take too deep of breaths. Puke stunk, plain and simple.
John stilinski smiled up at the boy, taking the water. "If you'd like, you can wait for Stiles downstairs.
"Are you sure he's going to be okay?" Scott warred internally with himself - his best friend or his own comfort, his best friend...comfort. The battle was hard for someone as young as he was.
"He'll be fine," Melissa soothed. "It'll take a while, but he'll be alright."
"He can still play baseball with me tomorrow right? Or will he be too sick?"
"Depends on him. Right now, you should probably just go watch some cartoons or something while Stiles gets better."
Scott nodded, looking back to his friend with caution. He didn't want to leave, not really. But the adults were there. They knew what to do better than he did.
"...okay."
Once the floor was cleaned, John walked over to Stiles who'd now laid his head against the wall, tears soaking his face, body shaking some. "Hey." he said, sitting down beside him. "Are you gonna puke again?"
Stiles shook his head, turning to his dad and snuggling his head into his side. He was stricken, unable to move, unable to think. He was thankful to think that what he thought he'd dreamt was actually what happened, only because he didn't have to ask how. It was all true, not some long ellaborate dream.
"This might happen a couple more times. Waking up, thinking mom is gonna be here, but i'm here okay. I'm not going to leave, I'm always going to be here."
Stiles didn't want to hear anything right now, not consolment, not encouragment, he just wanted to curl up into his dad, and cry. Catching the vibe, John pulled his son into his arms, and began to rock him some, thankful that for an eight/nine year old, though lanky and tall, he was still small.
The pair sat in the bathroom for an hour - in silence. John had gotten Stiles to fall asleep again, almost nervous of what would happen when he woke up. John went to move, but the stress made Stiles wake up. Stiles looked around the bathroom, and then at his dad. "Can we go home now?" he asked. John nodded. "Yeah, we can go home."
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Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2014 10:47 pm
Why had night come so early now days? It was like Beacon Hills was allergic to daytime or something. It'd been a long day for Stiles. Starting with school, and having an extra difficult time focusing. He'd forgotten the Adderall in the mess of things that morning being at Lydia's house, with Natalie, and - Satan. It was a little out of character, Stiles would admit, yelling at Peter the way he had that morning, but the man didn't deserve to try and preserve his name. He was a lucky man, and rode other people's coat tails, cheating his way along, doing bad things in the process. Not to mention, he was sort of kind of dating Scott's mom. It was time she heard about him.
Stalking up the stairs of his house, Stiles made his way into his bedroom, dropping his backpack off at the bottom of his bed, kicking his shoes off, pulling the zipper down on his sweatshirt, and shrugging the loose fabric off his shoulders. He was so tired, it didn't matter how much homework he had. He could do it in the morning. There was so much to be done, so much, between Werecoyote information, to the reoccurring vampire information that needed research. Stiles still wasn't sure what kept him asleep at night. The fact that a vampire could sneak into his room that night, sit on his chest and suffocate - okay, where is the Adderall, it's time to do some work. Stiles reached into his backpack for a notebook he'd started to jot things down in. It was one taking Malia to the mall that day, it was another observing her behavior. He was just glad she was with Doctor Harris, cause he would know what to do about her - right? Stiles had never had a sister, or even someone anything like it - well aside from Heather, but she was never much of one to need to look after. In fact, Heather use to fight his battles. Leaning how to teach a girl anything was going to take some training on his end too.
Stiles needed a shower pretty badly, after being urinated on earlier that day, but even the sound of a shower sounded like a lot of work. Instead Stiles reached for his proscribed bottle of Adderall and undid the lid, and tossed back a good dosage of it. Normally the drug took no time to kick in, and Stiles was halfway depending on it. It was suppose to help people with narcolepsy stay up - and people with ADHD focus. Stiles needed a little bit of both in the moment.
Lifting the screen of his laptop, the teenager google searched werecoyote. Not a single link to click on, nothing but hollowed consumes of people who thought they were being clever. He then searched tips on training someone who was an animal most of their life. It looked like Stiles was about to have to write his own survival guide. No one had experience with this kind of thing. All he knew about Malia, is that she was very territorial of him (not including the urine claim), she had no moral sense of public indecency, she was highly intelligent when it came with words, sass, and back talk, and though utterly blunt, she was a very likable person - well - to be around. Regardless what she was, she was a girl, still something very foreign to Stiles. He'd never even had a girlfriend before.
Stiles flickered through links, dragging his screen up and down, feeling his eyes drooping. What the hell, the Adderall should be working by now. He thought, unable to make any side comments to himself. It was over now. It wasn't working. The pills he took were stale or something, his bed was calling his name rather loudly, and he was giving into the sleep. I'll just wake up early he thought, standing from his desk, and pulling his pants off of himself, not even making it to his pajama drawer to pull on pajama pants, but instead climbed into the bed, not even bothering to move the covers, and slammed his head against the pillows. He couldn't remember a time he was so tired in his life.
It was dream like for sure, but it was almost like one of those out of body type experiences, because Stiles could see himself sleeping. It was like that insidious movie, where the kid could dream cast, cast himself out of his body. That didn't end up well though. "Don't let them in." he heard himself whisper, and again, "don't let them in -." and then like a funnel, Stiles was drawn somewhere else - a locker? Looking around he was definitely in a confined place. Stiles felt himself jolting forward, pushing the door, trying to get it open. He'd been in this situation twice before. Once he was slammed in a locker by a bully, and the other time, he got trapped in his locker on accident somehow. Soon enough the door gave in by his hands, and he was in a classroom - Dr. Harris' Biology classroom. Stiles looked around with ever intention of leaving, finding a door propped open by a mop. Stiles minded the space the mop took up, and carefully walked around it. He made his way into another open classroom door, but it didn't lead to a classroom like the first one did - no, when Stiles entered this room, he was in what he could make out was the bank vault at Beacon Hills First National Bank, the place where Jennifer had tried multiple times to make a sacrifice. What was different about this time. Stiles didn't realize in first glance, but the moment he looked up a second time, there was the true face of the Darach, and beside it, his hanging father. "No! NO!" Stiles hollered audibly in his sleep, and in the dream. "You're too late, Stiles. Always too late." the women's voice croaked, stepping to the side, and revealing Scott's punctured body, blood draining from his mouth, eyes unfocused. "Scott!" Stiles ran over to the corpse, but was unable to grab it, and before he could truly comprehend that it was a dream, his shoulder were being shaken, and he was brought out of that level.
Stiles eyes flung open, seeing his father standing over him, looking on him as if he'd done something very wrong. "Wake up! the man stated, releasing him realizing he was awake. "Stiles, you're late." Stiles lifted himself in the bed, watching his father make his way around the room, pulling things out of his drawers, and shoving them into a bag. "Dad? What - what happened? Stiles asked, groggily, rubbing his eyes, then turning to follow his father. "You're gonna be late for School." Stiles paused for a moment. School? the boy glanced over at his clock and his eyes bugged out of his head. It was almost eight am, and he wasn't even awake yet? He must have really been deep in sleep. The boy pushed himself forward, grabbing a pair of pants off the floor and brought them up his waist. "Sorry Dad, I must have slept in." The man turned back to his son, draping the bag over his shoulder, and nodding. "Just get going." the man said pushing his son out of the house.
Once Stiles made it into the hallway, he turned back to his dad. "I love you, dad." the man huffed in anger. "SCHOOL STILES!." Stiles took the bag and backpack, and left his bedroom, climbing down the stairs, and heading out into his jeep, and drove directly to school, getting a parking spot right up front. The boy was left a little disoriented, he sat in his seat, looking at himself in the rear view mirror. Stiles took in a deep breath before pulling the door open, and starting toward the school. Stiles stalked up to his locker and banged it open in a normal fashion, taking out a book from the inside. A familiar face made a presence next to him. "Stiles - you look like you haven't slept in weeks." Scott told him, placing a hand on his shoulder. Stiles nodded. He didn't feel rested either. "I don't really remember sleeping last night - Do you know that movie invidious?" Stiles asked. Scott shook his head. "Well - in the movie the kid who was possessed was a dream caster, which means could send his spirit out of his body while he's sleeping. There were periods of time when he could simply watch himself sleep all night long, and be dreaming that he watched himself sleep. Well last night, I was watching myself sleep - and I was saying something really - really weird." Scott nodded walking with Stiles as he closed his locker. "Are you saying that you can dream cast too? You're not going to be possessed like the kid in the movie, are you, that's fiction, right? Stiles and Scott continued to walk forward, and made their way into homeroom. Stiles shook his head putting the thoughts together. "I don't know, nothing like that has ever happened before, but I kept saying Don't let them in - what does that even mean?" Stiles glanced around the classroom and watched the classroom begin to fill "But it was weird, Scott. It felt like I was really in my room. Like I was watching myself." Stiles focused on Scott. "I can't even tell if this is real."
"AHHHHHHH!" Stiles screamed, abruptly waking up from all levels of sleep. Screams filled his bedroom, the hallways, the house. His body flailed like he'd just gotten control over it again, and tears fled his eyes. Stiles was immediately taken into the arms of his father, fully alive, and fully loving, rocking his screaming and crying son. "Shhhhh, sh. It's okay. It's okay." the man hushed, rocking Stiles until he calmed down significantly. "You're okay, I've gotcha." Stiles' sobs turned into wimpers, hugging into his father, feeling soothed by the soft rocking. The man didn't leave until he saw that Stiles was asleep again, the with cation, he went back into his room.
The rest of the night went rather dreamless - as long as Stiles could help it.
methics
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methics
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Posted: Wed Oct 29, 2014 12:43 pm
It all happened kind of suddenly. First, her and Boyde were being taken somewhere. Running away never seemed like such a bad idea, until her she couldn't feel anything in her body. She recognized the feeling - kanima venom. She tried to run, she tried to move, but it was paralyzing. Terrifying. She didn't move for what felt like hours, and before she could collect where she was, she was out - out cold.
When she woke up, she looked around nervously. She saw Boyde there too, exhausted from what it looked like, and another girl. "Wh-who are you?" Erica asked, eyes flashing a dim gold, then immediately dissolving into their original deep brown. She was weak, so weak she couldn't even begin to use her spark. Cora, she later found out. Derek's little sister. It felt like fantasy to her, but she knew it was all to real to be something in her head. "Where are we?" she continued. Neither of them knew. Boyde started to gain a little more strength, and from what Erica could tell, the three of them weren't able to feel their inner wolves anymore. Something about the room, cold and clammy in feel, made her unable to shift.
Days turned into weeks turned into months, and not an ounce of attention. At least they'd be smirked at by another wolf every once and a while. An alpha who called herself Kali. She was a really b***h when it came down to it. She'd come in and taunt them, telling them how good it felt to feel the moon's energy. Erica felt like she was losing the ability to shift every second she spent down there, and then to be taunted. Erica was beyond annoyed. "Really think we're scared of you, b***h?" Erica boldly stated, lifting herself from the ground. Her hands creeped up in a fist, swinging at the alpha only to miss with generous amounts. Boyde warned her not to fight, and told her Derek would be coming for them. But it'd been to long for them to sit there and do nothing. Erica threw her fists one after another, but longer and longer she found herself getting more and more tired, that was until Kali ripped claws into the girl's torso. "Uh-" Erica gulped, dropping her gaze to the unsealing claws just under her breasts. The girl collapsed.
The next thread of conversation was lost in translation, but the next thing Erica knew was she took a syringe in the neck, sending her into a pain that was unreal. She couldn't really cognitively process it, but the next thing she knew, her heart stopped.
- nine months later-
Erica woke up with a large breath, coughing it out as she lifted herself from a lying position. The be she laid on was cold, and made of metal, but her body warmth heated it up significantly. The young beta glanced around the room, taking note of where she was. She didn't know - she hated when she woke up in an unfamiliar place. "Hello?!" Erica croaked in a voice she didn't recognize. How long had she been out? Erica swung short skinny legs over the side of the table of a bed, and pushed herself down off of it. Her head ached, and a familiar taste of metal was in her mouth, but not enough to be a warning for - wait - she hadn't seized since being a werewolf. Erica walked herself over to a table where utensils lied. She really didn't know where she was.
"She's in - oh, she's awake." an unfamiliar voice caused Erica to turn on her heels facing the door that now framed two people, both in lab coats. One she recognized somewhat, the other - completely foreign to her. "Who are you?" the same unfamiliar voice that had to be hers. "Where am I? What happened to me?" The one she was slightly familiar with made his way closer to her, hands up in defense, in a way that made her feel dangerous. "Erica, you're alright, you're safe." he told her, "you were in a comb for a while, but you're awake now. Trust me, you're safe." Erica brought her hands into her sight, realizing she'd extended claws without realizing it. The girl took in a deep breath, closing her eyes, and then opening them a stale brown like they'd kept to when she felt human. "Where is Boyde?
The man she recognized let his hands drop too, walking closer to her. "It'd probably be best if you came with us Erica. There is a lot that happened while you were sleeping. Erica attempted to take a step forward, and pain shot through her. The metal blood taste was in her mouth now stronger. Oh no, what the - Erica felt it like she remembered, and it only took a moment before the man she recognized threw himself at her, catching her in his arms, and it was just like she remembered it. Unable to control her muscle function. "Looks like she hasn't fully recovered yet. the process is taking longer than we expected."
The next time Erica woke up, she was more aware of where she was, a bed, in a hospital room. Erica turned her head over to see the man from before smiling some. "What happened to me? she asked again. Deaton, the name of the man she recognized, smiled still. "You healed, Erica." he told her in a soft voice. "That was the last of them for now. Know that when you're going through seizures now, it's your body's way of healing. Healing? she was always able to heal, well, as a werewolf. What happened to her. She couldn't even vaguely remember. "Healing from what?" Erica asked.
"You're going to have a lot of questions. It's alright. When we found you in the bank, you were dead. But because in your human life you had epilepsy, we were able to reverse it. It was nothing of a risk, just a chance that you'd come back. We didn't know if it would work, but - it did. You've been healing for a while. But it's worked, Erica, you're alive." Dead? She couldn't believe the words she was being told. She was dead? "How long?
"Nine months."
Erica's heart began to race. Wow, she'd been gone for an entire school year. "Okay." She said knowing that her questions would all be answered eventually. It'd just take a long time to get her back into the world. It was like this when anyone woke up from a coma. She'd have to relearn everything. At least she'd have Boyde to fill her in. "What am I suppose to do now? My family must think I'm dead. And Derek. Boyde?" Deaton's head fell, and rose back to Erica. "Remember when i said a lot has happened while you were sleeping. Well, that includes Derek losing his alpha power, and - well, Boyde is gone.""wha-" Gone? did that mean, that always meant. How? Who?! Not Boyde. And Derek wasn't an alpha anymore? What did that mean? Who was her alpha then. There was no Alpha!? Peter is dead, Derek - Derek was the only alpha left. Unless - Kali. . . "Who is my alpha?" the girl asked almost in worry that she'd have to train from Kali.
Deaton reached across the space between them and held her shoulder. "Scott McCall."
Breath held for just a moment as he pulled at the bike chain, the sun beating down on the back of his neck like a thousand annoying ants. It wasn't just Scott who felt the heat. It was unusually warm for this time of year and that was easy to see. Tanktops and shorts had been pulled out early along with the short dresses and skirts. He noticed all of that, though he had a feeling that his friend Stiles had other things on his mind.
"You know, you're never going to get invited dude," Scott said in as friendly a tone as the fifteen year old could muster. "Lydia doesn't even know you exist."
Soft brown eyes didn't leave the luxerious waterfall of flowing strawberry blonde hair. The view of it all almost seemed to block the ears of the infatuated teenager, telling him lies about what was possible.
"You lie to me Scotty boy. She knows I exist. The other day she came up to me to tell me my fly was undone! NOTICED! And last friday during history she called me Steve. That's so close to Stiles, it's not even funny." Stiles argued.
He wouldn't give Scott this one. He was determined. In past years, Stiles had always contemplated going to the party with out an invitation, but it didn't matter, because this year, she was going to personally invite him with one of those beautifully scented invitations with a lip stamp with her favorite lip stick, Very Cherry.
"You'll see, Scott. I'm gonna be the next contestant on win an invitation to Lydia's birthday party. It's her sweet sixteen. She's inviting everyone who is anyone." Now he had to be invited for the sake of his pride.
"Yeah, which doesn't mean us."
Stiles shook his head with a click of his tongue. "I'm in three of her classes Scott, Three! That's three more than most years, Scott. You don't understand. Sometimes, she grades my paper! Sometimes I grade hers, sometimes I leave her what I like to call Brilliant Comments that just comment on how brilliant she is. I'm gonna get invited. And so are you."
"Pretty sure she's never read those. They all just go back in a folder in her bag, Stiles."
Some days, Scott was not the most supportive of friends. But that was pretty much because he didn't want to see his friend hurt. Stiles cared for Lydia for whatever insane reason, and yeah that was good and all but he suffered heart aches often because of that redhead. After all of the neglect that the popular girl had towards him...Scott had no idea what good Stiles saw in her.
Stiles let his hopes go for a moment. "She reads them - right?" he asked, and then shook his head, grabbing his hopes again and running with them. "Of course she does, why wouldn't she read something that makes her feel good about herself? That doesn't make any sense, Scott. You're not gonna convince me this time, Scott, I'm convinced already, Lydia notices me, and I'm gonna get invited to the party. In fact I feel like I saw one that said Steve on it in her pile."
"Whatever you say," he had a really stubborn friend, of that he was sure.
The moment got significantly quieter, and Stiles felt himself stretching his arms out, letting his jumpiness take over a little. "Should I go over there? And like, say something to her, so she is like 'oh yeah, here ya go Steve.' and hands it to me?"
Scott sighed as he gripped the handles of his bike. Whatever way it went down, this was not going to be pretty. His friend was going to have his heart crushed by the very pumps that he trailed behind.
"Naw, I think you should make her come to you."
At least then his friend had a little bit longer to live in his fantasy land. Maybe he'd feel better if he let himself down easier or came up with some sort of excuse. Facing the harsh non-recognition that he was bound to get from Lydia, the same Lydia who was now flirting heavily with Jackson, would hurt him a lot more. Then again it could just be the equivalent of ripping the bandaid off quickly. Scott had no idea - he'd never been in love before. So this was all Stiles' personal domain of inner torment that he couldn't begin to fathom.
Stiles thought about it all, his eyes still glued on the strawberry blonde. "I don't know, I mean, if I wait around for her to come to me, what if she doesn't remember? Yeah. Or what if she's expecting me to come up and get it from her. If I didn't then I wouldn't get it."
He could see that she was a flirtatious one, the way she moved around Jackson, twisting her beautiful locks around her princess fingers. It made Stiles' stomach drop a little, but he didn't much as move his gaze. The boy reached a blind hand out for his bike, missing a few times before turning to look at the bike to hold onto it. Once his hands were fiddling with the bike lock her turned his attention right back to Lydia.
"What does Jackson have that I don't? I mean, it's not a permit, cause I have one of those - is it money?"
"Yeah, probably. Not to mention he's popular and the youngest captain for the school since...who was the youngest again?" Scott asked, honestly not remembering.
It was a name that had something to do with nature, or weather or something. Then again it could have been a spice for all he knew. That wasn't what was important. The fact was that Jackson had a lot of things going for him that Stiles didn't. Stiles was still the better person, obviously, because there was no way that Jackson would ever come near being as good as Stiles. Not even if he suddenly had a one eighty flip in personalities.
"Micahel O'Conners, 2006, He was thirteen, skipped levels but by far the youngest soccer captain in Beacon Hills HIgh School History." Stiles continued.
"Oh," Scott let out as he swung his leg over his bike.
Well so much for nature, weather, or spice names. Thirteen and being a captain was quite a feet. It must have bothered Jackson on some level that he hadn't accomplished that. Good. From the look he had just given someone who passed him, he deserved a little inner torment.
"So got anything planned?"
Stiles' mind hadn't wavered just yet. "Am I attractive?" he asked.
Scott rolled his eyes as he started to peddle, taking it slow so his best friend could catch up. He was not going to answer that question...he was never going to answer that question.
" Scott. Scott!" Stiles' eyes didn't leave Lydia until he heard Scott start to peddle off. Stiles started to rush to release his bike, and he swung his legs over his too, and peddled faster to catch up with him. "You - aren't going to answer that are you - What ever, Scott. I don't need to be her next boyfriend, just - one of them, eventually. Maybe she's into having a secret unattractive boyfriend. You know. One that she like sneaks around with. Meets behind the school with to Make out with, and - I could totally be that boyfriend." He continued to peddle along, following close behind scott.
Stiles got distracted from the initial conversation. "What? Why are we talking about this. Step one is being invited to her party, step two is buying her everything she wants, and then step three is - plastic surgery or something." Stiles had already thought way into this. "Do you think she likes a guy with - ya know - big equiptment, cause, like - Size, doesn't really matter, right?" The boy started to ramble, was he doubting himself now?
"Stiles," Scott said with a light groan in his voice as he hung around a corner.
He really did not want to talk about size with his best friend. Especially when it was in connection to Lydia. Especially, especially when he had a feeling that said best friend would compare himself to each and every guy that he met from now on to try and make himself feel better about himself. Or worse. Scott did not want to go around knowing that Stiles was making himself feel worse about himself.
Stiles paused from biking, eyes locking on Scott and then falling. "Okay - sorry." he said, feeling his heart drop a little. He was right after all. Lydia didn't even know his real name. Well, the name everyone called him. He thought that being on the Lacrosse team, and being in her classes, and wearing nicer clothing, showering more often, wearing nicer deodorant, and trying to talk to her more was going to make some sort of better impression than it had since the moment he decided he loved her in third grade, but nothing had changed since then, and Scott was right, nothing would. "I just remembered, I uh - have a thing to do." Stiles said, pulling himself on his bike and then pedaling off harder, knowing that Scott wouldn't be able to keep up.
"She's not worth it Stiles!" Scott called out after him.
He really wished that Stiles would see how much better he was than her or Jackson. But that day would probably never come at this rate.
He didn't want to cry, no, he wouldn't let himself cry over a girl like this, not when nothing had really happened. But Stiles couldn't help what his body forced him to do. The pit in his stomach made him feel sick, but he endured. He kept pedaling until he hit an uneven block of sidewalk and fell off his bike, cursing and kicking it out of his way. He didn't really care if Lydia invited him to her party or not, He just didn't understand why I was so hard to stop liking someone? Or why he chose to like someone he could never have in a million years or more. The chances of him getting any girl were low, and his chances of getting Lydia, didn't exist.
The boy stayed sitting on the sidewalk for a short period of time, picking himself up when he noticed Scott was close again.
"Hey," Scott edged in. "You know that it doesn't matter right? If you get invited or not - you're still my best friend."
Stiles, regardless, could feel a large drop in his stomach. He always had Scott, from the beginning of time it was just Scott and Stiles, inseparable friends not a care in the world. But just once was it so hard to give Stiles something he'd been dreaming about? The boy lifted back onto his feet, and dusted himself back off. He wanted to simply be over her, and realize nothing would ever happen, but he couldn't help but feel what he was feeling. Scott wouldn't know - he was starting to wonder where Scott's head was, not staring at some of the crazy hot girls their roamed their new High School's hallways. Could have sworn some of the girls there literally wanted attention from every guy in the school. "Do you - wanna maybe come over or something? I can do what I need to do really fast." he said sticking with his escape route, to hold true to what he was saying earlier.
Scott grinned, "Sure. Bet you still can't beat my score on Mario Cart."
Stiles grew a smile, and chuckled. "excuse me, kind sir, but I've already demolished your score in Mario Kart - thank you." The boy picked up his bike, and brought it back over to him, swinging his leg back over it. "Let's face it - i'm better at everything."
"I got a better one last night," Scott said with a slightly manic grin.
Sure he was supposed to have been studying for that geometry test coming up, but the game had called his name so strongly that he couldn't ignore it. And he'd spent twenty minutes of heart pounding races, setting a new pace for the both of them. At his house obviously - it'd probably have been weird if he'd gone over to Stiles' in the middle of the night. His dad might have shot him on accident. Well, no, probably not, but the thought of it happening kept him away.
Stiles stopped biking again to stop Scott in his tracks. "You really think you can take me? Scott - oh Scott. Stiles doesn't sleep, until Stiles is better than everyone on this damn planet, okay. And there may or may not be evidence that I hermit-ed in my room all day and night for a the past few days, detached from the world to consume myself in nothing but videogames - with the occasional homework thrown in there."
Stiles was an intense character. Wonders could be taken care of with the right amount of Adderall. Stiles didn't consider it cheating, considering it was a prescription, but Stiles felt like all of the world could be accomplished on such an energizer.
"I didn't even stop for dinner, Scott." THe boy continued to pedal onward.
Scott's grin turned the same way any one's did when they were about to tease their best friend. "Let me guess - the only reason your dad doesn't know is cause he was still at the station."
"Nah, I hung a sign on my door that said 'you really don't want to come in here right now, trust me.' Knowing my dad would respect the sign. Like most people should." Stiles said with a chuckle. Yeah, his dad was at the station, all the time, and that was one of many reasons as to why he got to do what ever he wanted at what ever hour for as long as he wanted to - that was unless he had Rebekah come over to 'monitor' him.
"You nanny still not matching up to Lydia's standards huh?" Oh, yeah, Scott knew exactly what happened at his best friend's house even if he didn't sneak out at night to go visit.
Stiles rolled his eyes. "You think being fifteen my dad would trust me enough to stay at the house by myself. What's the worst that could happen? Well - i mean, a lot of things could happen, but like hell I'd let them happen - besides, I don't want them to happen. I just want to play Mario Kart." He said continuing forward.
They got to Stiles' house quickly enough. Sooner than they'd have gotten to Scott's own at least. The police car that was sometimes parked in their driveway absent, the Sherrif was still on duty after all. Scott wasn't sure how that whole thing worked. He always seemed to be on duty to him, but he had to sleep and eat at home sometimes right? Must have just been like his mom, but worse. Always on call and having to get out of the house if worked called. No wonder Stiles was so used to getting up and going on a dime - his dad modeled it for him over the years. Too bad Scott hadn't paid as much attention to his mom's behavior cause he definitely could have learned to switch what he was doing at a quicker pace instead of fixating on one thing at a time.
"Come on, slowpoke," Scott said as he unclipped his helmet and pretty much just let his bike fall into the yard as was their ritual.
Stiles Clunked his bike down beside Scott's, and chased after the door, fumbling his keys in his pocket before finding one of the many he had that was his house key. After turning the door unlocked, he threw it open, throwing his back pack off to the side, and pushing past Scott with maniacle laughter as he charged up the stairs. "WHO'S THE SLOWPOKE NOW!" he said choking on his own laughter.
"It's okay. I'm the slowbro!"
Pokemon for the win anyone?
"Well learn Agility and get your a** up here, McCall!"
"Yes coach," was the younger teen's reply as he started up the steps.
Man, asthma sucked but he was glad he'd at least gotten to the point where stairs didn't make his lungs panic. If they had, he wouldn't have even been allowed to sit on the bench for Lacrosse because there could have been health hazards that the school couldn't be liable for. Though hiking still got to him. Sadly, hiking through the forest was one of the things that Stiles still liked to do. To prove that he wasn't afraid of it being haunted or something like that. Scott still wasn't sure what made the woods the point of proving your bravery but it was what it was, local legends and all. Too bad he couldn't remember what those were. As he got up to the top of the steps he didn't really care either, he just wanted to beat Stiles.
Throwing himself into his room, the hyperactive teen raced for his gamecube, linking up the cables to his television and then switching it on - course Stiles was well aware of the drill. The first time, the game cube wouldn't read it - and he'd have to open up the top, give the game a good spin, and then close it again, pray for the little hum of acceptance. And then there were times when the game still didn't read; that was when Stiles would take the game out of gamecube, lick the disk, and rub it off on his shirt, making it seem 'cleaner' then put it back in the tray, and pray for it to read that time. Fortunately for stiles, he'd only gotten to step two. No need to lick the game this time. The game kicked off like a champ. Mario Kart Double Dash ready for action. Stiles brought out his two wireless controllers and placed one on his bed, and the shoving the other into his back pocket (the better of the two obviously).
"I'm gonna order pizza." the boy said, reaching under his bed and grabbing a small box, and inside he pulled out a decent wad of cash.
"Hawaiian?" Scott brought up as he grabbed his controller.
Stiles nodded to his best friend sorting out bills on his bed. Nine twenties, two fifties, and four one hundred dollar bills. Stiles pocketed a twenty before shoving the rest back into the box, and placing it back under his bed. "Stuffed crust?" he asked, scanning his bed for his cellphone, unable to find it. Next he checked his pockets, nope not there. The boy had the wit to check his underwear, definitely not there. "Do you - know where my phone is." the boy asked.
"Did you leave it in your gym locker again?"
Stiles took a moment to think. "God Dammit - Did I?" he thought. "Hold on, let me go check my backpack."
Stiles left the room for a second, ensuring that he took hold of player one controller (like the dictator he really wants to be) so Scott wouldn't go any farther than the main screen. He walked down the stairs, and over to his backpack reaching into the pockets, all but dumping all the contents out. The boy's eyes widened at something that fell from it. A small little pink envelope, with nothing written on it.
"Oh - my god. . oh mY GOD! OH MY GOD!" Stiles said taking hold of the letter and opening it up. Inside was a beautifully designed invitation, and at the bottom - sealed with a Very Cherry kiss.
'"OH MY GOD!" Stiles took the invitation in hand and charged back up the stairs, swinging his bedroom door back open. "You won't believe what I just found in my backpack." Stiles said with as straight a face he could manage.
"Stiles - I'm pretty sure the next door neighbors heard you," Scott said with a knowing face.
He'd stuffed his invite into his pocket around lunch time just in case Stiles hadn't gotten one. Obviously he wouldn't have gone with said best friend - no way. And he didn't even bring it up because then if he hadn't gotten one the bubble that was Stiles' happiness would have been popped. Besides what kind of best friend held something up that the other had wanted for years?
"So, what are you going to get her for her birthday?"
Stiles was stunned. How long had that been in his backpack? He couldn't process it all - and - would Scott get to go to the party too? "I - don't know. Everything? But, I mean, would you be okay if I went? Like, if she doesn't invite you."
"Totally," Scott said with an unassuming grin. "You've wanted to go for years. So go."
Stiles would have let it go that easily, but - for once he felt like there was a level of unevenness now. "But, she's bound to invite you, right? Maybe there is one in your back pack too!" Stiles encouraged.
Scott shook his head. He didn't set down his controller as he reached into his pocket. He pulled out the crumpled invite, the one sealed with a kiss.
"I wasn't going to even think of going without you. Even if it was the great and powerful Lydia Martin who decided to send out personal invites this year cause of the whole school switching thing."
Stiles' eyes widened, and his stomach fell again. "Wait - you had an invite all this time! And you -"
...did he just do the wrong thing again? Crap. Crap CRAP! He'd been trying to make Stiles feel better not drag him back down.
"I didn't want to tell you in case it just fell into my locker by accident. You know it's by Jackson's so..." Scott said with a guilty look.
"Fell into your locker - SCOTT! YOU HAVE A TOP LOCKER!" Stiles said with a shake of his head. "Unless she just dropped it in your locker on - oh, that's what you mean."
Scott nodded. "Besides - Like I said. I wasn't going to go without you."
"Oh, but me and Jackson have the same back pack - What if she thought -"
"Just take it dude. Don't ask questions. Now, are you going to get over here so I can beat you or are you going to rip that invite apart?" Scott asked, pointing to the tension in Stiles' hands as he held the paper.
Stiles hand't noticed how close to tearing he'd gotten to the paper, but with out another thought he placed it on his nightstand, and sighed. "Let me just call my phone see where it-" Stiles said easily drawing his phone from his bedside. So he hadn't even taken it to School that day. Oh. "Just kiddin - it's right, it's right here." he said with a nervous chuckle. "So, that pizza." Stiles said bringing the phone up to his ear and calling for the pizza.
"Extra large Hawiian stuffed crust, oh with extra marinara oh the side. And a lot of that fake cheese stuff for the top. And might as well bring us a rootbeer too. And some bread sticks. And hey, twelve wings why not. Spicy Buffalo. Yup, Stilinski. Is there a discount for students? N- okay. Yeah. Sounds - ooo desert. Uhm, i'm gonna have to stick with no on that, fourty dollars is like, a s**t load on a snack, so I'm gonna stick with what we got now. Alright, see you in an hour."
"Why don't you just tell her you love her too so we can get off the line and get the pizza over here?" Scott brought up with a grin as he leaned back to stare was Stiles.
"Love you sweet heart." Stiles said with a chuckle at the end, and dropping his phone back on his bed. "Okay, to start the game now. Dibs on Yoshi! And Paratroopa!"
Scott nodded and waited with anxious hands as he watched the screen turn. Why couldn't he ever get the first controller?
As the Screen shifted Stiles kept a close eye on Scott, until they got to the character select screen where he mad dashed to the characters he wanted. "So last night, I unlocked mirror mode! Have you ever played Mirror mode!" Stiles asked with a smile.
He quickly chose Yoshi and Paratroopa, and for his car, he chose Princess Peaches Vehicle. Because like most things he did, he played with strategy. It was a light car with killer acceleration, and speed stats. Of course he'd chose it even if it looked like a girly car, he didn't care, not even in the slightest bit
Scott, however, was definitely more of a person who picked his team because they felt special to him - familiar and trustworthy. He wasn't like Stiles who thought everything out - at least that's what he did when it came to games. In life, Scott would like to think he paid a little more attention to detail than his friend, though he wasn't thinking about that at this very moment.
"Ready?"
Stiles chuckled watching his friend chose, Mario and Luigi. Of course, he did. And with Mario's vehicle. Not a bad vehicle really. He'd really have to prove himself. "Born read, I was born ready, Scott." he said, shuffling through the choices of races at random, and landing on Mario Curcuit. Nodding the boy wasn't too unimpressed. "Do you wanna try mirror mode?" Stiles asked. "It's the same course, only mirrored!" Stiles said with an excited grin.
"Sure," Scott agreed.
Stiles chose mirror mode almost with an evil grimace, knowing there would be no way for Scott to beat him now, and he began the race, starting out strong, and pressing 'A' repetitively and quickly at the beginning to give him a starting boost in front of Scott.
