Chapter Text
The young morning was cold, he ran between the high wet grass, droplets of splashed dew over his clothes. The clearing looked like an idealistic pastoral painting with a blue-blue sky and low milky clouds moving faster than he was on the ground. He ran fast, not feeling too tired legs or abused feet. It was runner's high he thinks vaguely.
He might have matched Kali's speed. The rustle behind was permanent for a little while. She came after him at her worst, probably believing he was going to be an easy captive. Stiles is, honestly speaking.
His sneakers are wet inside, his toes squish without socks, and that's the loudest sound in preserve aside from his hoarse inhales.
She eventually catches up to him, only fifty or so feet from the river. She jumps at him, throwing his lanky body forward into the air and to the ground. It's slippery and he glides on the grass getting a mouthful of oatgrass in his face, itchy stems and yet half-closed wildflower buds. He feels their faint smell, but he processes it while already springing back-back-and-back from every other fist. Kali has a good aim, and Stles probably has a few ruptures.
He feels dizziness, the blue-blue sky mixes with the green outline of forest foliage, he hears river flow and pebbles tapping as if it's right behind him. He misses a just hit in the face, gulps blood before it even starts running from the broken nose. Swaying from his head goes in his whole body, inch by inch unsteadying his exhausted stance, and Stiles feels vulnerable even to the wind.
"Listen, boy, I take you to Deucalion and you be nice to wait for your friends there." Kali is reaching him with a strained hand and unleashes claws. Her dark hair is slick from sweat and scattered over her face and shoulders, her breathing is creating almost invisible clouds of fog.
Stiles rushes at her, clearly without a plan but to joilst her, and she does. She jerks and sways a hand across his chest, more instinctively than she will ever admit to herself. The boy falters. He looks at the woman in disbelief, almost offended, since he lost all of the fright a few miles back when he was found on his own porch with a cup of hardly warm cifir and nothing to protect himself.
They both stare at the diagonal tearing. It had a red layer of his hoody, green of t-shirt and light pink of the skin. Stiles tried to look deeper, but blood started to pour in some absurd cartoonish way and everything around got soaked. Kali put both of her palms over the wound, but they were too small, and it was too late.
Elbow dip in blood, how fitting.
"I didn't want to end it like this," she whispered with a hint of sorrow. She slowly started pushing Stiles forward - backwards for him. It took him three steps to get into the shallow icy water, four more before he finally fell and Kali started dragging him to the middle of the river. She shivers just a little bit before it's only her head above the water. The boy was floating beside her, coloring water around in red, "If you have any last..." she fell silent and released the body.
Stiles was dead.
Peter woke up grieving. He was never a morning person, nor he was an emotional person.
In the dark werewolf slowly pulled himself up to the headboard, droningly unwrapping his legs from whatever coverlets he got yesterday from the dry cleaning. Peter turned the window handle and pulled. His apartment was directed to the East, away from the sun, but every time a car passed under the window he got a bunch of redirected sunbeams. Dots of light jumped from tulle curtains that previous owners left, then to the grey empty wall, the lamp, piles of books on the table and died in the blackout curtains that were left half closed. Peter needed at least a lumen to not feel buried. The chronic smell of town roads reached his mind when the man finally woke up.
Indeed, something has happened. Peter wasn't exactly reach of pack bonds, so he was soon sure that no one perished.
Lockscreen showed him sacrilegious five-twenty Ante Meridiem, big white 'null' for step count and also promised some harsh winds. Peter put his phone back to not look more than needed at the photo of Cora eating ice cream at the loft. He didn't compose himself yet.
Uncalled grief was not dissolving. It was fairly strong for something so hazy and seemingly not identified. Peter moved to the edge of the bed, dangled his feet into stiff home slippers that were apparently good for health but poor for the mood, and forced his way to the kitchen. Sometimes being a werewolf is superpowers, rituals and running in the wild, and sometimes it is your wolf screaming in your head and you have no way to know why.
The kitchen welcomed him with yesterday's coffee on the bottom of the cup, a blood-stained cut board, a lone burned spaghetto on the electric stove and a few arugula leafs that fell on the floor when he grabbed a bunch from the fridge. For seven weeks he was expecting wagyu to arrive in his hands, but came up with something embarrassingly primitive and ate without tasting. Waste of money and time. Cora would tell him so, but she wasn't invited to the dinner.
He opened the fridge and fumbled along the higher shelves, where he usually puts fresh berries from the market. Once a week they import enough wooden crates to meet the demands of those who have cash and can bring it before the sun rises, so Peter lets Stiles eat as many as he can shove into his mouth if the boy will be the one who personally delivers them for him. Kale might be good, but it's not the sole pillar of health.
Raspberry was halved. Mulberry was full. Blueberry was almost empty.
Peter put all of the remaining berries from the last crate into a painted ceramic bowl and flooded it with some empty yoghurt that smelled of sour goat milk. Hardly it will make him retch.
Knowing Derek he might assume that he won't get a noti until another beta is dying.
Peter absentmindedly watched the teapot heating.
Should he ask first?
The phone rang and the man poured unboiled water into yesterday's cup before moving back to the bedroom. Ok, it's Derek being an adult or a beta dying.
"Morning."
"Scott can't stop crying."
"What."
"He woke up half an hour ago with hysteria. Is it a curse? Do you know what to do?"
"Huh, peculiar, does he..." Peter cut himself off and shut his mouth. He looked at his coffee - black, swirling in a cup with few bubbles and leftovers of a powder - and felt tears of understanding slowly collecting. Peter, squinted his eyes and gnashed his teeth, "Did you check Stiles?"
Derek stayed on the line for a few moments before ending the call. Peter sharply inhaled, dropped the phone on the bed, put the coffee on a bedstand and bit into his own palm. Weak sobs erupted, and he tried to bite harder, reach deeper, hold it, hold it the fuck together, Peter. He pressed his forehead against the wall and bit into his forefinger. Then middle finger. Then ring finger. He changed fingers, changed hands, scratched his face, fell down and then let himself humanly howl in a cry. He was cold, his back was weak and never-existed bond burned where Peter would imagine it could have been.
"Shut up," Peter whispered and pressed a hand to his side. He shivered and grabbed fabric with the skin underneath, "shut up."
Phone notified of a message and Peter moved on the floor to reach it with a bloodied hand. After a few tries he unlocked it to see that everyone in their good health and right mind should get going to the Stilinski house. Bad plan, but Peter could imagine lone Derek getting captured by the Alpha pack, so bad plan it is.
It started at Stiles' house porch - deep notches on the wooden steps, a busted rail that the boy fixed himself after Boyd fell from the second floor four or five months ago. White plastic cup deflated to the loan and dried black liquid that Allison first identified as coffee, but Derek described as 'hard tea'. Bushes were busted, with branches twisted and a few thin barks cut. They started at the porch and followed a trail of two for almost five miles.
Allison gulped down a lump in the throat and came down from Scott's back. Her boots touched the wet grass. She slowly looked around holding her hair and tried to stand straight. Automatically she was noting crushed tufts of grass, sneakers footprints in dried mud and on fallen leaves, and...
Stiles ran five miles.
She broke into a stuffed cry, trying to hide it behind her hand. Just imagining him made her double over and hold her stomach in something akin to bad-bad illness. She sniffed and the cry erupted again.
It was almost humanly impossible to run so far with a werewolf on the soles, it was impossible, it was ridiculous, it was a viscous spit in a Death God's face.
Isaac hugged her from the side, while Scott rushed forward, spinning around to catch all the smells and signs. He looked small in this clearing, his shoulders touching the tops of the weaving grass. All of them were just dark spots in this colourful place. Allison took hold of her bow and lowered herself to be less visible to any potential threat. She knew that wolves would spot her immediately - her stress, her sadness, her heartbeat, but she needed a disguise from this place too. Derek spared her a nod and smoothly disappeared somewhere on the right.
"I'll stay with you," Isaac told her in a low voice. His hands were twitching and he kneaded his fingers trying to control it.
"Thank you." Allison leaned on her friend for a second, before accurately moving to the river bank, "Let's cover Scott from the back for now."
A few birds took wing from their sides, chirping and making noises. They were incredibly loud for being so small and Allison couldn't remember if she ever saw any of this kind at Beacon Hills. With a rustling, high grass parted at every step another person made at the new trail.
"There is blood!" Scott turned again and crouched to the land, the strong wind messing with his senses, "Here!" He followed further, abruptly falling out of the grass wall. Small sharp pebbles under his feet were covered in blood on tops and made a crunching sound with every move. Scott stared at them before raising his eyes to meet the glimpse of gold in the reflection, "It's washed... Hey! I can't understand how much he's lost." Scott looked frowning at the river and took off his shoes.
"Scott!" Derek shouted and ran from where he was to the boy, "Don't!"
"Don't what!?" Scott shouted back and went into the river. With every move he looked more and more reckless, water surface started worrying.
"Get out!" Derek jumped after the boy and in a few wild strides caught him by the hair, "Listen to me, idiot, and get out."
Scott cried and dug his claws into Derek's hand, "He can be on the other side!" he tried to pull away from the other wolf, but river slime under him was an unsteady footing, with river grass curling around the toes and ankles, "DEREK!"
"Fucking look!" Derek growled at McCall and held him tight now by the head and neck. He turned the boy to the other side, and Scott with a click of his teeth stopped to trash. "Scott, he is not on the other side. We have to keep looking in other places."
Allison looked at Peter, who was on the opposite bank shaking head sideways, "Scott," she sat beside the blood strains on the pebbles, "Scott, there is too much."
"I...!" Scott gnashed and freed from Derek's grip. They shared a moment of silence before McCall lowered himself and washed his face, violently rubbing tingling eyes. It was almost seven, the air started to warm up, the sun shining behind the tops of the trees. "We... Derek. We must check underwater too."
"Of course."
Allison took Scott's shoes and went along the river stream.
"Then why didn't you bite him?"
Kali brushed her hair with a comb she bought at some gas station between Los Banos and Hollister. Prices there were low, supernaturally so, and she urged Ennis to leave that place as soon as possible. That brutal piece of dick ordered a fucking full-serve supper instead of listening to her once and the next thing they know is wendigo choking on Deucalion's cane and twins using a shared brain cell to put out the fire.
"Why would I add to the Hale pack?"
Deucalion didn't answer, so Kali continued going through her routine. She was tired. She was exhausted. She washed and scrubbed herself trying to wipe off the smell of the last three days and even herself. It was unsettling for other wolves, but at least for today, she wanted to quit being a dog.
Early mornings between the two of them sometimes tugged her teenage memories with all the nice and silly problems she had. Deucalion looked nothing like her stepfather, they were fairly opposites of each other, but maybe it was some attitude towards the world that blind people shared that made her nostalgic.
"You better go sleep."
Kali stopped brushing and looked at the window, where the sun was overlayed by a few thin clouds. A horizontal trail from a single plane separated the sky into almost two equal pieces.
"Do you think they'll show him on the local news?" This house was rented and had just one pot-bellied TV in a corner of the living room. Kali wasn't sure if even it was plugged in.
"People go missing here all the time, would they trouble now?" Deucalion bothered to turn his head in her direction, surly dead eyes directed at her chin.
"Boy's dad is a sheriff."
"Hm."
Maybe Deucalion wanted the boy as another alpha, Kali thought climbing up the stairs - every footboard creaked under her wait, but that was what they paid for. Boy was young, strong and he would survive her bite, she was confident. But...
Kali stopped to look at the wall mirror.
In the end, he would hate her.
"Sheriff Stilinski is on the call dealing with a drunk that nailed her ex's limb to a door, so you should wait in a hall," Tara said with a small smile before nodding to the row of chairs. Cora thanked the woman and tugged Boyd forward.
They sat down and, not to be rude, stared at the yellow walls above the heads of the deputies. It needed a new covering, but overall it was clean and had no visible spots of dust or spider nets in the corners. Both of them didn't meet Mr. Stilinski personally, but if Boyd knew the looks of Stiles' dad from school Lacrosse games the man came to watch, Cora just got a sniff or two of Stiles himself. That wasn't enough to recognise the man.
"Stiles never wanted his father to know the supernatural over here," Boyd whispered.
"I'm afraid we have no choice now."
"Alas."
Deputies in front of them spared their company some suspicious glances and Boyd lowered his hood. He was formally still very MIA and his small photo was probably pinned on everyone's desk next to Erica's. Shit, he missed Erica so much.
"Everyone!" The sheriff came into the main entrance with a complex expression and a half-crying deputy behind. Blond men in his early adulthood had a look of someone who witnessed a brutal death. A guard, who previously was propping up the wall, stretched out and went to grab the criminal from the car. After the door closed they stopped, Mr. Stilinski put a hand on his heart and looked around the audience, "Today we saved a man, but not his dignity." An emotional 'uff' escaped everyone's mouth, "I announce a minute of silence." He nodded to Tara and a few others before turning to the kitchen. Cora, who was waiting with worry and couldn't even sit straight, clicked her tongue.
If Scott really felt Stiles, he felt his death. Bonds with humans don't exist, not in the way she can check everyone from her pack - even if it is in South America. So Stiles was dead-dead. And telling Mr. Stilinski how the hell his son ended up dead, while another missing girl is also dead in an abandoned bank vault, and Boyd is alive but doesn't want anyone to know and another random Hale kid is also alive and back six years later... Derek and Peter both told her how smart the boy is, how restless he is, how nothing can slip past his mind. When they drove here, Boyd told her something much darker and much more intimate.
If Sheriff was at least half as good as Stiles rumoured to be, the men would dig the whole town upside down, find the truth and shoot them all for better.
"Hey kids, don't tell me your parents really sent you here because you were truanting." Man sipped his coffee with a slurping sound that made it clear he was annoyed.
"Morning, Sheriff," Cora slightly smiled, "we wanted to talk with you. It is... Very sensitive." She hesitated at the end. She didn't think it through.
Sheriff raised his eyebrows, "you don't want to kill me, right?"
She and Boyed violently shook their heads.
"Right, ok," the man waved his hand, "then come in and be on the other side of the table for my nerves." They followed the Sheriff, not really knowing where to put themselves when he shut the door and, contemplating for a second - closed the blinds. "So," the man continued, "someone got pregnant?"
"NO!" they both shout in unison, making slightly tired Sheriff become really tired.
"Then it must be serious," he sighed.
In a way, they were similar. But not in a way relatives do.
Stiles smelled of medicine, strong tea and coffee, forest flooring, wolves and tiredness. Cora has seen him for ten minutes top, his face flashing a few times in front of her - a worried glance, deep eye sockets, upturned nose and freckles. He was pretty, lanky, hella tall and his limbs were everywhere.
Mr. Stilinski smelled of medicine, coffee, cars and exhaustion. Without a stretch she could admit he looked better than she expected from a man in his late forties, but less remarkable than she ever imagined for someone who is relatives with Stiles.
"Mr. Stilinski," Boyd started, lowering his hood. Sheriff frowned and leaned back on a chair, crossing his arms, "Please, I think all of us need to sit for conversation."
Cora heard how hard it was for Boyd not to fall apart right here right now.
"A bite from alpha or a scratch from alpha," Stiles mused lying in the water, "It will be rejected or will turn human into..." he stopped, listing in mind all species he encountered that were originally ought to turn into werewolves. He looked at his hand with nice black claws. If he would trim them, they would actually pass the human vibe check.
He slowly touched his temple, moved fingers across the sides, ears and jaw. Human. All human. To not worry more Stiles gripped the clothes on his chest and sat down to take a look at the wound. Absent.
Small fish that were scared away by his abrupt movements stilled and few of them touched his ankles with a naive bite. Stiles lowered his hand and without much thought pierced one of the fish and shoved it up. It looked exactly like one of those stuffed things his grandad was so proud of - striped bass. Does this river go into the ocean? He turned it a few times, while it was fighting in its little death throes and bit of its tail half.
Stiles never tried an uncooked fish, so it was hard to compare with anything, but it sure wasn't a bad taste. The tail wasn't crunchy as he first expected, or maybe this fish was too young. Bones were a little bit soft and his teeth easily masticated them, meat had a... watery? taste, and flaky skin was slippery and just all of this was fishy. Stiles put the rest in his mouth and leaned back.
So, he is positive he is not human, banshee, werewolf, kanima or herbivore. His body is not shifting that way or the other, he doesn't want to expose a belly thinking about Kali, and despite having better senses - he feels pretty much the same as yesterday safe for being dead for... Stiles looked up to spot the sun slightly peeping between the clouds - what looked like two or three hours. He might be a Northen cat, actually. Flexible, fast, kinda lustful and with an ego the size of Texas. Peter described them as 'permanently stuck between two forms'.
This wasn't his worry subject for now.
Stiles stood up from the shallow, whipping up the slime and sand under his feet. Fish wiggled their fins to get farther away and the boy traced them until the shoal went into a deeper place. Wasn't he lucky that his body got stuck facing up? That bitch should have left him somewhere dry, or at least where his body wouldn't potentially sink and bloat. His father would have drowned himself if that happened. Stiles cursed under his mouth and paced to the right bank. Now he can walk up the stream and hope that the river didn't drag him too far. Sadly all shenanigans tend to happen in the middle of the week and if his dad hasn't gotten the call from the principal yet, he will on the second term. He wouldn't fool himself into believing that Scott or God bless him Isaac made up some lie to the teacher. Those idiots will think he is sleeping, and Lydia is sadly in another class.
Would they even leave the school if they knew something happened to him? If he is dead, he is dead, might as well wait till the end of the Math class before searching for the lifeless body.
Dang, Derek would have probably spent another month with a moron mug before opening up to Cora if he really did die. Scott would have gone to Allison and she'd let him, there's no saying in that. Poor Isaac should help Boyd deal with this. Boyd is a good one, would probably cry over a shut bird if he was a half-degree more sincere. Lydia... he doesn't know.
The part of the forest he woke up in was dense, tree bark standing so close despite being so wide, with bushes taking all the place between. Maybe, that's actually how the forest should look, not the light version they have beside the city with all the people cutting a tree here and there for fancy fireplaces or because it was bothering a view from the window. The shallow part of the lake went wide, and walking on foot, knee deep in the water took him a few minutes and a fall over a half-buried rock.
Stiles' mind was mostly free of thoughts. He didn't know his spices, killing Kali in mind got him bored after he reimagined her death fifty or so times. He was still astoundingly tired, hungry and doomed, doomed and doomed, so he walked, concentrating on his own breathing. Fresh air. The smell of forest humus, wet ground, opened flowers, pollen and insects, animal fur and marks, bitten-off mushrooms and wild lichen.
A few gnats sat on his skin, but couldn't get a bite. A couple of months before Stiles genially asked Scott if he gets bitten by insects, but the dude was unhelpful.
"River loved humans, while forest loved animals..." Stiles said out loud before spreading his hands to the sides to pass a steep piece of an earthen cliff. The landscape was mostly smooth, but his part of the bank went up and down in the places where the river was especially curvy. The boy tried to remember the story he pulled out of Peter about general were' existence. It had few iterations, some were less plausible, some were too abstract and needed a gallon of saint water, some were more tribe, or even pack-related.
There was a story that counted in all of were'world.
River loved humans, so turned animals into humans every time they drank water from it. Forest loved animals, so turned humans into animals every time they slept in its shadow. Long story short, it continued for some time, before eventually, animals figured out how to do it themselves. Well, if Derek's religion is Mother Moon and whatnot, Stiles can try to believe that rivers have some shapeshifting cheat code, because if he is not mistaken, and he rarely is, turning from scratch is like less than five per cent, and that's maximum from what he learned. No one personally knew a were' turned from scratch, Argents believe it's a spooky story made up by were'people to have an advantage in fights. Well, Cris, your tales are lies!
Stiles moved around the part of the shore that was full of reeds with pines almost blown away, slush here was extremely sticky, and sneakers were not even visible under a thick cover of dirt.
"Fucking alphas, fucking Kali, fucking Peter, fucking Scott, fucking magic stub, fucking town..." Stiles started mumbling with each hard step. He then stopped, slowly exhaled and turned to the woods, where the ground is hopefully more dry and horizontal. Few wild mice moved out of his way, and Stiles believed he might have heard their little squeaks under the ground.
The boy then stretched his legs a few times, exhaled, and took off the shoes. Now they were just slowing him and worrying his feet with water, goo and small stones.
Stiles sceptically made a few steps forward.
The change was nice.