Chapter Text
Thank fuck for suicide drills.
The thought comes unbidden as Stiles books it down the middle of the street, running faster than he's ever managed on the lacrosse field. Still, he's pretty sure all of Coach's endurance training might actually save his life right now.
Probably.
Hopefully.
He only spares the barest glance over his shoulder, partly because he doesn't want to risk tripping or breaking pace and partly because the thing that's chasing him is a fucking manticore and it kind of scares the shit out of him and he doesn't actually want to see the thing that's trying to eat him, thank you very much.
"Scotty!" He sort of squeak-yell-huffs, completely and utterly winded, but the McCall house is only a block away and he thinks that if his heart doesn't explode before he gets there, he actually stands a reasonable chance of getting through the door before the manticore catches him.
The answer he gets is the roar of an Alpha, which would be far more comforting if Scott wasn't still several blocks behind them, trying to catch up after the creature swiped him with its scorpion tail.
Stiles is pretty sure there was some venom involved because Scott had dropped to the ground with an anguished scream when the manticore pierced him with its stinger in the middle of a nearby field. But Scott still got up, and is still chasing after them, so Stiles can only hope that means manticore venom isn't quite as lethal to wolves as it is to humans.
He'd really like to not put that theory to the test.
So he digs deep and grabs every ounce of everything he has so he can run just a tiny bit faster.
He's only a few houses down when Melissa opens the front door, braced for a fight with equal parts determination and fear etched into the lines on her face. She's got a death grip on the small jar of mountain ash in her hand, ready to seal off the house as soon as Scott and Stiles get inside, but Scott's voice cuts through the night, closer than Stiles would have expected as he closes the distance to safety.
"Mom, do it now!"
"What? No!" Melissa yells, shaking her head and firming her grip.
"Mom! Now!" Scott shouts back. "Stiles can get through. I'll stop the manticore. Just get the sedative ready!"
Stiles is less than twenty feet away when Melissa throws the mountain ash down, completing the line that circles the rest of the house.
He's pretty sure he can feel the heat of the creature's breath on the back of his neck and his stomach does a funny little flutter at the sensation.
"Stiles, hurry!" Scott yells.
As if he needs to be told.
He runs up the walkway like the hounds of hell are on his heels and practically launches himself the last few feet, knowing that once he leaps through the doorway, the mountain ash barrier will keep the manticore from following him inside.
Except he doesn't fly through the doorway like he'd planned.
Instead, as he reaches the entrance to the house, his entire world lights up in an eerie surge of blueish-white and he slams into some sort of invisible barrier before being thrown back so fast and so hard that he slams right into the manticore.
Both of them break through the rail surrounding the balcony, landing with enough force on the front lawn to punch the air from Stiles' lungs. It leaves him stunned on the ground as he stares up at the moonless night sky, a throbbing ache blooming through his body.
The only saving grace is that the manticore seems just as dazed as Stiles, which gives Scott enough time to catch up and inject it with the sedative that Melissa tosses him from inside the house.
"What the hell just happened, dude?" Scott whispers, panting a little as he holds the manticore's tail down while it struggles weakly against the sedative. Stiles nearly gets swiped by a flailing lion paw but just barely manages to roll out of the way before the damn thing mauls him.
"I have no freaking idea," Stiles groans.
Everything hurts.
He's curled up on his side when a hand lands on his arm, and despite his brain registering that it's not a paw and therefore not the manticore, it still startles him enough that he jerks away from the touch.
"Sorry!" Melissa says, hands held up in front of her like she's trying to prove she's not a threat. "It's just me. Are you hurt? That was a pretty nasty fall."
Despite everything, Stiles can't help but marvel at how far they've come. Melissa hardly spares a glance at where Scott is sitting on the body of the manticore, holding its tail in a death grip while he sort of shushes and coos at the very, very creepy human face that is struggling to keep its eyes open while the sedative slowly knocks it out.
They'll need to get the damn thing off the front lawn before the neighbours come out to see what the commotion is all about, but right now, she is 100% Nurse McCall, only worried about keeping them safe.
"No, I'm fine," Stiles is quick to reassure her, though his entire body feels like he was hit by a train. If that train was, like, electrified or something.
Still, he pushes himself up until he's sitting on the grass, head spinning just a little. More than that, though, his stomach flips and flops and twists into knots and before he knows it, he's leaning to the side, tossing his cookies all over the front lawn.
"Oooh. Maybe a little less than fine," Stiles admits as he spits the taste from his mouth. "Sorry about your grass."
"You're hardly the first high school kid to throw up on my lawn," Melissa says with a frown. Stiles is pretty sure she's telling the truth about not being upset about the puke, but she definitely has her worried mom face on as she reaches out to feel his forehead. She also pulls out a small flashlight from the pocket of her scrubs to shine in his eyes.
"Oh my god." Stiles flinches back at the sudden onslaught of light after his eyes have grown accustomed to the darkness of the night. "Why do you even have that?"
"Because Scott called me home in the middle of my shift asking me to grab enough sedative to tranquilize a horse, and to get a mountain ash barrier ready." There's a sort of sterness in her words, which is probably the only thing that keeps Stiles from pulling back when she shines the light in his other eye. "Doesn't look like a concussion. How are you feeling?"
"Like we should probably get the mythical creature out of sight before someone calls the cops."
Almost as if the universe is listening, the distant wail of sirens splits the night and both Scott and Melissa look over at Stiles like it's somehow his doing. Stiles holds up his hands in the universal it wasn't me gesture and scurries to his feet.
Now that he's thrown up, he actually feels a little better. Which is great, because he ends up being the one to support the creepy ass head of the manticore as Melissa holds the tail and Scott heaves up the massive body so they can load it into the backseat of Melissa's car.
Very, very carefully.
"Now what?" Scott asks, once they manage to squish it in and close the door.
"Now we get that thing out of here before the cops show up," Stiles holds out his hands for the keys, fully expecting to be the one to drive the getaway car. If he had to guess, the cruiser that's headed their way is still a good four or five blocks out. Just enough time for him to drive the creature far from prying eyes.
But while Melissa tugs her keys from her pocket, she merely plants her fists on her hips and shakes her head firmly. "You're not driving. You just got tossed like a ragdoll, hard enough that you threw up afterwards."
"You said I don't have a concussion."
"I said it didn't look like a concussion, but I'm not sure enough to let you behind the wheel, either. You're staying here with me until I can look you over properly."
Stiles is about to argue — frankly, he's pretty sure that he'd be a better driver with a concussion than half of his classmates on a good day — but Scott reaches out and gives his shoulder a quick squeeze, aiming those puppy dog eyes at him with expert precision.
"Dude. She's right. Whatever happened, it hit you hard." If it weren't for the fact that Scott looks really, really worried about him, Stiles would totally talk his way out of it. But pinned down with a double dose of McCall pleading eyes is just too much to fight against and they're running out of time.
"Fine. Go. Flee the scene of the crime," Stiles says with a wave of one hand towards the car. "But let us know you're okay when you get there. That thing is probably gonna burn through the sedative pretty fast and if it wakes up while you're driving...I think a double dose of scorpion venom would be bad, even for a werewolf."
"Double dose?" Melissa asks, suddenly turning her assessing gaze on Scott.
"Gotta go, mom!"
Scott reaches out and plucks the keys from his mom's hand, then beelines for the driver's side. He's in the car with the engine running before Melissa can say another word. It's not until Scott is pulling away from the house that Melissa mutters under her breath. "You two are going to be the death of me."
"Better than death by manticore?" Stiles offers helpfully.
Or, maybe not so helpfully, if the look Melissa shoots him is any indication. But then a police car rolls around the corner at the end of the block just as Scott turns onto a side road down the street, and suddenly Stiles and Melissa are very much on the same page.
"I think it was a mountain lion," Melissa says when the deputy inquires about the call they'd received. "It nearly got Stiles here, knocked him to the ground and everything, but I came out yelling and scared it off. That must have been what the neighbours heard."
"A mountain lion," the deputy parrots back, sounding more than a little unsure as he scribbles it down in his little notebook. Stiles recognizes him as a temporary hire from a few towns over but hasn't actually met the man officially. His name tag introduces him as Deputy Roebuck, but Stiles is pretty sure he heard his dad refer to him as Lou.
Stiles nods. "Yeah. They're kind of a thing here. You get used to them."
While the deputy doesn't look overly convinced, he also doesn't push. Either he's a shitty cop that doesn't want to work or he's already adopted the look the other way attitude that most of the town has when it comes to the supernatural. "Any injuries?"
"Nope," Stiles says.
"Possible concussion," Melissa answers at the same time, earning a scathing look from Stiles. His dad is totally going to read that report before the end of the week and the last thing he needs is to worry about Stiles more than he already does. "I'm going to take him in to get looked at."
"Okay then," Deputy Roebuck says, snapping his notebook shut. "I'd suggest you get inside and stay put. I'm going to call animal control out to the area to see if they can track down that mountain lion."
It only takes a few more questions before Deputy Roebuck is driving away and Melissa and Stiles head to the house. Stiles already has his phone out, texting Scott for an update, so he's taken a little off guard when Melissa's arm suddenly blocks his way, the same way his mom used to do when she had to brake too hard in the car with Stiles in the passenger seat.
"What—" Stiles sputters but then realizes they're at the front door and his body begins to tingle all over at the memory of what happened the last time he tried to cross the threshold. "Oh."
"I can break the line," Melissa says, "but now that you're no longer being chased by a man-eating mythical creature, maybe we should see if it happens again?"
He doesn't want to, honestly. Partly because he's afraid of what it means but also because it fucking hurt last time and he's not keen on reliving the experience.
But he has to know.
So he reaches out one hand, slowly, and prepares himself for the worst.
Now that he's only brushing against it instead of running at it full force, it doesn't hurt, exactly. There's a sort of prickle just beneath his skin, kind of like the sparklers that he and Scott loved so much on their birthday cakes when they were kids. It thrums through his entire body, but it's only where his hand makes contact with the barrier that it's uncomfortable.
The longer he holds it, though, and the harder he presses, the more it begins to ache and that prickle turns into pain. He pulls his hand back with a hiss just as Melissa kicks a foot out to break the mountain ash line at the door.
"Well that's...new," Melissa says. She looks just as dumbfounded as Stiles feels. "Anything you want to tell me, kiddo? I know being the only human in a group of supernatural friends must be tough, but I thought you were happy being...you?"
"I was," Stiles says slowly, then immediately corrects himself. "I mean, I am! I didn't go out and ask for the bite if that's what you're thinking."
He definitely doesn't feel supernatural. He mostly feels sore and queasy and those are distinctly non-werewolf properties.
"Oh god, do you think I like, caught something? That Wendigo a few weeks ago, the one that was trying to eat Malia? His blood got all over me when Peter ripped his head off."
It was...so gross. And warm. And sticky. And Stiles instantly feels like he's going to puke again as his stomach roils in response to the memory.
"Pretty sure if supernatural-ism," Melissa pauses with a scrunched up face at the word as soon as it passes her lips, but keeps talking as she leads Stiles inside, "was communicable by blood, half the town would be some sort of creature by now."
Which, okay, that's probably true, but that doesn't get him any closer to an answer.
Unless...
"Do you think it has something to do with the Nogitsune? Maybe it left something behind? Maybe I'm not entirely human anymore?"
The very idea that a part of the Nogitsune may still be burrowed deep inside of him makes his heart race and his breath catch in his throat. He stumbles forward, absently reaching out to support himself on the wall next to the door as his knees turn to jelly.
"Stiles. Hey, look at me." Melissa's voice is steady and strong and yanks Stiles back to the present before he can get washed away in worse case scenarios. "We'll figure this out."
"Yeah." It's a breath more than a word, but Stiles pulls himself together, unwilling to immediately jump to the wrong conclusion. "Yeah. Okay."
It helps, too, that his phone trills in his hand, this time a phone call from Scott rather than a text message. Frankly, he could use the distraction.
"Hey man. You make it okay?" Stiles asks, then quickly puts the phone on speaker when Melissa moves even closer to hear the answer. When he holds the phone out between them, Melissa gives one of her patented mom smiles and the ache in Stiles' chest eases even more.
"Yeah, we're—" A vicious roar cuts Scott off and makes both Stiles and Melissa jump, but Scott is back before either of them can even call out. "Just loading it into a crate. Deaton has a friend that can...rehome it."
"You want to adopt out a manticore?" Stiles asks flatly.
That thing just tried to kill him.
"Yeah, apparently it's some sort of compound on an island in the Pacific." There's no mistaking the excitement in Scott's voice and Stiles is pretty sure the half smile that's tugging at his own lips is a mirror of Melissa's.
"Like. Jurassic Park?"
In the beat of silence that follows, Stiles can so clearly picture Scott's wide eyes and slightly open mouth that he nearly laughs. Eventually, though, Scott's voice floats through the speaker. "Oh. Wow. I hope not."
"Yeah, me either," Melissa says. "Look, honey I need to get back to work. Can you get back here with the car?"
"Uh, yeah, Deaton said he can handle the rest on his own. But he wants to talk to Stiles first, hold on."
There's a quiet shuffling through the line, followed by another mournful wail that gets progressively quieter and Stiles would be willing to bet the manticore just got another dose of sedative. He doesn't get a chance to ask, though, because Deaton comes on the line only a second later, cutting to the chase as soon as he does.
"Stiles, can we speak privately?"
Melissa eyes the phone suspiciously but walks back outside, closing the door behind her as she goes, though she pokes her head in at the last second to call out a warning. "Tell Scott to hurry up. My lunch break is almost over."
Stiles takes the phone off speaker just as the door snicks closed. "Uh. Okay. Privacy has been had."
"Scott mentioned what happened with the mountain ash barrier," Deaton says quietly. "I'm assuming you haven't been bitten by any werecreatures lately."
"You assume correctly."
"In that case, I'd like to ask you a...delicate question, if I may?"
A swirling unease begins to build in Stiles' gut once again, already suspecting that he's not going to like where this conversation is headed.
"Oooookay."
"Have you had sexual intercourse with a supernatural creature lately? Likely within the last three or four months?" Deaton pauses, but tacks on an addendum before Stiles can even finish processing the question. "More specifically, were you...on the receiving end of said intercourse, with a male supernatural creature?"
The answer is yes.
And often.
But Stiles isn't exactly keen on fessing up to that and focuses on redirecting the conversation. "Why would that matter?"
"Because the last time I heard of a human affected by mountain ash, she was pregnant with a cambion."
"A what?"
"The offspring of a human and demon. The fetus made her susceptible to all substances used against the supernatural, even though it had never affected her before."
"That's...no. Wait. What? Demons are real?" There are so many questions floating through Stiles' mind that it takes a second to put the pieces together and work out exactly what Deaton is suggesting. "No. You don't think...no. Definitely not. Uh-uh. That's not...I mean. I couldn't be..."
But could he be? He'd never really put much thought into whether or not he was a carrier. It's generally hereditary and no males on either side of his family tree have ever been pregnant, as far as he knows. He'd considered doing one of those at home kits where you spit into a tube and mail it off to some genetics processing plant to find out if he had the markers for cancer or diabetes or lupus.
Or male pregnancy.
"Stiles, if there's even a possibility, I would suggest getting tested immediately."
Stiles hadn't even noticed he'd lowered the phone from his ear until he realizes he's looking at it in his hand like it's the first time he's seen such a contraption.
"I, uh. I don't know?"
There's a pause over the line before Deaton speaks again, his voice far softer than Stiles is used to hearing from the man. "Come to the clinic in the morning. We can run some tests here if you'd rather not see your doctor just yet."
"Yeah. Yeah, okay. I can do that."
"Good night, Stiles."
"Uh. Yeah. You, too."
Stiles doesn't recall hanging up. He doesn't recall moving a little further into the house until he can sit down on the stairs either, but he must because when Melissa finally comes back in to tell him that Scott is home, that's where he is, with his head in his hands as a growing sense of dread unfurls inside of him.
That feeling grows infinitely stronger when he realizes that maybe dread isn't the only thing growing inside of him.
He's pretty sure he tells her he's fine. It must be moderately convincing, too, because when he asks her to drive him home on her way back to work, she agrees easily enough.
Then it's a quick goodbye to Scott with a promise to call in the morning, and another promise to Melissa to seek medical attention if he begins to experience any nausea, dizziness, double vision, or headaches, before he's dropped off in front of his house.
He doesn't bother with trying to sneak around — his dad is at work and will be for several more hours — but he does go straight to his room, do not pass go, do not collect $200, and he flops down face first on his bed.
Then rolls on his side.
Then onto his back.
It isn't long before he's sitting up with his back propped against the wall and a hand resting on his abdomen as a wave of butterflies launches to flight in his stomach.
"Uh. Hey there. If there's anyone in there. Everything is going to be okay. Okay?" He feels like an idiot. For so, so many reasons. But if there is a baby inside of him, he's not going to just ignore it. And if there's not, well, it's something that's helpful for him to hear, too. "We're gonna get through this."
He just needs to go see Deaton in the morning, after the manticore has been shipped off to Jurassic Park version 2.0. Then he'll know for sure, one way or another.
And after that, he'll worry about making a phone call that he really doesn't want to make.
"How am I supposed to tell him he's gonna be a dad?" Stiles whispers, never tearing his eyes away as he runs a hand over his stomach to settle the fluttering nerves. It's only then that he realizes those butterflies he's been feeling in his belly all night — maybe all week, now that he's really thinking about it — might just be something else altogether.
He's pretty sure he's feeling the baby move.
"Holy shit," Stiles breathes out in a ragged whoosh. "I think I'm pregnant."