The wolf and the boy (Sterek) - A Teen Wolf fanfic

Chapter 3

"What did you do to him? His not dead is he" he questioned Stiles who rolled his eyes before answering. "Seriously McCall? No, only three deaths weigh in my conscious right now; and he is not one of them." Stiles responded bitterly "He's just... Let's say; stripped off his powers. He's a human now." Scott regretted his words as he heard Stiles' response, but before he could apologize someone talked

"What do you mean human? He's no longer a chimera? Is that the same thing you did with Hayden?" Liam asked between sobs placing slowly and gently Hayden's lifeless body in the ground coming closer to the group.

"Yup" he nodded "You see, remember that wall with that bizarre painting of two creatures fighting? Well it turns out that the day I went to Eichen House to check on Lydia she had her room filled with pages of that place, only that; but in one of the sheets, on the backside was the figure of what seemed a man's silhouette with leafs on his head. I had no idea what it meant so I took it. A few days later, Lydia's mom saw it and said 'Hey! I didn't know you knew the mandragoras'; clearly she was making fun of me because she knows I find Herbology quite boring. Anyway, that made something click in my head so I went straight to Deaton asking him for supernatural herbology books" Scott and Liam were standing in front of him, and between the two of them was sitting wolf Derek.

"It took me about two whole days to come across a really old book of heaven knows which century that spoke a lot about 'mandragoras' or mandrakes. It said that it was believed that some mandrake plants had roots with a perfect human shape which gave them their names. It also said that in ancient civilizations, it was thought its extract could cure any kind of strange condition, but with the pass of time it was discovered that it did help in some diseases but it could also be lethal so that's why it had become unused." Stiles added.

"Uh-huh... Well, that doesn't seem pretty helpful, are you sure it was really a cure?" Scott asked doubtfully.

"Yes Scott, if you just let me finish" Stiles grumbled rolling his eyes "As I was saying, at first I thought the same thing. So I kept reading and there were a lot more references to mandrakes until I discovered a pattern, the cases in which it turned to be beneficial, were in shape-shifters. The ones it turned out to be deadly, was in humans. So I returned to the description, this time analyzing word by word. I must have read it like fifteen times until I remembered the words of the dread doctors: 'condition worsening', 'condition terminal'; 'could cure any kind of strange condition'. That was our link, so we investigated were to find mandrakes. Luckily I was able to contact Isaac and with him Mr. Argent who told me where to find the plants." He kept explaining.

"It was also said that if you find a mandrake that has a perfect human shaped root and try to pull it out, it would let out a cry that will kill you instantly so, the only way was to dig up around the pesky plant to reveal the root and process it in there. It took me other eight days to finally find a perfect one and then Deaton spent two days working on the freaking root to produce this" showing them all the vial, which had a considerable amount of liquid still in it.

"So that's why you were missing so much time... Did the sheriff know?" Scott asked

"Yeah he did." Stiles answered with a smile. "Hey, where's Parrish?" he asked all of a sudden and Scott and Liam remembered they had completely forgotten about him.

"I'm here" he said embarrassed from behind a tree.

"What are you doing there?" Stiles said as he walked toward him

"Stiles! Stay where you are, don't come any closer!" Parrish ordered, his voice shaking, but it was too late, Stiles was almost there.

"Yeah sure deputy! Come on, what's your pro- DUDE WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM!? WHY ARE YOU NAKED IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!?" Stiles inquired astonished and looking away.

"Transforming into a walking fireball has its disadvantages you know, half of my closet has burned out" he complained.

"Scott, could give the man your jacket please?" Stiles asked, Scott nodded and threw the jacket to him. Stiles handed it to Parrish and he put it on while Stiles returned to the place the three wolves where.

He got closer to Derek who was still seating in animal form, who just looked at him expectantly. In a quite quick movement –at least considering it was coming from Stiles- he started petting the lower part of wolf Derek's snout gently which made it close its eyes. Stiles began to scratch instead of petting; making the wolf wave its tail and shake one of its hind legs with his snout slightly open.

Stiles was bewitched by the sensation of touching such magnificent creature, he always had been an animal lover, and to pet a real wolf was mind blowing for him. Once again his heart beat rose when he remembered this creature was no other than Derek. At his heartbeat rate change, the until now docile beast reacted opening its eyes, then snarled and made the feint of biting the boy.

"Woah! You stupid, rabid, wild, dangerous, sourwolf!" He growled withdrawing his hand and jumping backwards with his heart on his mouth. "Why don't you return to your human self? You are less threatening that way" he added.

The wolf just shook its head and got up turning around as to take it leave, but Stiles grabbed him by the tail and squeezed it earning a moderate roar as it turned around and tried to bite him again.

"See what I mean!?" he remarked. The animal just snarled and slowly, it began to change until a knelt Derek was in front of them. He got to his feet and Liam and Scott looked away quickly. Stiles, on the contrary, wasn't able to take his eyes away from the man in front of him, had his mouth half opened in shock.