Father || Teen Wolf

15 - Apply Ice

The cold air of the ice rink made Stiles shiver as he and Jamie entered the building. They had opted for a stealthy approach, which may not have been the best choice considering Stiles' natural disposition towards loudness. Hearing his friend bump into virtually every railing and bench they came across made Jamie visibly cringe and he had to repeatedly fight the urge to shush him.

The two boys finally reached the stands, hunched over and peering carefully above the seats the whole way. They could hear distant voices but the echo in the vast hall prevented them from deciphering the words that were exchanged. The only few words Jamie could hear with his heightened senses were far from the pleasantries exchanged between old friends. In fact, the only words he could hear were not friendly at all.

Suddenly, the indistinct sounds of the conversation stopped and even Stiles could clearly hear the grumbles and the screeching sounds of claws digging in the ice. That was when he and Jamie abandoned all concept of stealth and ran towards the center of the ring, their sneakers squeaking against the tiles. They were too far, too slow. They reached the ice right when Scott was thrown against the railing with a painful thud, Derek towering above him. The older wolf growled menacingly. He was flanked by Erica and Isaac, who looked as serious and threatening as bodyguards.

Derek's new goons (Stiles could find no other words to describe them) did not so much as acknowledge his and Jamie's presence. Derek merely shot a contemptuous look their way and then he was gone, Erica, Isaac and a newly turned Boyd on his heels. They left the rink without a sound.

The way to reach Scott's groaning figure was much trickier than it looked at a first glance. As it turned out, skating without ice skates was a very difficult feast that required far more skill than Jamie and Stiles possessed. Scott was slowly coming back to his senses, a dull ringing resonating in his ears, when he was presented with the strange image of two silhouettes very close to one another, almost blending into a single mass. For a second he thought he was seeing double, and the strange smell of garbage that emitted from the silhouette made him doubt his sanity. He blinked - the image was still there. Only then did he recognize his two best friends taking one tiny step after the next at a painfully slow pace, all in an effort to reach him, their arms tangled in an attempt at balance.

The tiny grunts Scott tried to silence made them curse the ice for being so slippery and they picked up the pace as much as they could. Scott's arms were wrapped around his mid-section, his face contorted in pain. He winced when Stiles and Jamie loudly landed near him and the railing against his back lightly shook. It was with a striking sense of déjà-vu that Jamie gently pushed Scott's arms away from his wound and inspected the scratch, already getting the feeling that calling it a "scratch" was a vast understatement.

It was a ghastly wound, one that cut deep into Scott's stomach, with blood oozing from the torn flesh at its edges. There was no way Jamie would be able to do anything to heal it, not there on the ice without any sort of equipment. Had it been a mere bruise, the virtually unlimited amount of ice they were surrounded with would have been an advantage, but in this instance the cold was nothing but yet another enemy for Scott's body to fight. They needed to move.

By the time the trio reached the high stands on the edge of the rink, Stiles' arm were burning in places he never knew contained muscles. The discovery of a particularly painful one just above his elbow was something he could have pictured himself living very well without, and he voiced it out loud repeatedly while Scott was struggling not to collapse and Jamie was carrying most of his weight. He only got disgruntled noises of effort in reply.

"Just don't bleed on the seats, alright?" Stiles warned as he nearly collapsed in his own plastic seat. Scott grunted again and Jamie rolled his eyes at him, busy helping their injured friend stay upright.