A/N: Sorry this took me like three days! I dropped in mood on Friday, but then I had a date on Saturday and Sunday I was mostly sleeping and out with the fam, so yeah. Here you guys go though! I hope this makes up for my absence.
He rest ringed the mesh of his lacrosse stick for what felt like the hundredth time this past week, the anxiety gnawing at his insides as he thought of the event of the last full moon. He doesn't know what made him come talk to Ms. Morrell. She didn't exactly have a calming aura to her, but he figured he was desperate.
"You know, the body doesn't actually breath water in until the last moment? Y-Your body fights hard, through all the excruciating pain just to avoid opening your mouth under water and drowning. I-I looked it up, it's called voluntary apnea and...it's so strong that you pass out before you drown. It's described as...almost peaceful."
"Does that mean you hope Matt experienced a moment of peace before he died?" Morrell inquired.
"No." It's true. Matt killed people. Hurt the people he loved. He hoped the guy died painfully.
"Do you feel sorry for the nine year old Matt who almost drowned?"
"Childhood trauma doesn't give him the right to kill the people who hurt him. The guy was - he was all kinds of messed up. Investigators found a bunch of pictures of Allison on his computer. Photoshopped himself into several of the them to make it like he was the love of her life or something...Matt was riding the crazy train for a long time." He let out a humour laugh, fingers reddening and healing almost instantly as he fixed the mesh.
"Okay...How about your father and you? Has anything...changed? After that night."
"I- uh, I guess. Dads back as Sheriff, which is good. There's uh...a new tension I guess, between us. I haven't talked to Scott either since the full - that night. Everything just seems...a bit rocky. Scott and Allison are also not speaking, but that's her choice. She doesn't want anything to do with me. Near death of her mom obvious hit her hard, and she seems to be pushing it on us. Closer with her dad though, so...that's good." Stiles cleared his throat. "Jacksons not himself lately." Understandably so. "Lydia has to be the most normal of the group at the moment."
Morrell's eyes flittered down to the mesh he was tightening almost obsessively.
"Are you nervous about the championship game tomorrow night?" She hummed.
"No. I never really play anyway. But, due to the fact that one teammate is dead, one has a broken leg and the other is gone so often, it might change."
"Right, the runaways. How do you feel about that?" God, she changed subject so often Stiles was unsure if it was counselling or interrogation.
"I...Didn't really know Erica or Boyd, Isaac was a friend, that's all."
"You hung out with all three quite often though."
"Taking in the strays." He said hoarsely, gritting his teeth when the rope rubbing against his finger harshly.
"I see...How are you sleeping?"
"I'm not. I'm...constantly jumpy and I always...I'm scared all the time that something terrible is about to happen." She wrote something down on her notepad and Stiles wanted to grab it, read what she thought of him, let all his problems on paper tear into him.
"I think you're suffering from hypervigilance. It's often a symptom of post traumatic stress disorder. It's the persistent feeling of being under threat." She explained, and maybe Stiles had been wrong. Her voice was rather soothing.
"It's more than a feeling. It's...Its like a panic attack, like I can't breath."
"Like you're drowning." Stiles nodded slowly. "It's all a metaphor, Stiles. You should hold off opening your mouth under water, until the autonomic reflex to breath kicks in, because it will give you more time to fight your way to the surface or be rescued." He understood what she meant. Don't give up until the last straw. He still couldn't agree though.
"What if the pain gets worse, goes from agony to hell."
"I can only tell you one thing. 'If you're going through hell, keep going.'"
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Scott didn't know how exactly to react when he saw Gerard with the Kanima in his room. With his mother being partially strangled by said Kanima. He could only feel fear; cold, dreadful fear.
"You haven't been answering your phone, Scott. So I took a more...direct approach of contact." Gerard said, voice caught of the edges of doting grandfather and mass killing hunter.
"I-I, please, put my mom down." That's all he could force out, excuses blank in his head as he looked up at his terrified mother.
"I want Stiles' pack, Scott." Gerard's tone lost all kindness, wrinkled frown and narrowed eyes in place.
"I-I don't know where they are. I swear! Stiles won't even tell me." He'd been avoiding Stiles for this exact reason. Gerard wanted answers, and if Scott couldn't give them, then he couldn't hurt Stiles. He didn't even think on how this would affect him and his mother.
"Now, see here, Scott..." Gerard stood slowly, menacing despite his old age. "I could kill your mother right here and now, but I plan on using Jackson to kill Derek...Stiles. For my daughter that they murdered. So I'll be back...And when or if I come back, I want answers. Or you won't have a mother or a best friend."
The Kanima dropped Melissa with a click of Gerard's fingers, both leaving the room and the house as Scott dropped down to his trembling mother.
"Are you okay?" Scott checked her over for any venom. She gripped his biceps tight in a vice, eyes wild and utterly petrified.
"Look, I don't understand what's happening, what the hell that thing was or what ever Stiles has become, but please - Please just give him whatever he wants."
"...I don't know if I can."
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Derek flicked through some books, researching all he could on resurrection lore when he heard the steps of four feet.
"Derek." Erica and Boyd. He looked to them, raising a brow at Erica's wind-blown hair. She had ran. "We think we found another pack in the area. We heard them."
"We've not looking to leave Stiles' pack, he's like a brother to us, but we don't know if it could a territory thing or not." Boyd explained when Derek stiffened, lips creased down and brows furrowed in a 'already?' gesture.
"How many did you hear?" Derek questioned instead.
"Had to be a dozen howling." Boyd pinched his lips, worried to what that meant for them.
"Or two." Derek stood, walking around the desk as he thought. "It's an acoustic phenomenon know as the Beau Geste Effect. It creates an auditory illusion that a couple of wolves are actually a couple dozen. I don't think you heard a pack, but strays." He explained.
"I'm not buying it." Erica shook her head in disbelief. "I'm not taking the chance either that a pack will come into Beacon Hills and try and take our territory." Erica said possessively, Boyd rolled his shoulders back to display his protective stance. "If nobody else will, we're going to check out the pack for ourselves and make them leave with brute force if necessary." Boyd didn't even object at Erica's announcement that he would be coming with her.
Derek pursed his lips, watching them leave as Erica gripped Boyd's hand tight, reassuring.
Derek huffed after the door shut with a soft creak, turning from it as he paced. It's not like he could have told them no, it's was there decision and he wasn't the alpha. He should probably tell the alpha though.
Derek pulled out his phone, finger hesitant over Stiles' number. Stiles had had to deal with a lot of crap lately, including almost death. Derek saw the toll on him, how his shoulders sagged, how he only really smiled around him and the three betas. Saw how Scott's avoidance made him want to curl up and never leave his room. He had to codex him out of his bed at least three times the last week just so the boy would go to school and stop moping.
Maybe it was for the best if he let the betas handle a possible unknown pack, let Stiles rest just a little longer. Process it all.
The fine hairs of neck prickled in awareness, gut tightening as he put the phone back in his pocket and grabbed a shard of glass off the floor, darting it at the presence behind him. The familiar scent of family. Derek slowly turned to face his uncle, the mirror shard in Peter's grasp, inches from his throat as he tsked and threw it aside.
"I'm out of commission for a few weeks and suddenly there's lizard people, geriatric psychopaths and you've let your little boy toy cook up werewolves out of every self-esteem deprived adolescent in town." Peter berated. Derek growled at the boy toy comment, huffing a hot breath of anger as he stood straight.
"Why're you here, Peter?"
"Why, I'm here to help. Derek, you're my only relative left, and there's still a lot I can teach you." Peter said cockily, arrogance of a Greek god on his smirking lips. Derek's lips twisted sourly as he punched his uncle hard across the room in a burst of dust.
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Stiles almost screamed when Isaac slid through his window ungracefully, smacking his chin on the window and toppling onto the floor with a loud 'ow'.
"What're you doing here?!" Stiles whispered loudly, confused.
"I came to tell you about Boyd and Erica's plan to meet the other pack in town." Isaac groaned, rubbing his chin.
"What? What other pack?"
"They heard some howling in the woods the last night. Derek said it might just be two wolves, but they're convinced it's a pack. They wanna protect the territory, but I wasn't sure what you'd want me to do, so I came to you...Cause I trust you." Isaac explained with a sheepish rub of his neck.
"Honestly, I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time." Stiles sighed, sinking back into his big blue bed. Isaac tentatively sat by him, gnawing his bottom lip raw.
"I'll probably go with Erica and Boyd, make sure everything goes sorta smoothly if we have to kick another pack outta town. If you don't stop me at least." He laughed softly. "You should probably know, Jackson was back at lacrosse practice after the siege. He'll be playing tonight."
Stiles already knew that meant trouble.
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"And so, yeah, I'm not sure if I'll ask him out, I mean, he's cute, and sweet...and funny, and he has a nice style and...but there's also all the were- Jackson? Are you listening to me? Jackson!" Jackson snapped back to attention, looking at Danny with a nervous flickering of his eyes.
"I think you should stay away from me on the field. Actually, if I even run towards the go lie, you should run the other way as fast as you can." Jackson warned.
"Uh, okay..." Danny rose a confused brow but continued with his conversation anyway. "Anyway, so I'm not sure if I'll ask him out. I mean, Stiles' is a werewolf so...Yeah."
"Gross, man." Jackson rolled his eyes, continuing to gear up as Stiles listened in, dropping his eavesdropping when he saw Melissa make her way through the dressed and gearing up boys. She was looking for Scott it seemed. Stiles made his way towards her, hesitant and shy as Coach started is ore-game motivational speech.
Independence Day speech by Bill Pullman. Every year.
"Is that...?" Melissa questioned when she saw him.
"Yeah, he does it every year. It's his favourite movie, and I'm pretty sure the only speech he knows." Stiles filled for her, thankful that it wasn't too tense around her. He clapped with a whoop when coach finished his speech, grinning at the stupidity of it. It was a fond moment really, tradition.
Stiles stopped when he smelt the fear radiating off Melissa, stomach filling with guilt at causing it. But it wasn't him. It's was Gerard she had shrunk back from, behind Stiles.
"Now boys, I'll have you know, I won't be happy with just a win. I want you to kill the other team!" Gerard said it in such a doting grandfatherly way that the others saw no suspicion to his words. Only Stiles, who's heart was squeezed by the cold and scaly sensation.
The Kanima would be here tonight, and Gerard was in control.
"Okay guys, since McCall had the audacity to actually break a leg before the championship games, I expect you to play till you drop. Don't care if you're dying, you keep playing for all its worth." Coach said.
"Coach, I only broke my leg because you told me to get on the field." Scott protested.
"Oh? Did I hear something? Sounds like failure, now hop to it boys! Time to beat these preppy boys into next season."
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Peter slammed into the staircase with a weak, wheezing laugh before he just sat there.
"Trust me, Derek, I don't want to be the Alpha again after last time. It wasn't my finest performance seeing as how it ended in my death." Peter slowly stood, shaking off any damage it seemed. "You're only beating on me to relieve yourself of your self-loathing and hatred you feel over your complete and utter failure to your new boy toy Alpha. Like being a sugar daddy?" Peter smirked.
Derek snarled, "If Stiles dies, the Alpha title will go to me, Peter. I'm his partner, and he's recognised me as the next one to take his place." He got closer, only a couple steps from his uncle, menacing and muscular frame stiff. "If you touch a hair on his head, I will personally tear out your throat and make sure you're dead for good."
"Someone's possessive. Finally rutting like a true wolf?" Peter grinned, groaning when he was flung back into the staircase once more.
35 BITES