Bad Signs
Stiles' scars after he wakes up in chapter 4
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He probably could have stopped him or at least avoided the misunderstanding that had led to this situation. But sometimes more light was shed on the character of a person if they were given the chance to act out their instinctual responses to fear.
And the Sheriff proved to be as interesting in that department as Peter had expected from him.
His decision to let the scene unfold itself, though, had led to his current predicament of being pushed face down against a table, his hands restricted in a surprisingly strong grip and a gun - undoubtedly loaded with wolfsbane bullets - held steadily to his temple.
He had to hand it to the man: even as upset as he was, he still had enough self-discipline to keep his voice even and be in complete control of the situation.
"Now, now, Sheriff. I haven't seen a search warrant. But you have my permission to search my body since you're already here."
A kick to the back of his knee caused the smug werewolf to lose his balance and resulted in him getting pressed even more violently against the table. Given his supernatural strength, he would have been able to free himself from the hold of the Sheriff rather easily, but he wasn't willing to take his chance when his opponent was desperate and unpredictable. Not to mention the wolfsbane bullets; they would hurt like a bitch.
"We had a deal, Hale!" the man of the law finally gritted out through clenched teeth. "You promised me you'd keep him safe!"
Peter went completely still and his expression turned to ice.
"And I still stand by that deal. Now would you please be so kind as to let go of me so that we could converse like civilized people? This position does nothing to help me stay serious. If anything, it makes me horny."
Immediately, Jon Stilinski let go of the other man as if his skin had burned him and took several steps back. Peter rose to his full height, smoothing the wrinkles out of his shirt casually.
"Now tell me what happened to Stiles," Peter demanded calmly.
As if the mention of that name had opened up the gates for disaster, Derek, Isaac, and Malia came barreling into the kitchen with expressions that varied between murderous and worried.
"What happened?!"
"Is Stiles okay?"
"Why did no one inform me?!"
Being bombarded with all those emotional responses to the news, the Sheriff loosened his angry stance and rubbed his temples in frustration instead.
The truth was that not even he as Stiles' father knew what was going on. When he had come home - which he immediately had after the investigation of the crime scene - the house had been empty, with no note informing him of his son's whereabouts. There were no signs of forced entry but it did smell like vomit in his son's room.
"Well, he's not here, either, as you can see for yourself. Did you call him?" Peter asked, seeing as he was the only one that had managed to keep his composure.
Isaac was biting his nails anxiously, Malia was running around in circles and Derek was still ringing up his betas to ask them if they knew anything.
Jon Stilinski grimaced. "I must have lost it in my haste to... I don't know. No, I haven't. I have no phone."
Peter nodded, fished his own cell phone out of his pocket and handed it to Malia who immediately calmed down a bit after having been given a task.
"While we're asking around for Stiles' whereabouts, why don't you tell us what has gotten you so worked up in the first place? Surely you're not this frantic because your teenaged son snuck out of the house in the middle of the night?" Peter sat down at the kitchen table and looked expectedly up at the Sheriff, eyebrows raised.
"He's not dead," the Sheriff stated quietly, causing every person in the room to freeze. They all knew who he was talking about. "He's back and he left a message for Stiles."
That said, he showed them a photograph of the crime scene, breaking all the rules once again.
***
"You know that I technically don't even have a license, right?"
Stiles raised his eyebrows, holding on to Burly a little tighter as they cut the next turn a little too fast for his comfort. "Oh, really. I couldn't tell."
Cora took her eyes off the road and turned her attention to him which was even more unsettling. "How are you doing, anyway? You look awful."
He was sickly pale, his eyes still a little red and his lips were chapped. The hand which kept stroking Burly's fur was shaking ever so slightly, the other was cradled underneath Burly's paws as if he was trying to hide it.
She wasn't sure what had happened to him. On the phone, his voice had been hoarse and scratchy so she hadn't even doubted for a second that he was sick when he had given her that explanation. But the panicked expression in his eyes told her that there was more to it.
The chemosignal of fear had been an overwhelmingly strong scent in his room.
His eyes closed, he took a deep breath to soothe his nausea. "I'm okay. Just a cold, I guess. It happens to us humans."
His heartbeat was thumping wildly but it had been doing that ever since she had picked him up so she wasn't sure if he was lying. There was no obvious blip but he could be telling half-truths.
She didn't bother badgering him with more questions, though, because they had already reached the Hale House by then.
The police cruiser parked in the middle of their driveway made it obvious that the person driving it hadn't had any time or patience to park it properly. The Sheriff must have been in a panic.
"They're all here," Cora whispered, suppressing the urge to hit her head on the steering wheel for not thinking about that. "I can smell their panic and worry even from here. Stiles, they're already organizing search parties for you."
Her passenger groaned in response. "I left my dad a note on the fridge!"
The whirlwind of negative emotions in the air made Cora a little uneasy herself so she started to drum her fingers against the steering wheel.
"I think I should go in and tell them you're here. Besides, I don't think you can walk on your own. I mean, I could carry you..." She trailed off, already knowing what his reaction might be.
Stiles rolled his eyes which were still closed so the effect was lost on her. "Fine. Go in there and calm their nerves. I'll wait here. Maybe the queasiness will quiet down a bit in the meantime."
She handed him a plastic bag - just in case he had to throw up again - and opened a window so he could get a bit of fresh air while he was waiting. Then she took in a deep breath and exited the car, ready to face the room full of overemotional people.
*** warning:potentially scary content from here on ***
Burly was beginning to get fuzzy soon after Cora had left. He had never liked to be caged into a small room and Cora's car was even smaller than what he was used to. The open window didn't seem to calm him enough, even though he was already sticking his head out of it.
The animal was fidgeting on Stiles' lap, kicking Stiles in the guts every so often which did not help his already queasy stomach.
"Fine," Stiles huffed in defeat and rolled the window down completely so Burly could fit through it. "You can wait outside."
Burly bumped his snout against Stiles' cheek in gratitude, then he hopped in one smooth jump out of the window, presumably guarding the car outside.
Now that he was completely alone, he couldn't avoid looking at his left palm any longer.
It didn't so much hurt as it just stung in a very uncomfortable way. The black lines had faded in intensity but were still very much there and a stark contrast to his otherwise pale skin.
The veins near the black lines were slightly tinged in black as well, almost as if the sickness had dispersed like ink on a paper.
Anguished because of the sight, he balled his hand into a fist and hit the dashboard with it. He barely felt the pain.
His emotional outbreak did, however, manage to rattle Laura's old car which in turned caused the sun visors to come down and the rearview mirror to vibrate.
He sighed and reached out a hand to correct his mistake when he suddenly spotted a smudge of black behind his head in the mirror. The darkness in the car made it hard to decipher the silhouette but it eerily resembled a person sitting in the back seat just behind him.
Startled, he snapped the visor back up where it belonged, telling himself that he was just imagining things.
His hands were shaking when he reached over to the driver's visor, concentrating so that he wouldn't look into the rearview mirror by accident.
It took him every ounce of self-control to accomplish the task since every instinct in his body screamed "danger!" and fear was causing goosebumps to break out on his skin.
His eyes were closed when he slowly sunk himself back on his seat. He made the mistake to think that the danger was over then, because he opened his eyes which almost instinctually went to the rearview mirror.
Then his heart nearly stopped at the sight.
He tried to back away, but his seat was caging him in.
She held his gaze through the mirror but he wished he could look away.
"No, no nononononononono..."
He tried to open the car door but at the same time, he heard the click that signaled that the car was locked.
Now desperate, he rattled the door handle but it wouldn't budge. He tried to unlock it, but it was like the system had shut down all of a sudden.
He was trapped.
With her on the back seat, still watching him through the mirror.
"Let me go!" he screamed, kicking the door. His limbs were shaking so badly, he hit part of the dashboard instead of the door.
Half her face was decayed, worms and maggots crawling out of the holes, some vanished into her eye socket. The other half was smiling at him.
Sweat had broken out on his forehead, dripping down his temples and hanging off his chin, the drops still contemplating whether to fall down or not.
His vision was getting blurry because of the desperate tears forming in his eyes and the shortage of air he was taking in. But he could still see her.
He could still see her.
But, worst of all, she could still see him.
"I want out. I need to get out. Out," he mumbled hurriedly to himself, directing his jittery limbs to the window.
Suddenly he remembered the open window so he stretched out his hand.
He threw a quick glance at the mirror, seeing her grin widening.
He had to hurry.
Hurry.
Why couldn't he find the door handle?!
Then something began to move. At first, he thought he had imagined it but when the space for his arm grew smaller, he knew.
The window was closing itself.
He grew frantic in his search, his arm just swinging around wildly outside.
Then he was stuck but still, the window continued to close itself.
He tried to get his arm out but it was hopeless.
Next, he began to register the pain of the window slicing into his skin, pressing into him with terrifying, bone-crushing strength.
A look back into the mirror. Her mouth was forming words that only reached him when he had finally found the door handle.
"Don't leave me again. Stay with me."
His hand got a grip on the door handle and he pulled on it with all his might.
The bones in his arm made an ugly cracking sound, a sign that they couldn't stand the pressure any longer.
But then he managed to open the door.
He fell out of the car, his arm twisting at a painful angle.
It was like he broke the spell because then the window stopped going up and he could finally wiggle himself free of it.
He didn't even notice that he scraped his skin off.
He didn't notice that footsteps were coming closer to where he was sitting on the ground.
All he thought of was getting away as far from the car as possible, not caring if he had to crawl on his knees to accomplish that.
His arm hurt.
The world was spinning.
And when someone called out his name in worry and a face appeared in his sight, all he managed was to open his mouth to puke.
*** potentially scary content is now over ***
Ignoring the puke that was coating his shoes and parts of his black jeans, Derek crouched down, taking Stiles' face into his hands. The warmth radiating from it made him worry even more.
The teenager was barely coherent but still conscious.
"Fever," he stated for the audience witnessing the scene. Then he looked accusingly at Cora. "You shouldn't have left him alone."
"Well, bringing him with me to face the storm would've been even worse. It's not like you all wouldn't have overwhelmed him," Cora defended herself grumpily but despite her pout, there was a glimmer of guilt visible in her features.
Derek sighed, picked up Stiles and carried him inside.
His fever broke in the early morning hours - somewhere around 4 o'clock if someone were to ask Derek for a more specific time - but that didn't ease their worry. Seeing the 102.2 F drop down to a 99,8 F had been a relief but it could never erase the hours of tension that came from listening to a delirious teenager mumbling about seeing his worst nightmares coming to life in front of his eyes without being able to tell him that none of it was real.
That was probably why Jon had to leave the room after an hour of sitting and listening. Once Stiles had mentioned his mom, Jon's face had lost all color. It had only gotten worse when it became apparent that he wasn't having a happy dream about her.
Not that Derek could blame the man. He too had found it hard to listen and to sit idly by while the boy was suffering in front of them.
He made sure that the towel on his forehead was always cool, wetting it again every ten minutes or so. He sat by his side until the sun was beginning to rise, watching over him with a creased brow. Some might consider his action creepy - he just could imagine Stiles making a comment about him being like that dumb sparkly vampire in the twilight series who had no idea what personal boundaries even meant.
His pack began to wake up somewhere between half-past seven and eight. Lydia was an early riser. He could hear her walking down the stairs before most of the others had even gotten up from bed yet.
Jackson followed her soon after, probably having been listening in on her all morning to make sure she was alright. Ever since they weren't sharing a bedroom anymore, he had made it his habit to rise as early as she did, just so he could spend the quiet moments of the morning alone with her. It was obvious that he was doing his best to make up for his past mistakes.
It was around that time that Stiles woke up for the first time.
His eyelids fluttered, a groan. Followed by a twitch of his arm. A groan of pain this time. He then curled into a ball on his right side, cradling his left arm protectively.
Derek reached out a tentative hand, not sure whether to wake the teen completely or just let him wake up on his own. His hand was hovering over his shoulder when suddenly he was met with honey-coloured eyes looking at him, wide-eyed.
The alpha tried for a smile. "Hey," he breathed softly, reminding himself to speak quietly in case the teen was suffering from a headache. His hand finally came to rest on the teen's shoulder.
"Derek?" Stiles blinked. His posture relaxed. His legs - drawn tightly to his body before - uncurled.
One story below them, Derek could hear Isaac and Scott standing at the foot of the stairs, probably unsure whether they should come up and see how Stiles was doing before they left for school.
The alpha knew that they weren't able to listen in on their conversation from below. That was precisely why Derek had taken the attic for his own quarters. More privacy.
And more space, but that was beside the point.
"Man, I feel awful," Stiles croaked out, rubbing his eyes that felt so raw as if he had cried tears of sand for a whole day.
"You're sick," Derek deadpanned. As if Stiles hadn't already deduced that from his aching joints, scratchy throat, heavy muscles, stuffy nose, and hammering headache.
"Was that diagnosis for free or do I have to pay for it?"
"Since you're already back to being a smartass, I predict that you'll live."
If his throat wouldn't have felt like sandpaper, Stiles might have made another witty comment but as it was, it was perhaps better to save his energy.
Derek, probably sensing Stiles' discomfort, stood up from his seat beside the bed and went to the adjoining bathroom.
It was then that Stiles realized that he had no idea where he was.
The slanting ceiling indicated that he was in an attic of a sort but he had never seen one that big. Some apartments he'd been in hadn't been that spacious.
Not to mention a number of skylights and side windows that let in enough sunshine to make the room (or rather apartment) seem cozy and
inviting.
He was currently in the bedroom but the room in itself was only divided by a large bookshelf - he couldn't see what was behind that, he only glimpsed that there was so much more space hiding on its other side. From his place on the bed, he was able to see into the adjoining bathroom where Derek had disappeared in. There was another door next to the bathroom door, which he guessed led to the closet.
What was odd, however, was that large parts of the attic room were unfinished. There was hardly any furniture in here beside the bed and the bookshelf, the wall paneling only covered about a third of it yet while the rest of the walls were still naked.
Derek returned with a glass of water which he handed to Stiles. Before Stiles was even able to protest, Derek pulled Stiles into a sitting position and stuffed another pillow behind his back so he had something to lean on.
"Thanks," Stiles said after he had gulped down most of the water already. "Where am I by the way?"
"In my room," came the answer.
"Why?"
Derek almost looked affronted, reacting as if Stiles had committed an act of indecency by asking that question.
"Do you remember what happened yesterday? What stupid thing you did?" The alpha countered, his expression grave.
At first, Stiles thought about what his current location was telling him. The light coming in through the windows told him that it was daytime - morning, perhaps.
Despite the visual clues, he was pretty sure that he hadn't gone to bed at the Hale House, not to mention that he wouldn't have slept in Derek's bed even if that were the case.
So why was he here?
He tried to remember the last thing he had been doing yesterday.
It came to him in bits and pieces. The picture was unclear like he was watching TV with bad reception. All the clearer was the panic. The fear. He remembered those quite vividly.
What had the nightmare that had woken him up even been about? He couldn't recall. Last night, he could have written every detail of it down on paper. Now he came up blank.
But- There was something else.
He looked at his left hand and swallowed heavily. Remembered his shock, remembered calling Cora.
Remembered driving past a house surrounded by police cruisers and immediately knowing what it had to mean.
Remembered that he had sent a text message. What was written in it exactly? His phone would tell him that since his headache was blocking the details of the memory.
Then he saw the wait in the car play out in his mind again. Remembered being trapped. Remembered what he had seen through the mirror.
"-iles. Stiles!" Someone was shaking his shoulders roughly, urgently. His breathing was slightly accelerated, his heart thumping loudly against his ribcage. That must be why Derek was sounding so worried.
Stiles shook his head to clear it of the thoughts haunting him.
"I'm fine," he said, more reflex than truth.
It was useless, lying to a werewolf.
"Whatever you think has happened in the car - it's not real. You had a fever, Stiles. You were hallucinating," Derek replied calmly. His hand was still resting on Stiles' shoulder like he was trying to ground him to reality.
Stiles almost wanted to laugh at that. A werewolf telling him that what he had seen couldn't possibly be real? What a joke!
"But this is," Stiles held out his left hand, the palm directed towards Derek. The sight of it caused the alpha to freeze. "Something happened last night. Something... bad. I don't know what yet. I only know that I'm involved, somehow."
Derek encircled Stiles' wrist and brought the outstretched hand closer to his own face, inspecting the two lines of the scar that had turned a sickly black.
With furrowed eyebrows, the alpha guided the teen's hand down to the bed but not letting go. In fact, he was gripping Stiles' hand like it was a lifeline. His whole posture screamed that he was about to burst with emotions that he refused to let come to the surface.
"I'll tell you what I know," Derek decided reluctantly.
He told Stiles about what the police had found yesterday- the man whose recovered corpse had started all this, who had even dead raised more questions than any normal case, once again in the center of an investigation. Stiles expectedly winced when Derek recounted how panicked the sheriff had been when he had arrived at the Hale House, thinking his son had been kidnapped or worse when he hadn't been able to find him. No one could blame the man for his overhasty conclusion, considering he had evidence of a dangerous man taunting him with the fact that he a.) was alive, and b.) still had a powerful leverage over them by knowing Stiles' first name.
Derek almost wished he had never shared his knowledge when he realized how pale Stiles had become somewhere in the middle of his recount.
"This isn't a coincidence. The body turning up, the message, the scars turning black... it's all connected," Stiles whispered, the gears in his head turning, worsening his headache. It felt like he was spinning around with one of the gears, too, and the nausea came back with vigor.
He tried to stand up because the news was concerning and he needed something to do other than just lying lazily in bed. But his knees were weak and the pull of gravity seemed to be stronger than usual. The only reason why he didn't immediately collapse was because strong arms wrapped around his torso and pulled him back onto the bed just when his knees were about to give out.
"First of all, you need rest," Derek insisted sharply. The look in his eyes was chastising and unforgiving. He wouldn't budge on that matter.
Robbed of all energy, Stiles let himself sink back into the pillows.
"But... School!"
"Can go on without you." To underline how moot that argument was, the alpha took the liberty to even tuck him in, ignoring his protests and weak struggles.
"What am I supposed to do?! I'm bored!"
"Sleep," Derek stated, eyebrows raised. "You need all the rest you can get. Your dad will come over later and check on you. So you should probably be prepared to have a long and exhausting conversation."
Stiles only groaned in response and hid his head under a pillow.
***
When Stiles woke up for the second time, it was the early afternoon already and he couldn't remember why he had ever been afraid.
In daylight, the shadows that had been monsters during the night weren't frightening anymore and the air was filled with so many noises that one particular creaking sound could hardly be distinguished from it.
It was then that rationality kicked in again and Stiles had to admit that his alleged experience in the car could be easily explained by the fever that was wrecking his body and mind and the darkness that had the power to make every silhouette seem ominous.
Plus, he had never actually seen her. He had only looked into the mirror, not brave enough to turn around.
He kept telling himself logical explanations for what he had experienced and had already started to believe that it was just a hallucination when he became aware of the bandage on his left forearm.
With the toothbrush still in his mouth, he bolted out of the bathroom, found Derek sitting in an old but rather large and cozy looking chair and limped as fast as his bad leg and the cane allowed over to him.
He spurted out a garbled accusation and sent the alpha a glare.
Derek, as calm as a cucumber, put his book down and wiped a hand across his face to get rid of the splashes of toothpaste Stiles had accidently spit in his face.
"What."
Frustrated because his clever threat hadn't reached its target, Stiles raced back into the bathroom, spit out the toothpaste, pointedly avoided to look into the mirror and darted back into the room like a man fleeing from his worst nightmare.
"If everything has been just my imagination, then what the hell is this, huh?" Stiles asked, in an almost hysterically shrill voice, pointing at the bandage. Before Derek could stop him, he ripped the bandage off and took a look at what was underneath.
There was a clear thin purple line where the window had pressed down on his arm, the area around it slightly yellow and red.
"Stiles, it was just a hallucination. But the panic was real," Derek said. He stood up from his seat and went to get new implements to care for Stiles' injury.
Stiles retracted his arm, keeping it defensively away from Derek. His gaze was heated with rage and indignation. "So you're saying I panicked because of nothing, got myself stuck in the window and was dumb enough to keep winding the window up and thus nearly breaking my arm?!"
"No. I'm saying that you tried to get away and probably couldn't open the door so you went for the window instead. You weren't completely in your right mind which is understandable. There's nothing stupid about it."
Derek's words didn't have as placating an effect on Stiles as he had hoped. Instead, they seemed to make the teenager even more defensive, causing him to take a few steps back and away from the alpha.
"Of course there is! Everything is stupid about it! Thinking that it was real in the first place when every ounce of logic should have expelled the very idea...," he couldn't bring himself to say the words he was thinking. The very idea that my mom is still here. "And there were so many other ways. I have magic, for god's sake! Why didn't I use it?"
Derek understood then that Stiles was partly ashamed for his reaction and also very tired of being the one that needed rescuing. Since he had been so busy establishing himself as independent from the pack in the last month, it must be hard to swallow that he had appeared so helpless right in front of them.
"I don't think Laura's old Toyota corolla would've withstood your sparks so for the sake of her car she's probably glad that you didn't use them," Derek mused, a tad bit of amusement breaking through his stoic exterior.
Stiles looked like he was trying really hard to focus on the negative aspects of the incident but was already losing the battle. Eventually, his shoulder sagged slightly, giving up their tension-filled stance, and a smile was tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"I bet she's the shame of the family, driving around a car like that."
Derek nodded, not breaking his serious expression. "Peter and I are already planning to stage an intervention. It can't go on like this. We have a reputation to lose, after all."
Stiles tried to smile but all he managed was a sigh. He eyed his cane with narrowed eyes and wished things were different. "God, I miss Roscoe."
Going by his slightly shaking hands and the way he was leaning more on his cane than holding his own weight, Derek assumed that throwing a racket had tired the teenager out. Maybe he had needed to blow off some steam but he was still sick so it was probably time to let him rest some more. With that in mind, Derek stirred Stiles in the direction of the chair and pressed him down on it.
Surprisingly, the teen let it happen without complaint.
"Wow, that chair is comfortable," Stiles murmured, closing his eyes as he leaned back. If he had to choose one piece of furniture he wanted to spend his last five minutes on earth in, it'd be that chair. He felt something poking him in the hip and reached for it. It was the book Derek had been reading before he had spit toothpaste on his face.
"Devided by Four. Oh, it's the first part of a series. What is it about?" he asked as he read the small extract from the book on the back of the cover.
All he gathered was that it was a kind of fantasy series, taking place in a fictional universe where the world was parted into four kingdoms: The kingdom of hearts, the kingdom of diamonds, the kingdom of clubs and the kingdom of spades in which the first story was taking place in.
"I just started it," Derek said. Instead of saying anything more about its content, he just pushed Stiles gently to the side to make some room for himself on the chair. It was a tight fit, but not uncomfortably so. Quite the opposite. Stiles' legs were once again resting on Derek's lap, soothing the soreness in his bad leg, his feet dangling slightly over the armrest of the chair. "Starting over again doesn't really bother me at this point."
That's how they ended up reading together, the afternoon sun coming in through the windows spreading warmth. From outside, Stiles could hear sounds that resembled a lot the barking of a happy dog. Looking out of the window, he realized that it was Malia in her coyote form, frolicking around with Burly in the garden.
Somewhere in the middle of the sixth chapter, he fell asleep again to fingers running gently through his hair, his head resting on Derek's shoulder.