Royal Blues
Sometimes, things could be getting better while simultaneously getting worse.
Stiles' life was the perfect example and also the proof that oxymorons like a miserably good life did exist.
His situation at school, for example, was getting worse but not like a cold was getting worse or the finances of a man who had no idea how to handle his income correctly were getting worse. His social degradation was like a drunk man making his way home from a bar: slightly disoriented, more stumbling than walking while singing god-awful renditions of songs about emancipation and the freedom of not needing anybody with the complete conviction that one was acting like a real man even though the song was originally sung by a woman.
Meaning that it was an embarrassing thing to witness and the chance of someone puking was getting higher per minute.
Not that he had expected anything different. After the corpse had made its reappearance, he'd been the hot topic in the whole school. Because of course they immediately connected his suddenly falling ill with that. Because that was all the information you needed to convict someone of an illegal action; them not being there to defend themselves.
"Bambi, nice to have you here in my office again!" The door to the office got closed with a powerful "bump!", causing Stiles to be forcefully withdrawn from his thoughts.
"Did I say nice? I meant annoying as hell," said Miss Barks as she let herself fall back onto her office chair. Her eyebrows were so firmly set on her forehead that Stiles knew she meant business.
From the desk came a warning growl. Miss Barks shook her head at it.
"I've seen a lot of pranks, Bambi, but this one really takes the cake. How the hell did you get that animal to cooperate?"
She held out her hand as if she wanted to touch the metal cage placed on her desk but the warning growl seemed to stop her.
Stiles grimaced, trying to establish eye-contact with Burly in order to tell him to be quiet. He was in deep enough shit as it was already.
"He's harmless," Stiles said with a shrug.
"He attacked one of our students."
"Yeah, well. It was out of self-defense!"
Miss Barks gave him that look that clearly said "I don't give a flying horse-shit what his motive was. This is not the court."
"This is a wild animal. Wild meaning that it has no business being in our school," Miss Barks looked at the fox with slight fascination. "Maybe I should call you Dr. Dolittle from now on. How the hell did you manage to tame that thing?"
Before he was even able to respond, the door to the office opened again with vigor and two more people stormed in.
"It's not his fault, Miss Barks! We're all innocent, I swear!"
"We should be in here with him! After all, we planned the whole thing."
Cora and Lindsay looked at each other, Lindsay looking contrite while Cora was glaring at her friend for playing innocent.
Miss Barks took one quick glance at the two girls, then her attention was back on the fox. She put her head in her hands and massaged her temples.
"Please take a seat, Miss Hale, Miss Simmons."
They did as told.
Miss Barks leaned back in her chair, assessing the three teenagers in front of her with narrowed eyes. But Stiles thought he saw something else glimmer in her eyes besides fury. He wasn't able to identify the emotion, though.
"It's always you three," she mused. "This marks the third time you've been to my office. I must say that I'm most surprised by you, Miss Simmons. You've never been known to disturb the peace."
Lindsay lowered her head in shame while Cora next to her sat up a little straighter.
"Three is not that bad a count, actually," stated the young Hale proudly.
"Three times in this week. And it's only Tuesday." Miss Barks eyed her critically.
Cora grinned. "Still not a bad count."
Stiles felt like banging his head against the table.
"Miss Hale, it seems that you don't understand the severity of your actions and it appears that you don't even have an ounce of shame in you for the problems you've caused." Miss Barks pursed her lips as she thought about something.
Cora narrowed her eyes and leaned a little further over the desk, getting right into Miss Barks' face. "I'm aware that some rich, arrogant boys got sprinkled by a little water and that they've got scared by a small animal but I didn't think that would constitute as a problem since nobody got hurt. They had it coming, to be honest. And I won't apologize for giving back as good as I've got."
Lindsay's eyes widened in shock and her face turned slightly green. She looked like she was seconds away from puking.
"What do you take all this for, Miss Hale?"
"War," replied Cora immediately. "This is war, Miss Barks and I'm not willing to raise the white flag. Not ever."
Miss Barks looked like she was contemplating Cora's words, her head nodding along to some agreement she had probably come to in her head.
"Well, you're glad that I've been having problems with my hearing lately. For a moment I thought you had said 'war' which would have meant that I would have been forced to act. But I must have misheard. You were clearly talking about the chore you will be happy to undertake to make up for all the troubles you've caused. Did I make myself clear, Miss Hale?"
Cora nodded, trying hard to suppress a grin of victory.
Miss Barks then handed them a sheet with the details about their new duty. After that, they were allowed to go but only under the condition that Stiles would never again bring his pet with him to school.
"That went... unexpectedly well," Lindsay stated, sounding surprised.
"Miss Barks has always held the opinion that kids these days need to solve their problems among themselves. She doesn't think very highly of all these new theories about education. In her book, very bad students should be punished and those who get bullied have to stand up for themselves. She doesn't care how we behave outside her lessons, which is good for us," Cora told them.
Stiles looked doubtingly down at Burly, fingers carding through his beard.
Lindsay watched him with a slight look of disdain.
"And now we have to get rid of this ugly rug," She pointed at the white beard someone had thought would look perfect if it was glued to Stiles' face. "Little piece of advice, Stilinski: Don't fall asleep in class. It makes you an easy target for pranks like this one."
To be fair, falling asleep during class hadn't been Stiles' intention. But ever since that night his scars had turned black, a peaceful night had become a rarity.
His dreams were strange.
But he didn't allow himself to think about them right now.
"Why? Don't you think that I'd look amazing like this on a Christmas card?" Stiles asked playfully, all the while stroking his fake beard. Truthfully, he just feared the process of getting this thing off of his face.
Cora's expression hardened. "No."
"But I look so mature with it!"
"You look homeless with it, you mean," Lindsay corrected helpfully.
Without his consent, they dragged him into the ladies' restroom and worked for over half an hour on him to get the fake beard off of his face. All his attempts to flee were unsuccessful.
And his fear had been confirmed. The separation from the beard was indeed painful.
But that wasn't even the worst part of his day.
"This is no normal punishment. This," he waved around the sheet Miss Barks had given him, "counts as an actual violation of my human rights!"
Cora rolled her eyes at him. "Stop being dramatic. You got the best punishment out of all of us! You only have to stay a little while longer after class to accompany the ballet class on the piano. Big deal! I actually have to tutor those dumbasses from our golf team!"
Lindsay didn't even dare to talk about the chore given to her. She just let her head hang down and contemplated her whole life.
Poor girl, Stiles thought empathetically, Being forced to help out the cheerleaders when all of them hate you with a passion is just evil.
"But, at least, we got to enjoy the sight of Vincent drenched to the bone, running away with an unmanly screech from a tiny fox. That almost makes it worth it."
Stiles raised his eyebrows at the uncharacteristic optimism Cora was displaying.
"He also got bit in the ankle. He could sue the school," Lindsay added sourly.
"But he won't," Cora assured her confidently.
"How'd you know?"
"Because tomorrow the school board will get a notice of him storing alcohol in his locker. He can't afford to sue them now if he wants to stay here."
Stiles looked slightly taken aback. "How did you even...? You know what, you're evil. I'm glad I have you on my side."
"It was not easy to find out his locker combination, but the effort definitely paid off," she said, smiling.
Neither Stiles nor Lindsay had ever seen her smile so much. It was starting to freak them out.
The rest of the school day passed by in a rather normal fashion. Lindsay and Cora kept a close look on Stiles to avoid anything like the beard incident from happening again. The other students were doing their best at avoiding them, some downright glared at them. No one wanted to talk to them anymore, be it from fear of repercussions from the popular kids or because they hated them. It was the three of them against the whole school.
But Stiles didn't mind that so much. Cora was fierce and full of vengeance, so she was hardly ever targeted. No one really dared that. And no one who wasn't really involved in the "war" dared to attack Lindsay or Stiles either. Besides, Lindsay's old friends did seem to have really liked her because they just looked the other way but never engaged in any malicious behavior towards them.
So even if the whole school appeared to either have turned their back or their hatred on them, it didn't matter because they still had each other.
All in all, life was good as long as he had Lindsay and Cora by his side but it was also a little bit miserable.
***
The smell of coffee was wafting through the air and almost managed to cover up the smell of dust, old books, and slightly burned pages.
On a table lay a map, spread out and spiked with pins.
It was a map of the preserve.
Jackson was studying it meticulously but his eyes were beginning to hurt and his head felt a little woozy.
Derek was walking around with his hand on his back, always going around in the same circle so that Jackson was wondering when the floor would show furrows.
"You're sure they're no clues in the memoirs?" Jackson asked, even though he didn't expect a different answer than the other fifteen times he had asked that question.
Derek stopped pacing for a second and just looked at Jackson, who ducked his head in shame after a while.
"Talia didn't know where the nemeton was located," Peter said. "No Hale ever did find out about its whereabouts, though many have reportedly tried. It's not meant to be found, I think."
"That can't be true because the Order was looking for it and they somehow knew that it was dying," Laura interjected.
"The nemeton is a source of power. It is supposed to keep the land alive and prosperous. It's not a coincidence that we were one of the most powerful werewolf families once. The nemeton on our territory was extraordinary and gave us power that some families could only dream of."
"But what is it?" Laura asked Peter, who seemed to know so much more than everyone else.
The older werewolf just shrugged. "I have no idea."
Jackson growled in frustration. Without the nemeton, they didn't have any leverage over the order. Without it, they couldn't bargain if worst came to worst.
They had no secret weapon against the Order. Their only option now was to await what the Order wanted and then react.
It was a situation that everyone had been trying to avoid. Fruitlessly.
And the meeting with them was already tomorrow.
***
The blue envelope on his desk was very apparent even though the mess of papers and pencils should have distracted a little from it. His name - Stiles, not his real name - was written in an elegantly swung handwriting.
Stiles briefly wondered what his father thought about him getting Mail that had no sender on it considering his paranoia nowadays.
As he picked it up, he could have sworn that the envelope smelled faintly of lavender.
Without further ado, he opened it and pulled an equally blue letter out. He was beginning to like the color. It had to be royal blue or something.
As he read the letter, he sat down at his desk, leaning casually back against his chair. The cane was leaning against the wall in his reach. Always in his reach now.
His hand was slightly shaking.
Dear Mr. Stilinski,
It has come to our attention that you have found yourself in a predicament that is altogether quite threatening and unpleasant.
In times like these, it is hard to know who to trust. We assure you, therefore, that our main interest is finding the one responsible for your predicament as he has already caused damage to our own as well.
This letter, therefore, should serve as your invitation to a meeting between ourselves and the Hale pack, during which further actions will be discussed.
We are hoping that we can expect your appearance as well since we can offer you options regarding a solution to your problem.
Kind regards,
The Order