Chapter Text
It started on a quiet Saturday. Stiles was admiring the endangered species known as the ‘peaceful moment’, rarely sighted and often hunted down in his little town of werewolves and hunters. These days, Stiles’ more common activities consisted of frantic research, running for his life and ramming monsters down with his Jeep. It wasn’t often he had the time to just laze around at home, clicking through Wikipedia and Tumblr tags.
To no one’s surprise, that was the day teenage hunters descended on Beacon Hills.
Fucking teenage hunters. The hunter–wannabes were hellbent on taking out any and all werewolves to prove their worth and be accepted into the secret hunter circle. After kanimas and mermaids and sorcerers, did they really have to deal with teenage hunters who used the show Supernatural as their guideline? For awhile there, they were even convinced Stiles was a crossroad demon. What sort of Supernatural fanboy would mistake Stiles as a crossroad demon?
Stiles rubbed the back of his head as he sat up slowly. It was completely dark and he couldn’t see anything, so he groped around for a few minutes. Then, he wished he hadn’t, because what he found was bad. Really bad. Derek was so going to kill him, even though it wasn’t his fault at all. The hunters had been after Scott, and it was a sound plan for Stiles to lure them away by pretending to be Scott, because they couldn’t hurt Stiles after he had told them that he was just a harmless human being. Not if they still wanted to be accepted into the elite circle of hunters. That had seemed logical right up to the moment the overachieving teenagers pistol-whipped him.
Well, it looked like the hunters might not kill Stiles outright, but they must have other plans for him. Because he was in a cage. It was dark, and his eyes were still adjusting to the lack of light, but he could feel bars behind him and to his side as well. It was a big cage, but that didn’t negate the fact that he was fucking caged. Stiles tried to calm his breathing. His initial analysis still stood. They wouldn’t kill him.
Unless they killed him and then buried his body in the woods. Because a dead Stiles would get them nowhere with the Argents, but as long as no one found his body, the teenaged freaks would get away with it. Oh god, he was going to die and his father was going to be heartbroken and it was going to be all Stiles’ fault. No wait, they would have killed him already if they wanted to. No point wasting a perfectly good cage on him if they planned on killing him. So they weren’t going to kill him. Stiles wasn’t going to die. Maybe. What was that sound upstairs? Was he in a basement? A cage in a basement was such a bad sign.
Fuck, when was his last dose of Adderall? Was it still the same day anyway? He could feel his concentration fragmenting, and he was practically jittering on the spot. It could be his ADHD kicking in. Or maybe the concussion. What were the symptoms for being whacked on the head too many times?
A small doorway opened, filling the room with light before it shut again. It introduced noise to the silent basement. A lot of noise. There was growling and snarling, vicious and threatening. This wasn’t Scott and Isaac play-fighting, this was the sound of a werewolf out for blood. Stiles would usually feel comforted, because werewolves meant safety most of the time — and what was his life, that dangerous, fanged creatures of the night meant safety? However, along with those crazed sounds, there were people talking and swearing. Stiles thought he recognized the irritating voices of the steroid-loaded teenagers who had attacked him, and they didn’t sound like they were being ripped apart by werewolves, which was very, very bad.
“Fucking hurry up!” shouted one of them.
“You do it if you think it’s so easy!”
Stiles backed into a corner. He didn’t want to imagine what they were planning to do.
There was a clang of bars and a loud scuffle in the corner opposite him. Stiles’ eyesight was starting to adjust to the low light, and he realized that he was sharing his cage with someone else now. No, something else.
He could barely see the huge and furred form in the dark, accompanied by the growling that was growing in volume. He wanted to cry out Derek’s name, because it had to be Derek, Stiles could recognize him even in the dark, but he didn’t want to give the hunters any more advantage. Maybe they didn’t know about their connection.
Something was wrong as well, Stiles could tell. Derek’s head was swinging from side to side, as if he couldn’t get his bearings. He didn’t come over and snuffle over Stiles immediately to check on him. Instead, he was pressed against the other side, snarling and almost frothing at the mouth, jumping and snapping at the air in front of him.
“Fucking monster, can’t even get this part right,” muttered one of the hunters, and this was bad. This was very bad. Stiles would know exactly why as soon as his brain stopped gibbering in fear and started working again.
He saw an arc of light, blinding in the dark, and it was accompanied by an enraged roar. Derek’s huge, hulking form thrashed away from the bars, but the light and the sharp crackling sound continued.
“Stop it! What are you doing to him?!” shouted Stiles, jumping forward instinctively. “Derek, Derek, stop— just come here!”
He heard one of the men laugh. “Yeah, go to the idiot. Go on.”
The crackling sound intensified and a horrible, burning stench filled Stiles’ nose. But Stiles was starting to understand what they were trying to do. He could see Derek throwing his body to the other side, still roaring in pain. His head wasn’t tracking right, just swinging all over the place and his limbs were snapping out in mad, senseless attack. Stiles tried to back away, to huddle into his corner, but it was too late.
Claws caught on his shoulder, spinning him to the side, and Stiles screamed in terror, because Derek was confused and in pain and Stiles was going to die.
Sharp pain engulfed his side, a heavy weight pinning him to the ground. His breath was knocked out of him as his head jarred against the concrete floor, and there was just pain, pain and tearing pain around the right side of his belly. He gasped, tiny and unheard in the chaos around him, and felt suffocated by the heavy weight trapping him against the floor. His grasp on consciousness faded as a despairing howl filled his head.
# # # # # # # # # #
Stiles woke to clamoring pain and confusion, but the hand on his forehead belonged to a familiar presence that soothed his aches and hugged him when he was hurt.
“Go back to sleep, son.”
So he did.
# # # # # # # # # #
Low light filtered through the room when he woke up slowly for the second time. He was glad for his closed curtains because his head ached and his eyes felt dry and gritty.
“Whuuu…” he mumbled. He didn’t get drunk last night, did he?
Then his dad’s tired face filled his vision.
“Dad? Wha—” Apparently, coherency was still beyond him.
“You’re okay, Stiles. Everyone’s okay,” said his dad. It said a lot about their life choices that his dad knew to reassure him this way the moment he regained consciousness. Now if only he could remember why they were potentially not okay…
His brain came back online slowly, but came back it did, so he remembered the dark room and crazed snarling in a rush.
“Oh shit-” Stiles swore, hand went to his side.
His dad caught him around wrist. “It’s healed. You’ve been asleep for almost twenty hours.”
A deep bite wouldn’t heal in just twenty hours, which meant that Stiles was a werewolf now. Fuck. He looked at how tired his dad seemed and felt a pang of guilt. His dad never signed up for this. They’d had to tell him, after all the shit had gone down right before their senior year, and there were too many lies to hide anymore. He’d traded his lies for his dad’s constant worry instead. His dad reminded him more than ever to be careful, always told him to call if he needed anything, anything at all. Now, Stiles had gotten himself turned into a werewolf. As if their lives weren’t complicated enough.
A thought occurred to him. “It wasn’t Derek’s fault! Really, he didn’t, I mean, he did, but he didn’t have a choice, well, he couldn’t see—”
“I didn’t shoot him if that’s what you’re worried about,” said Stiles’ dad. Then he smiled wryly. “Though I did push him against the wall and threaten to strangle him with my bare hands.”
Stiles gaped at his dad, because Derek…was Derek. And the Stilinski men weren’t exactly buff. They were built more slender and agile, though Stiles was still waiting for the agile part to kick in.
His dad huffed at the look of surprise. “Yeah, I did. The bastard didn’t even have the decency to look afraid.”
“He probably was deep inside. Really deep. He just has limited facial expressions, like he can’t use more than three a day or they deduct his werewolf points, so it’s hard to tell that he’s quaking in his leather boots,” explained Stiles, glad to share one of his many theories on Derek.
That earned him a chuckle, and a hand smoothing over his forehead again. “You must be feeling better if you’re running your mouth already.”
He was feeling better. Even his headache was fading, probably courtesy of his newfound healing abilities. He didn’t want to think about how bad his head injury must have been to have taken this long to heal up. But his werewolf healing kicking in didn’t mean all good things.
Stiles sat up awkwardly, scooting back on his bed. “Dad, you shouldn’t be here. Or you should have at least chained me to something first. Not handcuffs, those aren’t good enough.”
His dad cut him off, “Derek and Scott are downstairs. They’ll be in here in a blink if anything happened. In any case, they told me that the change is much more gradual than that. You should be fine for now.”
“We shouldn’t be taking chances.” Because if anything happened to his dad, if Stiles hurt his dad, he could never live with himself. Never.
“We aren’t,” said his dad firmly. “We had a lot of time to talk about this while you were busy lazing around in bed. The full moon is three days away, and we’re going to use that time to concentrate on helping you control your— your wolf. I told Derek that I’m going to handle this, but because he’s supposed to be the pack leader, and this happened because of him no matter what they did, he’s going to step up and help you too.”
It was amazing how pushy his dad was with an Alpha werewolf. Stiles licked his lower lip. “What did he say to that?”
His dad huffed again. “He said of course and gave me a look like I was crazy.”
Stiles smiled. “That’s one of the three expressions he’s allowed to use in a day.”
“I suspected as much. Alright, come on. You’ve been sleeping for long enough. Come downstairs so we can discuss this together,” said his dad. “I have a feeling I’m going to be seeing your friends around here a lot more than I want to.”
“Aww, dad, you love them, admit it!” Stiles got out of bed, feeling a lot stronger already and warmed on the inside with love for his dad.
# # # # # # # # # #
There were hugs — from Scott, not Derek — and a stream of words filled with concern and relief. Derek apologized in his stilted manner, obviously needing more practice being a real boy instead of just a constantly angry wolf. It wasn’t like Stiles was going to hold a grudge. He wasn’t sure if he really wanted to be a werewolf, but he knew that Derek had been out of control. Even now, Derek’s face was a little splotchy with healing, irritated skin, which was a sign of how great his injuries were for his accelerated healing to be taking so long.
Derek and Scott filled Stiles in, about how Derek had been whacked in the face with an electric baton, after he had been dosed with high amounts of a type of hallucinogenic wolfsbane. In pain and tripping as high as a werewolf could, it was no surprise that Derek didn’t know who was in the same cage with him. The only reason why Stiles was still alive was because Derek had recognized him the moment he bit down, which was strange because Stiles was sure that Derek had never tasted his blood before that, but that was a question for another day. Stiles didn’t blame him, but Derek didn’t meet his eyes when he stopped at that point of the story, and the moment was awkward and silent.
“Well, at least the hunters are locked up now,” said Stiles, unable to stand the silence for long. “I always knew having a Sheriff as a dad was good for something.”
His dad snorted. “Never mind all the other times I bailed you out of trouble.”
It turned out that after the others had realized that Stiles and Derek had been caught — and Derek had been caught because he had been stupid and charged right in to get Stiles — Allison had called her dad and Lydia had called Stiles’ dad. The Argents and the rest of the pack had overpowered the teenage hunters and used wolfsbane to force Derek back into his human form. Beacon Hills’ Sherriff department had arrived to arrest the wannabes for kidnapping and torture. All’s well, that ends…mostly well. No more crazy teenage hunters who wanted to be Sam and Dean. The only collateral was Stiles’ claim to fame as the number one resident handler of mountain ash and his badge of honor as the Pack human. Now he was left to deal with his newfound status as a ‘mythical’ creature in the middle of senior year.
Stiles looked Scott up and down. “I would ask, ‘what now’ except I don’t know what you can teach me that I didn’t teach you about controlling your werewolf. I still remember your Stiles-chasing in the locker room, buddy.”
Scott gave him sad, puppy eyes. “You said you had forgiven me for that.”
“Doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten. You weren’t the epitome of control back when you first changed,” said Stiles, before raising an eyebrow at Derek. “And you display a lack of sensible teaching abilities for an Alpha. No way I’m signing up for lessons on manpain or torture restraints.”
Derek didn’t even try to counter the accusation that he was a shit mentor or scowl at Stiles for being so blunt about it. That was definitely a sign that his guilt was going strong. “Scott is here because he’ll be the most familiar werewolf to you, and we want your wolf side to acclimatize to the presence of Pack as well as Alpha as soon as possible. As for lessons…our circumstance is less fraught with immediate danger right now, and we know now that there are easier ways to go about learning control.”
Stiles sighed. “I suppose I should start working on some meditation exercises.”
Stiles’ dad walked back in with sandwiches for everyone. “We’re in trouble if we’re going to have to rely on your meditation skills.”
Stiles would protest except it was so true. They were totally screwed. Along with the fact that Stiles was now an ADHD werewolf, he also had no anchor. This wasn’t good at all, and not even his favorite chicken, egg mayo and cucumber sandwich could make him think otherwise.
# # # # # # # # # #
The hours went by without anything much changing. Stiles didn’t feel particularly angry or strong or out-of-control. It was the weekend so he didn’t have school, but even if he had school, his dad would have let him skip it. Scott eventually went home for the night, and Stiles holed up in his bedroom trying to distract himself while Derek took a shower, because he did not need to think about Derek in his shower. Naked. Naked Derek in his shower, using Stiles’ shampoo and soap. Naked Derek rubbing soap over his pecs and arms and— Nope. Not thinking about it.
Derek was going to be bunking in his living room for the time being. Stiles didn’t want to think about that either, but he couldn’t deny that he felt safer with Derek staying in the same house as him and his dad. It must be all those times they had taken turns bailing each other out of trouble; some sort of demented emotional attachment was to be expected, right? And now Stiles was going to stop thinking about that too. There really wasn’t much he could safely think about Derek.
Stiles opened his browser on his computer and started going through his tabs again. There were a lot of tabs — he had taken his Adderall that day, but sometimes, it was so hard to resist the impulse to click on all the things — and he flicked through them until he stopped on a Tumblr page. Baby sloths, dawwww. He was man enough to admit that baby animals were difficult to resist. The tag he had been looking at before that was baby bunnies, which he had to leave really fast, because there were the unexpected appearances of anime porn and Playboy bunny porn. He liked porn as much as the next teenage boy. He just couldn’t deal with pictures of naked crying girls with bunny ears appearing right after pictures of fluffy baby rabbits. That was just weird.
“Stiles.”
He made a face at Derek’s voice. “You really need a bell on a collar. What?”
Silence was his only answer, so he turned around to face the door.
There was no one there.
“Uhh, what the fuck?” he said to the empty doorway. Did Derek just say his name and walk away?
“There will be an adjustment period, but we’ll help him through it.”
That was Derek’s voice. Stiles could hear him, like Derek was right next to him. But there was no one there.
“I didn’t want this for him. He’s not supposed to have it so hard. He’s still so young.” And that was his dad’s voice, sounding tired and sad.
“We’ll all be here to help him.”
“I expect no less. Just remember, you’re his Alpha, but I’m still his father.”
Stiles was floored now, because he was starting to understand that he was listening to a conversation happening downstairs probably, like it was happening right in front of him. Just like that, it seemed like the realization really kick-started his werewolf hearing, because he could hear more than just his dad and Derek talking.
A cacophony of noise descended on his ears. He could hear their hearts beating, a mismatched pair of working organs. He could hear the hum of electricity in the wires, the almost thunderous sound of his computer working. There were crickets outside roaring, the creak of his house a loud rumble cutting through the shriek of owls and lizards and all manners of horrible animals lurking outside. Derek’s voice and his father’s voice blended in with his neighbors’ from both sides, screaming into his ears and Stiles screamed in return.
His hands clutched his ears shut, trying in vain to shut out all the noise, so much overwhelming noise. Hands closed around his, trying to help him seal the chaos away. But he could still hear.
“Is he okay?” It sounded like his father was roaring. He whimpered in response.
“Whisper, don’t talk, John,” said Derek. “Stiles, you have to focus, pick something to focus on. Listen, listen to your father’s voice.”
Stiles could feel his dad pressing in from the other side.
“Hey, listen to me, kid. You’re okay, you’ll be fine,” his dad said, maybe whispered because it sounded like it was normal volume instead of a shout.
Hemmed in by both his dad and Derek, he was even more aware of the rush of their blood and the rhythmic thudding that was their heartbeat. Slowly, it became all he could hear. He listened to the unsynchronized beating until, at an achingly slow pace, everything faded. He realized how tense he was, crouched in his chair and hands clapped over his ears. He blinked his wet eyes, and looked up at his worried dad and Derek’s impassive face.
He licked his dry lips before whispering. “I didn’t—” God, it sounded so loud. “I didn’t think it would be so bad. Scott never said he could hear things like electricity in the wires and God, there are so many insects around. How does he, how aren’t you all more spaced out?”
Derek stared at him. “He can’t. You shouldn’t be able to hear down to that level.”
Which. Well. That wasn’t good.
# # # # # # # # # #
He wore ear plugs for the next three days. After the first day, he didn’t need it as much as his hearing seemed to settle, and he didn’t hear everything all the time. He learned how to concentrate to sharpen his hearing when he wanted to, but his control was still spotty. When he didn’t have the plugs in, he had occasional flashes of his hearing just kicking in so he heard everything, but he was learning to focus on just his dad’s heartbeat or Derek’s to slowly filter everything out again. It was pretty amazing, because it seemed like he could hear their heartbeats wherever they were in Beacon Hills. He was keeping that particular tidbit to himself, because it was maybe a little stalkery.
Derek said he had never heard of any werewolf’s hearing being so good. He had looked a little perturbed when he said that, but whatever. Maybe Stiles’ body was compensating, because nothing else had kicked in. He wasn’t super strong yet; he had tried to lift his Jeep in the middle of the night when no one was looking, just to see if he could, but the results were disappointing.
Now, it was the night of the full moon, and Stiles had no idea if all his attempts at meditation had helped. He didn’t feel particularly short-tempered or out of control, like how Scott did when he had been turned. Stiles just felt like…Stiles. With great hearing. Derek had been glaring at him a lot, like it was his fault that his body wasn’t cooperating by turning into a rage monster at the drop of a hat.
His dad had just rolled his eyes and said, “Stiles, how is it you can’t turn into a werewolf like all the other normal werewolves out there?”
Now they were out in the woods, and Stiles had manacles around his wrists that were attached to chains. The chains looped around a huge oak tree, with deep roots and a thick trunk. His dad wasn’t happy to leave him alone, but Derek had said it would be less complicated if Stiles was on unfamiliar ground and if there were fewer people around. Apparently, newly turned werewolves tended to feel dominant if they were on homeground, which in turn made them more aggressive.
“Dude, is this even necessary?” Stiles sulked as he shook his chains. “I don’t even feel like I’m losing control.”
“It might just be coming on slowly,” said Derek, leaning against a tree while facing Stiles. “And don’t call me that.”
Stiles rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say, wolf boy.”
“I can still rip out your throat even though you’re a wolf now,” said Derek, casually, like he was talking about the weather.
Those threats used to work on him once upon a time. Stiles shrugged. “Well, my dad knows I’m with you, and he knows how to find you now, and he would totally shoot you. With wolfsbane bullets.”
Derek only bared his teeth at Stiles in response. How was that so attractive when it was so stupidly barbaric? You would think Derek was raised by real wolves, rather than a family of werewolves who, according to his dad, were perfectly courteous.
It was almost completely dark, but Stiles didn’t really feel anything. “Do you feel the pull of the moon already?”
“Yep,” said Derek, sitting down against his chosen tree.
“Hmm, I don’t feel anything. Actually, I do feel a little— Nope, that was just an ant. Ugh, that tickles, that so tickles, okay, gone now.” He stopped fidgeting when he was clear of bugs again. “Still nothing from my end then. Hey, is your anchor still anger?”
Derek’s eyes flashed red at him. “Yep.”
Stiles leaned against his chains, trying to look at Derek from a closer vantage point. “How’s that working out for you? I mean, you’re still very ‘grrr, I’m the angry wolf man’ but really, you’ve mellowed a bit since we first met. You hardly throw me against walls anymore.”
Derek said in a measured tone, “I don’t know. You still seem to be doing a pretty good job of pissing me off.”
Pulling at his chains in another direction, Stiles said, “I won’t take that personally, because all conversation pisses you off. If there was a police force to uphold silence, you would be the captain.”
“If there was a police force to uphold logical conversation, you would be thrown in jail.”
Stiles noted the slight uptick at the corner of Derek’s lips, and gave himself a point for scoring a half-smile. “Awww, you made a joke that wasn’t all sarcasm and death threats. It was pretty lame but A for effort.”
Derek huffed. “Study your Chemistry, Stiles.”
Stiles made a face at him, but subsided into enthusiastic highlighting of his Chemistry textbook. He managed to put in half an hour’s worth of reading, noting but ignoring the surrounding noises in the woods and Derek’s quiet breathing as he read his own novel. Derek had been going through the Stilinski book collection like water in the past few days.
Bored with the reading on polymers, Stiles commented, “You know, being a werewolf helps my ADHD so much. It’s like taking Adderall, except hundred times more effective, which is a good thing, seeing as my hearing is more than a hundred times better now which makes everything so distracting.”
“You stopped taking your medication,” said Derek, not even a question.
“What would be the point? They wouldn’t work on me right, since alcohol does nothing for werewolves and wolfsbane works on you in mystical, science-defying ways. I figured that meant that most modern medication would have zero effect,” said Stiles. “I did take a pill on the first day, but I didn’t feel any different. So my theory is sound.”
Derek nodded. “Lycanthropy cures most human ailments and restores some balance to the body.”
Stiles tapped his fingers against the soft earth. “Yeah, but I still have ADHD I think. I mean, I don’t know firsthand what it’s like for people without it, but I’ve read that filtering out the unnecessary distractions comes naturally. Right now, I’m aware of every cricket in our vicinity, and the owl rustling up in the tree above me, and the moonlight reflecting against that little smooth pebble over there, and the smell of deer that were here an hour ago, and the way you rub the paper between your fingertips before you turn the page.”
He saw Derek’s eyebrows go up and realized that the last bit might have sounded a little strange, so he hurried on, “But I can just focus on boring old Chemistry even with all those things running in the background of my brain, which is great because I think all the Adderall in the world couldn’t compete with all the input I’m getting now with my enhanced five senses. Not that I’m the pinnacle of single-minded concentration just yet; the other day I was playing Halo 3 when I just had to stop because I could see a strange shadow beneath my bed and I ended up organizing all the stuff under there. I still can’t help myself sometimes.”
“Thank God you have so much focus and impulse control right now,” said Derek, sounding so dry that Stiles rolled his eyes. “You should use some of it on that textbook of yours.”
Stiles grumbled, “I hate Chemistry.”
“Because Harris is an asshole to you.”
Stiles looked up in surprise. “I never told you that.”
Derek shrugged. “Scott told me. Harris was already teaching Chemistry when I was in school. He used to pick on the mouthy smart ones back then too.”
“Yeah, and the Sherriff’s kid as well apparently. He told me that it’s payback for my dad investigating him about the, um.” He didn’t want to bring up the Hale fire. He never wanted to bring it up, because Derek’s face would tighten, and his eyebrows would turn down even more, and it was just…sad. Then another thought occurred to me. “Hey, you think I’m smart?”
“You should report him. That’s an abuse of his authority,” said Derek, voice stormy with discontent at Harris and obviously ignoring Stiles’ last question.
“Man, no way I’m going to be a snitch. That would just make my life harder in school,” said Stiles, marking his textbook disconsolately.
After a short silence, Derek just said, “Then you should study harder. Don’t give Harris a chance to single you out; and you have a Chemistry test next week.”
Stiles ducked his head to hide a smile. It never failed to amuse him when Derek let slip his knowledge of his Pack’s school life. Stiles was used to being the one thinking about Scott’s grades and helping him study. It was strange, but sort of comforting, to have Derek take an interest in the Pack’s grades. It had also felt pretty good to talk to Derek over the last few months about which university Stiles was applying to and to hear Derek encouraging — pushing really, the guy was really pushy — him to go to better ones.
The night passed with random bouts of studying and more aimless conversation with Derek. He dozed off a couple times, startling awake to see red eyes gleaming in the dark, watching him. Stiles passed creepy werewolf comments, but Derek seemed less and less interested in responding as the night wore on.
Finally, it was dawn, and Stiles felt no different than before, other than a faint buzzing beneath his skin. He stared up at the faint yellow light spreading across the dark blue sky.
“I’m not a werewolf,” said Stiles.
Derek stared at him. “We don’t know that. Maybe— Maybe it’s something else.”
Stiles shook his head. “No, there are too many differences, and I just went through the full moon without the slightest hint of a change. I’m not a werewolf. Fuck, Derek, do you know what that means?”
“You don’t know what—”
“I must be a kanima. That’s the only thing left. Jackson changed whenever he had to. I must be a kanima, but I haven’t found my master yet, that’s why I haven’t—”
Derek was suddenly up-close, eyes flashing crimson even in the fading dark. “Calm down, Stiles. You don’t know that.”
Stiles shouted, “I know, alright? What else could I be?! I haven’t been changing or acting like a werewolf! The only other thing is the kanima! God, I don’t want to kill people, Derek! I don’t want to be a murder weapon! You have to— You have to stop me. You have to lock me up or maybe, maybe—”
“No!” snarled Derek, shoving him up against the tree, fangs out and face morphing into familiar, lupine features. “No, we’re not doing that!”
Stiles’ heart was thrumming, beating so fast that it was like a continuous vibration in his chest. He gasped at the flashing teeth and constant growl ripping through the air from the predator before him, and he couldn’t help but wince back, flinch away. The chains clattered, loud metal clanging that jarred his sensitive ears, wringing a whine out of him. Derek reacted with another snarl, trying to pin him down against the tree, but Stiles didn’t want that, not like this. He cried out, a sharp, strange high pitched noise, and twisted his body.
The world felt at once blurry and huge, with everything sharpening on the growling and snarls, the bright red eyes and threat in those sharp teeth. He was trapped with metal and couldn’t go far, except he was shifting, still shifting, until the traps around his wrists slipped off as his changing hands and he ducked beneath those grabbing arms.
Then he was gone.
# # # # # # # # # #
He was running, fleeing up rocky paths and leaping down in huge, surefooted bounds. He leapt over obstacles, pushed off from low-hanging branches. His erratic jumps and hops amidst the desperate running kept him ahead of the huge, hunting predator behind him. His heart pounded with fear, with the instinct to runrunrun, go to safety, go home.
A steady beat filled his ears.
Home.
He swerved and started cutting through the thick shrubbery, aiming for tar and concrete and people. Home, with the steady beat, you’re okay, you’ll be fine, kin family home, he would go there.
His heartbeat slowed down with the remembered calmness even as his limbs pushed harder. The tar and machines and oil were just ahead now, soon to lead him home.
A loud, long howl broke out behind him.
Where before there was only panic and fear coursing through his body, the calming heartbeat of home soothed his instincts enough that he could really hear that howl, understand the rising pitch in it for what it really was. It was anger, but it was also worry, and fear, and family, and stop, and come home. Come back to me.
His paws faltered. There was the steady beat of home that filled his ears, but another rhythm joined it. It was faster, angrier, worried, threaded in with the howl, and it came from behind him.
Predator, but not.
More than just a predator.
Just like how he was more than just prey.
His faltering steps were hesitant enough. He cried out as the crushing weight landed on his back, forcing him to the ground and pinning him down. He wasn’t panicked and frightened anymore, but he didn’t like it, didn’t like being immobile and held down. He yipped, high pitched, and twisted so that he was on his back, facing the dark, furred form that loomed over him. He yipped again and pushed against the wolf who only flattened him down further.
But he wasn’t just prey.
The two different heartbeats singing in his ears reminded him. He was…Stiles. Stiles who wasn’t going to run anymore, who had to tell that to the wolf.
Leaning up, he licked the nose before him.
The wolf blinked.
Stiles yipped again. He was Stiles, but not just Stiles. He was…sound and fur and energy and curiosity and he didn’t want to be just pinned down and stared at like that. He yipped a few more times, batting at the wolf’s face with a furred paw, before licking him again. The glowing red eyes stared at him for a moment, before the wolf — DerekwolfDerek — was suddenly leaning down and nudging his face to the side to lick his cheek with wide swipes. Stiles squirmed and made a ‘mrp’ sound, allowing the sudden grooming.
This was alright. He could feel his pulse slowing down to finally match the two heartbeats, his ever-present anchors.
# # # # # # # # # #
When the rest of the pack slowly crept into their vicinity, drawn in by the earlier howl, Derek had moved on to licking behind his ears. The second heartbeat was with them, family walking closer with no hesitance.
“Oh my god, this is adorable.”
Stiles turned his head to the side, ignoring his grooming Alpha, and looked and looked until his eyes fell on familiar features. He mrrped in greeting and his family — Dad — bent down and ran a hand over his furred side.
“Stiles, you silly ass, this is not how a werewolf looks.”
A rumble of contentment snaked through his body, filling the cool, dawn air. He leaned his face into that comforting touch.
“Is that purring?” said bestfriendwolfScott. “Is he actually purring?”
“His ears are huge,” said wolflizard.
“Stiles? Stiles, do you understand me? Can you turn back?” said his dadfamilyanchor.
He rubbed his cheek against the soothing hand, allowing Derekwolf to nudge his face and sniff behind his ears. Another hand joined the patting, and suddenly, there were wolves, all the wolves, and humans but pack, family and friends, all stroking over his face and paws and nose and shoulders and he was so warm and content and—
“Stiles, come back to us,” whispered his anchordaddad.
Stiles, he was Stiles, a Stiles that was hugged and patted and loved and he turned to the warm hands and wanted to tell them that this was nice, they should do this more, why didn’t they have more group cuddles—
Stiles blinked. It was like stepping into a pool. Everything was still sharp and clear, but it was sharper and clearer before. His hearing, his vision, his instincts… Now his thoughts were sharper instead, a trade off, and he wasn’t just sound and fur and energy and instinct. He was a boy.
A very naked boy. His eyes widened. “Um.”
The hands on him pulled back from his bare skin.
“Stiles!” his father said with some relief.
“Uh, well, I’m naked, in the woods, with a wolf crouched over me, no don’t move! You’re the only thing keeping me from being completely naked in front of everyone right now, thanks, Derek,” said Stiles with wide eyes. He was still calm and warm from the remembered affection earlier, but that didn’t mean embarrassment wasn’t fast seeping in. “Do you ladies mind turning around? And um, Scott, buddy, best friend of mine, do you mind getting me some clothes?”
Now they were all snickering, amused by his sudden predicament. Lydia and Allison kindly turned around like the wonderful ladies they were, but Erica just crossed her arms and continued to look at him with an evil smirk on her face.
“I don’t know what you have to be ashamed of. You’re hiding a very nice pair of biceps there,” she said.
Stiles’ dad made a face. “Erica, maybe leave the mental torture for later when I’m not around to hear you passing comments on my son’s body.”
She had the decency to look slightly abashed and even turned around halfway.
Stiles was about to sigh in relief, except his dad reached out and flicked something above his head, which made Stiles jump a little. “You’re not entirely human-looking yet, kid.”
Slowly, Stiles pulled his hands out from under Derek’s furry chest and reached up to the top of his head.
He blinked. “What the fuck.”
Derek licked Stiles’ fucking huge ears in agreement.
# # # # # # # # # #
According to the others, Stiles’ full animal form was slightly smaller than a German Shepherd. Derek’s wolf form, which they were all well-acquainted with, was much larger than the average human and he could pass for a small horse rather than a wolf, at least in terms of size. Which was just great. Derek got to change into a huge, threatening wolf, while Stiles changed into a smaller, unknown canine with freaking huge ears. How was this remotely fair?
And why did he even turn into a full animal anyway? None of the other Betas did. It made no sense.
Stiles mulled over all this as the others collected his clothing that were littered across the forest from where he had shed them while running away from Derek. They didn’t find all of it — his underwear, to his eternal shame, was probably enshrined forever in a bird’s nest — but enough to cover him up again. While Scott and Isaac had been collecting Stiles’ clothes and Jackson stood around unhelpfully because he was too good for menial tasks, Boyd had ran off to get a pair of spare jeans for Derek from the Camaro, since Derek’s clothes were unsalvageable. Derek had exploded out of his clothes when he had changed into his full Alpha wolf form to chase after Stiles.
Unlike Stiles, Derek had no sense of modesty, and he would have probably turned back into his human form immediately if Stiles wasn’t still using him as a sort of wolf-shield to protect his dubious virtue. So Derek had waited until Stiles had gotten dressed, and then only did he move away to shift. He was too busy pulling on his jeans to notice that the girls had all turned a little to peek at his naked human form. Alright, the girls and Stiles. He wasn’t blind, okay? He could appreciate a fine specimen of man meat when it was standing there in all its naked glory.
And oh boy, was it glorious. Derek was a shirt-optional kind of guy, but his broad shoulders, tapered waist, and chiseled abs weren’t something you just got used to. Now, he also had on display thick, muscular thighs and absurdly toned, firm handfuls of ass. When he bent over to pull up his jeans, they could just catch a glimpse of heavy, swinging balls and—
Stiles’ dad cleared his throat and glared until they all stopped ogling Derek. Bless Erica for her more blatant ogling which saved Stiles from getting the evil eye from his own dad.
After that, they were all bundled into all the different cars that had been used to get them here. Stiles pulled his hood over his big ears and ducked his head down for the rest of the ride back in his dad’s car. He retold the events of the night to his dad, glad when all the weirdness was taken in stride.
The moment he reached home, Stiles bounded up the stairs and headed for his bedroom. He wrenched open his closet door to stare in the mirror.
He looked really, really strange. And he was definitely not a werewolf.
Stiles didn’t have the heavy, frowny brow of a werewolf, and his eyes weren’t glowing some shade or other, instead he had depthless black eyes that gleamed and turned up at the ends. They were also distinctly almond-shaped, and did they seem larger as well? His face was sharper and a little narrower, while his nose was upturned and pointed. The biggest change, winning the top spot in Weird Shit That Happens In Beacon Hills category, were his ears. His ears spanned from the side of his face where his normal human ears would be, going almost all the way to the top of his head. They were big and covered in light fuzz. He touched them tentatively. No wonder his hearing had improved so much.
Actually, there was something very familiar about all this. His brain churned as he listened to the others coming in downstairs and talking about what happened and how Stiles looked. His dad was sitting down, tired from all the excitement, and Derek was retelling the events of the night.
Something clicked in the back of his mind, and Stiles leapt to his computer. He almost slammed into his desk and managed to knock over his chair, because he really had literally leapt, in one great bound and almost hit the ceiling too. Right. Okay. Have to control his excitement.
“I’m fine, I’m fine!” he yelled down when he heard his dad startled downstairs. “Just…getting used to things.”
He brought his computer out of hibernation and started shifting through his tabs until he found Tumblr. He hadn’t used it much since that day he was bitten; he’d been preoccupied with, well, turning into a werecreature of some sort. Stiles hit the Back button over and over again until he found what he wanted. He hadn’t just been looking at baby bunnies and sloths the day he had been turned. He had arrived there by surfing Tumblr tags.
Fucking woah.
# # # # # # # # # #
Stiles leapt down the last five steps.
“Allison was just saying that you looked like a fox when you were in full…well, fox form. You had a fluffy tail and everything,” said Scott, unperturbed by Stiles energetic arrival into the living room.
“Just because you’re a werewolf or weresomething, doesn’t mean you’re not going to be taking the stairs normally,” ordered his dad, rolling a beer in hand.
Stiles made a face at him. “What are you talking about, dad? I jump down the stairs all the time.”
His dad smirked. “I was hoping you had forgotten, and I could get you to walk down it instead.”
“Geez, way to abuse your son’s new condition,” said Stiles, before turning to all of them. “Anyway, whatever! Allison is right, but I’m not just any fox, I’m a, insert drumroll here please, fennec fox! Look at this!”
He flailed at them with his print-out until Derek grabbed his wrist and extracted the paper from his grip.
“Sit down, Stiles,” ordered Derek as he yanked him onto the couch by his wrist. Stiles collapsed into it in a bundle of limbs, just managing to avoid plunging straight into Derek’s lap. What a shame. No wait, not a shame at all. He didn’t want to plunge into Derek’s lap, no Sirree, not him.
“It does sort of look like him,” said his dad from where he was looking at the photo along with Derek.
“Except cuter,” piped up Erica from where she had came up behind them to look as well.
Derek gave her the picture to pass around to the others.
Lydia didn’t even need to look at the print-out before she was already wondering aloud, “Fennec foxes…the smallest of the canid family. It makes sense that you shrink when you turn into a fox then. It’s a good thing you didn’t shrink into actual fennec fox size, because they’re tiny.”
Stiles nodded. “Yes, great, it’s not like that was emasculating enough, let’s theorize about how much smaller I could have turned. The real question is why did I turn into a fennec fox? Why aren’t I a werewolf? Is this going to be kanima take two, with different horror effects and stupid rules to go by this time round?”
It was something that was really worrying him, enough so that he was being short with Lydia, goddess of all woman kind. He might have waved goodbye to the extended crush on her last year, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t recognize a deity — a scary, possibly cold-blooded deity who could extract his spleen with a few choice words — when he saw one.
Scott looked up from examining the picture of the fennec fox. “It’s like what you said before, isn’t it, Derek? It happens sometimes, where people who are bitten don’t necessarily always change into werewolves.”
Stiles raised his eyebrows. “What? Why? Why didn’t anyone tell me this?”
“Because it happens very, very rarely,” said Derek, turning to look at Stiles, hazel eyes tracing over his changed face. “We’re all shapeshifters at the core, and sometimes, the form we take reflects who we are on the inside instead of who bit us.”
“So Stiles is a fox? A small fox? I guess that makes sense. He’s always been a cunning little shit,” said Jackson with a sneer. He got along better with them after he grew closer to the Pack, but he and Stiles interacted through 90% insults and 10% sneers. Habit was hard to break.
“Hey, people who turned into big freaking lizards and rampaged around town have no room to talk, okay,” said Stiles, even though he knew it was a jab under the belt.
“Okay, enough already, children,” said Stiles’ dad while shooting a glare at Jackson. He never did like Jackson, which was another reason why his dad was awesome. Turning to Derek, his dad asked, “So, what does this all mean for Stiles? You’re all werewolves, and he’s a were…werefox thing.”
Derek said immediately, meeting his dad’s eyes, “Stiles is still one of us. He just takes a different form, but he’s still Pack.”
Stiles felt warmed and comforted by the notion that he wasn’t on his own with this.
“It might be easier on him,” said Isaac absently, taking his turn with the print-out. “You said he didn’t turn with the moon, right? And he doesn’t seem to have the same anger management issues.”
“No, he didn’t. He turned when he was…afraid,” said Derek, looking a little uncomfortable.
“I panicked, you wolfed out, and there was the whole flight response going on. I wasn’t all there at the start, but when I calmed down, I could sort of think again,” said Stiles.
Scott asked, “Did you need an anchor?”
“Yeah, my dad’s heartbeat. Loud and clear.” He jerked a thumb at his dad, who smiled at him. The Stilinski men were such sops. He noticed that Scott, Jackson, Isaac and Lydia looked vaguely uncomfortable, and remembered their troubled relationships with their dads. Fuck, the Pack was full of daddy issues. He tried to defuse the situation with a joke. “Which means, dad, I’ll be tightening the rules on your bad eating habits since I need that ticker of yours beating steadily so that I don’t freak out and fox out.”
His dad groaned. “What did I do to deserve this?”
Stiles pushed to the back of his mind that when he had been panicking, he had calmed down listening to two different heartbeats, and one of them belonged to Derek.
“We’ll have to test your abilities and put together a different sort of training for you,” said Derek, ever the wet blanket.
“Dude, let’s leave that for tomorrow. Today, we celebrate the fact that I didn’t turn into an out-of-control raging wolf and eat someone. Score one for the Stiles team!”
Boyd was reading over Isaac and Erica’s shoulders, murmuring to himself, “Turning into a fennec fox seems pretty specific.”
Stiles actually had a theory about that, and it was developed from Jackson’s previously scaly condition. For all that human love saving the world made for a great storyline, Stiles thought it was a little too simplistic and that there had been a sort of logical balance at work too. Jackson had been going through a shit time, his mind in turmoil and completely anchorless since he’d cut himself off from Lydia, when Derek, terrible judge of people that he was, had bitten him. Matt’s evil murdering thoughts in the near vicinity was strong enough to turn the anchorless Jackson into a kanima, a creature that needed a master, someone else to take complete control and be his anchor for him. It was only when Jackson found his true anchor before he was killed and revived, that he let go off his kanima form.
So the state of mind might have more to do with the form taken than most people realized. Maybe Stiles always had the potential to become something smaller and agile, quick-footed and quick-witted, rather than a roaring, snarling, all fangs bared werewolf. But the fact that he had been looking at fennec foxes the day he was bitten probably cemented his potential form in place. Sure, thoughts probably only had a small influence on his shifted form, otherwise there would be much stranger werecreatures out there. Scott would have probably turned into a Pomeranian, or something, instead. But it had been enough to tip Stiles over in the scales of werefoxness. That was totally a real word now.
All this was well and good, but it was only speculation. Stiles would bring it up with Deaton some day to get his feel on it. It would be interesting to learn about other people who’d taken on rare forms.
“Alright, so this has been a great talk, but I think there’s something we’re forgetting,” announced Lydia. Stiles blinked as he realized that his mind had strayed from the topic at hand.
Derek sighed and stared at Stiles.
“What?” Stiles asked.
“Why haven’t you turned back into a full human?” asked Lydia.
“Oh. Um. Well.” Stiles mumbled. “I— I don’t really know how to?”
Derek sighed harder, like the grumpy wolf that he was.
“Okay, Yoda me up, guys,” said Stiles, crossing his arms.
# # # # # # # # # #
To Be Continued
Some visual aid:
