Chapter Text
If anyone had told Stiles a year ago that he'd be where he currently was, doing what he was currently doing, for the reason he was currently doing it, he'd have laughed in their face and pointed them in the direction of Eichen House. Actually, if anyone had told him werewolves were real a year ago, he'd probably have done the same thing, so that just goes to show how open-minded he'd become. So open-minded that it's possible his mind had fallen out and gotten lost in the process. Which could explain why he was currently sitting cross-legged on a yoga mat in the middle of a cave, listening to a 75 year old woman with dreadlocks chanting softly in a foreign language while waving an incense stick in the air that smelled like feet and lavender.
But if anyone knew the meaning of the phrase "desperate times call for desperate measures", it was Stiles.
He gave his head a small shake to try to re-focus on clearing his mind, eyes still shut, back straight with his hands resting on his knees. He tried to ignore the way his foot had gone to sleep and the drop of cave water that had just landed on his shoulder. At least, he assumed it was cave water. Maybe he should crack an eye open just to be sure…
"Close your eyes!" The old woman interrupted her chanting to snap at him as soon as his eye started peeking. The alarming thing was that, in the small glimpse he'd managed, he'd seen she was currently facing the cave wall away from him. Crazy psychic voodoo lady. Although Stiles figured that at least meant she had some sort of supernatural/psychic-type abilities and wasn't just a crazy, homeless cavewoman, which was somewhat of a relief.
He'd been advised to come see her by an emissary he'd found online. Stiles had done so much supernatural researching by now that he was even a member of a secret online community of people and supernatural creatures alike that shared information and helped each other out with all the ridiculous problems they seemed to constantly be facing. Stiles still wasn't sure if it was comforting knowing there were other people out there like him dealing with all the supernatural secrets in the world, or if it was downright depressing and terrifying hearing other people describing incredibly terrible creatures he'd never even heard of yet. Still, he'd found a friend in a young emissary named Sam who lived with a pack of werewolves in Washington and they often stayed up late at night chatting about all sorts of things. They shared an interest in online gaming too, so when they weren't talking about real monsters, they were teaming up to battle the virtual kind. It hadn't taken very long before Stiles had told Sam about his friends, his pack, his life. And when he'd asked Sam for his advice on a particularly delicate situation Stiles had that he couldn't have asked anyone else in his life, Sam had understood and tried to help him by sending him out into the middle of nowhere to seek the help of this old hippy witch.
And that was why Stiles found himself in the stupid leaky cave right then. In fact, it was only just dawning on him now that no one else other than Sam even knew he was there right now. And no one else in his life even knew that Sam existed. Not even Scott. So if this crazy woman decided she'd had enough of his fidgeting and lack of meditation-skills and decided to kill him, he's pretty sure no one would ever find his body out here. Great, and now his brain had another thing to start worrying about.
But the main worry Stiles had right then was the reason he was even doing this in the first place and it trumped all the other worries. You see, it all started with a dream. A stupid dream that Stiles was so mad at his subconscious for. Before he'd had the dream, Stiles had just been going about his life, minding his own business, saving his friends from supernatural monsters, occasionally getting thrown around like a werewolf's chew-toy because he was the only human in a pack of teenagers that didn't know their own strength, doing all the hard leg-work and tedious research on magical creatures that no one ever seemed to thank him for and generally just being under-appreciated – you know, the usual. And part of his being under-appreciated as the self-appointed mastermind behind his pack's success meant that Scott was constantly ditching him for Allison and Isaac, Lydia was still pretending he didn't exist until she needed something, Jackson insisted on being extra brutal in Lacrosse just for shits and giggles, and Derek liked to shove him up against hard surfaces to regularly show him how much he didn't care for Stiles' hilarious sense of humor and remind him just how much of a fragile and human liability he was. But even through all of that, Stiles didn't really even mind. They were his friends, his pack, and saving and helping each other is what they did. The real trouble only started when his subconscious decided to have a sexy dream…
About Derek.
Yep, that's right. All that being shoved into lockers and walls and car doors suddenly wasn't a sign of aggression or annoyance anymore. According to his dream, it was a sign of want. Instead of fisting his shirt in his hand, glaring at growling at Stiles until Derek felt the younger boy was sufficiently scared of him (like he did in real life), dream-Derek pushed him up against something and then followed it up with his own body, pressing his hard muscles against Stiles until he whimpered, then grazing his teeth across his neck and sucking at the hollow of his throat. It was hot. Stiles had woken up so flustered and Little Stiles was more alert than he'd ever been. Stiles had tried to shake it off as just being a crazy reaction to an even crazier dream, that it didn't mean anything. But it hadn't stopped there. There had been other dreams after that, each one just as sexy and intense, until Stiles found himself picturing Derek when he was awake and in the shower. And eventually he'd stopped being alarmed about it and had to admit defeat by accepting that he was attracted to Derek. He knew it would never actually go anywhere in real life and it wasn't that he had feelings for the big, bad wolf - it was just pure and simple sexual desire on account of Derek was smokin' hot. And Stiles could handle that, he thought.
It wasn't until a few days later, when Scott and Stiles were in Economics, their last class of the day, and Scott nudged his shoulder to ask if he wanted to stop by Derek's with him after school for training. Stiles had shrugged his shoulder in response, ignoring the sudden flutter he felt at hearing Derek's name and pretending he was concentrating on what Finstock was trying to teach them. But Scott hadn't ignored the sudden increase in his heartbeat. Stiles saw this best friend frown in confusion and the realization hit him. Werewolves can hear heartbeats. Werewolves can tell when you're lying. Werewolves can sense arousal and attraction. Wanting to sex Derek up could never be a simple fantasy that would only stay in Stiles' brain for no one else to ever know about. He wanted to slap his forehead for being so dense. After that, it was all Stiles could do to get the hell out of that school as soon as the bell went, going straight home to lock his bedroom window against any potential wolfy-visitors. He's not proud to admit that he panicked more than slightly when he thought about what would happen if Derek discovered Stiles had sexy thoughts about him. You would think that the threat of a scary alpha werewolf tearing you to shreds for thinking sexy thoughts about him when you were supposed to be feeling scared and submissive would be enough to make you do just that – feel scared and submissive – but apparently not. And Stiles didn't want to risk that. So he'd called and drilled Scott for information on just how much of ones emotions could be sniffed out by werewolves, using hypothetical questions and typical distraction techniques when Scott got too inquisitive about why Stiles was interrogating him on such matters. And when Scott had confirmed his suspicions that he was well and truly screwed (and not by Derek in the literal sense, unfortunately), he had turned to Sam on a quest to find some way of controlling one's emotional scents in front of beings that could otherwise detect them.
So now he was here. In this stupid, stinky cave. Trying to meditate so this whack-a-doodle in front of him could teach him how to "control his aura". But the restlessness was getting too much now. He was never going to "access the calm state of relaxation and meditation" even if he stayed here all day. And he had homework to do and lunch to eat, so that just wasn't going to happen.
"This isn't working," he stated flatly, not even caring when the old witch glared at him as he opened his eyes and stretched out his legs in front of him, willing the pins & needles in his foot to go away.
"Do you always give up so eagerly?" She spat at him, as she set the incense stick down in a weird holder shaped like a skunk (which Stiles felt was actually quite fitting).
"I've been here for ages!" Stiles whined. "I'm just not a meditation kind of guy. Isn't there something else we can try? Some sort of magic pill you could give me? Or a spell you could put on me?"
"I am not a witch," she told him, face completely unamused. (Huh… Stiles had just assumed she was.) "And there is no cheater's way to controlling your inner emotions and state of self." Stiles slumped slightly. "The only way to learn is to practice."
"I can't practice sitting still for longer than 2 minutes before my ADHD kicks in, even with my medication," he tells her honestly. Plus, he really didn't have the time to practice even if he wanted to. His predicament was rather time sensitive. There was only so long he would be able to dodge and avoid seeing a certain sour wolf before he'd inevitably have to face him. And he'd rather not do that with a hard-on.
"You have an attention disorder?" She asked, her wrinkled face getting even wrinklier as she frowned at him. He nodded. "Well then no wonder this isn't working! Even I don't have the patience or time to teach someone like you," she sighed exasperatedly and Stiles tried not to be offended. "OK fine, we can try something else."
Stiles brightened at that, but then frowned. "You just said there were no other options."
"I lied. You kids are always so quick to jump to the easy, temporary solutions. No one cares enough to try harder anymore," she looked away almost wistfully and Stiles had to pinch the bridge of his nose to contain his frustrations as he realized he'd been sitting on a cold, hard cave floor with a wet patch of dirty cave-water forming on his shoulder and a disgusting fog tickling the inside of his nose for the last two hours for absolutely no reason.
"I can give you an ointment," she continued, turning to rummage in an old brass chest in the corner, "but it has its limitations. If you'd been able to meditate and learn to control your own heartbeat and emotional strings, you would have had complete control over yourself and how much of yourself you let others see. But in your case, I suppose this will have to do."
Stiles watched as she emerged from the chest with a small white tube, holding it up against the stream of light coming in through the small cave opening, inspecting it closely. Stiles slowly stood up, stretching his muscles out now that his foot had come back to life.
"What do I do with it?" he asked.
"You only need a pea-sized amount," she stressed, eyes boring into his own to make sure he was listening carefully. "Rub it on the base of your neck in a clockwise motion. Take note of the time that you put it on your skin, as the effects will only last three hours." She placed the tube in his hand and turned to walk away as if dismissing him. But Stiles had so many more questions.
"What will it do? And what happens after 3 hours?"
She turned back to him with an exasperated eye-roll. "What is it with your generation and the constant questions, always needing the specifics. There's nothing wrong with a little mystery in these sorts of things."
"Uh… I strongly disagree. I have more than enough mystery in my life right now thanks. I need to know specifics. I live for the specifics." Stiles briefly wondered if this woman was somehow related to Deaton. Or if most supernatural experts were just purposefully vague for their own personal kicks.
She grumbled under her breath a bit as she tidied the rest of her things back into the chest, before answering. "It will mask your aura," she told him, then huffed when he just raised his eyebrows at her in a way that clearly said he was waiting for more. "No supernatural being in your vicinity will be able to hear your heartbeat or smell your scent. Not the scent of your skin, or the scent of your emotions. For three hours. After the three hours, the effects will begin to wear off, with your most prominent scents and emotions being the first to start showing again. If you want it to last longer than that, you will have to re-apply. But remember, small amount in a clockwise direction."
Stiles nodded slowly, gripping the tube tightly in his hand. He thanked the woman because, even though this wasn't the most ideal solution to his problems and his mind was already whirring with how he was going to make this work, he was still grateful that it was much better than the alternative of no solution to his problems. He turned to leave before realizing the woman didn't ask for any sort of payment for this, so he turned back around to ask what the catch was, but was startled to find her gone. The chest and the yoga mat and her other belongings were all still there, but the old lady had vanished. So he shrugged and got the heck out of that creepy cave as fast as he could.