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Being a sheriff's kid, Stiles had seen and heard a lot about the crazy things drugs did to people. His classmates got Dymo the Drug Buster Dog and nifty D.A.R.E. keychains. He got graphic pictures of meth addicts' teeth and primary testimonies from former heroin users and a new set of nightmares to go along with them. During one of his many late night insomnia-induced Wikipedia binges, he cataloged and crossed referenced effects of cocaine, Ecstasy, and a number of other commonly abused substances. All very interesting, all very scary. And he certainly knows what it's like to be under the influence of wolfsbane (the horrible, horrible influence). The point is, Stiles feels he has a good grasp on the concept of “tripping balls,” given to him by both extensive research and limited experience.
And right now he is definitely tripping balls.
Knowing this however, doesn't make it any less panic inducing, and the logic center of his brain has been paralyzed by pure, concentrated fear. He can't stop running, he can't stop his heart from trying to break out of his chest, and he can't get away fast enough. The sounds are unnatural, things are grabbing at him from every direction, and everywhere he turns, some black mass is crawling towards him, sometimes distinctly human-shaped, sometimes something out of H. P. Lovecraft. All of it is one hundred percent terrifying. His legs are hurting, but he can't stop. His lungs are working overtime, but he can't get enough air. He feels like he's suffocating and that this can't possibly get any worse.
And then he hears something crash not far behind him, and he's stupid enough to look back. It's worse. It's more solid than the other abominations around him, more real, and it's large, and black, and has a mouth filled with nothing but teeth and blood and gore and it's calling out Stiles' name in some god-awful sound and Stiles doesn't hang around another second. He runs. He can't really see where he's going, he doesn't really know where he is, but all he knows is that he can hear that thing behind him getting closer and closer and god- why can't he run any faster?
It grabs him by the arm from behind and he pulls him back into something hard and warm. He struggles, tries to twist away, but the grip has been moved to his wrist and appendages are being wrapped around him, pinning his arms. He feels the thing turn and back up against something- a wall he thinks- and they're sinking down to the ground. He still can't break free and there are things crawling towards him, eyes filled with blood and hands stretched out and he can't breathe, damnit, and the world's getting dark around the edges of his vision-
It goes dark completely when a hand covers his eyes. He feels the thing breathing close to his ear saying his name, why does it know his name?
“Stiles! You have to calm down!” the voice pleaded, and Stiles renewed his efforts to break free. “Stiles! Please, your heart rate is out of control, you've got to calm down. Nothing's trying to hurt you.” Yeah, right, monster man, Stiles wants to say, but can't find the breath. Not until he forces air through his nose and smells leather and earth and a hint of smoke. Oh.
“Derek?” he asks, shakily. He feels the sigh of relief next to his ear.
“Yeah.” And the grip on his wrist lessens some, but the other hand stays over his eyes. Stiles has stopped struggling, but he's still trying to figure out how to breathe properly again. He can still hear things, wailing and gnashing of teeth and all that, and he doesn't want to see. He brings a hand up to grip the wrist of the hand over his eyes, keeping it in place and he pushes back into Derek's chest. Derek can kill him for it later, but right now he needed grounding. If anything, Derek's hold on him gets a little tighter.
“I got hit with the thing,” he tries, voice small and strained. He felt more than heard Derek huff out a humorless laugh.
“Yeah, you got hit with the thing.”
The thing being a nasty, hallucination inducing organic dart from a wraith. Stiles fucking hates wraiths. Wraiths can take a fucking swan dive off of Mount Everest for all he's concerned, and for that matter-
“Hush,” Derek says, and Stiles realizes he said that all out loud. “Just try to calm down. Your pulse is still too fast.” And then he just sits there, holding Stiles to him as if he has nothing better to do, like, say, rip out the wraith's throat. With his teeth.
“I think,” Stiles starts, but has to swallow. “I think you can let go of my face now.” Derek slowly removes his hand, but Stiles still keeps a tight hold of his wrist. There are still things plaguing his sight; disfigured creatures staring at him, bleeding walls and the like, but the sounds have subsided somewhat in the wake of his and Derek's breathing, and that helps. Despite the ugly things he still sees, he feels the tension leak out of his muscles and his breathing slows. Derek's heartbeat is steady against his back. If Derek's not panicking, if Derek's not reacting to those things, his reactivated logic center informs him, then they're not there. If Derek is here, Stiles is safe. Derek shifts, letting his legs stretch out a bit in front of them, and Stiles realizes he sitting in-between Derek Hale's legs and suddenly his pulse jacks up again. Goddamnit. He feels Derek move his hand up to cover his eyes again, but Stiles pulls on his wrist. “I'm fine. I'm okay.” Derek lets his hand hover for a second before letting it rest on against Stiles' stomach, and fuck everything, that isn't helping, except that it kind of is.
There's a sound to their right, and Derek's hold on him tightens and Stiles can feel the rumble of a low growl. It stops as soon as Derek scents the air. “Over here,” he calls out. Stiles takes time to actually take in where they are. It seems to be one of the warehouses they were investigating, not abandoned by the looks of full pallets. In fact, it's not a wall he and Derek are against, but a crate of god-knows-what. He hears footsteps heading towards them but refuses to give into the panic that tries to rear its ugly head.
Deaton comes into view as he rounds a stack of what looks like fertilizer. He's carrying a bag with him and he quickens his pace to them, immediately kneeling down and opening it. He looks up briefly to offer Stiles a small smile.
“Looks like you were right. Seems the wraith has taken up residence around this area,” he says as he pulls out a syringe and a bottle of clear liquid. Stiles is pushing himself back into Derek before he realizes it, but Derek just rubs his arm in reassurance.
“You're still an idiot,” the alpha directs at Stiles. Stiles finally turns his head toward Derek, trying his best to glare from the weird angle his neck is at.
“And by that, you mean I'm the best monster tracker you've ever seen in the history of ever.” And his eyes dare Derek to contradict him. Derek doesn't rise to the bait.
“You came here alone, unarmed-”
“I brought my Taser!”
“-and without backup. Seriously, why didn't you at least bring Scott?”
Because Scott was one of the first in town to get hit with the Dart of Bad Mojo, Stiles wants to say. Because even though it was more than a week ago, Scott still has trouble sleeping, wolfs out at the slightest sound, and gets this scared, far-off look in his eyes. Because Scott's not prepared, nor is he ready to go through that again. And Stiles wasn't going to make him. This shit sucked. He doesn't tell them any of that though, 'cuz it feels like a major violation of their bro-code.
“I wanted to be Batman this time,” he says instead. He feels Derek shake his head and mutter under his breath. Deaton gives him a look, and whatever, they can think he's an idiot all they want. He's still the one who found the damn thing. “Please tell me one of you found my flare-gun. Think I dropped it somewhere outside.”
“You mean when the wraith attacked you?” Derek amended testily. Stiles turned to glare at him again. Deaton reached into his bag again and pulled out the flare-gun, nodding in an affirmative.
“As creative an idea as this is, Stiles,” Deaton says, “I doubt it would have been enough to set it on fire. We have a plan B, though, don't worry.” He reaches into his Bag of Holding yet again. “In a perfect world, we'd like to stay as far out of reach of it as possible, but I don't see that being an option with the range of its darts.” He pulls out a jar of what looks like reddish brown dirt.
“Is that what I think it is?” Stiles asks. Deaton gives him a conspiratorial smile. He reaches around to his back pocket and pulls out a roll of magnesium metal strip. Stiles looks between the strip and the jar. “Thermite? No, seriously. What kind of vet are you?” Deaton actually looks amused rather than offended before his expression turns serious.
“Where was the last place you saw it before you were attacked?” he asked calmly. Stiles looks around the warehouse, trying to ignore the blood and gore that isn't really there.
“Not really sure what part of the area I'm in, but...” He tries to clear his head and remember. “I was on the East side of the lot when I showed up. I think it came out of one of those rusted excuses for a car. Think it was sort of living in them. God only knows where it'll be now.”
“It'll still be around,” Derek says, shifting his legs a bit, and thanks for that, Stiles thinks. He was trying to ignore how close they were. “The Bestiary says wraiths make nests when they find a good enough feeding ground. They don't generally pick up and find a new place to make another.”
Deaton nods. “They would rather eliminate any intruder to their nesting territory than leave it. That works in our favor. We know it'll still be around somewhere. With that in mind, we'll know where to set and ignite this,” he says, gesturing to the jar. “We'll be able to draw it out and catch it unaware if we're lucky.” He turns his attention back to the syringe and bottle. He sets about filling the syringe. “We're on the West side of the lot now. You seemed to have run quite a ways. You should be safe here for now.”
“Since you're still feeling the effects, we're gonna have to sedate you. And no, you don't get a say in this, so don't even- … Stiles?”
Stiles was listening, he was. But he couldn't tear his eyes away from the figure sitting huddled against the crate in front of them a few yards away. Her hair fell like a curtain, hiding her face. The hospital gown she wore only made her pale, thin skin stand out. The woman did nothing but sit there, knees pulled up, head bent toward the ground, hospital bracelet large around her small wrist. He could hear her breathing, though. Slow and raspy, shallow and painful. Familiar in a way that made it hard for him to breathe again and tears slip down his face. But he refused to take his eyes off of her, even when he heard Derek say his name again, confusion evident in his voice.
“Sedation, yeah, that's cool. I'm down with that. Hook me up with the good stuff, Doc.” His voice sounded light, even to his own ears. Deaton frowned, briefly glancing in the direction of the hallucination.
“This will be over when you wake up, Stiles, I promise. It'll be out of your system in a couple of hours,” he says as he moves closer to the two of them. Stiles makes no move to hold out his arm, so Derek does it for him, his other hand pulling Stiles closer to him a fraction. Stiles feels the pinch of the needle and the burn of a foreign substance in his veins. Slowly, though, his body begins to lose all tension, his thoughts get cloudy, and his vision, mercifully, begins to blur. He feels Derek lower him to the ground and put something under his head. The ground is cold, but the scent of leather and Derek is comforting enough. He manages to curl up on his side, buries his nose in his makeshift pillow and lets his eyes fall shut.
-
The Sheriff impatiently tapped the steering wheel of the police cruiser on his way to the warehouse district. It seemed a bit cliché, but things got to be cliché by being common, and really? What did he have to lose at this point?
Over the past two weeks, too many people had wound up at the hospital with similar symptoms (delusions, hallucinations, self-inflicted injuries). That or they turned up dead. Several deaths that had been ruled simple suicides began to look like something different. Far too many witnesses had claimed the individuals in question were out of their minds with fear leading up to their deaths. A man throwing himself off of a roof to escape some unknown attacker, a teenager (not much older than his son) swerving her car into the railings of a bridge and into the river.
Toxicology reports had been mostly inconclusive, but there was no doubt that these people were under the influence of something. What that substance was had become the cause of many a long night at the office for the Sheriff. The pattern of victims was also an issue, as he had yet to actually find one. Individuals suffering from these symptoms varied wildly in age, included both men and women, and, with the exception of living in Beacon Hills, very little connected all of them by location.
Distribution was yet another frustrating point. If it were airborne, by reason, a far greater portion of the population should have been affected. Many victims had been found with a puncture wound, almost too small for the eye to see, somewhere on their bodies. Immediately, the Sheriff had thought of a syringe, but both the medical examiner and the head doctor of the hospital said it was unlikely to be a needle.
Frankly, this case was pissing him off. Narcotics were always a pain in the ass, especially when none of their informants had any idea what this new drug was or who was spreading it around. Pulling up to the lot, the Sheriff allowed himself a moment to think of how much of a ridiculous waste of time this would be. He could be getting paperwork done, or even heading home early to have dinner with his son. The thought almost made him restart the vehicle when he saw it.
Stiles' Jeep sat backed up into an alley.
Goddamnit.
Taking a slow breath, the Sheriff did his best to smother the feelings of exasperation, worry, and righteous fatherly fury. Once he felt calm enough, he stepped out of the cruiser and turned on his flashlight. Any notion that this little venture would turn up nothing immediately flew out the window. Lately, where trouble was, Stiles' seemed to follow. Trouble with increasingly disturbing consequences. The Sheriff popped the strap of the holster that held in his gun. Stiles wasn't in the first warehouse he checked, nor the second.
He was in the third.
When the Sheriff entered, he didn't bother to let his eyes adjust to the dark (moonlight through dirty windows was never the best lighting), straining his ears to see if he could hear anything. There wasn't a sound.
“Stiles?” he called out. There was a weak echo, and he waited for it to subside, before slowly making his way further into the warehouse, navigating through the crates. He panned his flashlight, hand on his gun. The maze of pallets and crates eventually opened up to an empty area. He let the light scan eye level before lowering it to the floor. And there was a body, curled up next to a crate.
“Stiles!” The Sheriff rushes to his boy's side and drops the flashlight, hands framing Stiles' face. He shook him once and lightly slapped his face a couple of times. He was unresponsive and the Sheriff felt his heart sink. It was then that he noticed the familiar leather jack under his son's head. He quickly scanned the area, but saw no one. He did, however, see the empty syringe lying next to, of all things, a flare-gun.
“Unlikely, my ass,” he said, angrily. His hand flew up to his radio. “Dispatch, I need an ambulance at my location, immediately. I repeat, I need an ambulance at the industrial lot, Warehouse 7B.” He looked back down at Stiles and began to check him over, his heart doing overtime. His skin was pale and clammy, eyes red rimmed. He could see where tears streaked his face and dried. There were bruises near his eyes and on one of his wrists. The Sheriff pulled Stiles to him, grabbed the jacket and angrily threw it as far as he could. One thing was certain, he thought to himself as he held his son, waiting on the ambulance.
He was going to find Derek Hale.
-
The Bestiary, Derek thought to himself, wasn't worth shit. Not for specifics, at least. It was only good for general, abstract notions of creatures, not facts. Certainly not in this case. Never leaves its nest when under threat, it said. Would rather fight than flee, it said.
Bullshit.
He and Deaton quickly realized the wraith was nowhere in lot anymore. It had run away, probably to make itself a new nest. Certainly it was still in Beacon Hills, but where? They'd decided to try and track it for a few blocks. There were several abandoned and under used buildings and a few lower income housing residences in this part of town. The most they were able to find were a few squatters and several feral cats, every single one of which tried to claw Derek to death. The cats, not the homeless guys. An ambulance had gone through at some point, and Derek spent a quick second hoping it wasn't some poor old woman who'd slipped in her bathtub (that had happened a long time ago to an aunt of his who was human). However, they were beginning to get some ways away from the warehouses, and the thought of leaving Stiles alone and vulnerable for much longer made him nervous. He walked out into the street and Deaton joined him after exiting another building. Even the ever-Zen veterinarian was starting to look frustrated.
“Looks like we might have to wait for another opportunity,” he said.
“You mean wait for it to kill someone else,” Derek said. Deaton sighed and fixed him with a stern look, and Derek couldn't help but feel like he was being scolded for being petulant.
“I'm going to head back. Perhaps there are some other lines of inquiry I can follow,” he said, his statement vague enough to make Derek uneasy. “You should go get Stiles and take him home. He should be fine tomorrow.”
Derek nodded and they made their way back, stopping a block away for Deaton to retrieve his car. Derek watched him drive away and then started back toward warehouses. He felt anxiety pick up his pace. They couldn't find the wraith. What if it doubled back? It hadn't done anything to its victims other than throw them into fits of fear and feed off of it. Stiles was unconscious. Surely it wouldn't bother with someone it couldn't feed off of, right? Again, the Bestiary didn't say whether or not wraiths were vindictive creatures. Would it try to harm Stiles even if it couldn't feed off of him? Would it-
Derek skid to a stop in front of the police cruiser parked in front of the lot.
“Shit,” he cursed under his breath. He put his hand on the hood of the vehicle. It wasn't warm. “Shit.”
He ran toward the warehouse he and Deaton left Stiles. Rushing in, he weaved between the pallets and crates. When he got to the open area, he paused. Stiles wasn't there. Stiles wasn't there and his jacket was about tossed quite some feet away. He started toward it when suddenly his left knee gave out.
Having bullet tear through it will do that.
Derek collapsed, letting out a pained shout. He ground his fists into the concrete and tried to catch his breath.
“Son of a bitch,” he said through clenched teeth, trying to keep himself from shifting at the sound of footsteps approaching him. Already knowing whose footsteps they were, he took a deep, steady breath as his knee started to heal itself. Looking up, he only just managed not to flinch at the stone-cold face of Sheriff Stilinski. The gun pointed at his head didn't help.
“Get up, Derek,” the Sheriff said, voice distressingly calm. Derek nodded slowly, lifting an open hand.
“Yeah, okay.” He took a shaky breath and made a show of standing, favoring his right knee. “Look, I think there might be some misunderstanding happening he-” The Sheriff shot his other knee out from under him. The sound of the shot hurt his ears almost as much as the bullet through his good knee. Derek couldn't help the near howl that ripped out of his mouth, and he fought against his enraged wolf that urged him to take out the man's throat for this. Derek the Alpha was close to killing him.
Derek the Man was praying he wouldn't be arrested by him again.
“What did you give my son, Derek?” the Sheriff asked as Derek pressed his head into the concrete.
“I didn't- I didn't give anything to him,” he tried. The syringe from earlier was shoved into his face when he chances a glance up.
“I'm only going to ask you one more time,” the Sheriff said, tone losing sense of tranquility it had before. “What the hell did you give, Stiles? To those other people? Hm?” Derek could see his grip tighten on the gun.
“I didn't- I sedated him!” And, no, Derek thinks to himself, that was probably even worse than admitting to giving Stiles some weird hallucinogen. The Sheriff's expression is one of shock at first, before twisting into something of absolute fury. The gun is aimed at his face again.
“You did what?”
“No no no, that didn't come out right!”
“What the hell did you do to him?!”
“He was panicking!” And goddamnit, Derek wanted to punch himself. “No no! That's not-” He keeps his hands up and tries to string his words together in a way that won't get him shot by an angry father. He's coming up blank, though, and he's seconds away from getting a bullet through his eye when he sees it. It's lurking in the rafters behind the Sheriff's head, gaunt, decaying face stretched wide in a hungry smile. Its tongue lulls out and something raises from the back of its throat; the thing it shoots the tiny darts from, Derek realizes.
He's been staring long enough that the Sheriff turns his head as if to see what Derek sees, and Derek takes the opportunity to tackle him to the ground the moment the wraith attacks. He hears the dart fly passed them, but the Sheriff tries to pistol whip him and Derek has to grip the gun, pull it out of the man's grasp and toss it somewhere among the maze of crates. He pushes back and away, claws out and fangs elongated, scanning the rafters again.
“Holy-” he hears the Sheriff start. But he spots the wraith again, moving through the metal beams toward an open window, and he's taking off after it. His knees are protesting, still not fully healed yet, but he ignores them as he jumps from pallet to pallet, trying to get high enough to reach the rafters. He lets out a savage sound as he lounges toward the wraith, claws catching one of its legs. It shrieks, and it’s so impossibly shrill that Derek almost lets go. He swears his eardrums have burst. It tries to shake him off furiously, and he's dangling precariously enough that he digs his claws in further. He tries to rip it off of the beam, but so far it’s clinging to it fairly well. Derek begins to pull himself up, hoping to overpower it once he's on its level.
That's when a streak of light shoots up and catches the wraith in the side.
Shrieking again, it's forced off the beam and sent falling- Derek along with it. He hits several crates on the way down, and the air is knocked out of him when he finally hits the ground. From his position, though, he can see the wraith writhing as the sparks catch on the dusty rags that cover its body and ignite into an impressive fire. It curls in on itself as its shrieks begin to fade. Finally, it stops moving all together. Derek stares at it for a moment longer before looking behind him. The Sheriff is standing there, flare-gun in his hands and eyes wide.
Derek wonders how much Stiles is going to hate him for this.
-
“I'm never talking to you again, dude,” Stiles tells him. Derek's sitting in the chair next to his hospital bed, picking at the bloody holes in his jeans.
“Is that a promise?” he says, his mouth tugging up slightly.
“I hope you get Tetanus. And that it stays.”
“Guess not.”
“Seriously, though, dude? How do you fail this much? It's not even Friday,” Stiles says, as if he's making any kind of sense. Derek just stares at him blankly.
“It was either werewolves and wraiths or your father thinking I'm some sort of drug dealing rapist. I don't want your father, the sheriff, thinking that I'm a drug dealing rapist.”
Stiles is quiet for a little while, picking at the IV in his hand. Deaton was right, Stiles is fine. Exhausted, yes, still flinching at movement in his peripheral vision on occasion, but fine. If Derek was asked to give one word to describe Stiles, it'd be resilient. If he were asked to give two, they'd be resilient and unending. Unendingly annoying, unending in his rambling, unending in his nervous energy, unending in his loyalty, in his courage, and his resourcefulness. Just... unending. Derek watches Stiles fiddle with the remote for the bed.
“This is gonna change a lot, you know,” Stiles eventually says. Derek sighs deeply and nods.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Do you realize the position you've put me in, wolfman? How much I'm gonna have to explain?”
“I don't envy you,” Derek says honestly. Stiles gives him a curious look and turns to the open door where his father is talking to Scott's mom. Stiles turns back to Derek.
“Are you- Oh my god. Does my dad scare you?” A slow, amused smile stretches across the teenager's face. Derek sneers at him before giving a quick glance through the door. The Sheriff is staring him down, a frown cutting deep in his face, and Derek has to stop himself from shrinking back into the chair and averting his gaze. Instead he nods to the Sheriff and turns his attention back to Stiles.
“Your dad terrifies me.”
Stiles laughs, so hard that he clutches his stomach and his head falls back. Derek can't help but smile a bit, and when he looks back toward the Sheriff, the man is watching his son with such open fondness that Derek has to look away this time. Stiles is wiping tears away from his eyes, laughter beginning to subside.
“That's nothing,” Stiles says, smirking. “Wait until I tell him about all the times you would sneak into my room in the middle of the night through my window.” Derek's blood runs cold.
“For research!”
“Think he'll let me get that far before grabbing his shotgun?”
Derek's hands rub at the phantom ache in his knees.
Shit.