Archive of Our Own

It was dark, and the lacrosse field was slick with rain. Bright lights glared down on the field, cutting through the wet and heavy darkness. The grass was perfect, a saturated green, and untouched by the violence of teenage athletes. It was the game of the season, and Beacon Hills was about to put lacrosse on the map. They were playing up against their rivals, Devenford Prep. Across the field, their captain, Brett Talbot stood, smirking. He was tall and rectangular, and self-assured in his own skill, and that of his team. They were good, really good. They had money, the money to afford cooler jerseys and a coach that was sober, and they were better off for it. 

Scott McCall watched Brett Talbot carefully. He had a good team, too. He knew he did. To his left was his best friend and worst teammate, Stiles Stiliniski. He glanced at Scott nervously, anxious as he always was, on and off the field. He was the team’s greatest weakness, both for his terrible playing ability, overcompensation, and lack of werewolf ability. Because the truth about the Beacon Heels High team, most of them were not human, and those that were didn’t get screentime – save, of course, for Stiles and jersey 68, Nolan Holloway. Nolan wasn’t supernatural, but he was still a freak. Best of the team was Liam Dunbar, werewolf and itty-bitty queen, a lacrosse prodigy at age twelve. He flexed and cracked his thick neck from where he stood beside Scott. He looked out across the field, his hands working apprehensively on his lacrosse stick. He hated Devenford Prep, and he hated Brett Talbot even more. It was important to him, above anyone else, to win this game. He had to make Brett regret narcing on him for keying the coach’s car last year, back when Liam was good enough to play for Devenford Prep, and before coming to Beacon Hills to humiliate Scott at the season’s tryouts and getting his due punishment – a broken ankle and a dog-bit wrist.

Scott sent him a long look, rain dripping from his helmet. “Deep breath, Liam. It’s just a game, it’s not the end of the world.” 

This was the most hypocritical bullshit Liam had ever heard. But Scott was the alpha, and there was no questioning his authority. Liam turned the lacrosse stick over in his hands again, breathing deeply, and trying not to get inflamed by Brett’s expensive cologne drifting across the field. 

Stiles rolled his shoulders. “I don’t know, Scott,” he muttered. “The kid might be onto something. It feels different this game, you know, like the air feels heavy.” 

“Don’t challenge me,” Scott growled. “I have alpha senses. You don’t.” 

Stiles whimpered and fell back into line. 

Liam thought it was brave of Stiles to try anyway. 

“Okay,” Scott said, lifting his lacrosse stick. “Let’s do this.” 

On the sidelines, Coach blew his whistle. His hand trembled with age and alcoholism. All of his hair was on end. His eyes looked empty but also full of resentment. But also, like, like, what's the word? He looked shellshocked, like all the time. He also had a perfectly oval face, like so perfect it was almost awful, but also this great crown of hair that had no official hairline. His face only took up a third of his head, and that’s not normal. At least, I’m pretty sure. Spit sprayed through the whistle. “This is war!” he cried out, his voice like gravel falling out of a broken truck onto sheet metal. “Devenford Prep can eat my-” A whistle censored him and made the rating TV-14. 

A dark roll of thunder ripped through the field as the two teams barreled towards each other. It had been raining for five days, and the lacrosse field was sunken and waterlogged. The players moved slow and clumsy across the slick grass, their cleats getting dragged down by mud and overall poor playing ability. They slammed into each other, red jerseys crashing into the green of Devenford Prep. Bodies collided, sticks crossed, one player pushing hard against the other. It was war, and it was bloody. No one was playing fair, especially not the weather. 

The hard white lacrosse ball split through the air, and a beast-gang of sixty boys hurtled after it. The ball landed in Scott’s net – of course it did, he was the alpha, and even better, the captain – and he took off across the field. Mud spluttered up his hairy hispanic calves, and he kept running, unfazed by the Devenford Prep players closing in on him. He threw the ball to Isaac Lahey (werewolf), who threw it to Stiles Stilinski, who tripped on it and pitched forward. Brett slipped in with his lacrosse stick, snatched up the ball, and sent it ripping into the Beacon Hill’s goal. A deafening roar burst from the audience, but the sound was dampened by the storm. Rain lashed violently against the stadium and the playing field, and tore its way through the players’ lacrosse padding. 

The ball was thrown to Liam, and he did a flip of joy. He scored three goals, back to back. Right when he was about to make his fourth, a body of pure muscle and Buddhist serenity bowled into him. Brett Talbot. He skidded away from Liam, having knocked him wildly off balance. Liam turned towards Brett, his knuckles turning white around his lacrosse stick. 

“Brett,” he spat, like a tiny whiny boy. “You dumb truck.” 

Brett laughed. “What are you getting all riled up for, IED? Rumor has it that you’ve gone and gotten yourself tamed.”

Liam stepped forward, his anger getting the better of him. He jutted his helmet against Brett’s. “Oh, yeah? Says who?”

“Please,” Brett scoffed through the guard of his helmet. “Everyone knows how you like to be leashed and muzzled every night.” 

Liam clenched his jaw. 

Scott appeared beside them. He put his hand on Liam’s shoulder, to steady him, but it didn’t work. Everyone knew it was him who had started that rumor. 

Liam shoved his hand off. A nervous energy picked up between the lacrosse players, sending an electricity through the wet grass and into the heavy, waterlogged air. The rain had gotten worse, blurring the images of the players and the audience. The storm manipulated the big lights casting across the field, turning everything a watery green. 

Liam did not look away, nor did he let up on the force of his helmet against Brett’s. Brett’s eyes were yellow, and so were Liam’s. Then Scott’s flashed red. 

A long, jabbing whistle pushed across the field, through the heavy flow of rain. Coach was yelling foul! followed by a lot of curse words that were drowned out by the storm to keep the rating. He was shouting at the boys to let go of their egos, and redirect their anger to the game, when suddenly his words were stomped out, replaced by a long, agonized shriek. 

Liam and Brett broke eye contact, both of their gazes snapping to where Coach Bobby Finstock was getting ripped apart by an alligator. 

The bleachers erupted in a frantic howling (and not in the wolfish way). The alligator swiveled away from what was left of Coach, laying in seven pieces (three missing) by the benches, and it charged toward the bleachers, its tail thrashing wildly. It lunged up, grabbing Malia Tate by her arm, and swallowing her in two stuttering gulps. Jerking to the left, it took hold of Ashtina Martin. She shrieked shrilly and accusatorily. The alligator flipped its head back, and let Mrs. Martin, the principal, fall down its gullet. All around, the field erupted in chaos. People scrambled away from the slaughter, slipping in the gushing blood and tripping on dismembered arms. 

Most of the lacrosse team ran away, tumbling over themselves to get to the school, the road, anywhere, but Scott and his pack never ran. 

Stiles stumbled forward, clumsy on the wet grass, to stand beside his best friend Scott. “Okay,” he said, scrambling to take off his helmet. “Next time I say that ‘the air feels heavy,’ take that as an all encompassing omen of doom.”

Liam slid out a sly foot to kick Stiles. He looked at him wide-eyed, and shook his head, and whispered, “Don’t taunt him.” His eyes were as big as moons. 

Scott swallowed his mouth guard, and wagged his tail. “Good boy,” he said to Liam. “NOw let’s go save people.” 

They started to move forward, but Stiles grabbed Scott’s shoulder. He turned Scott to look at him, his eyes large and sad and cow-like. “Scott,” he said, his voice barely audible over the storm and the screaming and the destruction. “I have to find Lydia. She’s not here, she had – she’s inside – she had to retake the test, remember – Scott, I have to find her. I have to make sure she’s okay.”  

Scott looked to where Liam and Isaac were already racing into the chaos. His eyes were red and his teeth were out. “It’s not just about one person, Stiles. We need to save everyone.”

“No,” Stiles said, holding onto Scott’s jersey. “It’s not – for me, it's not about everyone. It’s her, Scott. It’s Lydia.”

Up ahead, in the fray, Liam stumbled to a halt, and glanced back to where Stiles had stopped Scott. He watched apprehensively, beginning to tremble. 

“Alright,” Scott said. “Find her.” 

A relieved smile dared to surface on Stiles’ face, and he gave Scott a little appreciative kiss on the cheek before tumbling away on the grass. 

Scott turned back toward the chaos, and charged forward. The gator had torn apart three children, and Malia’s beautiful, tan and toned leg was twitching haphazardly on the ground. It was the only good part of her, and it was all that was left. The gator whipped around aggressively, its long, grisly mouth parted in a smile, and its tail striking out, knocking people to the ground and shattering bone. 

Scott leapt forward, his paws splashing in a thin skein of water that was surrounding the bleachers. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Stiles was desperate looking for Lydia. She was inside. She was inside and she was safe, and she was retaking a test that she had missed because of him, and another one of his stupid plans, and she had no idea what was going on. 

People were staggering all around him, pushing and shoving in their panic. They were bloody and pale, and washed out from the torrential downpour erupting from the black sky. 

None of them were Lydia. He knew that, but he kept looking for her in the dozens of terrified faces. Just in case she came outside, only for a minute, just to watch the end of the game. But he didn’t see her. 

The crowd fought their way toward the high school and the parking lot, some clambering into their shining, brilliant, dazzling, wonderful, indestructible (and very reliable) toyotas (and affordable!), and others scrambling into the high school – into the classrooms and hallways. Stiles was pushed along with them. He fell through the open door of the school, and fought his way through the hallway towards the advanced chemistry classroom where Lydia would be. Safe. His dark, disheveled hair fell in his eyes, and his lacrosse gear felt heavy and burdensome with the weight of the rainwater. The people gathered in the hallway, trembling and dripping with water and blood and tears. Stiles stripped himself away from their hordes, going down some eastern hallway (where the Buddhist class is taught (for liberals)). He called Lydia’s name as he went, his voice echoing through the cold, white light of the corridor. His voice sounded small and desperate, shelling endlessly down the passage. She didn’t answer him, or stick her head out of any doorway to see who was calling, and as he stumbled into the classroom for advanced chemistry, she wasn’t sitting at her desk. She wasn’t in the room at all. Her test was there at her desk, and her pencil, but Lydia was gone.

Stiles felt something constrict in his chest. It wasn't an anaconda though, it was worry. He dropped his helmet and stumbled toward her empty desk, his cleats slipping against the water pooling around his feet. His fingers gripped the corners of the desk.

Something was wrong. Something was wrong, and Lydia knew it. First of all, she was definitely getting an ‘F’ on this bubble test. The exam was entirely blank, save for the middle of the page where, on the 68th line, she had begun to scribble out the entire row, and again, and again, and so on, until there was a big, black block of dark matter. She had pushed so hard against the test, that there were holes where the bubbles used to be and dark dots where the pencil was further driven into the wood underneath.

Water slid out from his hair, and down the slope of his nose. It fell to the paper, right in the middle of the strange pattern. It looked familiar. Of course it looked familiar. It was Lydia.

The rainwater collected on the page, and bled through, dragging the murky gray of the graphite with it through the holes on the page and onto the table beneath. Stiles knew then, the message that Lydia had left for him. 

He turned out of the room, and started running towards the boy’s locker room. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Outside, it was chaos. People were running in all directions, slipping in the grass, in the slick, watery mud and all of the blood. The gator was flipping in all directions. It had a woman’s ankle locked in its jaws, and it had turned its head so sharply, that all of her flesh and bone and tendon snapped clean away from itself. She laid in the grass, her body sliding with ease through the wetness of the earth, her eyes rolling back and a shallow last breath cleaving its way out of her throat as she was dragged. 

Scott let out a mighty roar, and leapt on the gator’s back. His claws dug into the gator’s leathery hide, but it was too tough, sturdy, powerful, and indestructible (just like your brand new Toyota!). 

Liam circled the beast, his claws out and his eyes glowing. He growled, his broad chest heaving. He was still holding his lacrosse stick. In a swift motion, he lunged forward and hit the monstrous reptile with the head of the shaft. The alligator didn’t even notice. It swung around, and its tail collided with Liam’s short and sturdy legs, and he rolled aside in a quick tumble. The gator caught him in his sight, and it lunged, forgetting the woman in the grass. 

But before it could sink its teeth into Liam’s side, Brett was there, holding his lacrosse stick out. The alligator bit down hard, expecting to find soft, supple boy flesh, but instead being met with the hard reality of lacrosse. The stick pried its jaws apart, and the gator shook its head wildly, a horrible growl retching itself from the animal's throat. Brett’s shoulders heaved with a deep breath. He turned toward Liam, and extended his hand. Liam hesitated for a moment, his sharp canine teeth pushing against his bottom lip. 

“Truce?” Brett offered, a slight smile playing on his mouth. “At the end of the day, we’re all on the same team, right?” 

Behind him, his lacrosse stick fractured, folding in half in the alligator’s mouth. Plastic shrapnel flew from the damage, implanting itself in the thick meat of Liam’s thigh. He hissed sharply, pain spiking through his leg and into his stomach. Brett grabbed the back of Liam’s jersey and yanked him through the field right as the alligator began to stomp forward, plastic shards protruding from its mouth in all directions. Scott unlatched his claws from its hide, and rolled down its back, landing clumsily in the slippery grass. 

The alligator was angry now, its mouth bleeding, and its feet flattening the plastic into the earth. It stomped forward, sliding easily toward Brett, hauling Liam slowly through the blood-dark grass. 

Liam’s jaw was tight, and his leg was bleeding profusely, and Brett was slipping in the mud, his cleats useless against the soft pulp of the earth. The rain was mixing with Liam’s blood, his hair was in his eyes. He could hear Brett grunting in effort above him, and could hear the low growl of the alligator as it got closer. And then he could hear Scott yelling at someone to help. 

On the other end of the gator, Isaac Lahey had taken hold of the alligator’s tail, joining force with Scott. They pulled sharply, their werewolf strength unifying, just enough to slide the alligator back, away from their friend and teammate. Its thick body cleaved through the lacrosse field, its claws pulling up clumps of grass. It writhed wildly. There was a thin flush of water building on the ground, and it made the gator swift and silent on land, and it swung towards Scott and Isaac with an undefeatable strength. Scott rolled out of the way, but Isaac was stubborn, steadfast (synonym for toyota), and releasing a horrible roar, his sideburns growing rapidly. 

Scott shouted out his name, “Isaaaaac!” and his alpha voice reverberated through the air, sending shock currents into Isaac’s ears. Isaac obeyed and rolled away from the gator’s devouring jaws. 

“It’s no use,” Scott yelled through the rain. “Get everyone into the school! We’ll barricade the doors! We have to save everybody!” 

Liam had just torn the plastic from his thigh, and Brett was helping him to his feet. Isaac skated around the alligator, coming to help lift Liam, despite his whining and bitching that he was fine. 

“Go!” Scott said, his voice pitching with the command. He was standing in front of the alligator, holding its attention so the others could escape. Except that the alligator was tired of him. It found him boring. It swung around, its small, yellow eyes fixating not on Scott, or Liam, or Brett, or Isaac, but rather on another lacrosse player, feeble and trembling, his eyes flicking in every direction at once. 

Nolan Holloway had been standing on the sidelines, too afraid to do anything other than watch. He wasn’t brave, and he wasn’t a wolf, or any other supernatural being. He had been a freak his whole life, but never one that mattered to Jeff Davis. And now he was going to pay the price. The gator shot forward, not biting, not yet, but rather knocking Nolan to the ground with its shoulder. His small, delicate body hit the earth, mud and blood splattering up the side of his face. He let out a small sob, and curled into himself as the beast thrusted over him. He was crying, his tears cutting trails through the mud on his freckled cheeks. 

Scott started to stumble forward, but it was too late. The alligator’s jaws open, just slightly as it breathed in Nolan’s scent. Red, blood-congealed saliva drips onto Nolan’s nose right before the jaws open wider, and the gator bites down, hard, on Nolan’s shoulder. He shrieks in pain, his voice mingling densely with the crack of his scapula. 

The gator begins to shake, but before it can take Nolan’s arm clean off, Brett slides through the rain, the plastic shrapnel yanked from Liam’s leg, and held in his hand. He drives it deep into the alligator’s hungry yellow eye. It recoils, its jaws loosening on Nolan’s shoulder. Liam dives in, grabbing Nolan and hoisting him up with Isaac’s help. They stumble towards the high school, slipping and sliding on the loose grass. 

Behind them, Scott roars defiantly, and is then telling them to run! 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Water fell down from the shower, onto her neck and shoulders. It darkened her hair, and ran her mascara, but she didn’t care. She didn’t even notice. She stood there, in the locker room, under the cold shower, fully dressed and completely still, her eyes wide open. Water ran down through the holes in the drain under her feet. 

Stiles watched her for a moment, only a slight, shocked moment, as his mind worked around the relief of finding her and the concern of what she was doing.

“Lydia,” he said softly, and as the reality set in, he said her name again, harder, louder, and with a broken edge to it. He stepped forward, gathering her up in his arms, and shutting off the water. It was cold as ice, and Lydia’s skin felt like marble under his hands. The moment the water was off, her body spasmed and melted into his, as if she had been suspended under the shower head like a halo. 

He pulled her off to the side, out of the shower and the cold, wet tile. He sank to the ground with her, one hand against her ribs and the other working clumsily to brush her hair from her face. Her eyelashes fluttered, her eyes moving wildly under closed lids. 

Stiles murmured her name again, saying, “It’s alright, I’ve got you.” 

Her skin was so cold, and she was beginning to tremble. Stiles knew his cold lacrosse gear wasn’t helping, and that with all of the armour, she wouldn’t even be able to feel the humanity underneath it all. But he couldn’t let her go. For a moment, for a terrible, awful moment he thought she was gone, that the alligator had traipsed through the school before coming out to interrupt the game. That it was his fault, that he had made her venture out into the woods with him rather than taking that stupid chemistry test, and that she might have been dead because of it. Torn apart and dismembered by cold, razored jaws of some horrible reptile. She would have screamed, and they would have all heard it, he would have heard it, even if no one else did, but it wouldn’t have mattered. There would have been nothing he could do. 

But she was here. She was alive. She was freezing cold, and ripped through – not with jaws, but with some horrible vision – but she was still alive, and she was in his arms, where he knew she was safe. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, soft and light, when he knew she wouldn’t remember it. 

But then she stirred, and that feeling of life in her was better than anything else. Her eyes opened, just slightly, her gentle eyes adjusting to the low light of the locker room. “Stiles?” she murmured. Her voice sounded strained. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it’s me.” 

Her hand twisted in his jersey. “Where are we?” 

He tried to tell her as she pushed herself up to sit on her own. She was still trembling, and her makeup was smeared around her eyes. He reached behind his head, and pulled down a towel from some kid’s locker. He wrapped it around her shoulders, and rubbed her arms, attempting to get some semblance of warmth back into her.

“What was it?” he asked. “What did you see?” 

A pause. Then, “Teeth.”

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

They tripped out into the hallway, Lydia wrapped up in one of Stiles’ old flannels from his locker, and Stiles already feeling warmer, having traded in his filthy lacrosse gear for a white t-shirt balled up at the bottom of his locker. He helped guide Lydia through the hallway, her eyes distant and unfocused. Water still clung to her eyelashes, and the hazel of her eyes seemed dark, murky, like something was lurking just beneath the surface. She was padding her hair dry with the towel. 

“An alligator?” she repeated. Her voice was small, and detached from her mouth and mind. 

“Yes, Lydia,” Stiles said impatiently. She wasn’t listening. She needed to listen. “There was a four hundred pound, man-eating, bone snapping, and relentlessly aggressive reptile on the lacrosse field, and let me tell you, it was playing real dirty. I mean, it ate Coach. And your mom.” 

“Coach?” 

“Yeah, and probably everyone else too. Look, they were all out there – everyone. And I mean, Scott is probably fine, but Liam? He’s bite-sized!” 

Lydia didn’t say anything, and Stiles could feel the worry and anxiety and panic stretching thick under his skin. He stopped, and grabbed her shoulders. “Lydia. I know you’re having one of your manic-pixie-dream-girl episodes here, but I need you to snap back into it. This isn’t supernatural. For once, this is just a real, honest to god tangible predator, and I need to know that you can take care of yourself.” He was looking at her so intently, his eyes dark and brown and desperate, and slowly her gaze shifted into focus to meet them. 

“We’re in inland California, Stiles,” she said quietly. “Where would an alligator even come from?” 

“I don’t know,” he said, but then his eyes flicked up to something behind her, and his face paled. “But I’m going to guess that that has something to do with it.” 

Creeping through the hallway, up the white linoleum times and against the foot of the metal lockers, was a tongue of water, silently slipping through the school. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Liam and Brett lowered Nolan’s body to the ground, careful to mind the raw, bloody shard of his shoulder. He cried out in pain, his face white as milk and collecting sweat along his temple. Blood was spat from the wound onto the floor of the hallway. 

“He needs a hospital,” Liam said. He looked smaller than ever, his eyes wide with panic. Like a bug in the morning. 

Brett looked down at Nolan, his mouth drawn tight. He hadn’t really looked at him before. Nolan Holloway had always just been another player on the opposite team – a rival, and not even one that mattered. He was just a red jersey, and that was it. But now, in the burning pale light of the high school, Brett saw him as an actual person, another human being, another kid, another boy. Nolan looked up at him, his lip trembling. He was trying to be brave. His skin was so pale, drained of blood and courage, and he looked saintly against the flush of blood. 

Scott and Isaac stood over them. Scott was looking around, surveying the situation, while Isaac stood dutifully beside him, untucking his scarf from beneath his jersey.

The corridor was mostly deserted. Those who had toyotas and the ability to get to the parking lot were already gone. There were a handful of stragglers, women looking for their children and children looking for their parents, and strangers missing their arms and legs and bleeding out onto the hallway tile. 

“We need to barricade the door,” Scott said, looking at the wounded people helplessly. He wasn’t a doctor, he was a wolf. 

Isaac nodded, and snapped a locker door from its hinges. He took a deep breath, and folded the metal in half. When it's done, he slid the metal bar through the door handles, securing it from any scaly beasts that would try to get through, including Jackson, if he so decided. 

“We need to get them to the hospital,” Liam repeated. He knew this, because he had a Doctor who told him things. 

“I know,” Scott said. “But all I have is a dirt bike. It only fits one. Me.” 

“Alright,” Isaac said, a problem solver. “Who here has a car?” 

Liam was only fifteen, and did not have a car. He was still getting rides to school. His doctor was still dropping him off. And Brett? Well, Buddhists don’t have cars. They don’t even have electricity (not true). And Isaac only had his gravediggermobile, and then the icerinkmobile after Boyd died (somewhere between season two and three), and neither were here at the school. 

Liam looked down at Nolan. “You got a car?” 

Nolan nodded. “I have a bright red Prius.”

“That’s a terrible color for a car,” Scott said. “It’s so obvious.” 

“Are the keys in your locker?” Brett asked, and Nolan nodded again, his blue eyes glassing over with pain. 

Liam stood up. “I’ll go,” he offered. “I’ll be the fastest.” 

Scott fixed him with a menacing look. 

“Second fastest,” Liam quickly amended. 

Scott nodded approvingly, and just before Liam could go rocketing down the hallway, Stiles and Lydia hobbled around the corner, getting spit out into the main corridor of Beacon Hills Highschool. Lydia’s hair was tangled, her pretty strawberry blonde curls a dark, dull red, and Stiles' face was pale and smeared with mud. A stutter of relief passed his face when he saw his friends, but it quickly dissipated when his gaze snagged on Nolan spread out on the ground, blood blooming out from his shoulder. 

“Oh god,” Stiles said, choking down bile. He turned his head, the sight of all the blood making his mind blur. 

Lydia grabbed his arm to stabilize him, but her own body was stiff with horror, her eyes wide and stricken. She tried to say something, but her voice wouldn’t come to her. She cleared her throat and tried again. “There is a flood,” she managed. “It’s coming through the school. We need to get to higher ground.” 

Brett swallowed thickly, his hand tightening on Nolan’s uninjured arm. 

“No,” Liam said. “These people need a hospital. If we get trapped in here, who knows how long they will have to wait before getting medical attention?” 

“It’s better to wait than to drown,” Lydia insisted. 

Liam stepped closer to Lydia, and looked up into her beautiful hazel eyes and blinked persistently. He lowered her voice so that Nolan, and the other casualties littering the ground couldn’t hear him. “There isn’t time to wait,” he said. “Either we get them to a hospital, or they die. And if they are going to die either way, I say that it is worth taking the risk.” 

“For what it's worth, Squatty,” Stiles interjected. “Lydia is the one with foresight, here.” 

“And I’m the one with a doctor as a… Doctor.” 

They both turned to Scott, for foresight and a medical degree were nothing compared to alpha intuition. 

Scott’s chest inflated under his lacrosse gear. He looked between his betas, and inhaled strongly, his nostrils flaring like a beast – a hog at a watering hole. His jaw was so crooked. Finally his gaze settled on Lydia. “We have to save everyone. And we can’t do that by just sitting on our asses.” 

Lydia’s gaze fell to the floor, and Liam lifted his chin, proud at being favored by his alpha. He was sooooo submissive. 

But then Scott continued, “But last time we saw that alligator it was weaving through the parking lot. We won’t be able to protect them all if we try to transport them. Nolan’s Prius is too small, anyway. And bright. We’d be seen a mile away.” He looked across the hallway, at the scattered and bloodied bodies. They looked back with dull, hopeless eyes. “We’ll take them to the library,” he decided. “To the second floor.”

Liam huffed in frustration. Anger was lifting weights in his chest. “They’re not going to make it without medical attention, Scott.” 

“I know,” Scott said, looking down at Liam. “That’s why you’re going to go get it.”

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

The flooding was worse than any of them thought. Once the water had started to rise, it was rapid, rising tumultuously through Beacon Hills. And it seemed that the school was gettin’ the far end of the damage. As Liam made his way downtown, towards the hospital, floodwater had overtaken the streets. Cars were fully submerged beneath the dark, murky water, and houses stood like corpses with their windows broken and lights flickering. There was no one around. No one needed rescuing, and even if there was, there was no one to rescue them. 

Liam lept from car hood to car hood on all fours, the toyotas of Beacon Hills as sturdy and disaster-resistant as always (and half off on Tuesdays!). Rain was still falling, sinking into the rising flood water and splattering against the perfect paint job of the cars, and a terrible wind had picked up. The sycamore and maple trees were torn about by the harsh air, their leaves getting stripped away to clog the water. It was a new moon, and even if it wasn’t, the clouds blotted out the sky so that the only light was the flickering lights of drowning houses and watching lamposts. 

Liam had last seen the alligator at the school, circling the parking lot, able to slide nimbly through the cars in the thick stretch of water that had begun to build over the asphalt. He assumed it was still there, circling the school and all of his friends inside. Yet, a nervous apprehension was rooted in his gut and it pulled at his nerves. The water was so deep and so dark, clouded with mud and deceitful currents, that there was no telling what could be lurking beneath the surface.

But he swallowed the fear, crushing it down so that all that was left in its place was petulant determination. 

He navigated his way through the drowned streets of Beacon Hills, going past abandoned townhomes and business and all those classic Beacon Hills cement structures. The street lights blinked and gaped, watching him slide from car to car. They buzzed with a dying electricity, and Liam tried not to think about what would happen when they faded out completely, leaving him in complete darkness with cold water lapping hungrily at his ankles. 

After what felt like an agonizingly long time – because it was, the hospital was really far away – Liam saw the sanctuary of the Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital rising from the flood water. The first floor was completely submerged, its lights murmuring distantly beneath the gray water, lighting it from underneath with a dull, dying green. Some of the ambulances rose from the water, their sirens wailing, having been abandoned before ever leaving the property. Liam scanned the hospital face, looking for any sign of life or redemption, but he found none. Aside from the cry of the sirens and the fading lights, the hospital seemed completely dead. 

He took a deep breath, his cleats grating against the hood of a Toyota Tacoma (which would never scratch, by the way). It was the last car before the ambulances, and it was too far to jump. He would have to swim the rest of the way, like a bug at night. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

In the library, on the second floor, the last child died of blood loss. She was little, only eight, and her mother hadn’t even made it out of the hallway. Brett had tried to move her, and when he did, her shirt lifted to reveal a massive stretch of shredded skin, muscle, and intestines. She had been hiding it so that her daughter would be prioritized, but it hadn’t mattered – they both died, anyway. 

After them, there was only Nolan. He wasn’t looking good, propped up against a bookshelf on the second floor of the library, even in the warm, compassionate light from the reading lamps. His skin was pale and clammy, his freckles more apparent than ever, a scattering of warmth across his desolate face. Brett sat beside him, using his jersey to clean the blood and mud from Nolan’s cheek and the line of his jaw. Nolan watched him work, his eyes looking at Brett so intensely, focusing on the blue of his eyes and the strong curve of his mouth rather than the razored pain dragging itself from his shoulder through the length of his body. 

Brett couldn’t meet his eyes. He looked out across the library, fighting the guilt rising up his throat. The water had risen rapidly, chasing after them as they struggled to carry Nolan to the second floor. They had barely made it before the water overtook the hallway, rushing up against the lockers and chunneling through classrooms, and even now, suspended in the library loft, the floodwater circled beneath them, slowly creeping its way up the stairs. Books littered the surface. Chairs and tables bobbed uselessly against the current. Rain lashed against the tall window, the wind threatening to shatter the glass completely. 

Scott and others stood apart from Brett and Nolan, engaged in some secret conversation they didn’t want the victim to hear. They stood on either side of a bookshelf, talking through the gaps in the books. Brett flexed his ear, trading out the human senses for the wolf’s. His hearing radiated out, his ears pricked toward the low voices. 

“I wish Liam was here,” Scott was saying. “I would double-dog dare him to fetch the uncrustable from my locker. I could really use a treat right about now.” 

“Scott,” Stiles said on the other side of the bookshelf. “There are more important things than a year-old scoobysnack right now, don’t ya think? Like, oh I don’t know, the man-eating alligator camped out god-knows where, or the rising tide of doom and destruction? Which, by the way, is the man-eating alligator’s yumalicious mud crib. We’re about to be sitting in his living room. Have you thought about that, Scotty-boy?”  

Scott’s toe-claws busted through his cleats and scratched the floor, but no one noticed. 

“Stiles is right,” Lydia said. “In about two hours, this whole place is about to be underwater. Maybe Liam was right,” she added quietly. 

“Liam’s twelve. He’s never right,” Scott said. 

“He’s eighteen,” Lydia corrected. 

“Whatever.” 

“The point still stands,” Lydia continued. “With the water rising like this, we can’t not take preventative measures. Maybe the flooding will subside, maybe it won’t. But we can’t risk being unprepared if it doesn’t.” 

Stiles nodded. His dark hair was messy, having dried in a whole collection of odd directions – north, south, west, and east (where the buddhists hide!). His eyes were bright, but sad, like he was thinking of a thousand plans that wouldn’t work. “There is the roof,” he said. “But with the rain and the wind, it’s safer in here. For now, at least. What we need is a phone. Who knows what the rest of the town is like? We can call my dad, or Argent, or even the Hales. There has to be someone who can help us, and if not, it’s better not to have false hope. If we’re on our own, it's better to know now.” 

Isaac scoffed. “We’re always on our own,” he muttered. 

“Okay, well if you’re going to be so pessimistic, you can go find the phone,” Stiles said curtly. 

“Please, I’m just being realistic. Sometimes you yell and scream and beg for help and no one can even hear you, not your dad, or the police, or even God. And if anyone is listening, they sure as hell don’t care.” 

Stiles gave him a cold look. “Way to bring down the mood, Isaac. Really, that’s super cool. I didn’t realize this was a Suicide Help line.” 

Isaac rolled his eyes from across the bookshelf. “Whatever,” he muttered. “I’ll look for the phone anyway.” His eyes trailed through the library, the shelves and the tables and the metal-plated ceiling. “Beats being locked up.” 

“I’ll go with you,” Scott said. “You’re going to need an alpha’s protection.” 

Isaac nodded stoically. He didn’t mind Scott’s company, and honestly, he hated being alone. 

“Perfect,” Stiles said. “Leave Lydia and I here with no supernatural protection at all. That’s great. Really thoughtful, Scott.” 

“You have Brett,” Scott offered. 

“I hate Brett.” 

“Liam hates Brett. You hate Liam. It’s a hate party. You have something to bond over.” 

With that, Scott and Isaac got ready to venture out of the library. The water was lapping at the stairs, rising, but slowly. They waded into the depths; Isaac inhaled sharply as the chill of it gathered around his hips and waist. They were still in their lacrosse gear, mutually deciding that it was better to have the padding than to forgo it, even with their healing abilities. They didn’t know where the alligator was, if it was just outside the library, or if it had already left, swimming out to somewhere far beyond the school. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t encounter it at all. 

But of course, this was Beacon Hills and it was nothing if not a beacon of bad luck. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Liam gasped, pulling himself up the stairs of the hospital’s second floor, out of the floodwater. It ran in dark, dirty streams from his hair, and down his broad, heaving shoulders. Heavy breaths dragged through his body, and he collapsed on the linoleum tile, his back pressed to the cold floor. He had shed his lacrosse gear and cleats on top of the Toyota Tacoma, and his gray henley was loose with water around his thick-muscled shoulders and astoundingly perky chest. His nipples were hard, which was frickin’ hilarious. His socks were soggy. He rolled over and groaned, coughing up swamp water onto the floor. He was a confident swimmer, but that distance had been a struggle, even for him. And now that he was here, it occurred to him just how impossible it would be to get the supplies back to the school. He hadn’t thought the water would be so high, or that every Beacon Hills civilian would have been swept away by the currents. He was acting on impulse, just like he always did. And now people could die because of it. 

He cursed himself as he struggled to his feet. His lungs still felt tight, and his clothes were heavy with water. The pale, sickly green of the hospital lights filled the hallway with a terrible, ominous look. Machines beeped feebly from empty rooms. The building groaned, the sound of rushing water pushing through the hallways. 

Liam raked his hair out of his eyes, and stood. He needed to find supplies, and he needed to find a way to get them back to the school. 

He went from room to room, throwing open drawers and cabinets, looking for any kind of first-aid kit or flare. Each room was a copy of the last, dimly lit as the lights started to give out, and empty of anything besides a slow, melodic beeping of a detached machine. There were no doctors, no nurses, no patients. Nothing. He was able to find a couple of first aid-kits in the crash carts, and some sutures for stitches in the operating room. It was when he was passing the morgue that he heard it – a horrible scrape of something hard and leathery against tile, the clattering of metal, and something soft hitting the ground, followed by the crack of a bone. 

Liam stopped. He could smell the formaldehyde first, then the blood. But there was a musky smell, too, something dark and murky and rotting. He had smelled it on the lacrosse field, and he could smell it throughout the town as he moved from Toyota to Toyota. And he could smell it here, now, in the dark passage of the hospital. He stepped backward, cautiously. One socked foot, after the other. They squelched between his toes. The sound of breaking bones filled the hallway, and the smell was unbearable. 

Liam’s heel smacked against something hard and metallic – a bedpan. It rattled across the tile, sending a loud, clanging sound down the corridor. Liam’s stomach knotted. The sound from the morgue dropped. 

The lights flicked, once, twice, before blinking out entirely. 

A low growl leaked through the darkness. The rasp of something thick and heavy dragging itself across the floor.

The building rumbled as the backup generator roared to life, and a green fluorescence overtook the hospital. In the new, horrible light, Liam could see the animal – it was, of course, an alligator. Massive and green, as they tend to be.

Fear rolled through his body, so intense it was almost painful. His muscles stiffened, contracting around the first aid-kits clutched in his arms.

The alligator inspected him, its eyes small and bright, its bloody mouth parted as it drank in his scent. It growled, its neck bloating with the sound. The vibration traveled through the tiles. It stepped forward, slow and lethargic but threatening in its weight. Liam knew how fast it could be, he had watched Animal Planet as a kid (last night, before his bedtime). 

It took another step forward, a hiss rising up its thick neck, and that’s when Liam started to back up. The alligator’s muscles contracted and it began to charge.

Behind him, the elevator dinged, and he could hear the doors part. Thick arms wrapped around his shoulders, yanking him back. The doors closed just as the alligator lurched forward. It hit metal, and the elevator moaned (eeeh) with the force of four-hundred pounds of leather colliding into it, and not in a fun way. 

Liam exhaled a shaky breath, leaning back into the thick, dense, heavy, stiff, inflated, and likely-boyant arms of Theo Raeken wrapped protectively around him. Liam turned his head, slightly, his breath still coming fast and heavy, and looked up at his ‘regular male companion with whom he had romantic or sexual relations with.’ (Oxford Dictionary)

“Took you long enough,” Liam panted.

Theo was gazing down at him with a burning intensity, with a small smirk buried in the corner of his mouth. His arm slid from Liam’s bicep, up his chest, and to his neck. He thumbed Liam’s chin, and tilted his head so that the thick tendons of Liam’s neck were exposed to the sickly green cast of the elevator light, before leaning forward to kiss him. He kissed him hard and deep and slow, his jaw pulling roughly at Liam’s, before he pulled away, his eyebrows creased. “Was that a fucking alligator?” 

“Yeah,” Liam said, turning against Theo’s broad and muscled chest and shoving him against the elevator’s steel-box wall. He pushed against him, his mouth scraping against Theo’s, his tongue sliding, hot and wanting, against his teeth. “It was,” he said into Theo’s mouth. 

“Okay,” Theo muttered absently, his hands carding up into Liam’s dirty hair. 

They kissed with an obscene amount of tongue; it was unfair to everyone else. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

The lights had given out on Beacon Hills. The halls were dark, ripped through with a dark current of floodwater, arching its back against the lockers and classroom doors. It brought debris with it, fallen leaves and clumps of grass, and fallen telephone wires. It must have come through broken windows or open doors, rushing through the empty hallways, purging them of anything alive. 

As Scott and Isaac waded through the mess, they stood alert for the alligator, their ears straining for a growl and noses sniffing out the gray musk, and eyes straining through the darkness of the hallway and water for a flick of a tail or glint of an eye. But as they were moving toward the locker room, where Scott had left his phone in his locker and coach had left his blackberry in his desk, as they both always did, there wasn’t any kind of murmur of life beneath the water or down the hallway, at all. There was an uneasiness to it, the kind that comes from knowing there is a predator nearby but without being able to see it. Scott was used to the feeling – though he was usually the one who was causing it. He didn’t like being on the other end. 

“Your mom is going to hate this,” Isaac muttered as they trudged around the corner, edging closer to the locker room. There was no moonlight outside, no starlight, nothing but the distant streetlights glinting off the gray sludge of the floodwater. “She still hasn’t forgiven us for playing fetch in the living room and chewing up her shoe. Imagine the look on her face when she sees the amount of mud we will have tracked through the house when we get home.” 

Scott’s crooked mouth sloped into a smile. “Oh, she’s going to throw a fit,” he said, glancing back at Isaac. “My fault, of course. Alpha everywhere except for my own household.” 

Isaac laughed, dryly. His breath flushed against the back of Scott’s neck, sending a jolt of warmth through him in the cold desolation of the deserted school. 

“She loves you, though,” he said, clearing his throat. “You can do no wrong.” 

The two of them had been living together for a handful of months now, in Scott’s house. Separate bedrooms, estranged down the hall from one another. After Isaac’s brother had been killed overseas and his dad had been murdered in some dark, abandoned alleyway, Isaac had been adrift. He had lived with alternative alpha, Derek Hale, for some time, sleeping on a dog bed in the loft by the window, but then Derek had ran into trouble with another pack with crazy toenails, and he had kicked Isaac out, putting him out on the street like some stray. Then Isaac found Scott, and finally had something that felt as close to home as he had ever known. 

Scott glanced back at Isaac again. “I don’t mind,” he said. “Taking the blame for you. I’m strong, so I can handle it.”

They crossed the hallway toward the boy’s locker room. The current was stronger, tunneling through the channel of the corridor, and the boys had to be careful where they were stepping so as not to lose control of their strides against the flow of water. Scott made it through the doorway first, and once his hand was wrapped around the door hinge, he reached back to pull Isaac through after him. 

The locker room was darker than the rest of the school. The water circled the room, dragging at the towels left on hooks and t-shirts of players who never made it off the field. Spare lacrosse sticks floated in the water, their nets gathering dead leaves and scraps of shredded clothing. 

“Check Coach’s office,” Scott said. “I’ll go through the lockers. Look for phones, radios, anything to be able to call for help.” 

Isaac nodded, and clenched his jaw, starting to push forward through the press of the cold, silent water. 

They slipped through the locker room, splitting apart as they searched. The bottom of Scott’s cleats clawed against the slick floor, providing little traction against the submerged tile. As the water circled his hips, he held onto the lockers for support, slowly making his way to his own, where his phone would be waiting on a messy clump of old dirty baby clothes (origins unknown). 

He could hear Isaac opening and closing drawers in Coach’s office, the pitch of a hinge and the movement of water. He could hear Isaac’s heart beginning to race as the office, with the flood rising, began to close in on him. He could hear Isaac curse in a non-PG-13 way as each opened drawer failed to reveal the blackberry to him. 

Scott made it to his locker. He was the only one with a lock, but he never used it. Why would he when he could just yank it clean off? He did this now, giving it a good jerk down. The locker rattled angrily as the lock’s gears snapped. The metallic sound echoed through the locker room, and down the hallway of Beacon Hills High. 

From Coach’s office, came Isaac’s voice. “You fucking twat,” he said. “Do you have a fucking braincell that doesn’t come from a goddamn dog?” 

Isaac was allowed to talk to him this way because they shared a bathroom. 

“Alligators hunt through vibration,” he said, his voice carrying across the water. 

“So do I.” Scott’s eyes glowed red as he slowly opened the locker door. 

Scott reached a clawed hand up and felt through the locker for his phone. His claws tapped on the screen, and he grabbed the thing in his hand. 

The screen lit up in the darkness of the locker room. His screensaver was a screenshot of an anchor. He tapped in his password, ‘Allison,’ and tried to dial 911. But the line wouldn’t go through. Of course not. The line was floating in the water. 

“Doggone it,” he said. “Hot diggity dog, there's no signal.” 

“So what now?” Isaac asked. 

“I’ll make a different kind of call.” Hair burst from the side of Scott’s face. He tilted his head back and howled. It ripped through the school, rattling all the lockers and sending massive vibrations across the water.

When the last echo had died out, there was a blur of silence, and then, a whistle. It was high and familiar, and maybe just the wind. 

But then, something lurched through the door of the locker room. Big and scaly and gray. The alligator, of course. And it was blowing Coach’s whistle from within. 

Its eyes glided across the surface of the water, blinking reptilianly at Scott who blinked, like a mammal, back. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

The water was rising in the liberal quarters, the library. Slow, but threatening, silently swallowing stair after stair as it edged closer to Stiles and Lydia and all of the people (Brett and Nolan) taking shelter on the second floor. Stiles was leaning against the balcony, his forearms pressed to the bronze bar, his eyes narrowed as he watched the water wax against the staircase. The lights in the library had gone out with the rest of the school, leaving only a dull, dusky light from the outside world, casting long glances through the tall window. He watched the flood, his eyes straining to see anything beneath the dark surface. The silhouette of a serpentine body, the inverted moon of a predator’s eye. He could feel the apprehension settling heavy over his shoulders, threatening to overwhelm and swallow him with their familiar weight. After everything, all of the loss and tragedy and disaster, he should be used to the trepidation, but it never felt any lighter. 

Lydia’s arm brushed against Stiles’, just barely, as she came to stand beside him. “I don’t know,” she murmured in the quiet. “I think Liam was right. I think it was a mistake to stay.” 

Stiles cocked his head, slightly, to look at her. She looked tragically beautiful, with her hair dark and skin pale, her cheeks hallowed in the shadow of her loose hair. Her eyes were wide and distant and a dirty divine green. Her eyelashes cut lines down her face, and her lips were parted with worry.

“Hey,” he said, so softly, angling his body towards her. “Hey, it’s okay. We’re okay.”

“For now.” Her voice broke, like a fracture through glass. 

“Yeah, for now. For now, everyone is alive. Everyone is stable. You’re okay, I’m okay, and Scott is going to get help. For now, we’re safe.”  

She looked up at him, her eyes like sea-glass, washed in some sad tide. She looked at him and smiled, just barely. Just enough. “But for how long?” she asked quietly. 

“As long as it takes,” he said, but he was trying to convince himself as much as he was her. 

“It just feels like I should have all the answers,” she said. “But I don’t.”

“No one expects you to.” 

“No, but they are counting on it.” 

Stiles didn’t know what to say to that. She was right. She always was, and that was the problem. He opened his mouth, not sure about what was going to come out, but before he could say anything, something changed. Lydia’s gaze wavered, her eyes getting a distant, hazy look as if there was no one and everyone behind them. 

“Lydia?” 

But she didn’t answer. She couldn’t even hear him. Guided by something other than her own mind and soul, she turned away from Stiles and began to walk toward the stairs. Stiles watched her for a moment, blinking in his confusion, before loping after her. She stepped down the first five stairs, and when her shoe hit the sixth, dipping into the cold, lapping water, Stiles grabbed her arm. 

“Lydia. Lydia, stop.” 

Her head turned, and her gaze lifted to his, but she was not looking at him. A jolt ran down her body, and she jerked out of his grasp. She stepped down another stair, the water sucking at her calf. It rose higher and higher, running over her milk-white thigh, and above her hips. As it pressed against her ribs, she didn’t gasp or wince. Nothing, as if she didn’t notice the water at all. She started to walk forward, toward the library’s entrance. 

Stiles swore under his breath, and paced the stairs, his hands on his hips. Panic was pinching at his spine and at the base of his skull. He ran his hands up the back of his head, before shrugging his shoulders and turning towards Brett. “You’re in charge,” he said. “I have to go chase crazy.” 

He grimaced as he stepped into the water. It engulfed his sneaker, biting coldly at his foot within. “For the love of-” He took another step down, then another, mumbling all the way as he followed Lydia out of the library. 

Brett watched them leave from his perch on the second floor. He scoffed, and shook his head, looking down at his hands, cupped in his lap. Buddhists would never act like this for nothing was inherently good or bad, but it was the projection of the mind that made it so. 

Nolan coughed feebly, and whimpered. 

“I’ll get you water,” Brett promised, standing up and moving toward the stairs to refill the Paw Patrol lunchbox he had fished out of the floods. He stooped at the stairs, and pushed the tin beneath the water surface. He watched the water swirl, slipping into the metal container. It wasn’t until Nolan coughed again, that he realized how long he had been kneeling at the base of the stairs where Scott and Isaac had left first, and then Stiles and Lydia some time after. As Brett stood up, his strong boy knees cracking and his twelvepac unfurling, he wondered which one of them would be lucky enough to return. 

He returned to Nolan, and knelt beside him, one hand cupping the back of Nolan’s neck as the other worked to tilt the lunchbox against his mouth. Nolan drank gratefully, his lips moving numbly against the tin, and water running in a thin stream down his chin. He sputtered,  and Brett lowered the lunchbox. He threaded his jersey between his hands, and dapped around Nolan’s mouth. 

“It hurts,” Nolan said. His voice was only a scratch up his throat. 

“I know.” Brett took Nolan’s hand in his own. He held it tight, and at first Nolan winced, his expression crossing in pain and confusion. But then something started to shift, slithering away from Nolan’s shoulder and up Brett’s wrist. Black veins twisted up Brett’s arm. His body convulsed with pain, but he clenched his jaw and didn’t let go of Nolan’s hand. How he had been enduring this pain as a mortal, Brett couldn’t understand it. He felt Nolan’s pain rip through his body, feeding on every bone and nerve, and even just the air against his skin made his stomach pitch with nausea. A yellow glow lit his eyes as he digested the pain, until it subsided for both of them. Nolan’s body rolled with relief, his lungs pitching as the torture abandoned him, if even for a moment. He exhaled slowly, and sagged against Brett, exhausted. Brett let him, leaning back against the bookshelf beside him, and still didn’t drop Nolan’s hand. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Theo and Liam were still in the elevator, hatless, like they always were, and at this point, shirtless too. One of the metal walls was dented from Theo throwing Liam against it, and he held Liam there now, one hand raking through Liam’s long, carpet-like chest hair, and the other working to unbuckle his pants. Liam’s head tilted back against the crook of the dented wall. His mouth was open, drinking in the heat of Theo’s breath as it poured over him. Theo’s jaw jutted against Liam’s cheek; Liam could feel his wanting smirk against his skin. 

A terrible roar rolled through the elevator, rattling the walls and causing the buttons to flicker submissively. The entire shaft vibrated with the intensity of it (that made a sum of three vibrating shafts, and a secret fourth). Liam’s eyes glowed yellow, and his body stiffened, subconsciously attentive to the call. Theo’s hand was relentless on his chest, like a bad masseuse wanting to get paid. 

“Was that Scott?” Liam’s voice was coarse and broken.

Theo looked at him. His eyes were dark with want. “Shut up,” he said. His hand worked into Liam’s stupid little lacrosse shorts.

Liam inhaled sharply, his focus blurring. “Okay.” 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Stiles and Lydia were in the hallway when they heard the Howl. Stiles' attention snapped away from Lydia, and ricocheted through the flooded corridor, but Lydia didn’t flinch. She just kept wading through the water, letting it rush around her ribcage. Her heart fluttered wildly inside, detached from her mind and the intuition driving her forward. 

“Lydia,” Stiles said, stilling for a moment as the wretched howl tore through the hallway. The current ran around his long, gangly legs, threatening to knock him over and rip him beneath the surface. “Lydia, can you just stop for a minute?”

But she wasn’t listening. She waded forward. Her eyes were like glass, fragile and fractured and reflective. The water around them reverberated as the roar rolled on and on, until finally rapturing to a stop. 

She kept walking. 

Stiles trudged after her. The water pulled at his flannel, and his shoes were slippery against the hallway floor. He couldn’t understand how Lydia was wearing little heeled boots and walking so gracefully through the floodwater. He couldn’t understand a lot of things, but he kept following her. His gaze flicked between her, the back of her head with her dark, drying hair and narrow shoulders, and the water around her. If he was paranoid in the library, it was nothing compared to now, in the darkness of the hallway, with debris brushing against his thighs and shadows playing tricks on the water. He wanted to protect her so badly, but he felt, as he always did, that there was nothing he could do. The best he could do was follow. 

She stopped in front of a locker. Turning slowly towards it, she put her hand against the cold metal plating. Above her hand, it read ‘68’ in glinting silver letters. She stood still, transfixed by it. 

Stiles leaned forward to inspect it, his eyes dark with offense and dissatisfaction. “Great,” he said, cocking his head to look at her. “This locker is really neat, Lydia. I can see why we had to leave the safety of the library, trek through miles of bloody floodwater, to stand in front of some loser’s locker.” 

“It’s cold,” she murmured, her mouth barely moving. 

Stiles stared at her. “Yeah, no kidding.” 

A commotion erupted down the hallway. Splashing and growling and girlish whimpering, and a high pitched whistle. Stiles’ eyebrows furrowed. “Is that… Coach?” 

He glanced down at Lydia. She was looking down the hallway, but then her gaze flicked to Stiles and she was looking at him, actually looking at him. Her eyes were wet. “We need to go to the locker room,” she said. 

“Oh. Right,” Stiles said. “Of course we do. Walk right toward the blood-curdling screaming. Why would we possibly think of doing anything else?” 

Something bumped against his leg. It was his baseball bat. Convenient. He picked it up, and flicked the water from it, before leading the way towards the locker room. 

In the locker room, it was chaos. Scott was splashing around violently, for seemingly no reason at all. The alligator was a little bit irked. It watched him on the other side of the room, in absolute mental disarray. It whistled quietly. 

Isaac did too, but for a different reason. He was impressed. “Scott. Don’t stop. It’s working.” 

Stiles looked at Scott, and then at Isaac, and then the alligator too. “Okay, what the f*ck is this?” 

“Stiles,” Scott said, trashing around. “Be quiet. It’s working. I’m about to scare it off.” 

The alligator lunged forward and grabbed Scott’s right arm. It pulled him underwater and started to roll, as alligators tend to do. If Liam was here, he could have told you fun facts about it. They can do that, you know, he would say. Uselessly. As it was already happening. 

Scott emerged from the water, hollering, before being arched through the air and thrown back under the water. This happened several more times. It was a ferris wheel of chaos. 

Stiles, Isaac, and Lydia screamed. Stiles sloshed forward, splashing through the water, and raised his baseball bat. When it resurfaced to roll Scott over again, Stiles hit the thing over the head with the wooden shaft. It shook its head, and released Scott. Blood was everywhere. The water was a dark crimson, and Stiles’ face was splattered with Scott’s stinky dog blood.

Scott gasped and walked away, toward where Isaac and Lydia were watching with wide eyes and open mouths. “Whatever,” he said, his arm hanging in shards. “I did that on purpose. I am the alpha.” 

He howled. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Theo and Liam were still in the elevator, still hatless (like they always were), still shirtless, and now pantless too (this was new!). Just kidding. Their pants are staying on. 

Liam was still pinned to the dented elevator wall, his hands ripping at Theo’s hair, his claws out and digging into the tense meat of Theo’s shoulder. A hard and desperate sound rasped from his throat as Theo’s hand worked over his cock, once, twice, his thumb rubbing a rough circle over the quivering head. Desire pushed deep through Liam. His hips drove forward. He wanted, and wanted, and Theo’s hand scraped against him, leaving him desperate and begging. His hands dug through Theo’s hair, and he pulled Theo’s head back as his chest tightened with the want for more. 

Theo’s gaze bore into his. He knew just what Liam wanted. 

He retracted his hand from Liam’s cock. Liam was hungry and unsatiated, like a bug in the afternoon (its soooo a bug in the afternoon to be hungry). His body writhed beneath Theo’s, desperate for some kind of touch, any kind of horrible friction. He whimpered. 

Theo did not drop Liam’s gaze. He smiled, and lifted his hand to his mouth. His teeth flashed white in the sickly green lighting as he bit down, hard, on the heel of his hand. The skin split beneath his teeth. Theo moaned as his mouth flooded with his own blood. The smell of iron filled the elevator shaft; and beyond the elevator door, the alligator growled with desire. It was as loud as a lawn mower (fact!). 

Theo removed his hand, and spat a bloody mouthful of spit onto the floor. Blood dripped down his wrist and his fingers. 

Liam watched him hungrily, his eyes yearning like a dog at the dinner table. His body was trembling. The smell of blood was making him dizzy.

Theo could see the want in Liam’s little doggy eyes; he could see what Liam wanted, and he knew just how to give it to him, and how to take it away. Heat whipped through his stomach and up his chest. He wanted to see Liam beg, he wanted to see his head tilt back with a low whine moving up his throat, and he wanted Liam’s teeth in his shoulder. 

Theo jerked forward, capturing Liam’s mouth in his own. Blood made their mouths slick, and tongues metallic. He kissed Liam hard and slow as his hand lowered, pain pulsing up his forearm. Before the wound could start to heal, he took Liam’s cock back in his hand. Liam’s breathing hitched in Theo’s mouth. He whimpered and it tasted like a wound on Theo’s tongue. Theo jerked him, his hand moving slick and easy over Liam’s length. The injured fray of his skin sucked at Liam’s tip, and the pain pulsed through Theo. He moaned into Liam’s mouth, and pulled away, leaving a bloody smear across Liam’s mouth. 

They could hear Scott howling, but they didn’t care. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

In the locker room, Scott’s arm had begun to heal, just a little bit. 

“Ha,” he said to the alligator, which was still half-blind thanks to Brett. “Bet you can’t do that.” 

The alligator grumbled. 

Above the lockers, a window shattered, spraying glass through the floodwater. Lydia yelped, and Stiles jumped in front of her to shield her from the fray. Isaac and Scott covered their eyes, not wanting to regrow them. When they all dared to look again, they saw Derek Hale standing on top of the locker, rain rushing into the room around him. His hair was long (only on the sides of face), and his long, white canine teeth were bared. His eyes glowed an icy blue in the dark locker room. He chutted (a soft, clucking or chattering sound that signifies contentment or happiness for a guinea pig). “I’ll save you,” he said. 

“No,” Scott said, stepping forward, his last bone popping back into place. “It’s my job to save everybody.” 

Derek roared and leapt from the locker, his arms and legs spread. Like a wasp on a windshield. He landed in the water with a terrible slapping sound, and sank. The alligator swallowed him whole. 

“So much for that,” Stiles said. 

Scott howled. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Theo and Liam were still in the elevator, still hatless, like they always were. But this time, without pants (not kidding). 

“Do you want to bandage your hand?” Liam moaned, humping Theo’s leg like a female dog in heat. “The first aid kit – I dropped it behind you.”

“I can think of a better use for those bandages,” Theo said suggestively. 

The first aid kit rattled and bounced on the floor at Scott’s howl shook heaven and hell and the elevator in between. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

The water in the locker room was a deep red with Derek’s blood. 

“Well,” Isaac said. He flipped his scarf over his shoulder. 

Above the lockers, another window shattered. Glass exploded through the locker room, raining over the pack. 

Sitting on the locker, framed by a dense sky of clouds and rainwater was Peter Hale. His hair was sprouting, his teeth were out, and his face was more transformed than most. His eyes were once red, but today they were blue. He growled, and flicked his head around, leaping from locker to locker on all fours. “It sounds like you guys need my help,” he said, his neck whipping down so he could look at Scott. He stood, raised his arms, and did a swan dive right into the gator’s mouth (accident). Death count: 2.

Scott howled. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

The clock was ticking away at the wasted seconds in the library. The water was slowly dragging itself up the stairs, and Nolan’s shoulder gurgled blood. He winced and Brett tightened his hold on Nolan’s hand. He drank in a bit more of Nolan’s pain, and Nolan sighed. 

He looked up at him. Sweat shone on both of their temples, and their skin was a mirrored white. Brett had overtaken too much of Nolan’s pain, but he didn’t care. 

“Can I ask you something?” Nolan said. His voice was small and feeble. 

Brett nodded, and swallowed. 

“Are alligators, uh, fish?” 

Brett shook his head, and swallowed again. 

“Can I ask you another something?” 

Brett was afraid to say yes. 

Nolan looked up at him. His eyes were pretty and delicate and unfocused. “What is that horrible sound?”

Brett sighed. “That’s the cry of an alpha. That's Scott.”

Nolan didn't question this. Instead, “Can I ask you even another something?

Brett was tired now. 

Nolan twitched. “Why aren’t you helping Scott and the others?” 

Brett rubbed his thumb on the back of Nolan’s hand. “I don’t want to leave you alone.” 

Nolan sat with that for a moment. He was breathing quickly, not from pain or stress, but rather his personality. He smiled, kind of. Like half-way. “Can I ask you one more something?” 

Brett didn’t say yes. 

“When will Liam be back with those bandages?” 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Theo and Liam were still in the elevator, still hatless, like they always were, and now without shirts or pantss. Instead, they had gotten really creative with those bandages and were not planning on being back any time soon.

Like really creative

And I mean super duper creative

Like dangerously creative

(bandages not featured)

(Bandages featured and more!)

Kink reveal 

Less creative, they were losing stamina

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Stiles had had enough of this. He grabbed Lydia’s shoulder and pulled her out of the locker room. Isaac and Scott, pack animals, followed close behind. They slipped out into the dark hallway. The water churned with the movement, rippling up against the lockers as they waded forward.

“We’re going back to the library,” Stiles said to the others. He glanced back at Scott. “Please tell me you found a phone before the Hale pack went extinct.” 

Scott whimpered and tucked his tail between his legs, like a dog who did something bad. Because one had. 

“Great,” Stiles said. “Let’s just hope that Liam found a way to make himself useful, cause you sure didn’t.” 

Scott howled. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Theo and Liam were still in the elevator, still hatless, like they always were, and still without any kind of clothes at all. Theo had ripped free from the bandages – he was a werewolf werecoyote chimera hybrid after all – and had thrown Liam against the elevator wall. Theo pounded into him, irritated that Liam had been teasing him for so long, and the force of the movement fractured each of the elevator buttons, sending sparks erupting into the air, but they hardly noticed. Scott’s howl added another, and very pleasurable, vibration through Liam as Theo growled into his ear, “Oh kitten, you feel so good around my pulsing cock.”

Liam moaned, reaching his arms back and grabbing at the firm meat of Theo’s ass. His back arched at the sensation of Liam using his hands to thrust Theo inside of him deeper, harder. He could feel the hard tip hitting the right spot perfectly.

“Fuckk you always know just what I want.” Theo’s voice fell heavily on the back of Liam’s neck.

“And if I were to take it away?” Liam teased, slowly recoiling his hands and starting to pull away.

Theo quivered at the change of pace before shoving Liam harder into the buttons and pushing himself back inside so that Liam’s front was pressed tightly against the wall, the pressure making Liam’s body roll with chills. “Try it and see what happens,” he threatened. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

The alligator slithered forward into the hallway after them. Of course it did. All they did was walk away from it, and not even quickly. It glided through the water, its working eye rising over the flood like a rising moon, and the other was still a blur of blood and pain, looking like a boiled beet. Its mouth was tilted open, and a low growl was skimming from its throat across the flooding.

Lydia, being the closest to the water, noticed it first. She grabbed Stiles’ arm, and turned. It was there in the water behind them, stalking forward, and ready to pounce. Lydia’s hand slid down into Stiles’. 

The alligator lunged forward; Isaac, a problem solver, flung open a locker door – locker 68 – and rather than biting down on some dogs, it bit into metal. The locker dented as the weight of the alligator flung against it. The sound rattled up the corridor, reverberating through the water so intensely that it created waves. The alligator reared back and shook its massive head. It lunged again, and this time the locker slammed shut. Isaac made a horrible choking sound – his scarf was caught in the locker door. His eyes bulged, and his mouth was agape with no sound able to get free. 

“How long can a wolf survive without oxygen?” Stiles asked. 

“I think we’re about to find out,” Lydia replied. 

Scott’s eyes turned red and his claws flung from his nailbeds. “Bad!” he said to the alligator. “That’s a bad girl!” 

He began to step forward to where Isaac was thrashing around like a kite in the wind, but then the school began to rumble. All five heads looked up – alligator included. 

A wall of water rushed toward them, barreling through the hallway. There was no time to save Isaac before the water overwhelmed them. Their last look at Isaac was his body being cleaved in half by the alligator’s jaws before the water swept everything but the scarf away. 

Scott surfaced, and howled. 

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

Theo and Liam were still in the elevator, still hatless, like they always were, still without any clothes, and they were orgasming. Scott howled, and their eyes lit up as the sensation overcame them. Their claws were out, and they lifted their heads to join in Scott’s roar, but for a completely different reason. The elevator buttons (destroyed), were splattered with that iconic salty substance. 

When it was over, and they had collapsed on the elevator floor from sheer exhaustion and soreness, Liam looked over at Theo. His hair was disheveled, and he had bite marks and bruises up his chest and neck. He had the first aid kit’s emergency blanket wrapped around his shoulders to prevent shock. 

“Scott needs his pack,” Liam said, flexing his chest heroically and squirming back into his tighty-whities. “But how are we going to get there?” 

“My truck,” Theo said, like it was obvious, and also difficult because he was winded. 

Liam gave him an irritated look. “The whole town is flooded.” 

Theo gave him an irritated look in return. “Let me clarify. My truck, the Toyota.”

----- 🐊 🐊 🐊 ------

The floodwater tumbled them all the way back to the library, where the liberals (the buddhist and the ?communist?) hid. They dragged themselves up the stairs, clawing at the carpet and coughing up swamp water. Stiles pulled himself out first, and took hold of Lydia’s hand, hauling her out of the water after him. She landed against him, and he fell backwards. Her weight laid over him. He could feel the shudder of her breathing against his ribs, and the heavy, panicked flutter of her heart over him. His head fell backwards, with relief more than anything else. 

Scott was crying. He pulled himself out of the water, because Isaac wasn’t there to help him, and he rolled over on his side and started to sob. 

Brett looked up from where he was sitting with Nolan. Nolan’s head was on his shoulder, and Brett was trying to keep him awake by reading Knuffle Bunny to him. He didn’t want to move, and to disrupt Nolan – they were at his favorite part of the book, when Knuffle Bunny is reunited with Trixie. But he lowered the book and watched as Stiles and Lydia regained their footing, and as Scott continued to cry. 

“What happened?” he asked. “Did you find a phone? And where is Isaac?” 

Scott roared so horrifically, his toenails ripped up the carpet as he rolled on the ground and beat his fists. He started to stress shed. 

“That goddamn scarf,” Stiles said, helping Lydia to her feet. “And it was ugly, too. I can’t believe he put that noose on willingly.” 

“I can,” Lydia sniffed. 

Lights blared through the windows, bright as moons, but far more powerful, and beautiful, because they came from a Toyota. An engine roared, and glass shattered as Theo’s Toyota Tundra burst through the library window, letting in a massive outpour of water, and five more gators.

The car stopped on the library stair landing, and the passenger window rolled down. Liam was sitting in a booster seat. His hair was pushed out of his face, and Theo’s hand was on his thigh, premaritally. “The school is surrounded,” he said, before turning in his seat to kiss Theo rough and sloppy. “By alligators,” he clarified. 

Stiles’ mouth was slack. “Did you drive here?” he said shrilly. “Underwater?”

Theo scoffed, and rolled his eyes. “You wouldn’t get it, because you drive a jeep.” He grabbed the back of Liam’s head and kissed him irregular and messy. Liam moaned. 

“What took you so long?” Brett demanded. “Nolan was counting on you and-”

“Yeah,” Scott said, still crying. “You’ll never be an alpha like me. A true Alpha would never take that long.”

Liam’s lip trembled, and he put the car into reverse – at least he tried. But he didn’t know how to drive, and he was in the passenger seat. 

“Did you get the bandages or not?” Stiles asked, getting impatient. 

“Oh, we got them,” Theo said. He helped unbuckle Liam, before climbing out of the driver's window – completely dry, might I add – and onto the hood. Liam scrambled up after him, his thick arms full of first aid kits that were only slightly used. They were hoping that no one would notice, but Liam was extremely disorganized and had recoiled the bandages horribly. Plus, one had a stain. 

Theo leapt down from the Toyota’s hood, and offered his hand to Liam, who slapped it away, and did a flip to get down. Everyone but Scott was impressed. 

“I could do that,” he muttered. He stood up, brushed off his lacrosse shorts, and leapt into the air. He did not land it, and rather fell back into the water. A gator grabbed his ankle, and tore it off. He crawled away, blood drawing patterns in the carpet. He groped at the bloody stump, and watched it regrow. “Winner winner chicken dinner,” he said. 

Everyone ignored this to spare his honor. Liam strutted over to Nolan with the supplies, and dropped them on the ground beside him. He looked at Brett. “We should move him to the table. Better access.” 

Brett nodded, but worry knotted in his chest. It was going to hurt Nolan, a lot, to move him now. He looked down at him, and closed the book. “It’s going to be okay,” Brett told him. “I’ll be with you. The whole time. I promise I won’t let go.” 

Nolan looked up at him, his eyelashes fluttering and his mouth pressed in a tight line. “Okay,” he said. “Only if you promise.” 

Brett held his gaze for a moment, and then looked up at Liam. Brett nodded, and Liam whistled at Theo to come lift Nolan up – if Liam had tried, the height imbalance would have sent the poor guy rolling. 

As Theo shoved his hands under him, Nolan cried out in pain, his voice ripping through the library hall with a broken and frayed edge. His hand gripped Brett’s fingers hard, holding onto him like he was a lifeline that he couldn’t bear to be free of. 

Theo laid him down on one of the desks, and backed away, letting Brett and Liam crowd around their fellow lacrosse player. Nolan grimaced and a fresh wave of blood spat from his shoulder to the wooden table, dripping down onto the saturated carpet underneath. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he lost consciousness.

“It’s okay, Nolan,” Brett was saying, milking as much of the pain from Nolan as he could. “Hold on. Just hold on. We’re going to fix you.” 

“At least we’re going to try,” Scott said, testing out his new ankle. 

“Does anyone have medical training?” Liam asked. “I have a doctor, but I don’t know much about it.” 

Everyone was quiet. Scott was a vet, but he just didn’t want to help. Stiles and Lydia exchanged a glance, feeling helpless and human. All Brett was was a Buddhist, and they believe that suffering is optional. 

Finally, Theo raised his hand. Everyone turned to look at him skeptically.

“What?” he said. “I grew up in a lab with a trio of evil parascientists as my legal guardians. God knows I had to sew something up once or twice. Fed a guy in a tube for a while, too.”

He started to step forward, but before he could get close, Stiles moved in front of the table. “Woah, woah, woah. This is Theo we’re talking about here. Evil, lying, manipulative, experimental Theo. I mean, come on, are we really going to trust him to save anyone?” 

Liam stepped forward, his chest heaving. “He saved me, Stiles. Over and over. When will he have to stop proving his worth to you?” 

“Maybe when you reach adult-size you can have an adult opinion,” Stiles said pointedly. “Cause it seems to me that you’re just a little girl with a crush, and let me tell you, Liam, he’s not just a bad boy, he’s a bad guy. And we can’t trust him just because he makes you blush and kick your feet.”

Theo smirked. “I can make him do more than that.”

Stiles gestured toward Theo. “See? This is just evil stuff. What is that?” 

Liam tried to cross his arms, but his muscles were so big he couldn’t. “You’re just jealous because at least my crush likes me back.”

“What? No. What? That’s not the point.” He looked at Lydia. “Back me up here. Theo’s the worst.” 

“Yeah, he’s real bad,” Liam said. 

“Yeah, I’m real bad,” Theo added. 

“See? What? No, why do that?” Stiles sputtered. “Lydia, you have to agree with me. We have got to limit his exposure to minors.” 

“Theo says I’m mature for my age!” Liam squeaked. 

“You ride in a booster seat and sleep with a nightlight.” 

“Not fair. I have nightmares.” 

“Okay,” Lydia said. “This is wildly off track.”

Stiles looked at her. “But you’re on my side, right?”

She looked at him helplessly. “Stiles, I… I can’t be the one to make that decision. I’ve wasted enough of Nolan’s time already.” She looked at Brett, and Nolan unconscious on the table, and her expression softened. “It’s up to you,” she said to Brett. “You’ve been here with him, he trusts you, and he obviously can’t make the decision on his own.”

Brett looked between Liam and Stiles, and then at Theo, who he didn’t even know. But he knew Liam, and once, they had been friends. He met Liam’s beautiful blue eyes and his fluttering eyelashes and perfect skin. Liam nodded at him, and all of the rivalry they had once had seemed to unravel. “You vouch for this guy?” Brett asked him. 

“Yeah,” Liam said, looking over at Theo. “I do.”

Now it was Theo blushing and kicking his feet. 

“See? Why does he do that?”  

Theo gave Liam a quick kiss on the forehead, and walked over to the table, maneuvering around Stiles who was still protesting. “What about Scott?” Stiles said, as a last resort. “I mean, he’s a vet, so wouldn’t he be the obvious choice, here?” 

They all looked over at Scott, who was leaping from bookshelf to bookshelf with his old ankle in his mouth and Isaac’s scarf around his neck. He barked.

“Nevermind,” Stiles said, defeated. 

Theo cracked open the first aid kit. His fingers brushed against the bandages, and he smiled at the warm memory. Liam winked. 

Stiles’ mouth was open and he was waving dramatically. “Why?” 

Theo unwound the lazily wrapped bandages, laying them flat on the desk, and setting out the sutures on top. He pulled out an anti-septic solution, and gave the bottle a shake. He looked down at Nolan, and cocked his head. “Good thing you’re not awake, buddy,” he said with a smirk. “This is about to hurt like a bitch.” 

He bit off the lid, flexed out his claws and shedded Nolan’s lacrosse padding. He poured the solution over Nolan’s jagged shoulder. Nolan’s body convulsed, an awful tremor running the length of his body. “Hold him down,” Theo growled.

Liam and Brett pinned down Nolan’s body, pushing him hard against the table as Theo went to work. 

Stiles gagged, the sight of Nolan’s fractured bones and tarnished skin making his stomach jolt with a ragged nausea. He turned around, his hand running over his mouth. His head spun. 

Lydia had walked away, sliding down the face of a bookshelf. Her knees were pressed to her chest, and her eyes were sad and tortured and distant. 

Stiles rubbed the back of his head, looking back at where Theo was working on Nolan, with Brett and Liam on either side, before deciding he wanted nothing to do with that. He sat next to Lydia, his legs folded beneath him. They sat in silence for a moment, watching the water rise up the last stair. 

“I can’t believe we’re about to drown and the last thing I have to watch is Scott using his own foot as a dog toy,” Stiles said, leaning his head back against the bookshelf. “Worst alpha ever.”

Liam, who could hear really well, looked up at Stiles and shook his head fearfully. 

Scott jumped to another bookshelf. 

Stiles ran his hands over his face. 

Lydia was quiet, and when Stiles looked over at her, he saw that she was crying. Her beautiful eyes were heavy with sorrow. Tears cut fine lines down her cheeks; she tried to wipe them away, but all she did was smear her makeup. 

“Oh, hey,” Stiles said, so softly it was barely audible. He hesitated for a moment, then reached forward and took her delicate face in his hands. His thumbs moved across her cheeks, and took away her tears. She stared at him, her mouth slightly parted. She was too tired to pretend that she wanted to pull away. “Wait, wait, wait, I got it,” he said, popping his thumb into his mouth and bringing it to her eye, trying to fix her smeared mascara and eyeliner. 

“You’re going to make it worse,” she said. Her voice was a sniffle, but there was a small murmur of amusement beneath it. 

“What? No, Lydia, I’m unbelievably talented. And coordinated. I mean, have you seen me at lacrosse?”

She rolled her eyes, and her eyelashes brushed against Stiles’ thumb. “You’re terrible at lacrosse.” 

“Yeah, and I’m really bad at this too. I definitely made it worse.” 

She glared at him, and pulled away from his hands. She seemed genuinely annoyed, and Stiles dropped his hands onto his lap. 

They sat in silence for a moment, and then she said, “Thank you.” 

“For what?” 

“Believing in me when no one else does, not even myself. But, Stiles, I think it's misguided. I’m not a hero, I’m not saving anyone. And when you put your trust in me, I am more scared of disappointing you than being wrong. And then I am wrong, and people get hurt.” 

Stiles tilted his head to look at her. “You couldn’t have saved Isaac, Lydia. No one could have known that was going to happen.” 

“Then what the hell kind of powers are these if I can’t even do that?” 

“Come on, Lydia,” Stiles said. “You’re so smart – so incredibly, unbelievably smart – and you’re tough. And yeah, your powers suck, but let me tell you, it’s really easy to be brave when you have claws and fangs. But lifting your chin and choosing to fight when the odds are stacked against you? That’s what makes you strong, stronger than all of us. And it’s why I love you.”

A horrible scream ripped through the library as Nolan’s mind slid back into place, and he regained consciousness under Theo’s hands. He writhed against Brett and Nolan, only for a moment because they were unprepared, but they were both werewolves and really strong, and Nolan was ninety pounds. All he could do was cry, so that’s what he did. Brett was trying to tell him what was happening, but he couldn’t hear him through the pain. 

Theo bit off the end of the suturing thread. His sleeves were rolled up and his hands were bloody. “Can someone shut this kid up?” he snapped. 

Liam glared at him, his jaw clenched with irritation as he worked to keep Nolan pinned to the table. 

Theo glanced at him and rolled his eyes. “Do you want me to fix him or not?” 

“Yeah, obviously, but you don’t have to be a dick about it.” 

“Oh, please, he’s just being dramatic.” 

“And you’re not?” 

Theo pulled his hand out of Nolan’s shoulder and flipped Liam off with a bloody, clawed finger.

Brett looked at them in disbelief, and turned his attention back to Nolan, sobbing and bleeding out on the table. He was still holding his hand – he hadn’t let it go since first sitting next to him on the library floor. He nursed some of the pain away, his body cramping with a fresh spasm of torture. Nolan’s breathing hitched with some meager relief. Brett’s other hand cradled Nolan’s cheek. “I’ve got you,” he promised, biting through the waves of pain. “Stay with me, I’ve got you.” 

Theo dug out a tooth from Nolan’s shoulder, gripping it between his claws. 

Liam put up a finger. “Did you know that because an alligator’s bite is one of the most powerful in nature, they inevitably break off a lot of teeth, and therefore go through about three-thousand fangs in their lifetime!” 

Theo looked at him, his mouth curving into a smirk. 

“What?” Liam said defensively. “I like Animal Planet.” 

“I’m impressed.” 

Stiles gagged from somewhere off screen. 

Theo threw the tooth to the floor and kept working. After some time, his hands stilled. “I’m sorry,” he said apathetically to Brett. “It’s no use. His arm is too far gone, and he’s lost too much blood to try anything else.” 

Brett clenched his jaw, a fresh course of fear and panic jolting through him. Nolan was just conscious enough to squeeze Brett’s hand for reassurance. “There has to be something you can do,” Brett said. 

Theo cracked his neck. “I know a lost cause when I see one.”

“But-”

“Look, I can keep working on him in some desperate attempt to say that I did everything I could, but he’s going to die regardless. All I can promise is excruciating pain up until the moment his heart gives out from pure exhaustion. Take it or leave it.” 

Brett looked down. Nolan’s lip was quivering. He shut his eyes as tears leaked out, and he turned his head into Brett’s chest. 

“What about Scott?” Liam said, his chest flexing. “When Hayden was dying, he bit her and it saved her life.” 

Theo rolled his eyes at the mention of Hayden. 

Brett glanced back at Scott, scratching at the scarf wound around his neck with his hind leg. “Is Scott… in the mental state for that?” 

“Is Nolan?” Theo asked. “Because it’s dangerous. Lethal, even.” 

“He’s going to die either way,” Liam argued. 

“Yeah, and if he dies from the bite, the pain will be ten times as severe. Do you really want to put him through that?” He clarified, “Not that I care either way. I just want to make sure you know the risks here.” 

Against Brett’s chest, Nolan murmured something, his voice feeble and muffled by Brett’s shirt. He shifted his head, and looked up at Brett with sad, hopeless eyes. “I don’t want to die,” he said. 

“Okay,” Brett said. He looked between Liam and Theo. “Let’s do it then.” 

Liam whistled and Scott came bounding over, wagging his tail. 

“You have to bite Nolan,” Liam said. 

“Why?” Scott said, dropping his old ankle from his mouth onto the floor. “He’d be a terrible werewolf. I don’t want him in my pack.” 

“You’re his only shot at surviving." 

“I’m everyone’s only shot at surviving," Scott said. “I am the alpha.” Scott howled, and bit down hard into Nolan’s bare calf. 

Nolan’s fists balled into Brett’s shirt. He spasmed, his body writhing on the desk as agonizing pain tore through him, ripping though the torture from the alligator bite and sending shrapnel of suffering through his mind. Brett reached for his hand again, but Theo reached out and stilled the gesture. 

“You’ve got to let it run its course,” Theo said. 

Brett looked at Theo helplessly. “I don’t have to take his pain, but I can show him that he’s not alone.” He leaned down and scooped up Nolan against his chest. Nolan cried out and curled into Brett’s arms, his body trembling with pain and exhaustion. Brett settled down on the floor, with Nolan wrapped up in his embrace. 

“I’ve got you, Nolan,” he said. “I’ve got you. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” He kissed his forehead and held him tight. Brett’s eyes burned with tears. 

A siren picked up outside the library’s shattered window. The storm had ceased, and there was only a cold breeze rattling past the broken glass. The air felt muggy and slow. The siren sounded louder and louder, until the blinking red and blue lights flashed through the library. 

On the other side of the window, Sheriff Stilinski glided forward on a rowboat with a siren and a search light. He looked rugged, in his tattered sheriff uniform and blood splattered sheriff hat, with a hunting rifle. On either side of him was Melissa McCall and Chris Argent with paddles in hand. Melissa’s hair was a beautiful mess of curls in the humidity, and she had a cut running across her collarbone. Her hospital scrubs were damp and dirty, clinging to her elegant and lithe frame. Argent’s beard was caked with blood, and the bridge of his nose was sliced, and there was a bruise forming on his temple. He smiled, his middle tooth knocked out. He had a paddle in one hand, and an AR-15 in the other. He started blasting shots in the water as Melissa ripped out the pin of a grenade with her teeth. She threw it into the water, the wild beeping fading as it sank. A moment later, fifteen alligators were blasted out of the water, chunks flying everywhere. Scott jumped and caught one in his mouth, and shook his head violently. 

The rowboat glided into the library, parking next to Theo’s Toyota Tundra. 

“Is everyone okay?” Melissa called out. 

“I kept everyone safe,” Scott said. “I’m the alpha.” 

Argent jumped over the side of the rowboat, cowboy style, his galoshes splashing into the floodwater. He helped lift Melissa to dry land, and then the Sheriff. They marched up to the second floor and set up a defence post on the railing. Stiles rushed toward his dad, colliding into him with a big, desperate hug. 

“Thank god,” he said into his dad’s collar. He was trying his best not to cry. 

“It’s okay, Son,” the Sheriff said, his hand on the back of Stiles’ head. “I’m here.” 

Melissa threw Scott a dog treat. He did a trick. 

She then threw one to Liam, who was sitting patiently, waiting for his turn. He did a trick too. 

“Mine was better,” Scott said. 

Melissa looked at Theo. “You want one, too, honey?” She said to the bad, evil, gross dog.

He pretended he didn’t. 

She held one out anyway. But before he could take it, she said, warningly, “Gently. I almost lost a finger last time.”

Theo took it sheepishly, and ate it quietly under a table, growling if the others tried to get close. Scott crept forward. Theo snapped at him, and Scott rolled over. 

“Play nice,” Melissa warned. 

Argent put his arm around Melissa’s shoulder. ‘They’re so well trained,” he said proudly, scratching at his beard. 

Stiles rolled his eyes, disgusted. “Let’s just get out of here before somebody decides to start humping the table leg.” 

All three dogs looked offended, (and a secret fourth).

Brett clenched his jaw and stifled some kind of nasty comment. How could they be jumping around and doing tricks while Nolan was laying on the floor? As his heart slowed and his breath stammered? Brett held onto Nolan’s jersey, his fists balled into the fabric. He hadn’t given up on him, not yet, but things weren’t looking good. His skin was pale, and there was a thick sheen of sweat collecting on his temple and over his lip. He could barely keep his eyes open. His body trembled with the pain. Brett couldn’t feel it anymore, he had taken Theo’s medical advice and refused, despite the mental suffocation it was taking. He could help Nolan, he knew he could. He could take the pain, help him burden the suffering (that is optional), ease Nolan’s mind and body, just a little bit. But he didn’t. And that was tearing him up inside. He leaned over and pressed his forehead to Nolan’s. He had to know that he wasn’t alone. That he wasn’t going through this by himself. Someone was here, someone was looking out for him, and someone was fighting to make sure he would be okay. Even if that someone was a stranger, even if he had always been fighting on the opposite team, he would be there for Nolan now, when it mattered. Even if no one else was. 

Nolan coughed, and something black and oily splattered his chin. Brett swallowed thickly, and began to cry. Silently, so Nolan wouldn’t hear it. Not in his last moments. It didn’t matter now what he could feel; his body was rejecting the bite. He had already been through too much. 

“I’m sorry,” Brett said. His voice was thick and wet and cracking. “I’m so sorry. I did everything I could. And I stayed with you, like I promised.” 

Brett took Nolan’s hand again. It didn’t matter now. He took Nolan’s hand and held it tight, and drank in all of Nolan’s pain that he could. It ripped through him. He could feel the throb of his shoulder, but it was so distant now, a murmur in the storm of torture that was inflicted by Scott’s bite. It felt like every nerve in his body was being torn apart and put back together, misaligned and spasming, his muscles contracting as they twisted and tore. It was a sharp buzz and a long, drawn out ache, and a cutting pain. Everything hurt, and Brett knew that what he was feeling was only partial to what was happening inside of Nolan. 

“It’s okay,” he said, his teeth grit. His eyes glowed a dull yellow as he tried to ingest more and more of Nolan’s torture. “I’ve got you. I always will.” 

But then the pain subsided. He could feel Nolan’s heartbeat inside of his own body, and he could feel it begin to still. He held Nolan close, ignoring the darkness that was pulsing through his own vision. He could feel his own heart slowing with Nolan’s. And, still, he refused to let go of his hand. 

Nolan’s head tilted back. “What’s happening?” he asked. His voice was beginning to unravel.

“I’m staying with you,” Brett said. “Just like I promised.” 

Both of their hearts slowed to a stop. Brett pressed one last kiss to Nolan’s head before his body went still, resting over Nolan’s as if still trying to protect it. Brett’s last thought was that he could have loved Nolan, if they had lived long enough to find out. 

Lydia was watching from the other side of the floor. Tears cut trails down her cheeks. She had watched it all happen, and didn’t do anything. This wasn’t like Isaac’s death – it was preventable, yes, but she thought that maybe there were some forces that shouldn’t be interfered with. Beautiful Death was one of them. 

“They’re gone,” she said to Stiles. 

He swiveled around to look at the bodies. His stomach pitched with nausea, but he managed to keep it together. “Oh god,” was all he said. Then, “For the record, I blame Theo.” 

“Oh come on,” Liam spat. “We all knew Nolan wouldn’t survive that.”

“It looks like the rest of us will be fine though,” Argent said. “The last gator was just gunned down. We’re free to go.” 

“Go where?” Liam asked. “The whole town is flooded. Theo and I saw the damage on the way back from the hospital.”

Argent propped his rifle over his shoulder and smiled. “You didn’t doubt that I would have a backup plan for an emergency like this, did you?”

They could hear helicopter blades cutting through the sky above them. It landed on the roof, and Scott jumped for joy, clapping his hands. 

“Ladies first,” Argent said to Melissa, letting her lead the way to the library’s roof. He followed behind her, with Sheriff Stilinski a step behind them. 

Theo spun his keys around his finger. He looked at Liam suggestively. “Feeling in the mood for a drive?” he asked. 

Liam fluttered his baby doll eyes. “In a Toyota? Always.” 

“Race you to the car,” Theo said, cheating by tripping Liam and winning.

“I would have won,” Scott said. “If I was invited.” 

“You weren’t,” Theo said, buckling Liam back into his booster seat and backing out through the library wall. They sped off into the flooded night. 

Scott picked up a chunk of exploded alligator flesh. It was crispy and cooked medium rare from Melissa’s grenade. He licked his chops and started to carry it to the helicopter, so when it landed again, he could bury his treat in the yard. He looked back at Stiles and Lydia. “You coming?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” Stiles said, “Give us a moment, will you?” 

“You have to do what I say. I am the alpha.” 

Liam would have pissed himself if he was here. 

“Yeah, whatever Mad-dog, we’ll catch up.” 

Scott ran in a circle and fled to the roof, picking up an extra chunk on the way in honor of ISAAC 🇺🇸🦅🦅🇺🇸 🦅🇺🇸🦅🪦

Lydia was standing at the banister, looking at Nolan and Brett and their bodies collapsed against each other. Her expression was unreadable. Stiles came to stand next to her, his arm brushing against hers. 

“You couldn’t have done anything for them, either,” he said. 

“No,” she said slowly. “But I didn’t try either. I didn’t need to. You were right, Stiles. They had all the bravery they needed, and it was beautiful.” She turned her head to look at him. “You don’t have claws or fangs either, Stiles. But you never stop fighting. And you never stop believing in me, in Scott, in life. And I think that that’s beautiful, too.” She paused for a moment before saying, “You’re beautiful, Stiles.”

Stiles looked at her. His heart was bruising his ribs, and his breath was caught in his throat. 

“Let’s go home?” she asked. 

“Yeah,” he said, smiling all crooked and boyish. “That sounds great.” 

They joined the others on the roof, as the library was finally submerged underwater. As the helicopter lifted into the air, Scott, simple as a moth, stuck his head out the window and howled at what he thought was the moon, but was, in reality, the bright and beautiful light of Theo’s Toyota Tundra. 

The End