Chapter Text
Stiles tapped his long fingers against the dash of Lydia's car and squinted his eyes against the setting sun even though it hurt to look at.
"How soon after we get into town do you think we meet the monster of the week?" he asked with a sidelong glance at Lydia. Their monsters tended to last months, but Stiles didn't dictate the terminology.
"I'm sure they'll give you five minutes to catch up with your dad first," Lydia answered with a shorter glance, opting to squint at the road against the low sun. Her hair shone like fire in its light.
As far as Stiles knew, Beacon Hills had been villain-free since his last visit over summer break. They'd been through quiet periods before. Eventually, something always went bump in the night. It hardly seemed reasonable to expect the bump to wait for winter break, but then Stiles and Lydia had both finished their finals early this semester to go home before the term was technically up. He couldn't decide if that made a monster tonight more or less likely. Whichever was worst, he decided.
"Five bucks says we don't finish dinner," Stiles said, not because he wanted something to fight, but because he could hardly imagine his home town without monsters anymore. The nemeton drew in peaceful and violent creatures alike. Stiles hoped he was wrong. He was hungry.
Lydia sighed. Stiles got the feeling she'd be giving him a look if she weren't driving. She had seen as many monsters as he, though she understood them later. Stiles figured everything balanced out since she was a monster herself, a banshee who could predict death and fight with her screams.
Dark clouds rolled in from behind the car. They'd traveled with the storm for over a day now, and in under an hour, they would ride into Beacon Hills with it, like the Wild Hunt come back to claim the town that fought it off.
Lydia's eyes flickered to the rear-view mirror and back to the road ahead. She had the sun visor pulled down even though it couldn't help with the sun touching the horizon.
Stiles picked at the texture of the dash and tried not to ask what he really wanted to. Lydia had told him to stop, but it picked at his brain more persistently than his fingers did the dash. He switched back to tapping.
He grimaced, unable to hold back any longer. "I know it's been a while for us, but I still think they're going to ask."
"If it's been so long, you shouldn't mind talking about it." She kept her eyes on the road.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"It's not their business," she reminded him.
"What if they try to get us back together?"
"They won't."
"But what if they do?"
"We've seen them multiple times since we broke up, Stiles."
"Scott's been asking me about dates more often recently. I think he's worried about me."
"Tell him to mind his own business."
"What if he doesn't?"
"Stiles."
"Don't 'Stiles' me. Scott's going to be like, 'I thought you were in love with her since third grade, Stiles. What happened to your eternal love, Stiles? Do you need me to talk to her, Stiles?'"
"Scott won't say your name that much."
"That's not the point!"
"A third grade crush is not the same thing as true love, and Scott knows that."
"Yeah, well, it evolved over time. That's still not the point."
Lydia's shoulders fell at last. "If Scott tries to talk with me, you know I will shut him down, or are you worried what you will do if he offers to help get us back together?"
"Eleven years is a long time," Stiles mumbled.
"Do you think we made a mistake?"
"No."
"Then why are you worried?"
"You know I'll always love you, just not..."
"We couldn't make it work. That's not a fault of insufficient love, Stiles. It's just how the world works sometimes."
Thunder punctuated her sentence. The storm would catch them before they made it to town.
"I wasn't going to say, 'not enough.'" Thunder drowned out Stiles' voice.
When the storm's crashing faded, Lydia added, "We could tell them why we broke up."
"Scott will just give us tips for how he makes it work," Stiles grumbled.
"When I agreed to drive you across the country, you promised you wouldn't be weird."
"This isn't weird. You've seen me weird." They'd known each other for years. Lydia had seen him beyond weird.
Lydia sighed. She'd done that a lot over the course of their cross-country road trip.
Stiles plowed ahead. "Do you know how happy Scott gets when he thinks I have a date? I've stopped telling him about new friends altogether to avoid the forlorn puppy mood he falls into when he realizes I'm still single."
"Is that why I have to listen to you pine after baristas, librarians, random passing strangers...?"
"Maybe." Stiles pouted.
"If Scott tries to ask about how we broke up or to get us back together, which he won't, just distract him by asking about Malia."
"I think he'll catch on."
"Then ask him for help with something else."
"I've spent days in a car with you, and you're a bastion of unnecessary information. What more could I need?"
Lydia nearly took her hands off the wheel in her frustration. "I memorize far more useful topics than you."
"My point is what could I ask Scott but not you?"
"Ask him about animals."
Scott was studying to become a veterinarian. Stiles cared very little for animals though. He neither had nor wanted nor was allowed a pet in his dorm. He didn't rescue strays or feed birds in the park. He'd flipped off a bird last month for shitting on him, but he didn't think that counted.
"I don't think you're helping," Stiles told Lydia.
"No, you're just refusing to be helped. Do the same with Scott, and if you're lucky, he'll never speak to you again."
"Don't be angry, Lydia."
"Don't pout. You know it won't help."
"I guess if Scott starts to ask about my love life, I can always come onto him. He's always avoided addressing that in the past."
"See, you can always create a distraction. It's an innate talent."
"Excuse you, it's a hard-earned skill that I developed over many years of underhandedness and outright lies."
Lydia chuckled, and Stiles knew he was forgiven. He'd only used a little of the car trip to worry at her, really. Just a tiny portion each day near the end of their drive when her nerves were already worn down...
"I didn't mean to belittle your diabolical accomplishments," Lydia said. "I won't—" she broke off with a scream and slammed on the brakes.
The tires screeched. A man stood dark in the road silhouetted against the last sliver of sunlight. His eyes glowed red. The sound of his roar drowned out the screech of tires but not the crash of the car hitting his body. The hood crunched inward. The werewolf flew back. The airbag punched Stiles in the face and blocked his view of the man landing.
Stiles fumbled at his seatbelt and grabbed his backpack and metal bat from the floor behind his seat. He scrambled out of the car.
"Are you okay?" he asked, though he slipped the bag onto his back and held the bat ready, just in case.
The alpha roared.
With the sun gone and the headlights pointed off the road, the alpha stood in shadow relieved only by his glowing eyes.
Stiles said, "I have healing herbs if you need them."
Lydia reached Stiles and dug through the backpack.
Stiles added, "Also not-healing herbs, but I'd rather—"
The wolf charged.
Lydia flung a handful of ground wolfsbane in his face and pulled Stiles back as the werewolf stumbled nearer the light.
"I guess you don't want healing," Stiles said because he wasn't sure how to shut his mouth with his nerves going haywire.
The alpha looked like he needed healing whether he wanted it or not. Black veins stood out against his skin. His eyes were wide with more than rage and twitched manically in all directions. By their own red glow, Stiles spotted black veins pulsing even through the alpha's eyeballs.
And then, past the shadows, contorted expression, and supernatural features, Stiles recognized the alpha.
"Dr. Fenris?"
Fenris tried to lunge again. Lydia screamed. The force of her voice pushed him back. Fenris pressed forward. Several paces away, they reached a stalemate, but Lydia would have to breathe soon.
Stiles dug out the mountain ash from his bag and threw down a circle to trap Fenris, who crashed against the barrier. Stiles felt the impact like tremors after an earthquake.
"What happened to you?" Stiles asked. "Do you need help?"
Scott and Stiles first met Fenris while searching for a cure to make Scott human again. The last Stiles knew of Fenris was when the Anuk-ite drove him mad with fear. Fenris had still been human then, and he had killed as many supernaturals as he could, namely those in Eichen House.
Now, Fenris seemed similarly frenzied, not attacking because he wanted to but because he had been driven beyond what he could handle consciously. If they were lucky, talking, offering to help, might calm him down.
"Is it poison?" Lydia asked as she eyed Fenris' veins. "I've never heard of disease that affects werewolves."
Stiles had small batches of the nine herbs separated out in his bag. He held one up. "Would this help?"
Fenris growled.
"Dude, you know us, and we can tell something's wrong. We'd rather help than fight," Stiles said.
"I don't think he can help himself." Lydia pointed to his mouth.
Fenris' saliva had begun to foam. It was marbled with inky black ichor. He smashed against the ash barrier. The ground shook. Stiles stumbled to his knees. With the next impact, the barrier broke.
Lydia screamed too late.
Fenris' teeth—an alpha's teeth—sank into Stiles' neck.
Lydia's scream tore Fenris from Stiles, ripping away the flesh between his teeth. Hot blood poured down Stiles' torso. His chest was tight with pain. His heart struggled to beat against the darkness squeezing tight around it. Stiles stood. He lifted his bat.
"Stiles," Lydia said, a warning, a question, a plea.
Fenris roared, but Stiles was too newly-bitten to have turned yet. The alpha's roar couldn't force Stiles to shift, fight, or run. Stiles swung his bat against the Fenris' face. It connected with a sickening crunch.
Stiles hadn't wanted the bite. He turned it down years ago.
Fenris pushed himself back up. Stiles swung again.
If Stiles had wanted to be a werewolf, he would be. Peter and Scott had offered him the bite. Derek wouldn't have denied him. Stiles never asked for the bite. He didn't want it.
Fenris set his hand against the ground to push himself up. Stiles smashed the bat against the back of his head to keep him down.
Stiles survived as a human for years. He got out of Beacon Hills. He went to college. He was set to apply to the FBI Academy after he graduated and had already completed two semester-long internships. Then he got bitten by a sad, scared man driven out of control by fear and disease. Stiles couldn't bring himself to care how Fenris was bitten, how he became an alpha. He only cared that Fenris had bitten him.
Stiles smashed his bat down again, though Fenris hadn't shown any sign of getting back up.
"Stiles," Lydia whispered.
He kicked Fenris over and crushed his teeth. He swung his bat until, instead of a crunch, he heard a squelch.
"He's dead, Stiles. Please stop."
Stiles dropped the bat. He thought there was something he should say. Something he should do. Something he shouldn't have done.
He looked at Fenris' smashed-in face and tried to feel regret. Stiles was supposed to help people. He wanted to help people. He wanted to be better than this.
But he wasn't. The dead man's blood covered his bat. It had sprayed out over Stiles to coat his face, chest, arms, even his legs.
He thought he should be short of breath or in tears. This was everything he never wanted to be. The darkness he'd put around his heart clawed out more space in him. Stiles felt it choking him, but his breathing stayed even, at odds with the wild struggling of his heart.
"I did this." Stiles dropped to his knees.
This wasn't the first time he had killed, but the other had been half-accident. Stiles had dropped scaffolding on the wendigo chimera Donovan, and a pipe impaled him. A long time later, Scott told Stiles the lie Theo gave about how Stiles killed Donovan, the lie that made Scott believe Stiles had gone too far.
It had looked like this.
Lydia knelt beside him. Her voice was breathlessly thin when she said, "You weren't just destroying his teeth to keep them from identifying him."
Stiles opened his mouth but couldn't say anything.
Lydia pressed something against the side of his neck where the alpha bit him. She said, "The blood is red, not black. That's good."
When Stiles spoke, his voice shook, "Is Scott in town yet?"
"Not until tomorrow. Malia will be in on Thursday." She paused. "I should call your dad."
"What about Liam?" He should be in town. Corey and Theo too, though as chimeras, Stiles thought they'd be less helpful. Peter was around somewhere, but he was a born wolf, not bitten. And an asshole.
"There's nothing he can do. The change takes time, right? Nothing will happen tonight." She looked back at Fenris. "We should take care of... everything else first."
They couldn't just leave the body. Forensic evidence would point back to them once it was found. The man had been hit by Lydia's car, taken a bite out of Stiles' neck, and been beaten to death with Stiles' bat. Stiles was covered in both their blood.
"Parrish could burn him," Stiles said.
"Deaton may be able to find what's wrong with him," Lydia said. "He bit you. What if he transmitted whatever was making him sick too?"
"The longer the body survives, the higher the chance of it being found. I can't..." He took in a slow breath. "I can't claim self defense for this. It wouldn't hold up in court, not the way I... I..." He clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. "We have to destroy the evidence."
"It was self defense," Lydia said.
"Does it look like self defense?" Stiles asked. "It doesn't to me. It won't to a jury."
"You won't face a jury," Lydia assured him. "Your dad is the sheriff, and we can destroy the body after Deaton performs an autopsy as easily as before."
Stiles ran his hands over his face. His skin was slick with blood.
Lydia pulled her phone from her purse and dialed. She set her free hand against Stiles' arm to calm him as she waited. All it did was bloody her palm.
"Can anyone hear us?" she asked. "This is... private." She listened a moment and said, "I hit a werewolf with my car. He bit Stiles, and Stiles killed him. We need help." She was on the phone a while longer, saying where they were and answering a barrage of questions.
Stiles wiped his hands off on the back of his jeans and slipped his own phone from his pocket. He peeled off a wad of napkins Lydia had used to stop the blood flow and used the front-facing camera to study the bite. He took a picture, not sure if he would want record of the wound or not. The flash made the already gruesome wound garish.
There was a gouge missing from his neck. Scrape marks along the edge marked the path of the alpha's teeth. It was too much of a bloodied mess to clearly see the muscle and sinew laid bare. It moved when he swallowed. Stiles barely felt it.
"I think I'm in shock," he said. He was supposed to feel it.
Lydia petted his hair and promised to make everything alright.
"He bit me," Stiles spat. "I never wanted the bite."
"I know," Lydia said. He'd never told her outright, but if he'd wanted it, all he would have had to do was ask. Everyone had to know he didn't want it.
"I didn't..." Stiles looked at the blood on his hands and arms, the streaks left on his phone despite his attempts to wipe his hands. "I think I'm angry, but I don't feel it fully. I didn't think about what I was doing. I just did it."
"I killed Valack," Lydia reminded him. Stiles had been nearby, though at a safe distance when it happened. She hadn't been herself. "You're not the only one."
"You couldn't have done anything else," Stiles insisted.
"Neither could you. Mountain ash didn't hold him, and he was trying to kill you, not bite you."
"We could have tried the herbs."
"How?"
"I had him down on the ground. We could have given him the herbs before he got up."
"Could we?" Lydia frowned. "He was an alpha, Stiles. He might have healed faster than we could move. We might have died in trying to save him instead of ourselves."
It was kind of Lydia to talk like this was something they did together. Maybe, given her power, it was something she let him do, but Stiles had done it himself.
"Look at him," Stiles ordered. "I didn't just kill him. I didn't just stop him from killing us." Stiles struggled to breathe, finally losing the false composure of shock. "I obliterated his face."
Lydia froze, staring at Stiles, not at what he'd done. Stiles felt it then, the heat behind his eyes. They were glowing like a transformed wolf's. He lifted a blood-smeared hand to see his claws.
Gently, Lydia pushed his hand back down out of sight. With her other hand, she turned his head to look her in the eye.
She said, "It must be faster because you're an alpha."
"I don't have an anchor. I don't have a plan." Stiles tried to dim his eyes, but they only blazed stronger. He couldn't make the claws retract.
"You're shifted, but you haven't attacked me," Lydia said. "You're still in control."
"For how long?" Stiles growled. The vibration rumbled through his chest and throat.
"You can't hurt me," Lydia said.
"I could hurt my dad."
"Parrish and Deaton are coming with him. I think the group of us can handle one baby werewolf, even if his eyes are red." Lydia sounded calmer than she smelled.
"I can't risk it," Stiles snarled. As fangs, his teeth fit together differently when he clenched them.
"The wolfsbane you brought. Could any of it put you to sleep?" Lydia asked, grabbing Stiles' backpack off the street.
Stiles flinched back from the bag, from the scent of poison wafting out of it.
"Stiles, focus. Can any of this knock you out?"
"Green baggie." He bit his lip but stopped when his fang pierced it. "Make sure I'm away from humans when I wake up."
"I will," Lydia promised. She tossed the wolfsbane in his face.
Stiles sneezed and stumbled back with a snarl. "I'm still awake."
He grabbed the rest of the wolfsbane from Lydia's hand and tossed it aside with a roar. Blood welled on her fingers where his claws had raked a path across her skin.
"I have to leave," Stiles realized, staring at her blood.
"Wait." Lydia stretched her injured hand toward him. "You... your phone. It'll die. Take your battery pack."
"Who would I call?"
"Scott will be here tomorrow, and he can help."
"I'm not one of his betas," Stiles growled, surprised at his own anger.
"A pack can have more than one alpha. We've seen it before." She reached into Stiles' bag.
Lydia lifted her hand from the bag and hurled ash at him instead of a battery pack. Stiles roared, but his voice couldn't displace ash. He hurled himself forward and crashed against the barrier. It gave slightly when he hit it. Lightning flashed overhead. Thunder crashed.
"Let me go!" he screamed. His voice was deep and filled with inhuman vibration, thunder's echo ripped from his throat.
"We can figure this out together, Stiles. I just need you to breathe slowly. I'll breathe with you, okay?"
"I don't want to breathe with you," he rumbled.
She was afraid, for him, not of him. He smelled it on her skin. He heart beat faster than it would at rest, but slow enough that she was still in control. Stiles' heartbeat wasn't nearly so measured.
"It will be okay, Stiles." She was still trying to calm him.
Stiles rammed his fist against the barrier with a snarl. Mountain ash hadn't held the alpha. Scott had broken through it once, too. Werewolves weren't supposed to be able to touch mountain ash, but Stiles hadn't touched it the first time he broke an ash line. He was transforming fast, but maybe it wasn't complete yet.
His fingers were still clawed when he held his hands in front of him, palms down. His hands trembled. He growled at them, but that couldn't make them stop.
Lydia reached over the ash to grasp his hands. He could smell her blood. Its scent mixed with the blood already on his hand.
"Let me go," he ordered before she could try to calm him again. "Send Parrish after me to keep me from hurting anyone, but let me go."
Lydia let her hands fall. "No."
Stiles screamed and hurled himself against the ash. "I can't hurt my dad. I already hurt you." He crashed against the barrier.
"Deaton needs to make sure you aren't sick too," Lydia insisted.
Stiles snarled.
Lydia raised an eyebrow. "You've already said that."
Stiles snapped his teeth at her.
"What can you bite from in there?"
Stiles held up his hands again, palms facing the ash. He focused on the ash, tuning Lydia out. Mountain ash circled him entirely, resting in a thin line against the asphalt at the edge of the road. It was barely more than dust and worked because Lydia believed it would. Stiles had controlled it before. He could do it again.
Stiles separated his hands. The ash line broke.
He ran into the night. Behind him, Lydia screamed his name. Farther out, he heard the first hint of a siren as his father neared.