SELECT chapter 3 ↵ FROM union all

Late afternoon sun pierced his eyelids and stabbed directly into his brain. Lovely, his most common withdrawal symptom was rearing its ugly head. It was similar to a caffeine deprivation headache, but it reached deeper. The migraine clawing it's cloying fingers into his psyche and fucking with his reactions.

His meds were carefully bagged up in the tent back at the campground.

They hadn't been able to retrieve any of their stuff, the Alpha had found it first and torn the damn thing to shreds. Stiles hadn't seen it, but the deputies had winced and apologized for him. They had decided to hold the scene for a couple of techs to drive up from a bigger city to catalog the evidence. They were hoping to find a fingerprint or something.

All that meant was, Stiles hadn't dropped by his house before high tailing it to the Hale house. So he was experiencing a severe lack of medication. Along with a severe migraine brought on by with-drawls.

Stiles threw an arm over his eyes and grumbled low in his chest.

Sleep evaded him even worse, though. He finally became frustrated enough to sit up. Which was when he finally noticed that Scott was nowhere in the room. A burst of fear shuddered down Stiles' spine and he threw back the covers on the bed. He didn't run per-say. But if he was a suburban mother with two 5lbs weights, you could say he was power walking.

He found Scott in the main room, surrounded by other people. Sitting and speaking calmly, it seemed. It felt as if the strings of fear had been cut and he sagged against the wall. His head throbbed in time with his heart, making the edges of his vision pulse lightly.

Leave it to Scott to wake up in a stranger's home and make friends with the people he found there. Like a fucking puppy.

"Yea, Stiles and I are juniors at Beacon Hill High." Scott was saying before Stiles watched his friend catch his scent. It was a rather fascinating thing to see. Scott's face turned to him as if he was magnetic north, eyes tracking behind until they landed on him. An easy smile broke across his friend's features.

"Hey man!" Scott waved, happy to see his friend. "You finally woke from the dead!"

"Excellent deduction skills." Stiles snarked back half-heartedly.

"Uhhuh," Scott said absently, having long since grown used to Stiles prickles. "I thought we were heading back to my place?"

Scott had a certain gift of barreling into a sensitive topic in front of strangers. Stiles sighed and sagged against the wall even more. He let his eyes take in the few people who were sitting on various cushions and couches. It was a small portion of the Hale pack.

Fuck it. The brain to mouth filter was being beaten into a pulp by the pain anyway.

"You've got yourself a bit of a furry disposition, Scotty my pal." Stiles waved a hand encompassing all of Scott. "So I brought you to the mecca of furry."

"Furries?" Scott asked quizzically, glancing around.

"Not the fur-suit variety, though that would be vastly more colorful and entertaining I'm sure." Stiles said, almost despondently. Lycanthropes were oftentimes bland and tending towards stereotypical leather. Fur-suits would be a prettier option in a lot of ways.

His mid skittered sideways.

"Do you think that fur-suits could theoretically become the equalizing force between different races of people?" Stiles asked, tipping his head.

"Uhh." Scott blinked at him, before giving the question serious thought. They'd long since discovered that if they just talked about whatever was on Stiles' mind, it calmed him a lot more quickly rather than just ignoring it. "Depended on the level of adoption and the context in which they are worn and perceived?"

Stiles hummed and nodded, mind skittering away again. It made him feel frustrated and lost, talking as he was. He glanced back at Scott, the curiosity re-lit like a compass in his chest and he focused, finally.

"What do you mean furry mecca?" One of the people asked, distracting him from whatever he was about to say. Stiles swung his eyes over and they caught on deep brown, almost black, ones. It was Phil. He'd joined the pack post Hale fire. A transplant from the east coast.

The pack he left had been rather conservative and painfully backwards in terms of ability to protect its members. The government had directly intervened several times, resulting in Phil and a few others being shipped off to other packs. Fucking alphabet agencies, that had been a close brush for Stiles'.

He'd been too curious for his own good, and had idiotically attempted his first direct frontal attack in a bid to figure out who exactly was going to be showing up on Talia's doorstep. He'd had to chuck the laptop he'd used in a garbage bin across state lines at an empty truck stop, and it had taken months to work up enough courage and code to commit more felonies.

That, thankfully, had resulted in a success. Short lived, but bountiful, success.

Because he'd learned that Phil was wonder bread, if wonder bread was a person. Bland, doughy, and better when you added other people to the mix.

"I mean, Fido," Stiles nodded at the room at large. "The persistent wet dog smell. The ambiance of tennis balls and chew toys. You know. Furry mecca."

That elicited several glares and inaudible growls. Which triggered Scott. Wee ol' Stiles was being threatened and Scott's freshly minted wolf senses and shiny new instincts were firing on all cylinders.

Poor Scott popped his claws and fangs for the first time in response to the blatant animosity. Not the best circumstances. Stiles wanted to brain the wolves in the room. They were freaking Scott out, which was making the teen freakout even more about himself.

"That, dear Benji." Stiles pointed at his friend as he stared Phil in the eye. Challenge blatant and cocky. "Is why I brought him. He's a freshly minted wolf and this place is the best option of all things fluffy and growly. Congrats on popping his claw cherry."

Scott stared at him in confusion and fear. A high pitched whine piercing the air as the teen stood and scrambled away from the others.

"Look what you did, Lassie. It's gonna take forever to calm him down now." Stiles admonished, grumbling as he made his way toward his best friend masquerading as a dangerous creature. He heard blustering and angry words as he passed amidst the others in the room. The words rolled off his back easily enough. Unless pointed and directed, blunt words had long since lost their effect. Acted more like background noise that thudded into his mind in absent ways.

Thank god basic hospitality and manners meant that it was unlikely they were going to go for his neck with his back turned. Talia had let him into the home, their stay in the guest room was obvious enough. So he could give his undivided attention to the very frightened Scott.

"Oi!" Stiles grumbled, whacking his friend on the arm. "Fucking quit it man, your eyebrows are missing."

Scott stilled, one clawed hand coming up to feel his face.

"Oi!" Stiles whacked the arm again. "You slab of beef, you got sharp pointy things on your fingers, watch it."

Scott let out an apologetic noise, it was warped around his teeth and fangs.

"Yea, yea, I hear you. Whatever. If you don't calm down I can't feed you. Come on, I know you're starving." He looped a hand around Scott's shoulder and led him away from the angsty group of wolves and toward the kitchen area. By the time they reached the bar, Scott's eyebrows had returned.

Lycanthropes, like most weres, required a lot of food. With a very high density of nutrition and calories. The sandwiches that Talia made that morning were a requirement. It was an issue for social and economic development. Because needing to have that much food to attain a similar level of health as a human was exceedingly difficult.

Humans were easy, chuck some grain and a few leafy vegetables at them and they'd survive for a while. Supernats across the board had it harder. Either it was quantity, quality, or specificity. All of that together meant there were, generally, fewer of them. Because if you can't eat? Tada! You're dead.

The Hales were among the few packs in the country that were able to maintain a status of wealth that allowed them to adequately feed themselves and each of their members. Packs dying out from hunger was a very real thing, even in modern times. Which was a main contributing factor to how they were able to stay and be kept under the radar.

If you had control over their food source, you could have control over the individuals or species. Kinda hard to find supernats if they're dying of hunger or pushed out from a resource heavy area. Only those groups savvy enough to build economic empires were able to survive. Mafias and criminal groups across the board often had a high number of supernats in their ranks. Which. Utterly fascinating. Also very, very sad.

Starvation was a depressing and scary thing to acknowledge.

Stiles' head throbbed and he wished he could stop thinking for a second. Wished his mind would take a breath so he could stop thinking 10 steps beyond each surface level thing. It was exhausting.

Scott grabbed a stool, and suddenly in a parody of that morning, Stiles was puttering around the kitchen like Talia had. Going for quantity over quality, Stiles went for a meat lover's omelette. He'd found a deli counter's worth of meat and cheese to shove inside, so it'd whip up quickly.

"Stiles?" Scott said quietly, breaking the silence that had stretched between them.

"Yepo, bucko." Stiles answered, nerves ricocheting up his arms and tightening his shoulders.

"What…" Scott trailed off before finding his courage and continuing. "What happened?"

"Well, Scotty dearest. Scotty, my main man. Scotty, the love of my life." Stiles stalled, turning the question over in his mind. He'd kept Scott separate from his obsession with everything supernatural for so long. Now, that wasn't an option. His darling brother-from-another-mother, was neck deep in this life. Shoved in by the most traumatic of incidents.

"Come on Stiles." Scott begged, his eyes going wide and round. Desperate and so similar to Isaiahs. "I haven't yelled. I listened when you told me to pull it together. Please."

"Yea." Stiles finally grumbled, whisking the eggs with perhaps a little too much ferocity. "That crazy person who attacked us?"

Stiles glanced back, checking on his friend and saw Scott nodding, remembering. It wasn't a pleasant memory going by the pale skin and darting eyes.

"That lovely person was what are called lycanthropes." Stiles said smoothly, voice even even as his heart was fluttering like a hummingbird. "They are a subclass of other theiranthropics, people with the ability to change into animals. At least, according to the western mythology and lore."

Stiles' brain revved, and clicked, spinning up into a higher gear.

The pan hissed softly as he poured in the egg mixture. With a sure hand he tilted the pan and covered the bottom as a tumble of words fell out of his mouth.

"In the Melanesian culture, they are seen as animal spirits. With the words tamaniu or atai often being used to describe the animal counterparts to the human spirit or soul. It's a very different mythos to the western culture. Not to mention the total eradication of Native American history that would shed further light on several familial lines that are present, but forgotten, today." Stiles rambled, nerves draining away as he openly lectured. He loaded the slices of meat and cheese into the omelette. With a deft wrist he flipped it shut before covering it.

"Similar to how western civilization began classifying animals, there are also similar classifications for theiranthropics, with much of the language taken from the ancient greek and latin words. Like how we use ante- or post- prefixes in english. Eastern cultures handled the interactions with their super naturals much differently from the west. With most of the modern new world sentiments being heavily molded around extreme religious practices and dogmas." Stiles saw the glazed look in Scott's eyes and winced.

The omelette was done, so he flipped it onto a plate he found in the drain board, and shoved it over the counter. He sighed and leaned against the counter rubbing at his head, a pulsing pain beat a bass drum at the base of his skull. Shame threatened to claw its way out of it's dark corner, so Stiles focused back on Scott.

"Boyo," Stiles said, finally, on a sigh. "Your ass got bitten, by what is colloquially called an Alpha in America which, by the way, is an egregious oversight completely based off of a single paper by Rudolph Schenkel from 1947. Since your bread got buttered by a specific strain of the lycanthropy, your ass is now furry and fantastically wolfy."

"Wolfy?" Scott said, voice lost as he took a bite of the omelette. Hunger seemed to over take him and he practically inhaled the food.

"Yepper de diddly, batman. Werewolf." Stiles nodded, crossing his arms on the counter. "Talia should be back soon and you two can bond over all things prey. She should be the Britannica to your encyclopedia, I might be theoretically well read, but I don't have the practical experience to back the information up."

"Why do you know all this?" Scott asked, still bewildered. "How do you know all this?"

"You see, Scott." Stiles looked at him seriously. "When a Mommy and Daddy love each other-"

"Stiles!" Scott said, voice short and tense. Stiles watched as his friend's eyes flashed yellow. Yikes. Maybe he needed to dial it back a touch. "Just. Answer the question."

Stiles rolled that around in his brain. How would he answer that without shedding light on his extreme stalking tendencies. He cocked his head and chewed on his lip. Scott might not be able to fully scent all his tells for his lies, but it wouldn't take long. Those supernats with heightened senses had a better accuracy at discerning lies from truth.

It wasn't any one thing, it was a whole gambit of potential things. Scent, perspiration, heart beat, blood flow, all of it was discernible to them and that level of information could inform the knowledgeable of if the person they were talking to was lying, or not. Scott wasn't knowledgeable now, but he'd remember the sense memory of this moment, and if Stiles played this wrong, it had potential to come back and bite him in the ass.

"I was really into werewolf porn." Which. Would read as true enough. "And I really wanted to know if everything in the porn was real."

Again. To Stiles, this was technically true. The bodies only reacted to belief. So if you believe strongly enough that something was true, then it was. And holy hell did Stiles believe in the true power of werewolf porn.

Scott's face got a very uncomfortable shade of red. Because this sort of thing wasn't uncommon for Stiles. There had been an entire week when they were fourteen when Stiles fell into and then back out of lust with a particularly erotic - to him - magazine spread of lacrosse players after winning a trophy.

Which, in turn, spurred a lifelong obsession with the players and therefore the sport. Scott had been forced to come along for the ride of self discovery and awkward boners being popped. So he had a very good idea about what could interest Stiles, and what could not.

Werewolf porn? Safe bet that Stiles really did fall into that rabbit hole of research.

"Seriously?" Scott hissed, a little aghast and a lot uncomfortable.

"Essentially." Stiles shrugged, no shame in his game.

"Fine, but then how'd you know to come here?" Scott waved his fork at the surrounding house. "It's pretty fucking weird waking up in a strangers home."

"Call it a by-product of a particularly devious side hobby of mine." Stiles said, quirking his lips. "Plus, you're good at talking to adults. It was fine."

"Whatever." Scott grumbled, his plate finally empty. His head came up sharply and cocked to the side, so much like a German Shepard that Stiles burst into a fit of laughter. Scott scowled at him and flipped him off, spurning Stiles' laughter even more.

The sound of the front door opening and a multitude of feet slapping against the floor echoed into the living room. Over Scott's shoulder, Stiles saw the tension that he'd left behind seep out of the people in the living room. Talia was back, she'd deal with the annoying human.

Stiles wasn't prepared for the full body tackle from Isaiah. Only caught himself against the counter at the last second with a low 'oof.' Which triggered Scotts penny bright instincts, popping claws and fangs. With an annoyed look on his face, Stiles reached over and cuffed his friend on the ear.

"Fuc-ding quit it, Scott. It's a kid." Stiles said snorting at the ashamed, confused, look that crossed his friend's features. Then he looked down to Isaiah. "What's happenin' cap'n'?"

"Today at school I ate four pieces of celery and Jake only ate three so I won the gold star for the day." Isaiah said proudly.

"Wow. That's insane." Stiles said with wonder. Isaiah reached their arms up and Stiles bent to let the kid wrap them around his neck. "How did you manage it? Personally, I could only handle two."

"If I tell you my secret, then you could beat me and get the gold star." Isaiah said, face a serious mask.

"Touché." Stiles said, nodding back just as seriously.

"What's that?" Isaiah asked. Stiles looked over to his friend, whose eyebrows were back, thank goodness. Scott was staring at the two of them with a constipated look on his face.

"Touché comes from the Old French word touchier. Which was used in fencing to acknowledge a hit. Nowadays we English speakers use it to acknowledge the other party being correct." Stiles responded to his young charge, Isaiah had started scenting him once again. One little hand resting against Stiles' cheek, the other clutching at one of Stiles' wrists.

"Oh." Isaiah said, quiet for a moment. "What's fencing?"

Scott was becoming more and more agitated from across the counter, and it was beginning to be concerning. Stiles cast his gaze backwards to the great room. Talia was in the middle of a conversation, and didn't seem overly concerned. He hoped that was the right call so he turned his attention back to Isaiah to answer the kid.

"Fencing is a sport based around hitting other people with swords, it's governed by various rules and regulations." Stiles gave the quick and dirty answer. It was accurate-ish, but it didn't encompass the full breadth of the sport.

"You can hit people with swords!?" Isaiah asked, eyes wide and excited. Stiles nodded. "Real swords?'

"Yeppers. You should ask Talia about it, I'm suuuuure she'd love to introduce you to an instructor." Stiles said, flashing a grin at the thought of the Alpha wolf having to deal with an overly enthusiastic pup and a long metal stick. Isaiah wiggled in his arms.

"Yea, ok." The kid said, eyes locked on Talia with a frightening level of determination. Stiles snorted and let the kid down, watching as they skittered across the floor. Isaiah blatantly interrupted the flow of conversation with a very loud, "I wanna hit people with a sword. Tiles said that you'd say yes."

Stiles ducked below the line of the counter, doubled over as his entire body shook with silent laughter. That was better than any other thing he'd ever done. It was glorious. The look of shock on her face before he hid was a masterpiece.

"Stilinski." Talia's voice was hard. Stiles peeked up over the counter, looking around Scott's still constipated face.

"Gosh, sorry, it looks like you dropped your sense of humor. I was just trying to find it for you down here." Stiles bit his lips, trying to hide the grin attempting to crack across his face. "Didja need something?"

Talia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked down at Isaiah.

"You can ask your mother about it when she comes back." Talia finally said, and Stiles barked out a short laugh before he could stop himself. She glared at him across the space. It made her pack shift uncomfortably.

"Oh wow." Stiles wheezed. "You should weaponize those eyes, Isaiah. If the Alpha can't say no I wonder what else you can get away with."

It felt so good to laugh. A full belly, real laugh. That realization caught him by surprise. Stiles inhaled sharply and his features settled into the mask of a customary cocky grin. He suddenly felt wary and scared, nervous for some unknown reason. As if, when he blinked, a fist or sense of dread would appear out of nowhere and ram into his gut. His head throbbed in time with the fear.

Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Scott's reaction to the situation. And it was complicated.

"What's weapon-eyes?" Isaiah asked Talia, eyes so large and so very, very, deadly.

"It's when you do something on purpose to get your way, Rowlet." Stiles said, eyes suddenly wary as he took in the scene before him. The weird instinct of fear contrasted painfully with the warm glow that was trying to warm his chest. "Oftentimes, hurting others. Which isn't something you want to do to pack, right?"

"Nope. I get gold stars for eating celery." Isaiah said, finally looking over to Stiles.

"Exactly." Stiles shot finger guns at the pup. "See, this one gets it. So don't ever use your powers for evil."

Isaiah nodded and several of the conversations that had been humming around them paused to regard the kit. Then resumed. The heat of Talia's glare lessened slightly and Stiles grinned toothily at her.

"Hey, Talia. I have someone to introduce to you?." Stiles called, surprising Talia with the respect in his tone. She broke away from the after school conversations and made her way over to them. "Meet Scott McCall. Scott, Talia Hale. Your brand new guardian angel and guide for all things fluffy."

"Your father told me to hand you these." Talia said smoothly in response, ignoring his statement of introduction so rudely. She handed him a paper bag that rustled like his medication. Salvation was in sight. Stiles took it and glanced over to his friend.

Scott's face was still stuck in a constipated scowl. Stiles reached lovingly across and walloped him upside the head. On a sigh he looked over at the shocked look on Talia's face.

"Kids, you know?" Stiles said. Scott glared at him, but turned in his seat to regard Talia.

"Uh." He said lamely. "Hi?"

"Nice to meet the actual person. You should be sure to thank Stiles, when you have the chance." Talia remarked after a beat, eyes flickering to Stiles before finally fully resting on Scott. "I'm sure you have plenty of questions. I can give you some of my time before dinner. You're welcome to stay another night after we talk, if you need to."

"That- would be nice." Scott finally said, nodding jerkily. His eyes were on Talia's collarbone. With a hint of a smile, she gestured for the newly minted werewolf to follow her. She stared at Stiles a beat before humming a soft note and leading Scott away.They passed through the throng of people, Talia speaking a few words to some people before breaking away and disappearing down a hallway.

Stiles' nerves ratcheted up as soon as he lost sight of Scott. Unknowingly, he'd spent so much of his life looking out for Scott, keeping an eye on his inhaler, slowing his stride, protecting him. Watching his best friend walk into a world marred by danger and pain, was frightening. Scott didn't have a choice, Stiles hadn't had one in bringing him here. Or at least, this was the best choice to make.

He felt conflicted. His mind blurring at the edges.

He was distracted enough in his thoughts that the small hand clutching at his borrowed sweats made him jump. Isaiah stared up at him with a small frown on their face. Stiles sighed shakily.

"Whats up?" He asked, squatting down so the pup could put their hands on him.

"Your faucet is leaking." Isaiah said, a flicker of annoyance shooting across their features.

"Yep." Stiles nodded, popping the P. "Remember? Mine's broken.'

"That's stupid." Isaiah grumbled, bringing his face up next to Stiles.

"Nah, it's not." Stiles disagreed, he closed his eyes and breathed in the kid. To his human nose Isaiah smelled like hints of petrichor and crayons. It was centering.

"Yea huh."

"Nuh uh."

"Yea huh."

They continued like that until neither of them really understood what they were saying and were just making noises back and forth to each other. Weirdly, it had calmed Stiles.

"What they hell are you two doing?" A voice called from behind Stiles, interrupting the back and forth.

"Uh?" Stiles craned his neck back. Phil's partner stood, legs spread, hand on hips. Star was gorgeous with long black hair held back at the nape of their neck. They'd dressed for comfort at home, soft cream sweatpants and a loose grey shirt. "Having an argument?"

"Well have it outside of the kitchen." The shooed, actually shooed them with their hands. "It's time to cook dinner and you two are in the way."

"Well. It looks like we've been usurped." Stiles said, looping an arm under Isaiah and standing up with the pup.

"What's usurped?" Isaiah asked, curiosity burning.

"The action of taking something illegally or by force." Stiles replied easily.

"Star." Isaiah said, looking reproachfully at their elder pack mate. "You're not supposed to take things illegally. Teacher said that doesn't get you gold stars."

Stiles ducked his head to the side to hide his grin.

"On that note." Stiles said quickly, flashing a grin at Star's annoyed expression. "I'm just, yep, gonna go in that direction now."

They left the kitchen area and Stiles stood a little lost, watching the rest of the pack interact. A spike of painfully cold loneliness arced through his sternum. As a wee human, he was supposed to have a family. His own kind of pack. But he'd managed to fuck that up somehow.

Isaiah's face drilled into his own. Insistently squashing against his cheek.

"Yea." Stiles said. Acknowledging what the kid was doing.

"Wanna see my Pokemon cards?" Isaiah asked, pulling away to look Stiles in the eye.

"Sure."