SELECT chapter 6 ↵ FROM union all

Scott's change had been deceptively easy for his friend. The last few days of 'class' had culminated with the guy spending almost all of it entranced by the new girl who had no interest in them whatsoever. Stiles had boiled down the whole 'you're romeo, she's juliet' to a very terse conversation. Essentially it went 'her family burned down the Hale house, don't eye fuck her, it's a bad look.' A conversation that went surprisingly well, all things considered.

The weekend had spread out in front of him with sickening abandon. Scott needing to work with Deaton, and Stiles' father feeling guilty and grumpy about his kid getting attacked. So he was hard at work, at work. Which left Stiles staring at walls until he couldn't stand it.

Thus was the reason why there was a map of Beacon Hills and the forests pulled up on his computer.

Both National Forests and State Forests. Because the singular attack was brutal and impulsive, but it was also in a very interesting spot. Stiles had spoken on it briefly to Talia, the other side of the invisible dividing line being taken up by Baby Hunter wannabes who liked to flirt with the idea of supernats.

There hadn't been any activity on their message boards, so Stiles didn't think their galaxy brains were involved. But it did mean a few things about the alpha who would've had to pass through a portion of that area to reach the Beacon Hills Campground and, ultimately, Scott and Stiles.

Rogues were rare, damn rare by today's standards. Which was why he wasn't taking chances. Talia might mean well, but her blasé initial attitude hadn't inspired much faith. Not to mention, it was tantamount to leaving a literal infectious disease on the loose with a carrier who seemed very much interested in the spread of that pathogen.

Stiles had seen the Zombie movies, damn it.

Plus, Scott had gotten bitten. Was still scared, even if he didn't say anything.

So Stiles was staring at a map, sitting in his room, trying to figure out how a rogue alpha would've been able to get to the border of Talia's land. Without Baby Hunters, or real Hunters, having noticed. And without more maiming. Rogues, alphas aside, were big on the whole maiming thing.

Damn thing must be absolutely starving by now, as well. It was a few days after the bite on Scott. Feral as it was, hunting odds weren't great on a good day with a gun and a blind. Depending on it's human memories, it might be lucky, but odds were, the damn thing was hungry as hell.

Stiles cocked his head at the map as it glowed back at him from his monitor. Reaching for his phone to thumb open the contacts, hovering over Jordan Parrish's name for a brief second before opening the messages. He'd never really gotten over the resentment about the fact that Jordan had gotten his dad to stop drinking, but he, the man's own son, hadn't.

S: Do large animal carcasses get reported to you guys?

J: No. DoT if they're on the road, or Game Warden if it's an endangered animal. Sometimes. Why?

S: Saw a dead deer and was curious.

He ignored the rest of the notifications as Parrish tried to pull him into a conversation. Good guy. Sadly, Stiles didn't want to reciprocate. Soon he had California's Department of Fish and Wildlife site pulled up on his phone and was combing through it eagerly. Which let him pull up on a rather fascinating project.

Project ICARUS, a global wildlife monitoring co-op of scientists who all had a hard-on for the patterns of movement amongst animals. A feral grin had him hopping up and grabbing his backpack and laptop. Because he just found a way to track the damn Alpha. By what was in it's stomach.

The drive to the Brew and You cafe was almost comforting.

He had a direction. Figure out where the Alpha was. He couldn't do much about how the damn thing got there, but at the very least, he might be able to point it out to Talia and say 'fetch.' Though. He might not do the last part. His self preservation instincts did kick on.

Sometimes.

The cafe was busy and his usual spot was taken by a pair of ripped skinny jeans that seemed just a little too artfully torn. Stiles didn't even notice the rest of the person attached to the jeans, too grumpy about being usurped in the first place.

He had to settle for awkwardly curling over his laptop in his lap with his back turned against the wall. Stiles was logged in a few minutes later with a cold cup of the cafe's iced tea, when one of his bots delivered a delicious web search. Talia, it seemed, was curious about Mr. Argent. More so than she'd let on.

Chris ran an arms business dealing in guns and hunting paraphernalia. Normal hunting. For Bambi. From the looks of her activity, it seemed that she'd looked into the man and gotten a hold of his work email before sending off a request to meet. Stiles made a note of the date, but figured Real Adults had their own ways of measuring each other up. Hopefully it wouldn't turn bloody.

Almost by rote, he memorized the information, deleted the data as best as he could, and sent the cute little bot off on another watchful hunt. Hopefully they'd send up follow-up emails and he'd get to know what they were talking about.

Stiles took a long sip from his glass of iced tea and looked around the cafe, glaring at the skinny jeans one last time before refocusing on why he was there in the first place.

He was ready to look into ICARUS.

His hypothesis was that the Alpha would majorly affect the local flora and fauna with it's uninhibited presence. A feral animal on a rage should be easy to spot if it kept pushing things out of it's way with it's big Alpha presence. It's hunger would also be a clue as well. All told, it meant that he should be able to find a fairly accurate portrait of movement through the local forests.

Which.

Was a good hypothesis.

By the time he left the cafe, he had a good 10 mile radius of where the Alpha liked to hunt. Or exist. The rogue preferred the higher elevations. Pushing deer, and even elk, down into the valleys. It wasn't exact, necessarily. But it was interesting, because it seemed that the incident at the Beacon Hill Campground had been an outlier. Miles away from where the Alpha was staying

The rogue hadn't returned to the area at all. In fact, other than a few peripheral interactions with cars, it didn't seem as though the wolf even attempted to go into town at all. Actually. It didn't move outside of those 10 miles, often bouncing around inside, pushing animals out of it's way.

Stiles filed that information away.

Scott: wanna shoot?

The text made him smile. It had come in as he was loading his backpack into the back of his Jeep. True Brotherhood existed in the nebulous Perfect Timing of Texts.

St: yeeyee

St: omw home

St: luv uuuuuu beybeyyyyy

Stiles smiled to himself as he drove back, rolling the rogue wolf over in his mind. Debated telling Talia. It was a simple solution. A point and shoot, essentially. The simplest solution, since he sure as hell wasn't going to send his dad in.

Stiles chewed on his lip, trying to figure out how to broach the subject with Talia. He didn't even remember the drive home between one blink and the next, too occupied by the supernatural and potential shoot'em-up-with-Scott time.

The Sheriff's cruiser sat in the driveway, spearing all thoughts to a halt in a rather jarring way. Stiles ran a hand over his face as he got out of the Jeep.

"I'm home!" He called as he stepped in the door, listening. A noise from the kitchen found his dad trying to wolf down something very greasy and very donut shaped. Stiles stared, shaking his head.

"I'm confiscating the rest of these." He said imperiously as he liberated the small box of Krispy Kremes from his father's hands. "It's in your best interest to cooperate, sir."

They stared each other down for a moment.

"I give you these, which were a gift, if you tell me why you were asking Parrish about dead animals." His dad said, releasing the box and the final two donuts. Stiles snorted and shoved one inelegantly into his mouth before responding.

"I was curious. Did you know that there's a wildlife tracking software that uses the International Space Station as part of it's network?" Stiles jumped feet first into a long droning explanation of studies based off the migratory patterns of the elephant shrew. His dad's attention had already drifted, so by the time the donuts were gone and Stiles was making his way up the stairs, the Sheriff had lost interest in the initial question.

He'd learned early on that if he vomited too much information, it could hide any little pieces that might filter out. A skill that Stiles had elegantly cultivated. Elegant. Yes. That was a word for it. Not gratuitous word vomit.

The rest of the evening was spent blowing the heads off enemies.

Scott's newly patented WereWolf ReFlexes (™) were still sorely matched with Stiles'. Would always be sorely matched. Scott simply couldn't remember which buttons to press sometimes. But he was the best at calling out his actions. Such a good little communicator.

"Scotty." Stiles said during a lull between matches, they were queued up in a room waiting. "How do you tell someone something without telling them how you know the thing?"

"Stiles, I don't want to touch your dick." Scott said tiredly.

"No, no, you do. But I wasn't talking about that." Stiles replied, running a nail along the seam of his shirt. "At least, I wasn't. But I could be persuaded."

"I can hear the leer." Scott gagged into the mic, making the hairs on Stiles neck raise slightly. Fucking noises.

"I'll leer you, mister." Stiles suggested, flipping the controller back and forth between his hands. "But. Seriously. How do you tell someone something, without telling them how you know?"

"Dude, I don't know. " Scott said, exasperated. The conversation dropped as they fell into the match, only to resume when Stiles brought it back up.

"I don't want them to know I know, you know?" Stiles prodded. He didn't have anyone else to ask. Scott was the sacrificial lamb here.

"Jesus." Scott grumbled, shooting Stiles' character in the face. "You don't have to tell them. Just say the thing, and if they ask, deflect. Isn't that what you normally do anyway?"

The comment wasn't said maliciously.

But it sure did fucking hurt. Stiles grumbled back, letting the thread of conversation fall away amongst the digital bodies of their enemies. He tried not to think about it. Tried not to think about the blasé tone. Didn't really know why it hurt to hear that from Scott.

"Talia wants me to come by tomorrow." Scott said when they were both sitting in voice chat staring at the menu screen. They were done with the pewpews, but hadn't wanted to stop talking yet. It was said as a quiet statement.

"Yea?" Stiles asked, head tipped back against some pillows, eyes closed.

"Yea." Scott said, a mumble before a more clear, "Will you come with me?"

Stiles blinked his eyes open and stared at the blank ceiling. "Yeppers, I'd never let you go alone, man."

He heard a deep sigh from the other end, before asking, "Why does she want you to come over?"

"Bonds." Scott said grumpily. "She said that they're important to a wolf."

Stiles knew what he was saying. Because Talia was right, bonds were important to a wolf. Pack bonds, mate bonds, rival bonds. Hell, a rogue became a rogue because they lost or actively went against those bonds. To a lycanthrope especially, it was akin to being locked in a white walled room with no noise. Sooner or later, they'd begin to hallucinate and slowly go insane.

"She's right Scotchbrite." Stiles said, as soothingly as possible.

"But I don't know them." Scott said, a petulant child. His words were almost marred by a low growl that crackled in a distorted way down the line. Poor mic wasn't equipped to pick that up.

"You didn't know me either until I gave you my last Jolly Rancher." Stiles soothed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He'd have to start going over what Talia said with a fine toothed comb, Scott wasn't a born wolf. The explanations were obviously lacking. "I'll go with you. It'll be fine."