Chapter Text
Stones and twigs snapped under Peter’s bleeding feet. Adrenalin narrowed his vision, his breath heaved out in ugly bursts, and all he could taste was ash and dirt. He was stripped of any complexity, all he cared about was run, escape—at any cost.
He stopped when the gashes on his feet were too deep for him to continue. He snarled, urging his body to heal faster as he limped across dewy grass. His vision slowly widened out from the narrow tunnel into a full picture. The half-crescent moon glowed and the stars—God when was the last time Peter had seen the stars?—glittered ethereally above him.
Tears fell because he was outside, the grass was cold against his bleeding flesh, and the wind—it tasted of flowers, summer, and approaching rain. He let out an uneven cacophony of sobs and laughter, and when he was able to get himself under control he realized that he was not only outside from his prison, but he was also by a house. A house with lights on, with food, and with a phone.
He ran to the porch and clawed through the screen door. The living room was empty. Peter’s heartbeat and hunger deafened him to anything else.
The kitchen was small and worn in a way that the old Peter Hale would have turned his nose up at—but now it was a beautiful sanctuary, more breathtaking than the Sistine Chapel. Peter ripped the refrigerator open and grabbed as much food as he could.
Orange juice spilled down his chin as he greedily sucked it out of the carton. Lettuce fell to the floor when he ate salad by the fistful. He coughed around globs of yogurt. He managed to swallow a burst of flavor (strawberry—he had a feeling it was strawberry) when he saw a birthday cake.
Happy 16th Birthday Stiles!
It was covered in an explosion of rainbow sprinkles. It was a colorful orgy of sugar and artificial flavoring. Memories bombarded him of off-key singing, his nieces and nephew on his lap as they waited for their cake. He shook himself free of the memories that seemed to come from a faraway life, a movie that had deteriorated to the point where all the images were distorted. Peter gently moved the cake aside so he could reach for the loaf of bread behind it.
A floorboard creaked behind him.
Peter whirled around, eyes red and fangs out to see a boy across the room with a shotgun aimed at Peter’s chest. The boy’s heartbeat spiked. Peter had forgotten the scent of fear. It curdled the food in his stomach into sour clay. Despite his pungent terror the boy never let his grip falter on his weapon.
“You must be Stiles.” The boy’s eyes widened, his heart racing even faster, and Peter quickly continued. “I found the cake—the birthday cake.”
Peter had been robbed of his civility. The first time he’d had contact with someone other than his fellow captives and he was too broken to be a gentleman. Fuzzy memories of social protocols now seemed alien. The boy didn’t move— he barely breathed. Peter’s heartbeat slogged as he cleared his throat.
“I’m sorry.” Peter wished he knew how to adjust this body to seem less menacing while yogurt dripped off his fingers. “Please, I need help, I’ve—I’ve been held captive for…”
Peter’s voice crumbled under years of silence. The boy raked his eyes over Peter’s greasy hair, dirty fingernails, and wild beard.
God Peter looked like a maniac. He felt like a maniac.
“Okay.” The boy spoke, his brown eyes steady and his voice a siren’s promise. “My Dad is the Sheriff. He can help.”
The boy was, in fact, Stiles and it was his birthday. He kept the shotgun in his hands. Stiles served him leftovers. He sat at the opposite end of the table and watched Peter devour cold lasagna with his hands while Stiles kept his shotgun on his lap. The kid dug in his pocket and produced… a phone unlike Peter had ever seen, a tablet with a screen that lit up with no discernable buttons.
The more Peter ate the more he grasped just how far he’d fallen from who he used to be.
Peter used to be Peter Hale—the Hale Second, a sarcastic seducer so slick he’d enchant James Bond. He paused as Stiles activated the tablet-phone’s speakers so they both heard it ring. Bits of meat and cheese fell from his nails and Peter felt a brutal wave of self-loathing close around his throat.
He heard Stiles speak, his voice warbling like he was underwater. The “Dad there’s a man in the house—wait, Dad—” barely registered as Peter glanced down at his arms, how his skin had scaly, dry patches, and how he must smell. He didn’t remember the last time he showered. None of the captives did.
“It’s fine just—”
Stiles blew out a long breath. He reached over and touched Peter’s wrist. Peter recoiled, the chair screeching as he threw himself away from the physical contact. Stiles yanked his hand back, his grip on the shotgun tightening though he didn’t take it off his lap.
Peter sucked in air and he hated how loud Stiles’s heartbeat was. He hated how his touch was both revolting and euphoric.
“I’m sorry.” Stiles swallowed, his eyes tight with concern and fear. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—to startle you.” Peter struggled to get his breathing under control as Stiles pointed to the phone in the middle of the table. “Can you talk to him? It will—it would be better if you talk.”
So my Dad doesn’t think you’re crazy and are going to kill me, Stiles didn’t say. Peter nodded, digging his nails into his palms.
“My name is Peter Hale and I’ve been—I’ve been held captive along with two others. Satomi Ito and Deucalion Blackwood are back there, please—”
“Easy, Mr. Hale.” Stiles’s father’s world-weary voice poured into the air like desert sand. “I’m ten minutes away. We’ve got half the squad coming.” Peter could hear the Sheriff moving, the murmurs of others around him and cars starting. “Stiles, I want you to keep me on speaker, I’m going to be driving.”
“You got it, Dad. See you soon.”
He dragged the phone to him. He heard the Sheriff bark orders and Peter wiped his fingers off roughly with a napkin.
“Thank you.” Peter could count on one hand how many times he’d expressed sincere gratitude. In Stiles’s small kitchen he meant it the most—from the bottom of the heart he didn’t know remained. “I’m sorry I ruined your birthday.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Stiles snorted, his back hitting his chair as he smiled, crooked and exhausted. “The celebration isn’t until the weekend.” He tapped on his phone idly, his posture relaxing piece by piece. “You’ll be okay. My dad will be here soon and we’ll get this all sorted out, all right, Mr. Hale?”
For that small sliver of space and time Peter had hope. The refrigerator hummed as Stiles pointedly stared at Peter’s claws.
“Will you be able to, uh,” he cleared his throat, “hide those? I’m assuming you won’t be ready for the questions those will bring.”
“You assume correctly.”
Peter smiled and later he’d be shocked that he remembered how to form the expression. His claws fully retracted as the boy smiled back. He’d think of that kitchen, of the chairs that wobbled and the Batman placemats—and he’d think of it as a lost paradise.
A few rooms over a window shattered. Seconds later the front door splintered against an oppressive boot. Peter watched the echoes of approaching violence hit Stiles as he stood, his fair skin paling to a sickly grey. Peter ran forward and grabbed Stiles’s wrist. He felt the boy’s pulse against his palm. Stiles pulled Peter up the stairs, shotgun in hand. He slammed into his room and locked the door before he went to the window. He yanked it open as Peter’s captors clambered up the stairs after them.
Stiles stepped out of the window and onto the roof.
“Come on!”
Stiles shrieked, holding his hand out to Peter. Peter took it, trembling. The door crumbled behind him and Peter heard Stiles choke down fear. Peter felt the shotgun blast burn through the air and he turned to see the old, muzzled monster take a hit to the jaw.
It yowled, black, syrupy liquid oozing from the wound. The monster’s eyes flashed blue and Peter could hear the other, the woman, shout something from the doorway.
Stiles was frozen, watching the old monster writhe on the ground, muscles bulging. Peter grabbed Stiles.
“It won’t stay down for long.”
Peter’s vision tunneled. He ignored how his hands stung when he picked Stiles up and leapt off the roof.
Peter Hale had grand plans to expand the Hale Pack to make them a staple on the East Coast. Peter now only had plans of running, of getting to the road to meet the police. He landed, his teeth rattling painfully in his gums. Stiles slid out of his grasp, his hands gripping Peter’s shoulders so tight his knuckles were ivory white.
“This way,” Stiles whispered, “this way—” The shotgun had fallen to the side and Stiles went for it, his hands shaking. “Fuck, I left my phone on the table—”
A shot cracked from the window and Stiles leapt back right before the woman fired a second time. Peter felt the poisoned metal sink into his shoulder. He fell with a howl, trapping Stiles underneath his dead weight. Peter’s eyes blurred and his skin burned with endless fury and despair.
Stiles desperately tried to suck in air against Peter’s weight.
“Fuck,” the teenager sobbed, “fuck.” Peter heard the woman laugh and the thing growl. Stiles couldn’t budge and Peter smelled the salt in his tears. “Peter, they’re coming.”
Peter heard their boots on the stairs. He knew what they’d do to Stiles. He knew what happened to people they couldn’t use. The ghost of his old self whispered. Kill him, the Hale Second commanded, kill him so he won’t be killed by their hands. You’d be doing the boy a great service. It’s the honorable thing to do. Peter shakily propped himself up on one elbow, his claws gripping Stiles’s shoulder as he eyed the boy’s jugular.
Stiles squeezed his deep brown eyes shut.
“Fuck.”
They were coming, their stench creeping closer.
“Stiles.” The boy opened his eyes, tears streaking down his pale cheeks. “Stiles, they’ll kill you if they don’t view you as necessary.” Peter dragged one knee up, his body shaking around the bullet that blazed in him. “I can—I can make you necessary.”
Stiles nodded.
“Do it.”
Peter took Stiles’s dominant hand and twisted it to expose his inner wrist. Peter struggled to withdraw his claws and push back his fangs. He vaguely heard himself apologize right before he sank his blunt, human teeth into Stiles’s tender flesh.
Stiles wailed. Peter closed his eyes but it did nothing to block out the sound.
Blood spilled into Peter’s mouth. He felt the woman’s nails dig into his shoulder and Peter pulled back.
“He’s my mate,” Peter lied with blood dribbling off his tongue and teeth, “he’s my—”
She hit him with the butt of her rifle, once to break his nose and twice to drive him into unconsciousness. Peter dropped like the useless sack of meat he’d been reduced to as Stiles howled his name.
::::
Days In Captivity
Stiles: 0
Peter: 3,281
Deucalion: 5,112
Satomi: 9,858
Japanese whispers guided Stiles out of unconsciousness. He didn’t understand them in the slightest but the woman who spoke sounded nice. Worried.
His right wrist throbbed. Whatever he laid on was hard and uncomfortable.
Just start with the little things, his father had said when Stiles was paralyzed with panic. Focus on the tiny details, latch onto it and don’t let go until you’re ready for more. Stiles focused on the Japanese words. The woman repeated the string of words reverently and Stiles wondered if she was praying. He followed the hills and valleys of it, the lyrical tendencies she utilized. Slowly, Stiles became ready for more.
He’d been bitten. It hurt—it still hurt—but he was alive. Stiles felt he bubble of relief burst in his chest. He hadn’t been shot on his lawn, and his dad wouldn’t have to bury his only son. Thank God, Stiles thought.
“—irresponsible and selfish. How dare you!” A British man roared but his voice sounded odd, like he wasn’t in the same room. He lowered his voice but didn’t lose his rage. “I didn’t think my opinion of you could sink any lower, Hale, but you continue to surprise me.”
The moment Peter’s name fell from the stranger’s lips the entire night returned to Stiles with brutal clarity. The skeletal man who’d inhaled half their leftovers but didn’t touch Stiles’s birthday cake. Stiles opened his eyes and the Japanese prayers stopped. He turned to see that thick glass separated him an older Japanese woman. She grinned, her wrinkles by her eyes deepened as she exclaimed in Japanese then English.
“He’s awake!”
She pushed her hands against the glass and Stiles returned the gesture. He groaned and rolled onto his side to push himself up. His held his hands up to block out the fluorescent lights. He blinked his eyes into focus to see that he was in a glass room, the floor was rock, and by the looks of it… he was underground.
He turned to see that on the other side the opposite glass wall was Peter. In the room next to Peter, which curved so it shared a wall with the Japanese woman, was a blind man. The man’s pale eyes had thin scars stretching all the way out to his temples. Peter met Stiles’s eyes and his wrist throbbed.
The blind man snarled and hit hands on the glass. His mouth was a mess of fangs and spite. The Japanese woman stood, shouting in Japanese but the British man wasn’t having it. He shot back in fluent Japanese and their voices kept rising until Stiles had to cover his ears.
Stiles couldn’t latch onto tiny details because there was too much to take in. The glass walls, the door that had no handle and seemingly could only be opened from the other side. They had a small toilet, sink, cot—and there was a sticky patch of Stiles’s blood that stained the stone slab floor. Stiles couldn’t catch his breath and he stumbled to the other side of his room—his prison.
Peter pressed his hands up against the glass. Stiles swallowed down his panic in ugly, full body shudders. Stiles clamped his fingers over his wrist. His shoulder mashed against the glass. Tears burned his vision and he cried. He cried the same way he cried when he was a little kid and he felt same prickles of embarrassment at the back of his neck. He cried in the loud, grotesque way that made his head throb and spin.
“Stiles,” he heard his father hiss, embarrassed that his son was having another panic at the grocery store just because they’d passed the shampoo that his mom used. His wrist ached and he needed to stop crying, to stop embarrassing the Sheriff— when he realized it wasn’t his father saying his name. “Stiles, breathe.”
Stiles opened his eyes to see Peter. His eyes were wide and his beard was gone and his hair had been cut. Air filled his lungs and he wiped his eyes clumsily.
“You shaved.”
Peter shrugged.
“I woke up like this.”
Stiles snorted but judging by the flat expression on Peter’s face he hadn’t made a Beyonce reference. Stiles wiped his face, rubbing away the feeling of being raw and exposed. Stiles realized that the shouting had stopped. The Japanese woman smiled at him while the blind man glared in Stiles’s general direction. The blind man snarled, the glass fogging up in front of his mouth.
“You should have killed him, Peter. He’s better off dead.”
When Stiles was little he’d been bullied. His mother said that they were just as afraid as we was, that they had to use mean words to feel bigger than they really were. He saw that same fear in the blind man’s face, so Stiles turned away from him.
“Where are we?”
Peter sighed, his head thunking against the glass.
“I don’t know.”
Stiles gazed around, at the petulant blind man, the Japanese woman, and the glass walls. He crossed his arms.
“If they caught up to you so quickly it’s probably in Beacon Hills somewhere.” Maybe on the outskirts of town, but no farther than that. “Who’s keeping you guys here?”
“We don’t know,” the Japanese woman replied, “we weren’t conscious when we were taken. She…” The woman shivered. “She wears a mask.”
“How long have you been here?” Stiles addressed them all. He watched their faces fall, Peter twisting away while the Japanese woman’s eye glazed over. “Can…” Stiles suddenly couldn’t stop thinking of the beard Peter had, of how he stared at Stiles’s phone like he hadn’t seen anything like it. The words felt clammy on his tongue but he forced them out. “Can you remember a date, from before—?”
“Stop it!” The blind man snarled, his whole face transforming into a living nightmare as he roared. “The details don’t matter, songbird, all that matters is that we’re here now.”
“Of course it matters! The more we know, the faster we can figure out how to get out of here and—”
The blind man slammed his hand against the glass and Stiles leapt back.
“And what? Escape? Hale barely managed it and look at what he did. He broke into a kid’s house and dragged him back here to suffer and die.” Stiles was frozen on the spot and he heard the Japanese woman hiss a name, but Stiles was too shocked to grasp it. To his right, Peter muffled a thick choking sound. “I meant it,” the blind man’s breath fogged up the glass, blurring the mess of fangs in his mouth, “you might not wish it now, but you will— you’ll wish he killed you, to spare you from this.”
With a final snarl, the blind man turned around and walked to the far side of his room. He sat down with a huff. Stiles noticed that the glass hadn’t cracked. It hadn’t even wobbled.
::::
Days In Captivity
Stiles: 1
Peter: 3,282
Deucalion: 5,113
Satomi: 9,859
No one talked. After the trauma of being shot at, captured, and imprisoned, the worst part was how no one talked to each other. The Japanese woman meditated, the blind man just sat in furious, defeated silence, and Peter… Peter just laid in his cot. Stiles wanted to go to the Japanese woman, she’d been the only person to smile at him so far, but she was in the middle of an intense sounding mantra. There was no way in hell he was going to the blind man, so Stiles saddled up to Peter’s wall and tapped his finger gently on the glass.
Peter turns his head to the side and for a horrifying series of moments, Stiles was certain that Peter wasn’t going to move, that he was going to just lay there and stare in petulant silence. Thankfully Peter got up, his movements willowy and disjointed, like he didn’t remember how to walk normally.
He sat down next to Stiles, five inches of glass between them.
“Hey.” Stiles cringed inwardly at the lame greeting. It’s not as though courtesy and social standards applied to this kind of situation. “Could I ask you a few questions?”
Peter’s grey-blue eyes were unblinking. They weren’t exactly kind, but at least he wasn’t snarling and slamming clawed fists on the glass.
“You may.”
Stiles glanced behind him. The woman was still meditating and the blind man was still sulking.
“What…” He turned back around to face Peter. “What exactly are you?”
Peter’s lips, cracked and white with neglect, twitched.
“A werewolf.” Stiles blew out a long exhale. He wanted to laugh at such a silly declaration, but he’d seen Peter’s red eyes and claws when he’d mangled cold lasagna. He’d seen the blind man’s fangs yowling against the glass. “We all are.”
Stiles nodded absent-mindedly, until he remembered that Peter bit him.
“Wait, d-does that mean that I’m—?”
He couldn’t finish it. Peter shook his head.
“I used human teeth to make that mark.” He gestured to Stiles’s wrist and it throbbed. “You won’t turn.”
Stiles slumped over, relieved.
“Thank God. I don’t think I could handle that on top of everything else. No offense.”
“None taken.”
Stiles leaned his head against the glass and let his eyes roam the walls that were past the glass. Long stretches of nondescript rock, dirt, and clay. As far as Stiles could tell there were no racks of medical equipment and instruments that came to mind when Stiles had to think of reasons why someone would kidnap mythical creatures. He felt a faint hum of shame that his mind immediately went to experimentation, but his Dad said that Stiles had a way of cutting through bullshit, even when it got him into trouble.
Looks like I’m in quite a bit of trouble now, Pops.
He saw Peter’s leg twitch like the wolf wanted to go back to his cot and rot. Stiles held up his wrist.
“So, why does this let me live?”
Peter hesitated. Stiles kept his breathing even. He wasn’t going to turn into a werewolf (his mind still giggled around the word) and he was still alive. Small victories, go team Stiles. Stiles kept repeating the facts that he was still alive as Peter’s lips pressed into a thin line.
“It’s a mating bite.”
Stiles felt as though he’d been submerged in icy water. There was an echoing roar in his ears and he jerked his hand away from the bite. He knew his shock must have shown on his face, there was no hiding it. He swallowed and his throat clicked.
“Oh.”
He glanced at the other wolves, his skin blotchy and hot all up his neck and ears. The Japanese woman had stopped her mantra but her eyes were still closed. The blind man hadn’t moved an inch, but his mouth seemed tighter or was Stiles just imagining it? A tap on the glass made Stiles turn back and he hoped he didn’t look as nauseous as he felt. Peter had his hand on the glass, his palm pressed flat against it.
“Stiles, it’s just a mark. It’s like if you stuck a ring on a friend’s finger and pretended they were your spouse. It’s the same thing.” Stiles met Peter’s eyes and tried to clamp down on the tremor that had spread through his shoulders. Peter rolled his eyes and, incredibly, it helped. “It can’t mean anything if I didn’t know you, and I didn’t know you, did I?”
“No.” Stiles smiled with more teeth than he meant to. He slumped against the wall and let his cheek press against the cool glass. “Well, I’m Stiles Stilinski, son of the Sheriff. I don’t have any allergies and I hate cauliflower. Thanks for being my fake husband.” This time Peter’s lips curled into a half-smile, not fully there but it was better than nothing. Stiles pressed his fist against the glass. “Seriously, thanks dude.”
Peter closed his hand into a fist and mirrored Stiles’s action. Stiles wished he could feel the action returned, that even a semblance of body heat could be exchanged through the glass. He sees Peter’s eyes slide to look just over Stiles’s shoulder. Stiles turned to see the Japanese woman standing in front of the wall she shared with Stiles.
She was the oldest, deep wrinkles in her face and her hair was salt-and-pepper. She had kind, patient eyes that reminded Stiles of his mother.
“I’m Satomi Ito.”
Stiles leans his back against the glass then gets up to his feet before he remembers he can’t shake her hand. He brushes his hands awkwardly by his side but rocks on his heels all the same.
“Stiles Stilinski. It’s nice to meet you.”
He glanced over to the blind man but he had his back turned to them. Stiles glanced back to Satomi and she smiled like it really was a pleasure to meet him. Stiles thinks, We’re going to get out of here. Stiles thinks:
I’m not going to die here.
::::
Days In Captivity
Stiles: 2
Peter: 3,283
Deucalion: 5,114
Satomi: 9,860
There are some things movies and books don’t detail about group captivity. Like having to shit in front of people.
Whoever kidnapped them had thought ahead to keeping contact to a minimum. Each glass room had a toilet, a sink, a cot with one pillow, and two tubes that looked like the chutes at the bank. One tube held liquid soap, and the other would dispense beige pellets the size of Stiles’s fist. He felt like a gerbil. He waited and watched the other wolves eat the pellets before he did the same.
They tasted like cardboard. Stiles remembered his dad telling him about MREs, the stuff they’d eat in the army. This stuff was homemade, but it was definitely in the vein of MREs. Nothing flavorful, but nutrients that were needed to survive. The wolves got more, Stiles only got four. He’d eat two and save two. Just in case.
But, as any person with basic levels of biology knowledge would be able to tell you, the digestive system doesn’t take well to sudden and abrupt changes.
His stomach felt like fire and the sharp stabbing pain kept forcing the air through his lungs. He was on the toilet before he realized what he was doing, just how sick he was, and that the walls were made of glass.
This is the worst, Stiles thought with hysteric fervor. Not the shooting, not the biting, not the kidnapping— this is the worst.
He cries.
Of course he fucking cries.
Satomi is a sweet old lady, Peter is the reason Stiles is even still breathing, and sure the other guy is blind but that doesn’t mean he can’t hear everything that’s happening in Stiles’s room. His stomach lurches and he sobs. His face feels like fire and this is worse than any nightmare his brain could conjure up.
Forget going to school naked. Forget not knowing all the answers for a test. Forget getting kidnapped with a bunch of supernatural creatures on your sixteenth birthday.
He cleans himself as best he can afterward and refuses to look up, he doesn’t want to see them. He washed his hands until his skin started to split around his knuckles. The bite on his wrist throbbed and somehow that made it worse. He pulled up his pants and stumbled to the farthest side of his room, to the door with no handle. Instead of a handle it just had a smooth metal surface, and if Stiles pressed his face up against the glass he could see that there was a handle on the other side.
There’s a quiet voice in the back of his mind that tries to reason with him. He thinks he has it bad? Just how long have these other guys been here? How long have they had to do this in front of each other— probably long enough that it doesn’t faze them anymore. Stiles thinks of what Peter looked like in his kitchen, less man and more animal and that was before he broke out the fangs and claws.
Stiles’s stomach clenches again and he knows it’s not the last of it.
“Hey, songbird.” Stiles spares a glance up to see the blind man with both of his hands on the glass. He was standing, in the small space where his room connected with the very edge of Stiles’s. “It happens to everyone,” he said as Stiles sucked in a humiliated breath. “Those things turn everyone’s stomachs at first. Even ours.” He paused and tilted his head to the side. Stiles wondered what kind of things this blind wolf could hear. “Are you okay?”
No, Stiles wasn’t okay. A series of unpleasant twists sliced up his stomach and made him curl in on himself. He couldn’t tell if the pain came from the embarrassment or the MREs. No, he wasn’t okay and he hated that Peter and Satomi weren’t offended, that they just regarded him the same as they had before. He hated that even the blind man didn’t sneer at him the way he recoiled from Stiles for everything else.
Stiles’s throat burned and he nodded. The blind man didn’t move from his position and Stiles flushed with embarrassment.
“Y-Yeah.” Stiles’s voice wobbled and cracked. “I’m okay.” He sniffed, his nostrils irritated and red. “What’s your name, anyway?” The man turned and Stiles felt his stomach contract again. He limped back toward the toilet, his cheeks still red. “Hey man, if I’m going to be making you listen to my digestive system adjust to our food I should at least know your name.”
Peter laughed and everyone stopped to bask in the sound. Peter quickly swallowed it, but his shoulders still jerked with the taboo mirth. The blind man’s perma-scowl even lifted, his unseeing eyes wide and staring in Peter’s direction. His voice sounded awed, shocked.
“Deucalion Blackwood.”
“Cool.” Stiles was still crying because humilation didn’t just go away. “Thanks for the heads up, Deucalion.”
Mr. Deucalion Blackwood didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day, even after Stiles is sick again— but it’s a start.
::::
It was the summer between eighth and ninth grade, and Stiles was going to die on the lacrosse field of Beacon Hills High School. Scott wheezed next to him and Stiles was going to ask him if he was okay, if he needed a breath, when a crazed voice chased them back into movement.
“Did I say stop? I’ve said a lot of shit, overwhelming, some say, dribbling out of my mouth, others say, but I never said stop! Stilinski! McCall! Get moving!”
Everyone had heard about The Coach.
He was a Beacon Hills legend. The kids in junior high whispered about him in fearful amazement. They said he swore, they said he had teeth that once deflected shrapnel when he was in the army, and they said that he only had one nut because he had to get the other removed or else he would have overdosed on testosterone. He was loud. He was insane. But lacrosse was everything in Beacon Hills. If you wanted to be somebody you went to The Coach.
Stiles honestly didn’t care about lacrosse. There was an environmental sciences club that sounded cool, the musicals were always fun, and he heard that they were going to get a marching band the year that he’d be a freshman...
His dad loved lacrosse.
So Stiles did the summer lacrosse program.
The Coach was tall and broad shouldered, but seemed a tad soft around the middle. Though that didn’t stop him from chasing any of the kids (Stiles and Scott mostly) who were lagging behind in the drills. He had them run around the field, then skip, then sprint, all while shouting a sermon that was just as dizzying as his exercises.
“Do you know what happens to people who don’t move around? They get bedsores. Have you ever had a bedsore? It’s awful, they’re terrible, I sincerely hope none of you little brats ever have the experience of getting one. And that’s what I want to drill into your heads— always keep moving.” He finally let them stop and they all collapsed onto the grass, sucking in burning breaths. Scott’s hand flopped over to Stiles’s. Stiles grabbed it and squeezed. “You’ll be glad to be tough and not just in the game, kiddos, but in life! I mean when life knocks you down, when you get your teeth kicked out by global warming, and when our apocalypse comes in whatever form it takes, you’ll be thanking your Old Coach that he gave you legs to get you through it!”
He throws up in the locker room and that’s how Stiles finds out he can’t eat breakfast before practice. He remembers rinsing his mouth out in the sink and jumping a foot in the air when he saw that The Coach waited for him. He was struck speechless, something his dad would never believe, when The Coach tossed a water bottle at him.
“Replenish your liquids. And eat something when you get home, got it?”
“Yes, Coach.”
The Coach grinned, but it was more of a pulling back of his lips to expose his large teeth. Stiles grabbed a towel wipe his face and by the time he looked up again The Coach was gone as quickly as he’d appeared.
Stiles wanted to quit lacrosse, but his dad got so excited when he talked about it. Scott, somehow, wanted to stay on the team. So Stiles stayed.
::::
Days In Captivity
Stiles: 17
Peter: 3,298
Deucalion: 5,129
Satomi: 9,875
Captivity brought along a routine. The lights turn on when one of them gets up or moves dramatically. Food is dropped twenty minutes after the lights go up. Everyone is up by the time the food drops, they all eat, go to the bathroom, and wash up.
And then nothing.
Satomi mediates, Deucalion paces, and Peter sprawls out on the cot. Stiles can’t help but get anxious watching them do nothing. His fingers twitched as he stands barefoot on the stone floor. He can’t help but think of Coach, or Coach Finstock as Stiles now knew him, and his shrieking voice echoing across the field.
Stiles broke out into a suicide sprint, touching the far wall closest to Deucalion’s room, then launched back toward his handless door. The entire distance couldn’t be more than fifteen feet but it was enough, enough for Stiles to go back and forth, back and forth, until his legs gave out. He sucked in two breaths and went immediately into push-ups. Once his arms gave out, he switched to leg-lifts.
Once he’s got his breath back, he went back into the suicide sprints. He continued until he was dizzy, until his wheezes burned too brightly. He stopped, drenched in sweat.
“Stiles?”
Peter hovered as close as he can get to Stiles. His lips were pulled into a frown. Stiles heard the unspoken, is this it, have you lost your mind? Stiles stretched out his muscles massaged the ache and burn with his knuckles. His sweat cooled.
“I can get bedsores. Maybe you guys can’t, but I can. I’m not losing muscle.”
He goes again and he can feel Peter’s eyes on him. At least the wolf wasn’t lying on his stupid cot anymore.
Funny, up until a werewolf was shot on top of him Stiles hated Coach’s drills. He didn’t see the point of beating himself to death only to sit on the bench. But in this prison he suddenly thought back to that summer between eighth and ninth grade. Stiles ran, twisted, jumped, and went until his feet were close to bleeding.
This time when he stopped he wrung the sweat out of his shirt in the sink. Tremors worked their way through his limbs and Stiles traced them, following every twitch of his muscles with his fingers. If he closed his eyes he could pretend that he was on the lacrosse field with Coach looming over them.
He kept his eyes open.
A tap on the glass came from his left. Satomi was watching him.
“May I join you?”
At first Stiles wanted to point out that the glass didn’t exactly allow them to have tea but then he realized what she meant. He closed his mouth with a jerky nod, and then glanced at Peter. Peter stood, and nodded as well, waiting for Stiles’s direction. Deucalion was sitting, his back to them. Stiles shook out his arms.
“All right. We’ll start with suicide sprints. Sprint to the wall, then back to the door, and keep doing that until you can’t anymore.” Stiles paused, then corrected himself. “Or, at least until I can’t anymore.”
He broke out into a run, and this time he was joined by two wolves.
::::
Days In Captivity
Stiles: 54
Peter: 3,335
Deucalion: 5,166
Satomi: 9,912
The lights go up and Stiles covers his eyes, swinging his legs over the edge of his cot.
“Finally,” Peter’s voice came from his right and Stiles didn’t have to look to know that he was rolling his eyes. “I was tired of waiting.”
Stiles flipped him off with his right hand while he waved at Satomi with his left.
“Good morning, Satomi.” He let his eyes slide to Peter’s smirking face. “Fuck you, Peter.”
Peter grinned. They stretched in silence. Stiles made sure to be thorough, his left calf had given him trouble the day before. As he dug his thumbs into his muscles a tick-tick-tick came from the far side of his room.
Deucalion swayed on the balls of his feet, his eyes staring a few feet above Stiles.
“May I join you?”
“Sure.” Deucalion’s eyes adjusted to look a bit down right as Stiles slapped his hand against the glass, pulling himself up to his feet. “The more the merrier.”
When he runs, he runs with three wolves.