Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/13044879.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Teen_Wolf_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Stiles_Stilinski/Jackson_Whittemore
  Character:
      Stiles_Stilinski, Jackson_Whittemore, Lydia_Martin, Danny_Mahealani,
      Malia_Tate, Kira_Yukimura, Scott_McCall_(Teen_Wolf), Derek_Hale, Peter
      Hale, Sheriff_Stilinski, mentions_of_original_characters
  Additional Tags:
      Enemies_to_Friends_to_Lovers, Slow_Burn, Canon_Compliant, Hurt/Comfort,
      Post-Traumatic_Stress_Disorder_-_PTSD, Victim_Blaming, aftermath_of
      psychological_rape, Suicidal_Thoughts, Suicide_Attempt, Angst_with_a
      Happy_Ending, the_ending_is_smutty_af
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-12-17 Updated: 2018-03-30 Chapters: 10/13 Words: 42842
****** When We Were Monsters ******
by whatthefridge
Summary
     Jackson’s done being in the spotlight. London chewed him up and spit
     him out, and all he wants is the life of a regular teen again. But
     the secrets he carries are heavy, and Stiles refuses to back down
     until Jackson airs every bit of misery he’s been dealt since the day
     Derek bit him and psychos got a hold of his head.
     No one seems to blame Stiles for the nogitsune, but he can’t help
     blaming himself for letting it in. He’s having a hard enough time
     coping when Jackson suddenly returns from London, able to see through
     Stiles’s facade and tell him what everyone else denies as truth. It’s
     enough to make Stiles want to pry.
Notes
     There is Stalia and Jydia in the story. It's minor, but it's
     important to the plot. There's no cheating.
     This fic takes place between season 3B and 4, and it's implied that
     season 4 is still going to happen. So while the ending is happy,
     there isn't a happily-ever-after.
     I started writing this before season 5B aired, and the plot has
     stayed more or less the same since. I haven’t watched any of season 6
     yet, but I know enough about it to throw in some references (while
     also disregarding some newer canon). This fic does spoil the first
     three seasons of Teen Wolf, though, if that’s a thing you’re
     concerned about.
     I've worked two frikken years on this, and it's mostly done aside
     from final edits. I decided on debuting Ch1 for Stackson_Week_2017 so
     that I have something to show. Hopefully I'll be able to crank out
     the rest of the chapters on a regular schedule.
     I want to give a special thanks to my beta, Null, for being a fresh
     set of eyes. I also want to thank the Teen_Wolf_Discord_Group for
     helping me brainstorm through several writer's blocks.
     Also, I don’t dwell on race/ethnicity in this fic, but I wanted to
     give a brief overview anyway:
     - Scott is latino
     - Kira is Korean/Japanese
     - Danny is Hawaiian
     - Boyd, Dr. Deaton, and Ms. Morrell are black
     - For mentions of original characters: Anita is British Indian,
     Dominic is black/mixed
      
     Constructive feedback is welcomed. And I give permission for this to
     be on Goodreads.
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Chapter 1 *****
[https://s13.postimg.org/bm6wx24ev/cover-fanfiction-stackson-monsters-
f_copy.png]
Six months away and Jackson Whittemore barely recognized the town he used to
call home. He wondered if it was his wolf senses catching sounds and smells
that used to pass him right by, but that’d be denying how much the town reeked
of death and fear after the onslaught of alpha packs and rogue emissaries and
released demons. No one anticipated that the tree stump formerly used as a
nemeton could get reawakened and return Beacon Hills to being a supernatural
magnetic beacon. It almost made Jackson long for the simpler days of worrying
about werewolves and hunters.
The only reason the town wasn’t in panic was because people lied to themselves
so they could sleep better at night, rationalizing events to fit into whatever
narrow view of the world they had. Jackson’s own parents acted like everything
was fine, that the attorney office wasn’t seeing an unnatural rise in lawsuits
against the hospital and the police station and the high school. As though a
plague of serial killers and mountain lions was just typical for this small
California county.
He wish wasn’t tethered to this hellhole, but he hadn’t lasted long in London.
He had the means to go anywhere else in the world; he didn’t need to graduate
from Beacon Hills High. But this was the only home he knew, and his parents
were fucking thrilled to have him back. They’d been sold on the idea that he
could get special therapy in London, fabricated by the very woman who welcomed
him overseas.
Jackson supposed it was therapeutic, if he ignored the additional blood on his
hands.
 
#
 
Stiles Stilinski had a solid eight hours of sleep.
Across three days.
The best yet.
He rubbed his eyes as he stared across the high school’s parking lot,
recognizing the silver Porsche and wondering what he did to deserve this.
“Jackson’s back?” Scott asked, confirming that they were seeing the same thing.
“I don’t know,” Stiles said. “But nothing good ever arrives in Beacon Hills
anymore.”
From afar, Jackson appeared as clean-cut as ever with his fitted button-down
shirt, crisp leather jacket, and perfectly styled hair. He held himself tall as
always, above everyone else. A needle in Stiles’s side ever since grade school.
But Jackson was a coward at his core, running across the Atlantic as soon as
Lydia Martin saved him with her unconditional love. The heartless bastard never
deserved her in the first place.
Stiles was fine glaring from afar, but Scott had other ideas—like confronting
Jackson. Stiles hadn’t seen this level of determination since Allison’s burial,
when Scott started wearing black everyday. He had to keep reminding himself
that Scott was an alpha werewolf these days, no longer the skittish kid Stiles
needed to protect.
As though that’d stop him from trying.
Upon closer inspection, Stiles noted the darkness around Jackson’s eyes, the
absence of his signature resting bitch face. Something about the guy looked a
lot older than seventeen.
Not that Stiles was in any position to judge.
“Jackson,” Scott said, flashing his red wolf eyes.
“McCall,” Jackson sneered, his naturally blue eyes flashing even bluer as he
sized Scott up. “The infamous true alpha, earning his status out of sheer force
of will. Extremely rare. But nothing is too rare for you, is it?”
“How’d you find out?”
Jackson rolled his eyes, and there was his resting bitch face. “How did I not
find out, Scott? Your name is circulating throughout the entire supernatural
community.”
Scott flushed and scratched his neck. He never did know what to do with his
popularity except to get the girl.
Stiles replied for him. “Are you back just to taunt us?”
“As if,” Jackson said, glancing between him and Scott. “I’ve got other things
on my mind besides you, Sad and Sadder.”
Scott pressed on. “We have to stick together, though. We’re stronger that way.”
Leave it to Scott to pitch teamwork to Jackson after everything the guy put
them through.
Jackson scoffed. “You don’t want a murderer near your pack, Alpha McCall.”
“You weren’t you when you were the kanima.”
Jackson swung his backpack strap over his shoulder. “I was always me,” he said
before walking away with a flair.
“Not ominous at all,” Stiles called out. “And just in time for funeral season.”
 
#
 
Jackson saw her coming, and he did nothing to prevent the slap. It didn’t sting
as much as her look of betrayal. He’d had to die Lydia’s arms for her to admit
she still loved him, and it’d been a hollow victory. He couldn’t drop the
baggage that came with being a kanima once it was over, but he did drop school,
dropped everything to get away, leaving without so much as a goodbye.
The sound caught the attention of people in the halls, who played it off like
they weren’t indulging in some new gossip. After all, Jackson and Lydia were
once the couple who ruled the halls during the day and explore one another at
night—back when Jackson would do anything for Lydia.
“How dare you show your face again!” Lydia’s voice strained with fury as she
drew her hands into fists and beat Jackson’s chest. “If you think I’m just
going to welcome you with open arms, you’ve got another thing coming. Do you
even known what we’ve been through since you’ve been gone?”
“I know Allison’s dead.”
Lydia stepped away from him, eyes wet with unshed tears. “It’s not fair. Why
did you get a second chance and she didn’t?”
That was low, even for her. “I’m sorry,” he said, not knowing what else to say.
Their gazes met as the bell rang.
“Why are you back, Jackson?” she demanded.
“None of your goddamn business.”
Lydia narrowed her eyes. She loved getting in the last word. “Fine,” she huffed
in her ‘I’m not letting this drop’ tone. She reached out, tucking a strand of
Jackson’s hair back into place. “See you at lunch then.”
She stalked off to class while Jackson took his sweet time getting his stuff
out from his locker. Returning to school mid-semester should have been a
challenge, but the administration were too busy celebrating having an old
student back. This place should have been shut down ages ago with the string of
dead students and teachers piling the halls; his parents should have shut it
down as soon as Jackson left the lacrosse field in a body bag.
The fact that he didn’t remain dead was a miracle he never asked for.
“I see you and Lydia are patching things up,” Danny Mahealani snarked when
Jackson sat beside him in class.
Danny was one of the few people he’d said goodbye to—and the only one he’d
bothered to stay in touch with. And after shutting Danny out for months, it’d
been nice confiding in him again; Danny could keep secrets, that much he’d
proven.
Danny had been apologetic about not admitting to knowing about supernatural
shit sooner, but Jackson wasn’t about to hold him accountable for protecting
his own self interests; Jackson would always be the champion at the shitty
friend competition.
He ignored Danny’s lame attempt at lightening the mood. He’d turned into a
kanima because the kanima reflected who he really was inside: a vengeful, cold-
blooded snake. An abomination. And hurting Lydia came so easy.
There was no version of him that wouldn’t have destroyed their relationship
eventually.
“I’m quitting lacrosse,” he whispered.
“Probably for the best,” Danny answered without any hesitation. “What about the
swim team?”
“I’m quitting that too.”
Danny was taken back. “Is it because of Matt?”
Jackson winced. “The swim coach actually gives a shit about following player
stats. He’ll question how I’m better after spending half a year without proper
training. No fucking way I’m gonna get away with that.”
He could probably conceal it if he tried, but for how long? The last thing he
needed was a steroid investigation that could potentially lead to the discovery
of werewolves. Even feuding packs were notoriously united in taking out threats
to public exposure.
That was the irony of becoming a werewolf. Standing out was the exact opposite
of what needed to be done to keep the secret of his wolf. And competing against
humans was a novelty that wore off fast. Jackson had traded in every single
thing that mattered in his life for a bite that’d turned into nothing but a
nightmare.
 
#
 
The lunch table was conspicuously empty of people who either died or fled.
Stiles never knew he’d miss the distinct brand of irritation each and every one
of them brought into his life.
Malia Tate poked at her lunch tray, baffled by the meatballs as she lifted one
up, sniffed it and gagged. “I’ll stick to meat I can identify,” she said, not
having the same trouble with her soggy fries. The simple joy of greasy food
wasn’t lost on the girl who’d been stuck as a coyote for eight years. And now
she was Stiles’s girlfriend, because such was his life.
Kira Yukimura did most of the chatter these days, persistent to a fault. Stiles
helped her fill the space with noise about homework and tests and random stuff
from the internet as Scott zoned out, staring into the same nothingness that’d
consumed him ever since Allison died in his arms. She’d been Scott’s first
love, after all, and also his first big break-up. Scott couldn’t just let her
go, and she’d become a shadow hanging over all of them.
It didn’t stop Kira from trying to be the best girlfriend in the world to
Scott. Trying too hard, in fact. She’d persuaded her parents to join Scott and
Stiles for Thanksgiving.
Stiles had invited Malia too, but she’d made a fuss about going camping with
her dad, just the two of them out hunting in the woods, doing the one thing she
loved most. Stiles understood her need to face the shame of causing the crash
that killed her mom and sister.
It couldn’t have possibly been more awkward than Stiles spending hours ignoring
the fact that Kira’s nine-hundred-year-old kitsune mother was responsible for
summoning the nogitsune into this world.
Stiles shook off the thoughts, his breath ragged. The demon fox was gone. It
was over. Scott forgave him.
So why couldn’t his brain get with the program?
“Who’s that?” Kira asked as Jackson entered the lunchroom with Danny by his
side.
“That’s… uh…” Scott broke out of his daze. “So remember when I mentioned a
kanima? That’s the guy.”
“Oh,” Kira said, still looking confused. “He doesn’t seem scary.”
“Well,” Stiles chimed in, “You haven’t met him while he’s a scaly lizard-beast,
dripping body-paralyzing venom and killing off the entire 2006 swim team.”
“Okay, that is scary.”
“What’s scary?” Danny asked, putting down his tray. Normally this was the cue
to stop talking supernatural stuff, but Danny knew more about werewolves than
he ever let on.
Danny hadn’t just figured shit out on his own, no. While helping Jackson
recover lost footage of his first full moon—the kanima transformation that Matt
erased—Danny’s very human dad revealed that Mahealani didn’t just mean “night
of the heavenly moon;” his family was to Maui, Hawaii what the Hale family had
once been to Beacon Hills, California. And Danny’s great-grandmother was their
alpha werewolf. Technically. With Danny’s human mom being a local and Danny
being human too, there’d been allowances made.
“We’re just talking about Jackson’s alter-ego,” Stiles said with a shrug.
Danny rolled his eyes. “That’s always a fun topic.”
Jackson sat across from Stiles, Malia, and Lydia, forcing Stiles to stare at
his stupidly pretty face as he settled between Danny and Kira, who beamed at
him. In Kira’s defense, she never stopped beaming.
“Hi. You don’t know me, but I’m Kira. I transferred to Beacon Hills earlier
this semester.”
“Scott’s new girlfriend, the ‘thunder’ kitsune,” Jackson said. “Yeah, I got the
memo.”
“So, what are you?” Malia asked, flaring her nostrils. “You don’t smell like a
were-lizard.”
“It was a phase.” Jackson flashed his neon blue eyes.
Malia’s own neon blue eyes lit up in response to the perceived threat.
“A phase that ended with me ramming him with my Jeep,” Stiles proudly
proclaimed. “Before Derek and Peter ripped through his insides. But don’t let
the werewolf exterior distract you. He’s still a snake on the inside.”
“That’s rich,” Jackson deadpanned, “Coming from the guy who let a ‘void’
kitsune possess him.”
The blood drained from Stiles’s face.
“He didn’t let anything,” Lydia said, crossing her arms. “Not everyone is
responsible for their own demise.”
Jackson wasn’t deterred. “It wouldn’t have stuck around if he wasn’t
practically begging for it to take the opportunity.”
No one ever blamed Stiles until now. He chewed on his lower lip as shame
threatened to overtake him. Malia put her hand on his shoulder, but instead of
being comforting, it just reminded him of how he nearly got her killed too.
Hell had to be freezing over if Jackson was the only one who understood.
“Says the guy who redefined the side effects of a werewolf bite,” Lydia said
with a cruel smile. Stiles would congratulate her for hating on Jackson if he
didn’t feel like she should hate him too. Possibly moreso.
Danny elbowed Jackson. “Tell them about Anita Singh.”
“It doesn’t make any difference if they know.”
“She was a kanima fifty years ago,” Danny said anyway. “But unlike Jackson,
both her birth parents were alive at the time. Her mother was human and her
father was the alpha of the Singh pack until several years ago.”
“I’m confused,” Kira said. “I thought the kanima required an unresolved past.
Like an identity issue or something.”
“Want to talk about issues?” Jackson asserted. “Try being born the only human
among five sisters.”
Kira bunched up her shoulders. “I suppose that would do it.”
“Anita handled her father’s bite about as well as Jackson handled Derek’s,”
Danny remarked as Jackson gave him the meanest stink eye.
“Meaning very poorly,” Stiles remarked.
“But,” Danny said, “the cool part is once she became a full werewolf, her glowy
eyes remained yellow. So if you only go after criminals, like you’re supposed
to, your werewolf status doesn’t change.”
“What saved her?” Scott piped up.
“Why the fuck does it matter?” Jackson asked.
Stiles had an idea why. “It was her mother, wasn’t it? You blamed Lydia, and
her love confession saved you. I bet Anita blamed her mother, too, and it was
her mother’s love that saved her. Wasn’t it? Admit it, Jackson, the kanima is
the embodiment of selfishness, and you’re a selfish ass.”
Jackson glared at Stiles sharply. “I couldn’t care less what you think of me.
At least I’m owning up to my mistakes. Not everyone gets to be coddled like
yourself."
Scott frowned. "Jackson."
Jackson ignored him. "You’re soft, Stiles, and surrounded by people who care
too much about your feelings to admit you fucked up their lives.” He stood,
gathering his things. “I don’t even know why I agreed to sit with any of you.
This was a fucking waste of my time.”
Jackson left the cafeteria with Danny tailing behind him as Stiles swallowed
down the lump in his throat and tried not to think too hard about the
palpitations in his chest. He exchanged glances with Lydia, and her harsh
demeanor had faded to sad longing.
“I keep falling in love with killers,” she lamented.
Stiles couldn’t even blame her. Her last boyfriend ended up murdering his
original pack with the help of his twin. Aiden had done it for power and a
place among the alpha pack, reasoning that he was getting back for the abuse
he’d suffered at the hands of his pack. Something Jackson wouldn’t be above
doing himself.
Aiden didn’t get far, though. He was at the bottom of the alpha pack, taking
orders instead of giving them. And he was ‘following orders’ when he forced
Derek’s claws into Boyd in order for Derek to taste the power an alpha gained
by killing its own beta. He couldn’t apologize for something he didn’t feel
responsible for, and Lydia couldn’t stop seeing a murderer in him.
Ultimately, Aiden became desperate to join Scott’s pack and get Lydia back; he
ended up dying while trying to redeem himself.
It’d be so easy for Jackson to shift blame onto Matt Daehler and Gerard Argent.
Following orders was literally how the kanima functioned. Even Stiles could
acknowledge those sociopaths were at fault after Jackson made himself an
abomination. But Jackson wasn’t following in Aiden’s shoes. He was taking the
full responsibility, and it made no sense.
 
#
 
Danny stopped Jackson in the hall. “What the hell was that about?”
Jackson lowered his voice to a grave whisper. “Why the fuck did you throw me
under a bus?”
“How? By explaining your situation?”
“You made me look weak and sorry for myself. You know what feeling sorry for
myself gets?” he asked through his teeth. “Broken ribs, spit in my eye, and
steel-toed boots to my face.”
Danny’s eyes widened in horror. “Shit, man, I’m sorry. You never said—”
“Just stop. I’m done trying to explain myself to people who don’t give a fuck
about sob stories. I don’t need anymore targets painted on my back.”
“You got it,” Danny said. “And if it means anything, the plastic surgery is
flawless.”
Jackson let the joke slide. He missed Danny too much.
He still regretted not listening to Danny when the werewolf thing started.
Danny had taken the hint and stopped interfering, sticking to the background
unless Jackson needed him for something.
Jackson was surprised he didn’t lose Danny completely.
“We still on for studying at my place tonight?” Danny asked.
Jackson didn’t deserve Danny, but he needed all the help he could get catching
up in classes. His hiatus extended into London, where he thought he’d take a
year off before integrating into the British school system. Since that plan
fell through, he was back in the States, needing to worry about the SATs and
whatever tests and essays and projects the teachers were eager to pile on top
of it. He couldn’t do anything about his werewolf life, but he was not going to
slip up whatever he had left of his human life.
“Yeah,” he said sheepishly, unable to stay mad at Danny.
Danny smiled and punched him playfully. “Come on, I can’t have you falling any
lower than you already have.”
“Don’t tempt me. I’d take that as a challenge and win.”
***** Chapter 2 *****
…Stiles…
Let me in, Stiles.
LET.
ME.
IN.
Stiles’s eyes shot open as he banged his elbow against his bedstand. Even
awake, he could still see the bandaged corpse with shark-like teeth, clanging
against the locker Stiles was trapped inside. His heart hammered in his chest
as he only heard blood pounding in his ears. He rubbed the heel of his hands
into his eyes, swallowing around his impossibly dry mouth. The metallic taste
of misery and pain clung to his tongue, a reminder of the insatiable hunger of
the fox.
He wiped the beads of cold sweat off his forehead as he checked the time.
One in the morning.
He counted his fingers.
All ten there and accounted for.
He took a shaky breath and checked the time again.
Still one a.m.
He recounted his fingers, just to really make certain this wasn’t another dream
within a dream, another opportunity to scream himself into consciousness. He
was done dragging other people into this.
 
#
 
Jackson knew he wouldn’t be able to escape for long, but he still avoided
everyone at lunch the next day by heading to the library. Lydia had grudgingly
given him some of her notebooks to study from, even though she wanted nothing
to do with him. Jackson thought it’d be useless, but Lydia’s notes were pretty
spot on once she stopped drawing trees everywhere.
He thought back to him dumping her and how he called her dead weight.
Apparently she wasn’t the air-headed strawberry blonde she made herself out to
be; just another thing she kept from him all those years they were together.
He tried not to let that weigh him down as he semi-focused on his work. Due to
his time in London, his senses were finely tuned to making sure no one could
take him by surprise. He had everyone in his vicinity mentally mapped, and he
could hear Stiles coming even before the smell of Doritos, Axe, and… something
else?
“What do you want, Stiles?” he asked before looking up.
Stiles wasn’t deterred as he slammed both hands on the table, gaining the brief
attention from other students. They quickly returned to their work, having
better things to do than acknowledging whatever trouble Stiles was starting.
“You know,” Stiles said, “After Lydia originally translated the bestiary, we
thought the kanima needed a friend. Scott pitied you for having no one.”
Jackson threw down his pencil. “How can I forget? I was right there, shackled
in your stolen prison van, when you insisted it’d be easiest to just kill me.”
Stiles’s jaw dropped. Jackson had forgot what it was like dealing with people
not trained to lie to werewolves. Stiles’s reaction was unfiltered, unpolished,
written on his face for the world to see. “You heard?”
“Wasn’t a true werewolf but managed the super-hearing,” Jackson said coolly,
even though he’d cried at realizing he really was alone, having rid himself of
Danny and Lydia, the two closest people he had.
Stiles dropped to the seat opposite of him. “Well, I take back what we said
that day. You do have people, you self-absorbed asshole. The Whittemores saw
this perfect little newborn and decided they want you in their life. They took
you in and raised you, called you their son. Yet you go nuts like no one in the
world loves you. I still can’t believe you never say ‘I love you’ to your
parents. Of all the ways I could have blown our cover, it was ending a text
with those words. That is the saddest tell, Jackson. There’s nothing wrong with
being adopted.”
Except there was. No matter how much his adoptive parents said they loved him,
it couldn’t make up for the feeling that he’d been robbed. Cheated. A part of
him ripped away. It was like something was constantly missing in his life ever
since he found out, and he couldn’t be consoled.
“Tell me,” he asked, “what would you have done if you woke up one day to find
out you’re not whatever-the-Stilinskis-named-you, you’re just a kid named and
dressed and raised to be Dumbass Stilinski? What would you do with that?”
“It wouldn’t give me license to be an asswipe, that’s for certain.” Stiles’s
brows knit together. “But I’d like to believe I’d still love my mom and dad
with all my heart because they’d raised me with love in theirs. I’d feel
special for being chosen.”
“But it’d gnaw at you, wouldn’t it? Their love would never feel like it’s
enough.”
“I don’t know… maybe? I guess I wouldn’t be able to rest until I understood
where I came from, how I came to be. Losing my mom destroyed me, so I know a
thing about having a hole in your chest. It fucking hurts. But there’s no
filling it, Jackson. It’s just there, like the Grand Canyon. Those gashes are
never going to close. All you can do is deal.”
“You never had to deal with an extended family abandoning you too,” Jackson
sneered. “Yeah, didn’t think about that, did you? My bio parents didn’t exist
in a vacuum. I have grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins… and more. I’ve
checked. But you don’t see any one of them volunteering to raise me. And not a
single fucking one of them showed up after my parents died. So excuse me for
not meeting your criteria for how I should feel about losing my entire family.”
“Shit,” Stiles exhaled. “I always just assumed… But have you tried getting in
contact with any of them? I mean, that’s what I’d do. But I’m not you. Maybe
they just never got the news you were born?”
“It’s pointless now.” He’d grown up dreaming of becoming good enough for his
bio family to find him and take him in. To just acknowledge his existence so
something could snap back into place in his chest. And now that he finally
learned who they were, he didn’t want anything to do with them. Introducing
himself wasn’t going to bring him the peace of mind he’d always wanted. “They
may as well be dead to me.”
 
#
 
Stiles tapped his finger on the desk as Jackson started packing up his things.
He’d known Jackson since the first grade, and it was always people making
excuses for why he was so abrasive and in-your-face—including Scott, who
Jackson would have walked all over if Stiles hadn’t been around. Jackson was a
goddamn golden child who could do no wrong, and he made sure no one forgot it
for a minute as everyone bent over backwards to please a kid who only ever
cared about himself. Even Mr. Harris had been kind to Jackson, and that man was
a serial killing puppy-kicker.
Stiles was never going to get it. Jackson had everything he could have possibly
dreamed of: the money, the looks, the hottest girl in school. It’s how
Jackson’s head got stuck up his ass. Jackson didn’t know life existed outside
the spotlight. He didn’t even register Scott’s or Stiles’s existence until
after Scott got Bit. And the second Scott began to surpass him, Jackson’s ego
couldn’t take it. He went off the deep end. If he’d just been fucking thankful
for all the things he still had, he wouldn’t have landed himself in the hands
of sociopaths. He wouldn’t have needed to flee like a coward to London, and he
wouldn’t be back in Beacon Hills acting like there was ever a backbone in him.
“I always wondered how my life would be different if I’d accepted Peter’s offer
to bite me,” Stiles said, and Jackson froze. “Peter thought I was lying when I
said I didn’t want it, but what I really didn’t want was to ruin my life the
way I’d ruined Scott’s when we went out into the woods that day. Peter’s bite
screwed up Scott’s life, and I had too many people counting on me to roll the
dice. So I stopped myself from saying screw it, juice me up, I’m tired of
lagging behind Scott…” Stiles glared his way, “Unlike some people.”
Jackson growled. “You should have just let Peter bite you. It’d let you feel
how much I don’t care about your delusional moral high ground.”
“At least I never ruined my life for a power high.”
“You sure about that?” He met Stiles’s glare with his own. “Because you lust
for power as much as anyone, Stiles—don’t even try to lie, I’ll hear it. You
think you’re above it all, but you’re not immune to what that denial does to a
person. I may have chased the bite, but you… you left yourself hungry. And
people like you, they’re the worst. They end up selling their souls for just a
taste of what they won’t admit they crave. How long did you think you could go
before the desperation snuck up on you, huh? That’s how the nogitsune found
you, wasn’t it?”
The nogitsune had chosen him. It didn’t just want anyone, it’d wanted him.
And he let it in.
 
#
 
Jackson smelled it first—the reek of battery acid emanating off Stiles as his
gaze glazed over.
“Stiles?”
Stiles didn’t react, and that was the scariest part of all.
Jackson cursed under his breath. Panic attacks were a new concept to him. He’d
never had one until he went to London, and it’d been downhill from there. But
he’d had damn good reason to panic.
“Stiles, you need to breathe,” he said as he stood slowly, refusing to make a
scene. They were lucky everyone with a brain knew to ignore Stiles, in fear of
Stiles getting ideas. It was impossible not to notice Stiles otherwise. Stiles
would have had a police record as thick as the Harry Potter series if his dad’s
friends at the station weren’t constantly dropping charges and if the school
deans didn’t take pity on him being a flaily spaz.
Stiles was hunched over as Jackson swallowed down his reluctance as he covered
the back of Stiles’s neck with his palm. Pain caused inflammation, and
absorbing it was anti-inflammatory, like dosing someone with cortisone. The
only reason he knew was because Dominic tried taking his pain out of
desperation… and it’d worked.
He closed his eyes as Stiles’s pain burned through him, deep and aching.
Whatever the nogitsune did to him, supernatural Advil wasn’t going to cut it…
 
#
 
Stiles’s heart jumped into his throat and lodged itself in there. He couldn’t
breathe. He was back in his room, in his dream—the dream within a dream. Waking
up next to Lydia and not understanding why she was there or why his door was
ajar. He needed to close the door. Needed to. In spite of her pleas to get back
in bed, to go back to sleep. Leave it alone. He was supposed to close it. But
he was opening it wider and stepping across the threshold. He treaded out into
the field where the nemeton stood, where the nogitsune was stowed away…
And then tingling sensation pooled into the back of his neck as the iron grip
loosened around his lungs. He took in a shuddering breath, his pulse racing as
he reoriented himself. He was hunched over the desk, a shadow looming above
him. When he glanced up, Jackson stepped away, black lines pulsing up his
forearm before vanishing. Stiles scratched at the spot Jackson’s hand had
touched, his heart continuing to hammer.
“What did you do?” he rasped.
Jackson leaned against the table, sweat beading on his forehead. “What do you
think I did? I took your pain.”
Stiles blinked as he scratched at the tingling sensation. “That doesn’t make
any sense.”
“Yeah, well, consider it a lucky discovery,” Jackson said offhandedly.
Stiles curled his fingers one by one, counting to ten over and over again. “I
don’t feel lucky.”
He always understood some subconscious part of him got seduced by the
nogitsune’s lure of power. And it had poured its power into the veins of his
body—a body that was no longer his to use. It was like being promised a race
car and getting run over by it. He’d been fooled into thinking he’d be allowed
to drive it. He lost hours from his days until he had none left to give,
becoming nothing more than food for the parasite.
“And how do you think I feel being a walking medicine cabinet?”
“But… why?”
Jackson tsked. “I forgot you’re soft. I’d prefer not to get on Scott’s shit
list.”
“What shit list? Scott only has people he trusts and people he trusts less.
He’d just assume you’d learned your lesson or something.”
“Whatever.” Jackson rolled his eyes and began packing.
 
#
 
Jackson had better things to do than attend to a broken Stiles. He had his
hands full with his own messes.
“You know the worst part about a demon possession?” Stiles asked with a grim
expression.
“That it hasn’t made you less annoying?”
“People don’t let you take responsibility. I did a lot of bad things when the
nogitsune took my body. I left a whole trail of death and misery behind me. And
even though it was never me, I was there, and I… I killed innocent people for
the thrill of it. Abused my friends’ trust like it was a silly game. And no one
gets that I felt everything. Every single sensation, whether I wanted to or
not. And…”
Stiles paused and filed his hand through his hair.
“I can’t believe of all people you’re the one I’m telling this to. But the
nogitsune didn’t just imitate me. It tapped into every thought I ever had so it
could live out the worst possible version of me. Okay, so I may have sometimes
fantasized about being rid of the police station. But the nogitsune bombed it.
I wanted to remind Scott that he wouldn’t be here without me. And the nogitsune
twisted a blade in his gut and taunted him with how much smarter it was than
him. God, I dreamed of just taking Lydia, and the fox kidnapped her for its
pleasure.”
Jackson crossed his arms to keep himself from shuddering. “At least they’re
your own sick fantasies and not someone else’s.”
“How the hell do people still think I’m the good guy?”
“Because they want you to be one of the good guys. And a demon getting off on
your private torture porn isn’t going to change their minds.”
“Everyone wants to assume I’m above getting a perverse satisfaction from the
destruction I caused.” Stiles squirmed, scowling and ruffling his hair, guilt-
ridden and ashamed. “And the fucked up part is there’s nothing stopping me from
continuing what it started. I know what it feels like to be evil, and… you
don’t know what it’s like watching your best friend unconsciously flinch away
from you and then claim it was nothing. If I’m going to be evil, I wouldn’t
mind being evil if it was on my terms. I’d want to own it. I’d want a road in
Hell named after me.”
“What about the consequences?”
“But I let it in. Maybe I wanted it to take over. Maybe I needed the demon to
finally express the evil already inside me.”
“Yeah? So what’s stopping you? Why do you act like you’ve got a conscience left
in you, huh?”
“I’m tired of being treating like a harmless human. I’m only harmless because
I’m surrounded by a supernatural clusterfuck.”
“You’re harmless because deep down you’re still innocent.”
Stiles leered at him. “So you’re on their side now?”
“I’m on my side. And my side says you never needed a demon to express yourself.
You’re hazardous all on your own. It’s probably why the demon chose you. And
you don’t know the meaning of holding back. I should know,” Jackson mocked.
Stiles had punched him in the face that night they got trapped at school with a
rampaging Peter. All because he’d wanted Stiles to call the police to deal with
it and Stiles didn’t want to risk his father getting harmed. What was the point
of having a Sheriff for a father if Stiles couldn’t assemble a force on demand?
“But it still used me.” Stiles jiggled his leg. “And now that I know what it’s
like to kill someone… spilling blood is as easy as… as popping balloons. It’s
like we’re all just walking corpses, each and every one of us.”
Jackson nodded grimly. “That much we have in common.”
“How do you keep living knowing everyone is made to fade into oblivion?”
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
Stiles’s eyes widened. “What did you say?”
Jackson shrugged. “Anita has as a paperweight with that Churchill quote. I used
to stare at it a lot during our meet-ups. ‘If you’re going through hell, keep
going.’”
“Ms. Morrell used that quote on me. When I went to therapy…” Stiles met
Jackson’s gaze. “The day before Gerard put his grand plans into motion. The day
before you…”
Stiles didn’t get to finish before Jackson was up again. He thought he was over
it. It’d been months since he last threw up at the memory of Gerard, but it’d
also been months since he had to face the people who were actually there when
everything went horribly wrong. Matt made him do some heinous things, but
Gerard… he made him kill himself.
Stiles didn’t stop him as he fled to the nearest bathroom.
And Stiles didn’t pester him the rest of the day either.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Jackson’s wolf paced under his skin, restless, scratching under the surface. He
needed to be away from people… away from civilization… just until the full moon
passed.
At least this month it fell on a Saturday. He holed up in his room until the
sun started setting early in the afternoon. Everything would be okay as soon as
he drove out to the preserve and stayed for as long as it took to calm his
wolf.
A mild December breeze blew through his car’s window as the sun bathed the
streets in an orange glow.
After he’d been bitten, he’d refused to join Derek’s pack, and Derek never
accepted him as a beta since, merely training him out of obligation. But
Jackson switched anchors after he moved to London, which meant starting from
scratch. He just had to find the headspace, and he knew where to look.
He repeated the Hale’s mantra for anchoring the wolf. Alpha, beta, omega. Derek
had had one way of interpreting it, Jackson had another—alpha, what he once
wanted to be; beta, what he should have been; omega, what he would always be.
He wasn’t about to join the Mahealanis as a charity case.
Alpha, beta, omega.
His Porsche complained as he took it off the main road and followed a familiar
dirt path down to the burnt Hale house. The place where Derek decided killing
Jackson would ensure everyone else’s safety.
Now that he was a werewolf himself, he understood the fear of having an
untrustworthy human running loose while hunters were around. Didn’t mean he
forgave Derek. The man intended to murder a stupid, crying teen in cold blood
as a precaution, but not before rubbing in how no one was coming for
Jackson—because at the end of the day, no one cared that he was captain of the
lacrosse team or drove a nice car. As though Derek wasn’t a former jock from a
wealthy family. Just because Derek had no one to care about him anymore didn’t
mean he had to shit on Jackson out of spite.
But there was one idiot who cared enough about Jackson to save him: Scott
McCall. And he fought off Derek on Jackson’s behalf… before the hunters arrived
with guns blazing. Jackson’s blood boiled at the thought.
He used to be one of Beacon Hills High’s most prized students, the straight-
A top athlete who everyone wanted to be or be with. And it was never was enough
for Lydia, even before Coach Finstock overlooked how an asthmatic player could
become MVP-level in the blink of an eye. She outright said she wouldn’t date a
loser, let alone one that got incapacitated on the field. She even rubbed it in
by cheering for Scott while Jackson went out of his mind to regain what McCall
took from him.
He’d been too preoccupied with his dreams of regaining his former glory to see
the glaring trap. Scott told him only an alpha could grant the Bite, and yet he
still followed Derek, a shady beta wolf, into an abandoned burnt building with
the promise of granting a gift.
And when Derek’s bite didn’t work, he had no way of knowing that Lydia’s
‘immunity’ to Peter’s bite was because she was a banshee and that his own
failure to turn had been a mutation that came from within. But he preferred the
guilt to the pain of her tampering with his life again.
Christ, Jackson hated this place.
Alpha, beta, omega.
He parked his car and gently squeezed the key ring, focusing on the press of
metal digging into his skin. The darkened house was nothing like the old photos
of it. It used to stand tall, its exterior covered in the sort of flourishes
common in Second Empire style homes. Now, the decayed thing sagged into itself,
too gray and desolate and cavernous to ever be considered a home.
It came with the pervasive memory of the taste of smoke and burning flesh in
the back of his throat. Nightmares where he could still hear the shrill ringing
of strangers shrieking and crying, dying with him in a prison of fire, when he
awoke. And his wolf whined at the grief of losing a family that had never been
his.
He had only one decent memory here, and that’d been of setting Peter Hale on
fire. A bittersweet victory. It was, after all, his fault Lydia was out on the
lacrosse field looking for him the night of the formal. Peter hospitalized her
and later found a loophole to escape death.
Hindsight did him no good now.
He peered into the darkness, wondering whether Derek would make an appearance.
He scratched at the scar left behind on his neck from Derek’s infected claws
all those ages ago. He was finished with his days of trailing after Derek like
a desperate sap, but he’d never have closure without one last conversation.
Derek preferred the deserted rail depot during full moons, but without a
trainee or a pack, Derek could be anywhere; he didn’t need the physical
reminder of his fatal mistake in trusting Kate Argent. But Derek would show if
he knew Jackson was in town. He was always a creeper at heart.
Headlights appeared in Jackson’s rearview mirror, too wide and high to be from
Derek’s Camaro.
Jackson cursed under his breath when he recognized the Jeep. He didn’t need
Stiles’s meddling, not tonight. Not while he needed to rein in his bloodlust.
He concentrated on breathing as Stiles parked behind him, Jeep fuming and
clanking with the same energy as its owner. Jackson managed to pull back his
claws before shoving his hands into his red hoodie and greeting the pest.
“Why did I ever drop that restraining order?” he asked.
“Nice to see you too, Jackson,” Stiles said, surveying the Hale house. “What
are you doing out here? Waiting for Derek?”
Jackson held down the growl in his chest. “No.”
“So just visiting for old time’s sake?” Stiles mused.
“Better question is why you’re here.”
“Why do you think?” Stiles said with a derisive grin. “I’m in charge of
watching you. Scott’s taking care of Malia, so that leaves you as the only
were-animal to be concerned about. Danny may have collaborated in the effort.
With an outrageous bribe. You should be proud, you don’t come cheap.”
Jackson felt the prick of his fangs extending. He told Danny where he was going
so Danny had something to explain to the police if Jackson never returned. If
Danny sold him out, it better have cost Stiles dearly or Jackson was never
going to forgive him.
Alpha, beta, omega.
“Your sideburns are showing,” Stiles commented before pointing with his thumb
in a vague direction behind him. “If you can keep you cool a bit longer, I know
a good spot to camp out for the night.”
Jackson wanted to argue, but what was the use? Stiles wasn’t going to leave.
Either the guy had a legitimate plan or there’d be a freshly dead body in the
woods. Jackson wasn’t sure which he had to worry about more. If Dominic was
here… fuck, the last thing he needed now was to think about Dominic.
As they drove deeper into the preserve, Jackson’s sports car rattling as the
suspension failed to handle the rocks and tree roots jutting from the earth. He
used to care about damaging his ride, but it didn’t seem so important anymore.
His parents would buy him a new one, just like they’d buy him anything else to
try to win back his love.
The clearing they stopped at gave Jackson déjà vu. He surveyed the area,
realizing it was the preserve’s lookout point. The view from the cliff was
perfect, a scenic layout of Beacon Hills at dusk, streets glowing with lamp
posts and traffic lights and windows of lived-in homes. And with the days
counting down to Christmas, the houses were also lit with deceptively cheerful
and bright displays.
Stiles lugged out a bag full of leather cuffs and heavy metal chains with the
confidence of someone used to containing werewolves and having a certain
lifestyle. Jackson rolled his eyes especially hard when Stiles took out a camp
light and told him to find a tree. This was going to be a long night.
Stiles set to work fastening Jackson to the thick and sturdy trunk of a tree
several yards from the cliff. Jackson took short breaths, clenching his jaw as
Stiles locked his wrists into the leather cuffs. This close to Stiles, he
couldn’t help but notice Stiles: the upturned nose, the bow of his full lips,
the round brown eyes that knew too much and too little at the same time.
Shadows fell across the sharp edges of a white face—so similar to Dominic’s
dark brown—that used to be softer. Even Stiles’s hair was longer, jutting out
in haphazard spikes.
On a normal day, he could shove the thoughts down into the recesses of his
mind, but his wolf wasn’t letting him ignore the distinctness of that something
else in Stiles’s scent, tickling Jackson’s nose in wisps that sent all the
wrong signals to his primal brain. And Stiles was touching him. He bit the
inside of his cheek until the stinging pain and coppery tang flooded his
senses.
The chains were bulky, and the leather on the cuffs was only meant as a cushion
from the metal. The last time he got chained was with Derek ‘helping’ him
through the full moon, back when he was just beginning to grasp how to anchor
himself. And his vision had turned red when Derek staked his shoulder with a
railroad spike, causing him to involuntarily jerk against the prong collar that
linked him to the cage. The spikes tightened around his throat, piercing his
skin with needle precision, and his wolf receded with its tail between its
legs.
Derek had smirked. “I should say pain makes you human, but you’ll always be a
snake to me.”
Jackson focused on that disgust to get through the rest of Stiles’s fiddling.
There was a second chain that Stiles wrapped around the trunk to secure him in
place, binding his upper body to the tree.
For better or worse, he was stuck to this tree for the night. And he had no
guarantee Stiles wouldn’t leave him to rot. Good thing he remembered to move
his phone to the front pocket of his sweats. And he had reception. All he
really had to worry about was Danny showing up with clippers before something
else found him first.
“It’s funny,” Stiles said as he finished his work and sat cross-legged across
from him. “Last time we were here, you were chained up in the prison van.”
Jackson groaned wearily as he brought his knees to his chest. “Why am I not
surprised?”
“Hey, look on the bright side: it’s not kidnapping this time.”
“No, it’s just coerced captivity.”
“It’s either this or believing you’ve improved your control in the last eight
months. I’d rather this. You’re not exactly human on your best days.”
Jackson rolled his eyes. “I see you’ve been talking to Derek.”
“Derek?” Stiles scratched his neck. “I haven’t seen him since…” he swallowed,
“since we defeated the nogitsune.”
“Is that before or after he stopped being alpha?”
“No one’s told you?”
“You overestimate my willingness to hear about that sadistic freak.”
Stiles narrowed his eyes. “Well, that ‘sadistic freak’ used up his alpha powers
to save his younger sister.”
Jackson sat up straighter. “Since when does he have a living sister?”
“Since Cora survived the fire and fled to Argentina. She just happened to
return long enough to nearly die again. She’s back in Argentina, and I don’t
blame her.”
Jackson scraped his clawed hand along a protruding root. “Cora,” he said under
his breath.
“Yeah, Deucalion kidnapped her along with Boyd and Erica… Erica didn’t
survive.”
Jackson slumped against the tree, chains rattling as he rested the back of his
head against the rough bark. “In the seventies, Deucalion used to be part of
another pack in England. He had this vision of uniting England under a single
ruler, but his plan to kill his alpha was thwarted. So he moved to the States,
and apparently tried another takeover as alpha of alphas. It’s the stupidest
thing I’ve ever heard. There’s no control if every member of your pack can
create more pack. It’s anarchy.”
Stiles chewed his lip. “Without Deucalion, there wouldn’t have been the darach,
and without the darach, the nogitsune wouldn’t have been released.”
“Yeah? I hear that Deucalion also instigated the Hale and Argent blood feud.
And if Gerard Argent hadn’t blinded him, there wouldn’t have been mutiny in
Deucalion’s pack. There wouldn’t have been the seed for a join-or-die campaign
to create the ultimate pack.”
“Dude, you an expert on packs politics now?”
“By virtue of living with an established pack and dealing with two other
established packs, yes, I am more of an expert than any of you.”
Stiles sat upright, on full alert. “What’s the report on the other London
packs?”
“They’re content with staying where they are, if that’s what you’re worried
about. Between territory squabbles and underground dealings, they have no
interest in American Transylvania.”
Stiles palmed his face. “God. You know what the FBI has Beacon Hills labeled
as? The ‘Bermuda Triangle of homicides, disappearances, and strange
occurrences.’ We’re one vampire away from becoming a tourist attraction. But,
hey, with our luck, instead of vampires, we’ll get overrun by harpies or ghouls
or Satan himself.”
Jackson snorted at the idea. There were an infinite number of things that could
overrun a town that was never going to be normal or safe again. That delusion
was buried with a mound of bodies.
“Man, if Beacon Hills is so dangerous,” Stiles said. “What brings you here?”
“Everywhere is dangerous. This place just happens to be more creative about
it.”
“Creative,” Stiles said mockingly, but he didn’t say any more.
The long, awkward silence that followed was enough to make Jackson’s skin crawl
with how much his wolf was itching to be free. Stiles took the break to grab
some sandwiches from his Jeep, offering Jackson a deli-bought ham and cheese
with a bottle of water, which Jackson accepted without protest.
Stiles crinkled the plastic wrapper off his turkey club sandwich before biting
in. With his mouth still partially full, he asked, “So, ever since our
conversation the other day, I’ve been thinking. If your adoption angst is what
made you the kanima, what does Lydia’s love have to do with it?”
Jackson gave him a sharp look, not sure whether to be pissed that it took
Stiles this long realize or that Stiles was realizing it at all. “It doesn’t.”
Stiles tilted his head, his expression befuddled. “Huh. I guess her banshee
powers were activated by then. She must have somehow acted as a proxy,
connecting you to the love of—”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Stiles, this isn’t a fairy tale. Love was never
going to be the answer. I heard Lydia call my name, and it pulled me out of the
kanima’s haze. But there’s only one way this ends: with the kanima dying by the
hand of the alpha who created it.”
Stiles eyed him. “What about the kanima 2.0 with the cocoon and the almost
having wings?”
His stomach cramped as he put down his food. “Every kanima has a secondary,
stronger form that’s only activated after… a critical blow.”
And Gerard knew it. The kanima hadn’t known who Jackson was, but it understood
the importance of keeping them both alive. But the transformation got cut
short, leaving the kanima weak and susceptible to being run over by a certain
someone in his Jeep.
Stiles fiddled with the plastic hanging off his sandwich. “Must have sucked
finding out it wasn’t Lydia’s love that saved you.”
“I always knew… in the back of my mind I knew.” He recalled the heat of Lydia’s
body as he hugged her after the wolf took up the spot the kanima had vacated.
It’d been the closest thing to an anchor he’d felt since. “But it was still
nice having someone to hold when it was over.”
“Is that why you continued being cruel to her?” Stiles asked bitterly.
“I wasn’t…” Jackson shook his head in frustration. “Anything was better than
staying Beacon Hills.”
“Uh huh.” Stiles’s tone was cold and accusatory. “Lydia puts her safety on the
line to hand you back your key… literally confesses her undying love for you…
and you can’t even text her that you’re leaving? She had to find out from your
parents? You were so keen on breaking up with her over texts the first time.
Couldn’t even manage that much, could you?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“No, I understand. It’s a good thing love wasn’t the answer because people
throwing themselves at your feet is just a Tuesday. You wouldn’t be able to
tell love from a hole in the wall. It’s a miracle you still have people left
who manage to give a shit about you. If it were up to me, you wouldn’t deserve
anyone’s love.”
Heat rose up Jackson’s face. He surged forward, yanking on the chains with all
his strength. Metal grazed the bark as Stiles scuttled backwards, sweat beading
on his brow. Jackson pulled and twisted and rattled, willing himself to wrench
out of this prison. He knew hurting Alpha McCall’s right-hand idiot would be
the end of him, and he no longer cared.
But no matter how hard he tried, Stiles had been thorough. Not one of the locks
or chain links popped out of place. His energy weakened faster than the binds,
and he collapsed against the trunk in defeat, his face flushed from anger and
shame as he heaved for air.
“Damn, Jackson,” Stiles said, returning to his spot, acting like he was
unaffected even as his heart kept racing. “With a temper like yours, I’m
surprised you lasted as long as you did in London. You must have fucked up big
time if the Singh pack kicked you out. And, yeah, I’ve concluded you were
kicked out since I doubt you’d bother showing your face in Beacon Hills if
everything remained peachy in Britain. So, the million dollar question: what
did you do to piss off the Singhs?”
Jackson sucked in a breath through his fangs. After this he was moving to
Canada like Dominic wanted him to, because the position he was in now—unable to
escape and under the influence of his wolf—left him as nothing more than a
cornered animal exerting the last of its strength before succumbing to its
inevitable end. “What difference does it make to you?”
“I have to know what sort of baggage you’re carrying and whether that means
more trouble for us. You know, because I actually care about my loved ones.”
“No one’s going out of their way for a lone wolf who doesn’t have a chance at
lasting on his own. But you’ll be happy to hear there’s a bounty on my head if
I ever step foot on the Isles again.”
“Jesus, Jackson. You sound like you’ve killed someone.”
“I already have a killer’s eyes.” And claws and beastly face that’d be enough
to warn any sensible human off. Stiles wasn’t sensible, though.
“Yeah, but that’s on a technicality. Just as Derek mercy-killed his first love
and Malia lost control during the crash. You were a kanima with horrible
masters.”
If only he hadn’t heard worse stories from others. Technicalities were
meaningless in the end.
“Then tell me,” he asked. “What’s the selling point of a former-kanima American
expat to an established English pack? And it’s not my money; they’ve got enough
old wealth to put the entire Whittemore line to shame.”
Stiles sat in contemplative silence.
“This isn’t a trick question, Stiles. I was only useful as a killer to them.”
Tears stung his eyes as he blinked it away. It used to destroy him having to
pull the trigger. Like being stuck in a waking nightmare, forever a kanima with
blood soaking into his skin.
Stiles seized up as his eyes bulged in horror. “No! No. That’s fucking wrong.
They can’t… You can’t be forced to kill people just because your eyes are a
certain way. How did Anita allow this?”
“Anita protected me in the only way she knew how.”
“Which was shit! Why didn’t you ask the Mahealani pack for help?”
“Alpha Mahealani would accept me out of pity. And I’d always be other to them.
I wasn’t ever other with Anita. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have sanctuary
anywhere else. Too many things out there want omegas dead. Derek wants me dead.
And I’ve already had practice killing on demand—Matt made sure of it—so what
did I have to lose?”
“Besides your soul?”
Jackson laughed as the notion, the sound too low and predatory even for him. He
had gained favor by being a perfect shot, and only after he shut down the part
of his mind that kept resisting. “The world doesn’t fucking care. Out there, if
you’re not lucky enough to be alpha, you can’t be trusted without golden eyes…
but they’ve found their loopholes. Get someone else to pull the trigger, and
you keep your virtue.”
Stiles’s voice shook with bottled rage. “And where does that leave the humans?
They’re part of packs too. They don’t have changing eyes.”
“Humans are harder to heal. You can’t impose pack bonds on them. And you can’t
dangle the death sentence that is being omega.”
His first panic attack was the day he nearly let his first mark slip away. But
there was only so many times Dominic could help him out before he risked
becoming an addict on top of it all.
“What the fuck?” Stiles exclaimed. “They forced you to kill people for
membership in their pack?”
“Not membership,” he clarified as it burned like acid on his tongue.
“Sanctuary. If the wolves wouldn’t allow Anita to be their alpha, you think
they’d allow me to join at all?”
“Wait, she’s not even alpha?”
“As much as her father wanted to pass it on to her, there’s no wiping the stain
of a kanima. You carry the mutation the rest of your life. And I don’t have
golden eyes to hide behind. The most Anita could do with her authority was
grant me sanctuary, but only if I proved my loyalty in the eyes of the Singh
pack. Though my loyalty was always under scrutiny.”
And after a while, putting a bullet into someone became rote. Being splattered
in blood and gore became routine, and he could finally find some peace in his
personal hell.
Stiles stank of regret as he hesitantly asked, “Do I even want to know how you
fucked up before fleeing for your life?”
“I didn’t fuck up,” Jackson forced out. The girl was just a bystander, at the
wrong place at the wrong time, knowing all the wrong people. As numb as Jackson
had become, he’d reached a line he couldn’t cross. “I saved my mark’s life.”
He dragged her to the airport, paid for her ticket, told her to change her name
and start as someone new. She bawled as she understood how screwed she was,
pregnant and alone, with no guarantee that she’d ever be safe again. But it was
still the most he’d ever given anyone. And it’d never be enough.
He folded his arms over his knees as his wolf curled into a ball, too tired to
feel the moon anymore.
 
#
 
Stiles bit his nail. Jackson sold his soul for a sense of belonging and then he
gave it all up for a shred of decency, knowing he’d get punished for acting on
it. The part of Stiles that wanted to call bullshit was the same part that
wanted Jackson to be a manipulative liar. But the real Jackson was god-awful at
lying under pressure. Stiles had first-hand experience with that. And with the
effort it took to pry any information out, Jackson really didn’t want him to
know, which only made it more truthful.
“Do you regret it?” Stiles asked gravely.
“No,” Jackson said, and he sounded ashamed of it, as though he wished he did.
His nostrils flared as his wolfy features smoothed out, leaving nothing but a
lost teenager behind.
They finished eating in silence, and neither of them spoke for a long time
after. No matter what Stiles thought of Jackson, Jackson had tried to do good.
It’d never make up for the blood he already shed, but it was something, even if
Jackson had nothing to show for it but exile and Stiles’s company.
Stiles was reminded of the rescued dogs at Dr. Deaton’s clinic, sitting in
their cages with those sad eyes, unsure whether they had a future ahead of
them. And the saddest were the dogs coming from illegal fighting rings, their
future hinging on a successful rehabilitation.
“I don’t know how you keep doing this to yourself,” Stiles said. “You keep
chasing after greener pasture, and you end up jumping into green sewage.”
Jackson shook his head with a scowl. “You don’t know what it’s like watching
all your hard work go down the drain for an idiot who stumbles onto
superpowers.”
“You don’t know what hard work is.”
“Fuck you,” Jackson spat. “I fucking earned being captain of the lacrosse team.
As a sophomore, no less. I put in the sweat and the hours, and all McCall ever
had to do was get bitten.”
“One,” Stiles hissed, “he never fucking asked for it, and two, it cured the
asthma that was holding him back.”
“It gave him inhuman speed, strength, and reflexes that no amount of practice
could ever compete with. That’s cheating.”
“Are you going to claim Scott becoming true alpha was cheating too?”
Jackson groused, and Stiles knew he had him. Scott got bit against his will and
his body still managed to readily accept the bite. And Scott became a true
alpha by never giving into the temptation to kill no matter how much madness
was thrown his way.
“I’m glad you left when you did,” Stiles said vehemently. “I’m glad you weren’t
around to see Scott become something greater than you’ll ever be. Who knows
what stupid shit you’d have done to try to overthrow him. If Deucalion tried to
recruit you into the alpha pack, you’d betray us in a heartbeat. It would take
nothing to corrupt you.”
Jackson’s expression didn’t change, and Stiles suspected Jackson’s ego was too
punctured to do anything but hang there and take it.
Good.
“Face it, Jackson, it’s your hate and fury and vindictiveness that made you
reject the bite and turn into a monster. Kanima or not, you’d still end up
exactly where you are, chasing a carrot that will always be out of your reach.
Because if it wasn’t werewolves, it’d be steroids or drugs or whatever it took
to restore your glory. You’d do anything to stay on top. Including getting
blood on your hands. No one’s swindled you besides yourself.”
Jackson mumbled something under the blowing wind, something along the lines of
“Yeah, right.”
“Speak up, I don’t have werewolf hearing.”
“You’re right,” Jackson grit out a bit louder.
Stiles blinked in disbelief, certain he was still mishearing. “Can you repeat
that one more time?”
“You’re right,” Jackson shouted. “Jesus Christ, do I need to sign a
confessional?”
Stiles couldn’t think of any witty comebacks for a guy who admitted he was
scum. “No, we’re cool. Just making sure my ears are still working.”
It was stupid to keep calling Jackson a hundred percent evil. How could he be
if his alter-ego, the personification of his worst traits, was only as
dangerous as its handler. Matt, and subsequently Gerard, corrupted the kanima’s
sense of justice for their own selfish needs. But the kanima still managed to
reject Matt’s twisted logic when faced with an unborn child of unquestionable
guiltlessness. It’d also, in a backwards way, protected Stiles and Derek from
itself when it herded them into the pool, the one place Matt’s fear of drowning
wouldn’t allow it to go.
The hate in Stiles’s gut fizzled out. Up until that moment, he never realized
how much precious energy he’d put into despising Jackson, but the enormity of
it had to rival his five—ten—year plan to win Lydia. He didn’t know where
tonight left them, but he wasn’t too worried about keeping a close eye on the
restrained former-kanima ex-hitman anymore.
He opted to ‘sleep’ in his Jeep, too cold for the weather and too fleshy to be
out there with nothing but a sleeping bag between him and the preserve. He had
clippers and a metal bat beside him in case some bloodthirsty thing happened to
be roaming, but he filed it under ‘fire on the stove can burn you’ and ‘cars on
the road can hit you;’ he wasn’t going to stop cooking or crossing the street.
Whatever lurked in the shadows would never be darker than the demon who’d
crawled through his insides.
He closed his eyes, praying for some rest. But the nightmares came anyway,
jolting him in his seat. The noise woke Jackson up, if ‘sleep’ was what Jackson
was doing as he drooped sideways against the chains before jerking upright.
Jackson glanced his way before shaking his head and exhaling in exasperation.
There was no point attempting to go back to sleep. It wasn’t happening anytime
soon. Stiles didn’t know how much longer he could go before he started up drugs
just to take the edge off. His skin felt loose, his joint creaky, his insides
all off-sync. The void had dug its tendrils into him so deep that even after
they separated bodies its presence continued to vibrate inside him until the
very end. What was left was a Swiss cheese mosaic of his former self. And the
remnants weren’t healing like they were supposed to. Either the rotting would
eventually stop, or it’d consume him entirely. He doubted he’ll ever be whole
again.
He may as well embrace the distraction of Jackson’s agitated company. Jackson
winced from the sudden light as Stiles turned the camp light back on and
plopped down in front of Jackson.
“I’ve decided something,” he said outright. “If this were a few months ago, I’d
be so on top of paying you back for all the shit you put us through—I wouldn’t
think twice—but priorities change after a demon uses you as a chew toy. I just
know everyone will be telling me to stay away from you and to not trust you,
and, man, I can do like half of that on my own. So why not keep it simple?” He
met the skeptical bleary-eyed expression on Jackson. “I’m not telling anyone
about our conversation tonight. I was entrusted to make sure you don’t wolf
out. The rest should stay between us.”
Jackson ground his teeth. “What are you fishing for?”
“You can save me the fruitless online search that I’ll inevitably attempt after
this, because I doubt the Singhs post their agendas on Facebook.”
“You want information.” Jackson exhaled, relief washing over his expression.
“Yeah, I mean, now that your big secret is out, it wouldn’t hurt to fill in the
details. You’ve already set the bar for rock bottom, so I can’t possibly judge
you any harder.”
“Except I happen to be an overachiever.”
But Jackson told him everything. It was a completely different world out there.
Werewolves and hunters weren’t two separate entities since sharing the small
space of London meant self-enforcement. But with loyalties constantly shifting,
Jackson’s obligations took him into the grimy underbelly of society where
gunshot wounds were easier to explain than animal attacks. It didn’t matter
that he believed people shouldn’t die unless they absolutely deserved it. One
day he’d be saving real victims and the next they’d become his new targets.
The more Jackson spoke of what he’d went through, the more Stiles couldn’t
imagine the balls it had to take for Jackson to go against these people. Stiles
wasn’t used to Jackson being anything but Mr. Popularity, but Jackson was
candid about how the pack absolutely despised him, calling him omega both in
terms of having no pack and being of lowest rank in a pack, whichever they
thought was worse on any given day. That or Witless.
“Oh my god,” Stiles burst out laughing. “I love it. Witless, why did I never
think of it? Jackson Witless.”
“Their name calling was the least of my concerns.”
Stiles pressed his lips tight. Right. It wasn’t funny if Jackson’s survival
depended on taking their abuse. But Jackson lit up whenever he mentioned the
gunner designated as his mentor, a nineteen-year-old Dominic Harper.
“Everyone called him my nanny, though.”
“Man,” Stiles said. “They really know how to rub it in.”
Dominic was a bitten wolf who accidentally killed someone on his first full
moon, giving him the ‘ice eyes’ that excluded him from general pack business.
Most gunners thrived in their line of work, abusing their power whenever they
could, but not Dominic. He hated being marked for life, but he could kill
without living for the kill.
“Why doesn’t Dominic just leave?”
“What part of being doomed with ice eyes was I not clear on?” Jackson sighed.
“Besides, Dominic isn’t an outcast. He’s pack, so he’s not just a gunner. He
has friends and family. He has a life. Why give that up for ‘greener pasture’?”
“You got me there,” Stiles declared. “I’m so canceling my European vacation.”
“Says the guy who lives in a literal bloody hell.”
Stiles snorted. “We definitely have the demons to show for it.”
He couldn’t believe he found that amusing. It was as though the hollowness in
his chest suddenly stopped threatening to crash down like a house of cards. For
the first time in weeks, the nogitsune felt like a thing of the past. He could
choose to be better than his worst self… he could choose to be better than
Jackson.
***** Chapter 4 *****
Exhaustion didn’t begin to cover how Jackson felt by the time he faceplanted
onto his bed.
He’d tried to stay awake the entire time he was at the mercy of chains; that
didn’t mean his body cooperated. Once his wolf was done, the rest of him went
with it. But he couldn’t even pass out in peace, not with senses that’d been
conditioned to ‘keep one eye open’ for months. And Stiles hadn’t made it any
easier with his interrogation, unleashing a decade’s worth of venom.
He dreamt of Derek and their training and the alpha pack’s symbol scratched
into the Hale house door. Derek was always looking over his shoulder, whether
anticipating an attack or for Erica and Boyd to return. And although Isaac
became Derek’s second, he was rarely around, always sent out looking for the
other two betas while Derek set to work on Jackson.
It wasn’t like he could be left in the same room as Isaac without some sort of
brawl.
He dreamt of how it used to be with Isaac, before he found out he was adopted
and something broke inside him. Before everything suddenly felt fake, like a
stage set had been built around him, enough for him to shun anyone who ever
loved him. Before he decided the world owed him for cheating and betraying him.
It was already late into the afternoon when he woke to his phone buzzing. He
rolled onto his back before grabbing it and snarling into the receiver.
“I fucking hate you.”
“So Stiles found you after all,” Danny said with what had to be a smile.
“You sold me out.”
“Listen, you told me yourself you didn’t have an anchor. I don’t know what you
were planning to do at the Hale house other than run into Derek. At least with
Stiles around, Derek would be too distracted wanting to pummel him to want to
pummel you.”
He couldn’t deny Danny’s logic. “You could have fucking warned me.”
“Oh, yeah, because you wouldn’t go out of your way to avoid him anyway.”
“For good reason! What the hell did he even offer you?”
“He tried everything from a no-questions-asked favor to a full day of doing my
bidding. I think he got desperate when he blurted out ‘a day’s worth of no-
questions-asked favors.’ You have to admit that’s too good to pass up.”
Jackson rubbed his face. “You realize it’s useless if he refuses to cooperate.”
He heard Danny snickering. “Well, he never specified it had to be twenty-four
consecutive hours. I could have a lot of fun with that. But enough about
Stiles—unless you want to go on about him—”
Jackson growled loud enough for Danny to hear, and Danny laughed some more.
“I figured as much,” Danny said. “Want to come out to the Jungle with me
tonight?”
Jackson thought about saying no after the night he had, but his wolf still
needed a proper outing, even if it wasn’t strictly a full moon.
And he knew exactly why Danny was asking in the first place. Danny needed
someone to get his mind off of Ethan, and Jackson needed something fun to get
his mind off of everything else. Danny had always been about the win-win.
“What time?”
The Jungle, being the only gay club in Beacon County, was always full of people
looking for a good time, even after that one time a ‘mass drugging incident’
temporarily paralyzed half the club.
It’d been a Friday night when it happened, with the DJ blasted his beats and
the jammed dance floor cloaked in artificial fog. If a lizard creature happened
to appear out of the darkness of strobing lights and darting lasers, the crowd
assumed it was part of a show.
Danny had tried cheering Jackson up about the attack soon after Jackson left
for London. He’d been convinced that some part of Jackson held back, which was
how Danny got left with only minor scratches. Jackson shrugged it off as Danny
being thankful the attack conveniently ruined his ex’s great night.
Right now, though, it was quiet. As quiet as it could get with ‘80s dance music
playing and people talking over it. The place stank of booze, and a dim shade
of orange blanketed the thin crowd sticking to the bar and the lounge area. The
DJ was in the middle of setting up, and in an hour or so there’d be a line out
the door waiting to get inside for the real party.
Danny was a regular who knew the bartender by name, eighteen years old and
passing as a very youthful twenty-one-year-old for anyone who asked. Jackson
pulled of the same vibe with his fake ID, and since normal alcohol didn’t work
on him anymore, he got the strongest drink they had just for the hell of it.
They stood by the bar trying to figure out their next move when Danny inclined
his head in the direction of a table.
“The one in green?”
Jackson followed Danny’s line of sight. “You’d do better if you stayed away
from anymore white boy jocks.”
“You mean you?”
“Ha ha. Don’t come running to me when he starts reminding you of Ethan.”
Danny’s smile faltered. Even though he’d initiated his break up with Ethan,
making excuses that it was about werewolves and not Ethan, it’d been better
than having Ethan rip a bigger hole inside him before leaving Beacon Hills.
Because, ironically, Ethan being Aiden’s twin and a lying alpha werewolf didn’t
detract from him being the least horrible boyfriend Danny had ever had. Jackson
would know after the way Danny sobbed over the phone and felt like the worst
for crying over a break-up while his friends were in mourning. Jackson kept
reminding him he wasn’t stupid, that the pain was real.
Then again, Jackson had become numb to the concept of mourning.
Jackson pat Danny’s shoulder. “Dude, you’ll find a good one eventually. Tonight
is about you getting laid.”
“And what about you?”
Jackson sipped his drink. “What about me?”
“I’m sorry things couldn’t work out between you and Dominic.”
Jackson rolled his eyes. “Dominic was always going to be a dead end.” He wasn’t
even sure he wanted it to work out. Dominic made him feel safe, and it’d been a
rare luxury that he latched onto like a sap; at least the age of consent was
sixteen in the UK. “I’m over it.”
“Are you, man? Because you’ve never been good at getting over stuff. Not unless
you found something new to obsess over. Which begs the question.”
“There’s nobody.”
“You know, you’ve never been very good at lying.”
“What is there to lie about? I’ve got no one.”
Danny smirked. “I mean, I can see the appeal of McCall being alpha in more ways
than one.”
Jackson punched Danny’s arm. The passing interest he used to have in the cute
shy guy with a watchdog had been utterly wrecked the moment Scott McCall got
superpowers and Allison Argent entered the picture.
But he had a one-up on Danny, who’d crushed on Matt.
“You wouldn’t like it if I started going on about Matt,” he said out of spite.
“So shut the fuck up.”
Danny scoffed at the reminder of his own unfortunate crush. He rubbed the spot
Jackson hit like it was nothing, and it was, considering Jackson could have
sent him flying. “My hunch was right, then.”
“What hunch?”
“Stiles got under your skin.”
Stiles… the Sheriff’s son, who nicknamed himself ‘Stiles’ in first grade…
Jackson downed the rest of his drink, barely feeling the burn. His wolf had
been nagging him about Stiles since it got a good whiff of him, attracted to
him on some visceral level that his human didn’t want to even begin
understanding. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
Danny eyed him knowingly, the asshole. “I remember something about you taking
on the challenge of falling even lower. I’d think you two are on the same level
by now.”
Jackson felt his eye twitch. “Why am I even friends with you?”
“I’ve never steered you wrong before,” Danny said with a confident quirk of his
brow. “So what’s the verdict on green shirt over there?”
Jackson was going to have fun tonight one way or another. “This walking lie
detector is in the mood to see someone squirm.”
 
#
 
Stiles understood he and Jackson would never be friends. He spent the rest of
his Sunday playing Left 4 Dead 2 until Malia showed up for their Star Wars
marathon. Unlike Scott, she’d seen the original movies as a kid, so it was the
perfect plan for their date night. He continued to be amazed he even had a
girlfriend.
It’d been two weeks since they started seeing each other, three since they’d
got it on at Eichen House.
He absently scratched the left side of his neck as he remembered his three days
in Eichen. He got an electric-burn scar there after Deaton shot him up with
wolf lichen. One that faded as the nogitsune recovered from the poison.
He shuddered.
They were safe now, and maybe if he said it enough times he’d start to believe
it.
When Malia arrived, Stiles kissed her like they hadn’t seen each other in
months.
“Okay, what did I miss?” she asked.
He put his arm around her shoulder, herding her onto the living room couch.
“Can’t I show my girlfriend how much I adore her?”
She raised a brow. “You can, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d assume you
smell like you’ve been running from cougars.”
It was a fair assessment. “Jackson and I may have had a bit of a scuffle. But
don’t worry. I got the good stuff from the hardware store.” He waved his hand.
“But enough about me. How did your first full moon treat you?”
She fidgeted, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. “How do you think?”
It’d been a full moon when she lost control that fateful day, when the beast
attacked her loved ones, causing the crash and trapping her in her animal form.
“You’ll get the hang of it eventually,” Stiles assured her.
She nodded, though she didn’t seem too convinced. “Scott says so too. But how
many times will he need to roar at me before I get it?”
Scott’s alpha roar had been a handy tool when he got her to transform back into
her human form, but it was probably embarrassing now, having it used to keep
her coyote in line.
“Scott’s not the type to judge.”
“Sure,” Malia said warily, making herself comfortable on the couch. Stiles’s
gaze caught on her bare thighs. He tried not to groan too loudly at the memory
of walking in on her showering in the boy’s room of Eichen, when she claimed
the water was warmer than in the girl’s room before admitting to always being
cold without her fur. Yet somehow she still chose to wear short shorts in the
middle of winter, along with thigh-high socks and knee-high combat boots.
She took off her fashionable jacket and floral cardigan, leaving her in a loose
frilly shirt that all seemed oddly out of place for someone with a worse
flannel habit than Stiles. She looked down when she noticed Stiles’s staring.
“It’s Lydia’s,” she said. “She’s been unloading her old clothes on me. Which
hasn’t stopped her from dragging me out shopping too.”
Last Stiles checked, Lydia was too upset over losing Allison to even
acknowledge Malia. “Since when do you two go shopping?”
“Since yesterday morning.”
He couldn’t overlook how it coincided with Jackson’s return. “She took you out
on the same day as the full moon?”
“We went early. She thought it’d help take my mind off of bloodlust or
something. But all it really did was remind me that I went through puberty as a
coyote.” Malia lifted her shirt, and, yup, that was a new bra. Black and lacy
and doing everything for her breasts—nothing like the standard issue bra she’d
worn at Eichen. “She helped me find the right size.”
“…Well, you look amazing.”
Malia rolled her eyes. “Lydia had a feeling you’d like it. You should have seen
the thing she got for herself. It was see-through.”
Stiles grabbed a pillow to hide his boner. It did him no good when Malia
sniffed the air and gave him a look. He scrambled for something to say. “Lydia
has great taste… great taste on you.”
“Well, yeah, apparently I’m her new project. We ended the afternoon eating
Cinnabon in the car, and she broke down crying. I guess she and Allison were
really close.”
Stiles tensed. “Best friends, actually.”
“Sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry for? You weren’t the one who killed her.”
Malia frowned. “Neither were you.”
Stiles refused to let his mind go there. “You know what else is great taste?
Star Wars. Let’s focus all our attention on the wars in the stars.”
He thanked the stars that Malia didn’t push the topic.
They spent the evening watching the original trilogy, eating take-out, and
making out in his room. He actively avoided groping her, feeling too self-
conscious about how she’d take it and what it’d mean. It was almost as though
they hadn’t lost their virginities in a mental asylum, going slow like they
should have from the start.
The next day Stiles intended to corner Jackson in the library with the help of
Malia, who had a way with separating scents that went above and beyond the
other weres. She already had Jackson’s odor memorized, a combination of sweat
and body wash that Malia now knew was from Bath & Body Works. She also knew
from Lydia that Jackson used to wear Dolce & Gabbana cologne, before the Bite
made his nose too sensitive to it, which made Jackson was exactly the pompous
metrosexual type Stiles always assumed he was.
He barely knew anything about Jackson besides the obvious. It was his fault for
being petty, a tiny rebellion against everyone else paying attention to the
golden child. Stiles wanted someone to ignore Jackson’s existence so why
shouldn’t it be him?
In hindsight, he should have followed the path of “know thy enemy.”
And while he had eight years to learn everything he could about Lydia—like the
fact that she was a year behind in order to support the illusion of her being
dumb and pretty, or how she naturally excelled in Chemistry to the point that
she could improvise a fireless Molotov cocktail on the fly, or even that she
could read Archaic Latin in her spare time because she got bored with
Classical—he had only days to make up for his lack of insight about Jackson.
The easy part had been breaking into the admin office to check out Jackson’s
grades, which were at least an A- across the board. And unlike Lydia, who
excelled on her own, it dawned on Stiles that Jackson always had teachers and
tutors on hand, working round the clock to keep his grades up.
Jackson also had perfect grades in French, ideal for wooing Allison and, later,
realizing her family were the werewolf hunters in town. Scott had been trying
to keep quiet about it, but it’d taken Jackson only seconds to connect that
‘Argent’ meant silver in French and silver killed werewolves.
Stiles needed more, though, and that meant sniffing out where in the library
Jackson was hiding.
Malia almost immediately honed in on Jackson’s vanilla and lavender trail, and
they got to Jackson’s table in time to find Danny helping Jackson with test
prep. While Danny greeted them cheerfully, Jackson only glowered before
returning to his papers.
Which was fine by Stiles.
He texted Scott about the lunch study group before setting to work tutoring his
girlfriend—being a regular teen having regular teen problems, like he was
supposed to. His ADHD just made it more likely he’d end up writing an essay on
the history of male circumcision for Economics; thankfully, Coach let him redo
the assignment—probably curious to see what Stiles submitted next—and Stiles
earned a genuine A on his make-up. Malia had eight years of school to catch up
on, and, fortunately, her school records had her down as a former home-schooled
student, so she got sympathy from teachers. She just couldn’t skate by forever.
Malia chewed on the back of her pencil as she mulled over her work sheet.
“Ugh,” she whined. “I’m never going to get this. How am I supposed to solve
anything if there are no numbers?”
“The letters stand in for numbers,” Stiles explained.
She wrinkled her nose. “This is stupid. When am I ever going to use this? Why
aren’t there classes for more useful things like hunting? I’d ace that in a
heartbeat.”
“Yes, well, most of the human population would tend to agree.” He pointed his
pencil to her paper. “Try dividing this by that.”
Malia did so, and her answer matched the answer sheet. She rubbed her forehead
and sighed in frustration. “I hate this. I’ll need a miracle for them not to
throw me back into the fifth grade.”
Stiles cheered her on. “Come on, I believe in you.”
Malia didn’t cheer up.
“Let me try,” Danny said, moving over to sit by Malia’s side.
Danny was halfway into a story of how to apply the math to real life when Scott
and Kira showed up. Jackson let out an audible groan as food and paper got
strewn across the table. The only person missing at the party was Lydia, and
she had a ‘group project’ to attend to.
With Danny helping Malia and Scott working with Kira on an English assignment,
Stiles was left watching Jackson busying himself with ignoring everyone’s
existence.
“Must be a shame,” Stiles said at Jackson. “I bet you were looking forward to a
sports scholarship, and now you actually have to put in an effort for college
placement.”
Jackson clenched his jaw. “Just because I’m not a rocket scientist like Lydia
doesn’t mean I can’t pass the fucking bar exam.”
“You want to be a lawyer?” Stiles asked incredulously. He supposed if the
kanima hadn’t been run by psychos, Jackson would have made for an interesting
vigilante hero catching criminals who got away with murder.
“Want?” Jackson sneered. “My parents are falling over themselves to get me to
follow in their footsteps.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic about it.”
“What’s there to be enthusiastic about? This is my life now.”
“I would kill for your life,” Stiles blurted before swiftly covering his mouth.
“Not literally. I wouldn’t kill you literally.”
Jackson rolled his eyes. “I know what you mean, dumbass. You’re too innocent to
be anything other than a nuisance.”
Stiles hated that word. “Stop calling me that. The nogitsune chose me,” he
stressed. “It didn’t want just anyone’s darkness, it wanted mine.”
He’d accepted the darkness that would taint his heart forever. They all
had—Scott, Allison, and him—when they entered the ice tub to sacrifice
themselves for the darach’s ritual in place of their parents. But the nogitsune
had been waiting around for something in those decades ever since Kira’s mom
summoned it.
It’d been waiting for him.
“Stiles,” Scott said gently. “You’re not defined by the darkness inside you.”
“Why does it matter? I’m not innocent anymore. That’s all that counts.”
“But you’re not hurting people anymore,” Kira said. “That also counts.”
“Not drastically hurting,” Jackson corrected.
Stiles grunted. “You’d know better than anyone here what it’s like to open
yourself up to someone else in your head.”
The muscles in Jackson’s jaw tightened. “They weren’t in my head. Not the way
the fox was in yours…”
“Matt talked through you.”
“No. I became him. Or a mirror of him. Something that kept him whispering in
the back of my head as though it were my own thoughts. The kanima is driven to
please its master, so I wanted to fulfill his…” Jackson visibly shuddered and
scrubbed one hand over the other like maybe he expected scales to form there
again. “It was a fucking compulsion.”
“Did you…” Malia asked, “did you know what was happening as it happened?”
Stiles grimaced as he caught the flash of guilt in Malia’s expression. She had
had no idea what was happening as the full moon coupled with the car crash
unleashed her inner coyote. But that didn’t stop her from needing to take
responsibility for the massacre.
“No,” Jackson stressed. “I knew something was wrong with me, but I didn’t
understand shit until after the fact. I wasn’t fucking lying to you in the
prison van. I had no idea what I’d become until my two selves collapsed at the
warehouse.”
That was news to Stiles. “Shit. I thought you got filled in by Lydia… I thought
you had the slate wiped clean.”
“And you’d be wrong.”
“Does that mean…” Scott said. “Do you remember killing those people?”
“Yeah, and I remember feeling justified in doing a lot more than that too.”
Stiles jiggled his leg as he clamped his mouth shut. He swore Jackson was
tearing up, and he wasn’t going to call him out on it. Scott had found Jackson
in the locker room, naked and pinning Allison to the ground, and even though
it’d been Matt pulling the strings, Jackson was the one who had to fight off
Scott’s fury. And at the time, Stiles only felt awful for Allison.
“You know you’re forgiven for that… time… with Allison, right?” Scott asked,
his voice going raw at saying her name.
“Well, I don’t want your fucking forgiveness. None of Matt’s sick shit would
have happened if I never got the bite in the first place.”
Stiles pressed his lips to a thin line. “Allison would be here to judge you
herself if I never got possessed in the first place.”
Danny sighed. “You know, Lydia told me how it went down the night Allison died.
The nogitsune had taken on your likeness by that point. It was out of your
body, doing its own thing.”
“I was out of its body,” Stiles snapped. “It was me that got evicted out of the
carbon copy of me. Not the other way around. And it had enough dirt on my
feelings toward Allison—and Aiden—that it made sure the oni struck them down.”
“Oh, please,” Jackson scoffed. “If Allison and Aiden were competent enough to
each strike a deadly blow to the oni, the fox would have found an excuse to
eliminate them even if you weren’t involved. You were old news by then.”
“I just… I don’t know, man…” Stiles vibrated with nerves. “My head, it’s got an
open invitation out for the next demon to take me. At least you’re safe not
being a kanima anymore. I may as well just be a vessel at this point.”
“The only vessel you are is for getting on my nerves. You’re a wreck. What
demon is gonna want those sloppy seconds?”
Something unwound in Stiles’s chest. He’d have to heal before another demon had
anything to take from him again. And if that was even possible… if he healed
right… maybe he’d keep his door locks all together.
His lip quirked at the thought. “Asshole.”
***** Chapter 5 *****
Stiles sat in the back row of the bleachers, sipping on a CapriSun as he
watched Jackson from afar. The pool area made itself welcoming when it was
brightly lit and full of chatter, squeaky feet, and splashing water; nothing
like the day he held up Derek for two hours while a kanima lurked in the
darkness. And the rest of the bleachers had students milling around, either
talking with each other or watching the swimmers. People also idled in the pool
itself, chatting it up while others took to the lanes for a swim.
He’d acquainted himself with everything about swimming before coming here,
including videos of Jackson at competitions. Jackson outshone not only his
teammates but also the other actually-competent teams. Even now, he was
undulating in and out of the water using the most difficult stroke like it was
nothing.
“Sometimes the shape you take reflects the person that you are”—that’s what
they said about the bite. Why couldn’t Jackson have become a giant otter
instead of a lizard-turned-wolf? Those ‘river wolves’ would be a far nicer ode
to South America than the kanima ever was.
Jackson made himself out to be some perfect, infallible leader, the kind of guy
that everyone called an alpha male. But if Stiles thought back, Jackson’s
pompous and hot-tempered attitude actually mellowed over the years.
It’d started with Danny transferring in, a fresh face who had no trouble
fitting in except when it came to a bunch of assholes deciding to take
advantage.
Jackson, of all people, stepped up to defend Danny, and Stiles could respect
that since he’d done similar for Scott. Jackson came out on top in a brawl with
the leader of the bullies—a boy at least twice his size—and no one bothered
Danny after. But then began rumors of Jackson and Danny being together; as far
as Stiles could tell, it was just malicious gossip. Jackson’s response was to
sneer at the guys who started it and broadcast how they were just jealous they
could never be with him. That stopped them cold.
Stiles couldn’t remember how fast everyone forgot the incident, but Jackson’s
reputation never suffered from it. On the contrary, his narcissism got him more
points with swooning girls. Then he became a Lydia-stealer, and that was the
end of that.
But aside from being a terror for anyone who stood in his way, Jackson—and
ultimately the kanima—was the furthest thing from a leader. Jackson’s
bullheadedness got him the title of captain of both swim and lacrosse, but his
entire reputation hinged on people taking his jock persona at face value.
 
#
 
Jackson stood at the edge of the pool, his skin buzzing with nerves. No matter
how many times he tried to swim it off, he was unable to shake Matt’s phobia
and its absolute terror at the possibility of sinking and swallowing water. But
each and every time, once he willed himself into the shallow end, the anxiety
gradually waned as his real memories resurfaced along with years of muscle
memory. And after a few laps, he’d be one with the water again… until the next
time.
The BHHS swim team sucked, but it still hurt having to quit. He had been
captain of incompetent swimmers for the sake of a sport he’d always loved far
more than lacrosse. Coach Finstock kicked up a storm when he refused to play
lacrosse ever again, unable to comprehend how one of his best players would
ever give it up. But Jackson hadn’t completely lied when he blamed everything
on severe trauma. Matt temporarily died underwater, but Jackson temporarily
died on the field.
Jackson refused to let Matt keep a hold on him forever.
He dipped in and out of the water with precision butterfly strokes, traversing
the entire length of pool before turning around and repeating. It was more
intensive than a casual swim, but it was exactly what he needed to relax.
He and Allison had swum here practically a year ago, back when things were
simpler. Relatively. But they could have been friends. Actual friends, if not
something more. She seemed to have a way of bringing out the better parts of
him. And they’d both been kept out of the loop about the existence of
werewolves, and it gave them someone to gripe to about the mysterious shit
happening around them. Allison was always unfazed by Jackson’s bitterness—a lot
like Danny in that regard—never begrudging his company. He could be himself
around her. Even while feverish with Derek’s wolfsbane poisoning, confessing he
liked her… and Scott. He’d flat out admitted to wishing they could both like
him back.
But then he remembered how Matt felt, the obsessive need to make Allison his
and his alone. How Matt secretly took photos of her from outside her house and
put them up on his own bedroom wall, convincing himself they were meant to be,
if only she saw the light. Matt was repulsed that she’d ever choose Scott over
himself, and he let her know… by making Jackson corner her and say all the
despicable things Matt ever thought about her life choices… while entirely nude
and capable of physically overpowering her.
Bile rose up Jackson’s throat as the buzzing returned under his skin.
Matt wouldn’t have attracted the kanima if he didn’t feel vengeance in his
heart, and he wouldn’t have drowned if he hadn’t become best friends with Isaac
after the fall out with Jackson.
It was at Isaac’s that the 2006 swim team had been drunkenly celebrating a
state championship with Coach Lahey. Isaac’s older brother carelessly pushed
Matt into the water, and everyone just ignored Matt’s struggling, assuming he
could swim.
Coach Lahey blamed Matt for the incident before threatening him into never
telling anyone.
And Matt used Jackson for payback… and more.
 
#
 
Stiles was caught off guard when Jackson abruptly stopped mid-lane and turned
around to walk his way back to the shallow end. When Jackson exited the pool,
he smoothed back his damp hair, and Stiles was damned if he dwelled on the
water dripping down Jackson’s chest. Jackson may have been almost as skinny as
Stiles—and a whole inch shorter—but with those muscles, Jackson had the sleek
bod worthy of a modeling career at Abercrombie & Fitch. Plus those high cheek
bones, piercing eyes, and dimpled chin. There was no shame in admitting Jackson
had the sort of attractiveness heterosexual guys could appreciate.
“Hey,” Lydia said, and Stiles nearly fell out of his seat, CapriSun spurting on
his face as he squeezed the bag too tight.
“Warn a guy next time,” he complained as he wiped the juice off with his
sleeve.
Lydia raised a brow before taking the empty seat beside him. “Don’t think I
haven’t noticed how you’ve been going out of your way to intercept Jackson
since the day he arrived.” She pushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear,
assessing Stiles with a glint in her doe eyes. “You know, if a guy showed this
much interest in my every move, I’d think he’s into me.”
Stiles tried to act cool, but half his face twitched. “I have no idea what you
mean.”
Lydia was beautiful and fiercely smart, intimidating to the point that he could
only worship her from afar for years. And he didn’t deserve her company after
the way the nogitsune used her, its insatiable need for chaos and misery
counting on Lydia’s abilities as a banshee to help set the trap that’d
eventually killed Allison and Aiden. Lydia never talked about the incident, but
Stiles had no doubt she blamed herself for alerting the fox when they’d arrived
at Eichen, despite trying her hardest not to, even though it was all his fault
in the end.
“What are you doing here?” Stiles asked, changing tracks.
“I wanted to see him.”
Of course she did. Lydia was eternally magnetized to the idiot. And she
wouldn’t have given Stiles the time of day if Allison hadn’t suggested it as an
alternative to her going to the Winter Formal with yet another dumb jock. But
even there, she broke off from everyone else in order to search for Jackson,
leading her to the lacrosse field where Peter found her. Stiles had run to
help, but she was a bloody mess by the time he got to her, before Peter
essentially kidnapped him for an in with Scott.
Lydia gazed out onto the pool. “Kira told me about your conversation at the
library. I was thinking I’d see for myself if Jackson’s become as… encouraging
as Kira claims.”
Stiles didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at Kira’s unshakable optimism.
Neither she nor Malia ever met Jackson when he was Jackson.
“What did you ever see in him?” Stiles asked because he finally could. “I mean,
unless it’s purely for the looks. I’d totally get that.”
“He has his moments,” she conceded, “when he’s eager to please and he’d do
anything for the approval.”
Stiles felt heat rise up his neck. Jackson did need constant validation of his
supremacy, and it’d clearly manifested as the kanima seeking out a master.
“Makes one wonder why he’s so goddamn stubborn.”
“Jackson’s not exactly into being the vulnerable type.”
“Right.” That sort of vulnerability came with the threat of rejection, and
Jackson preferred being the one doing the rejecting. “Sounds like Jackson’s
only good in theory,” he said. “Because in practice, he’s the literal worst.”
“He used to be more manageable.”
At that moment, Jackson exited the locker room looking as prim as James Dean
with his styled hair and leather jacket.
“You should go before he catches you spying,” Lydia said.
 
#
 
Jackson narrowed his eyes when he caught Stiles slinking out of the bleachers
before bumping into someone. Stiles glanced back before making wild arm motions
and rushing out.
He didn’t have to think more about it when he noticed Lydia approaching. She
had on a bored-annoyed expression as though she’d been waiting for him and he
was late. Her hair was in a loose braid as she wore a fashionable sweater over
her dress. Gone were the days of heavy make-up, perfect curls, and fake
obliviousness. Lydia had gone through the grinder after Peter bit her and gave
her a nervous breakdown; now death followed her everywhere. He shook the dread
off and tried to walk past her.
“Jackson,” she said sharply, appalled that he’d blatantly ignore her. “We need
to talk.”
It stopped him in his tracks, and he glared at her. “Oh, so now you want to
talk. What happened to being unable to tolerate my very presence?”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
He felt the rage boiling in him as he took several deep breaths through his
teeth. Everyone in school knew by now how he’d verbally assaulted her in the
halls. He’d screamed at her for taking yet another thing away from him when the
bite didn’t take. And they wanted him falling on his knees and begging for her
forgiveness.
“What if I don’t care?”
“You care,” Lydia pressed on. “So why don’t we cut the crap. What are you doing
for Christmas? Mom and I are spending this year at my grandma’s lake house, and
you’re obviously invited.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“I’d like to think no one deserves to be alone this time of year. Not even the
likes of you.”
After half a year away from home all Jackson wanted to do was to stay in, and
he had Danny’s help in lying to his parents about spending Christmas with
Danny’s family. But Danny wouldn’t have blown his cover to Lydia, which meant
she figured that out on her own.
He was starting to see where he’d overlooked the intelligence in her scheming
ways.
“I don’t want anything to do with you. You fucking lied to me. I don’t even
know you.”
Lydia sighed in exasperation. “Jackson, can we just talk? Somewhere more
private?”
She had a way of drawing his attention since the fifth grade, twirling her hair
or adjusting her skirt whenever he snuck a glance, baiting him into making the
first move. He was fighting a losing battle—Lydia always got what Lydia wanted.
It didn’t matter that her social standing wasn’t what it used to be or that
she’d become a weirdo who hung out with other weirdos; he wasn’t any better
these days.
They ended up moving to the parking lot, standing outside of Lydia’s car
because Jackson refused to get inside. The cold didn’t bother him the way it
used to, but then Lydia shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Jackson
instinctively removed his jacket and hung it across her shoulders, only
realizing what he’d done when she curled into it and glanced up at him
bashfully. That was the problem with dating Lydia for over five years; he
didn’t know how else to act.
The fresh air had cleared out the chlorine smell in his nose, making him
acutely aware of the fruity perfume to her scent and how it barely concealed
the thick and vinegary smog surrounding her. Harbinger of death. His wolf was
tired of death.
“You lied to me,” he reiterated more calmly.
“Please, Jackson. I saved you from your own ego. I don’t think you could’ve
handled the direct competition.”
He clenched his jaw. “That doesn’t make it better.”
“No one, not even you, ever expected me to be anything more than a vapid
popular girl. So, yeah, I played it up. I became what everyone wanted me to
be…” She pressed her lips together, and her scent soured. “That’s how I
intended it to stay, but—”
“Was anything we did real, Lydia?” Images flashed in his mind of all those
nights they’d spent together and all those Christmas vacations up in Aspen,
left alone with nobody to disturb them except for room service. Sitting by the
fireplace, drinking hot chocolate, and watching the snow fall. Having their
first time and several more… The way Lydia grieved over his body. “Or was I
only ever someone you could use before you got tired and moved on?”
“You know that’s not how I feel.”
“How do you feel, then? You keep telling me you love me, but how can you
possibly love me when the moment Scott became better, you tried to take him for
yourself. If I’d realized you made out with him sooner…” He let out a bitter
laugh. He should have known the second he noticed her smeared lip gloss—as
though she’d ever accidentally overlook such details. “God, it’s like you
wanted me on a possessive rampage.”
Lydia’s voice hardened. “If I remember correctly, you had no qualms about
dropping me like dead weight as soon as you learned about the bite. I seem to
recall something about me being ‘the deadest.’”
“Because nothing I did was good enough anymore!” he barked with the force of
twelve months suppressing it. He didn’t even care that a person or two glanced
their way before moving on. “How did you expect me not to get fed up? Stupid me
for assuming I could become anything more than a constant disappointment with
anybody else.”
Lydia’s eyes widened and mouth slightly parted. “I was different back then…
Everything was different.”
“Why do I have a hard time believing it?” Jackson mocked.
“I keep hearing whispers from beyond and stumbling onto dead bodies! I can’t
just keep pretending I don’t know anything anymore when Aiden…” she choked out
his name. “God, I miss him… I really do… But he wasn’t just a bad boy, Jackson,
he was a bad guy. And he never took responsibility for it. I don’t think he
even understood he was bad for me. Unlike you.”
His resolve began slipping.
Kanima fugue or not, he’d known Lydia shouldn’t have him around. “You were
everything to me, Lydia. I’d have never have gone after Allison if she weren’t
McCall’s greatest weakness. And I needed a weakness if I was ever going to
prove to you… I don’t even know… that I was worth even a moment of your goddamn
time?”
“I really do love you, Jackson.” Her eyes watered. “I never lied about that.
I’m done waiting until the last second to say how I feel. I kept wondering if
Aiden would ever change… but he didn’t get it until the very end, in the arms
of Ethan. And I don’t want that ever again. I need to do everything in my power
to prevent it.”
Her heart remained steady, and his wolf whined. He couldn’t let Stiles be right
about him. “What do you want from me, Lydia?”
“You need to tell me how you really feel. Right now.” She closed the space
between them. “Tell me that you feel nothing and I’m just wasting my breath.
Tell me there’s nothing left between us. Because I can’t keep doing this,
Jackson. I can’t keep pining after you like there’s any hope of us fixing what
we once had. We need to settle this now, one way or another, so I can move on
in life. I love you, but do you still even—”
“I do,” he said, cupping her face. Her love hadn’t saved him, but it damn well
meant something. She’d been his anchor. And even after he pushed her away
twice, she was still here and still wanting him. “I’ve always loved you,
Lydia.”
He kissed her, and if he ignored the whining of his wolf, it was like his life
was back to normal.
***** Chapter 6 *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
It’d been days, and Stiles couldn’t stop gritting his teeth whenever he caught
sight of Jackson with his arm over Lydia and with her pressed to his side, as
they walked the halls like they owned the place again. They passed by Stiles as
he got books out from his locker, and he swore Jackson glanced his way.
“It’s amazing, you know,” Scott said as he stood beside Stiles, “how we still
go to school and pretend… I don’t know, pretend everything is normal?
Regressing to the mean? I forgot the last time Lydia was this… at ease with
anyone. It’s just nice seeing her smile for real, you know? They seem… happy.”
Stiles shuddered at the irony. “Happy,” he muttered. He remembered how hard
he’d cried on Scott’s shoulder when Jackson and Lydia became official in fifth
grade and how he drew devil horns and curly mustaches over every picture of
Jackson he could find. After Scott became popular and Lydia finally noticed
him, Stiles used the chance to ask Scott to help him get with Lydia. Neither of
them expected Lydia and her bizarre power move by kissing Scott. But it was
Scott kissing back that got Stiles into a jealous rage, making him passive
aggressive for some time after.
Now? He’d rather see Scott happy instead of him wearing his black button-down
and dark jeans, backpack slung over his shoulder as his eyes glazed over while
scanning the halls. Scott could have Lydia. Anyone could have Lydia. Anyone but
Jackson.
“You seriously believe they can make it work this time around?”
Scott shrugged. “I believe Lydia knows what she’s doing. And Jackson… well, he
seems to be trying. We should let them figure it out on their own.”
Scott’s heart was too big for this world. And, really, Scott needed to stop
taking the higher ground; it made Stiles feel petty by comparison.
“Yeah, I think I’ll pass on trusting Jackson.”
He couldn’t leave this alone when it didn’t sit right in his gut, and he had
ideas… ideas that involved Danny as an ally.
“I need a favor,” he said after lacrosse practice. Danny didn’t like him, but
Stiles wasn’t getting the cold shoulder anymore—so progress.
Danny raised a brow. “Don’t you have a day’s worth of no-questions-asked favors
you still owe me?”
“You were serious about that?”
“Yeah, I was.”
Danny rolled his eyes before taking his shirt off, and Stiles was left gaping
at the unfairness of Danny growing from a kid scrawnier than Stiles into a
smiley six-foot brick wall. Stiles’s immense curiosity about whether he was
attractive to Danny backfired when Danny jokingly offered his services after
Stiles got desperate about not dying in a virgin sacrifice. And Danny must have
still been peeved about the time Stiles blackmailed him into helping him hack
some emails. Derek was attractive to gay guys, especially shirtless, and he was
hiding out in Stiles’s room at the time. Stiles wasn’t one to back down from an
opportunity where it presented itself, even if he didn’t appreciate Derek later
slamming his head against the steering wheel for petty revenge.
“Don’t you care that Jackson’s dating Lydia again?” he asked. “It’s not right.”
Danny rubbed his face as he leaned against the locker, still shirtless. “Dude,
tell me something I don’t know.”
Stiles blinked in disbelief. He never took Danny as disapproving Jackson’s
relationship, but this was good news. “So you’ll help me?”
“No. I’m the last person to tell a Jackson to stop making stupid decisions
motivated solely by his dick.”
Danny had fallen hard for Ethan, and Ethan was only there because he’d been
ordered to get close to Danny. The same as Aiden with Lydia. All so the alphas
could corner Scott, and by extension, Derek.
“So you’re really going to sit back and do nothing again?” Stiles accused.
“Some friend you are.”
“This isn’t mind control or mistletoe. This isn’t even remotely supernatural.
The only reason you want me involved is because I’ve been friends with him
since we were little.”
Stiles grunted; so guilt wasn’t going to work either. He didn’t even understand
the first thing about Danny’s friendship with Jackson except that Danny wasn’t
competition for girls. The two of them had barely anything in common besides a
love for sports and working out. In the dictionary, Jackson’s face was next to
a jockstrap while Danny’s was next to ‘hack your data and sell it to the
Russians.’ Stiles suspected the only reason that cybercrime charges were
dropped against Danny when he was thirteen was because of Jackson’s parents.
Which gave him an idea.
“You’re obviously close enough to Jackson that even though he’s been a piece of
shit, you still see a reason to call him your friend. And if you were anyone
else, I’d say you’re an idiot, but you’re like the smartest guy I know.” He
didn’t even need to lie in the flattery. “I bet you already have a plan in
motion to help Jackson out.”
Danny scoffed, but it sounded in good humor. “Okay, I’ll bite.” He smirked as
he eyed Stiles up and down. “You want to get close to Jackson?”
“Yes.”
“Try video games.”
Stiles tried not to sound too skeptical. “I’m guessing not World of Warcraft.”
“He’s a pro at Call of Duty…” Danny paused as a chill swept up Stiles’s spine.
“Well, he used to be, if you know what I mean.”
“Yeah.” Why was he surprised that Jackson told Danny? “Takes a lot of shooting
to win that game.”
“He’s really good at Left 4 Dead 2 these days.”
Stiles exhaled with a chuckle. “Mutant zombie slaughter—much less of an ethical
dilemma,” he said from experience. “But it needs at least four players to be
really fun. Jackson’s probably annoyed by bots and randos by now.”
“Probably,” Danny said with an emphasis that implied ‘definitely.’
Stiles wasn’t letting the opportunity slip right by. “I could host a game night
at my place tomorrow,” he threw in as an option. His dad was working all day,
and with Scott’s grades improving to pre-werewolf status, Scott didn’t need to
worry as hard about studying after work. Plus it wouldn’t take much to nudge
Malia to go hang out with Kira at the new bubble tea place with both of them
excited to try it for the first time. “You, me, Jackson. And Scott could be our
fourth.”
“You really think I have the power to convince Jackson to go willingly?”
“Tell him the 2012 apocalypse is coming one way or another, so he may as well
make the best of it.”
 
#
 
Jackson thought it was just another one of Danny’s elaborate jokes. But Danny
wasn’t kidding, and Stiles didn’t just want a game night, he wanted it at his
place. And the worst part was Jackson was into the idea. Being with Lydia meant
he needed senseless entertainment to unwind with, and yelling at Stiles
remotely just wasn’t going to cut it. Regardless, Danny was right about it
being in his best interest to make nice with the dumbasses who were probably
his best bet of surviving until graduation, even if he didn’t like it.
Stiles lived in the middle of town, in a well-kept but small house. The
entryway was lined with family photos, both on the walls and stacked on a
table, as well as plenty of ugly pastoral paintings and mounted fish. They
turned onto a hallway that ended with a kitchen squashed between stairs to the
left and a living room to the right.
Pizza waited for them in boxes stacked on top of the stove as Stiles took
Danny’s bag of soda and chips in one hand and Jackson’s bag of boxed desserts
in the other. McCall was already sitting at the round dining table that took up
much of the living room.
Jackson didn’t hide his dissatisfaction when he said, “Let’s just get this over
with.”
He wound up with Danny to his right, Stiles to his left, and McCall sitting
across from him as they ate. And conversation inevitably steered toward
lacrosse. It was always supposed to be a bullshit sport meant to pad Jackson’s
college applications, and ‘captain’ was of higher esteem than ‘co-captain.’ He
got where he was by taking it too seriously, and it no longer hurt hearing how
McCall was doing well as captain. Even Stiles had advanced to being a hit-or-
miss in his usefulness on any given day. Coach was immensely proud of the
improvement, and he continued to hassle them about when Jackson would return to
the field. But Coach was in a league of his own with his ‘no no homo,
everything is yes homo’ rule making and getting over his trauma of nearly dying
from an arrow to the chest. The man just assumed Jackson could do the same. But
nearly dying wasn’t the same as actually dying and coming back.
Coach also missed Isaac, who’d fled to France with Allison’s dad, and McCall
wondered whether Jackson ever met up with him.
“No,” Jackson said bitterly. “Why would he and I even be on speaking terms?”
Maybe he could have tried harder to mend their friendship before Isaac’s dad
went full psycho, but trying to talk with Isaac about it just made them fight
worse.
“I haven’t spoken to him either,” McCall said, his voice taking on a raw tone.
“Allison’s last words were that she loved me, but she was dating Isaac at the
time. He never got a chance to say goodbye… It’s my fault he saw no reason to
stay. Derek put him in my care and I shouldn’t have…” he trailed off. “I fucked
up—”
“No, you didn’t,” Stiles said. “One jealous fit doesn’t undo everything else.
The nemeton threw off your control. You kept Isaac safe where it mattered,
which is a lot more than Jackson can say.”
Jackson clenched his jaw. “Yeah,” he grit out derisively, “because the foster
system is such a safe haven. No abuse there at all.”
Isaac had been well aware he’d be taken away if word got out. His dad became
meaner in fourth grade after his mom died, but it was in sixth grade—when his
older brother died too—that Mr. Lahey turned downright abusive. And Isaac made
sure Jackson knew just how much he’d never forgive him if he got his parents
involved. So fuck everyone. It wasn’t Jackson’s problem that no one else
spotted the freaks right in front of them. It’d been the only kanima murder he
didn’t regret a single bit.
“So, safe houses,” Danny said, very obviously trying to change tracks.
Left 4 Dead 2 campaign mode meant the four of them had to cooperate in taking
out the Infected standing between them and the safe house. Jackson trusted
Danny to know what he was doing, and McCall quickly proved to have some
aptitude in keeping them alive. Then any doubts about Stiles’s hand-eye
coordination were squashed by Stiles’s ability to mash the right buttons at the
right time. They found a groove as Danny and McCall argued strategies while
Stiles itched to just blaze into battle and deal with the Infected as they
came. Jackson didn’t care one way or the other. This was about survival, and
the only thing that mattered was getting results—he was damned good at results.
The game threw everything at them, and eventually they reached a map they
couldn’t beat no matter how they finessed or brute-forced it. Their so-called
teamwork fell apart as the collective yelling and name calling grew louder by
the second. Jackson was just about ready to call it quits when his wolf perked
up at something in the air.
McCall’s eyes were glowing red, and his claws were beginning to dig into the
wooden table. It was like he was ready to jump into the virtual world and tear
into the creatures himself.
Jackson knew his own eyes were glowing—his wolf reacting an alpha asserting
their power—as he kicked Scott’s shin. McCall jerked in his seat, wolf receding
as he met Jackson’s heated gaze, which flicked down to McCall’s hand. The
horror in McCall’s expression was followed by him excusing himself and darting
up the stairs.
Jackson followed him up, reflexes reacting faster than Stiles’s. He reached the
upstairs door just as McCall shut it in his face, but he could still hear
Scott’s hammering heart and ragged breathing. And his wolf picked up on the
strong scent of Stiles across the door—Stiles’s room—before the reek of anxiety
took over, acrid like battery acid, cutting through every other odor in the
air.
“Sorry,” McCall said, sniffling. “I need a moment.”
Jackson easily heard Scott’s voice as though there was no barrier between them;
considering the thinness of the walls and McCall being pressed to the door, he
didn’t need to even try. He folded his arms as he leaned against the wall, ears
picking up on Stiles’s not-so-stealthy presence at the bend in the stairs and
Danny stationed at the base of the steps.
“The fuck is your problem, McCall?” he barked.
“I’m sorry,” Scott said, his voice drifting downwards until a soft bump on the
floor gave away his seated position. There was a hiccup and the scrape of
fabric against skin. “I keep failing everyone. I’m sorry.”
Scott’s pulse stayed steady, like he really believed it even though he’d saved
Stiles from the nogitsune—and Jackson from Derek.
Jackson didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t treated Scott as a person in ages.
McCall had become just a means of getting the bite, enough for Jackson to give
up the idea of marrying Lydia in order to try to destroy Scott’s chances with
Allison if he didn’t get it.
Except everything got destroyed in the end.
“What kind of alpha are you if you can’t get your shit together?”
“I know… I know. I’m supposed to act like nothing hurts…” Another hiccup. “I’m
sorry I’m not good enough.”
Jackson chest tightened. “That’s not what I meant, you dumbass. We both know
you’re good enough because you’re a fucking true alpha. And according to the
Singh’s emissary, there only one in every century. Because it’s not just
willpower that gets you the prize; it’s also strength of character. You need
the sort of stubborn virtue of a golden eye who’d never choose to kill even if
it’d make his life easier, all because he believes everyone should have a
chance at redemption.”
“I don’t deserve it.” Scott’s voice hitched. “I—I’m the reason the people I
love keep dying.”
Jackson groaned at how not true that was. “If the way you handled Gerard says
anything about you, then you’re exactly the right guy for the job.”
“That was a backup plan,” McCall whined. “I never wanted it to come down to the
mountain ash pills.”
“You did what had to be done to stop that fucker.”
Jackson flinched at the slam of a fist against wooden floor. “Derek was the
alpha back then. We weren’t friends—we weren’t even allies—but he and Chris…
they were supposed to handle it. Not me. Not with Gerard making it sound like I
was choosing between Allison and everyone else I loved… it wasn’t supposed to
come down to me forcing Derek to bite Gerard… even if he understands why I had
to.”
“But I’m glad it did.” Jackson wasn’t about to blatantly lie. He’d been there
with his kanima claws against Allison’s throat as Derek helplessly begged
McCall not to go through with it, and he’d be damned if he had any remorse
after the way Derek had once made him beg. His wolf felt more obligation to the
guy who helped save him twice. “That’s just how it is, Scott. The world is
cruel, and if you want to get ahead, you have to become cruel too.”
“I know, but I have to try to be better than that. Someone has to try. No one’s
ever bothered to save me from anything. No one’s ever cared about me except…
except when they need me as a pawn.” The soft whimpering and hint of salt in
the air gave away Scott’s quiet tears. “And they want me to become just like
them… But I can’t… I won’t… I don’t know how much more I can take before I
break…”
Scott had warned him that the bite would ruin his life, but Jackson just
assumed Scott was too lowly to appreciate the gift.
“Yeah, well, tough shit. You barely know what you’re doing, but somehow you
always come out on top. And if that means putting the fate of this
town—possibly this world—in the hands of a ‘true’ alpha who’s a total newb,
well, what else do we have?”
“What if I fail? What if the darkness in my heart… What if I finally become the
monster Peter’s always wanted me to be?”
Jackson’s gaze wandered to the floor. McCall wasn’t the naive kid from over a
year ago, dopey and harmless until he got provoked. Scott was alpha, but even
in his alpha glare, there was something softer about him. He was a long way
from the selfish asshole who physically threatened Jackson into taking Allison
to the formal, as if it was Jackson’s problem he didn’t trust Allison to look
out for herself. Alpha McCall didn’t owe him shit, but Scott would actually
care about the possibility of Jackson getting hurt, even if they weren’t
friends.
“I won’t stand here and pretend I know the answers, Scott,” he said, keeping
his tone impassive. “But if there’s anything I took to heart in London, it was
that fear is the path to the dark side—Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to
hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
“That’s—”
A bang on the staircase alerted them to Stiles tripping over his own two feet
before shouting, “I’m okay.”
“…That’s awfully deep coming from you,” McCall continued as he stood up. “Did
Anita teach you that?”
“What? No, it’s fucking Yoda. Haven’t you ever watched Star Wars?”
Scott snorted with resigned humor. “God, you and Stiles. I should really get
around to that, shouldn’t I?” He opened the door, wetness around the eyes and
his lip slightly curling. “You think… you think I’ll ever get better at any of
this?”
“I don’t think you have a choice.”
Stiles made some commotion downstairs about the last slice of pepperoni pizza,
and McCall stepped into the hallway, wiping at his face with his black sweater.
“We should probably head back.”
“Yeah,” Jackson said. “The apocalypse won’t wait for anyone.”
“God, I really hope 2012 doesn’t actually go that way.”
“I was referring to Stiles.”
 
#
 
Stiles heard everything, and Jackson actually helping Scott was as surreal as
it got. He managed to convince Danny and Jackson into giving him their phone
numbers before they left for the night, and he couldn’t help but text Jackson
soon after.
>> STILES: Hey so thanks for coming over
>> STILES: I mean it
>> STILES: Also thanks for not being the worst with Scott
>> STILES: I never knew you watched Star Wars
He was about to put his phone away when it buzzed back.
>> JACKSON: You don’t know shit about me
>> STILES: Wanna share?
>> JACKSON: You’re so buddy-buddy with Danny, maybe he can share
>> STILES: Oh come on, I’d rather hear it from you directly. It’s not like
Danny is your Master
>> JACKSON: Go fuck yourself
Stiles overstayed his welcome anyway. It’d been enough that Jackson agreed to
come over. They weren’t friends. He didn’t have to care about hurting Jackson’s
feelings.
>> STILES: Maybe I will
He tried to sleep, but he should have guessed his dreams wouldn’t give him any
peace. He was returned to the day the fox wore his face as it laughed at Scott
for trusting it, driving a blade through Scott’s gut and eating up the miles of
misery stored in Scott’s heart, especially from what Scott’d been absorbing
from others. All because Stiles led Scott out into the woods that fateful day
and told Scott he had a responsibility to be the hero now.
The nogitsune had given Stiles an opportunity to make amends. If Stiles killed
himself, it would all end. Just drive the katana through his own gut in an act
of seppuku, disembowel himself to maintain his honor. And Scott had to be his
kaishakunin, beheading him in the final blow. Otherwise, anyone the oni touched
would die the way Allison had.
Stiles had seen through its lies.
But not here.
The illusions here were real. There was no fighting back. No divine move. No
Scott realizing he had the power to bite the doppelgänger, breaking apart its
form so they could defeat it.
Stiles plunged the sword into himself... and woke up crying and shaking.
He rolled over to find his phone glued to his side, and the last screen open
was the chat with Jackson. He didn’t question his impulse as he typed away.
>> STILES: I guess you’re sleeping like normal people
>> STILES: I wish I could sleep like you
>> STILES: I ruined everyone’s life
>> STILES: I keep thinking about what’d it’d be like if I just killed myself
His thumbs kept moving as he started pacing his room for lack of anything to do
with the rest of himself.
>> STILES: Did Danny ever tell you about before the nogitsune, when we had an
incident at a Suicide Motel?
>> STILES: All the werewolves tried to kill themselves because Coach’s whistle
got laced with wolfsbane
>> STILES: And you know how he loves to blast that thing in our faces.
Hallucinogens right up our nostrils
>> STILES: It just happened to be a far lower dose than the punch at Lydia’s
birthday so humans were unaffected…
He stopped as a strong chill crept up his body. Curling up under his covers
didn’t help much, but the childish part of him felt safer.
>> STILES: Not as though I could ever forget the vision of my dad blaming me
for my mom’s death
>> STILES: She had every right to attack me on the rooftop that one night
>> STILES: Her disease started when I was born
>> STILES: She was delirious but she was right to accuse me about trying to
kill her…
>> STILES: But at the motel, the darach wanted the werewolves out of the way
>> STILES: So she could finish the rest of her sacrifices
>> STILES: She tried to kill my dad, Melissa, and Chris in the guardian
sacrifice
>> STILES: Technically Scott and I sacrificially died in their place and came
back
>> STILES: Allison too but you know
He paused in his typing.
>> STILES: I killed Allison by being weak
He put his phone away as he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t have
any plans lined up for the day; it’d just be him and Dad in the house, and he
couldn’t face his dad. His usual form of stress-relief was in the form of the
tissue box and bottle of lube by his bed. And he hadn’t been able to use them
in ages.
>> STILES: I can’t even go fuck myself
>> STILES: Stiles Jr doesn’t trust my own hand, so how is it ever going to
trust anybody else?
>> STILES: Every time I get hard I remember Eichen
>> STILES: …Well, okay, that part is my fault. I was feeling spiteful.
>> STILES: You’d have sex too if the thing using your body was temporarily out
of service.
>> STILES: Best sex ever
>> STILES: Until the nogitsune broke my dick.
>> STILES: HOW EVIL IS THAT
>> STILES: I may as well just die
He blinked, and in the moment his phone buzzed back.
>> JACKSON: Seriously Stiles? Just gonna unload on me like that?
>> STILES: SHIT WHY ARE YOU AWAKE?
>> STILES: OMFG
>> STILES: FORGET I SAID ANY OF THAT
>> STILES: Please don’t tell Scott
>> JACKSON: I’m more inclined to call 911
>> STILES: OMG IM NOT GONNA ACTUALLY KILL MYSELF
>> JACKSON: Could have fooled me
>> STILES: Well, if you were here using your wolfie sense, you’d know for sure
He imagined all the ways Jackson probably wanted to tell him to fuck off.
Except he doubted Jackson actually would considering the sticky situation
Stiles put him in. Jackson’s sense of self-preservation was too strong.
>> JACKSON: Ever seen Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus?
Stiles stared at his screen for a solid minute.
>> STILES: No
>> JACKSON: Wanna get drunk with me and make fun of it?
The last time Stiles got shitfaced was with Scott, and it’d been the last time,
what with Scott no longer able to get drunk with him. Stiles couldn’t bring
himself to do it alone.
>> STILES: Werewolves can’t get drunk
>> JACKSON: Only the ones without connections
Stiles didn’t even care that this was Jackson’s idea of getting out of trouble.
Watching a dumbass movie while getting drunk was exactly what he could use
right about now.
>> STILES: Just say when
They texted back and forth the rest of the morning while he hurried to get
laundry done. He didn’t know what to wear, but he also didn’t want to seem like
he was trying. Except all his regular clothes were overdue for a wash, and
laundry happened to be his chore around the house.
He was about to hunker down with a last-minute assignment in between loads when
a new message appeared.
>> LYDIA: Jackson cancelled our date tonight. Mind explaining why?
Stiles kicked the dryer and yelped as he jumped up and down.
“You all right, son?” Dad called from the living room.
“Yeah, super fine!”
>> STILES: How much did he say?
>> LYDIA: He said I should ask you for the good reason why you’re taking up his
entire weekend :)
>> STILES: Let me guess, your date was originally supposed to be yesterday
night
>> LYDIA: Yeah, so would you care to fill me in?
His plan to break apart Jackson and Lydia was working a little too well.
>> STILES: Well, I’m not trying to steal him from you, if that’s what you’re
thinking
>> STILES: Because I’m very happy with Malia
He glanced at his physics textbook.
>> STILES: There’s just this BIG physics project
>> STILES: Jackson and I were assigned to do it together
>> STILES: Due tomorrow
>> STILES: HUGE part of class grade
>> STILES: Totally slipped my mind
>> STILES: Didn’t mean to leave it until last moment
>> STILES: But, well, here we are
Lydia was annoyed, but what could she say? Stiles really had forgotten he had
that project. And Jackson clearly expected him to cover for both their asses.
Lydia could only warn him not to make a habit out of it.
He parked in the Whittemore’s driveway in the late afternoon. Jackson lived in
the nicest part of Beacon Hills, surrounded by elegantly traditional homes with
their steep roofs and red bricks; a For Sale sign hung on the former Lahey
house across the street. But the Whittemore’s modern douchestrosity—a white box
with giant windows—sat on the corner of the street with a long marble staircase
rising up the hill like it was better than everyone else.
Inside, Stiles toed off his shoes by the shoe rack, his white socks fitting in
with everything else being so white and sterile, from the walls to the rug to
the sofa. He was sure the building was smaller than his, but it felt massive
with the fancy living room separated from the fancy dining room with only the
edges of the rug separating the space. The kitchen was at the back of the
house, set apart by a long countertop and with its own door to the backyard. It
was like stepping into a design catalogue, and even the few photos that hung on
the walls were all professionally shot and edited.
Jackson’s parents were away on a business trip, leaving just the two of them.
And Jackson had Stiles sit on a stool by the counter as he put popcorn in the
microwave. He also got out a brand-name beer bottle for Stiles, pouring into a
glass before placing it on a coaster in front of Stiles.
“Thanks,” Stiles said as he accepted his drink. “I feel like I should tip you
or something.”
Jackson scoffed as he pouring himself from an unmarked growler.
“Is that from your connections?” Stiles probed. He really hoped this wasn’t a
limited supply because Scott could use a drink or three.
“British werewolves still love to drink like British people,” Jackson
explained. “And they’ve got an entire underground industry dedicated to
manufacturing wolfsbane-infused hops. About as dangerous as regular booze to
humans.”
“Man, that sounds cool. Did you have to smuggle that across customs?”
Jackson smiled wistfully. “Anita handled everything. Didn’t think I should
leave without a care package.”
“She doesn’t hate you after… you know?”
“She’s the reason I got off the Isles in one piece.” Jackson took a long gulp,
which prompted Stiles to do the same. “That woman adores me in a way I’ll never
understand. I think she sees her younger self in me.”
Stiles nodded as he reminded himself Anita wasn’t the problem. She got shafted
by the same society of wolf packs that acted more like a business than a
family. It was a wonder that she had any compassion left in her at all.
“You’re the last person on earth I’d expect to have a death wish,” Jackson
said, shifting the subject back to exactly what Stiles wanted to avoid.
“I don’t want…” Stiles hesitated. He shuddered at the possibility of Jackson
revealing he was lying to himself, the same way Peter once had. “I’m not going
to kill myself.”
He fidgeted under Jackson’s scrutiny. This was why he was here—for the wolfie
verification—but it still wracked his nerves. Jackson eventually huffed like he
accepted Stiles’s statement, and Stiles let out an audible sigh.
“I swear, Stiles, if I wasn’t conditioned to constantly be on call, I’d have
silenced you the second you buzzed.”
So that’s what it was. “Then I should get a special ringtone.”
Jackson smirked as he rolled his eyes. “Should be easy to find something as
annoying as you.”
The microwave dinged, and Stiles beelined it to the living room, with its
flatscreen hanging on the wall and surround-sound speakers attached to the
corners of the ceiling. The sofa was massive enough to swallow him whole as he
sat back and found the cushions reached all the way to his calves. There
weren’t enough pillows to make up the difference, and he ended up planting his
feet on the cushions and watching the screen between bent knees. By the time
Jackson got the DVD running and set the popcorn bowl between them, he was too
committed to the position to reconsider propping his feet up on the glass
coffee table the same as Jackson.
Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus was as ridiculous as Stiles thought it’d be—low
budget with flat acting and crappy CGI; Jackson was heckling from the start of
the opening scene. It was no wonder why Jackson asked Stiles to join in.
Danny’s standards would be too high for this, and Lydia wouldn’t touch such
garbage with a thousand foot pole. But Stiles was not above judging every
little dumb thing and jeering at the parts that were so bad they became good.
They were on their third beers when Stiles toppled the empty bowl of popcorn,
laughing so hard his eyes teared up and his abs hurt. Jackson belly-laughed
right beside him, only noticing the disaster enough to call Stiles stupid and
throwing a stray kernel at his head. Stiles retaliated with an attempt at a
headlock, but the werewolf had the upper hand, flipping Stiles onto the floor.
Stiles only laughed more at the dent he made in Jackson’s perfect hair.
They took a food break before the next awful film in line, Birdemic: Shock and
Terror. Stiles snorted at the premise as he stretched his limbs and checked the
time. He hadn’t had this much fun since… too long. And it was Jackson, of all
people, making it worthwhile.
“You’re kind of awesome when you’re not a bein’ an utter douchebag.”
Jackson eyed Stiles before heading to the kitchen. “It’s like a compliment
coming from a hornet’s nest.”
“No way. I’m more of a honey bee.”
“How is that any better?”
“It’s way better! Honey bees can only afford to sting once in their lifetime,
so they have to be mindful of what’s actually a threat. And they also make
honey. You’re exactly the type to endure a couple of stings for that sweet,
sweet honey.”
“Are you flirting with me?”
Stiles snorted at Jackson and his ego. “You wish, dumbass.”
Jackson’s gaze flicked up and down Stiles before he shook his head in
exasperation. “C’mon, moron. Lemme show you the rest of Anita’s care package.”
Stiles followed him into the kitchen, drooling a bit when Jackson revealed the
bounty of jams, sauces, and dessert cups.
“Please tell me we’re doing brunch,” he said.
“We’re doing brunch.” Jackson opened a cabinet to a huge selection of loose
leaf tea Anita added to the Whittemore’s already absurd collection. “‘nd guest
gets the honor of picking.”
“Yeah, just give me a few weeks.”
While Stiles tried to wrap his head around three brands of Earl Grey, Jackson
unboxed a brand new ceramic teapot to go with the water boiling in an electric
kettle. Stiles eventually gave up and just went for the fanciest thing in front
of his face—holiday spice blend.
A different pot of water soft boiled their eggs, which Jackson paired with a
fresh box of sweet and savory scones to test out the various spreads. Stiles
didn’t have a taste for marmite spread like Jackson did, but he loved dipping
into runny egg yolk as the egg sat securely in its special holder, like a
little nest.
He sipped the spicy black tea as he mused on their predicament. “You haven’t
strangled me yet. I mus’ be doing something right.”
“Yeah, it’s called not kidnappin’ me.” Jackson bit into a scone. “I dunno how
you ever thought I’d believe a bizarro story about me transforming into a
lizard. You coulda been making shit up just to mess with me.”
Stiles clutched his chest dramatically. “I’m offended you assume I need to
resort to breaking the law to jus’ mess with you. In fact, I feel terrible for
what happened that day—I was put in charge of pantsing your naked ass. I’ve
seen enough of your dick to last me three lifetimes.”
“And what’s your opinion?” A grin spread over Jackson’s flushed face. “Of my
dick? I’d love to hear this.”
“Ugh,” Stiles slurred while palming his face. He hated how he managed to
memorize the shape of every dick he’d ever seen in the name of comparison.
Jackson was possibly the only guy he knew without foreskin outside of porn, and
catching that piece of information had set off an entire night of studying the
history of circumcision. And just because the flaccid thing wasn’t big didn’t
mean Jackson wasn’t a grower; it was only right that the arrogant dick would
have an arrogant dick.
“Someone’s getting turned on,” Jackson mocked.
“Screw you, buddy. A gentle breeze could get me up if it hit me just right. You
ain’t special. I haven’t stopped being horny. It just doesn’t like staying
hard.”
“Sure,” Jackson said, unconvinced. “You should start lifting weights.”
Stiles tilted his head and blinked sluggishly. “Huh?”
“Get into bench pressing and watch how fast you trust your hands again.”
“Ugh. That means finding someone to spot me.”
“What? McCall too good for the gym?”
“McCall,” Stiles sputtered, imitating Jackson’s intonation, “has more important
things to do than waste his time on puny humans in not-immediate danger.”
“You’re pack. Humans are importan’ to packs. They get stronger too.”
“Yeah, well, stronger is relative. Last thing I need is him laughing at how
little I can lift. I’m nothin’ more than Robin on a good day.”
“Hey, don’t shit on Robin like that,” Jackson snapped back. “Dick Grayson’s a
sex icon; he’s Nightwing. Tim Drake’s the head of the Teen Titans. Jason Todd
was highly respected in his time. Robin is his own class of hero.”
Stiles gaped at Jackson with newfound attraction. He finally understood what
Danny saw in the guy. “God,” he said. “I thought Lydia was superficial for
hiding she’s a nerd, but you hiding you’re a geek takes the cake.” It gave him
a sour taste in his mouth. “I take back all my hating of you two together.
You’re perfect for one another, you lyings liars.”
Jackson narrowed his eyes. “You know what, I regret saying ‘nything. Hate
yourself for being Robin, see if I care.”
“No,” Stiles quickly backtracked. “No, I like you caring. It actually means
something coming from you. Scott’s too nice a person. He cares about everyone
always. He cares about me ‘cause he doesn’t know how else to be, doesn’t matter
if I deserve it.” Stiles groaned. “And he’d totally help with the weight
lifting if I asked. Wouldn’t even make fun of me ‘cause he’s just that damn
nice.”
“If Scott’s so damn great, why aren’t you crying on his shoulder at four in the
morning, hm?”
“Scott’s my best friend. I love him. So what if he used to follow my lead on
everything. Just went with whatever thing I was up to ‘cause he was my
sidekick… The bite… it changed him…” Scott had become everyone’s hero, and
where did that leave Stiles? “I’m fucking proud of Scott. He’s a hero even
though he’d rather jus’ live a quiet life with a wife and kids and a white
picket fence. He’s the good one. And I’m the bad one for thinking he’s anything
but good. Okay? Peter kept trying to Jedi mind trick him to the Dark Side, and
Scott refused him each and every time. He’s strong. Stronger than I’ll ever be.
And he’s the greatest friend I could have ever stumbled upon. The greatest. My
best friend. And he’s trying so damn hard.”
Regrets churned in the pit of his stomach. He wished things went back to the
old days, but there was nothing left there. He tried to down the rest of his
drink, but all he had left was an empty glass.
“He jus’ can’t be in multiple places at once. Okay? I keep expecting Scott to
prioritize me the way he used to… but it wasn’t his fault… it wasn’t… I’m not
his numero uno anymore, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. Alright? Between
girlfriends and raising his grades and saving the day… becoming better than me
and having more than me. So what if I hate him for it? Sometimes. Just a little
bit…”
He was the shitty friend for wanting more from Scott when Scott was already
giving it everything he had.
“Scott is the best. He’s everything I could ever want, and I’m privileged to be
his best friend when he could have had anyone else. I’m the disappointment. And
he’d actually put me on suicide watch if he knew. I ain’t adding to the pile of
shit on his plate already.”
Jackson scowled. “But you’re fine with adding to mine.”
“Hey, you invited me, all because of some stupid guilt-trip.”
It wasn’t fair that Jackson was there for Scott when Stiles couldn’t be. It
wasn’t right that Stiles found more solace with Jackson than he ever could with
Scott.
“Ya know, you’ll never be good like Scott,” he spat. “You should save everyone
the trouble and quit trying.”
“So fucking leave!” Jackson shouted. “Why are you wasting my time when you’ve
got Scott McCall at your back? I’m not holding you prisoner. That’s a lot more
than I can say about you.”
Stiles surged out of his seat. “Maybe I will leave.”
“Good.” Jackson followed him up. “Consider this guilt-trip over.”
“Consider your number deleted.”
“Consider your number blocked.”
“Good riddance.”
Stiles slammed the door on his way out. If he got pulled over for drunk
driving, well, it’d be the least offensive thing on his record. He didn’t give
a fuck. And if he died, he hoped Jackson got blamed for everything.
Chapter End Notes
     Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and Birdemic: Shock and Terror are real
     movies. I assure you if Sharknado (2013) had been around at that
     time, they’d be watching it too.
***** Chapter 7 *****
Jackson called Danny the second Stiles was gone. He needed something, anything,
to distract him from the hole he was falling down. If Stiles died… he didn’t
know what he’d do. But he wasn’t going to chase after the asshole, no matter
how much his instincts yelled at him. He shouldn’t have listened to his stupid
wolf, jumping at the chance to help Stiles. They were nothing to one another.
“You’ve never cared this much before,” Danny said when he arrived, having
listened through Jackson’s ranting the entire ride over.
Jackson tossed Danny his phone, no longer trusting himself with it. He could
already feel his fingers itching to call Stiles and make sure he got home in
one piece. “It’s this fuckin’ wolf. It’s caught Stiles’s scent and it doesn’t
understand why I’m fighting it. How does it not get I’d rather shove my dick
into an electric socket?”
“Dude, is the wolf trying to take over?” Danny asked, rightly concerned.
“No.” Jackson rubbed his face. “It’s not like that.” He didn’t even have the
words. The buzz from the beer wasn’t helping.
“So how is it then?”
“Dominic said the wolf and me are two sides to the same coin. The wolf… it’s
not someone else. It’s me. It’s part of my brain becoming its own thing. And
I’ve gotta ‘embrace the wolf’ and ‘become one with my other self.’”
“He sounds right.”
“Shut up. That’s not the point. The wolf’s taking everything out of proportion.
It doesn’ get why Stiles and I can’t be together. There’s no reasoning with
it!”
“That also sounds right.” Danny smiled and pat Jackson’s shoulder. “Come on,
man, I’ve got all three Transformers films to tide you over for the next few
hours.”
“Stiles could be dead in a car crash as we speak.”
“But he’s not.”
“How can you possibly know?”
“Dude.” Danny flashed the screen of his phone in his face.
>> STILES: I’m home
>> STILES: I still hate you
Jackson dropped onto the sofa, face falling into his hands. It was disgusting
how much relief washed through him. “He didn’ delete my number.”
“Yeah, and you obviously didn’t block him. Which begs the question: why’s he
messaging you in the first place.”
“He texted me his life story in the middle of the night assuming I’m asleep. He
doesn’t care if I see it. He jus’ likes to hear himself talk.”
Danny snorted as he sat beside Jackson, bumping shoulders with him. “You should
ease up, dude. You’re in Stiles’s inner circle now. He’d rather cut his own arm
off than hurt a person he cares about—and before you say it, he does care about
you. In his own Stiles way. Why else would he even pretend to let you know he’s
in one piece?”
“Well, I wish he’d stop. It’s giving my wolf the wrong idea.”
“Too late for that, don’t you think?”
“Shut up.”
He focused on mindlessly watching Transformers. Except the moment Megan Fox
appeared, when he realized Mikaela was more than a hot body, she had brains,
and she never hid the fact, no matter how little appreciation she got for it.
Unlike Lydia.
He forced down his feelings about it.
A quarter through the second film, Danny began snickering and smelling like
satisfaction. When Jackson looked over, he saw two phones in Danny’s hands.
“What the fuck, Danny?”
Danny wasn’t phased in the least. “Stiles messaged you about how he got McCall
to help him at the gym.”
“Of course he did.” Stiles would rub it in as well.
“And now Scott’s messaging me if we want to join them. Something about being
afraid of Stiles accidentally hurting himself, and us having more gym expertise
than both of them combined.”
“That’s the dumbest excuse I’ve ever heard.”
“But you’re considering it.”
Jackson growled at how easy Danny could read him. “Stiles would hurt himself,
that imbecile.”
“I’ll let them know to meet us before class.”
 
#
 
Stiles slept worse than usual, battling a hangover as he dragged himself into
his gym clothes. Scott was right about this being a bad idea, but if
weightlifting was a step toward getting his dick fixed, he was ready to start
as soon as possible… even if Scott had to make it into a group thing. Stiles
felt too much like shit to deny him.
Scott clearly had ideas about drawing Jackson into the pack now that Stiles
opened up the possibility with his own selfish meddling.
Stiles was not above feeling smug about Jackson being hungover and dragged to
the gym as well. He reluctantly reminded himself he was supposed to be pissed
at Jackson. He just couldn’t remember why. But it was Jackson. He wouldn’t be
suffering right now if Jackson hadn’t gotten involved with his caring.
Danny ended up taking charge of his workout after it was established he was the
only one with any sense left for what was ‘normal’ weightlifting. Stiles’s
strength wasn’t anything to brag about on a good day, and it was a struggle
just to get through Danny’s version of a light routine. Meanwhile, Scott and
Jackson wound up in a werewolf pissing contest about who could deadlift the
most. Stiles swore it was a tick—Jackson couldn’t be in Scott’s presence
without exerting his ego, logic be damned. But it turned out Scott didn’t know
the extent of his own strength until Jackson goaded him, so maybe Jackson
wasn’t a complete moron for testing Scott’s capacity.
By the time lunch came around, Stiles’s mood improved from exerting himself and
feeling his body obey his will. Kira was sharing a story when Jackson made an
offhand remark and Stiles caught himself snorting at. Malia gave him a look as
he responded to Jackson with a reference to Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, and
Lydia was downright scandalized the instant Jackson inadvertently laughed.
Stiles tried not to think too hard about it the rest of the day. Lydia would
sooner go after Jackson for ditching her than Stiles for lying on Jackson’s
behalf. But then there she was, waiting by his locker after final period.
“I never got a chance to ask,” she said coyly. “How’d that physics project go?”
“Great,” Stiles stuttered as he opened his locker. “We had a great time doing
physics because physics is great.”
“Yeah, see, funny thing about that. How’d you two end up assigned as teammates
if you’re not even in the same class?”
He cursed under his breath. “It’s this new thing they’re trying out. Pairing up
people from different classes. Very experimental.”
“Uh huh.” She innocently batted her lashes. “Do you know what it takes for
Jackson to cancel plans with me?”
“I’m guessing you’re gonna tell me.” He threw books into his bag as quickly as
he could.
“Jackson hasn’t cancelled on me since Danny was rushed to the ER.” And that’d
been four years ago.
“So what you’re really saying is Jackson doesn’t have a life outside of you.”
She rolled her eyes. “What exactly are your intentions with Jackson?”
“Intentions?” The bag slipped from his grip. He doubled-over, catching it by
the strap just before it hit the floor. “There’s no intentions there. We’ve got
nothing between us.”
Lydia sighed heavily. “There’s obviously something. And I will get to the
bottom of whatever’s going on between you two.”
“There’s nothing there, except a guilt-trip,” he defended, realizing his error
too late.
“A guilt-trip over what, Stiles?”
He chewed on his lower lip. What did he have to lose here? “He’s just… Fuck,
Lydia, he knows what it’s like being a puppet, okay? So does Scott, but Peter
failed with him. And when Peter controlled you, he didn’t try to make you kill
people. You don’t have blood on your hands. And Jackson… it’s just easy to talk
to him. Which, now that I think about it, sounds absurd. Jackson. Easy to talk
to. Only in upside-down world. But I kind of… I may have said too much and put
him in a compromising position…”
“Stiles,” Lydia pressed, and he couldn’t look away from her pleading
expression. “What exactly did you say?”
“Nothing,” he said a bit too loudly as he waved his hand. “It’s bad enough I’ve
got Jackson worrying about me. Everything’s under control.”
“I don’t know if this is my paranoia or a banshee thing, but it feels like
death is hovering over you, and I can’t…” Lydia blanched. “I don’t know what
I’ll do if you kill yourself.”
“I’m not—” he stopped short. People were beginning to stare. He lowered his
voice to a near whisper. “God, why is everyone assuming I’m suicidal? There’s a
difference between passive ideation and actually having a plan. Everyone has
their regrettable four a.m. fantasies. Mine just happened to get typed and
sent. And Jackson may have overdone it with trying to get off clean. That’s all
there is.”
Lydia pursed her lips. “Well, at least that explains why he lobbed the
explanation onto you.”
“I didn’t want this to become a big deal, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, concern in her voice as she backed off. “I wish you could
trust me more, but I’m glad you’ve worked something out. Jackson, he… he’s done
some bad things, but he’s not bad.”
Lydia’s words followed him the rest of the day. Stiles kept wishing he could
text Jackson, but he doubted Jackson unblocked him. It bugged him the entire
time he tried to concentrate on schoolwork and making new plans for the gym.
Jackson was obnoxious and overbearing, but he understand when he was a threat.
The guy warned Danny away the night of the championship match and kept Lydia at
arm’s length when she insisted on inviting him to her birthday, all while
barely comprehending the kanima inside himself. Jackson would never be on the
same level as Scott, but Stiles only needed one Scott in his life.
>> JACKSON: What the fuck did you tell Lydia?
Stiles couldn’t help the smile spreading on his face.
>> STILES: I may have spilled the truth
>> STILES: Why?
He tapped his footed as he waited through the long pause.
>> JACKSON: Nothing
>> JACKSON: Danny says you want to workout with him again
>> STILES: Correction, Scott insists I should stick with Danny, and I’d like to
try when my brain isn’t leaking from my ears
>> STILES: I already feel the difference
He figured he’d throw Jackson a bone.
>> STILES: Thanks for helping
 
#
 
Jackson was so screwed. It was bad enough his wolf wanted Stiles, but now they
shared inside jokes. He’d mentally prepared himself for Lydia’s backlash,
except instead she was praising him for helping Stiles out and giving him
birthday quality blow jobs as reward. Now he had to be nice to Stiles—probably
exactly what she wanted. Not that he could help himself after the content mood
she put him in.
He’d forgotten Stiles was supposed to assume he was blocked, and Stiles took
advantage by spending the rest of the evening randomly messaging Jackson
whatever inane thought popped into his head.
>> STILES: I swear it’s a conspiracy how all teachers give midterms and
projects the week before Christmas vacation
>> STILES: It’s like they thrive on our misery
>> JACKSON: I prefer tests to killing people
>> STILES: Omfg don’t
>> STILES: Just let me have this delusion
>> STILES: Sometimes I’m afraid I’m going to forget how to read again
>> JACKSON: As though that’d stop you
Jackson always knew Stiles was persistent to a fault. Stiles being able to
intuitively disable a bear trap for the sake of Lydia spoke volumes of his
puzzle solving ability. And that intelligence… it didn’t sting the same Lydia
and her air-headed disguise.
>> STILES: It’s a miracle I’m not permanently hallucinating out of my ass after
the nogi crawled into my brain and made my life a waking nightmare
Jackson had nothing he could say to make Stiles feel better about it.
>> JACKSON: When I was sick with wolfsbane, I had hallucinations of claws
boring out of my body from inside my mouth. With the kanima shit, I ‘swallowed’
a foot-long snake and had it slither up my stomach, into my skull, and out my
goddamn eye socket like an alien spawn
>> STILES: Dude, you have orifice issues
>> STILES: Also, shit, I never knew how badly you reacted to that shit
>> STILES: Do you ever get nightmares rehashing the worst parts of your life?
>> JACKSON: Derek’s scratch gave me a fever bad enough that I’d dreamt I was
inside the Hale fire every single night during. I didn’t even live through that
personally, but I can recount it what it feels like to burn alive with enough
vivid detail to make you wonder
>> STILES: Fuck
>> STILES: I’m so tired of everything
>> JACKSON: Because you don’t sleep
>> STILES: Thanks Captain Obvious
Jackson wasn’t sure how long he dozed before another chirpy ring sounded from
the nightstand. At the second set of beeps and whistles he sluggishly reached
for his phone, hoping to respond before Stiles went off on another life story.
>> STILES: I’m so fucking done
>> STILES: Why can’t I have one night - JUST ONE - without ducked up nightmares
>> JACKSON: I don’t know
>> STILES: Ugh! Did I wake you up?
>> JACKSON: What do you think?
>> STILES: Okay, well, I dreamt of waking up on the floor of a mental asylum
with my foot caught in a fucking bear trap and a demon corpse dragging me into
the unknown
>> STILES: That hadn’t even been at Eichen. I’d sleepwalked into Malia’s former
coyote den
>> STILES: Thank god I’m over the sleepwalking, right?
>> JACKSON: Yeah
>> STILES: No one deserves to be controlled by psychos
>> STILES: And while it was definitely nice slamming Derek onto that desk…
that’s probably the /only/ upside to being controlled by pure evil
>> STILES: Sometimes I wonder what it’d have been like if someone decent like
Scott became your master. Your eyes wouldn’t be blue with him. Then again, you
‘became’ Matt while you were under his influence. I dunno how I’d feel if you
became Scott. I’ve comes to terms with the fact that your life lessons
shouldn’t come at the cost of what makes you YOU
Jackson swallowed down the bile forming in his throat.
>> JACKSON: What makes me ME, Stiles?
>> STILES: The stuff at your core
>> STILES: Fuck if I know
>> JACKSON: I don’t know what my core is anymore. When I became Matt… his fear
of drowning overrode everything inside me. It was his will. His fears. I /know/
it came Matt. But the fear came from within me as though it really was from me.
It’s always me. So now I have to spend every day proving my past self wrong.
There was a pause before Stiles typed again.
>> STILES: I’m afraid to even ask about Grandpa Hitler
>> JACKSON: Then don’t.
He could feel himself getting sick just remembering it.
>> STILES: I won’t
>> STILES: It’s too depressing to think about
>> JACKSON: I didn’t tell you what I did for you to feel sorry for me
>> STILES: It’s not about feeling sorry for you
>> STILES: God, I’m the last person to feel sorry for you
>> STILES: I forgot the last time I’ve slept more than two hours in a row
>> JACKSON: They have pills for that
>> STILES: No way am I throwing my body into a deep sleep I have no control
over
>> JACKSON: Well I don’t know what else would help
>> STILES: Can we still watch Birdemic together?
>> JACKSON: Now?
>> STILES: I wish.
>> STILES: No. Later today. Or whenever.
>> JACKSON: You think I’ll invite you back just like that?
>> STILES: I promise to behave this time around
>> STILES: Please <3
Jackson was at a loss as his wolf wagged its tail like it’d just hit the
jackpot.
>> JACKSON: And I’d want your company /why/?
>> STILES: Because I’m the BEST company
>> STILES: C’mon. It’ll be fun. We don’t even have to drink. Though I wish we
could. Hangovers suck.
Jackson thought about denying it, but what would that gain him?
>> JACKSON: I should kill you
>> STILES: But you won’t
He wouldn’t.
But he had ways of making Stiles squirm, and that was worth putting up with his
company.
Like Stiles’s horrid surprise when he finally came over and discovered
Jackson’s parents were not only home but also welcoming him to dinner.
Stiles sputtered through the entire thing, occupying himself with stuffing his
mouth and tripping over answers about his current life and future plans.
When it was over and his parents disappeared into their home office, which left
Jackson alone with Stiles in the living room.
Stiles gave him the meanest stink eye. “You did that on purpose.”
Jackson smirked. “You’re lucky my dad didn’t grill you about restraining
orders.”
“I bet you would have loved that.”
“There’s always next time.”
Stiles paled before reddening and dropping to the sofa. “I regret nothing.”
Jackson rolled his eyes and snorted as he set up Birdemic: Shock and Terror.
The movie was trying to be horror, and if the special effects weren’t godawful,
it’d have rattled Jackson. Not like acid-spitting, ground-exploding birds would
stand out among everything else Beacon Hills had to offer. But for a brief span
of time, the stupidity was a relief from reality, and Jackson joined Stiles in
laughing hard enough to cry.
 
#
 
Stiles dodged Danny’s prodding about his constant texting with Jackson. He
didn’t have answers, and if he was being honest, he was afraid to find out.
By their third try at the gym, Danny finally let him increase the weights to
something that wasn’t embarrassingly easy. And Danny, asshole that he was,
never once mocked him for being weak. It was hard to remember that Danny’s
growth spurt happened after having a metal bar in his chest for two years, put
in when his sternum almost collapsed from an unforeseen birth defect. Whatever
infinite patience Danny gained from that, Stiles was more than happy to reap
from it.
And Malia reaped in turn.
Kissing Malia was the highlight of all the hard work, his muscles burning with
concentrated effort—his effort. His hands didn’t feel foreign when he touched
her, and when she touched him back, he leaned into her embrace.
The groping had him keyed up by the time she went home. Welcome to boner town,
population Stiles.
Ordinarily he’d be sitting at his desk with an archive of high resolution
pornos to rile him up, but after weeks of his dick going limp regardless of
what he watched, he wanted to go slow in reintroducing Stiles Jr to his hand.
He locked the door to his room before lying on his bed with a tissue box to one
side and lotion on the other. He closed his eyes and replayed his time with
Malia, taking it further until they were naked and in his bed, nothing like
that dusty couch in Eichen’s basement…
His mind wandered to Lydia and the one time he witnessed her naked—after she’d
gone missing from the hospital, disappearing into the woods for days. She’d
come out of that shivering from the cold, her hair a frizzy mess, standing in
front of the police search squad and wondering why no one was offering her a
jacket. He’d always wondered what it’d be like having her disheveled like that
under him, and he’d hated how Jackson didn’t need any of his mental olympics.
Jackson could have Lydia without forcing himself on her…
He wheezed as he threw his hand off his dick. This was going nowhere and fast.
His brain had a history of sabotaging itself, but he could cope with jerking
through the persistent memory of Derek’s muscular torso after rehashing why
it’d worked on Danny so well. He could deal with thinking of Lydia and having
Jackson pop out of nowhere, cockblocking him or, worse, taking Lydia’s place.
And now that he actually knew what Jackson looked like in the buff, his stupid
brain required practically nothing to start making assumptions about what
Jackson’s dick could be like. He’d prefer those tangents to what he had now.
He grudgingly went over to his computer and booted up his porn collection.
After scrolling through his entire regular collection and finding nothing that
interested him, he grumbled and went into his gay folder. He’d once spent hours
watching gay porn, coming to the conclusion that he should download more anal
sex videos with girls, particularly the ones where the girl wore a strap-on.
But there were a few he’d kept for posterity.
>> STILES: How would you rate my wardrobe from 0 to gay?
>> JACKSON: Are you kidding me?
>> STILES: My dad says I can’t be gay because of the way I dress
>> STILES: Maybe I need an intervention like on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
>> JACKSON: Is that even still a thing?
>> STILES: I don’t know
>> STILES: I’d ask Danny for advice but he’s yet to answer if I’m attractive to
gay guys
>> JACKSON: Why the hell do you care if you’re attractive to gay guys?
>> STILES: I was trying to figure out if Danny likes me
Because becoming a werewolf turned Scott into the hot girl, with everyone
wanting to be Scott or be with Scott. And even Stiles was attracted to Scott’s
newfound heroism. He’d needed some sort of reassurance that he had something
going for him too.
Asking for it from Jackson was a waste of time.
>> STILES: Forget I said anything
>> JACKSON: I’d love to forget /everything/ you say
>> STILES: Jerk
He wasn’t sure how he felt about men, but he knew bisexuality was a thing. He’d
thought long and deep about it after he made out with Caitlin. She said she
liked girls and also liked boys before asking if he liked boys too. But he
didn’t like boys. Not really. Jackson and Derek were just anomalies within his
endless fantasies of smoking hot women. Maybe what he was sexually attracted to
was intimidation because that seemed to be a trend that culminated in him
dating a feral coyote.
>> STILES: I wanna ask something real for a sec…
>> STILES: Just please don’t be sarcastic about it…
>> JACKSON: Okay?
>> STILES: Have you ever had sexual fantasies about guys?
>> JACKSON: Gender’s irrelevant to my fantasies
>> STILES: Come on, I really need you to be serious right now
>> JACKSON: If I was joking, I’d say haha
>> STILES: I’ve never seen you say haha
>> JACKSON: Because I haven’t been joking
>> STILES: Omfg I hate you so much
>> STILES: But I’ve been thinking…
>> STILES: Is it possible to like the idea of guys without actually liking any
guys?
>> JACKSON: Yeah. Just ask any single straight woman ever
>> STILES: You are the literal worst
>> STILES: What else is new
>> STILES: I’m going to bed
He sighed and lubed up a finger. If nothing else, Jackson finally got his brain
going down a path he was used to. He didn’t need to understand how he felt
about guys right now. This was about him and his fantasies, fantasies that were
returning to normal. His hands were his. His dick was his. And his pleasure
would be his too. Didn’t matter which team he played ball for as long as he got
a home run.
***** Chapter 8 *****
Stiles was pumped for Christmas vacation. Specifically for Thanksgiving 2.0,
just with a different color scheme and more days off from school. Not to
mention the presents. Family tradition called for Christmas Eve to be at
Scott’s house because it was bigger, a good thing too since this year had the
addition of girlfriends.
Malia came with her dad, who Stiles was still wary of. Mr. Tate just happened
to make a hostile first impression when he sought out the coyote he believed
killed Malia, not to mention being the reason Lydia got caught in a bear trap.
But he’d calmed down considerably in the last few weeks, even apologizing for
his rashness when Malia came clean about being a werecoyote. And he got along
with Dad by virtue of them both being into fishing.
Kira came alone after her parents came up with the terrible excuse that they
don’t celebrate Christmas despite eating mass amounts of food being
nondenominational. Stiles wasn’t about to challenge the decision when it made
things conveniently less awkward for him, especially when it meant Kira was
allowed into Scott’s life in a way Allison’s parents would never allow. And
Scott wearing a dark navy button-down was already a change in the right
direction.
Stiles assisted Scott’s mom in the kitchen while Dad and Scott were in charge
of setting the table and doing the dishes after—‘after’ being a lenient term
with the impending food comas. Melissa already had the guest room set up for
the inevitable sleepover Dad would waffle about before caving in. Admittedly,
there wasn’t much cooking to be done since he and Dad bought most of the side
dishes, but being Melissa’s trusty sous chef gave him something to focus on,
reducing the likelihood of him causing trouble with his restlessness. He used
to be the same way around Mom, and Melissa was the closest thing to a mom he
had left.
Having Malia around meant one more person to ground him as they put the final
touches on the plated food. In the meantime, Mr. Tate and Kira hung out with
Dad and Scott in the living room with eggnog and trivia board games.
Dinner went about as smoothly as Stiles suspected, awkward but nowhere near
Thanksgiving... or dinner at Jackson’s.
After getting stuffed, the evening called for a holiday movie or two, which was
always something to look forward to.
Mr. Tate sat in the armchair as Dad and Melissa took the couch. Stiles and
Scott both took to the carpet, urging Malia and Kira to take the remaining
seats. Each of them wrote in their choice of movie on a scrap of paper before
dropping it into a Santa hat.
Melissa shook the hat before reaching inside, her expression tightening as she
unfolded the paper. Dad looked over her shoulder and frowned.
“You sure you want to watch that, kiddo?” Dad asked cautiously.
The scrawl on the paper was Stiles’s, the same movie he suggested every year
without fail—The Nightmare Before Christmas. “It’s a kid’s movie,” he asserted,
“with catchy songs.” Which he knew word-for-word. And no way was he giving away
his win at random pick.
“Don’t you think we’ve already had enough nightmares before Christmas?”
“I think it’s entirely appropriate after what we’ve been through.”
He’d seen this film a million times. There wasn’t anything in it that could
surprise him anymore.
 
#
 
Jackson found himself with Lydia for Christmas Eve. They sat at a nice
restaurant with Lydia’s mother, making small talk as though the last ten months
hadn’t happened. Natalie wasn't the most warm and welcoming person, but she
fully supported them being back together—always seeing only the best in Jackson
and championing the idea of Lydia marrying him.
When Natalie asked about Jackson’s prospects, he swallowed down his shame. The
prestige of being captain of the lacrosse team clouded his better judgment.
Lacrosse was a professional dead end, and swimming was where his future was
supposed to lay. He had the stuff to make it all the way to the Olympics if
superpowers hadn’t turned him into a cheater and Matt hadn’t corrupted his
head.
He told Natalie how his parents were encouraging him to get a political science
degree before heading off to law school. The plan would get adjusted based on
where he got accepted and where he and Lydia decided to settle down. He used to
assume all Lydia ever wanted was to marry rich and never work a day in her
life, but Lydia had taken the SATs early and her score was perfect. She wanted
to major in Aerospace Engineering and was applying to every top school in the
country. Jackson should have been proud for her, but he couldn’t stop
remembering how many years she’d lied about who she truly was.
The night winded down at Lydia’s grandmother’s lake house just at the edge of
Beacon County, just him and Lydia while Natalie gave them their space. He had
his own room at the house, though that was on a technicality. Whenever they’d
spent time here during the summer months, Lydia would always make her way from
her room to his before the night was over.
The nostalgia was grounding despite his wolf’s grumblings, and the new moon
wasn’t helping with the wolf’s moodiness. When would he finally learn there was
no use in chasing greener pasture? He loved Lydia, and they had a future
together. That was better than any fantasy.
He’d yet to change out of his argyle sweater and white slacks when Lydia
appeared at his door. She was still wearing her dress, a slinky silk thing that
did everything for her curves. Demure as ever, even with a cloud of death
hanging off her shoulder.
“You need anything?” he hedged.
She sounded almost innocent as she asked, “Want to watch a movie?”
He’d been waiting for the day she’d bring it up, and it was almost laughable
how relieved he was that the day had finally arrived. “Do I even need to guess
which one?”
There was an ease to their old groove, with the The Notebook playing and Lydia
draped over his side. He never understood what she got out of the sappy romance
except that it reminded her of her late grandmother. It was possibly the only
reason he didn’t go completely nuts having to watch it so many times. There was
just nothing for him to care about except the ending credits.
 
#
 
Stiles stared at the screen as all his muscles locked in place, the familiar
sounds of the opening to The Nightmare Before Christmas turning gurgled and
incomprehensible. The trees had doors in them, and the doors were meant to
stayed closed. But a skeletal man would soon enter a door he wasn’t supposed
to, making Christmas into a riddle to be solved.
The nogitsune always had a thing for riddles.
Everyone has it;
But no one can lose it;
What is it?
What is it?
He bit his lip, unwilling to answer. Nothing was real anymore, just a big blur
rushing against a white background. Snow. Metal. He was back in the MRI
machine.
What’s this?
What’s this?
He swallowed down a lump in his throat as the tune for “What’s this?” taunted
him. Ever since he was little he’d sung along to it while mischievously poking
everyone he could reach. But he couldn’t move. If he moved he might say it. He
might answer with ‘my shadow’ and it’d become another open sesame into his
body. What if Chris and Isaac hadn’t disposed of the nogitsune properly?
What if he lost himself again?
The “Oogie Boogie’s Song” came on, and he could feel the life seeping out of
him. Tied down to a roulette machine as it terrorized him with glee. With no
one to save him. He couldn’t stop shaking. His vision blurred and his lungs
refused to respond. He was dying, his heart exploding, his lungs collapsing. A
slow death that radiated out from his chest, climbing his spine with the
sharpness of a knife. His skull felt like it was going to crack open from the
pressure. He was going to pass out. He was going to…
Everything in front of him went black.
The living room lights came on and Scott was holding the remote.
A buzzing sensation ran down his fingers, and he looked down to find himself in
a white knuckle grip. He jolted upright when hands came down on his shoulders,
but it was just Malia. He blinked away black spots in his eyes as he swayed on
his feet. The opening to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer struck like a siren in
his ears.
He ran. He ran before he knew he was running. And he didn’t stop until he
collapsed onto Scott’s bed. Time stopped making sense and he wasn’t sure if it
was seconds or minutes before Malia was lying next to him, running fingers
through his hair.
“I keep putting you in the middle of my shit,” he whispered. “Tonight was
supposed to be fun and I screwed that up.”
“It’s okay.” She smiled. “I didn’t like the movie anyway.”
He scoffed as he wiggled closer to her warmth. But it didn’t stave off the
images behind his eyelids. Dreams where he found himself standing in the
basement, looking into the torn hole in the wall and nothing there besides dust
and cobwebs—a vision of what could have been if he’d refused the nogitsune.
When he’d turn around, there’d be no one there to taze him. In the silence,
he’d move deeper into the room, pausing at the figure sitting in a chair. The
closer he got to Malia, the more unnerving her stillness became—until he saw
it. Her head hung to the side with lifeless eyes staring up at him and blood
running down her face from the gaping hole in her temple. And the drill was in
his hands as a pool of blood wetted his bare toes.
“Stiles,” Malia said softly. “Stiles, you’re crying.”
“Huh?” He rubbed his face to find it wet. Fuck. “Shit, just… just give me a
minute.”
He dashed to the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face. It felt good on
his heated skin, but his chest tightened when he checked his reflection,
expecting something dark standing behind him. Everyone was waiting for the old
him to return. They wanted it to be over—demon gone, Stiles good as new. But
the monster had worn his face, and he still saw it in his eyes, taunting him.
Taunting everyone he loved.
Malia stood in the doorway. “You look like you’re about to keel over.”
“I’ll be okay,” he lied. His heart was doing too many jumping-jacks for the
uptick in his pulse to give it away. He looked at her and all he saw was a
choice that was never really a choice. He’d never let Malia die, no matter how
much it hurt him in the end. “I think I’m gonna go for a ride to clear my
head.”
“Maybe I should come with you.”
“No. Just… I just need some air… alone.”
“Okay,” Malia said hesitantly. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”
“I don’t know. Okay? Don’t wait up. I… I might not come back for a while.”
 
#
 
Jackson forgot the last time he paid any attention to the plot of The Notebook
instead of counting down the minutes until the credits rolled and the real fun
began. A notebook full of lost memories, a film about holding on to the past, a
dedicated effort to keep love from fading into nonexistence.
Lydia was his again, warm and comforting, and he imagined himself waking up
beside her morning after morning, a lifetime of waking up together, building
memories to look back on. But the history they already shared? If he hadn’t
fucked up… if she hadn’t kept secrets… what sort of new memories would the
future hold? Did she really want him or just the reminder of their good days?
What did he even want anymore with the past he’d had?
“Are you shedding a tear?” Lydia asked.
He swiftly rubbed his eyes. “No. This is a stupid movie. I can’t believe you
convinced me to watch it again.”
He was saved from further scrutiny when his phone chimed. He’d absently turned
the sound back on; in less than a week, he’d become too used to the incessant
chirping at hellish hours of the night.
“Was that… R2-D2?” Lydia asked with a tilt of her head. “Why is your ringtone
set to the droid from Star Wars?”
“It’s only set for one talkative asshole.”
He reached the thing by the second ring.
>> STILES: I know you’re out doing your thing
>> STILES: I know you won’t read this until later
>> JACKSON: What’s going on?
>> STILES: FWGSERSRLGKNWAL
>> STILES: STOP BEING AMAZING AT ANSWERING MY TEXTS I’LL START TO THINK YOU
LIKE ME OR SOMETHING
>> STILES: Help
>> STILES: I’m in my Jeep and I’m thinking of really fatal things to do with it
A cold sweat beading his skin as his wolf primed for action, thankful his
duffle bag was still mostly packed. Stiles’s absence of self-preservation was
doing neither of them any good.
“What’s wrong?” Lydia asked, picking up on the confusion and frustration.
>> JACKSON: Meet me at my place
>> JACKSON: No one is home
>> JACKSON: There’s a spare key under the flower pot by the backdoor
“I have to go,” he said in between more typing. “Like right now.”
>> JACKSON: Don’t you fucking dare die in my house
“Where exactly are you going?” Lydia demanded as she followed him down the
stairs. “You don’t have your car.”
“Home. And I’m a fucking werewolf, I can handle this on foot.”
Her gaze darted to the phone he was pocketing, and she frowned. “Who’s texting
you?”
If only he could dodge the answer, but chances were she’d talk to Stiles and
put two and two together. It still baffled him how Lydia and Stiles were on
casual speaking terms.
“It was Stiles. Now stop wasting my time.”
 
#
 
Stiles arrived at Jackson’s in no time. He should have known rich people could
easily afford the high electric bill, seeing as the house was lit like
everybody’s home.
The spare key was right where Jackson said it’d be, and he chewed his lip,
wondering if this was a new thing. Jackson had made a really big deal out of
Lydia having his house key, which, okay, in hindsight Jackson was dealing with
someone breaking into his house to mess with a video tape of his
transformation. And, with the key, Lydia did have the capability of coming and
going unannounced into his personal space, even if Jackson was a jackass about
assuming that she would.
He pocketed the key, afraid of anyone else finding it. At least there was one
door he could allow himself to feel secure about.
 
#
 
Jackson grit his teeth the entire ride over, his nerves shot and wolf restless.
Lydia insisted on driving, but that didn’t mean he had to tell her shit about
what was going on with Stiles. Arguing with her was futile, so painful silence
was the next best bet.
Stiles’s Jeep was parked in the driveway when they arrived.
“Thanks,” he offhandedly said as he unfastened his seatbelt.
Lydia shut off the ignition. “I’m coming with you.”
“No.” He’d never won an argument with her in his life, but he needed this.
“Get your head out of your ass and let me help. Stiles needs us.”
He growled, eyes glowing as his fangs itched at his gums. “He needs me.”
Lydia only rolled her eyes. “You think that scares me anymore? I don’t know
what is going on between you two, but this isn’t the time to play favorites.”
“Just let me have this. This fucking once,” he begged. He never begged. His
pride wouldn’t let him. But he couldn’t have Lydia there, not when she’d take
over even though Stiles had asked him for help. He needed to be the one who
helped. “Lydia, please.”
Shock flashed momentary on Lydia’s face before she schooled her features. She
eyed him up and down, sighed, and started the car again. “You’ve got a lot of
explaining to do when this is over, Jackson.”
He’d take it.
He heaved a sigh of relief as he stood on the pavement and watched her drive
away. There was a faint scent of McCall in the air, and he had the distinct
feeling he was being watched as well. But McCall could play guard dog as long
as he didn’t interfere. The living room already had the shades drawn to block
out prying eyes.
He stepped inside to find a splotch of red on the sofa. Stiles sprang up, hair
a matted mess and his eyes with dark rings around them. He clutched a pillow to
his chest, wearing a blaring combination of red hoodie, solid green button-
down, and khaki pants.
“Did you actually run here?” Stiles asked with a choppy laugh.
“No.”
“Oh, thank god. I was gonna ask if I could borrow the cement you use in your
hair.”
“You’re gonna need a lot more than cement to tame that creature living on your
head.”
Stiles made an attempt to comb his hair with his fingers, but it just made it
look worse. “I got tired of shaving it.”
“How? You’ve got nothing else to shave.”
“You an expert on my privates now?”
Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose. “I meant your face, you walking
erection.”
Stiles giggle-snorted as tears stained his face, but he didn’t try for any
comeback. And Jackson wasn’t about to ask. “Since when have you had a spare
key?” Stiles muttered as Jackson went to the kitchen. “Isn’t that how Matt got
in?”
Jackson scowled, turning to look Stiles straight in the eye. “That’s… mom used
to forget to lock the kitchen door. She doesn’t forget anymore…”
“Oh,” Stiles said, hugging the pillow back to his chest.
It was silent while Jackson boiled water. And even from across the house,
Stiles smelled of cheap cologne and bitter sadness, a combination Jackson was
eerily used to. But he was also used to not giving a shit at the way it rubbed
at him like caustic chemicals, or else he wouldn’t be able to keep doing his
job. This wasn’t a job, though, and he’d already alerted Lydia to him caring.
He may as well roll with it.
He set the individual steeping tea cups on the coffee table before grabbing a
box of tissues. He’d used the holiday spice tea knowing Stiles liked it last
time. Stiles sniffed the tea and made an expression somewhere between sentiment
and alarm.
“I hate this,” Stiles exhaled.
“Then why the fuck did you pick it?”
Stiles groaned. “Not the tea. The way I am.”
“Oh, well, then you wouldn’t be the only one,” Jackson mused.
“Asshole.” Stiles frowned into his cup. “You know what’s the worst part is
about losing your virginity in the basement of a mental hospital?”
Stiles already vented to him about it during an English class. He wasn’t sure
there was anything left to add. “Besides a thousand-year-old fox finding
Dracula references amusing?”
“Yes, besides that and the five point restraints and the threat of Malia’s head
getting drilled… I didn’t have a condom.”
Jackson held his cup without drinking. “So is this a pregnancy scare thing?”
Stiles squawked. “God, no!” He shuddered. “It’s not about that at all. I pulled
out. Okay? We had a whole kick about me ‘freshening up’ the dank stains. Scott
says he can’t smell anything different about Malia, but Lydia’s making her take
a pregnancy test anyway. In any case, Malia’s not keeping it if it turns out
positive.” Stiles tried sipping his tea and recoiled when he burned his mouth.
“You know, I’d have gotten laid much sooner if I didn’t leave Heather to get
condoms.”
“Who?”
“Heather Jenkins. You had classes with her. How do you not… god, it doesn’t
even matter now. She’s dead. But I’d known her since we were three. And she
wanted to lose her V-card on her seventeenth birthday. Apparently, to her, I
was a sure thing. Can you believe it? Me? Of all people? And of course I wasn’t
prepared. I had to go condom hunting in her brother’s room. And you know what
happened? The darach got her. Virgin sacrifice! If I’d just stuck my dick in,
she’d still be alive!” He reached for a tissue as his eyes watered up. “Malia…
it’s my fault that I couldn’t care less about the consequences with her. I just
wanted to feel again. Like myself. Like I wasn’t doomed. Just my fucking luck
that every girl who actually wants to be with me gets hurt because of me. Malia
wouldn’t have even been around if I hadn’t decided to play hero. I just assumed
no one wants to remain trapped as a coyote, you know? We were trying to help.
Or I was. I couldn’t let that cold case stay cold if I could do something about
it.”
Jackson nodded along. “Yeah, but think about it this way: whether she was there
or not, the fox would have figured out a way to crawl back inside you. It had a
whole mental hospital at its disposal.”
“Even if you’re right…” Stiles wiped his eyes. “Even if there’s a chance of it
being true… I still keep lying to her. And even though she can hear it, she
doesn’t know why. Because she doesn’t know every time she talks about her dad
it’s not her biological dad. She’s adopted, and I… I’ve never had the heart to
tell her. I just can’t. She doesn’t need to know who her sperm donor is. It
would crush her.”
“How bad can it possibly be?”
“We’re talking Peter Hale stuck his dick in a chick when he was our age. Hell,
his own sister didn’t trust him. She sucked the memory right out of his head
with her alpha claws. And I’m afraid of what Malia might do once she finds out.
You had a fucking meltdown when you found out you were adopted. She doesn’t
need to know she’s also spawned from fire and brimstone.”
Jackson tamped down on his snarling wolf. “Malia wasn’t there when he was at
his worst. It’ll just be stories. All she sees is the con man who’s making
everyone believe he’s reformed.”
“Hey, I’m on your side about this.” Stiles blew on his tea before trying to sip
it again. “Only reason he’s playing meek is ‘cause coming back from the dead
weakened him. The manipulative, narcissistic bastard mauled Lydia knowing it’d
wake her bansheeness and give him a backup plan for if—when—he lost. And then
the fucker suggested love was the answer to saving you before he literally
stabbed you in the back. Probably trying to gain good guy points before trying
to steal some of your power or some shit. Oh, and now Peter’s teaching Lydia
how to tap into her banshee powers, all for the sake of retrieving the stolen
memory.”
Jackson ground his teeth, adrenaline pumping through him as he squeezed his
cup. “So he knows?”
“Not yet. He just knows there’s a kid of his running around somewhere, but can
you imagine the ways he could use Malia against us? He’d worm his way into her
head and turn her against us. Turn her into a killer like him. Can you
imagine?”
Jackson scoffed at that. “Fucker should have stayed dead.”
“I sometimes think he had a Plan C in case Plan B didn’t pan out. I’m starting
to think his end game is just to outlive Gerard.”
“Scott killed Gerard.”
“Scott poisoned Gerard. We didn’t find out until later that the prick’s
dripping black bile in a nursing home.”
Jackson slammed his cup onto the table, spewing tea every which way as Stiles
jumped from his seat. The noise echoed across the empty house, and somehow he’d
held back just enough to only crack the glass.
“Why isn’t he dead?” Jackson’s wolf growled through him.
“Why are you asking me? We both know Scott would never kick a man while he’s
down, even if he was ready to kill Gerard if he lied to Scott’s face and it
hurt more people. It’s Chris who’s sentimental about his abusive sack of shit
dad.”
Jackson’s claws elongated as he abruptly stood up and started pacing, his wolf
on the edge of taking over. “Why haven’t the Hales finished him?”
Stiles chewed his lip. “If I was them…” Guilt and vindictiveness pierced
through Stiles’s anxieties. “If I was faced with the man who contributed to my
entire family’s death… I’d want to see him suffer. I wouldn’t give him the
mercy of a quick end.”
The wolf cried out, and Jackson lost his reigns on the transformation. It
wanted blood. It wanted to be the one to make that man suffer.
 
#
 
Stiles backed himself up against a wall, putting as much distance between
himself and Jackson before he took hold of the nearest object—a metal lamp
pole—in an attempt to arm himself. Jackson had every right to lose it, but
Stiles wasn’t about to become collateral damage. The good news was he’d become
overwhelmingly in favor of living.
Jackson’s eyes glowed electric blue as fangs and sideburns took over, his face
morphing into something unrecognizable. Stiles shuddered at the spine-chilling
snap of bones when Jackson bent forward, frantically shucking off his clothes.
The sofa hid Jackson from the waist down, but Stiles still craned his neck as
Jackson’s brown hair began losing color before white fur sprouted from every
inch of exposed skin. Jackson’s face finished stretching into a muzzle, and
ears rode to the top of his head. A bushy tail unfurled.
Stiles’s mouth dropped as a giant, white wolf stood where Jackson once was,
nearly five feet tall, and eyes lit up in an eerie blue that almost seemed
ghost-like. But its snout was black, along with the lining of its eyes and
lips. And there was no looking away from the pink showing around its ears and
gums while it was baring its fangs, ears dropped, hackles raised.
He held the lamp in front of him. “Jackson,” he said in a tight whisper.
The wolf’s attention snapped to him. It snarled as he gulped, ready for the
worst. But just as quickly, the wolf sniffed the air and whined, straightening
out of its attack stance.
“Jacks, you in there, buddy?”
Its eyes dimmed to a calmer shade of blue as it fixated on him with a strange
awareness. He exhaled a deep breath when it calmly padded towards him, bumping
its snout against his white knuckle.
He smiled and let go of the pole. “Can I… will you bite me if I try to pet
you?”
The wolf craned it head to the side, and he decided that was invitation enough.
He threaded his fingers in the wolf’s silky mane. So soft. Like a cloud. He
scritched behind its ears and under its muzzle, and he didn’t miss the way the
tail wagged.
He dropped to his knees and brought his face closer to the fluffy nape. He
submerged his nose in it and was hit with the scent of crisp, fresh snow under
an unbelievably warm body, like sitting by a fire and drinking hot chocolate as
snow heaped outside the window. The wolf jerked away and whacked his face with
a giant paw.
Stiles cracked up laughing. “Yup. Still Jackson in there.”
The wolf—Jackson—huffed and rolled his eyes.
It was strange, though. Jackson, arrogant of arrogants, achieved something
neither Scott nor Derek could match, and there hadn’t been a peep. Not a single
boast. Like this magnificent creature was a mark of shame. And knowing London,
maybe it was.
“Does Anita know? Is this a kanima thing? Can she shift too?”
Jackson just nodded once.
“Yeah, this isn’t gonna work for me,” he said, having a million questions, most
of them needing more than yes or no answers. “You wanna shift back so we can
talk?”
The wolf dropped to its haunches and lowered its ears.
“You… can’t?”
Jackson shook his head.
“Ah, shit. Well, I guess this could be worse. You understand me, which is as
good as it’s gonna get. I can just pretend it’s like when I’m texting you at
odd hours of the day, huh? Me doing most of the talking.”
Wolfy grumbled, though it didn’t seem keen on changing back. Stiles’s fingers
found their way back into its mane, and when it didn’t recoil, he let out a sad
sigh. There was no avoiding the reason why Jackson’s wolf had a steely hold on
him.
“I know a thing or two about people getting into your head,” he said with a
tight chest. “And Gerard… he literally got into yours.” The wolf let out a low,
drawn-out growl. “Bastard deserves to rot in hell… except we’re in hell too,
Jacks. And it doesn’t feel like any of this will end.”
Misery swelled inside him as a wet snout poked his arm. He couldn’t help
himself as he wrapped his arms around the wolf’s neck, twisting fingers in the
thick fur as he got a face full of fuzz. A wretched sob escaped his throat and
every miserable thing in his life crashed in at once.
“I promised myself… I promised I’d take this to my grave…” he choked out.
“Gerard killed you on the field that day… and what he did to me doesn’t
compare, but it’s everything to me, Jackson. I got a face full of geriatric
fist, and I just… I didn’t even care that it hurt.” His breath hitched as heavy
tears slipped down his face. “He kidnapped me, Jackson, and the entire time I
was sure Scott would burst through the door and save me… but Gerard, he just
let me go when he was done. He tried to use me. To send a message. To Scott…
Derek. To both? Scott said he didn’t even have time to realize I went missing
till my dad freaked. He was set on going looking for me, but you… the kanima
crisis reached a breaking point. And no one knows what really happened to me
that day. Gerard tried to use my face as his billboard… and I… I didn’t to let
him, Jackson. I refused to let him break me… I refused to let him into my
head.”
He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand, but it didn’t stop the tears from
rolling. He was tired from months of not sleeping right. The nogitsune wormed
its way into him before he knew what was even happening. The sleepwalking and
the bending of reality until he couldn’t differentiate what’s real or a dream.
The very same symptoms of the disease that took his mom. Dad took him to the
hospital, because what else were they supposed to think? And the MRI scan
brought up the same damaged brain as Mom’s. Scott had been willing to bite him
if it came down to it.
The nogitsune made everyone think he was sick. It reduced his entire life to
that one grim word—sick. And then it taught him the meaning of sickness by
making him crave other people’s agony. Become insatiable for it. Becoming
exactly like the void.
He hacked as he struggled for air, his nose clogged and throat in knots. There
wasn’t any innocence left for him in this world. Why couldn’t things remain
normal and safe and boring? Why did it have to be one funeral march after
another, with living nightmares plaguing the streets? Why did everything need
to be chewed up until their remains became unrecognizable and then thrown out
into the world, expected to pretend this was fine, this was normal. This wasn’t
normal. The morgue shouldn’t be at over-capacity with bodies. But this was his
life now.
They put Mom in the ground, and she was never coming back. Nor were any of his
friends. Second chances only happened for evil beings that needed to stay the
fuck dead.
But Jackson was alive. Jackson managed to crawl out from the grave and turn
into something not worse than before. Sometimes the shape you take reflects the
person that you are. The snake was gone, replaced by a wolf. And the wolf
pressed against him as he held on, sobbing all over the fur until it turned
slimy and clumped.
If Jackson could keep going with the odds stacking against him, why couldn’t he
do the same or more? Even with the world against him, he had to keep fighting.
Keep living in spite of what the baddies wanted. He couldn’t let them win; he’d
rather die opposing them than die running in shame. And maybe one day, this
hell would end. Maybe he didn’t need to bear the agony alone until then.
***** Chapter 9 *****
Stiles grumbled as he opened his crusty eyes. It was three in the morning, and
his blankets were kicked to the foot of the bed. His gaze passed over the white
wolf standing in the middle of his room, ears perked as it attentively watched
the bedroom door.
He yawned. “No one’s coming, snot wolf. It’s four in the morning. Get back in
bed.”
The wolf glanced at him before stalking over to the closed door and snuffing at
it. Once it was satisfied, it circled over to the bed and hopped on, the
mattress dipping under its weight. It pressed to Stiles’s side, and he hugged
it tight before closing his eyes—
He snapped wide awake to something shaking his shoulder. Jackson stood over
him, visibly agitated.
“Wake up, asshat. Your entourage is here.”
He squinted at the light streaming through the window of a foreign room as he
unfurled from the blankets he’d burritoed himself in. He vaguely remembered
being allowed to crash in Jackson’s guest room.
Jackson disappeared from the room only for Scott and Lydia to fill it. Behind
them stood Kira and Malia. It really was an entourage.
He knew he’d made a scene when he left Scott’s, but he figured he’d have enough
time to create some half-truth when he got back. Now everyone knew he’d spent
the night at Jackson’s.
Holy shit, he spent the night at Jackson’s.
And he was still in one piece.
“You okay?” Scott asked.
“Fine,” Stiles croaked as he sat up and coughed to clear his throat. “Just had
to let the steam out, you know? Jackson makes a great punching bag.”
Kira frowned. “You ran like something was chasing you.”
“You’ve been crying,” Malia said, guilt laced in her voice. “But you smell less
miserable.”
Stiles furrowed his brows. He supposed he felt better. He wasn’t even afraid of
Jackson telling anyone his secret. Not when Jackson had so many secrets of his
own.
Lydia tutted as she put her hands on her hips. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen
Jackson get so fired up to help anybody in his life. He insisted I stay out of
it.”
Stiles’s face flushed before something twisted in his stomach. He thought he
was over his jealousy, but being reminded Lydia was with Jackson, probably
doing things before the desperate texts, made his chest hurt. It was a
ridiculous response. Lydia may have kissed him that one time, but it didn’t
mean she wanted anything else from him. She’d only tried to ease his panic, and
it’d worked. They were friends. And their friendship only blossomed ever since
he started dating Malia.
It still hurt.
“Can we continue this later?” he pleaded, suddenly overwhelmed by everyone’s
attention. “Like after food and coffee and advil?”
“Yeah, about that,” Scott hedged. “It’s two in the afternoon.”
Stiles threw himself across the bed, toward the nightstand where his phone sat.
It was, in fact, 2:13 PM, and Jackson had left him messages warning about the
pack converging on the house. There were also messages about coffee being ready
and Jackson griping about Stiles choosing now to be figuratively dead to the
world. But Jackson hadn’t bothered waking him until the very last minute.
Jackson had let him sleep.
Stiles rubbed at his heated face. He forgot the last time he slept like a real
person, and he never imagined he’d reach a day when he wanted to thank Jackson
for anything.
It felt strange to leave Jackson’s without even saying goodbye. But Jackson was
nowhere in sight, and he didn’t want to make another scene.
He looked back through his rear-view mirror as he drove home with Malia by his
side. Scott had Kira on his motorbike, and Lydia had wound up driving Malia to
the house. Now Lydia was staying behind with Jackson, and Stiles didn’t know
how to feel about that.
“How come Jackson’s being overprotective of you?” Malia asked, reeling him back
to the present situation.
He sighed. “I honestly don’t even know anymore.”
“I get it if you can’t talk to me. But you could talk to Scott—he’d understand.
You turning to Jackson… everyone keeps telling me that’s unheard of.”
“Obviously it’s unheard of. We’ve got some troubled history. But lately he’s
been… tolerable.”
“Stiles,” she pressed. “Tell me what’s going on, for real.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can smell it on you. Whatever weirdness that’s between you and Lydia doesn’t
come close to this. You like him, don’t you?”
He damn near swerved the Jeep into a parked car. “Jackson and I are friends at
best.”
“You keep getting jealous that Jackson’s with Lydia.”
He had to cut his losses if he was going to get through this. “I still have
feelings for Lydia, okay? That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you.
Lydia’s just my first love, and I’m trying really hard to get over it. All
right? Jackson has nothing to do with it. You make me happy, Malia.”
“Do I?” she asked, and it was like a stake in his heart. “You’re not over what
the nogitsune did to you. And I was a part of that. It’s like I’m hurting you
every time we try to be together.”
“Malia.”
“I can see you’re trying, I do. And I keep telling myself you just need time
and space. But my coyote wants to keep you close and protect you… it doesn’t
get why lizard guy is doing a better job than me.”
“You shouldn’t feel inadequate over this. There’s a million things you do
better than Jackson.”
“He’s the one making you happy, though. It’s got me thinking I’d rather see you
happy with him than struggling with me.”
“So what are you saying?” he asked, waiting for the devastation to hit.
She fidgeted in her seat. “I guess I’m breaking up with you? I honestly don’t
know how this dating stuff works. You’re the first person I’ve ever been with,
and I don’t want to be left alone again. Except the more I hang out with
everyone else, the more I realize I have a pack now. I’ve been afraid of losing
you, but I’m not afraid anymore. You and I are in this together whether we’re
dating or not. So if keeping you safe means breaking up with you, I think I’m
okay with that.”
His jaw dropped. If this were last night, he’d be a goner. But he wasn’t losing
Malia, not really. “You know I still like you, right?”
“I think I’ll always like you too… just not as a boyfriend. Is that okay?”
He chewed his lip as he mulled it over. “Okay… but Jackson?”
His mind kept wandering to the day before. The warmth of Jackson’s wolf and how
safe he felt while hugging it.
He found himself missing Jackson, but missing Jackson meant caring that he
wasn’t around.
 
#
 
Jackson watched from his bedroom window as Stiles drove away, girlfriend in the
passenger seat. He’d been unable to able to say goodbye without it tearing him
inside. So he ran, like he always did.
Stiles could have clung to anyone as he cried his eyes out until his bones
stopped shaking. McCall had been ready to step in. It didn’t matter how nice
it’d felt being held by Stiles like he was precious. Stiles wasn’t his; he had
no right to stake a claim. Stiles had no slightest clue how much of his scent
he’d rubbed off on Jackson during his snotfest. He needed another shower to get
Stiles’s scent off him, no matter how much his wolf dreaded the very thought of
scrubbing it away. There was too much at stake to simply fall into Stiles’s
arms.
He clenched his jaw and turned around to face Lydia as she sauntered into his
room. She sat on the bed, expecting him to take a seat beside her, but he
pressed up against his desk instead and swallowed around the tightness in his
throat.
“So,” she started, judging the distance between them before giving him a tight-
lipped smile. “You and Stiles.”
“Stiles had a panic attack and spent the night bawling his eyes out,” he said
with a shrug. “Then he was too exhausted to drive, so I gave him the spare
room.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He growled. He kept forgetting the real Lydia saw a lot more than she let on.
It wasn’t like he ever hid his sexuality. Even as a toddler, his parents let
him entertain the idea of marriage with Isaac, before he understood what it
meant. He just never made a habit of bragging about what made his dick hard
unless it had to do with Lydia. Everyone understood there’d be hell to pay if
they touched her while she was his.
“You seriously believe I’d cheat on you… with him?”
“No. I don’t think you’d cheat.”
Her heartbeat was steady, but he could still pick out the jealousy in her
scent. “Then why are you making a big deal out of it? Even if Stiles was
capable of feeling the same, he can go be sexually confused with his
girlfriend.”
“So there is something more going on.”
He caught the slight tremble to her voice, like she wasn’t just tightening the
leash on him. “The only thing going on is a giant headache.”
“I know this is new to you,” she said, “but Stiles and I are friends. I care
about him. And I wanted to help before you decided you need to play hero.”
“I wasn’t playing,” he grit out.
“Yeah, I can see that now. You actually care about him.”
Jackson rolled his eyes so he didn’t have to look at her.
He cared too much, and it had loosened his hold on his wolf.
Losing control the way that he had… it was just asking for a death sentence.
His wolf was as much of an abomination as the kanima, a thing created out of a
near death experience. But while Anita’s full-shift was revered, his wolf’s
existence was a direct challenge to the status quo. Dominic warned him of the
people who’d take it as a spit to the face, this low-grade outsider achieving
something only alphas and leaders deserved.
If word spread, he doubted he’d be able to get out of it alive. And the people
he cared about would get caught in the cross-fire.
“What do you get out of being with me?” he asked.
He’d chosen Lydia. Like she wanted him to. Like he was supposed to. They’d been
together for five years, and they could be together for fifty more if he just
accepted it.
Lydia blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Why are we even dating? Do you want me hurting you again?”
Lydia canted her head and sighed dramatically. “Obviously not. It’s in the
past.”
“The past,” he scoffed. “We keep trying to bring back our past, but they’re as
flimsy as the words written in a stupid notebook.”
Lydia stiffened, but her rising pulse didn’t bring with it the scent of bottled
rage. It was that fear again. “I’d like to believe what we have is stronger
than anterograde amnesia.”
“I keep fucking it up with you,” he said. “I thought I was better, but I
can’t…” He couldn’t keep her safe when he couldn’t even keep himself safe.
She pursed her lips. “So you aren’t even going to try?”
His silence was damning.
“Well,” she said sharply. “If there’s one thing Stiles has over me, it’s being
more impervious to your bullshit. If you ever hurt him, he’d go out of his way
to destroy you.”
It shouldn’t have stung as much as it did. She was his anchor. She was supposed
to keep him grounded when nothing else went right. But he was drowning, and
Lydia only knew how to drag him down deeper.
“I love you, Lydia, I do. But let’s not kid ourselves. I’ll never be enough for
you. For anyone. So you need to move the fuck on, for both of us.”
Lydia’s eyes flared as she stood. “You’re wrong, but doesn’t matter what I
think anymore. I’ll see myself out.”
There was nothing more to be said as she left.
And then he called Danny to fill the empty space.
 
#
 
Stiles drove Malia home only to have Mr. Tate insist on him staying for lunch.
The man persisted even after finding out about the break-up. Mr. Tate thought
Stiles was very mature for staying friends with his daughter, and he looked at
Malia more proudly than the day Stiles announced he and Malia started dating.
Stiles’s thoughts lingered more about his weirdness with Jackson than about the
weirdness of his sudden ex-girlfriend. He was unable to shake the memory of
Jackson’s real smile when he wasn’t being a condescending jerk or the way
Jackson’s wolf felt right in his arms. He wasn’t sure how to approach the guy
now that they had their touchy-feely moment, and Malia’s assertions only
complicated things more.
His head was in a weird spot, and that historically led to regrettable choices.
But he somehow withheld from texting Jackson the moment he got home.
He lay on his mattress and stared up at the ceiling, seriously considering just
telling Scott everything going on in his head. He couldn’t understand what was
stopping him. They always helped one another with their panic attacks. They
could both talk about how they were mentally fucked by the sacrifice. And Scott
had a taste of fugue states and nightmares because of Peter’s alpha mind
control. Scott certainly knew what break-ups felt like.
Lucky for him that Scott texted first.
>> SCOTT: Malia just messaged me. Should I come over?
Stiles mulled it over.
>> STILES: I don’t want to talk about it
>> SCOTT: We can just game or something
Stiles agreed on the condition that Scott wouldn’t go easy on him.
But waiting for Scott to arrive meant more time alone with his thought. His
fingers hovered over his phone screen as he pressed on Danny’s name.
>> STILES: Your best friend is ruining my life
>> DANNY: Sounds mutual to me
>> DANNY: Good news is Jackson finally sounds like he’s through with Lydia
Stiles rubbed his heated face. He didn’t think they’d break up this fast. On
the same day as Malia broke up with him.
But he couldn’t bring himself to regret his time with Jackson.
>> STILES: Three times is a pattern
>> DANNY: About damn time too
>> DANNY: The girl pitted Jackson against Scott
>> DANNY: He wouldn’t have given a shit about getting the Bite if he wasn’t
driven to his breaking point
>> DANNY: And for what?
>> DANNY: Her approval
Stiles remembered that day Lydia worked her seductress skills in the hospital,
getting Jackson to take extra cortisone shots so he wouldn’t get benched. It’d
solidified his theory that she was using him as a body shield against the
advances of other guys. And he’d felt no sympathy for Jackson back then. In
fact, his attraction to Lydia only heightened at her being a schemer just like
him.
>> STILES: Lydia’s grown out of that
>> DANNY: So what?
>> DANNY: Her perfectionism isn’t going anywhere
>> DANNY: And we both know Jackson’s obsessed with being perfect.
Stiles stared at his screen. He’d never seen Danny mad a day in his life, and
he was afraid to respond.
He typed out “As though Jackson is anything but perfect” before deleting it.
>> STILES: Won’t take long for Jackson to find someone new
>> STILES: He’s got everyone swooning over him
>> DANNY: Well, I’m not. I dunno about Scott. I sure as hell hope Derek’s isn’t
Stiles opened his mouth, then closed it, then opened it again. When he said
everyone, he forgot who ‘everyone’ involved.
>> STILES: I regret telling you anything
>> DANNY: As you should
 
#
 
Jackson parked in front of a building complex in the abandoned warehouse
district. It was about as desolate and forlorn as the burnt house, exactly the
sort of place Derek would choose to move to. Except the way Danny remembered
it, there’d been a black light party hosted at Derek’s loft—without Derek’s
knowledge. The place had been packed with attendees, all people who just
assumed it was just being grunge and ‘underground.’
He wasn’t sure he was thankful for Danny knowing the address.
He sighed and palmed his car keys with the USB stick was still attached to
them. He wished Cora was still around so he wouldn’t need to face Derek again.
And seeing as Derek wasn’t in a stalking mood, he was finished waiting for his
hand to be forced.
He didn’t have to pass on the information on the thumb drive. But Anita’s voice
rung in his head, telling him the remaining Hales had a right to know. And if
he was already burning bridges, he may as well go through all of them at once.
He knocked on the loft door, not sure what to expect. Certainly not Peter Hale
standing before him with a crooked grin across his face. Jackson bit back a
growl as his wolf wanted nothing more than to claw at that smug expression.
But he wasn’t stupid enough to try to take Peter in a fair fight.
“Look who’s back,” Peter said. “Haven’t you heard? Derek’s not alpha anymore.”
“You don’t live here.”
“No, I don’t. What’s it to you?”
“Where’s Derek?”
“He’s out,” Peter conceded. “But you’re welcome to wait inside… if it’s that
important to you.”
Jackson didn’t turn his back to Peter as he stepped inside. The loft was bleak
and barely furnished, with walls of exposed brick and a giant paned window
fogged over with years of crud. Most of the light came from the yellow building
lights from outside, but there was also a lit desk lamp and an electric menorah
with eight flame-shaped lightbulbs—one raised higher than the others.
Part of him expected the inevitability of facing the man again, but not this
soon. Peter had a cozy fucking existence as he remained within the safe
confines of Beacon County, playing the reformed wolf and biding his time,
waiting until he had every piece in place again before his next gambit for
power. Jackson didn’t know whether the six year coma was what made Peter into
the man he was today, but it didn’t matter. Peter had a thirst for blood that
couldn’t be quenched even after ripping Kate Argent’s throat out, and it’d
taken Jackson setting him on fire and Derek tearing his throat out to put a
stop to Peter’s alpha lust.
Jackson couldn’t stand it.
He adjusted his jacket, noting the way Peter’s expression closed off the moment
he caught sight of the holstered gun strapped to Jackson’s chest. It’d been a
precaution against Derek, but the idea of making Peter suffer was far more
satisfying.
“So they made you a gunner after all,” Peter said knowingly, claws and fangs
extending, eyes glowing ice blue.
“One of the best.”
Peter surged forward as Jackson swiveled to the side in a single, finely-tuned
motion, firing two shots to Peter’s knees and throwing off his momentum. Peter
slammed to the ground, howling in pain. Jackson aimed for the head next; it’d
be so easy to take the man out in the sorry state he was in now.
“Why didn’t you end him?” he demanded. “Why’d you let Gerard go?”
“This is what I get for saving your life?” Peter goaded between sharp breaths.
“You’re not stupid enough to believe in the power of love. You were trying to
win points with Derek before quietly becoming kanima master yourself.”
If this were a job, he’d be wasting precious time. There was no point in
wasting wolfsbane when blowing a wolf’s brains out was cheaper and less
suspicious to forensics. And that meant Peter, as weakened as he was, was still
healing as the spoke.
Peter had to have known it too as lay on his stomach, raking the concrete with
his claws and wincing as he tried and failed to get up on all fours. “You’re a
mystery, Jackson, even to me. Lydia… her grandmother was a known banshee, and
these things tend to skip generations. But you? I knew there was more to you
since the day I witnessed Derek’s scratch glow near my alpha claws.”
Jackson resisted rubbing the scar. “Is that what you tried to do? Tried to see
if you could steal some kanima power with the help of Derek’s claws?”
“The claws access information… information I’m missing about you. And I don’t
like not knowing. Not when this forsaken town used to be ruled by the Hales. It
used to be mine.”
Jackson sneered. “Guess you decided my mom was yours too.”
He’d always felt something was different about him, deep down where he could
never really touch it. Becoming a werewolf was supposed to unlock his
potential. It was supposed to fix the broken bits inside him.
Peter flinched, his wolf receding and his human face taking on wide eyes and
parted lips. “You… You’re the one Talia took from me?”
“No. I’m your other broken condom.” His finger twitched on the trigger. Peter
had been his age at the time. “You should look into that before you ruin even
more lives. Now answer my fucking question. Why haven’t you killed Gerard yet?”
“You’re quite persistent in your grudges… much like myself. But killing that
man… it’s not as sweet as dragging my claws through Kate’s throat.” Peter’s lip
curled as his voice turned dark. “No. He deserves humiliation. He deserves to
know what it’s like to slowly die inside. And you, of all people, should be
pleased by Gerard’s body caving in on itself as it rejects its wolf. It’s
exactly the hell he deserves… son.”
A chill ran up Jackson’s spine.
“We’re not on the same side,” Jackson said, more to himself than to the
bleeding monster on the floor. “This doesn’t put us on the same side. And you
better get that through your skull and quick because I’m done with your shit.
I’m done with you.”
He pulled the trigger.
***** Chapter 10 *****
Stiles was glad he had Scott around.
Dad was off at work, which gave them the house to themselves as they played
endless Mario Kart in the living room.
They were in the middle of a match when the doorbell rang. The pizza delivery
guy had already came and went, so there wasn’t anyone they were expecting.
Stiles cautiously checked the window to see who it was, and his mouth dropped
when the person standing on the other side was none other than Derek Hale in
the flesh, scruffy beard and leather jacket included.
He wasn’t afraid of the surly twenty-four-year-old like he used to be. They
weren’t exactly friends, but they weren’t enemies either. And although Derek
had kept his distance during the summer after he learned his lesson about
treating Scott like he was less than gum under his shoe, once the alpha pack
revealed themselves, Derek started acting more like a begrudging ally than
frenemy.
Stiles hadn’t thought they could ever be more than that, but there was
something else there these days.
Or at least there was up until the nogitsune literally crawled under Derek’s
skin and unhinged his darkest desire to set Chris Argent on fire as retribution
for Kate.
Stiles wasn’t sure where they stood now.
The moment he opened the door, Derek pushed his way inside.
“Scott,” Derek said, putting up appearances even though there was something
ragged and weary beneath his posturing.
“Derek?”
“Stiles,” Stiles mumbled as he shut the door.
Derek glanced at him briefly before he wrinkled his nose in obvious distaste.
Stiles felt heat creep up his neck—Derek didn’t need to clarify why. Stiles was
wearing the same hoodie that he’d worn to Jackson’s, and there were strands of
white fur still stubbornly stuck to it.
“What’s wrong?” Scott asked.
Derek sighed heavily as he reached into his jacket pocket to reveal a USB
stick. “I take my eyes off Jackson for one minute, and he goes and leaves this
at the loft… right after he shot Peter.”
Scott’s horrified expression mirrored Stiles’s.
“Peter’s still alive,” Derek clarified, allowing air back into the room.
“Jackson didn’t shoot with the intention to kill. He wasn’t even using
wolfsbane bullets. Just shattered both of Peter’s knees before popping one more
in his shoulder.”
Stiles surged with pride. Killing Peter would solve so many problems, and yet
Jackson clearly didn’t want any more bodies on his conscience, no matter how
much Peter deserved it.
“Good boy,” he said under his breath. Except he forgot was dealing with two
werewolves, who heard him and both did a double-take. “I mean, how terrible.
For Peter. Whose wellbeing we care so deeply about.”
Scott was the first to shake it off. “What’s Jackson doing with a gun anyway?”
Derek immediately turned to Stiles. His expression wasn’t his typical annoyance
or disappointment… it was betrayal. “You didn’t tell him?”
“Tell me what?” Scott asked uncertainly.
Stiles’s stomach dropped. Scott wasn’t supposed to find out.
“That you’ve got a killer on your hands,” Derek said in his stead. “Seems
London’s ruined Jackson more than the Bite itself. They’ve trained him to
murder people. Knowingly. In cold blood.”
Scott paled, but just as he opened his mouth to reply, Stiles exclaimed, “And
they threw him out once he decided he was finished killing.” If Derek had
really been lurking the night of the full moon, he should have known that too.
“You’re really going to believe him on that?” Derek growled as he crossed his
arms. “Don’t forget how he was willing to sell us out to the Argents because he
wasn’t getting his way. How do you know he’s not working for someone right
now?”
Derek had every right to be suspicious. Both Kate and Jennifer had wriggled
their way into his brain and laid waste to his life.
Derek didn’t do trust.
On a normal day, Stiles didn’t either. And he was usually on board with
wholeheartedly distrusting the shit out of anyone trying to weasel their way
into his and Scott’s life. But the Jackson he’d grown to know in the last month
wasn’t the same guy he’d spent years drawing horns and mustaches on.
“He’s done being a pawn in someone else’s game,” he defended. “Though I
wouldn’t put it past people to want to set him up to fail.”
Scott’s gaze skittered between Stiles and Derek, and Stiles hated the torn look
on his face. It was usually Stiles and Derek on the same side against him.
“It’s true that Jackson’s been acting different,” Scott said carefully. “But
not suspiciously different. Whatever he’s hiding… I don’t think he has any
ulterior motives for it.”
“And what if you’re wrong?” Derek asked incredulously. He was practically
pleading. “Jackson’s had a special investigator look into his genealogy—it’s
all on this thumb drive. Kanimas are created from a mutated werewolf gene, and
Jackson didn’t get his from me. No, turns out he’s been carrying it all along.
Because of Peter.”
Scott furrowed his brow. “Wait, since when?”
“My uncle…” Derek sneered. “He went screwing around with Jackson’s mother
seventeen years ago.”
“Oh my god,” Stiles said. “Wouldn’t that make Malia his sister? That’d make the
two of you cousins!”
Derek’s expression twisted in disgust. “Peter’s already confirmed he had
‘relations’ around the time of Jackson’s conception. He’d assumed nothing came
of it. It’s why Mom didn’t touch those memories along with the other child he
seems to have spawned. I don’t know why I’m surprised by any of this. But
there’s no telling what sort of alliance will come of father and son.”
“This is still Jackson we’re talking about,” Scott said. “He’s not exactly
known for subtlety. Even when he tried manipulating Allison into trusting him…
she kind of knew what he was doing. She only went along because it wasn’t about
anything… this serious.”
Stiles nodded, glad he and Scott were on the same page. “And he was very vocal
about it. Literally the opposite of underhanded.”
“How convenient,” Derek deadpanned, “that Jackson’s got you both trusting him
now.”
“If Stiles is willing to give Jackson a chance,” Scott said, “then he really
needs the benefit of the doubt.” He stole a glimpse at Stiles. “And… as long as
he’s not killing people anymore, he hasn’t done anything wrong.”
Stiles could fist pump. For once he was thankful for Scott’s persistence in
seeing the best in people. He needed Scott on his side, even if it threatened
to permanently etch scowl lines into Derek’s chiseled face.
“Jackson just happens to return right after everything’s settled down, and
neither of you see it. His little stunt with Peter was a warning. Just you
watch, the snake’s going to try his hand at becoming alpha himself. To start
his own pack. And he’s already taking Stiles right from under you.”
“Jackson hates me,” Scott said firmly. “But he also sees me as an alpha, maybe
not his alpha, but still. I don’t think he wants to be alpha now that he gets
the amount of responsibility involved.”
“Are you willing to bet your life on it, Scott?”
Scott sucked in a sharp breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
Derek shook his head and tsked. “I wouldn’t. But that’s the thing about
Jackson—he’s everyone’s mistake.” He tossed the USB stick to Scott, who caught
it with ease. “You’ll just have to figure that out the hard way.” Derek then
gave Stiles one last wary glance before storming out. “I wouldn’t let him into
my head so easily if I was you.”
Stiles’s throat dried as Derek shut the front door.
Had he let Jackson into his head? Had he compromised himself again? His heart
slammed in his chest with the force of a punch to the gut.
He flinched when a hand touched his back, but it was only Scott trying to
comfort him.
“Dude,” Scott said after a minute of sheer silence. “You okay?”
Stiles wiped the cold sweat from his brow. “Did we really just defend Jackson
even after finding out he’s the spawn of the devil?”
“Yeah, but if it helps, you always thought he’s the spawn of the devil.”
Stiles snorted. “Thanks for, uh…”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“No, I do.” He stumbled over his words. “I’d be as worried as Derek if I wasn’t
so sure Jackson regretted everything. But you gotta know: Jackson’s still a
jerk, okay? You haven’t missed much there. The scary skeletons in his closet…
Jackson’s really done with that life. And just because I’ve been spending more
time with him lately does not mean I know every little thing that’s going on.”
Which was true, to an extent. He didn’t know about the last several hours.
“It’s okay,” Scott confided. “I know you’d have told me eventually.”
Stiles couldn’t bear the idea of Scott realizing he’s lying. He snatched the
flash drive from Scott’s hand. “So are we gonna check out what’s on this thing
or not?”
They spent the next half hour poring over the digitized files compiled by the
special-special investigator, who was versed in all things supernatural as they
combed the ancestry of the Miller family line for any signs of werewolves.
But there’d been none.
Not until the investigation dug deeper into Jackson’s birth parents, who
married straight out of high school. They’d been trying to conceive a baby for
three years with no luck before Margaret’s illicit affair.
“She kept the baby…” Scott said softly. “She kept Jackson.”
Margaret had wanted Jackson, wanted him enough to conceal his origins. And then
she died the day he was born, surviving the crash only long enough to deliver
him via C-section while on life support.
“Peter actual-motherfucking Hale,” Stiles muttered as he dropped his face into
his palms, questioning how he hadn’t seen it sooner. Jackson had the same
narcissism, the overwhelming need for vengeance, and, especially, the hunger
for greatness. There was even a family resemblance in their blue eyes, cleft
chins, and resting bitch face.
Scott turned to Stiles. “This is Jackson’s real lost identity.”
“But a kanima’s identity resolves itself only by the hand of the alpha who bit
it. That’d be Derek, regardless of Peter’s… indiscretions.”
“Really? Because Anita may have blamed her mom for not being born a werewolf,
but her identity was tied up with wanting to be like her dad. What if Jackson’s
was tied up with Peter on some unconscious level?”
Stiles wanted to deny it, but Jackson already shared a subconscious link with
Peter—the dreams of the Hale fire couldn’t have come from anyone else. “You
saying Peter literally backstabbing Jackson saved him in the end?”
“When you put it like that…” Scott frowned. “Fuck, man. You think Jackson
considered it that way too?”
Stiles chewed his lip as he whipped out his phone and stared at the screen.
They’d already hurt Jackson enough with their theories. But he needed to tell
Jackson something.
Scott looked over his shoulder, seeing Jackson’s name in the chat window. “You
sure that’s a good idea?”
“No. But that’s never stopped me before.”
>> STILES: Hey, Jacks, I’m not upset at you for shooting Peter. In fact, I’m
the opposite of upset with that. And just so we’re clear, it doesn’t matter if
he’s your sperm donor. You’ll always be a standard Jackson-level hazard to me
>> STILES: That’s non-negotiable
>> STILES: Deal with it
Jackson immediately responded.
>> JACKSON: Why the fuck did Derek come to you first
Stiles rolled his eyes.
>> STILES: Correction, he came to Scott
>> STILES: Who just happened to be with me
>> STILES: Tried to convince us you’re up to something, and I kinda defended
your honor with Scott as my witness
>> JACKSON: Where’s Derek now?
>> STILES: Sulking probably
>> STILES: He didn’t like that I took Scott’s side
>> JACKSON: This isn’t about you
>> STILES: Why are you so worried? Derek’s a good person underneath the snarls.
He just has a hard time expressing it without slamming people against walls
>> JACKSON: Are we still talking about the same guy?
>> JACKSON: Derek recruited a bunch of troubled teens with the promise of power
only to use them as meat shields
>> JACKSON: And he’d have used me too if he had me
Stiles glanced at Scott, who was trying to keep himself busy on his computer. A
part of him wished Scott went through with killing Peter while he was still
alpha, regardless of whether Derek lied about it being a cure. Maybe then Derek
wouldn’t have gone on his power high and mauled Jackson before throwing him in
the lake for good measure, like he was trying to double the chances of Jackson
dying. Jackson had every reason to refuse to be part of Derek’s pack after
that.
>> STILES: Look, I’m not denying that Derek did some fucked up shit as an
alpha, okay?
>> STILES: He beat up Scott for the lolz when Scott tried to warn Boyd away
>> STILES: And he’d have sabotaged Scott’s plan with Gerard if he was aware of
it, just to claim superiority
>> JACKSON: Derek has /always/ been looking for an excuse to bury me
Stiles couldn’t argue with that.
>> STILES: Derek comes from a place so broken it’d take decades of therapy to
resolve
>> STILES: Besides, you weren’t here when Jennifer, well, more like the darach,
used her magic to compel him into trusting her
>> STILES: Losing his alpha powers was probably best for him
>> STILES: Plus he’s chilled since he got Cora back
>> JACKSON: You wouldn’t be so quick to defend him if he went after you
>> STILES: He’s threatened to on several occasions
>> STILES: In fact, Derek’s solution to every threat used to be “kill it”
>> STILES: Remember how he also tried to kill Lydia when he thought /she/ was
the kanima
>> JACKSON: But I bet he never once considered solving the nogitsune possession
by killing /you/
Stiles’s chest tightened.
Derek hadn’t even been able to believe that he’d be the one possessed in the
first place. He thought him too weak and defenseless to be worthwhile for a
demon. Was that why Derek constantly got overprotective of him?
Or was Jackson just getting into his head?
>> STILES: This isn’t about me and Derek
>> STILES: It’s about you
>> STILES: It’s very easy not to like you
>> STILES: Hell, I’ve had fantasies about you eating a giant slice of humble
pie since grade school
>> STILES: You have no idea how badly I wanted you to lose your money, your
looks, your athleticism, …Lydia
>> STILES: I had my heart set on the idea that after we graduated high school
I’d catch you flipping burgers and reminiscing about your glory days
Scott cleared his throat, and Stiles was brought back to the moment.
What was he doing? He thought he was over it. What did he have to gain by
unleashing decade’s worth of frustration on Jackson now?
>> STILES: I wanted you to KNOW what it means be a nobody and to lose
everything…
>> STILES: But not like this.
>> STILES: Never like this.
 
#
 
Jackson’s teeth chattered as a full-body shiver took hold of him.
>> JACKSON: HOW NICE!
>> JACKSON: It’s okay if I fail in life, but only if it’s by your standards
>> STILES: That’s what you get for treating everyone like they’re beneath you
>> STILES: But you’ve paid your steep fucking price for it
It was the full moon all over again. Except this time Jackson didn’t have to
put up with Stiles’s jabs.
He turned off his phone and tossed it across his bed.
He’d time to stop by a Chinese food place before stopping by the video store,
and it was getting more and more apparent that Derek was just fucking with him
now.
Why else would Derek be taking his sweet ass time in hunting him down?
Derek didn’t need to check the contents of the USB stick, not when Jackson shot
Peter.
Whatever.
It wasn’t like he was looking forward to getting pummeled anyway.
He’d bought up whichever new DVDs were in available—just because he could. The
freedom to get everything except The Notebook always managed to pump him up.
And he topped off the pile with a bunch of pornos he could buy with his fake
ID.
If there was one thing that could take his mind off things, it was porn, and
he’d stocked himself with plenty of it.
He jerked himself and fell asleep a quarter of the way through the video as the
sounds of fucking helped clear out the silence around him. But his wolf was
restless, and he kept dreaming of running through the woods, endlessly running.
After a while, he finally gave up and drove out to the preserve in the
darkness.
The shift came easily to him, his wolf grateful for shedding the follies of its
human half.
As he ran, his ears tuned into the blowing wind and the crunching beneath his
paws. There were skitters beyond a bush, birds flapping overhead. And his nose
latched onto the scents of tree bark and fresh earth and wild game.
But soon enough he found himself at the Hale house again, pulled to it like a
magnet as the rankness of mold and decayed wood mingled with the remains of
ash.
He used to be terrified of this place, but it was only a place now.
The charred floorboards creaked under him as he made his way up the porch and
to the front door before hopping through a broken window. He landed in the
foyer, alone in a house he’s never been alone in before.
Wind whistled through open gaps in the walls. Beyond that there was only
silence, no voices whispering to him, no one to tell him what he should do. No
one except for his wolf wandering the halls.
The living room was the only thing that remained of the bottom floor, and it
was lived in despite the singed brick and weathered wooden beams. Upstairs were
the bedrooms, all untouched except for Derek’s, bedrooms full of lives cut
short, their ruined belongings in disarray across the floor.
The floor was caked with dirt and dust, but not as much as it’d have if Derek
hadn’t continued living here after the fire and all the times hunters turned
the place into a trap.
The basement was empty aside from the faint scents of people, too fresh to be
the remains of the dead Hales who got trapped here.
Jackson didn’t want anything to do with the Hales who survived the fire, but
the ones who didn’t…
If his biological mother had lived, he’d have been a Miller, but it didn’t stop
him from imagining a different world where Talia Hale took him in.
From the stories he’d heard, Alpha Hale was as much a shrewd politician as she
was a doting mother. She was respected, even revered, for her insight, never
asking for more than what she would do in any given situation, herself.
Jackson wanted to believe she was the sort of alpha who’d lovingly raise him in
spite of his parent’s mistakes. He wanted to know what it’d have been like to
call this his home.
It’d be worth enduring the fire to have known the love of a distinguished pack.
He had no doubt he’d be one of the bodies trapped here, ten years old and
surrounded by family. His latent connection to Peter ensured that his
nightmares got the details just right, how Talia used every bit of her strength
to try to break the mountain ash barrier and how Peter took the brunt of the
flames in order to cover Cora.
The nameless relatives weren’t nameless after all, their faces so clear and
constant that Jackson was able to track them down online, collecting images of
them smiling instead of screaming.
He was almost relieved when the wind brought with it Derek’s scent.
He returned to the foot of the stairs and stretched in front of the blackened
steps. He rested his head on his dust-caked paws. He wouldn’t mind spending the
rest of his days being a sentinel for this monument to the Hales. And if the
earth opened up to finally take him, he wouldn’t fight.
Derek burst through the door, but his contempt immediately changed to awe and
disgust.
Jackson always assumed Derek knew about his wolf, or at least his capacity to
full-shift. But in the end, the ‘training’ choke collars and metal cages had
just been for Derek’s entertainment.
Somehow that felt more right.
Jackson returned to his human state, naked and exposed. Just like so many of
their confrontations before.
He absently traced the chipped paint on the railing. “Took you long enough.”
“This isn’t your home,” Derek said through his teeth. “You’re not my family.”
Jackson waited for Derek to march forward and punch him in the jaw, to display
his dominance and make sure Jackson’s wolf knew to cower. But he could feel the
absence of authority over him as Derek’s eyes glowed ice blue. How long would
someone like Derek survive in London?
“So do something about it,” Jackson goaded. He never belonged in the first
place—he shouldn’t have been conceived, and he shouldn’t have lived through the
crash.
“Who are you working for?” Derek asked instead.
“No one.”
Derek’s face twisted like he was trying to figure out how Jackson could be
lying. He flared his nostrils and snarled. “You’re up to something. I know it.
What do you want with Stiles?”
“Nothing.” But Jackson’s heart skittered from the sense of loss.
Derek sneered triumphantly. “And there it is.”
“Christ,” Jackson said as he threw his hands up. “You should ask what he wants
with me instead. He’s been circling like a shark that’s found blood.”
“Well, you’re good at being covered in it. How many people have you killed in
London?”
Jackson closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. It didn’t do anything to
calm him, not when Derek’s scent hit him. Fuck. He thought he was so careful
the night of the full moon. He thought there was no way in hell Derek could
sneak up on him. But he became so focused on Stiles’s scent that he completely
overlooked Derek’s presence.
Derek continued to be one step ahead of him.
“That many, huh?” Derek scoffed as he put his hands on his hips. “It was only a
matter of time until your true colors came to light.”
Jackson didn’t need to be reminded of how he’d chosen this road long before his
brain got hijacked. He’d started dating Lydia for the prestige, and he became
entitled to it, enough to be blindsided by McCall.
And he’d channeled every bit of Peter, Matt, and Gerard inside him to survive
his months in London. He didn’t know who he was without them anymore.
So what was left for him?
A heavy calm took root in his stomach as he stretch out his arms. “Then end it
once and for all,” he said as he met Derek’s gaze. “I’ve got no more revivals
in me. So this is your chance. End me. Do it. I don’t care anymore.”
Derek took a step back. “No,” he said, the word falling like an anvil. For a
second Jackson swore Derek saw him—really saw him—and not the fictional enemy
he’d built up in his head. “I’m not putting another kid to death, even if that
kid is you.” He clenched his fists. “I’m a predator, but I don’t have to be a
killer.”
Jackson scratched the scar on the nape of his neck. “Why? You never had a
problem hurting me before. It’s not like I’m innocent.” He growled in
frustration. “I’m giving you an out. There’s no trap. You can finally be rid of
me. That’s what you always wanted, wasn’t it?”
Derek huffed, failing to mask the worry beneath his hard expression. “What I
want is for you to stop dragging down everyone around you. Stiles will figure
you out. He’ll remember why you’re a no-good waste of time. And then there’ll
be no one left to bail you out when you fuck up. Which you will. And I’m done
having any part in it.”
Derek pointed out the door as he moved aside.
“Leave, Jackson. Before I throw you out.”
Jackson was numb as his wolf took over, dashing from the house before he could
test the extent of Derek’s threat.
His vision narrowed to what was directly in front of him, and even that didn’t
stop the roots and rocks from snagging on his feet. Everything smelled barren
and distant, like it was happening to someone else. He could only hear the
blood in his veins, the rasp of his breathing.
He found himself groping though the forest, hoping he could disappear and no
one would know to look for him. But he inevitably returned to the spot with his
car, and his human put on clothes before taking the wheel.
The drive back was a blur, a combination of instinct and muscle memory.
He wasn’t even thinking when he unlocked the front door.
His phone was still on his bed. Stiles’s absence grated at him, but it was for
the best.
The gun was where he left it in his drawer. His last set of wolfsbane bullets
were tucked away in the closet.
For once in his life, he felt no fear.
Even if he fucked this up, the poison would take him. His wolf didn’t protest,
either. It felt guilt for resuscitating him, for springing him back to a world
that didn’t need him. He’d be doing everyone a service by disappearing for
good.
He never understood what it was like to want to die until the day Gerard
commanded him to puncture his own stomach. He’d wanted it too. Wanted it as
much as Gerard did. And remembering it now, there was no nausea. There was only
the assurance that dying came in two parts: first the bright white scalding
pain, and then the numb nothingness.
Death really was just a long, endless sleep.
End Notes
     --TO BE CONTINUED--
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