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feelingsdusk-writes · 6 years ago

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Runes and all kinds of things

Chapter 6

Stiles doesn’t know what woke him up but he reacts before coherent thinking even kickstarts. Then, a second after the act and with his brain finally as awake as the rest of his body, he remembers that Allison left two days ago and realizes there may very well be a real threat in his room… still in the middle of the night, judging by the lack of natural light. He reaches to his right hastily and grabs his bat in a white-knuckled fist.

“Impressive,” Peter muses as he tries to work out how he got trapped in the first place, since Stiles hasn’t moved from the bed.

"Thanks," he deadpans in a flat tone, wishing he could just go back to sleep but knowing it's not an option.

Stiles scowls and turns on the light to find the man on his windowmat, inside a mountain ash circle (he tries to decide if he’s more proud of his accomplishment than irritated he's had to use it to begin with...). The werewolf pokes at the invisible barrier and hisses at the faint electrical discharge he receives in return at the contact (... and irritation wins). Stiles grins vindictively (he can, after all, choose to make it hurt or not, and the level of pain it inflicts too), aggravated at being woken up at… yep, five in the morning.

“You know that if I had an actual weapon this wouldn’t stop it, right? A mountain ash circle doesn’t actually stop objects thrown out from the inside. Or vice versa. The only reason it normally works so well for hunters (apart from the trapping thing, that is) is because weres tend to rely on their claws,” Peter points out as he wiggles his completely human fingers at Stiles.

“Is that so?” he can’t resist sassing back at the man, scooting up in his bed to relax against the headboard.

One day, he knows, his mouth will be his downfall. Peter stills for a second and then grins delightedly. He looks contemplatively at his bag, seemingly deciding what to sacrifice, then takes out his phone (what the hell is that brick?!). Stiles smirks in advance. Peter takes notice and seems to be enjoying his vindictiveness way too much, seeing that he's the recipient of it. The werewolf deliberately throws that relic of the prehistoric era at the barrier, which fries the phone immediately with clearly visible shocks of electricity. Both of them eye the smoke coming from it almost transfixed.

“That had way more voltage than before… Neat. I hadn’t actually counted on it killing the phone though, to be honest.“ Peter shrugs. “Ah, well, I’m sure my dear nephew won’t be too heartbroken by the loss… He didn’t notice it was gone, after all.”

Stiles chokes on his own spit and coughs first, then he can’t help laughing. His amusement is such that he actually has to smother the sound with his hand to avoid waking up his dad. Peter looks terribly satisfied and the normally crafty man doesn’t even bother to hide it.

“Soooo… any reason why you’re here?” he inquires when he finally has his mirth under control, tapping his fingers absently on the handle of the bat.

“Stiles, you wound me," Peter protests and Stiles' lips twitch involuntarily. The teen also finds it terribly amusing the way the werewolf is nonchalantly avoiding touching the invisible walls of his current prison and managing to make it look like he isn't even trying. In fact, Stiles finds it so amusing that he keeps the fact that the mountain ash isn't active any more silent. "Do I need one?”

“At the moment, yes," Stiles answers pragmatically.

Instead of getting angry at the rebuttal, Peter’s eyes shine with an odd sort of satisfaction. Stiles notes it but doesn't comment, content to mull over the mystery for now.

“Derek wants to ask you something.”

“You want me to believe he sent you? Or, more likely, you heard him talking to Isaac and decided to come yourself?”

“Semantics.” Stiles snorts at the dismissive hand gesture of the man. “He wanted to ask you about those two betas that pulled the disappearance act. I haven’t bothered learning their names.” He makes a dismissive motion with his hand again, this time accompanied by a matching facial expression, and if that was an actual thing, Stiles would die from a sass overload.

“What about them? What can he want to ask me that they don’t know the answer of?” Peter looks at him with a curious expression. “What?”

“Derek doesn’t know where they are and they aren’t answering their phone. There are traces of them in the preserve but they are nowhere to be found. Hasn’t Scott told you? He’s been combing the preserve with Isaac. Derek is positively thrilled with the double loyalties the curly puppy is sporting.”

Stiles grits his teeth to stop a scathing remark from escaping. The nerve of that… He tries to take a calming breath. Peter eyes him, bewildered, but doesn’t say a word. He can tell he’s surprised the man, which is a real feat with how tight-fisted his control normally is. Stiles gets up brusquely, his side protesting and drawing a pained grunt out of him, and paces the room restlessly.

No matter how much he can’t stand the sight of Scott at the moment and how angry he's with him, he would never do something like leaving him unaware of a threat, blind and vulnerable. Stiles doesn’t care about whatever the fuck is his reasoning, you just don’t… And Scott knows that his father is law enforcement and is going to probably be right in the middle of it, especially since he now is in the know, because Scott himself let the fucking cat out of the fucking bag. Stiles finally snarls irately and lets himself fall back on the bed face-first.

“I take it you didn’t know?” Peter inquires carefully.

“Tell Derek that the last time I saw them was when they left me to die. They seemed fine enough to run with their fucking tails between their legs,” Stiles answers, his voice muffled by the sheets because he hasn't bothered turning to address the man.

Minutes pass while Stiles tries not to reach the boiling point. He knows if he doesn’t get a grip on his temper, he’ll march to the McCall’s and do something like threaten Scott with opening him up, belly to throat, with a rusty knife. Maybe he needs to make the verbal equivalent of an overkill for it to penetrate his thick skull? Because everything else seems to be failing, dammit.

“Any reason you’re still here, creeperwolf?” He heaves himself to his elbows, eyebrow raised.

“I’m thrilled you think me so resourceful, sweetheart, but I’m not actually capable of doing the impossible,” Peter drawls crossing his arms.

“You came back from the dead,” Stiles deadpans.

“Yes, yes, do one measly impossible-ish" he does the magic fingers with one hand to accompany the word, “thing and be forever expected to pull miracles from where the sun doesn’t shine. Rude.” He fixes a faux stern expression on Stiles. “If you’d be so kind to break the barrier?”

“Peter,” he enunciates slowly, a little mocking and enjoying every second of it, “I took it down when you fried Derek’s phone. Take that trash with you, by the way.”

The werewolf blinks and then again has that odd satisfied expression that Stiles doesn’t even bother deciphering but files away for later inspection, too content having one upped Peter again.

“I’ll let you know if something new comes up,” the man says as he leaps to the window sill and then disappears.

Stiles is left there gaping. The phone is still there too, mocking him from where it rests completely charred on the windowmat. He would be cursing the man if there weren’t two new ancient looking books there that Stiles didn't even notice him leaving. Sneaky bastard.

Since there’s no use in trying to sleep again, he peruses the tomes carefully. It takes him no time to notice that these are the kinds of books that you have to handle with actual, honest to god, gloves (partly for preservation, partly because of the possible mites and pseudoscorpions). He first stops in his bathroom to wash his hands and face. Then he proceeds to clear his desk to gain some much needed space and gets his gloves from the drawer to put them on. Now ready, he prepares himself to be immersed in ancient literature and to be wowed.

Or well…The wowing will have to wait because he hasn’t the faintest idea of what they are about.

The first one he can’t understand at all. As in, he doesn’t even recognize the language it’s written in. A quick google search shows nothing, not even suggestions. Stiles rakes his head for the answer. Is it the language of some kind of supernatural species? He doubts it, Peter wouldn’t give him something he had no way of translating, right? Right? Stubbornly, he refuses to give up and call defeat on the challenge the man is undoubtedly issuing. It's embarrassing and Stiles won't probably ever admit it, but it takes him a disgustingly long time to work out that the book is encrypted.

He loves cryptography...

He doesn’t know how the man found out.

He forces himself to put it aside for a moment to check the second tome. It’s completely written in runes and Stiles knows enough about them to identify them as Germanic. But which one of the alphabets is it? Further research reveals it to be Elder Futhark, sometimes mixed with some other system he can’t seem to find.

These books are a goldmine of entertainment already and he doesn’t even know what they are about yet. The other two books that Stiles has already devoured had been about supernatural history both and he had enjoyed them immensely. If these are even near as good… Stiles twitches. Which one to choose…

He grabs the one filled with Runes, opens a Word document in his laptop and a lot of tabs with runic charts in his phone. God, how he wished he had another laptop. He starts translating. It appears to be easy enough to match the runes to translate it… until he realizes a couple of paragraphs later that he still doesn’t understand a thing. He looks at the document pouting before he decides to copy and paste the first line into the search bar of google. He thunks his head on the table. He searches runes in wikipedia and reads all the related posts. He tries to match the language of some of the translations there with his own. One word finally clicks with one of the Tune Stone. Proto-Norse.

That means that to read the second book, apart from actually translating the runes, he has to learn a Germanic language (Swedish, Danish or Norwegian), then from there the Old East Norse (the first two) or Old West Norse (the third) and from there, with the phonetic rules, what has been already translated and all that shit, try his hand at Proto-Norse. Never mind that experts can only begin to guess with the scant examples they have nowadays.

And fucking Peter Hale has an entire book.

At the very least.

“You beautiful bastard…”

“Who?”

“Gah!!!”

John watches amused as Stiles flails and only him rapidly securing his son prevents him from falling from the chair.

“Need a hand there, son?” he inquires, mouth quirking and face showing clearly that he thinks his son is a dork.

“Nope," Stiles pipes back, popping the p. "I’m perfect.”

“Does it hurt?” John finally asks worried, his amusement rapidly fading.

“If you count my pride…” Stiles grumbles. “No, really dad, I’m fine. The stitches just, well… itch.”

“You’ve always healed fast,“ he muses and eyes the books on the desk. “Did you sleep, Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” John fixes him with an unimpressed look.

Ah… full disclosure for the sake of a good relationship with his dad can be so problematic… The temptation to omit Peter’s presence in his room is high. He squashes it ruthlessly.

“Peter came by this morning. Derek wanted to ask me about Erica and Boyd because apparently they’re missing again and I’m the one that saw them last?“

“There’s a wonderful invention called the phone and something known as polite calling hours.”

“Yeah, but Derek was raised by wolves, you know. Like, literally.” John rolls his eyes and Stiles finishes a summary of what happened. He’s aware that although he’s not lying, he’s phrasing things to put Peter in a good light. “He didn’t even move from the window, dad. And to be honest, I’m glad he came or we wouldn’t have known about it.”

“I suppose.”

“He also said he’ll inform me if there’s anything new? Which is way more than I can say about the others… including Scott.”

“Okay, but no more visiting through the window for anyone. I like knowing who’s in my house.” He stops Stiles before he can protest. “I draw the line at Allison.” Stiles grins and looks at the windowmat, only to squint when he notices a tiny slip of paper on it.

“I’ll fire him a text to let him know.“

“And since when do you have his number?”

“Today?”

“Come on,” John sighs long-suffering. “We’re having pancakes before I leave for the station. I’m gonna get it this time even if it kills me.” Stiles snickers remembering last time’s product.

Before going downstairs he checks the slip of paper. Sure enough it has Peter’s number on it. He saves it in his phone and puts the little paper in his drawer along with the brick of a phone.

To Creeperwolf: You forgot to take out the trash. No treats for you.

From Creeperwolf: Sorry, honey, I’ll do better next time.

To Creeperwolf: Next time use the door.

To Creeperwolf: And call beforehand.

To Creeperwolf: Not at ungodly hours.

To Creeperwolf: If it is an emergency you can.

To Creeperwolf: I think I covered all my bases? I don’t know if I should feel impressed by your ability to find loopholes or not.

From Creeperwolf: I have that effect on people.

To Creeperwolf: Also you’re a sadistic bastard.

From Creeperwolf: So you like the books.

Stiles debates with himself for a moment before he goes for it.

To Creeperwolf: I do, thanks.

To Creeperwolf: But you’re still a sadist and a bastard.

To Creeperwolf: And I’m going to steal your library.

From Creeperwolf: You’ll try, you mean. You don’t even know where it is.

From Creeperwolf: Nice Batman pajamas by the way.

A strangled noise escapes Stiles as he squirms spastically in embarrassment. He lets himself fall face-first to the bed and wiggles, trying to smother himself with the comforter. That… that bastard! He finally deflates and reluctantly concedes defeat. This time.

“Stiles!”

“Coming!”

Once in the kitchen, he checks out Allison's latest message. Despite threatening to, she still hasn’t tried wiping out her father’s bank account via international videocalls. He smiles at the picture of her eating a croissant for breakfast and the wishing you were here underneath.

His father curses.

“Not a word.”

To his dad’s chagrin, he takes a picture of himself staring mournfully at the burned pancakes and sends it to her accompanied by a me too.

“Brat,“ his dad sighs long-suffering, earning a cheeky grin from Stiles.

—

From Creeperwolf: It occurs to me now that if Scott hasn’t told you about patrolling, he hasn’t informed you about the alpha pack either.

To Creeperwolf: The what now?

To Creeperwolf: Use the window.

There’s an almost immediate knock on his window and Stiles sighs. Loopholes. He turns to see Peter lounging in his window sill as if he owns it.

“I hope that that’s only a name and not an actual pack of alphas.” He accepts the brown paper bag the werewolf passes him with a good amount of suspicion. His eyes widen incredulously at the double fudge brownie cupcake inside. After the pancake fiasco of this morning he bites into it with gusto.

“You looked so heartbroken that I couldn’t resist.” Stiles almost chokes and Peter smirks delighted. He takes out his phone and, sure enough, he had sent him the pic too. He recovers his footing fast. "Is it good?"

“Alpha pack?” he asks, mouth partially full, and Peter explains, his sarcasm a beautiful thing that makes clear what he thinks about the policing thing they got going.

“So we don’t actually know if they are a threat or not,” Peter finishes.

“Let’s face it, this pack is a mess. If they really police if packs are adequate…“

“Exactly. Two runaway betas, another one with divided loyalties, an almost omega wolf that won’t submit or join the pack and…”

“A zombie?” he jibes.

“I thought we were listing the problems of Derek’s pack?” Stiles’ lips twitch at the man’s sass.

Later, when Peter is gone, his already finished books in hand, Stiles suddenly blinks and thinks. Huh.

With the information provided by Peter, Allison and his father, plus what he gleamed in Scott’s rant, now he can more or less accurately set a timeline of the events that happened.

When Stiles disappeared, Scott misled his father into thinking nothing was wrong and then recruited Isaac to help find him via scent, but before they could actually proceed, Peter and Derek showed up. After a little tête-à-tête (Peter’s words), Melissa called really freaked out because Jackson, who was supposed to be dead, was inside a cocoon that definitely wasn’t there before.

At some point there, which was about an hour after being kidnapped, Gerard had finally appeared and was roughing Stiles up after he tried to free Erica and Boyd for the first time… and badmouthed him into kingdom come. A little after that, his father, who was checking the hospital just in case, received a call from the station about Stiles finally turning up in some part of town (obviously a false lead planted by Gerard or one of his cronies). He called Melissa on the way there to let her know, who in turn must have called Scott, who called the search off and decided to separate from Peter and Derek to check out the thing about Jackson. Also, more or less at that time, according to Allison, Gerard had her out to do some preparations and sent Chris on a wild goose chase in the preserve along with a couple more hunters. The moment Chris caught on, he was drugged (and would be out for a good two hours).

One more hour later, his father still couldn’t find him. He tried calling Melissa to have her on alert once more but it went straight to voicemail. At the time, Derek and Peter were researching the kanima when Lydia showed up asking for Stiles. When it was clear they couldn’t help her find him, she then tried to convince them to not kill Jackson.

At the same time more or less, Gerard stopped beating Stiles abruptly and left, presumably without detours, to find Allison and tell her it was starting. He then called Scott and threatened him to bring Derek or else. According to Peter, the teen called them to have them meet him but it sounded so forced that Peter actually tried to convince Derek something was wrong, backed, surprisingly, by Lydia. They delayed him enough for Gerard to think it was a no-show and send the kanima after them. Grandpa then tried to kill Scott and the teen fled.

The kanima found Derek’s group halfway to the meeting spot and Lydia managed to connect with Jackson by showing him some sort of key. Derek and Peter killed him while he was distracted… only for him to come back as a blue-eyed werewolf.

His father was desperate by then. He knew something was wrong but he had no leads at all and he couldn't get in contact with either Melissa or Scott. Gerard came back to his lair just as Stiles had succeeded in freeing Erica and Boyd and they had helped each other upstairs. He doesn’t know what Scott did in between fleeing and going to the Argent house, but he can take a guess and say he probably checked on his mom, fearing that Gerard sent the kanima after her. Finally, Allison came back too and listened to the villain speech. The rest, as they say, is history.</p>

And now they have a pack of alphas hounding them. Wonderful.

(Seriously, what the fuck, dammit!)

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#runes and all kinds of things #teen wolf fics #my writing #teen wolf #steter

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