Chapter Text
“Okay, now I totally, completely, unequivocally get why Peter was to against you fighting Ash.”
“Stiles, do us all a big favor and please. Shut. Up.”
And, boy, that wasn’t the King of all glares in glare history. Stiles could feel his skin crawling, tugging him away from the conversation, it was that severe.
To be fair though, Stiles had been quiet about the issue for long enough in his book. So Scott had forced the change, and Aisling’s wolfy instincts took over, maybe just a little more strongly than anyone had expected, least of all Derek, but that had been, what, at least two weeks ago?
That had to be more than enough time to mull things over and move on, but both parties refused to talk.
The sheriff, while he enjoyed having as enthusiastic and studious a helper as Aisling was, noticed that she was wearing herself ragged. All the women in the station couldn’t stop dropping off muffins and fruits at his desk with little notes telling him to make sure she ate at some point. All the weight she’d lost from training with Scott had yet to return, and throwing herself into the internship hadn’t been any kinder to her system.
Every once in a while, Isaac would get a phone call from her, asking him to come over. In his words though, it was usually more of a plea. Taking her pain away had become a sort of routine, and only he seemed to pass the test to get close enough to do it. To Stiles, it sounded like a lot of bull crap, but Isaac never offered up any information that might betray Aisling’s confidence.
“We talked, but not about anything I could tell you or Derek. She’s better since she shifted, sure, but you and I both know that it’s going to be a while before she can move past what else happened,” Isaac trailed off meaningfully after Stiles finally cornered him in the locker room after lacrosse practice.
So, yeah, Stiles had kept quiet long enough without forcing the stupid pack to stop ignoring the elephant in the room already.
“Not this time, Derek,” Stiles argued back.
Erica perked up from her spot stretched out across Boyd’s lap on the rug.
“You pair bonded with her, get over it.”
“Wolves mate for life, Stiles. Wait until you’re saddled with some hunter’s daughter and then tell me how easy it is to get over it.”
“Dude, I’m human. Hunter’s daughters don’t mean anything to me, no offense, Scott, buddy.”
“None taken,” Scott mumbled from the couch behind Erica and Boyd. He waved away Stiles’ concern lazily.
“I thought this was a good thing. A pair of mated Alphas makes for a stronger pack, right? I thought that was how things worked. Maybe we could finally call ourselves a real pack instead of just being a ragtag team of kids. I actually like Aisling.”
“Easy enough for you to say. Must be nice to think of Derek and Aisling as your new surrogate parents, but you at least you know Aisling. The most me and Boyd have is that she’s related to the Argents and she’s a ticking time bomb even after all,” Erica argued. Her voice rose the longer she spoke and she became increasingly agitated.
“Well maybe you would know her better if you actually considered yourself a part of the pack enough to come run with us every weekend.”
“Sorry I’m not sorry for having a life outside of the supernatural, Isaac. We can’t all be like you and Stiles.”
“I will have you know that I resent that,” Stiles threw in his two cents.
“I told you it would have been much easier to just kill her and be done with it. From all I’ve heard about the Argents, death is favorable to the bite. We would have done them a favor.”
“Aisling isn’t an Argent. How many times do I have to say it? She calls Chris Argent her Uncle, but he’s like once removed or something? I don’t know the nuances, but Gerard Argent had a sister Gertrude who had a daughter named Candice who then had a daughter named Aisling. She’s not a real Argent.”
“That’s all great and wonderful how you think you’re drawing a line of morality there, but they’re all the same. You saw how they treated her after she got the bite. You know Allison’s mom killed herself because she didn’t want to turn. They see our gift as a taint. We all heard her. She would rather have died in that fire. She’s no better than them.”
Stiles pursed his lips and drummed his fingers against his thighs. Nothing was going how he’d imagined. This was obviously not going to be as easy as he’d hoped.
“You know what, I’m done. I’m going to the Argents. If no one here wants to talk about this, fine. Maybe one of them will.”
He swiped his jacket from the floor along with his discarded backpack and jogged across the street to his car. When he sat up again after making sure everything was turned on and operating properly, he nearly had a heart attack.
Isaac had followed him out and looked just as terrified. Serves him right.
Jerkily the window rolled down far enough that Stiles human ears could hear the wolf.
“Mind if I go with you? If you plan on bringing up the shift, you’re going to need someone that can take away pain.”
“Hers?” Stiles asked once he got started on the drive out.
“No, yours, actually. She might not like what’s happening to her, but she’s not taking it lying down either. She punched Peter in the face last Friday when he tried to apologize for going inside her head. She broke it and knocked him out so he couldn’t even heal it immediately.”
If the wolf heard the nervous swallow, he was kind enough not to mention it.
Isaac hadn’t been kidding in the least when he said he was coming along for Stiles benefit. The second the front door swung inwards, instead of being met with a cheery smile from Allison, Stiles was greeted by a solid blow to his solar plexus. Before he could fall to his knees wheezing, Isaac had his arms around his middle and carried him through the doorway and over to the dining room.
Dazed, Stiles could have sworn heard Aisling apologizing, but he couldn’t be too sure. The sound was muffled over the beating of his heart, but the pain quickly melted away into a warm, dull buzz.
“Why are you here, Stiles,” Aisling asked briskly as she slid a glass of water across the table, her eyes focused on the drops of condensation rolling down the side more than on Stiles. They were still narrowed like she was trying to force the water to boil with just the power of her mind.
“Why are you punching people at the door? You have a peephole. Use it once in a while, maybe? Save us innocent folk from unnecessary pain?”
She cracked a little smile, but it was empty. “Peter and Isaac have been the only ones to visit me lately. And Isaac was just here this morning. I couldn’t help but assume the worst.”
“Next time, go for giving your guest the benefit of the doubt. Just a suggestion, no need to feel obligated to follow through. Anyway, just wondering how you’ve been doing, all things considered.”
“All things considered, I’m alive, but I’m not sure how I’d classify my feelings regarding that fact.”
“Does that meant you’re ready to talk about the implications? Because if I have to go through one more week of not-talking between you and the pack, I’m going to die. Seriously, I will. You are literally driving me up a wall.”
“That all depends. What do you want to talk about? The fact that I basically offered myself to him or the fact that he actually accepted it? Because I can’t quite get my head around either option.”
“Actually, I wanted to ask you about how you felt, in general. Deaton’s also getting tired of you guys, but at least he’ll talk to me. Turns out pair bonding usually takes more than a little bite, but if it’s something that’s been building over time, the bond might have been initiated a long time ago and the bite just sealed the deal. The key, according to him, is if the bite changed your perception of things.”
“My perception of things? Way to be cryptic.” She scoffed and leaned back on the two rear legs of her chair.
“Don’t kill the messenger, please. Anyway, as I was saying, before you rudely interrupted, the pair bonding bite might change you. Like, do you feel significantly stronger, more aware of the earth or your surroundings, more general alive-ness-type feelings?”
“I just fully shifted for the first time two weeks ago. Obviously I feel different, but how am I supposed to know if it’s because of the bite or just normal werewolf stuff?”
“You need to see Derek.”
Stiles said it so plainly that he really should have seen it coming. Before he knew it, his eyes were on fire. Aisling had just chucked the barely touched glass of water into his face, and it was so cold he could feel the tears freezing. Not literally, but it might as well have been.
Isaac just laughed beside him, rocking back and forth in his seat. Stiles eyed him moodily. Just one nudge and he’d go down like a house of cards. And they were supposed to be on the same side here. Operation Convince-Aisling-to-come-back. A two-man team.
“Not going to happen. What if did work and I’m compelled to do some weird shit because of stupid werewolf instincts? I like being human, okay? I like being in control of my actions.”
“Fine, fine, you don’t have to see him yet, but eventually it has to happen, you know that.”
“If it would help, I’d be more than happy to go with you, Ash. Act as a buffer or something.” Isaac offered.
She just picked at her nails, sharper now than they were before though definitely still human. Maybe 85% human, 15% wolf. Her voice lowered to a normal inside volume though it still shook. “No, you don’t have to do that. I just need more time to figure things out, relearn control.”
“You should hurry though. Erica and Boyd are still having trouble with the idea that you might be pack. Boyd’s still arguing that you should be killed so we could just brush all this under a rug. Erica, well, her I don’t really understand, but she doesn’t like that you’re an outsider and you coming in to the pack would automatically put you into the Alpha position with Derek. If you don’t make a decision soon, we could lose them both.”
Stiles watched Aisling carefully even though he just wanted to pat Isaac on the back and invite him to play video games. He hadn’t even thought about that possibility. The Beta had already lost his family, and the pack was all he had left. How Stiles had forgotten how much it meant to the guy was just a clue into how thin his efforts had been stretched.
Her eyes, a dull brown in her current state of malnutrition, lowered to the table’s surface. When she took a breath, her ribcage stretched the skin of her chest and outlined the cords of her neck more prominently.
“I just need another week. That’s it, and then I’ll see Derek. Coffee shop, the one where I used to meet Peter. Not any sooner, all right?”
When Aisling led them to the door, Stiles expected Isaac to be right behind him, but the wolf shifted his weight one foot from the other beside her.
Stiles knew that look. Obviously wanted some alone time.
“I’ll just be in the car,” he said, but the way Isaac’s eyes hadn’t left Aisling, it was all a waste of breath.
“Are you sure you’re all right, Ash?”
She shook her head, more focused on her nail polish, which was in dire need of a touch up, than responding immediately. “I lied before.”
“I know.”
One corner of her lips rose. Her eyes fell to his shuffling converse-clad feet. “I know you knew. But I do feel different, Isaac, and I wish I wasn’t so affected by this, by Derek. I can count the times I’ve met him on one hand. One.”
His hands enveloped hers with warmth, filling her with the euphoria of having her pain removed. The ache in her bones had been a constant reminder of that night in the clearing.
“Whatever happens, you’re not just a mate to him. You’re still a wolf, and you can break the bond whenever you want.”
Weakly she whispered into the shrinking space between them, “I don’t even know if I want to.”
He hugged her so fiercely the emotions bled between them into such a mess that it might have given her a headache if he hadn’t been such an emotional rock for her. When they parted, her head felt clearer though her questions remained unanswered for the most part.
“Oh, before I forget, did you ever end up calling Stiles before … you know?”
“Yeah, Peter didn’t say anything?” her brows furrowed. That night hadn’t exactly been a pleasant experience either, and Peter had made sure everyone knew what went down when she attacked Isaac in the living room.
“Should he have?”
She paused and stepped back from the doorway so she could look past Isaac into the front seat of the Jeep at the top of the driveway.
“No, no, if he hasn’t said anything yet, it must not have been that important.”
“Okay,” Isaac dragged out the word suspiciously but dropped the matter. “I’ll see you soon, I hope.”
“Yeah, me too.”