Chapter Text
“Witches? You’re joking, right? Those are a thing? Oh my god. Is there anything else you’d like to let me know about? The Loch Ness monster maybe?” - not much phased him anymore, and witches certainly didn’t, not after dealing with the Darach, but Stiles had a facade to uphold, and what’s better than joking in the face of certain death to do that, right?
Stiles started pacing around the loft, trying to work off the nervous energy. When had he last taken his Adderall? It must’ve been this morning or he’d already be running up the walls, right? But it was all fuzzy- he couldn’t pinpoint when he’d actually taken the pills instead of thinking ‘Oh shit, I should probably take the Adderall soon’ and doing nothing about it.
Those lapses in memory had happened to him before, but ever since he’d come back from being trapped in his own mind by the Nogitsune, they were more frequent. He was pretty certain it wasn’t a medical thing, it was just that self-care seemed to be the last point on the list these days. There was too much damage control and grieving to be done.
“-covens usually travel together. And for the millionth time, Stiles, the Loch Ness monster is a Kelpie. Stiles? Are you even listening?”
Well, shit.
“Yeah Derek, of course I’m listening. What else would I be doing? Admiring the interior design?”- He waved a hand across the room, indicating the very obvious nothing on the walls.
Crossing his arms, Derek scoffed. “So you most certainly didn’t miss the part where I told you to stay away from the coven? You just went right along with my suggestion, no complaints. I can’t really see that happening.”
“No, I just waited for you to end your tirade so I could politely point out that there’s no way in hell I’m cowering in my room while you guys risk your lives.
I figured that part was so obvious that there’s no need to interrupt you, ‘specially since you’ve just gotten the hang outta forming sentences that don’t include death threats”
“Stiles.”
“Ah yes, back to one word sentences. And I can almost feel the threat in that one, great job Sourwolf.” – Stiles grinned, the expression still unfamiliar after the months of terror, silently complimenting himself on how well the diversion worked. Annoying Derek was the easiest way to make him stop prying, and Stiles was sure the werewolf had all but forgotten about him phasing out for a few moments by now.
“Aaaanyway, now that you’re back to your charming Neanderthal state I don’t expect to get much more info out of you. Give me three days and I’ll be full of amazing witchy knowledge and everyone will envy me. I’ll mail you with the summaries so you can let the pack know. See ya!” –Stiles grabbed his hoodie and schoolbag, rummaging through the pockets to find the Jeep keys as he made his way to the door.
“Whatever. Just do the research and don’t get yourself killed”- Derek scowled, but it wasn’t genuine. The whole pack was worried about Stiles, who seemed to have more trouble focusing on things than ever before, and Derek was no exception. But right now, the rogue coven that was making their way across Beacon County was their priority. Presumably, there were four or five of them, leaving a trail of burned trees and animal sacrifices in their wake. None of that would’ve been their concern, despite the story making it into local papers, had the animal sacrifice not been replaced by a child once they reached the outskirts of Beacon Hills.
Now the pack was using all existing resources to track them down before more people were killed on their territory. Those ‘resources’ being Deaton and the Internet, with Scott getting all the info he could out of the vet, and Stiles promising he would find any valid piece of information there was on the latter.
~~~~
By the second day of researching witches, Stiles was certain he knew how to track them, in theory, and also scared out of his mind. Because it turns out that Harry Potter wasn’t really a reliable resource on witches. And neither was any other piece of pop culture, ever.
From what they knew before, these witches were a rogue coven. What they didn’t know was that, in this case, rogue meant completely batshit crazy and not following any of the rules other witches do, like not letting people see them do magic and not eating other magical beings to get their powers. And that meant that they were more powerful than other witches as long as they had a steady supply of powerful beings for snacks. Yummy.
That alone wouldn’t have been enough to terrify him that much. What sealed the deal was researching how powerful your average witch is. Which is a lot. Like, wipe-out-ten-blocks-on-a-bad-day- lot.
So he found a tracking charm.
The only problem being that they needed the hair of the tracked person and an actual witch to operate it.
But Stiles was way too tired to come up with a solution for that itty-bitty issue just now. He made sure to mail everything he’d found so far to Derek and back it up on his memory stick. Maybe the pack would have an idea how to get the hair without getting maimed. Cracking his neck, he stood up from his chair, vision blurred for a few moments before it adjusted again. He glanced at the clock and winced. He’d gone well past 36 hours with no sleep and the caffeine had run out and left him crashed. No way he can deal with that now.
‘We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it, or however that saying goes’
He was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.
~~~~
Stiles didn’t consider being woken up by a grumpy werewolf, who clearly broke in through his window again, a particularly weird thing. ‘I guess that says a lot about my life.’
What was weird was that said werewolf, despite looking like he’d been attacked by an especially vicious lawnmower was smiling. Well, maybe not smiling, but definitely showing happiness. Or at least less grumpiness.
Stiles’ gaze slowly made his way over Derek’s beat-up shape. In the dark he couldn’t really see much, but he could see that Derek was holding... something in his fist. Something long and hairy and- was it dripping?!
In a second he realized what he was looking at. The witches must’ve taken the pack by surprise, but judging by Derek’s expression the wolves did fine. More than fine, in fact- because Derek was holding a few long strands of hair that were- oh shit, they were still attached to pieces of the witch’s scalp. Well, that explained the blood dripping onto Stiles’ bedroom floor.
“Stiles-“ he started, “-will this be enough? Because I don’t think we can handle another surprise encounter.”
“Enough? Dude, I could track their grandchildren with that stuff! You can’t even imagine the properties that witch blood supposedly has. I actually read about a guy who used it in this spell that- wait, I think I have it on my laptop-”
He was already scrambling out of bed, grabbing the piles of papers he had printed out and skimming through them. He supposed he should feel awkward about standing there in just boxer shorts and a t-shirt, but the clock informed him that precisely three hours passed since he went to bed, so he couldn’t really find it in himself to be bothered.
He was just making his way through a list of locations the witches had been to when it hit him.
“Derek. What do you mean with ‘you don’t think we can handle another surprise encounter’? Is everyone okay??” his breathing was speeding up, his mind already racing and going through all the worst case scenarios. It had only been three hours since he sent the info to the pack. Three hours and the witches had already attacked. Did all pack members read all of it? Surely not. Maybe Peter, but he was hardly pack. Knowing Scott, he just skimmed through it and figured he’d do it later. Did he even get to the part where the witches weaknesses were listed? Hopefully.
“Stiles! Calm down, will you? Just calm down. We’re okay. Everyone is fine, just a bit beat up. There were only two of them and they ran off after seeing we could hold our ground. I’m pretty sure they didn’t expect us to have a True Alpha on our side so they freaked out and disappeared as soon as Scott roared.”
“So they didn’t try to, you know, uhm- eat anyone?” – Even before he asked it he knew it was a stupid question. He’d learned that the ingestion of someone’s powers required an extensive ritual, one with sacrifices and complicated rules. No way they could just make that up on the spot.
“No, Stiles. They didn’t try to eat us. They clawed at us and threw some sort of blinding dust at Peter. One tried to capture Kira but Scott’s roar interrupted the chanting. He’s still with her now, but they’ll be fine.”
“Okay. Okay, good. That means that they avoid going nuclear, so our chances are good. My best guess is that using that sort of power would, well, blow them up? These rogues don’t follow the rules other witches do, so their powers are greater, but also more chaotic, less stable. They aren’t going to risk wasting too much of their juice unless they know it would pay off.” He was rambling, but it felt like he got it right. Some part of him was certain that magic worked that way, even though he hadn’t encountered it yet.
“That’s exactly what Deaton said when I called him. Of course, he made it sound much more mystic, but the conclusion is the same. They don’t know whose powers they can make the most use of, so they are holding back until they figure it out.”
“Huh. Well, I guess it makes sense that Deaton knew it all along and decided not to tell. I seriously don’t get how that guy’s brain wor- FUCK! How didn’t we get it sooner? Oh shit, Derek, call Scott immediately and tell him to get his ass to the loft and to bring the whole pack.”
“Stiles, what the hell is going on? Why are you suddenly panicking instead of working out that tracking spell?”
“Oh I really don’t think we’ll need the tracking charm anymore.”
“God damn it, Stiles! Talk to me! Why won’t we need the charm? Stiles?!”- Derek’s eyes were wide open, the scratches on his face already healed but his clothes were still stained with blood. Stiles absentmindedly noted the strand of hair that was stuffed into Derek’s pocket.
How didn’t he see this earlier? They might have been holding back, but those witches could do considerable damage to the pack if they wanted to. Derek was the one to say it, but he didn’t seem to connect the dots. The coven attacked to scout out the packs strength, and then disappeared as soon as Scott showed that he was a True Alpha. They could’ve kept fighting, but decided to run off, and that meant only one thing: they had made their choice.
“Because, Derek, they’ll be coming after us real soon.”