arcanarumlogs | And I'm scared, but not that scared

And I'm scared, but not that scared

Who: Scott, Stiles, Erica, and Derek
When: November 25th
Where: On the road to and at Erica and Derek's House
What: Wolves are stronger in numbers and even without wolf instincts, they're all drawn together. A worried Scott and Stiles hurry to check up on Erica and Derek, and productivity hopefully ensues.
Warnings: None at the moment.

It's not a long walk from the Rose District into the Violet, thankfully, but Scott stays as close to Stiles as possible. Mouth shut tight the entire way–so much so he doesn't realise he's grinding his teeth– Scott keeps his eyes on the communicator, reflexively grasping at the bottom of Stiles's shirt each time he feels Stiles has drifted a few paces too far away from him.

As much as he would hate to admit it, he's more shaken up than he's showing right now. Scott doesn't want to be here. More than that, he doesn't want Stiles or Erica to have to be here. Derek could probably handle it; even without wolf powers, the man was sort of like a mac truck. But Stiles had told him before– he didn't feel he could deal with these kind of things. Scott knew he was wrong; if there was anyone more capable, it was Stiles. It just wasn't fair that Stiles had been dragged into these things one after another, and it was mostly Scott's fault. It hadn't been this time, but Stiles had been here alone for a whole month without Scott to help him, and that put a huge twist of guilt in his stomach.

And then there was Erica. Alright, Erica'd been kind of a downright bitch every once– okay, most of the time– but she still didn't deserve to have to deal with her epilepsy again. That had been most of the reason she'd even agreed to Derek's proposal and even if Scott thought the bite was more harm than good, he couldn't really blame her. He knew it had to be hard; if he had been just a second later to witnessing the last seizure she'd had as a human, Erica might have been hurt much worse.

Now they had no contact to their families, to his mom or Allison...

Lost in his thoughts, he walks right past the house they're looking for, but keeps reaching for Stiles's shirt. He turns around to face Stiles, frowning in confusion.

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The fact that Derek is so accustomed to life threatening and bizarre situations is something he should find time to reflect on later. It doesn't mean that he's never afraid, or that he's ever worried about the outcome-- far from it, actually. He worries, and goddamn is he afraid of a lot of things. Of losing what he's slowly accumulating, just like he lost what he used to have. Of leaving his very much ragtag pack alone, without some kind of guidance (as dysfunctional as his leadership has been so far).

But right now, it's the four of them. They're not alone, and as much as they've been at odds with each other, they've got one another to depend on. Time and time again they've proven they can work together, and now's no different, as far as the alpha is concerned. So he does what he thinks is right, trying to take care of the teenagers that he's somehow accumulated since his return to Beacon Hills.

Unlike with Scott, he gives Erica a selection of clothing from his closet, digging out a belt for her to use in the meantime. Much like with Scott, however, he doesn't even try to find a pair of shoes or boots that might fit her. They'll get some later, on top of more clothes.

Leaving her with the selection when he hears the knock on the door, he rolls his eyes and goes to open it.

"Cute," is his only comment at first, dry and barely amused, before he steps aside to let them in. The tension in his shoulders eases away again with having a bulk of his pack in one location. "Come on."

It had been decided that despite Derek having similar fashion senses to the rest of the pack, he was too damn tall and built for Erica to actually make most of it work. But with Derek out of the room and voices coming from what she assumes is the living room, she figures that making quick work of her limited selection is the best option.

Pulling on a t-shirt that looks a little too small for Derek in the first place and a pair of jeans, she doesn't bother checking the mirror. She's knows that she will either be able to pull this off flawlessly, or look like a child drowning in her older siblings clothing.

She yanks the bedroom door open and wanders towards the voices. Leaning against the door frame, she crosses her arms across her chest, not at all surprised to see Scott and Stiles there. Admittedly, she's still rather disappointed at the lack of Boyd and Isaac, but there's no denying that she would rather they both still be back home.

"Should we make a house rule about bringing home strays, Derek?"

When Scott steps inside he's quiet, leaning close to Stiles and rubbing his cold nose. This place is pretty cold for November, and it's not like they're all dressed for the occasion. Either way, he's not in the mood to focus on it or complain, grasping at Stiles's sleeve once more as they take a place inside.

"We're not strays, Erica," he grumbles, glaring just a little at her. "Nice to see you, too." Scott can't help but pout like a dismissed puppy at her; it's been ages since they got along. Still, it's a comfort to know she seems alright, at least, and wasn't so easily affected by her epilepsy as he was by his asthma. A bit embarrassed at the thought, he looks back at Stiles, hoping he'll start talking and handle the situation.

It's not showing yet, but he's kind of exhausted from all of this by now.

Luckily for Scott, Stiles does. Because--well, that's what he does. Not to mention, he's been here the longest out of everyone, which means he's armed with the most knowledge--not that that's too different from the norm.

Seeing Erica brings back a rush of memories, and he quirks a grin in her direction, secretly pleased. Sure, she's a little crazy, but it's Catwoman crazy. He gets along well enough with the others, but of all the people of the Beacon Hills pack to show up, Stiles is decently glad it's Erica. "You look like you could use some real clothes."

But then, he jams his hands in his pockets, rocking on his heels a little as he starts to talk. "So, I've brought you all here for a reason, on this, the day of my daughter's wedding." Beat of silence. "...Seriously. Have you guys gotten acquainted with the whole...wishing for things thing? Or should I start from the top?"

Cocking an eyebrow at Erica's comment, Derek just shrugs as he closes the door behind the newly arrived teens. He doesn't really answer beyond that, considering the fact if he did, he'd have to point out that she's technically a stray, herself. It hasn't escaped his notice that he tends to collect them.

"Start from the top," he tells Stiles as he turns away from them, actually going into the front room instead of standing at the door. There's no point in telling them to follow, considering they'll figure it out on their own. And if they want to just stand at the door while they discuss everything, then that's their own choice. "We should all be on the same page, so it's better to just cover all our bases."

The fact Stiles has all the information as usual is a small comfort, one that he's thankful for. Same as Erica's sass, and Scott's puppy faces. At least they're all well enough to act like themselves.

It takes some real effort to not actually argue the fact that both of them are absolutely strays. Because yes, okay, technically she, herself, is a stray in some aspects. However, she still technically part of the pack, where as Scott and Stiles are. Well. Scott and Stiles.

Following the others into the room, she settles down into a chair. Huddling down into the clothes that are far too big for her, she finds the entire thing rather comforting. Honestly, she would like to have the whole pack there, but in all reality, seeing familiar faces of any kind is welcome. Plus, it's rather nice to fall into old patterns of sassing the crap out of everyone.

(Some things never change, really.)

Settling down, Erica does her best to not actually make any further comment. Although, the mention of wishes makes her almost excited.

Scott finds a seat near enough to Erica but not beside her, and with enough space for Stiles to sit near him when (or if) he ever chooses to stop wiggling about and sit down. He shuffles his hands, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and rubs his neck– and his hand finds its way down to his pocket, making sure the stupid inhaler is there. Scott's been checking nearly every five minutes- it's something to think about more than anything, as much as he might hate it.

He looks up at Erica again with the thought- because she could be in a much more uncomfortable position than he is, right?- and before Stiles begins his monologue, leans over. "You're okay, though, right?" Scott asks- not quite gently but not maliciously, either. He can try to keep his puppy grudges as much as he wants, but Scott can't hide the fact he worries about all of them.

His eyes flick back to Derek and then to Stiles, and he almost finds his head swimming. Since his senses have been dulled Scott's found himself looking and listening in circles, as if chasing ghosts of things he feels he should be able to see and hear and smell.

...God, he'd wanted to be human again for so long. Had he really become so dependant on those werewolf senses? Everything is so much quieter than before- Derek's commands and Erica's sass and Stiles's... everything.

Everything is so much quieter, and he has to shake his head to make sure he hasn't missed Erica's response or the beginning of Stiles's impromptu lecture.

Scott was exactly right on the count of not sitting. In fact, he was pacing a little, talking with his hands--finally, he settled to sit on the arm of the closest arm chair, but he never seemed to still, especially his mouth. "So! Yeah. Fairy tale prison. I've been here for like a month. Shocker, right? Time works differently here, because those guys up in Beast's Castle up there are straight up ridiculously magical, and not even the same kind as Deaton. Wherever we are, it's not even close to him, not even in the same dimension as home."

"They dragged us all here to replace our quote-unquote "denizens", but no one knows what happened to them in the first place. Prrooobably something nasty and terrible and something that hey, not really interested in experiencing! And the whole replacing thing is definitely not an empty threat. I've heard from a couple people around that they pick up on traits from their "denizens" every now and then, and apparently, they'll forget who they actually are eventually."

He works his mouth a little when he stops talking--he needs something to worry with his teeth, something distracting. For now, Stiles shifts his weight back up to his feet, bouncing a little back and forth. "But we don't know when it's supposed to happen, where, why, any of that crap. They basically dumped us here and said you could start wishing for things if you needed them, and left us to fart around until we started metamorphisizing. Which I mean, hey. The wishing thing is cool, but it comes with a couple rules, just like the genie. The biggest one is that you can't wish for something that's expressly yours--like, I tried to wish for my red sweatshirt, and I couldn't get it. But if I wished for a random red sweatshirt--" Here, he tugs the sleeve of the one he's wearing, for emphasis, "It'd appear. The second is that you can't wish for anything technological at all. I wished for a Mac and it blew up. It's useful, but...it doesn't leave us with a lot of options."

Shrugging his shoulders, he settles back down on the arm of the chair, deflating. "I guess that's pretty much it for the basics. There's some other stuff, but...it's nothing I'm really sure about yet. Think of this as your really depressing homeowners association meeting."

Rather than snap and tell Stiles to sit down, Derek simply leans forwards, elbows rested on his thighs and fingers interlaced in front of his mouth. They discussed a little of this when he first arrived and it was just the two of them, but hearing everything Stiles knows is what they really need here. It's not nearly enough, compared to the unknown history and reasoning behind the island, but it's still far more than they had upon arrival.

He hears Scott addressing Erica to the side, and something about the question and concern causes his shoulders to relax a little. His eyes stay on Stiles as he walks around, jitters on the arm of the chair, talks, but the expression on his face is due to the other two teenagers that are stationary. It's largely hidden behind his hands, a small quirk, but it's still there. He's fairly thankful that their attention is on one another or on Stiles.

"Technology and magic never mixes well," he says after a moment, eyes training on the wall across from him as he considers the information dump. A part of him is certain that he's wished for things, even unintentionally-- the jeans he and Erica are wearing showed up in his closet when he was silently lamenting over the era wear that made up the bulk of it-- but this. This is concise information that will help them avoid getting their faces charred off when wishing for something the magic set in place doesn't want them to.

"If we're here to replace these denizens, then they're either dead and gone, or held captive in the castle. There's no other place that's so highly guarded where they could be, especially not with the sheer number of fairy tale and folklore characters that've been created." Rolling his neck to crack it, he sits up a little straighter. "We're going there, of course, but that's going to take planning before we do."

Scott's question goes unanswered at first, because how the hell do you answer a question like that? Is she okay? Well, you know, other than waking up naked in a new place, with no Isaac or Boyd, and finding out she's human once again. Yeah, you know, she's just pleased as punch.

But she knows what he's getting at, and when there's a break in Stiles' speech, she actually spares him a glance. Expression riddled with apprehension, she just gives a bit of a nod. "So far, so good." Because that's the best she can be, at the moment. The more they talk, the higher the levels of stress, the more likely she is to seize. So it's really just a matter of breathing her way through it and making sure to stay calm.

Otherwise, Erica's as attentive as she can be in the moment. Her mind is still racing with just how this happened or what the hell they did in order to manage to get them human again. Magic, obviously, but still. That was no more of an answer than if someone had just said "because" and left it at that. But, admittedly, it is better than no explanation at all. Better than a blank face and fumbling words that provide her with nothing at all.

Even still, this answer isn't exactly comforting.

Half tempted to slide out of the room so she can go wish herself some proper clothes that she doesn't swim in, she manages to stay put long enough to hear just what Derek is planning. Erica purses her lips into a line, debating. She doesn't exactly want to argue with him, but even she can't deny that it sounds like a terrible idea.

"Derek. We're all human, how are we getting by anyone?"

She pauses, just for a moment, when her brain manages to actually catch up to her properly. "Wait, if we can wish for things-" She pauses, hesitant. "Can I wish for my medication? By name, without calling it mine?"

...Medication. That was right. Stiles had brought over an inhaler- Ventolin albuterol sulphate, 90mcg, just like Stiles and he had both seen and read over and over again on the inhalers Scott carried on him. But this one wasn't his inhaler from home- Stiles couldn't have wished for it because at one point it belonged to Stiles. It was just a generic Ventolin inhaler, the customary blue sans CFCs.

"You can," Scott said immediately, pulling the inhaler out. "I was having an attack earlier and... And Stiles brought this with him. But it's not mine, it's really new. The counter on it's still new."

He scratched his neck a bit absently, looking back to Stiles and Derek. "She can, right? Medicine's medicine. My mom's mentioned the medicine you take and everything, even if someone else had to wish for it-- cos none of us own it at all."

Those were the rules-- right?

"...Only one way to find out, right?" His expression shifted a little, turning over to glance at Erica. Stiles could probably guess what kind of medicine she was using--he'd known Scott's off the top of his head from years of carrying one around in his bag for safekeeping. "As long as it's not expressly labeled with your name, it should be fine."

The reminder of Erica's condition coming back was a cold one. It was hard to imagine her the same as she'd been before the bite, and Stiles frowned as he leaned forward on his knees. Whatever had (or hadn't) occurred between them had put Erica firmly on his radar, and the thought of her having a seizure here on the island, with no medicine or...well, it wasn't something pleasant to think about.

"Think of it this way--you get to go into a raid completely blind. Y'know, like me." The last bit was a dry addendum, and he shifted back into the chair, rolling his head to look at Derek as he discussed the actual castle.

"We'll find a way. We always do; being human doesn't change that," Derek offers to Erica, voice calm and even despite the frustrations that come with their newfound status. He worries for Erica and Scott both, and is overwhelmingly disoriented at times when he knows he should have information-- scent, sound, sight, everything-- but doesn't have it. "But it's going to take a lot more time than it would've before."

And it's then that he really focuses on the wishing aspect of this place, because time and effort are required for the castle. Now? Now, they only have what they currently know about the place. It doesn't make sense. You can't just create something without having resources to do it. Nothing materializes out of thin air like that without a price, and he has a feeling it's eventually going to come bite them on the ass.

But all the same...

"If that's the case, then you can give the three of us your prescription information and we can wish it up for you. That way, you won't run the risk of not being able to have it at any point in time." There's a wariness in him as he says it, but a conviction that he won't let anything happen to Erica that overpowers his paranoia.

"Especially if we do try to get into the castle. We'll have to get through the forest around it first, though."

Despite still being in moderate denial about her once again human status, Erica can't exactly ignore the fact that without her medication, a seizure is almost guaranteed. High stress situations (like, you know, being taken away from your home) only made it more likely. So while she doesn't even want to ask for it, let along make them ask for it, it's not like she's exactly been given a choice.

She sounds out the name of her medication, pausing for a moment to consider what dosage to ask for, before defaulting to what she normally relied on at home. If all three of them wish for it, at least it would last her for a long while -- at least until she was able to go home.

"Yeah, but Stiles, the difference is that you running blind into something is that you had werewolves supporting you at least for part of whatever was going on. Now we have nothing."

Except for, you know, an epileptic, an asthmatic, and Stiles. Derek could, at least, physically hold his own even with being human again.

"Hey, me and Stiles got through a lot of things before, alright?" Scott almost seems snappy about it– though the look on his face shows he's apologetic for it.

He pulls his hand over his shoulder, looking a bit uncomfortable. "I just mean... we've handled shit, okay? We'll be fine. We'll find a way out of this. Let's just... try wishing."

Closing his eyes, Scott makes his wish-- and when the orange bottle materialises in his hands, he can't help but jump. He passes it to Erica immediately for her to check the dose, marvelling at the fact that, well... it worked. Wishing.

Stiles did the same as Scott, wishing for the bottle--and for a bottle of adderall, too. It's a crutch, but it's a useful crutch, and the last thing he needs is to be detailing the history of the island or something when his parts are being exchanged for female ones.

Setting them down on the small table in the middle of the room, Stiles can't help but comment, rolling his eyes. It's not necessarily mean spirited, but he can't help but be annoyed. "Seriously, is the lack of optimism just a werewolf thing? It's going to be fine. There are four of us now, and if they're going to try and hack us into nasty little human sized pieces, or god only knows what else, then it's harder to get four than it is to get one. And the less time we spend freaking out about our sudden less than shiny humanity, the faster we can get off this island."

As an afterthought, he adds, "The collective we. I'm used to the squishy human thing."

Derek lets them have their exchange calmly, more interested in the mechanics of wishing. He does the same as Scott and Stiles, but he doesn't pass the pill bottle over to Erica when it materializes. Instead, he examines it, memorizing the look and feel of it, all the information on it. And when he feels like he just knows what it is, could probably recite it effortlessly, he pockets it. Because he's not going to be caught without it, in case Erica might need it.

He makes a mental note to ask about what Scott's prescription is for his inhaler, but he doubts there'll be a moment where it's necessary for him to carry it. Stiles already has that covered.

Once they're done with their exchange, the boys irritable in a way that doesn't surprise him, he cocks his head and exhales slowly on a heavy sigh.

"It's hard not to think of the worse case scenario, but we've gotten through plenty of those, as a collective and individually. We'll be fine, regardless of whatever they have planned."

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And I'm scared, but not that scared

First order of business, getting the rest of the pack proper clothes.

Clothes are vastly overrated, tyvm.

ScottandStiles appreciate when you're fully dressed.

because no one in this pack believes in shirts except for stiles damn it

Like you're actually complaining about it.

If they are, it's a lie

I never said I was complaining.

Nope nope definitely not complaining.

You're both ridiculous.

They really are.

no subject

no subject

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no subject

/craptag

sasses you

eyeroll