Title: Trusting Stiles
Author: Reyn
Rating: T
Genre: Action, Humor
Spoilers: None?
Warnings: not really slash, but still awesome
Word Count: ~1000
Summary: Derek can't help but question why he decided to trust Stiles in the first place. He knew it was a bad idea.
Trusting Stiles
In hindsight, Derek should have stuck to the first half of his initial thought, ‘This kid is batshit crazy!’ and ignored the second half of, ‘But his idea actually sounds like it might work…’ It had become a nasty habit of his lately, giving highschoolers the benefit of the doubt. For some reason, he had this tendency to forget how most of their plans ended badly.
Unfortunately, now was looking to be one of those times.
He shoved Jackson out of the way and took the nasty hit that was intended for him. Derek felt his ribs crack and immediately clamped his jaw shut to suppress his cry of pain. For a bunch of rotting corpses, these creatures were incredibly strong.
A warm body drew flush against his back, and Derek immediately leaned into it, taking comfort in Jackson’s presence as they circled back-to-back, keeping a wary eye on their surrounding attackers.
“This was a terrible idea.” Jackson muttered, and Derek was inclined to agree. “Where the hell are McCall and Stilinski?”
The roar of an engine, followed by the screeching of tires answered his question as Stiles’ blue jeep sent one of the undead creatures sailing through the air when he failed to stop in time.
“Sorry!” Stiles yelled as he hopped out of the car, but whether his apology was to Derek and Jackson or to the enemy he had just run over was unclear.
“Stiles?” Derek’s call for reassurance was cut short as all six of the creatures decided to attack once more, now that the distraction was over.
“Uh…keep fighting!” Stiles ordered, clambering over the jeep’s hood to retrieve a large black duffel bag from Scott. “Don’t mind me!”
“Stilinski!” Jackson’s windpipe was moments away from being crushed by brittle hands. Derek tried to bite the arm off, but only came away with a mouthful of rotting flesh.
“Look,” Stiles actually had the audacity to stop what he was doing and send the two fighting werewolves an exasperated stare. “If it makes this any easier for you, just pretend I’m not here.”
Luckily, Scott had enough brains to join the fray, allowing Derek to spare a moment to send a glare in Stiles’ direction.
A glare that turned into a double-take as he realized Stiles was reading a book.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
Derek only looked away once Stiles’ expression morphed into a clear ‘oh shit’ as he realized the question was being directed at him.
“I’m…well, I’m researching!” he argued defensively. “So sue me!”
Derek’s answering roar managed to cause his two opponents to startle back and hesitate, giving him time to fully turn and face Stiles.
“Researching?? I thought you knew what you were doing!!”
Stiles drew back sharply and threw out the arm that wasn’t holding the book, his shoulders rising in a shrug. “You’re the only one who ever thinks that! Even Scott’s learned to stop trusting every word that comes out of my mouth!”
“It’s true,” Scott managed to grunt out from his pinned position on the asphalt.
Stiles was saved from the biggest verbal lashing of the century as Derek was forced to focus on the fight after his arm was twisted out of its socket. But that didn’t stop Derek from channeling his anger in the kid’s direction.
He was going to kill him. He was going to take that book and bash it over Stiles’ head until his brain bled from his ears. He was going to rip out the pages and give Stiles paper cuts on his eyeballs.
“Okay, you’re sure they’re not zombies?”
“What?” Jackson’s moment of distraction earned him a punch hard enough to probably crack his jaw.
“I just want to make sure they’re not zombies, because they really look like zombies, and if they are, what I’m about to do is going to look really stupid.”
“Just do it, Stiles!” Derek snarled, using his good arm to throw the creature that was on top of Scott aside.
The soft, almost melodic sound of thousands of rice grains hitting the ground followed the order, prompting everyone in the fight to turn their heads and look over at Stiles.
Stiles, who held a rapidly emptying bag of rice, stood there staring at the mess he was making, looking far more like an idiot than normal.
“Oh-oh my God! No! Look! Look at all this rice! This was my dinner!” His hands swept out and motioned at the uncooked grains. “Gosh. This sure is a lot of rice. I wonder how many grains there are…”
And just like that, the werewolves found themselves forgotten as the creatures all dived towards Stiles, scaring the kid bad enough to jump up onto the roof of his car. Instead of giving chase, they all remained on their hands and knees, gathering up the rice grains one by one as they counted them.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Stiles breathed out, flopping onto his back with a hollow thud. “I was right.”
“What are they doing?” Scott ventured to ask, stepping up beside Derek.
“They’re loogaroo; distant relatives to vampires,” Derek explained, holding his dislocated arm tightly against his side. “Their one weakness is counting, it’s an obsession for them.”
“Legend has it that if you were to encounter one, you should throw a handful of rice on the ground and they’ll be too busy counting the pieces to notice your escape,” Stiles wrapped up cheekily, propping himself up on his elbows so he could grin down at the rag-tag team. “Now what say I move my jeep out of the way and we burn and dispose of these baddies properly? I don’t think they’ll notice, do you?”
Rather than answer, Derek let out a grunt as Jackson took hold of his arm and successfully jammed it back in place. Next time. Next time, he would remember this time and say no to whatever asinine scheme Stiles came up with.
Because, really. Stiles was seriously batshit crazy.
THE END.