...
It's night time when Scott pulls up to the school on his motorbike followed closely by Stiles and Y/n in the Jeep. Stiles squeals to a stop and Y/n immediatly jumps out. "Lydia?" She calls.
"Over here." Allison answers having got there a bit before they did. Y/n went up to Lydia and pulled her into a hug knowing she needed one.
"It's the same thing. Same thing as the pool." She spoke into Y/n's shoulder before the witch pulled away a bit to look at her better. "I got into the car heading somewhere totally different, and ended up here. And you were the first person I thought of when Stiles told me to call if I found a dead body."
"You found a dead body?" Stiles asked.
"Not yet."
"'Not yet'? What do you mean 'not yet'? Lydia, you're supposed to call us after you find the dead body."
"Oh, no, I'm not doing that again. You find the dead body from now on."
"How are we supposed to find the dead body?"
"Stiles, we'll find the dead body." Y/n assured.
"But she's always the one finding the dead body."
"Guys." Scott had stopped paying attention to the little squabble as a scent caught his attention, one that hit Y/n's nose a moment later. Blood. "I found the dead body." They all moved closer to see that he had indeed found the dead body lain across the top of the Beacon Hills High School sign. Deputy Tara Graeme lays in her own blood, eyes wide and blank.
...
Y/n stands behind a pillar with Stiles as he watches his dad talk with some people. "You're horrible at being inconspicuous." Y/n remarks with a teasing smile making him shush her.
"Excuse me." Noah excuses and when Stiles sees him heading his way he puts his backpack behind his head to hide himself but it's no good. "Hey! Hey, hey, hey. Back it up." Stiles stops and Y/n moves around the pillar a bit to not be noticed right away. Stiles turns to look at his dad. "I know what you're thinking. I know you've got all these ideas about patterns and people dying in threes-"
"Dad, murdered, okay? Sacrificed, actually."
"I've got half the state, including the F.B.I., coming in on this. They're not getting away with killing one of our own."
"Dad, they killed Tara. You know, how many times did she help me with my math homework when I had to wait at the station for you?"
Noah sighs. "Just, uh, get to class, okay?" He turns to walk away, pausing for a moment when he saw Y/n leaning against the pillar, not noticing her there before. She was a bit better at not being noticed than her boyfriend. She gave him a smile in greeting and he nodded in return before continuing on his way. Y/n took Stiles' hand and they walked together to English.
"Idioms, analogies, metaphors, and similes, all tools the writer uses to tell their story." Ms. Blake walks around the class, glancing down at Lydia's notebook and noticing the tree she's been drawing. "Lydia, I wasn't aware you had so many hidden talents."
"You and every guy I've ever dated." Lydia smirked making Y/n snicker from her seat next to her. Ms. Blake glanced at the girl behind her. Y/n's smile faded a bit when she felt it again. The dark shadow of bad things. She frowned at Ms. Blake's back.
"Oh, um, well, that was an idiom, by the way." She moved up a row to stand slightly in front of Scott and Stiles. "Idioms are something of a secret to the people who know the language or the culture." Her gaze slid over the four. "They're phrases that only make sense if you know key words. Saying 'jump the gun' is meaningful only if you know about the starting gun in a race, or a phrase like 'seeing the whole board'."
"Like chess." Stiles muttered.
"That's right, Stiles. Do you play?"
"Uh, no. My father does."
She gave him a smile and moved on. "Now, when does an idiom become a cliché?"
"I think we can get to Ethan." Scott whispered to his friends once he had the chance. "I'm pretty sure I can make him talk."
"What do you want to do that for?" Stiles asked.
"The druids are emissaries, right? So what if the darach was an emissary to the Alphas?"
"Or to one of their packs before." Y/n offered.
"Okay, first of all, I cannot believe that we've gotten to the point where a sentence like 'what if the darach was an emissary to the Alphas?' actually makes sense to me. Second of all, we're gonna have a huge problem with getting to Ethan."
"What's that?"
"Going through Aiden." Y/n said.
"Ever since he's been back at school, they're always together. How are we gonna separate them again?"
They all thought for a moment until Y/n perked up with an idea. The boys caught on quickly and they all looked at Lydia. The red-head quickly noticed the triple gaze. "What now?"
While Lydia was distracting Aiden, Scott, Stiles and Y/n went to talk to Ethan in a stairwell. "Why are you even talking to me?" The Alpha asked. "I helped kill your friend. How do you know I'm not gonna kill another one?" Ethan looked at Stiles then.
"Is he looking at me? Are you threatning me? You know what I'm gonna do? I'm going to break off an extra large branch of mountain ash, wrap it in wolfsbane, roll it in misteltoe, and shove it up your freakin-" Scott had looked at his friend in alarm and gave Y/n a look to rein him in. As much as Y/n was enjoying watching her boyfriend go off, they needed on Ethan's good side and threatning to shove a stick up his ass was not the way to go.
"Okay, okay, easy there, honey. I think he gets the point." Y/n takes Stiles' hand to rub calming circles on his skin as she made him lean against the wall again. She gave him a quick peck on the lips and that seemed to really do the trick when it came to calming him down.
Scott turned to Ethan. "We're talking to you because I know that you didn't want to kill Boyd. And I think that if something like that happened now, you wouldn't do it again."
"You don't know what we owe them, especially Deucalion. We weren't like Kali and Ennis when we met him. We weren't Alphas."
"What were you?"
"Omegas. In actual wolf packs, Omegas are the scapegoat, the last to eat, the one who has to take the abuse from the rest of the pack."
"So you and your brother were, like, the bitches of the pack?" Stiles summarized.
"Something like that."
"What happened?" Y/n wondered.
"They were killers. I mean, people talk about us as monsters. Well, they were the ones who gave us the reputation. And our Alpha was the worst of them."
"Why didn't you guys just fight back? Form Voltron Wolf, you know? Kick everyone's asses?" Stiles asked.
"We couldn't, we didn't know how to control it back then."
"Deucalion taught you." Scott realized.
"And then, we fought. We took down the whole pack, one-by-one. And by the time we got to our Alpha, he was begging for his life. And we tore him apart. Literally."
"What about your emissary?" Ethan looked away with a small shake of his head. "They're all dead? Kali and Ennis' too?"
"All of them except for Deucalion."
"Marin." Y/n said. And then Ethan suddenly gasped in pain, looking down and bringing a hand up to his chest. "What happened? Are you hurt?"
"Not me. My brother." They follow the Alpha as he rushed to help his brother, finding him in the locker room just as he hit Cora over the head with a 45LB weight. Lydia fell to her knees by the Beta, telling Aiden to stop as he lifted the weight to hit her again. Ethan and Scott grabbed the angry wolf while Y/n and Stiles checked on Cora. She's been hit pretty hard. Aiden let the weight clang to the floor and Ethan yells at him. "You can't do this!"
"She came at me!" He defended.
"It doesn't matter! Kali gave Derek until the next full moon. You can't touch him or her."
Lydia looked up at Aiden and he seemed to realize that what he did wasn't good, or at least wasn't smart. Ethan gave Scott a small nod before pulling his twin out of the room with him. Y/n only gave them a glance, too focused on the injured Cora. "Guys, she's pretty hurt." Y/n holds a hand over the bleeding wound on her head and starts to heal it a bit, but she only gets so far before Cora comes to, realizes what's happening, and shoves her hand away.
"I don't need that." She got up, stumbling just a bit, but got herself to the sinks. The other four stood around her in concern as she took a wet rag and gingerly wiped the blood from her head.
"You okay?" Scott asked.
"She doesn't look okay." Lydia remarked.
"I'll heal." Cora answered.
"I could heal it faster for you if you'd let me." Y/n offered.
"I don't need your help." She straightned up from the sink and wobbled making Y/n steady her. Cora shrugged her hands off. "I said I'm fine."
"Do you realize how suicidally crazy that was?" Stiles asked. "What were you thinking going after them?"
"I did it for Boyd." She snapped. "None of you were doing anything."
"We're trying." Scott said.
"And you're failing. You're just a bunch of stupid teenagers running around, thinking that you can stop people from getting killed. But all you do is show up late. All you really do is find the bodies." She walked away then.
"She's definitely a Hale." Stiles joked.
"Come on." Y/n took his hand. "We'll make sure she gets home." The couple also left the locker room, convincing Cora to let them give her a lift.
Not long after they got a call from Allison. She had found something else in her father's office. "Philosophers?" Stiles repeated.
"And guardians, which after last night has to mean something like law enforcement, right?"
"Not neccassarily." Y/n chimed in. "Guardians could mean anything really, like a protector of any kind, not specifically law enforcement."
"In either case, Stiles, you have to tell your dad. Tell him whatever you need but you have to get him to believe. Tell your dad. Warn him."
"Okay, okay, okay, I know." They hang up and Cora leans forward from the back seat.
"What are you gonna do?"
"I'm gonna tell him the truth. And I'm gonna need help from the both of you." Stiles drives as fast as he can towards home where he's going to tell his dad everything. Y/n is trying to mentally prepare herself for basically exposing herself to someone she looks up to as a father. She respects the Sheriff, he's been nothing but kind to her since she moved in with Alan and she's just as worried about how he'll react as much as she was when Melissa saw her. She's pulled from her thoughts, though, when a distant scream calls out. She looks up in alarm and Stiles notices. "What is it?"
"You didn't hear that?" She looked at Stiles but mostly at Cora, both of whom shake their heads in denial.
"What did you hear?"
She frowned in confusion. "I... I thought I heard a scream. It sounded like Lydia."
"Well, if Cora didn't hear it what does that mean?"
"I don't know. Maybe it was just in my head." She didn't really believe that though. She heard Lydia scream, and this wasn't the first time. Because she wasn't able to check on her friend herself she texted Scott and asked him to look for Lydia for her. She sighed and sat back in her seat. She just hoped Lydia was okay.
Stiles now paces in his room, his dad by his desk and the girls sitting side by side on his bed. "Okay, okay, okay, okay." He mutters to himself and sighs before facing Noah. "Yes, okay. No, oh-" He starts to back out again until Noah's had enough.
"Stiles?"
"Dad, I'm sorry, okay? I'm just- I'm trying to- I'm just trying to figure out how to start here."
"Hey, I don't have this kind of time."
"Um, for the last year, you've had all these cases that you couldn't figure out, right? I mean, all the murders invlolving Kate Argent, and then Matt killing all the people who had drowned him, and all these murders right now. It's like- it's like you've been playing a losing game."
"Stiles, the last thing I need right now is a job performance review from my own son."
He sighs. "I know." He looks to the side in thought, and lights up. "Okay, see, but that's- that's just it, dad." He grabs the little portable chess board from his shelf. "The- the reason that you're losing the game is 'cause you've never been able to see the whole board. I need to show you the whole board." He opens it up and starts messing with the pieces, sticking colored post-it tabs on them with names and explaining things as he makes his dad sit across from him. Blue for Hunter, yellow for werewolf/kanima, pink for druid, and purple for witch.
"Scott and Derek are werewolves?"
"Yes."
"And Kate Argent was a werewolf?"
"Hunter. That's- blue's Hunter."
"Along with Allison and her father." Cora pitched in.
Noah nods. "Yeah, and- and Y/n is a druid?"
"No, she's a witch. That's purple."
"And my friend, and Y/n's legal guardian, Deaton, the veterinarian, is a kanima?"
"What, no, no, no, no, no. He's a druid, okay? Right?" He looks at Y/n and she nods.
"So who's the kanima?"
"Jackson."
"No, Jackson's a werewolf."
"Jackson was the kanima first, and then Peter and Derek killed him and he came back to life as a werewolf. Now he's in London."
"Who's the da-rack?" Noah mispronounces.
"It's da-rock." Stiles and Y/n chorus together before Cora continues.
"We don't know yet."
"We don't know yet."
"But he was killed by werewolves?"
"Slashed up and left for dead." Y/n confirmed.
"We think." Cora said again.
"We think." Stiles repeated. "Yeah."
Noah sighs and leans back. "Why was Jackson the kanima?"
"''Cause sometimes, the shape that you take reflects the person that you are."
"And what shape would an increasingly confused and angrier-by-the-second father take?"
"Uh, that would be more of an expression like the one you're currently wearing."
"Yeah." Noah got up and Stiles also jumped up to stop him from leaving.
"Dad- dad, would you- I can prove it, okay? She's one of them. A werewolf." He points to Cora.
"Stiles,"
"And- and Y/n can show you too-"
"Stiles! That's enough."
He walked passed his son and Stiles tried one more time. "Dad, can you please just hold on?" Noah obliged and paused by the door. Stiles turned to the girls. "You ready?" Cora gave a shrug and Y/n sighed but nodded, the two standing and he turned to his dad again. "All right, Dad, just watch this, okay?"
Y/n had just shifted her eyes but looked away when she felt something wrong with Cora, and caught the Beta just as she fainted. She lowered her to the ground and tried to heal her as Noah rushed over, but it wasn't working. Something was combating her magic. "She needs a hospital." Y/n urged.
"Call an ambulance." Stiles did as his father asked and the girl was taken to the hospital, the other three following to make sure she was okay. Soon after Scott called with more information. Y/n listened in while Stiles held the phone to his ear.
"It's philosophers as in teachers. Allison and her father just found Mr. Westover."
"That makes sense." Stiles nods with Y/n.
"Tara, she wasn't always a cop. She used to teach middle school."
"Then the last one's gonna be another teacher."
"Yeah, but there's dozens of them, Scott, and they're all headed home."
"No." Y/n said at the same time Scott did. "The recital. Everyone is going to be there, including the teachers."
"Scott, keep an eye out." Stiles hung up and she followed him as he searched for his dad again, trying one more time to convince the man of what's happening. "What did you see the night at the bank when Scott was trying to save Deaton and Y/n?" The teens followed behind the Sheriff as he walked down the hall of the hospital.
"Nothing." He denied.
"Dad, you saw him healing himself after he tried crossing the mountain ash."
"I don't know what I saw."
"You saw something that you can't explain. And Y/n, you remember how bad she looked? She made a full recovery after a day. Another thing that you can't explain."
"Stiles, I have seen a lot of things I can't explain in this town. That doesn't make 'em supernatural and it doesn't make 'em real. They just found another body. That's real. And that's the lead I'm following."
"Yeah, and another teacher's going to die if you don't start listening to me."
Noah rounds on him then and raises his voice. "I am listening! I have been listening!" Everyone in the waiting area glances at the trio.
Stiles looks at his dad. "You just don't believe." Noah, still frustrated, just shakes his head deciding he's done talking and walks away, only to pause when Stiles speaks again. "Mom would have believed me." Stiles takes Y/n's hand and drags her along with him as she throws a sad glance towards the Sheriff. Even she thought that was a bit of a low blow, but she didn't say anything about it.
When they were in the Jeep and driving towards the school Y/n looked at him. His jaw was clenched and his knuckles were turning white from his grip on the steering wheel. His whole body language screamed tension. She was tense as well, but he was completely wound up. She reached over and eased one of his hands off of the wheel for a moment to try and help. "It's gonna be okay." She assured.
He lightly shook his head. "He just won't believe me."
"He will. He'll come around eventually. I mean, his whole life revolves around facts, evidence, and logic, things that are not easily meshed with the supernatural. But you're his son. He'll come around for you." He gave a glance at her and her reassuring smile. He wasn't totally convinced, but he did feel better knowing that she had faith, and that was enough for him. His smile grew when she brought his hand up to her lips and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. As long as they had each other, everything would be okay.
When they got to the school the recital was already underway and they walked into the room, finding Scott near the door and standing on either side of him. Y/n frowned up at the stage as the music swelled and the chanting began. She could feel her again, the darach's presence. She had something to do with this. She suddenly hissed as her temple had a stab of pain for a moment. It was quick but it was enough to shock her. "Are you okay?" Scott asked.
She wasn't though. Her stomach twisted and she had a feeling that that pain was related to someone who was missing. "Where's Lydia?" She asked suddenly.
"I- I don't know. She was just here." Scott looked around but the strawberry blonde was indeed not where she had been.
"It's her. Lydia's next."
"Wait, what? How do you know?" Stiles questioned.
"How else do I know anything? Just a feeling. We need to find her. Now." She didn't leave room for argument as she turned on her heal and ran out of the doors and out of the school with the boys right behind her. "Lydia!" She called into the night air.
"Lydia?" Scott looked around with his enhanced vision. "Anything?" Scott shook his head.
"She's not answering her phone." Y/n fussed as she shoved her phone back into her pocket
"What do we do? Scott?" But the wolf didn't have an answer. Y/n took a step in a random direction when a piercing scream ripped though the air, the type of scream only those with enhanced ears could hear. Y/n and Scott covered their ears in pain. "Guys? What's happening?"
Y/n couldn't answer though as she looked where the scream was coming from, her hands falling from her ears and her eyes glowed. "Of course." Her voice was a whisper as the screams stopped. Why hadn't she seen it before? It made sense now, why Lydia kept finding bodies, why Y/n could hear her scream, why the two seemed to have a connection since they first met. Lydia was a banshee, the spiritual sister of the witch. The harbinger of death and the messenger of the dead would always be connected.
Without another thought she bolted and ran to her friend, Scott right behind her and overtaking her by a bit. They could hear Lydia crying and then Noah yelling followed by his grunt of pain. Scott got there just before Y/n did and he shifted, roaring at Jennifer Blake, the darach. Noah looked up from leaning on the ground with a knife in his shoulder to see Scott's yellow eyes, claws, and fangs. Jennifer stepped from behind Lydia, who was tied to a chair, and Scott lunged for her, hopping over a desk and swiping at her. The woman dodged and thrust her palm against Scott's chest, sending him flying back into stacked desks and coughing up blood onto the floor when he landed.
Y/n rushed in next, eyes glowing furiosly as she used her magic to throw Jennifer against the wall. "Ever since the first day at school I felt a cold chill every time you were around, but I didn't piece together that it was you. I don't know if it's because death follows you, or if it's just because you're a frigid bitch." Jennifer yelled and threw desk at Y/n but the witch flicked her fingers and sent it back at the darach. Jennifer had to duck and then was shoved against the wall by her neck with Y/n holding her there. Y/n was furious with the supposed teacher. After everything she's done, killing innocent people, trying to kill Alan and her, trying to kill her friends, trying to kill Lydia, something in her blood sang for her to make the woman suffer. "You think by sacrificing these people, by trying to sacrifice me, it would grant you abilities like my kind? It's a birthright, a sacred gift, and you're unworthy of it. The worst you can do is steal strength and ambush unsuspecting victims."
"I'm doing the nessecary actions to protect others from the Alphas." Jennifer growled out.
"No, you're getting revenge for what they did to you. The sacrifices stop here."
"No, they don't." Y/n had been blinded by her own anger for only a moment, but it was enough. Jennifer brought up her hand and blew mistletoe dust in Y/n's face. Y/n choked on the powder before she fell to the ground unconcious. Jennifer looks down at the teen just as Stiles comes to a stop at the door. He looks at Y/n and then at Jennifer, but before he can try and do anything Jeniffer grips the edge of the teacher's desk and shoves it forward making the door close and barring his entry. He struggles against it as she turns her attention to Noah who has now retrieved his gun and pointed it at her.
"There was a girl. Years ago, we found her in the woods, her face and body slashed apart. That was you, wasn't it?" Noah had looked into old medical reports with the aid of Melissa and found that while that girl had been operated on a massive amount of birds had slammed themselves into the hospital and into the room, sacrificing themselves for something, or someone.
"Maybe I should've started with philosophers, with knowledge and strategy." She steps towards him and he shoots her in the legs. She hisses in pain, but the wound heals moments later, only leaving a hole in her pants. "Healers..." She rushes forward and lifts him by the knife still in his shoulder and he grunts in pain as his gun falls to the floor. She shoves him back into the stacked desks. "Warriors..." She grips his badge and rips it from his shirt. "Guardians..." She crushes the metal in her grip and lets it clatter on the ground. "Virgins." She kisses him and when he shoots his eyes open she pulls back, revealing her true, mangaled form. She growls at him.
Stiles' struggle against the door eventually pays off and the desk shifts enough for him to squeeze through as glass shatters. Scott manages to get to his feet as Stiles runs to the window. "Dad?" Stiles called. Y/n had recovered from the mistletoe and sat up against the wall, taking deep breathes, and she sees the shattered window, along with the missing darach and Sheriff.
~~~
Published: 5/19/21
Edited: 4/12/22