Different Roads Challenge #20

The art is by Fanarts. Isn’t she cool?

 

Title:  Ill Blown Storms
Author: Ladyholder
Challenge #:  20
Fandom/Original: Teen Wolf
Genre (slash/het/gen/etc): Mostly Gen, some really broad hints of slash if you look at it right
Warnings:  Death of canon characters, bloody messes in all meanings of the phrase and impromptu surgery

Beta/Handholding: CinnaMinion and Mariah
Concrit (yes/no): Off list/off line ONLY

Inspiration by: Fanarts_series

The rival Packs Alpha roared out a challenge when the two humans didn’t come out of hiding and swiped his claws over Jennifer’s throat. The move looked casual almost unreal, but what wasn’t casual was the flood of blood that poured out of the resulting cuts. She dropped to the ground immediately, her hands weakly clutching at her neck in an effort to staunch the flow.

Stiles was grimly certain she wasn’t going to be able to do that for long and Jennifer wasn’t a werewolf, so she didn’t have any accelerated healing. Throttling down his rage, he looked down the scope of the rifle he had grabbed from the Argents and inhaled softly. Holding his breath for a three count, the image in the sight steadied and his finger brushed the trigger.

The high caliber bullet laden with wolfsbane tore through the Alpha’s forehead right above his nose and out the back of his head without slowing down. The bullet went on to hit the Beta who had been shadowing his Alpha as he wreaked havoc in Beacon Hills in the chest and immediately started destroying the werewolf’s system. Stiles forced himself to continue to look through the scope long enough to see the Beta jerk and blood start to pour from the wound and not stop. He would worry about disposing with the new bodies later. Unshipping the gun from his shoulder, handed the weapon to Allison and hurried down to the clearing, trusting that the Hunter would guard his back.

When he got to the scene, Stiles swallowed hard at the reality of what he had done. The Alpha wasn’t the first Were he had killed and he likely wouldn’t be the last. He walked over to the body he had made and kicked it over onto its back. The hole he had made wasn’t healing and the Alpha wasn’t breathing. Hand on his long knife, the human moved over to the Beta. That enemy was scrabbling in the dirt, back arched as he struggled to breathe with lungs that had been punctured with the wolfsbane laden bullet. He wasn’t succeeding and his struggles were getting weaker and weaker as the wolfsbane overwhelmed his system.

Stiles kept a wary eye on the Beta and waved a firm hand sign at Allison. One dead Were. Backing away from the dead and dying enemies, he moved to kneel by Jennifer. She was seriously fucked up, Stiles realized as he took a good look at the gashes on her neck. While the Alpha had obviously wanted to kill her, he hadn’t ripped her throat right out, he had wanted her to suffer as she died. Despite that, she had managed to keep the cuts most closed after the first rush of blood, but she was still losing it faster than was safe. Raising both arms, Stiles waved an urgent signal to Allison.

Confident she was on her way down, he checked his pockets for his phone. A quick glance at the display showed that they were far enough into the Reserve to have no bars, meaning no service. Fucking, fuckity, fuck. Throwing his head back, Stiles howled in as close an imitation of Derek as he could. He would have to take the chance at any survivors from the rival Pack hearing the call for help and coming to find them before his Pack could get there. He was betting on his Pack though. He had to.

Dropping to his knees, he surveyed the situation before him. Nothing had changed. This was bad. So, so bad, he realized. After years of running with a werewolf Pack, he was very used to the spilling of blood and the wounds that spilled it. But he was also used to his people healing, not continuing to bleed out of cuts that didn’t even clot. Stiles took off his outermost shirt and quickly folded it into a pressure bandage before applying it carefully. Shifting his fingers to cover Jennifer’s, he pressed against the cuts as gently as he could when her hands fell to her sides.

The sound of brush being expertly moved through brought his head up and he looked over his shoulder at the (now) second corpse. No movement from that quarter. Turning back to face the sound, Stiles kept his grip firmly around Jennifer’s throat, trying to keep the flood she was losing inside. The noise got closer and he drew a determined breath and shifted so he could better protect his wounded friend.

When Allison glided out of the underbrush, the glowing spot that had been gathering between his shoulder blades dissipated on the wind. “You were fairly loud. Just an FYI. Now help me keep the pressure on,” he informed her simply.

“I twisted my ankle slightly on the way down,” she admitted softly as she placed the rifle by his knees before she moved to replace her hands with his. Jerking her head at the two behind them, she raised an eyebrow. “Dead?”

Stiles nodded grimly. The Alpha was indeed very, very dead. The Beta was very recently dead, with some leftover twitching to make him jumpy. Resolutely ignoring the mess behind him, he snapped his bloody fingers in front of Jennifer’s face, trying to get her attention. “Jennifer? Jennifer! Come on, don’t do this! Stay with us.”

Allison added her voice to his and Stiles was grateful for the help. There was a huge puddle of blood soaking into the ground below and he had no idea how much more she had to lose. Even with the extra blood in her system from being pregnant there couldn’t be much left in her body.

When Jennifer’s eyes opened, she jerked against their hands, and Stiles watched another surge of blood soak the makeshift bandage. “Don’t move! Please, Jennifer, don’t move. Let us try to get the bleeding stopped.”

There was a crashing noise from behind the corpses and Allison flicked an eye at their hands before slipping hers out from under his as he took over the job of keeping the pressure on. Stiles pressed his hands in harder, trying not to cause more pain than he had to. From the subtle arching of his patients body, he wasn’t successful. The noise behind them continued and Allison faded to the side after grabbing the rifle, leaving the two of them in the open as bait.

Reaching deep within himself, Stiles pulled his magic up and tried to shape a healing spell out of will alone, carefully spreading it under the layers of his hands and shirt to soak into the flesh and blood below. When he let the magic go, the tissues under his hands glowed for a moment, before dimming without going any further. Allison cocked her head at him from her spot guarding them and then grimaced as he shook his head.

The weakness that normally washed over him like a Tsunami when he did off script magic had started as soon as he released it, but had then trickled off. He was left with a general feeling of being tired, but not exhausted as he should have been for a major healing. Stiles press his lips together firmly in an effort to not curse at his failure.

The crashing resolved itself to be Isaac and both humans relaxed. The Were took the situation in with a glance around the clearing. “Oh, my God. What happened?”

“Hostage situation to lure us out and the newly ventilated Alpha damn near ripped her throat out,” Stiles growled. “Can you come leech some of the pain away?”

“Oh, yeah,” Isaac scrambled over to Stiles and dropped to his knees before carefully touching the skin of the dying woman’s forehead. The black vines of pain immediately appeared, growing up his arms.

“Carefully, Isaac,” Stiles murmured. He counted to ten and watched as his patient whispered a sincere ‘thank you’ before her eyes glazed and closed. The breathing he could feel under his hand was to shallow and he could barely feel a heartbeat, even with his magic. “Pull back, Isaac. Not too much.”

The younger boy pulled his hands off reluctantly. Stiles didn’t release his grip on Jennifer’s neck, even though he knew it was futile. When Isaac threw back his head and howled, he added his voice to the cry for help. He let his voice rise and kept a close eye on Jennifer. The noise they were making seemed to wake her up and he smiled at the end of his plea, trying to be reassuring.

When his patient gave him a sweet smile in return, Stiles knew. “No! No, you do not get to do this to Derek!”

Jennifer just blinked and at him and breathed out a careful sentence. “I’m sorry. Tell him I loved them.” With a sigh, her muscles went lax and Isaac howled again, loss infusing the sound.

“Isaac. I need you to tilt her head back and breathe for her when for her when I say,” Stiles ordered quickly as he pulled his hands off Jennifer’s throat. Walking his fingers down her chest carefully he felt for the spot on her sternum that he would have to press to keep her heart beating. He had to keep trying to save her, Derek was counting on him. His hand rushed up against the mound of her belly, and he could feel the baby moving within.

Taking a deep breath, Stiles pushed the panic he was feeling away and started counting chest compressions. “Isaac! Now!”

The two breaths the werewolf pushed into her barely made her chest inflate. He wasn’t going to contemplate what was happening to her neck. Stiles kept working the compressions and resorting ignored how his hands were feeling. “Again!”

This time, Isaac got more air in and her chest rose, but the boy shook his head as Stiles got back in position. “When you push, there’s no more blood coming out.”

“Fuck!” Stiles screamed into the air. The only sounds he heard over the beating of his own heart were the sobbing breaths of Isaac and Allison.

“I need a smaller knife,” Stiles demanded roughly as he pushed his shirtsleeves up.

“What? What are you doing?” Isaac asked as he watched Stiles pull Jennifer’s clothes back to expose her franticly moving belly.

Stiles knew the look he flashed at the younger wolf was heated, but he didn’t have time to handle him gently. “I’m making sure that Derek’s child doesn’t die with his mother.”

He took the knife Allison handed him and ran his finger down the mound of belly to a spot halfway between her bellybutton and pubic bone. It looked like the right spot from what he remembered of various films and he crossed his fingers briefly. Stiles spared a glance at Allison and when she nodded, he cut across the exposed flesh, trying not to cry at what he was going. He kept his hand steady with an effort as he sliced through the layers of flesh that had protected the baby he was rescuing.

The shiny wall of the uterus was under his knife now and he could clearly see the baby moving within it. Stiles flipped the knife over so the edge was pointed up and away from the baby before puncturing the womb and slicing the organ open. The gush of amniotic fluid made Stiles wrinkle his nose and he had to resist the urge to rub his it. Dropping the knife on Jennifer’s chest Stiles reached in and pulled her baby out.

Hands covered in a plaid shirt reached around him and scooped up the baby and held it above the womb as he cut the cord. “Isaac, find something to tie that off,” he directed as he dropped the knife again to check something. Pushing his hand back into the womb, he carefully felt around and then pulled out a second baby. This one was smaller, but just as wriggly as its twin and Stiles sat back on his heels. Reaching out, he grabbed the knife and cut the baby free from his mother.

A quick finger swipe of the mouth cleared the baby’s mouth and he started to scream in the cold air. Isaac was there in an instant, a second shirt in his arms to wrap the baby in after tying off the cord. Swaddling the newborn with gentle hands, Stiles looked at Jennifer’s womb carefully, but it was lying limp and deflated in the middle of the cuts he had made. No more movement and he was satisfied there had only been two babes. If there had been three…

Steeling his nerves, he sat forward and leaned over the wound. “There isn’t another baby, Stiles. There were only two heartbeats in there when you started to cut,” Isaac stopped him.

“Oh, thank God,” he moaned gratefully and started to cry. Sucking in what felt like a huge breath on the tail end of a sob, he looked at his friend who was holding Baby Hale #1. The plaid shirt was wriggling slightly as the baby moved and he was incredibly relieved that his emergency surgery hadn’t seemed to have harmed either twin. Baby Hale #2 was still in his arms and he quickly checked that the baby was still breathing. The little boy was looking up at him with Derek’s eyes and he choked slightly at the sight.

He shifted the baby so it was cradled against his chest and curled one arm around it to keep it secure. Stiles needed to do something before he could turn his full attention to the babies. Reaching out, he carefully drew Jennifer’s clothes back over her now empty womb. He knew that what he had done had been necessary, but… No one needed to see that right off. When her clothes were as neat as he could manage, he scooted back to sit against a tree.

“Isaac, give me the baby and do a patrol around us. All this blood will bring something. And keep an ear out for our Pack,” Stiles directed as he maneuvered both babies tight against him. Thankfully, it wasn’t really cold, just not truly warm.

“Keep still, Stiles. Let me adjust this for you,” Allison demanded, her voice thick with the tears he could see streaking her face. She handled each baby carefully as she rearranged his clothes so the babies were on the inside of his shirts. With the additional body heat, he could feel their little bodies relax.

“Do you think the gunshot was heard?” Stiles asked her quietly.

“No. It was loud to us, but the sound fades out quickly,” she reassured him. “That’s why I made sure you picked that gun. Hunters don’t want official attention any more than Pack’s do.”

“Right,” Stiles nodded and sat back against the tree again. Closing his eyes, he tried to relax, but his brain was running at full speed, reviewing the events of the night. So many things had gone so wrong. Flexing his hands against the babies, he tried to ignore how they felt.

He must have dozed, because the next thing he remembered was Allison shaking him awake. “Isaac says that Derek is on his way in with Scott,” she reported.

Clearing his throat, Stiles grunted and tried to stretch slightly without losing his grip on the twins. It wasn’t going to happen so he held still. “Thanks.”

Allison shook her head and moved out of the way, leaving him as the first living thing Derek saw when he walked into the clearing. Stiles watched as the Alpha of his Pack breathed deeply of the scents in the clearing. He could tell the minute that the older man realized what happened. Dropping to his knees by Jennifer, Derek pulled back the shirt that one of the other two had covered her with. His face was unreadable as he leaned forward and kissed her forehead.

Turning to face Stiles, Derek looked composed, but the younger man knew better. Another piece of his family had just been killed and he wasn’t certain how much had been saved. “I’m sorry,” Stiles began carefully. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to save her.”

The Alpha made a sharp gesture with his hands before pulling in a shuddering breath. “Was she avenged?”

“Yeah, totally. The Alpha got his right away, the Beta died for it about three minutes later, in massive amounts of pain,” Stiles reported. “She held on for a while. We tried to help, but…”

“I know. I saw the bandage,” Derek nodded. “Why are you sitting that way?”

Stiles could tell that he was looking for something to distract him. He had the perfect thing too. “Because I made sure that the Hale family has a chance to live on,” he said simply.

Derek wasn’t dumb and Stiles could see the instant he understood. He hadn’t even had time to take a full breath to explain before the Werewolf was in front of him, carefully peeling back the layers that Allison had arranged to keep the babies warm. They hadn’t had access to a blanket, but she had done what she could and it had been enough.

When they had been unwrapped enough for him to see, the Were had gone still, not moving a muscle for several long moments. Stiles was really hoping that he wasn’t trying to get a scent off the babies, because they hadn’t been washed after their births and frankly, all three of them stank. Once Derek could move again, he went back to the body of his girlfriend and placed another kiss on her head.

Stiles was just close enough to hear the new father as he said good-bye. “Thank you, honey. I know you teased me by calling me that, but thank you. They are both here and I will do my best to raise them knowing about you.”

His voice dropped even further and Stiles could no longer hear him. Not that he minded. Whatever he was saying in his farewells to Jennifer, he didn’t need to know. Blinking hard, he tried to stay awake and aware, and from how she was weaving, Allison was just as tired as he was. The Alpha took their condition in what just a glance and then nodded.

“Time for us to go home,” He directed quietly. “Isaac, Scott, we need the two werewolves to disappear. Jennifer is going to have to come home so I can officially claim custody of the kids.”

Dropping his head to his chest, Stiles drew in a deep breath and tried not to gag at his own scent. There were so many things they had to do before things could get back to something close to normal and he needed to step up to help. “Derek, help me figure out some way for the babies to stay warm and I’ll help.”

Derek shook his head before he finished the though. “I need you and Allison to go home and take care of the kids while we deal with this.”

“But!” Stiles tried to protest. He needed to pull his own weight in the Pack. He couldn’t go off and lounge around while the rest worked!

The Alpha carefully invaded his personal space and started to rearrange the kids so he could walk with them as needed. “I need you to guard my children, Stiles. Please.”

He gave in with ill grace and nodded. The relief that flashed over the normally impassive face in front of him was startling. So were the hands that cupped the back of his head to maneuver it to accept a kiss on the forehead. “Thank you.”

Stiles didn’t have the words to reply.