the hurt doesn't show (but the pain still grows)

headache - n.:
1. a pain located in the head, as over the eyes, at the temples, or at the base of the skull.
migraine - n.:
A severe recurring headache, usually affecting only one side of the head, that is characterized by sharp pain and is often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and visual disturbances.

Is this what I think it is? An UPDATE? I don't know, check the bottom of the fic for extended notes.

This is the reality of it: screaming. People, typically, are born screaming. Loud, bright, caterwauling - people are noise and noise is people. They scream for joy, for outrage, for travesty; they scream for truth, justice, and late-night movies.

They scream for wonder. They scream for fear.

They scream for pain.

This is the reality of it: people enter the world screaming, and sometimes they leave it screaming.

Sometimes, they spend a good deal of the in-between screaming too.

iii. with no expression, nothing to express
Day 01: Tuesday – 1:15 Isaac

If there's one thing the pack appreciates most about Stiles, it's that he's organized – crazily so. They have laundry days and wash days and shopping days; they have days where only the girls whites get washed, and then afterward only the guys darks. They have days where Stiles will clean the entire house, and then days where he cleans just the floors and counters, and days where he just dusts.

A part of it is calculations on his part, and a healthy knowledge of how much the werewolves complain about chemical smells when he goes through and does all the chores all at once. He's spent just as much time figuring out which detergents he can't use – far easier than trying to find the ones he can, there aren't a lot – as he has actually washing clothes.

What it comes down to is this – Stiles is a master of scanning chemical compounds and knowing which burn the pack's sensitive little noses and which don't.

So when Isaac finally tumbles into the house and it smells like honey, fresh cut grass and Stiles (boy-man, human skin, and speed-stick), he knows that Stiles has pulled another one of his super-ninja vanishing acts and cleaned the house while everyone was away. He's really, really good at it.

He follows the winding trail of human scent around the house, up and down stairs and then back, cataloging what's been cleaned (and what hasn't, because that means they're going to be cleaned next), and what's been moved. Laundry is gone (a full laundry day then), floors and cabinets have been cleaned (trying to use up the last of the wood cleaner before new things have to be bought), and all the carpets vacuumed. The windows gleam with a streak-less shine, and all the drains smell faintly of Drain-O or Ridgid.

The smell of Stiles sooths a particular buzzing in his head, like an itch, a prickle – little bugs walking all over his skin. It had started at noon time, about the time that the pack would have been having lunch, a sharp spike and then a continuous dull throbbing, but it hadn't been a problem until it started to get soothed away – then the magnitude of the pain finally made itself known.

He hums as he goes, pleased with the werewolf healing finally kicks into banish the pain, trail finally winding down to the kitchen, where two fresh plates of cookies sit innocently on the counter, the cabinets liberally peppered with a rainbow of sticky-notes. He glances at them in passing.

(Green) Lydia, Allison, Erika – Delicates in dryer #1
(Red) Isaac, Jackson, Scott, Derek, Boyd – Jeans in dryer #2
(Blue) Derek, Scott, Boyd – Shirts in washer #1
(White) Isaac, Jackson – Shirts in washer #2

They always have the same colors when they're grouped together, and their colors only changed when they were mentioned singularly – Lydia, celery in the crisper drawer (Gold); Scott, car keys in the bowl by the door (Grey) – or in twos.

He snags a cookie, then the plate, eyes scanning the fridge doors. The bottom door of the stainless steel monstrosity is covered in pictures and magnets, the top an organized month-to-month chart of food and chores and Skype-chat dates.

Tuesday – Skype, 6:45!

He smiles, takes a chunk out of his cookie, rubs his temple and the receding pain with the butt of his hand, and goes out to the living room. His soaps are on.

Day 01: Tuesday – 12:18 Lydia

Lydia notices the headache the moment it springs into being – it's not gradual, she doesn't ignore it or forget about it. It's there suddenly – a bright-sharp bloom of pain in her forehead, and then, almost immediately afterward, a secondary pain at the back of her head.

She stops, breathing slowly, toes curling in the crisp-clean pine needles that carpet the floor. The air smells spiky for a moment, and her throat aches with a metallic burn.

It… isn't hers. She knows it isn't hers, this blinding hurting feeling. It's not debilitating, she could keep walking if she wanted to – but, she doesn't know who's it is, either.

That's the thing about the pack bonds that she doesn't like, even as the ties of pack-hunt-joy urge her forward, her steps sure and even. She still has trouble figuring out where certain feelings come from, the emotions ping-ponging around between pack members and back. It doesn't help that everything is a tumble of muted shape-sound-touches to her: her half change into werewolfdom left her with a stunted sense of perception, half-blind to what the other's can feel clearly.

She growls, frowns, and walks on. She'll ask about it later, when they get together after their play-hunt to watch movies and snuggle.

Day 01: Tuesday – 12:18 Boyd

The grass is damp against his face, all the scents of spring earth rising up to meet him, when the pain strikes him square in the forehead, and he's barely had time to blink before a secondary pain rebounded at the back of his head, a broader stroke of hurt in comparison to the direct knock to the front.

Curious and concerned, Boyd rolls over into a crouch, expanding his awareness outward toward the house. The rest of the pack is wandering about in the woods, play fighting and running. The likelihood of it being one of them is high, considering their blatant disregard for their bodies since they'd been turned, but it's still worrisome.

Frowning slightly, he straightens up, intent on finding the rest of the group. Maybe he could find out who the pain had originated from and assuage the niggling sense of pack-hurt-pack-protect.

Day 01: Tuesday – 1:30 Erica

Erica turns over in the grass, tugging on Scott's foot before rolling away, grass and leaf litter caught up in her hair. Her head has been hurting for the past hour and a half, and she's just about done with it. Cocking her head, she can hear Isaac inside, watching his daytime soaps, eating – cookies?

Her stomach gurgles, suddenly active inside her, and she jumps to her feet, excited.

"Isaac!" She yells, darting up the porch steps and through the back door, sniffing him out through the fog of Stiles-smell that permeates the house. As she moves from one room to the next, following his winding trail through the house, she feels her headache lessen, the sharp-dull throbbing that had been circling her ebbing away.

She finds him in the biggest of their living areas, sprawled across a couch with a plate of cookies balanced on his stomach.

"Goodness, you fiend, gimme some!" She says, snatching two as she vaults over the sofa and him, landing squarely between the arm of the couch and a chair. "Nailed!" Isaac just rolls his eyes and turns the volume up a little higher, munching on a cookie.

Erica, pleased, settles against the couch, her shoulder pressed against his draped forearm, content to watch the rest of the program with him.

Day 01: Tuesday - 12:18 Scott & Jackson

Scott and Jackson happen to be tumbling about in the forest when they get hit with the headache, the pain timed just so - so perfectly - that they are forehead to forehead when Scott winces in time with Jackson's hitched breath, hands gripping each other's hair and shirt.

They eye each other, wary and concerned, before butting heads again, reassuring each other that they are okay, if a little weirded out at the simultaneous pain-that-shouldn't-be.

Jackson flips Scott over his shoulder, and for the moment, it's forgotten.

Day 01: Tuesday - 12:20 Derek

The sun is warm-bright on his skin, a contoured press of heat over his body, soothing away the painhurtwhy spike that had sent him flat on his back two minutes prior.

His body is still and his eyes are closed, but inside, in the web of gold-copper-iron strands that make up the web of pack bonds, he's following leads, checking on his wolves.

Because this hurt? It's pack hurt, and it's strong and tastes of fear and surprise - tastes like when Boyd got his arm caught in a hanging bear trap laced with wolfs bane, because hunters can be that fucking crazy.

He follows it down through the web of pack-bonds and beta-bonds and change-bonds, searching out the source. It feels muzzy and precariously anchored, much like Lydia's had the first few weeks after he'd officially established the pack.

But the pathway to it was well worn and clear, even if a cloud seemed to block his vision of it fully. His mental fingers slid through and around it, and his mind's eye couldn't get a clear view of it until he was almost completely directed away from it.

Brows drawn together, Derek stood up and headed for the house, intent on confronting the problem once he had the entire pack in front of him.

Dinner 5:45 – Scott

There's always something strange about eating with the pack and not eating with Stiles – it's a feeling that Scott has come to recognize as loss, even if he feels awkward for admitting it. It isn't hard to image why, either, when he steps back and actually looks at his adoptive family's surroundings – the house smells like Stiles and the products he uses because he knows they irritate werewolf senses the least, their clothes smell like Stiles and the special brand of detergent he's bought ever since Isaac had almost passed out from the chemical reek three months ago. The dishes are stacked and drying in the same way Scott has seen in Stile's house since he was four years old, because it's the exact same way Stiles' mother used to stack them once she'd finished washing. The food even tastes like Stiles and his standard of cooking, one perfected over long hours toiling for a father that worked too hard and spread himself too thin to take care of all the nuances of a growing boy and the job that kept them both fed.

It still grips his heart and twists when they all sit down at the table that night to eat, and its set up like Stiles always sets the table, and the dishes that they pull from the oven smell like Stiles and love and home.

He feels oddly disconnected as they start to pass around the food, mind buzzing with something like the memory of an idea, something related to Stiles and yet not. No doubt if the other boy was with him he'd be able to help him out, but Stiles had been a decidedly vague presence at pack gatherings since they'd brought Jackson back from lizardhood and settled their territory.

"The whole 'united front despite our differences' thing isn't a big deal anymore." He can remember his best friend saying, his fingers running over his hair in a gesture of mild exasperation. "We aren't scaring off crazy hunters, the Alphas sent their fond farewells – I've got colleges to think about now." He'd looked sheepish then, and sad, and Scott was struck by a memory of the same boy helping him research for a paper in their sophomore year, more focused on the now than some blurry, indistinct future like 'college'.

Stiles had laughed then, and if Scott had been anyone else he might not have noticed the brittle edge to it, the way Stiles' eyes shifted away before coming back to look somewhere over his shoulder.

"You know, human stuff."

And that had been the end of it.

He's jerked from his thoughts by Erica brandishing a corning wear dish full of baked potatoes at him, one eyebrow arched at him like he's a special rock she found on the ground – pretty, but dumb.

"You awake over there, Fido?" Her voice is teasing, even though he can sense her mild confusion through the pack bond.

"Duh." He rolls his eyes in response and takes the container from her, deftly dropping one of the foil wrapped spuds onto his plate before passing it on to Jackson.

He'll be talking to Stiles soon, he knows – but somehow it doesn't seem soon enough.

Dinner – Lydia

It's tough being one of the only women in a pack of werewolf men – almost more trying than being the smartest, prettiest girl in Beacon Hills, if only because there's no one that Lydia can talk to and feel like she's actually communicating with them, instead of just speaking to hear her own voice. Normally, Stiles fills that void, and Lydia is well aware of it – sharp, witty, dedicated to getting knowledge when he can in any way he can, oh yes, Lydia gets it. It's a bleeding shame that he refused the bite, and she's told him so, multiple times. But she gets his reasoning, even if she wishes she didn't.

Stiles is the only one of them with any sort of family besides Scott, but Scott's mother is a shining example of being an exception to the rule, rather than the standard.

Still, she'd rather Stiles spent more time at the house with them than orbiting them like some wayward comet. It would make problem solving a hell of a lot easier.

Lydia doesn't like to be overly blunt if she doesn't have to be, as anyone with a decent IQ could attest – her best comments are the ones that are so light and delicate that her opponents don't know they've been cut until they're bleeding out on the floor, a strategy she's taken with her into battle multiple times. Stiles is lucky enough to be able to respond, if not in kind, then at least on a level of equal intelligence.

Unfortunately, Lydia is not only one half of the dynamic female duo of the pack, she's also probably the smartest, which makes her frown slightly as she surveys her family as they pass dishes around the table.

Derek is intelligent, despite his jump first attitude – she's seen him pick up his smart hat and use his brain, even be sassy at times, despite it being mostly around Stiles. Boyd is smart too, but in a quieter way, a well of knowledge that he uses basically every time he speaks – it's a shame he's so quiet.

Scott and Jackson are, unfortunately, cut from the same cloth, even if Jackson is the more ambitious of the two of them. They need things explained, normally in detail, and Lydia often doesn't have the patience for it. That, again, is normally where Stiles would step up and break down whatever is happening that they don't understand.

Erica and Isaac come from similar backgrounds, and are street smart if not intelligent in a standard sense – Isaac hides his wit behind his dimples and his ridiculously gorgeous hair, and Erica hides it behind loud lipstick and prominent cleavage.

She sighs, cutting her steak in even squares, debating. It's not that she doesn't want to ask, because she does – someone else must have felt something that afternoon more clearly than she did, and not just because her pack bond is fuzzy and out of tune at best. Someone has to know, and, frankly, Lydia really doesn't want to beat around the bush any more than she has to.

"So who hit their head today?" She says into the low murmurings around her, voice clear. She doesn't look up from her cutting, as though the question and her motives are perfectly innocent.

From the way the entire table stiffens and curiously nervous glances are exchanged, she knows she wasn't the only one to find the random headache somewhat worrisome.

Dinner - Boyd

Boyd was well aware that someone was going to bring up the unusual head pain at dinner; he just hadn't been sure who. It both is and isn't a surprise when Lydia speaks up from one end of the table, posture carefully neutral and tone light. Her asking tells him something he hadn't thought of previously; that whatever it was that had happened had been strong enough for Lydia to feel, despite her hazy bond.

Still, he is aware that Lydia favors tact most often, and only resorts to outright interrogation when she is either done with someone's shit or wants the answer as quickly as possible.

Unable to answer, his eyes go to Derek, who is looking at Lydia with speculatively narrowed eyes.

Dinner – Derek

It's like chill creeps into his lungs, being confronted by Lydia, because the implications brought up by her asking are numerous, and all of them more disturbing than the last.

"We don't know." He says, gaze roaming from one member of his pack to the next. He doesn't like not knowing – not knowing leads to things like the fire, Peter, the kanima, and Lydia. Not knowing makes both him and the wolf blind, and if the human half of Derek rebels against the unknown then the wolf tears at it, shredding it between strong teeth made from instinct and experience.

"We'll ask Stiles about it, tonight."

Dinner – Erica

Derek being unaware of something is like a flare for his Chosen Trio, Erica knows; Derek not knowing means they have to be twice as aware of everything they're doing, of everyone they talk to, of everyone they see or hear or smell.

She laces her fingers with Isaac's under the table and crosses one of her ankles over Boyd's. They return the pressure of her squeezes with equal force, and Erica is aware of a light ringing in her mind as they reach for their bonds, gripping them tight like promises.

They will find out what's happening, Erica vows as everyone turns back to their food. They will.

6:40 – Jackson

"Where's the notes on the colleges?"

"I dunno man, Lydia has them. Lydia!"

"They're in your emails, calm down. God."

The activity in the computer den is always ratcheted up to twelve when they have Skype calls with Stiles, Jackson thinks. It's weird because they see him all the time, even if it's never in the house, but he gets it, the whole 'happy puppy' thing that everyone seems to get infected with when Stiles' face comes into view on all their laptop screens.

The computer den is a room Stiles' badgered Derek into making when the house was being built, with big French doors and a patio, the room full of plush couches and chairs. It's homey, all warm brown colors and soft carpeting and pillows, and there's an outlet and a power strip for every wall – which Stiles laments as being unsafe but still supplies plastic plug covers for. It has the strongest wifi of any of their rooms, and is one of the parts of the house that smells the most like pack and Stiles.

Jackson's lounging on one of the couches that have been pushed against the wall, his laptop already booted up and ready for their mass conference. Only Scott, Erica and Isaac are in the room with him while the rest of the family putters around grabbing snacks and drinks. Their pack Skype chats often last for hours, like they're trying to make up for the time they don't see Stiles during the rest of the week, or when he stealthily ninjas his way into the house and leaves without them noticing.

Which is the problem in the first place, thinks Jackson, eyes closed and listening to the heartbeats that thrum through the house. Nobody is willing to call Stiles out on his avoiding them, even though he's totally pack.

It irks Jackson that no one else is getting it.

Stiles takes care of them, he cleans for them, he's fought for them and risked his life and moved the world for them, and it makes something inside Jackson twist and pull that no one has taken him by the shoulders, looked him in the eye and said, 'You're pack. Come home'. Jackson would do it, would do it in a heartbeat to wash away the strange confused melancholy that lives in everyone's scents when they find out they've just missed Stiles, or Stiles is busy, or Stiles almost made it but can't.

But he's not Scott, even though he and Stiles don't hate each other anymore, and he's not Derek, and it won't mean the same things if he pulls the boy aside and tries to ask the important questions.

He gets it though, and it makes something in him ache that no one else gets it in the same way.

The thing that people forget – or conveniently ignore, depending – is that Jackson's adoptive parents are rich. Rich enough to get Jackson expensive cars and fancy clothing and pretty toys. Rich enough to get maids and nannies and nurses when they don't have time for him. He's been through his fare share of surrogate fake parents, of maids and minders that he had a higher emotional attachment to than he did his parents when he was little. He remembers not understanding why Rosa or Abigail or Charlotte or Janine weren't at holiday dinners or vacations, why his parents always told him to go play with his friends and not bother 'the help'. He remembers the way the knowledge gradually dawned on him that even though Claudine or Margaret or Bridget or Isabel met him at the door and fed him and helped him with his homework and his clothing and his problems, they weren't family.

And the pack – even Lydia, maybe Derek – the pack is caught in that stage before understanding, all confusion and questions. Why doesn't Stiles eat with us? Why doesn't Stiles spend the night? Why isn't Stiles here? Why, why, why?

Jackson doesn't know how to tell them that Stiles doesn't think he's wanted – that Jackson can see it in his eyes every time they meet with him, or see him over the internet. That Stiles has picked up a plaque labeled 'the help' and pinned it to himself because he doesn't see that he has pack-family-love-home written into his skin.

He fidgets on the couch, eyes opening to watch the pack funnel into the room, squirming to sit more upright when Erica and Isaac decide to flop themselves down into the open V of his legs, freeing up space on a love seat for Lydia and Boyd to drop next to Scott. Allison, having come over almost directly after dinner, sits between Scott's legs on the floor chatting animatedly with Lydia. Derek, his laptop open on his knees, is the only one who sits alone, his bean-bag chair positioned in the open corner made by the couches.

Jackson tries not to think about the gaping Stiles-shaped space that should be at his side.

He's roused from his thoughts by a jab to the cheek, and when he brings his gaze down it's to be pinned by the curious looks of Isaac and Erica.

"What's got you sulking, cheek-bones?" Erica asks, jostling one of his legs with her arm. Isaac scratches the jeans of his pants lightly, eyebrows tilted up.

"Just ready to get this started." He says, which is truth enough that they won't hear his heart give him away with the lie of it.

The last of the pack settles into the room, snacks and drinks and eager eyes.

Jackson sighs and joins their group chat, a sliver of something nervous and tense settling in his shoulders.

"Dude where is he."

"Maybe he's doing homework?"

"He's done homework during our calls before."

"Maybe his computer's dead?"

"He would've called. Plus he has his laptop – he just plugs it in and chats when it dies."

"… does he just not want to talk to us?"

"He left a note."

"We should call John."

"He's at the resort though though."

"He might be asleep?"

"You know he doesn't go to bed until, like, twelve. If he's lucky."

"I – we should call his phone."

"Scott?"

The phone rings and rings and rings, the tension in the room drawing tighter and tighter, the silence broken only by Stiles' voicemail.

"Hi, you've called Stiles Stilinski's phone. I can't pick up right now, but if it's urgent leave a name and number included in your message, redial, and I'll catch you when I can! Here's the beep, you know what to do."

"Stiles, this is the Pack. Call us back, okay?"

Scott closes his phone.

"We'll call back in fifteen minutes."

"Do you think this has anything to do with that weird head-pain earlier?"

"I think he would've called if he'd been doing something with the pack bonds."

"He's been screwing around with magic right? What if it knocked him out, and his dad doesn't know because he's at work and he's been out of it this whole time and he's in danger or drowning in his own blood or – "

"Calm down. He was here earlier – at least two hours before we came in from training. Melissa is keeping tabs on him, and she didn't go to work until five thirty, so whatever he did his she would have been called us for. She'd have called us if Stiles had come to the hospital."

"So we call him in ten minutes?"

"We call him in ten minutes."

"Hi, you've called Stiles Stilinski's phone. I can't pick up right now, but if it's urgent leave a name and number included in your message, redial, and I'll catch you when I can! Here's the beep, you know what to do."

"Now what?"

"We'll call him again in ten minutes?"

"Yes."

"Hi, you've called Stiles – "

"This isn't funny."

"It wasn't funny the first time."

"Don't get short with me now. I'm serious. This is unacceptable."

"You're right. He would have picked up by now, or logged on, or something."

"What's the plan then?"

"We go out looking for him. One of you goes to his house, one of you goes to the station, the rest of you canvas the town. Keep your phones on at all times, don't get distracted, don't be seen at the station. Check the hospital just in case. Updates every half hour at least, and call immediately if you find anything."

"What if he's not here?"

"… We'll deal with that if it comes to it."

Day 01: Tuesday – Check Ins, 7:30

"Lydia, what do you have?"

"Nothing, he's house is empty. It looks like he didn't come back from the den after leaving. Nothing is missing except the normal things though – wallet, shoulder bag, phone, shoes, lap top. His chargers here, but he has a car charger too."

"Alright. Contact one of the others to continue canvassing."

"Right."

Lydia's line clicks out, and the phone rings barely a minute later.

"News, Erica?"

"Nothing. His scent isn't fresh around the station, and from what it looks like he hasn't visited the deputies today either."

"Okay. Join Isaac or Scott in their sides of town."

"Rodger."

The phone buzzes anew.

"Boyd, go."

"Nothing around the hospital. I'm joining Jackson out around the school now."

"Good. If Lydia calls you tell her to call Erica and ask who she isn't working with."

"Sure."

There's a two minute gap between the next call and Boyd hanging up.

"Speak."

"It's Isaac. I've found his car."

"Call the others, I'm on my way."

Something thick and cold slides into his gut, something that screams 'wrong! Wrong! Wrong!' in a voice very much like Laura's. He shrugs on his jacket and runs out the door, his heart beat loud in his ears.

The Jeep is a surreal sight in the near empty grocery store parking lot, back lit by the setting sun and strangely lonely looking without Stiles to occupy it, or music blasting from its speakers. It's parked by one of the skimpy trees that dot the asphalt, lights off and windows rolled down. As Derek circles it he can see that the passenger door is open and there are several bags in the foot well and on the seat. The whole vehicle smells rancid and strange even from a dozen feet back, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that it's almost eight hour old milk and eggs that have spoiled.

The rest of the pack is standing around the car in nervously fidgeting clump, eyeing it speculatively and sniffing the air around it. Underneath the unkind tang of rotten eggs and milk is the distinct scent of Stiles, and, hidden between them, the heavy iron thread that denotes blood.

Stiles' blood.

He turns hard eyes on his troupe and barks out, "Report," his eyes flashing into red before the word is done.

"There was another car, obviously." Lydia says, her attention directed to the parking space adjacent to the passenger side of Stiles' Jeep. "Most likely parked here. It's hard to tell what kind or who was in it, though, because other cars have parked here since it left. Only a few, probably because the Jeep started to smell," she wrinkled her nose at the odor from the groceries, "but there were at least three other cars that stayed here after there's left."

It's frustratingly vague, even though a cursory sniff tells Derek that Lydia is literally scraping the bottom of the barrel for information. He can pick out the cars, the different people in those cars; the scents that tell him which people decided to investigate the car –

He stiffens, taking a deeper whiff of the human tracks.

A woman in her twenties came to visit Stiles' car, her child lingering by her van – a man, another man with a beer, and then, there, a man and a woman, their scents faint.

As faint as the last scent of from Stiles, he realizes. He can read the hints of anticipation in them, the swift strike of violence – the collision against Stiles' head, he realizes, leaning over to get as close as he can to the Jeep's divider while several things click into place – the chemical smell of duct tape. He follows Stiles' scent trail to where the trunk of a car would be, recognizing the boy amid the mixed smells of his attackers.

"They took him here." He says, turning to look at his wolves. They stiffen, eyes flashing yellow and blue, anticipation ringing along the pack bonds. "They hit his head against the Jeep to disorientate him and put him in the trunk."

"How many?" Scott growls out, brow and nose already wrinkled with a partial change. A growl rolls under his words, and Derek can see the faint flash of fangs at his lips.

"Two. A man and a woman."

They are silent for a long, brittle moment, trading glances and fleeting comfort-touches, gazes always dragging back to Derek.

"This seems… really planned." Jackson says, hesitant in a way that Derek hasn't heard from him in a long while. "I mean… they get him when he's buying groceries, in a parking lot, in broad daylight."

"It's suspicious, at least." Erica agrees, shifting her weight from one foot to the other and back, nervous and frustrated without an outlet. "What do we do?"

Derek sighs, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning to survey the lot. They can't track car smells, not well at least, and there's no telling how far away Stiles is now. His mental clock tallies up the time – seven hours forty-one minutes – and internally he cringes.

"We have to get Deaton." He says, and the pack nods as one before they group together and jog off toward the vet clinic.

In his mind, Derek can feel the wolf and the pack-bonds strung tight with worry. He grits his teeth and sets a slightly faster pace.

They will find Stiles.

Day 01: Tuesday – Deaton's Animal Clinic, 7:48

Deaton takes the news with a calm that normally puts Derek on edge, although he understands its necessity now. They've grown out of their immediate action instincts, but he won't lie and say that the pack as a whole isn't quick to leap into plans without fully thinking them through.

The vet sits, hands steepled on the desk, eyes in the middle distance, digesting the news and, hopefully, thinking up a way to find Stiles and get him back. The pack twitches with anxiety behind Derek in the uncomfortable waiting chairs while he stands before Deaton, stone still and chilled. Not calm, but close enough, and he can hear the wolves behind him settle more permanently while he waits.

Deaton's eyes, when he finally meets Derek's, are sad and tired, but determined, and really, that is all Derek needs for any of their problems.

"We could try a tracking spell, assuming he hasn't been taken by strong witches or warlocks. It's our best bet, seeing as you won't be able to track the car at all now, and it isn't likely that he's actually still in town."

Derek grunts in response, and Deaton looks to Scott. "Do you have anything of his, anything he uses regularly, on you?"

The boy's face slides into confused concentration as he pats his pockets down, searching. "Ah!" He withdraws a set of keys from his pocket, brandishing them with triumph. "He always tells me to take care of his car. I thought he wouldn't want it getting stolen, even if it smells terrible."

Scott hands over the keys quickly, and Deaton takes them like they are something precious and fragile. He eyes them for a long time, as though looking for flaws or useful clues, but all he does in the end is nod and look back up at the group of werewolves in his room.

"This is going to take a while, so I suggest you all go home and sleep until I call you. It'll probably be around lunch tomorrow, and I think a good night's rest will help." His eyes lock with each of theirs, serious and firm. "If this doesn't work with just me then I'm going to need your help, and I can't have you strung out and overly worried because you didn't sleep."

The pack mumbles affirmatives before filing out, each giving Derek a searching look when he doesn't bring up the rear.

When they are gone, and Derek is sure that they aren't close enough to eavesdrop, he turns to Deaton with calculating eyes.

"What happens if he's been taken by someone stronger than you?" His voice is harsh, even to his own ears, and he's thankful that Deaton is used to it, is able to recognize the tense fear for what it is rather than disregarding it as uncaring gruffness.

"Then I have to make some calls." The vet says, leaning back in his chair. "And if they can't help…"

He lets the sentence hang unfinished, but Derek knows what would have been said.

Then Stiles' is on his own.

iv. so dawn goes down to day
Day 02: Wednesday – Scott, 9:50

This is not a place he knows.

The walls are too white and the floor is too clean and everything stretches on forever in a wash of blue-white and tile and sharp corners.

There are people all around and there is fire in the walls, shackles hanging from the ceiling, and voices, low and insidious and strange, talking about power and rooms and things he doesn't comprehend.

He is being dragged somewhere by hands like vices, and there is water and there are sprays and then he is standing in a room with walls a mile high and light from everywhere and nowhere.

Scott wakes up screaming, sweat soaked and wolfed out, Stiles' name on his lips.

His room is empty of any other pack members, but he knows that they're out there, tense and weary.

His skin itches and burns, hot and cold all at once, and all he wants is Stiles back.

Day 02: Wednesday – Deaton's Office, 11: 30

Deaton's secret back room is crowded, packed to the gills with werewolves, an almost over abundance of tower candles, and a map of the west coast anchored to the floor by creepily glittering geodes. Incense clouds the air, purple and red against the grey tiles of the ceiling, and a band of runes runs across the middle of the wall, black paint outlined by electric blue.

The wolves and the doctor stand in a circle around the map, hand in hand, while Deaton chants something that sounds like Latin and Old Norse had gotten drunk together and butchered war ballads.

Whatever it was makes their hair stand on end and Stiles' keys, set in the middle of the map, shake and shiver, glowing faintly blue. The longer Deaton goes for the stronger the light gets and the more the keys shake, and it's strange and wonderful to hear the wolf that always slinks around Isaac's mind howl inside him. He can hear the echo of it in his pack, his brother-sister-lovers and their wolves.

Something in him cries out for a missing piece, an integral, bone-close piece, but he can't, he doesn't – there's no telling what it is he's calling for – just that everyone else feels it too.

The keys shiver and shake and rattle, picking themselves up slowly from the middle of the map and making a jerky journey to the east and up, toward Utah, before stopping and sagging abruptly, the power and the light gone from them.

Deaton's voice echoes a moment longer in the room before petering out, the magical charge evaporating with his voice.

The pack stares at the keys on the unfolded paper, then at Deaton, and then at Derek.

"I'm going to make some calls." The vet says, and leaves the pack to touch and hug and squeeze each other for comfort, even if it's for empty hopes.

"This isn't the first instance where a human magical associate has been taken from their group, Allen."

"I know, Tamara. I've been getting reports for the past six months of children and young adults going missing – all of them somehow connected to their supernatural hubs. I just… I didn't think they were so close to Beacon hills."

"My sources tell me that they are based in Utah, but they've got branches as far as New Jersey, and no one's been able to pinpoint their exact location in the state itself. They've got powerful magic blocking them."

"Who's made the most headway so far?"

"Tabitha and Jared in Mississippi. They had the whole family coven gather together for a tracking and location spell, though, and Tabitha and Jared both come from large clans. It'd take at least six counties of coven's out where you are to achieve the same affect."

"I know, and that's what worries me – we're closer, we should have a better grip on it, but we don't."

"I know… there's been talk, Allen, in the council. This is a direct attack against all the Codes and the Laws that have been instated since the Brittle War. Whoever is doing this either doesn't know what powers they are fighting against, or doesn't care."

"Are we looking at another Sagewater Clan, do you think?"

"We can't be sure, but most of the signs are pointing toward no. The Sagewater's left messages when they stole their 'prizes', and they were indiscriminant about who they took. Whoever this is has been taking only human teens, and they leave as little as possible behind."

"Mm. Derek reported much the same. Only scents, and even then very faint and quick to dissipate. They parked right next to Stiles' car."

"They're crafty, and they've been doing this successfully for months, as far as we know."

"Who knows how many children haven't been reported, just because they weren't tied to strong Clans or Packs, or those who were homeless or orphans."

"Exactly. What worries me the most though – and you should take this into account if you continue your search with spells – is the power rating these kids have. John Darthammer's daughter was an AIV, and Margaret's son was an AV. They're taking strong kids, Allen – kids that can do things we can't even dream of."

"…"

"Allen… what does Stiles rate?"

"I've never tested him extensively – he doesn't even know what kind of power he has. But over the years…"

"Allen this isn't the time to withhold information. The Council has been taking tallies for weeks."

"He registers as an SI on a good day."

"And on a bad day…?"

"An SV. At least."

"Oh my god Allen."

"I haven't had a chance – no. I haven't been diligent. I should have tested him from the moment I learned what he'd done with the kanima. But I know he goes above SV. I've felt it."

"You've had an SV in that town for almost nineteen years and you haven't told the Council, you haven't told Derek – I'm assuming – and you haven't told the boy himself? What have you been doing?"

"Attempting to take care of the pack as a whole. Which, in hindsight, has been a bit of a waste considering how often they listen."

"A waste is right. You'd better get that boy back, Allen, before whoever took him realizes what they've got in their possession."

"I know, Tamara."

"I'm going to alert the council of this. I have to. Hopefully they'll gather a sizeable force to search for him, but I have no doubts that you'll be hearing from at least Greymander about this. And soon."

"I understand. Thank you, Tam."

"You're welcome, Allen. Expect some phone calls."

"I will."

Deaton smells of tired exasperation and nerves when he finally gathers the pack back into the vets office. They'd been out eating after the spell casting, trying to distract themselves from the failed attempt at finding Stiles the hour previously. By the time they get back to the clinic only the emptiness in their stomachs has been sated, their curiosity, nerves, and tension running high.

He takes his chair slowly, feeling all the decades of his life weighing on him like lead, and the gazes of his werewolf wards bore into him like daggers.

It has been a long time since Allen Deaton has had to deal with something as large as this – whatever it is. Long enough, for him, to have the tales of the last great battle, the Brittle War, fade into memory-dreams and nightmares.

What rankles him the most, though, is that the fundamental problem, the fault, lies with him. Had he tested Stiles early enough, warned Derek the first time Stiles channeled his power into anything productive, none of this would have happened. Either Stiles wouldn't have been stolen away in the first place, or the boy would have been able to help them find the other teens.

As it is, he's left with a mess that cannot be easily cleaned.

The sigh that rattles out of his bones makes the pack stiffen and pivot toward him, the eye of the storm and its far reaching arms gathered in one place.

His eyes, when they meet Derek's, are sad and tired and determined.

Allen Deaton has weathered the storms of change before – he will not fall to this one.

"This isn't the first time someone has been taken."

A ripple runs through the pack, claws and fangs and fur springing out like switchblades, and it is only the tense calm that Derek and Deaton radiate that keeps them from leaping up at an unseen threat.

The alpha's eyes narrow at him, blood red and cold, and Deaton continues without prompting.

"There have been reports of children related or in contact with supernatural hubs going missing for the past six months." He says, dropping his gaze to look at the print outs that Tamara had faxed over. They were the bios of the several dozen children – excluding Stiles – that had been taken over the past half year, detailing everything from their family life to what their power level was on the Enoch Scale. "There's a lot of information I can give you that you aren't going to care about, so I'm just going to hand over the print outs, but the break down is this: There's a group out there, of unknown number and affiliation, that's been stealing human children from towns with a heavy concentration of 'other worldly' beings."

"And Sitles… has been taken by this group, you think?" Scott asks, face smoothing back into human. His claws have torn the back of the chair he was standing behind into ribbons, though, and his fingers are still embedded in the padding.

Deaton nods, eyes moving from one pack member to the next, his body tense with the seriousness of the knowledge he was imparting.

"We, the Council, don't know who they are or what their agenda is. We don't know what they want, who they work for, or what they are doing to the children they are taking."

"So you don't know anything." Erica growls, eyes flashing. Isaac and Boyd drop a hand onto each of her shoulders at the same time, their fingers rubbing little circles. She doesn't lose the fire in her eyes, but her posture relaxes and Isaac takes a lock of her hair between his hands and starts to braid it. It doesn't make Deaton any less wary of her.

"We know that they are exceptionally organized for a group as apparently large as they are." He says, leaning back in his desk chair. "We know that they only target human children who are associated with packs and covens and the like, rather than human members of werewolf packs or the non-magical children in Wiccan families."

It's Lydia who leans forward this time, eyes narrowed and cutting. It'd be less unnerving if she did turn, Deaton catches himself thinking, watching the flicker of yellow that fades from her eyes. Not wolf enough to be were-, but too wolf to be human. The Council would have a field day if they ever got wind of her existence in his territory.

"So are you saying that they took Stiles because he's affiliated with the Beacon Hills Pack, or because of something else?" Her voice is like ice, and Deaton can tell that she's already calculating what his response will be based on what he has and hasn't said.

It's trying, watching over so many ridiculously intelligent people. Deaton doesn't know whether or not to count himself lucky – he knew there were members of the Council who absolutely hated their assigned packs – or them, simply because of the sheer amount of information that he'd kept from his brethren for the sake of their lives.

He'll have time to puzzle over it later, either way. The light in Lydia's eyes has gone sharp and dark with how long he's taken to answer.

"They took him because he's powerful." He says, point blank and flat. He doesn't allow himself to analyze the strange, loose surge of awareness that ripples out from the pack, doesn't allow himself to stop.

He's been quiet for too long anyway.

"He's powerful," he repeats, drawing air in through his nose, "one of the most powerful children I've ever seen, and he hasn't even been tested yet – and that's a folly only on my part."

"How powerful?" Derek grits out, teeth sharp and unforgiving in his mouth.

And this – this is the problem. Because no answer Allen is able to give will satisfy the pack, and no one he knows has an answer for him as long as he keeps what information the council has on the pack selective.

"I don't know."

Day 02: Wednesday – Beacon Hills Public Library, 4:45

They commandeer two tables in the Romantic Art History section of the library, Deaton's files and several of their laptops spread out like metal islands in a sea of paper. Lydia alternates typing furiously for several minutes and reading for long, tense periods of time, briefly breaking away to direct the other members of their 'study group' toward books and anthologies.

In the corner, Scott is curled up with Erica and Isaac, attempting to read through the heavy tomes assigned to them by Lydia but mostly just moping and growling to each other about the inactivity.

"I hate this." Isaac grumbles, pushing his forehead into his book. "I know Lydia's good at this, but I'm not – this is a Stiles thing."

Erica tuts and curls her fingers through his hair. "That's why we're doing this in the first place. We can't find him without researching."

Scott twists and wriggles between them, book open on his lap up attention miles and miles away. His voice, when he speaks, cracks along the edges and feels like broken glass.

"The first forty-eight are supposed to be the most important." He says. We're wasting them hangs thick and unspoken at the end of it, something small and uneven pressed against their throats.

No one can say anything, but from under the table, Boyd presses his ankles against Scott's.

Outside, Derek scrolls through his contacts list, making call after call after call, trepidation building in his throat.

That night they run from border to border and back, until their hands are bloody and their breath comes in ragged gasps.

There is no sign of Stiles anywhere.

v. the loneliness includes me unawares
Day 3: Thursday – Deaton's Office 11:09

Allen Deaton is one of the few members of the Council old enough to get away with sparse reports – especially considering that the majority of the members actually do remember the Brittle War for the travesty that it was.

He files the new paperwork differently, this time. Elaborates more on the details and dynamics of the pack, embellishes a little upon their history, details more of Stiles' involvement in the battles against the straying Argents, the kanima, and the Alpha Pack.

(He keeps Lydia hidden from them – "Intelligent," he says, "quick on her feet and invaluable for a human," human human human, no magic to speak of. The council isn't ready for Lydia too.)

His office smells of scented wax and incense, a cloud hanging about his shoulders when he stands, and the candles cast haunting shadows on the walls as he passes.

The noise from the fax machine is loud in the stillness of the room, mechanical clicking and whirring that sounds so sharp in the quiet of the pre-noon that he almost brushes off the strange prickling sensation on the back of his neck as hyperawareness.

Almost.

Goosebumps rise on his arms and neck, the hair there standing straight while sweat beads on his brow and the line of his back. His vision swims and distorts, like bubbling glass before fading out at the edges and darkening like burnt parchment.

And then he's not in the office –

- the memory hurts, the vision is blurry, but there are hands on him and long hallways, dragging his body through a haze of cotton and discomfort. There are grey labels on the corridor ends – A, B, C – and people he can't see, but he knows they are there.

They push him into a room equally as cold and white and terrifying as the halls, and the door snicks shut behind him.

He is left in a blank, comfortless purgatory, and his eyes flutter closed and he will not cry, he will not –

- his elbow strikes the gently humming fax machine as he staggers forwards, knocking him free of the reaching vision, temples already picking up the tempo of his heart and amplifying it twenty fold in his ears, in his skull.

He braces himself on the table and smashes his eyes shut, panting with the exertion of it. Shivers wrack his body, skin already cooling with sweat, and he is suddenly tired, so tired, his power leaving him like sand falling through a ripped sieve, like air through an open door, like water. It rips out of him and leaves his lungs rattling and his heart beat slow, sparks dancing in front of his eyes, vision as grey as the beds of his nails.

But he can't lose it, he needs that, the magic that hums in his veins. He needs it to live.

He follows it with greedy mental fingers because no, too much, too much, give it back, and is met by a wall of blankness that rocks him back into his body freshly disorientated.

Stiles?

And nothing.

Nothing replies.

But his magic is gone, stolen away by a boy hundreds of miles North by North West of him, apparently, and he is left wheezing and copper mouthed on the floor from where he's fallen and bitten his lip into a bloody mess.

Day 3: Thursday – Pack House 3:21

By the afternoon of the third day Derek has called everyone on his contact list who might know about kidnapped children, as well as gained several dozen new numbers through his network. He's grown tired of the repetition, of writing down numbers and then typing them out on his phone. He's grown tired of his running line, "Yes, hello, this is Derek Hale of Beacon Hills, I was told to contact you by [pack associate here]. Would you happen to know anything about a rash of disappearing magical children affiliated with supernatural hubs?"

And the short of it is this: Yes, I've heard. No, I don't know anything, sorry. Would you like to call an informant of mine? They might be able to help.

What he gets, after hours and hours of calling and hanging up and calling again, underneath the alternating terse and cagey conversations, is that children have disappeared even in Maine and Alaska, although the Hawaiian pack has apparently remained untouched and very concerned about the state of affairs on the continent.

Frankly, he wouldn't mind an ocean between his pack and the kidnappers either, but there's no use moving now, what with Stiles already gone.

Deaton had called around twelve, probably earlier, to relate his strange experience with the power zapping to the pack. It wasn't a lead, really, since they'd known he was somewhere in Utah, but it was a hope, at least.

"It means he's alive." Deaton had said, voice tired and dry over the phone. "It means he's strong enough to lash out through whatever defenses they have, at least for a little while, and pull power to him. It's like an instinct – lash out when cornered, I'd imagine. He's been put somewhere that his magic doesn't like, and he's fighting whatever they've been doing to him, even if only a little."

It had helped, some – Stiles' confirmed continued existence soothed something in the more wolf parts of them that recognized that something terribly important was missing from them.

But it wasn't answers, and that was what rankled Derek more.

"Do you think anyone knows anything?" Scott asks, voice muffled against the pillow he's tucked to his chest. He stares unseeing at the ceiling, casting about in his mind for the spark of awareness that has come to mean Stiles in his pack-net. It's fuzzy at best, even when his best friend is right next to him, but now it is almost entirely gone – a single thread winds itself out and away from him into a void he cannot enter.

He wonders if it's the same for the other pack members.

"Deaton does, a little." Lydia replies, thumbing through a leather bound book. It smells strange, like ash and vanilla and old earth, and isn't entirely pleasant. "Or, he has connections to people who do. But I wonder about them anyway."

On the sofa by Scott's feet Isaac and Erica twist and fidget together, Boyd to their left and Jackson beyond him.

"We should drive out, I think." Isaac says, and Jackson hums in agreement. "We ran borders already, we should drive out along the high ways and – and do something."

Lydia's nails – harsh red tipped in sparkling gold, Scott can spot them across the room – tap aggressively against the book binding. "And do what?" Her voice snaps and crackles. "It's the third day – the scents from the parking lot are already too faint to track. The highway is bad enough as it is, tracking something on that would be pointless. And what would we bank on?" She shuts the book with enough force for it to clap loudly in the room. "That they stopped somewhere? That they weren't prepared enough to drive out, get Stiles, and drive right back? That they didn't have provisions?"

The acid of her words makes Scott roll over and hunch his shoulders away from her, glaring balefully at the underside of the couch. Tension rockets through the room, Isaac and Jackson already fighting to keep their claws out of the upholstery.

"Stop it, Lydia." Boyd says, voice predator cool. All eyes snap to him, the contained power tightening his shoulders. "Arguing about it isn't going to find him faster. Getting angry with each other is useless."

They stare each other down for several long heartbeats, Lydia baring her slightly-pointed teeth and glaring furiously, Boyd with his eyes a fresh, flat yellow.

She huffs and turns away first, but it is not a victory for Boyd and everyone in the room knows it.

"We all feel useless." Scott says from the ground, carefully parting the residual tension. "But if we work on it we can find him. It's what Stiles would do for us."

The light never goes away.

It is always bright and stark and clean and he can't tell the passage of time at all – what is time, when he can't feel it?

There is food – sometimes. And water. But they come irregularly, and he never sees from where, only that they appear suddenly and without fanfare.

Does he sleep? He doesn't know. He blinks and time has passed. He shifts on the hard bed, he shivers, and blinks, and he doesn't know.

He eats, and drinks, and maybe he sleeps.

And then – the door opens.

I am so so so sorry for how long this took to update! I have no excuse for being so lax with it, and I deeply regret stringing people along for such a long time with promises for a fic 'in the future' that never seemed to be coming. I hope you will forgive me not only for my exceedingly terrible delay but also my stumbling and child-like attempts at POV changes and time skips - I had a lot I wanted to cover and several different directions I wanted to go in, and this is the result. However I hope you will accept this gift of a twenty (twenty? gracious!) page document as a start on my path to forgiveness for you. Please don't be angry with me!

The last two installments got a truly wonderful number of hits and kudos, and for that I couldn't be more grateful for them.

Questions, comments and constructive critisism are all welcomed, and, as usual, I will attempt to answer all questions without giving anything terribly important away.

Thank you so much for you patience and your time. The next part should be easier to write.