Brother || Teen Wolf

Chapter 21 - Poison Flower

"Hey... Lyds, hum..." Jamie was struggling to find the right words, and the fact that Derek was bleeding all over him didn't help. "Remember when I told you to keep an open mind about potentially weird stuff? Yeah? Is your mind open?"

"Oh my God, Jamie, just get on with it!" Stiles exclaimed, taking out his anger on the steering wheel. His friend was usually so blunt, why hadn't he blurted it all out already?

"I'm trying!" Jamie cried out, "It's not easy, okay? I--"

"I'm a werewolf. Scott is one too." 

Derek broke the news between two fits of cough. Lydia stared at him like he was losing his mind.

"He's delusional, right? It's the blood loss speaking, werewolves aren't real. Right?"

When she didn't get an answer, Lydia looked at the other teens. Both had the same expression, a mixture of apology and apprehension. Fear crept up her chest, a cold sensation entering her lungs. Forcing herself to 'keep an open mind', Lydia reviewed the facts. The attacks. The wolf howls she had heard. Scott's newfound physical abilities. And now, Derek's glowing eyes, facial hair and overall animalistic look. Lycanthropy didn't appear like such a bad explanation, in the end. However, Lydia was a very rational person. She would need more evidence than that.

"Stiles, I think we're losing him!" Jamie panicked, shaking a now unconscious Derek as hard as he dared. "Should we bring him to the hospital?"

"No, bad idea. How will we explain the healing?" Stiles answered. Lydia frowned even further, if that was possible. Healing, now? What was next, retractable claws? Was Scott the new Wolverine?

"Well we can't just let him die in the back of your Jeep, Stiles!"

"The veterinary clinic," Stiles stated. It was perfect: it had everything needed to heal Derek, it was isolated and most of all, Stiles knew where to find the keys -- it was probably a major workplace ethics violation, but Scott had told him.

Once there, getting the werewolf on an operation table was a struggle. He seemed to be floating in and out of consciousness. He was surprisingly heavy but the teens managed to get him on an operation table, only accidentally bumping his head against a wall twice. He groaned and cursed but it showed he was still alive. However, if he was to ever make a recovery, Jamie was going to need a little more information.

He got a closer look at the wound, recognizing a bullet wound. Near the wound, the veins in Derek's arm were turning a dark shade of purple. He could see where the bullet had entered Derek's arm but there was no exit wound -- the bullet was still inside. While Jamie was examining the wound and Lydia was pacing around the room, Stiles was more spastic than ever.

"Why aren't you healing?" Stiles asked aggressively, pointing an accusing finger at Derek. The man didn't have the opportunity to answer, as Jamie spoke before he could.

"I think it's because of the bullet... It's poisoning him," the aspiring doctor explained.

"Was it a silver bullet?" Stiles conjectured.

"No, you idiot!" Derek grunted between gritted teeth. "It was wolfsbane."

"Yes, because that makes so much more sense!" Lydia cried out. She looked about done with the whole situation.

"Kate Argent shot me," Derek continued, ignoring the angry girl pacing next to him. That made said angry girl stop dead in her tracks, shock written all over her face.

"Did you say Kate Argent? Allison's aunt?" Lydia asked, her eyes widening considerably. Derek weakly nodded, struggling to even sit. Lydia resumed her pacing, "Allison told me about her, she arrived yesterday night in Beacon Hills... The whole reason she told me was because her family lied about why Kate came."

Lydia couldn't believe it. She refused to admit it, but everything added up. Werewolves were real. She couldn't find a rational explanation, she had witnessed impossible things and the existence of the supernatural explained them all. She would need time to come to terms with it all, but time was a luxury they didn't have. Derek was visibly getting worse, he was pale and sweating. Even keeping his eyes open was a struggle.

"I need to take the bullet out," Jamie stated in a blank voice. "I need to take the bullet out... Stiles, hold him and please don't faint. I don't need that now. Lydia, are you up to help?"

He looked at her pleadingly. He knew this was a lot to take in, but he needed as much help as he could get -- there was a man's life on the line. Understanding the situation, Lydia brought him tweezers, gauze and disinfectant. He thanked her with a grateful look and placed a lamp closer to Derek's arm. He grabbed the tweezers, his resolve, and got to work.

Stiles was doing his best not to look but the sounds were enough for him to feel incredibly warm, and not in a good way. He was sweating profusely and felt nauseous. He was soon as pale as Derek, not liking the wet sounds of metal against flesh and blood.

When he tasted the metallic smell of blood in his mouth, he knew he had reached his limit. His ears started buzzing louder and louder, to the point he couldn't hear anything else. His vision was starting to blur as well, dark spots growing and slowly turning him blind. He was losing control of his own body, but his mind, it was wide awake and screaming, begging for his limbs to move. But Stiles had lost the battle and he knew it. After a second that seemed like an hour, his mind finally followed his body and he fell unconscious next to Derek.

"Stiles! Now's not the moment to black out!" Jamie yelled at his friend. His gloved hands were covered in crimson, adrenaline was flooding his veins. Thankfully, Lydia was still holding Derek. Jamie managed to find and retrieve the bullet, relief evident on his face the moment he extracted the poisonous piece of metal from Derek's arm. It fell on the metallic table with a loud noise, steering Stiles back to consciousness.

Lydia stepped away from the table with a loud sigh. She hadn't expected her day to be that eventful but now her whole body was shaking. Eventually, she helped Stiles up to his feet, letting Jamie clean and close the wound. Lydia led Stiles out of the room and sat next to him in one of the clinic's comfortable chairs. She explained him everything that had happened, as much for his sake than for her own. 

On the operation table, Derek was slowly waking up. He looked slightly less terrible than a few minutes prior, his body able to heal now that the bullet was gone.

"Thank you," the grumpy werewolf whispered, intentionally not raising his voice enough for the teenager to hear him -- he had a tough image to maintain.

The teenagers had handled the situation better than he had thought, saving his life without any kind of outside help. Derek took a second to examine the blond boy who had helped him. Just like when they had first met, back in the woods what seemed like a lifetime ago, he felt a sense of familiarity. Taking in the details of Jamie's face and slightly creeping him out in the process, Derek could swear he had seen those blue eyes somewhere else before. Even the outline of his face was familiar.

Finally, Derek understood. Those eyes he was staring at, they were the exact same as his uncle's. Now that he thought about it, the resemblance was striking -- anyone who had known Peter Hale in his teenage years would see it. But how was that even possible? And more importantly, what was he supposed to do with that information?

Jamie brought him back to reality by waving his hand in front of his face. "I said, are you feeling better? Or is there still wolfsbane in your veins?"

"I'm good," Derek answered curtly. Thinking of his uncle, left in a vegetative state since the Hale fire, had made his mood turn sour. "Now listen very carefully. There's another werewolf in town, an Alpha. He's after me and Scott, and the hunters won't rest until they find him."

"And you're telling me this, because?"

"Because Scott and I need to find him first. And you're gonna help."