#sdiwitw

Because that was what they were trying to figure out now. How to decipher the Dread Doctors' diaries to try to find out if there was anything useful in them to begin with.

And it was turning out to be a very long process, not that Stiles didn't expect that. He knew it was going to be an insanely prolonged and potentially pointless for him project. It wasn't going to be completely useless in general, since it must contain a ton of information he would have no chance of ever learning any other way. But he probably wouldn't be able to do anything with it, even publish it, because he was pretty sure it would raise way too many questions, including a shit ton of ethical ones.

And he had enough of questions right now.

It was summer break, and he was back home. All of them were, and Mason (his arm still in a cast because it didn't heal right, and his leg is still bothering him) and Lydia were helping him with the diaries. Well, journals. They might be both.

Everyone else – well, everyone who came home, because Kira and Corey had work; which was sad, because from the last and only time Kira and Theo met, Stiles decided they were definitely going to be great friends, and he wanted this for both of them) were being generally useless college kids on a break.

Theo, Liam (in a medical corset for his back now), and Jackson were (for some reason, very aggressively by the sound of it) playing Little Big Planet in the living room, noisy and chaotic. Mason was going to come a bit later – he wanted to check something in the Hale vault library that Peter gave them a key to (after being woke up in the middle of the night several times, he gave up; apparently, Derek and Cora were aware of the situation, so that at least was comforting, even if neither of them, nor Isaac, now fully adopted by Derek and Braeden, couldn't come because the new baby of the family was too little too travel yet, and Stiles had a strong feeling that Peter actually gave them the key to be able to ditch them and go visit his family).

It turned out to be easier to tell everyone who still didn't know about him accidentally becoming technically a Nogitsune and getting Theo as his Familiar. They took it in stride. Apparently, Stiles' previous antics somehow managed to prepare them for something like that.

His father was suspicious of Theo at first, making him sit down for a talk Stiles wasn't allowed to eavesdrop on to the point of being sent to help Melissa with her very late spring cleaning. And both of them refused to tell him how it went. That was simply insulting, but at least his dad allowed Theo to sleep with him.

Stiles leaned back in his chair, so he could see the couch in the living room. This was kind of the reason he wanted to do the work on the table in the kitchen.

So he could check on Theo when he needed to. Or more like felt like it.

Theo seemed fine, as all the previous times today and for the last several months, though, feeding Jolene some chips while Jackson was distracted.

Really, the only person Stiles had been actually worried about telling everything was his dad. No one would like hearing that their only child got first possessed by something, then got a human Familiar, then became a rare Kitsune, and then had to murder several people. Because yes, his father had to know everything.

All of them agreed that only the people who they truly trusted would know about the whole thing with the Dread Doctors (although even Scott, Liam and Mason didn't know Theo's full story with them), his father was the one person Stiles wanted to know absolutely everything.

Well, as much as he could tell on his own, but Theo was fine with telling whatever Stiles felt like telling to his father, so the Sheriff actually knew the whole story. Lydia, Jackson, and Kira knew half. Everyone else – only the basics. Maybe Stiles was going to tell them one day.

Telling the college to register Theo as a familiar (which was easier than dealing with the authorities directly, at least), however, was a whole different thing. They did get into the news, but luckily just the local ones, especially considering that Stiles wasn't about to give an explanation about how exactly did he get enough magic to need Theo at all. And that also raised questions, but he just shrugged. They could test him, and it was going to show up as true, but he wasn't going to explain it. What do you mean it shows up as a Kintsune, you can only be born a Kintsune, and everyone knows he wasn't.

The registration was still in a process of finalization because apparently, since it was a rare thing to have a human Familiar, the formalities needed to be dug up every time anew, and it was taking a lot of time, and until then for some reason Theo couldn't leave the premises of the house he was registered to, which was their dorm house, without Stiles, so he couldn't even get a normal job, not having even a GED, which was such a random and bizarre concept, and now they had to live on whatever Stiles was making for the foreseeable future.

Which wasn't that bad, per se, Stiles did have his scholarship still, and apparently the magical government wanted to subsidize him somewhat because of the inconvenience, but he wasn't betting on that. And his work was more or less fine, the Void helped him get his shit together and actually do a lot of orders. If things went south, he had some savings, and his father was willing and able to help still, even if Stiles would hate to go back to taking his father's money and would only ever do that if he was absolutely desperate.

Theo looked up at him, suddenly, and winked.

"Awww, and Mason said you said no one was sleeping with anyone," Lydia cooed.

She clearly couldn't see the living room from her place, so she must've gotten what was going on from Stiles' face.

So he made a grimace at her. It's not like it held anymore, and everyone knew that.

She laughed delightedly.

Apparently that thing was now an inside joke and Stiles couldn't do anything about it, and he wasn't sure if he was actually annoyed by it, or if he found it adorable in the cheesiest way possible.

He heard steps behind him, and then Theo's chin was on his head, and his arms around Stiles' shoulders.

"How is science going?"

"It's not. We are failing spectacularly so far, but we are still trying."

Lydia pursed her lips, turning back to her notes.

"Speak for yourself. I'm pretty sure I figured half of it out. It's not a regular cypher, so half of it is in one thing, and the other is in another, and also I think half of it is in Latin. I will probably have to bully Danny into writing something for that. But then we will have to scan and put them into digital. But maybe to break the cypher, unless they change it, we won't need that much material," she hummed, twirling a piece of hair onto her pencil in thought.

"Okay. I see," Theo pressed a brief kiss to Stiles' head, definitely trying to get away from being forced into work, though, even if it was future work, and Stiles heard the metal part of his new collar (this one actually thinner and way more choker-looking) jingle.

And that still did things to Stiles' stomach, and he wasn't going to deny that he liked it, not anymore.

He thought he finally understood now why Theo wanted to wear it, aside from shocking old ladies in the store and generally disturbing people. The collar Stiles got him was the first thing anyone got specifically for Theo in a very long time. It must've felt like he was wanted. And the whole idea of the collar made him feel like he belonged somewhere, or to someone. The collar somehow had a lot of meaning for Theo, meaning Stiles only accidentally figured out during one night of bickering when Theo vehemently protected the collar because 'it's mine, you gave it to me, you can't take it away' and then got all grumpy and brooding when Stiles stopped to ask about his sudden guess about the reasons of this behavior, and Stiles' heart kind of broke.

And now Stiles wanted to spoil Theo.

It was something Stiles still found dazzling. How fast and easy it was to feel like there was no other way to be other than to be with Theo.

Theo took a jug of orange juice out of the fridge, then glanced at Stiles over his shoulder, and got himself a glass from the drying rack. Stiles nodded, satisfied. They were breaking some habits here. Creating new ones. If only his father would do the same.

He turned back to Lydia, and found her watching him with an expression so amused, Stiles squinted, scrunching up his face, and shook his head at her in annoyance.

"So you have it all figured out, cool. At least that's progress," he muttered the last part.

The whole deciphering idea was a nice project but considering that they weren't sure how fruitful it was going to turn out, it was still mostly just frustrating.

And this wasn't even the end of his struggles. There was also the magic that was all over the place, and the training to use it correctly with Kira's mother, and building the connection in the proper way, and losing the hold of it sometimes by accident that has never happened to him before, like ever.

And then there was the research project about people like him, who were both witches and something else, which Stiles was sure had to be a thing, since the Void memories clearly showed it having a witch as his original human. There were just no notes about them, and this sounded suspicious as hell.

Then there was a side project of looking for Theo's family, at least someone. Theo said he remembered his grandparents from one side, so they might be there somewhere, even if his parents had died or something. Because Stiles still didn't want to believe in someone just dropping their child like that after actually going to the police with it. There had to be some explanation.

And then there was also generally their relationship with Theo, and having to figure out suddenly living with someone. That someone having a very vague idea about a normal life. On top of them both apparently having some unexplored sexual interests that were fighting their way to the top. Which Theo did literally everything to avoid talking about, so it was also on Stiles to bring up.

All of that on top of the general personality crisis he had been having. Losing half of his ADHD and a lot of his anxiety, and also gaining the feeling of life, the perception and the perspective on it that a thousand years old spirit had did change him. And then he murdered people, which actually paled in comparison with the memories that now felt completely like his own but he knew were the Void's.

"I still don't get exactly why did you get to take the Void home, though. If there have been other people trying to do something with the Nemeton…" Lydia looked at Stiles with a tiny furrow between her perfect eyebrows.

Stiles shrugged.

"I was the first one the Void liked and felt a resemblance to, so it seized the opportunity to get rid of what didn't belong in it, I guess," the Void thought so, too.

It didn't know how the tree's magic worked either, but it also didn't care at all. It loved being free.

Stiles was going to have to switch majors almost at the very end of school exactly for that reason, too. He couldn't deal with studying Nemeta anymore. While it was fascinating, they creeped him out now. And he was suddenly hit with full realization that there were just too many things wrong and broken about the magical society. They allowed something like what happened to Theo go on unnoticed for centuries, and the only way they chose to deal with it was to push it onto the non-magical population.

Stiles felt like he wanted to change it. To fix it. But it had to be done globally, and he wasn't sure where to start. What he did know was that he wanted to be that change. He was going to do it fixing one thing at a time, he decided. With his new life expectancy, he had a lot of time on his hands.

He hadn't spoken about it with anyone, but he was sure that he wanted it, which meant he was probably going into politics now or something like that. He hadn't decided exactly yet. Maybe he needed to drop out and start all over again, although it was a lot of money lost.

It was fine. He was going to figure it out, he wasn't even that worried. He could do it. He was sure of it. He just needed to start somewhere.

And Theo, who was going to age the same way Stiles did now, which was very slowly and for a very long time, was going to be by his side.

"Yeah. Because you're the fuck around, and I'm, sadly, the find out part of this scheme," Lydia smiled at him, all dimples and adorableness.

"Yeah?"

"Can I come in?" That was Mason's voice.

"Yeah," Stiles mumbled, not opening his eyes.

Stiles felt the bed bend down next to him, jostling him a bit.

"So I wanted to ask you something."

Stiles opened his eyes just a crack to look at Mason.

"Yeah?" He repeated the third time.

He didn't feel his usual well of words inside of him.

"It's probably going to sound super weird, and I'm not sure if this is even possible or something, if this wouldn't harm you and everything…"

"Mason. I get it. What did you want to ask?" Stiles wasn't the most patient person in the world on the best of days, and today wasn't even an okay day. He didn't mind the company, but if Mason wanted to ask something, Stiles preferred he got to it.

Mason nodded, his eyes wide once again. Stiles sometimes was surprised to realize it wasn't his default expression, although he also kind of envied his ability to get that excited about literally anything.

Like, yes, Stiles got excited easily as well, but Mason was something else.

"So I was wondering, you've been struggling with the demon for a while now, and you said it had even helped you, so it must not be super hostile, at least not towards you. So then I thought that it has also tried to communicate with you, and then I was wondering if you tried to communicate with it back?"

Stiles stared at him for a second, and then closed his eyes again. He sat up.

"Why, do you think it would work?"

Stiles had thought about this himself, but how would he do it? And it was nice to have someone with similarly open opinion who wasn't pushing him to take life-changing steps on a whim, like some people did. People who were supposed to value his life.

This was the energy Stiles needed the least in his life. He had enough of it in himself already.

Maybe that's why the magic chose Theo. It apparently wanted Stiles to go full on villain or die, because together they would probably force Stiles somewhere down that path.

"Well, I think since it seems to be friendly towards you, it's going to be fine. And you can ask it some questions, like why it chose you, because it had to choose, didn't it, and why did it decide to help you, and maybe even if it wanted to be let go, and go you could do it…"

Stiles nodded along to the whole speech, but had eventually to interrupt.

"Do you think it's possible? Maybe it possessed me because it was the only way to get out of the tree, and now maybe it wants to get away, but can't on its own?" Now Stiles was getting excited, too.

Because this was a great idea, probably. It was something to try, at the very least, and Stiles was always more of a man of action rather than planning. But he also knew that action without a plan could be a disaster. He had enough of that as a teenager.

But this was technically coming together into a plan.

And Mason's excitement had always been contagious.

"Maybe!" said Mason. "Or maybe it had some other reason. Communication is always the key!" Mason even jumped a little in place.

Stiles nodded again, frowning, thinking, the gears in his head turning at full speed, the headache and the exhaustion almost completely pushed to the background.

Stiles only now realized that the demon didn't move at all the whole day, but he could still feel it. Was it as exhausted as Stiles? Did the feelings of the demon make Stiles' worse?

"But how would I even try to contact it? Every time we had any kind of communication, it was it… tugging, I guess, on my mind."

Mason also sat up a bit straighter, a little furrow between his brows.

"You said it talked to you, was it like… like placing thoughts into your mind?"

Stiles nodded again.

"But I don't know how to do it back."

Mason turned his head to the side, considering it.

"Since it's in your head, maybe try to make space for it in there? Like meditating or something? So there's less of your own thoughts and more… nothingness for it to insert itself into."

Stiles turned the idea in his head. He had never been good at meditation, it required too much stillness from him, way more than he was usually capable of, but sometimes it did work great actually. And he thought that maybe today was a good day for something like that. He felt mostly dead but somehow still not overtired, which usually threw him into a cranky frenzy where he would do something like wash all the light switches in the house at four am and hiss at Liam for trying to turn the lights on to get some water.

Right now he thought he might be in the perfect condition to be able to meditate. So maybe he should try it. Like looking into himself and everything.

Face your demons.

Literally.

He nodded. Then he nodded again.

"Okay, let's try it."

Mason nodded in return, his dark eyes full-on sparkling with fascination and excitement.

Stiles sometimes envied Mason's ability never to get tired of being excited for something and consistently try out theory after theory until he figured it out. Stiles was too chaotic for that, if something didn't work, he wanted to either hyperfocus or drop it. There was no average amount of trying for him.

He placed himself comfortably on the bed. Then he had to stop to download a white noise app, because apparently the last time he meditated was before he got this phone.

Turning on some waves sounds – always his white noise of choice – Stiles closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on the sounds outside, then the feeling of the contact with the bed, then his body, and then what he was feeling, and then his breathing.

One – in – two – out – three – in – four – out.

Slowly, he stopped counting, just feeling the rise and fall of his chest, his eyes closed, his body relaxed for once in his fucking life.

His mind was blank. But nothing seemed to be happening. He tried his best not to focus on anything.

And then the demon stirred.

Stiles could feel it poking its head out, sensing the sudden emptiness in his current living space.

Stiles kept not thinking about anything.

The demon moved, waking up again, and Stiles could feel that it was tired as well.

It wasn't used to wielding human magic. The adjustment took too much of its energy. It was bone-tired, it didn't even have bones.

Stiles could call it the Void. It really was close to a human once. Yes, he could hear Stiles' questions, and he could even feel his connection to Theo. It was, in fact, from Japan. It was a fox once, but now it couldn't tell what it was.

It liked Stiles. He reminded it of something nice, it couldn't remember what. It had been trapped in that damned tree on and off for a very long time, longer than a human brain could properly comprehend, and it didn't do much good to its memory.

It also remembered that it had met the Tall Figures. It didn't remember when and how but he remembered not particularly enjoying this encounter.

Very much not enjoying it, in fact, but it couldn't remember what had happened at all. It just felt the rage, part of which it knew was the tree it had been in, but a huge part was its own. It hated them.

It used only Stiles' magic the day before plus some of Theo's strength, and it did heal Theo, but its magic was very different from human, and the adjustment was simply too much for both of them. It knew that it was using a lot of Stiles' power as well by transporting them this way, because Stiles knew that humans rarely could do this, and Stiles wasn't naturally capable of this, so it really had to strain his magic and use Theo's strength as well for all the things it did that night. Which probably wasn't good for Theo as well, but werewolves had always been amazingly resilient and usually bounced back easily, it looked like.

There was some sound in the room.

"Don't…"

"Stiles!"

Stiles opened his eyes.

Theo was standing in the doorway, his hand clutching the doorframe, face somehow annoyed and worried at the same time.

Stiles rubbed his eyes with the balls of his hands.

Fuck. He got it. He actually talked to the demon. He didn't learn much, but he still was way too excited now to meditate again. Theo broke his concentration.

"What?"

Theo came closer, looming over Stiles now, grabbing his wrist and tugging it away from his face and then just not letting go.

"You felt weird," he said, as if this explained him running into here.

Stiles stopped rubbing his eye with his free hand and looked up at him.

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"The connection. It felt… even," Theo paused, looking for the right word.

Stiles now just stared at him. He could see Mason's head move between them, like he was a cartoon character watching a tennis match.

"You freaked out because I finally felt chill for once?"

Theo blinked a couple of times.

"Yeah." Something in Stiles' face must've shown his bafflement, because Theo continued: "The connection doesn't feel that level even when you are asleep, of course I found it suspicious."

"You know what the connection feels like when I'm asleep?"

"Like you don't."

"Yeah but you are trying to find a way to sleep like all the time, of course I would feel it. You sleep more than I do."

Theo looked distinctly unimpressed.

"Ever wondered why I'm constantly sleepy?"

Stiles frowned at that, swinging his wrist in Theo's hand back and forth, but Theo didn't let go, just letting his hand swing with Stiles'. Not that Stiles was actually trying to make him let go, he just felt like moving.

"Some people just need more sleep than others, plus I don't know what's happening inside your heavily traumatized head, maybe it's just depression or a related issue or some kind of hormonal imbalance. If someone wants to sleep it's better to let them sleep. Unless it's like brain damage or something. But I don't think you can have a concussion," he felt the need to amend his statement: "And unless it's getting very concerning and actually pathological, then you should at least talk to the person. But I'm not that badly concerned yet. It kind of loses points in the grand scheme of things at the moment."

Theo rolled his eyes.

"The word 'no' exists as well, you know."

"Yes, but I like to use as many words as I physically can, thank you very much. Unless it's about consent. Then I'm trying to be as clear as possible."

Theo shook his head, pinching his nose, but still holding Stiles' wrist with the other hand.

"Good to know. And I'm constantly falling asleep because you're impossible to sleep with, you know?"

There was an audible little "intense" from the side.

"Not like that," Stiles waved his free hand in Mason's general direction, eyes still trained on Theo. "Although maybe like that as well, but I haven't gotten any complaints about that before. Anyway. No, Theo, of course, I, being a twenty something year old adult man, have never ever slept with anyone in one bed to get complaints about how I'm impossible to sleep with. Yeah, Theo, I'm aware that I'm impossible to sleep with, I have no idea why you are still trying to."

Stiles didn't mean for it to sound like he was annoyed, because he really wasn't. He did know he moved a lot in his sleep, and while he enjoyed co-sleeping, he would've been totally fine with sleeping separately for everyone's benefit.

Theo huffed indignantly in response.

"Because you still haven't gotten me a bed, obviously."

"Well, you are free to use the couch then."

If Theo was going to be shit, Stiles could be one as well.

Stiles could tell Theo wanted to cross his arms over his chest, but still didn't let go of Stiles' hand, and those two things were kind of hard to do at the same time.

"It's uncomfortable."

"But it has to be easier than sleeping with me."

"Wait, you two are sleeping together?"

Theo, Stiles, and Mason turned their heads almost simultaneously, looking at Liam standing in the doorway, looking from Stiles to Theo and back.

Scott appeared behind his back, his hair still dripping water everywhere.

"Who sleeps together?"

"Apparently Theo and Stiles do."

"You do?" Scott looked at them with interest.

Mason shook his head from side to side. "Well, Theo is his familiar, it's not that weird, is it?"

Stiles was sure that this reminder only made the possibility even weirder for everyone.

Liam and Scott didn't seem to agree with Mason, exactly, but it was also very common to sleep with your familiar. Something, something special bond, something, something they were like pets anyway.

Theo was by no means a pet, so this actually didn't apply to them – or at least it shouldn't apply to them – and everyone seemed to understand that, but also wasn't willing to call Stiles out on his bullshit. And they weren't familiar enough with Theo to call him out.

Ha. Familiar. Get it?

But for Stiles, Theo was exactly that, familiar enough to call him out.

"Yeah, when the familiar is a pet big and safe enough for that. But you're not a pet anymore."

"Oh, so you prefer me in full shift? With all the fur literally everywhere? That was lovely to clean up even with magic just after a couple of days of me staying here."

That was actually a great point. Stiles still couldn't get all of the black fur off the carpet in the living room. Plus walking (while he did know Theo would be fine being out on his own, others obviously didn't, so Stiles would still have to go with him, which would take his time, and he had to fit it into his hated routine), but on the other hand it would've given Stiles a reason to go out. And to clean more often.

So Stiles shrugged and squinted up at Theo.

"Actually… probably yes."

Theo made a very exaggeratedly pouty face.

"Oh, daddy doesn't like me."

Stiles ripped his hand out of Theo's hand now.

"No," he said, shaking his head vehemently. "No, absolutely not, don't you dare call me that again. Ever."

Mason laughed.

Theo smirked, finally assuming his favorite pose in the world – crossing his arms over his chest.

"And what are you going to do about it?"

Stiles could hear Liam whisper to Scott if they should leave.

"You're such an insufferable asshole."

"And apparently I'm exactly what you deserve, according to magic. And I've heard you all magical little assholes believe that magic doesn't lie or something. So deal with it."

Stiles nodded at that.

"I'm also kind of possessed, which one may find sort of equivalent to a curse in a way, so it could as well added you to the demon that is going to kill me. The more the merrier, as they say, you know," Stiles scrambled up, untangling his legs and successfully keeping himself from face-planting into the floor. He loved living on the edge like that. "Anyway, I need to Google some things. The demon actually told me a bit about itself, so maybe now I'll be able to find out more."

Google wasn't really the best place to look for proper magical information, but if you knew how to look correctly, you could find some things. College libraries still had their catalogues out there.

***

The search wasn't going as well as Stiles expected. Not that he expected much to begin with, which meant the search was going literally nowhere.

He groaned in frustration.

Scott fell down onto the chair next to him. Because Stiles ended up doing his research in the kitchen. The table in his bedroom was so covered in… things that it wasn't usable anymore, and this didn't feel like an on the bed kind of research.

"Is it that bad?"

Stiles drummed his fingers on the table, then picked at a little thread on his sleeve.

"I don't know, I can't find anything."

Scott hummed, full of compassion.

"What did it tell you?"

Stiles sighed, leaning back in his chair.

"It told me that it used to be human once and that it was Japanese. That's it. And demonology is such a small and badly studied field that it doesn't give me anything. Like some Japanese dude once became a demon? That's it? I don't even know if there's anything to look for. But then why shove him into a tree? They usually do something like that for the more powerful ones, and humans hardly ever seemed to make it into powerful ones. Or they don't come visit."

Scott scratched his head.

"You know, not all things that live in people are actually demons? Maybe it's one of these things, but it had lost its host somehow. Like Kira's fox. Technically it's a spirit that happens to inhabit the same body as her, and potentially can be separated, but it was also born with her and is supposed to die with her. Or Jordan, for example. He's different. The Hellhound came to him by accident, and will move on when he dies, but no-one calls it a possession, because it's not a demon. Maybe this is something like this. Jordan is actually a better example, I just didn't think about it at first," Scott nodded a bit to his thoughts.

Stiles considered this. There might have been something in this. The trees were normally used as a container for something powerful, and this being a Nemeton, it must've been super powerful, yes, and normally this something turned out to be a demon, but why couldn't a tree be used for something else, like a Hellhound, really? Hellhounds were powerhouses, basically. It's just Stiles didn't think it was popular to consider trapping them like this, although he didn't know why. Maybe they weren't considered dangerous or harmful enough? Although he wasn't sure what ways there were to deal with something like a Hellhound that went evil.

Could one separate spirits like this from the hosts?

Could people separate Kitsunes from their people?

So did Stiles now need to Google Japanese spirits or something?

Okay, he could try this. Not that he had any other idea or plans.

It also said Stiles can call it the Void. But it also didn't help much so far. So maybe in this context…

It wasn't a bingo straight away. It took some googling. Scott sat next to him, having gone up to grab a textbook, reading it now. The book was as thick as Stiles' forearm, he didn't envy Scott at all.

His face must have changed because Scott asked:

"What? What did you find?"

"I think… It might be this. It's a Nogitsune. Literally like you said, it's a fox, actually, a type of Kitsune, but like really angry and after pain and suffering. That's why it gave me weird dreams with murder. It's a trickster and feeds off chaos and pain," Stiles scratched his eyebrow. "I'm surprised it didn't do anything more harmful yet, then, it must be taking a long time to wake up probably after being stuck in a tree for so long."

Scott turned the laptop to him a bit, to be able to read what Stiles found. Then there was some happy jeering in the living room, and then Stiles heard footsteps.

Theo moved a chair from under the table and threw himself into it.

"So I hear you found something? A Nogitsune?"

Scott looked up from the screen, looking at Theo with curiosity clear in his eyes.

"You could hear us from the other room?"

Theo didn't even look at him, focused on Stiles. What was this even about? First half-freaking out when apparently their connection had gone too quiet, then not letting go of his wrist, now this – being distinctly anti-social.

Although Stiles didn't actually know how Theo was around people normally. It was weird for him with Stiles because of the connection as well, most likely, so that wasn't saying much. And considering the conditions in which Theo grew up, he probably didn't know much about socialization without wanting to get something from someone or trick them into something.

But then again, he had to realize that getting on Scott's good side would kind of add him some bonus points in Stiles' eyes. Technically. Since, you know, your best friend's opinion usually matters and everything.

Not that Stiles had much of a choice when it came to Theo. Damned magic.

"Yeah, I'm a werewolf, in case you forgot. So what did you find? Is it a Nogitsune?"

The thing was that he said it like it was absolutely obvious that he could hear them from the other room just because he was a werewolf. Like they really knew anything about those. The magical society chose to mostly ignore werewolves and vampires since they didn't have any inherent magic in them. Everyone else – yeah, sure. Kira, Lydia, Jordan were all unquestionably parts of their society. Theo – eh, he was just a dude. And Stiles wouldn't even put it past some people to question his humanity with him being a familiar, even if usually it wasn't an issue for were-creatures.

But Stiles was still annoyed.

"Why do I have to tell you anything? You can go back there and eavesdrop all you want. That's what you do best."

He turned the laptop back to himself, scrolling slowly down, not even reading it properly, just being grumpy. He did realize he was being petty, but being petty was his thing.

"Stiles, that shit kind of directly fucks with my life as well, so I would appreciate it, if I was included in the conversation as well, you know."

Stiles felt suddenly so full of anger, he couldn't really contain it anymore. First Theo didn't warn him about the fact that he had a bunch of crazy scientists on his ass, putting both of them in danger Stiles didn't even get a chance to prepare for, and then fucked with Stiles' weird spiritual séance, and just now he had been pretty much an asshole to Scott. Also, he generally wasn't all that useful around the house, and Stiles could've very much used the support here, if not with cooking, then at least with cleaning. Which wasn't really relevant, but added the fuel. Stiles suddenly felt this cold, chill rage overcome him. He turned to Theo more fully, making sure he looked him in the eye.

"Yes, Theo, I do, in fact, know this. But you have been getting on my nerves way too much to get the privilege of being allowed into the conversation, so I am going to figure everything out," he put a finger through the ring on Theo's collar tugging on it just a bit, so Theo could feel its edge dig into the back of his neck, to remind him it was there, "and you are going to think about how to be a good boy and communicate with people you might put in danger. Go," he let go of the ring turning back to his laptop, a plan of how and what he needed to look up and what books he might need to borrow from the library (this time hopefully legally) slowly starting to come together in his mind.

Theo stared at him, face full of confusion slowly melting into anger.

"What the actual…"

"Go," Stiles interrupted, and he could feel this weird magic he used back in the car just before Roscoe broke down on them, that he didn't understand, but that made Theo obey.

His face was positively furious, and Stiles was sure there was going to be hell to pay for him later, but Theo went away, pushing himself away from the table with both hands, making sure to scrape the legs of the chair against the floor as much as it was possible, making Liam flinch. He stomped up the stairs, and a couple of minutes later they heard a door, that Stiles presumed was his room, slam shut.

Stiles wondered whether he would've heard if his door broke completely. Werewolf strength and everything.

There was also something in the fact that Theo chose to go to the bedroom (or maybe the bathroom?) in this situation, because Stiles didn't specify, did he? And it wasn't like Theo had a room to be sent to or parents to send him there growing up. Maybe back when he was very little, when he still lived with his actual family?

Scott looked at Stiles with absolutely round eyes, perfect like saucers.

Mason and Liam appeared in the archway to the living room.

"What happened?"

"Yeah, Stiles, what even was that? What did you do?" Scott was still staring at him.

Stiles shrugged, aiming for nonchalant, but falling so comically short, it basically ended up behind his back. But really, he didn't know and he didn't have time for figuring another thing out. First he had to deal with the demon, then figure out a way to get rid of the Dread Doctors (actually, the first point on his agenda should probably be somehow to talk about them to his friends who were now living with him and his the-Dread-Doctors-harbinger of a familiar without giving too much of Theo's personal information; it wasn't Stiles' story to tell and he had a distinct feeling that Theo wouldn't be helping him with anything any time soon, which was a pain in the ass as well), then what to do with the fact that he had a human familiar and didn't want to end up as a news sensation, then his school, then therapy, then school, then what exactly did having Theo as his familiar mean for both of them personally, and only then what the hell this strange thing that he did was. It looked like it worked only on Theo, but he had never tried anything remotely like this on anyone else. And it was most likely specifically targeted, considering it didn't influence Scott in any way, so for now he had to leave it be. Was it the Void's doing? Possibly. And then this problem was going to go away together with it.

"I don't have time to figure another thing out right now."

"What happened?" Mason asked again, with more insistence this time, looking from Stiles to Scott, waiting for an explanation.

Liam just looked confused.

Scott frowned at Stiles.

"What did happen here, Stiles? What did I see? What did you do to Theo? You didn't even sound like yourself. Is the demon influencing you?"

That made Stiles pause. If this wasn't just his guess, then maybe…

Was the Void influencing him? Could it be its power slowly leaking into Stiles'? What would this mean?

"I don't actually know," he told Scott.

Then he turned to Mason and Liam, still standing near the doorway:

"I'm not sure about what exactly happened here. I just got very angry and told Theo to go in a way he couldn't…" he searched for the right word to describe how his intentions and the result actually worked, "disobey, I guess."

This was such a weird word.

Mason drew his eyebrows together, trying to understand.

"What do you mean? Like magically? Did you cast something to screw with his will?" Stiles could hear excitement creep into Mason's voice.

Mental magic was complicated and required a lot of special knowledge, as not to accidentally erase the person or something like that, and Stiles was as far removed from this filed as it was possible, so if this was what it was it sounded very bad and extremely dangerous for Theo, and Stiles was starting to feel awful for doing something like that without even knowing for sure that this was exactly what he did. On top of just forcing Theo to do something very much against his will. And not even for that good of a reason. Back in the car, yes, it was crucial. Here – it definitely was more out of pettiness.

"I don't think that was what I did. Although I don't know. But I didn't cast anything, so I don't think it's likely…"

"But you did something. Like it was clear he wasn't actually going to go just like that, and you also acted all weird…"

"Weirder than he does around Theo in general?" Liam asked, finally sitting down.

Mason followed him.

"What do you mean I act weird about him? I don't," Stiles made a vague gesture, as if waving the accusations away.

It was Theo who was weird, and that was just in general, Stiles was as fine as one could get in his situation and with his issues.

If anything, he was handling everything very well, if he were to say so himself. He only had one panic attack since getting possessed, and even that one was mostly aborted, so Stiles was counting it as a win in his book.

Mason smirked at this.

"Yeah, sure, you totally didn't let him basically hold your hand because he was worried, and then you didn't just sit there still, taking it."

"What was I supposed to do? Rip it away? It's rude!"

Liam looked at him.

"Stiles, last time you dated someone, you almost pushed them down the stairs by accident because Scott came out of the room at a wrong time and saw you kiss them. You are terrible at PDA in new relationships. Unless it's like your dad or maybe the gang."

Stiles had to agree, this does happen, he was terrible at PDA, but what did this have to do with letting Theo hold his wrist?

"They were my partner, but Theo isn't, though, he's my familiar. That's basically family immediately."

"So it's like you're married to a very hot guy who you will even allow to hold your hand in front of your friends, how sweet," cooed Mason.

"Oh, so Theo is actually hot," said Liam, nodding to himself, as if confirming something.

"He absolutely is, I'm glad you're starting to see when a guy is hot."

Stiles imagined Mason trying to become like sex buddies or maybe a very casual roommate thing with Theo.

He hated the image with passion, even knowing that Mason had a very cute very long-term boyfriend, and Theo was nowhere near Mason's actual type anyway. He was Stiles and Lydia's type. He shook his head, trying to get this idea out of there.

"What? He is hot!" Mason repeated. "Or does the familiar bond prohibit you from seeing this?" There was suddenly this spark of curiosity in his eyes again. "How does your bound even work? Do you feel his emotions? Does he feel yours?"

"Guys," Scott interrupted. "That's not the most relevant thing right now. Stiles, what have you done to him? Can you do it to other people? Has this happened before?"

Ah yes, right.

Stiles still wondered if Theo could hear them from the second floor.

He rubbed his forehead, once again briefly getting the image of rubbing it all the way through to his brain just to have a look finally. Again. This thought was becoming a recurring character in his mind space.

Stiles rubbed the back of his neck, looking down at the table, drumming his fingers against it, his leg just this close to bouncing.

"It has happened once before, yesterday before Roscoe broke down, it was a very stressful situation that I needed Theo to talk, and basically I forced him to do so. I didn't do it consciously either time, but I just really needed and wanted him to finally fucking talk for once, so it somehow happened. And this time I was just very pissed at him, so… it happened again."

"Do you think… do you think it might be the demon's magic?" Scott asked, worried, brows furrowed. "Is this possible? Can it be poisoning you?"

Stiles shook his head, hard.

"No, it's not possible. It still had to ask my permission to use my magic while I'm conscious, and even then we both felt like shit. I would say that its magic isn't compatible with human magic, like, a Kitsune normally wouldn't have had magic without their spirit, and I already have it, so maybe it's true, but I don't know…" Stiles trailed off, thinking about it.

Was it possible that their magic would just clash them both to death?

He should ask Theo if maybe he remembered something related from the Doctors' experiments.

When he had convinced Theo to stop being rightfully angry with him.

One day Stiles was going to just blow up from all the problems he had, and all the king's horses and all the king's men wouldn't be able to put him together again.

"Wait, it used your body?"

"Yeah," Stiles said, folding and unfolding the sleeve of his hoodie into a little crease. "There was a problem that we both – Theo and I – very clearly couldn't get out of on our own, so it offered to help us, but it had to ask me to have access to my magic, because it only used mine, and I still ended up feeling like I was dead."

"Stiles, what has been happening here while we were gone? This sounds extremely dangerous," Scott reached out, placing his hand on Stiles' arm on the table, Stiles clearly seeing how much like his mother he looked at the moment.

They had the same eyes. Always worried, always wanting to help.

Stiles guessed those were the types of people to chose the professions they chose.

"This was kind of a weird holiday for me, yeah, but being possessed is also extremely dangerous, so nothing is new here."

"Okay, leaving whatever happened this week aside for later," Mason looked at Stiles a bit sharply, well, as sharp as he could look at one of the people he adored, "can we get back to you somehow fucking with Theo's mind and making him do stuff he didn't want to?"

Stiles made a face at this.

"Put like that, it sounds even worse."

"It does sound bad," Liam agreed.

"Well, let's get back to it," Mason insisted.

Stiles was amazed at how good some people were at keeping their thoughts in line. By this time, Stiles had already kind of forgotten what started this conversation.

"Do you have any ideas what might have done this?"

Stiles shook his head again, folding the sleeve more aggressively.

Liam leaned onto the table more.

"Is it possible that all of you are blowing it out of proportion? Can't it be just the familiar bond effect but brought to human size?"

Scott seemed to understand what he was talking about, judging by his little "oh".

He relaxed immediately.

"Right, that would be the easiest explanation."

"What effect?" Stiles asked, getting nervous.

He should have listened in class. He knew next to nothing about the science behind the bond.

"Oh, you know, how they write in books, that a familiar listens to you if you ask them the right way, despite the fact that they are, like, animals, and don't usually understand you probably, unless you taught them some commands. I know that Sega listens to me when I really need her to, although hedgehogs are hardly tamable, so she's pretty much wild. Maybe it's just that, except you have a human who can clearly express their will, and also maybe realize better what's happening, then it looks bad," he shrugged, unsure of himself after having talked for so long.

"Wait, is this actually a thing? I thought it was just like 'aww, your familiar always understands you' kind of thing," Stiles asked, looking more to Scott, the magical vet student, who had to study these things.

It was a wonder that Liam came up with this first, but then he was the only one here with the actual experience.

Scott shook his head:

"It is a real thing, the magical side effect of the bond. I didn't even think about it, huh. Experience is always better than theory," Scott smiled at Liam.

If this was what was happening, Stiles was going to send all the thankfulness he could emotionally gather to the universe for such an easy explanation. Because if this was it, then it wasn't anything weird, it was just how their magic worked, and he would just have to explain it to Theo and try to be careful in the future.

It seemed to be easier said than done, considering that being pissed off turned out to be enough to trigger it, and with his becoming of questionable stability, it might get even more tricky.

"If you are going to sleep with him, it's going to be so unethical."

Stiles stopped fidgeting to stare at Mason.

"That's why no-one sleeps with anyone."

Liam sighed.

"I do sleep with someone! Corey, remember? And Scott has Kira. And Liam… well, whatever Hayden decides. It's just you right now, really," Mason's face was the picture of innocence.

Stiles rolled his eyes, but Mason was right, right now it was just him.

"Maybe if I did sleep with someone, I wouldn't be in half of this shit," he said, his face sour. Maybe he would have had some other outlet for all of his energy instead of the amazing idea of going to the fucking forest.

He sighed. And now he was also cursed with Theo.

***

It was very late when Stiles finally got ready for bed avoiding actually going to his bedroom first. He was the last one to leave the kitchen, and he didn't even want to know what time it was, because he knew that tomorrow he had to go to class, and it was not going to be fun.

And he hadn't even told Theo yet. Stiles felt like he had to warn him, because this meant that he was going to be left alone in the house. Stiles guessed it wasn't like with a dog, since Theo was still capable of getting his own food (kind of), self-entertainment and self-care, but still.

They should really figure out a way to get Theo a driver's license. Stiles didn't really need a car to get around the campus, plus he could very easily carpool with the guys, but Theo would actually need it to get to work in town, and it's not like he could buy one.

Stiles suddenly wondered what had actually happened to Theo's parents. He had a hard time just accepting that someone would just give up on looking for their child after just having lost another one. That didn't make sense to Stiles. He knew that some people really didn't care, but he felt like he had to make sure. Even back when his mother had just died and his father was in a terrible shape, he was sure that if something happened to him, his father would look for him.

Had Theo's parents just given up? Maybe something happened to them as well?

Maybe one day Stiles would search for them, and possibly even tell Theo.

He stood in front of his bedroom door, knowing full well that Theo could hear him clearly. He took a deep breath and finally opened the door, happy that it seemed to be intact.

The lights were off, and the only source of illumination came through the window, some moonlight and street lamps. In this light Stiles could see Theo's shape on the bed.

He noticed his eyes glimmering slightly in the poor lighting.

"Hey," Stiles said, closing the door behind him.

Theo rolled over with his back to Stiles now.

Stiles sighed. He was lucky that Stiles' bed was big enough for them both to sleep without touching, technically, because at least this way the chances of Stiles flinging himself off of it were lower. And Stiles didn't think Theo was up for cuddling tonight.

He was mildly disappointed by the realization, but he chased the thought away. He was just getting used to the warmth, this was all.

But Stiles would still probably roll over onto Theo or something in his sleep anyway.

He changed as fast as he could without turning the lights on, feeling guilty about using his power over Theo against him in this way. He just hit a small photo frame on his drawer set, and the glass didn't even break. Even darkness couldn't win over his dedication to making as little noise and destruction.

If Theo was angry with him, he was going to apologize tomorrow, when he had the mental strength. Maybe. Hopefully.

He noticed the collar flung onto the floor in the middle of the room, his stomach doing a weird thing at the sighed. Another thing for him to ignore, that was.

It somehow felt like Theo rejecting him, and Stiles didn't understand this feeling. He had known Theo for just a week, and Theo chose to wear the collar himself, Stiles had nothing to do with it. It was completely up to Theo, and it's not like Stiles actually owned him or wanted something like that. He didn't think he would ever want for Theo to wear a collar. This even sounded kind of weird.

But still, the feeling was there.

Stiles didn't know what to think about it. So he didn't.

He got into the bed, facing Theo's back, and closed his eyes, trying to convince his mind to go to sleep, the daily struggle he had to endure.

Now he had to admit, feeling Theo next to him, usually holding him in some way, was absolutely something he got used to. And it seemed to actually help him fall asleep.

And now, without it, it didn't seem possible at all.

Stiles wondered what that might have meant. He knew that not all witches slept with their familiars, so he didn't think it was about that, but what else could it be?

Eventually, after some slow tossing so not to disturb Theo too much, Stiles gave up.

"Hey," he whispered, turning to Theo again, "are you awake?"

Theo didn't answer, but Stiles figured he wouldn't. He knew Theo wasn't asleep by his breathing.

When did he learn this trick?

"I'm sorry I made you go away. You are right, it does very much matter for your life as well, I shouldn't have forced you away like this. I was very annoyed by you, but I should have talked to you normally, and not like that. I didn't really know that I could do that, so I couldn't stop it."

His high school therapist would've been so proud of him at this moment. Actually articulately apologizing? Not in this life.

After a couple of moments of quiet, Theo turned around, looking up at Stiles from where he slid down, his head lower that the pillow.

"How did you do that? Is it actually something you witches can just do, without even casting, or had you cast something onto me, something I don't remember, so you could do this to me when you need to? Force me to do something?"

Stiles suddenly realized how scary this thing must've actually been for Theo.

And how it played together with him being basically kidnapped and forced to do shit he didn't want for virtually his whole life.

Of course Theo would freak out.

Stiles felt so unbelievably guilty, but he really didn't know how he did it until now, and even now he wasn't sure what to do with this knowledge, and if their suggestion was even right.

"No, I haven't done anything like that. You can even ask Mason or Scott to run some scanning spells on you. You could also ask Liam, but he's better at a very attacking combat magic, so that might backfire."

"Like I would know that what they are doing is right and what they are telling me is true."

Stiles guessed he wouldn't.

"I really can't give you any guarantees."

Theo seemed to think it over.

"I'm pretty sure I'll be able to tell if they decided to lie to me, but that wouldn't change the fact that I can't do anything about it, can I? Maybe just ditch you completely, but I'm not sure how well this would go with the fucking magic."

Stiles couldn't see Theo's face in the dark, with the window behind Theo's back, and their bond mostly transmitted big spikes in emotions, so he had only Theo's voice to judge.

And Theo sounded way too even. Like any of what they were talking about meant nothing to him.

But Stiles couldn't imagine that being thrown from one situation where you had hardly any control over your life to another one and having no way out could leave someone feeling nothing about it. Stiles would be full on freaking out.

Although maybe when your whole life is like this, you kind of get used to it.

Stiles didn't think it was Theo's case. He had known him just for a bit, but Theo didn't strike him as someone who actually naturally enjoyed being bossed around by others.

It's just that his life had some plans for him.

"I'm sorry," was the only thing Stiles could say, if he was being honest.

Theo was quiet for a long moment. Then he sighed a sigh so tired Stiles felt it in his own bones.

"Did you get any ideas about what it was in the end? I heard you started to discuss it but then I put on headphones."

Stiles smiled a bit at that. Such an angry teenager getting sent to his room.

"Wait, with my Spotify? You're going to fuck my Wrapped."

"That's my goal. And no, answer the question."

It was Stiles' turn to sigh.

"We think – actually, Liam suggested it, and Scott confirmed that it was potentially possible, but we can't prove the theory – that it's part of the bond effects. Liam said that his hedgehog, Sega, can do what he needs and asks her to do despite the fact that hedgehogs aren't actually that tamable and don't understand humans, you can't really train them. So it must be the combination of magic, words and the intention he puts in it. Kind of what I did with you both times, but it's just we both are way more aware of you having your own will and the fact that you were doing what I told you to do against it."

"So like I'm your Muppet? You can literally just make me do whatever you feel like making me do?"

"Well…" Stiles swallowed, "potentially, yes. I wouldn't though. I didn't know I had to be aware of this before, and now I know, I won't do it again," ha paused. "Unless it's to take you, me, or both of us out of life-threatening danger. At least on purpose."

"Ah yes, because I myself wouldn't be able to understand that you, I, or both of us are in danger, and only you can decide how I should act in this situation. I see," Stiles was very familiar with sarcasm, both from himself and from Lydia, but this was dripping with it so much, he could feel it slowly melting his fragile human bones.

He did appreciate it nevertheless.

"Yeah, you're right. I won't use it again."

Theo put his head up a bit and then just dropped it back onto the bed.

"You can't promise that. You don't seem to be able to control it properly, and both times used it by accident when emotional. You are totally going to do it again, and I wouldn't be able to fight it. Amazing."

Stiles somehow felt even guiltier despite the fact that he wasn't the one who chose it, and he couldn't force the magic's decisions. It wasn't really up to him, he could only promise to do his best.

"I can try looking up ways to break a familiar bond."

Theo made that strange thing with lifting his head up and then dropping it into the mattress again, letting it jump a couple of times, like a bad bouncy ball.

"Yeah, sure. The faster you can get rid of me, the better."

Stiles didn't know what else he could do. It didn't seem like any option was going make Theo any happier.

"Theo…"

"Forget it. What did you learn about the Nogitsune?"

Stiles sighed once again, shuffling around a bit. He should be trying to sleep.

"Not much," he answered anyway. "It told me to call it the Void. It had to have a human host once, but must have been somehow separated from it, and then it must have lived like a demon, moving from host to host, until it got locked in that tree that decided to give it back to me. How it got separated, what are its origins, how and why it was put into the tree, I haven't figured out yet, as well as how to get it out of me. It feeds of chaos and pain, so that explains my dreams and sleepwalking, but it sure as hell doesn't explain why it's being so nice to me. I guess the fact that it helped me made sense if it wanted a host after being stuck in an inanimate object, but still."

"It doesn't want you to die."

"Yeah."

"Maybe you remind it of its original host or something."

"Maybe."

They went silent again.

"It said it liked you, too," Stiles whispered.

Theo turned his face up, looking at Stiles. He probably could actually see his face. Unlike Stiles.

Stiles slowly took one of his hands from under his cheek, where he put it like he was used to, like a little child, and no less slowly put it onto Theo's cheek. It was warm and a bit coarse with some stubble. Stiles ran his thumb over Theo's cheekbone, slowly, gently, as if he was touching a wild animal for the first time, trying to let it know it could trust him, that he wasn't going to hurt it, and that he was going to take care of it. All it one tender touch.

Theo turned his face into Stiles' hand, a gesture of trust.

Stiles' heart missed a beat.

Theo moved closer, tugging Stiles to him at the same time, his arms snaking around him, pressing against Stiles, warm.

Stiles felt Theo's heartbeat getting slower, and his own synchronized to it.

Theo pressed his face somewhere into Stiles' chest, and Stiles felt him breathe out, long and tired, and it felt like letting go.

Stiles pressed a kiss to Theo's hair, his neck bending at an uncomfortable angle.

His head was empty probably for the first time in his entire life.

It felt amazing.

His head felt like it was being hit with a hammer repeatedly, even after it had already broken his skull. Like he had been hit by a car and then it backed up over him again. Not even a car, but one of those asphalt pavers. Slow and nice and flat.

In short, he felt dead but still very much suffering. Which was unfair. No-one should suffer when they are already dead. Especially not Stiles. He wasn't that bad. He didn't deserve this.

He tried opening his eyes, but there was light, so he groaned and closed his eyes agaun, because that made his life a tad bit better.

He smelled coffee, and then there was some shuffling and some clinking, and then the bed dipped next to him.

"I know you're awake."

Stiles hummed noncommittally, and his voice wasn't even there.

"My question is, are you you now?"

Stiles cracked one eye open again, and this time it almost didn't feel like someone tried to put a nail into the back of his skull. The key word being almost.

There was a cup of coffee and a glass of water on the nightstand, and a plate with what he guessed was another absolutely terrible sandwich.

He couldn't understand why he was so surprised yesterday to figure out that Theo couldn't cook after having had experienced his sandwich-making skills. This guy was hopeless.

He was kind of afraid to taste the coffee, and he also didn't really want to check what it was going to do to him right now, so he was grateful for the option of water. It was hard to fuck up water. Not impossible, but hard, and Stiles decided to hope that Theo wasn't that hopeless.

He sat up slowly, propping himself against the headboard, leaning his head against the wall. Its coolness helped a bit with the headache, a welcomed relief, if a small one.

"Yeah," he said finally.

Well, more like croaked. He could barely call it talking, really.

Theo seemed to understand something, because Stiles could feel the cold glass being pressed into his hand.

It felt like it weighed a ton, full of lead instead of water, but he managed to lift it to his lips, his eyes shut again, and took a sip.

That helped more than anything else did so far, and he suddenly realized that he was unbelievably thirsty this whole time, so he drank the whole glass.

Then he tried to fill it again, but his magic was so drained, he didn't think he could spell a nightlight right now, and he could do it when he first got the first spark of magic.

All of him felt drained like a cut lemon after a week in a desert.

He felt like he would have felt better if he were dead. Because apparently he wasn't, which was a consolation.

"Are you sure?"

Stiles opened his eyes just a bit to look at Theo.

"Guess you'll have to figure this out."

Theo nodded slowly, taking this as an answer, a slight worried furrow to his brow, his thigh pressed to Stiles' calf.

Stiles sighed and reached to the side to grab the sandwich in his hand. He wasn't about to risk turning his head, so he wasn't looking, and it took him a couple of tries.

He knew it was important to eat something even if he didn't have any desire to put anything into his stomach.

"What time is it even?"

"Around noon. I woke up like an hour ago."

Stiles sighed. Another day without research and homework and work and…

He threw his eyes open, his brain exploding with pain immediately, so he had to squeeze them shut just as fast again.

"What about the Doctors? Were they… are they… are we…" he screeched.

That was the best way he could describe his voice.

Theo interrupted him:

"I'm pretty sure, considering how whatever you did back there sounded, you fucked them up bad, they will need time to recuperate. So we should be okay for now. My ears are still ringing a bit."

"Okay. You'll have to explain that to me later, but I'm going to trust you for now, since I did save your ass yesterday."

He heard Theo chuckle.

"You did."

There was a strange note to Theo's voice, one that Stiles could only interpret as him being weirdly touched about the whole thing. He guessed that one would be, though, so it was probably normal and to be expected, actually.

"So now, talk. You have no choice."

Theo sighed.

"Are you sure you can take it all in? There's a lot."

"I'm going to make you retell me everything again if I can't comprehend it right now."

Theo chuckled again, his voice dropping lower than usual:

"And just how are you going to do that?"

"Oh, I don't know. I have literally no options. It's not like you live in my house, eat my food, wear my clothes… You know."

"I wear Liam's shirts. And you allowed me this without asking him first, by the way."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm going to get him a couple of new ones and say sorry. Liam is chill. And I got you your own ones, too."

That was a lie, Liam had hardly even known chill, but he was still an adorable puppy and wouldn't mind enough not to forgive Stiles easily. And Theo didn't know it.

"Now – talk, Theo."

At least this time he didn't do whatever weird thing happened back in the car before it broke down on them and the Dread Doctors appeared.

Fuck, he will need to pick the car up. It had probably been towed away by now. Fuck. More appeared with no work being done.

Theo breathed in deeply.

And then he talked.

Theo wasn't kidnapped, exactly. He went willingly, and Stiles honestly believed that this was what happened more often than not in kidnappings, but Theo insisted that he wasn't kidnapped. They wanted to use him for their side experiments. They always targeted someone easy to lure in with a promise of strength, better younger, someone who wouldn't be missed much, for whom there would be no big search.

They kind of made a mistake with Theo, because he had been very little, and it was weird for him not to come home, so after that they sought out only teenagers and young adults.

Anyone older had too few chances of survival.

They all had the same ultimate goal of creating the most dangerous, most vicious and immoral creature possible, all-powerful and destructive. Theo didn't know how they came to it, but that they did explain. So they were fitting different parts together like a Lego, trying to see what would yield the best results.

Theo was the first success in their new line of experiments with mixing supernatural creatures together, so they kept him. They always did keep the ones that survived at least as long as they proved to be useful or until the experiments ditched them.

Then they became just a novelty decoration in the lab, put into formaldehyde like two-headed lambs.

Theo wasn't the only child they took in his town. They also took his sister. Or more like Theo lured her to them, and then watched her freeze to death in front of him, because they wanted something from her heart, and they were also interested to see how it was going to fuck him up.

At least that was how he remembered it. He didn't remember pushing her in or something, which Stiles privately thought wasn't necessarily a one hundred percent guarantee that this didn't happen.

He was the Surgeon and Geneticist's toy. The first in his line of production. Genetically modified through several operations, so he wasn't exactly a werewolf. Apparently, if Stiles had had any experience with real wolves, he would've noticed how much smaller Theo was. Being half-coyote did this to a person.

They used him to lure in more people as soon as they could safely let him out into the public without the risk of any kind of public services getting involved.

Not that it was a super long wait. After they moved a couple of times, it was absolutely safe. His parents didn't put up much of a search, Theo didn't think they would've at the best of times, and they especially didn't after the loss of their precious golden baby girl, their hope and light in life, Theo's older sister.

And Theo had done that ever since. Went into what passed as shady teenage-oriented places, acted cool, figured out which one of them would go with him, and took them to the Doctors.

And they did their thing. Most of the kids died, and even those of them who didn't, naturally wouldn't be super kind to someone who brought them to what easily might have been their death. Well, maybe there were a couple of people who found it cool, but still.

It was just his luck that were-creatures were hard to do anything with, otherwise Theo would've already gotten all possible ulcers and stomach shit from all the junk food he had lived off of for like fifteen years, Stiles thought. Because this was the only way he could imagine this going. Even when Theo lived with fake parents in a real house and went to school, Stiles didn't think those hired actors cared that much about him.

Theo was fine with the whole set-up. He didn't mind it, he got to help sometimes during the operations, which probably meant that he had learned a lot of incredibly strange and specific anatomy details that Stiles was very intrigued with but didn't ask.

Their main idea of their experiments on and off for what seemed to be a long time was to get a person possessed with a demon and make them become one. Merge. Except it was apparently tricky as hell to find a person that can hold a demon, then get a demon, then make the demon to possess the person, and these demons were usually very weak and small, because the real deal ones were hard to summon, unless they came naturally. And really, very few people actually survived the possession even by a small demon, so eventually the Doctors figured out that maybe they should try with something more sturdy than a feeble human. Something that they did their best to make the least vulnerable. At first, they tried to make specimens (the word Theo chose, not Stiles), but they weren't that stable on the best of days, so eventually they figured they should try with something they knew was stable.

And that was when Theo ran. He wasn't supposed to know, but they used to be humans once as well, an extremely long time ago, so if Theo was quiet enough for long enough, sometimes they would forget he was there or assume he had left somewhere and just talk. They conversed primarily in Old French between themselves, so it wasn't very clear, but Theo had lived with them for fifteen years and took French in basically all the schools he went to that offered the class, as long as he was going to school. He had learned some things. And he also knew that when he heard his name not directed at him, it meant trouble. Usually, those were just some experiments to check how far they can push him and his body. But they seemed to be getting bored of that, and Theo needed to be used for something. Otherwise what was his point? He was getting too old to use as a bait for new kids, so this was the best way to use him.

And then Theo also heard the words "demon" and "experiment" and he decided he didn't want to know anything else.

He shifted and he ran, and ran, and ran.

Theo said that he just thought he was running to California (because apparently that's how good his spatial awareness and feeling of direction was, that running from Utah to Cali by backroads and fields and forests, he still knew where he was running) because of nostalgic reasons, but it turned out that the magic started speaking, and the longer he spent in his full shift, the stronger in became. So it was kind of an accident that he felt it strong enough to find Stiles. It also didn't help that he apparently was born in a town literally less than an hour away from where Stiles was born, and Stiles had been choosing his best options for school not longer than a couple of hours from his father, so both of their home towns and Stiles' campus were six hours from each other on a bad day.

And that was it.

That was Theo's story.

Stiles mulled over it, and although he didn't think that Theo – staring into the wall distractedly, his hand moving in a little pattern on the bed sheet – needed to be called out, but Stiles had a feeling that Theo went for California because this was the last place he felt like he was at least somewhat at home. He didn't know if he was right or if Theo realized this, but that was what Stiles would have done probably. He would've felt so lonely and without a place if he were in Theo's situation, he was sure he would've sought out the place that felt like comfort last.

But this actually explained why the Doctors wanted to take Stiles with them immediately. He had a very clearly fairly powerful demon inside of him (which Stiles didn't understand how they could tell from just looking at him, he didn't do anything extraordinary before the last mad gambit) and he was very clearly alive, so potentially useful for them.

He didn't even know he could die from possession, not really, there was nothing more than "there are cases…" in all the books he had read so far. According to Theo, he could actually die. But maybe since the demon chose him, and this demon probably knew what he was doing with this, Sties was fine at least for now. His guess would be that the death was normally caused by the demon not wanting to be there, and his one seemed to be chill.

"What happened to those who did merge – Jesus, that's such a dumb word – in the end?"

Theo blinked a couple of times, coming back from wherever he got lost in his head, and looked at him, confused. Stiles repeated the question.

Theo scrunched up his face in distaste.

"Their body couldn't handle the magic, and they blew up. It's even harder to find magical people so their body is at least somewhat comfortable with magic, so yeah, that's why most of those cases went bad."

Stiles nodded. Another reason for Theo's illegal adult figures to want to get to him.

Wait.

"Blew up?"

"Yeah, that was a whole nightmare to clean up every time," Theo said in a mildly exasperated tone, as if discussing a dog pissing on a carpet.

Stiles drew in a huge breath. Okay. This was alright. Everything was fine.

They were truly fucked though, weren't they, huh.

Stiles rubbed his forehead.

"How long do you think it's going to take for them to get back on their bullshit?"

Theo shrugged, tilting his head to the side.

"I'm not sure. Last time something screwed with them this way was a sound cannon during one of the protests or something, I don't remember, and they were out for a couple of days. But I'm pretty sure yours was worse, considering my ears are still ringing, to be honest," Theo smirked, a bit weakly, but still.

It was better than the glossy stare into nothing and the empty distanced expression he wore while explaining everything to Stiles.

It did make Stiles feel warmer somehow.

It was nice to see Theo acting like himself, even a bit. Considering all of their previous interactions, it must've been hard for Theo to talk about himself honestly. It felt like it was hard.

Stiles hoped he was honest. He didn't have the energy to feel paranoid anyway, so he was going to take it. It made sense. And also explained a lot about Theo and his general… attitude.

They both needed so much therapy, it was impossible.

***

Since the holidays were now ending, Stiles started to freak out about the fact that he didn't do shit, not for school, not for work, and he also had the demon issue still to figure out that hadn't budged even an inch, and now there was the additional bonus of feeling the Dread Doctors closing in on him.

And then there was also Theo. But Theo was kind of the extension of Stiles now, and Stiles caught himself actually kind of feeling himself, even after such a short time, so figuring their situation out felt somehow less pressing for a second. In the way how one would put therapy after everything else in their life because it didn't seem urgent. Even if it was.

The same evening, sitting in the kitchen and watching Theo somehow manage to butcher up a frozen pizza, swearing loudly at it, Stiles was actually thinking what it meant to have a human familiar. He still felt too weak to do anything, really, so his brain finally just didn't have enough energy to run away, and he could think only about one thing at a time. And he didn't want to think about the demon.

His magic was exhausted. He was pretty sure he also had to dig into Theo's strength to pull all of that off, including apparently partially healing Theo, but Theo couldn't tell either. He had been mostly out of it since before Stiles agreed to take the demon's help. The Surgeon had started the injection they used to get rid of the unwanted subjects, and Theo said it was actually kind of a miracle that Stiles got to him in time.

Stiles' body was also exhausted, he still felt like he had been hit by a truck several times over, and then it got stuck on him and had to roll its wheels in his dead body just to get out of the mush of him.

So now he was sitting in the kitchen, waiting for another horrible meal because of course they couldn't order in, Theo, what do you think, that I'm rich, no, go learn to be useful around the house as well, not only in crazy scientists' labs.

And Stiles was thinking.

He remembered when Theo said that Stiles was not going to be able to date anymore. Really, how many people would be actually, honestly, fully chill with someone like Theo living with them full time, like a familiar would? Because he was objectively hot, (which might cause some worry) and annoying as hell, finding ways to demand attention without actually demanding attention, which Stiles has learned even in the short time Theo had been living with him.

Stiles guessed the collar was also a part of it. Being annoying and attracting attention, that was. Because while Theo did take it off when they went out and still hadn't had it on when he brought Stiles the breakfast, now Stiles could fully enjoy the little jingling sound of the metal ring on it.

He might as well had had a little bell on him, Stiles could swear. Like a kitty. Or a cow.

Anyway, Stiles didn't think there would be that many people to be willing to deal with his whole situation, and even then, and this was all before other variables in the equation, such as Stiles being willing to deal with them, and them being willing to deal with Stiles himself as a person, and them working out all together.

So, in short, Stiles might as well bury his personal life, if he was being honest, not that there was much happening at the best of times. Like a couple one-night stands here and there, but nothing serious most of the time.

How much weirder would all of this have been if he had a long-term relationship? Or even, if he had one of those that are kind of long-term, but not completely there yet.

That would surely be a whole other level of a disaster.

But now it would be just him and his insufferable familiar. How lovely. You could put them together with his father into one of those "all families are different" social ads.

But maybe Theo was right. He himself was destined to the same fate now. Maybe they should help each other out. Two bros chillin' in a hot tube jerking each other off 'cuz they are magically bound together.

Was it… ethical, Stiles guessed was the word he wanted to use, though? Doing something like that with someone who could feel his emotions and whose emotions he could feel? Although not super clearly, but still. With someone who Stiles could kill by accident by attempting too big of a spell. Someone Stiles was legally responsible for.

Maybe. He still wasn't sure what the laws said exactly about their case.

Although really, either way those laws worked only in the magical society. If Theo chose to go live into the non-magical world, he could be completely fine. It would be harder for Stiles to cut ties.

Stiles wasn't sure if familiars could get away from their witches. Or exactly how the bond worked on their side. Because on Stiles' side he had to kind of remind himself that Theo was actually a full-grown separate adult, and not his responsibility to feed and clean and take care of. Not even because of the bond itself, because it wasn't as disruptive as he had thought it should be, but because of what he had been taught growing up. Stiles was sure that a lot of it was all the books he had read about people finding their familiars.

But setting all the ethical questions aside, he would say that in absolutely normal circumstances, like meeting in a club or something, he would probably at least consider trying to hit something off with Theo. He was objectively hot (Stiles had a thing for jocks, he had to admit it to himself, even if he would rather strangle himself then admit the same thing to Lydia, who loved pointing out that he would have had a crush on Jackson if he wasn't so pissed he was dating Lydia herself. As if she thought Stiles couldn't have had a crush on both of them, which Stiles wasn't going to point out to her; in his defense, like basically everyone had a crush on Jackson at some point in some form or another, from Danny (an admission pulled out if him only when heavily drunk to the extent of believability claiming not to remember anything the next day) to freaking Liam, who was the straightest person Stiles had ever known, who managed to have a friendship crush on Jackson). He had pretty eyes. He kind of tried to take care of Stiles as best as he could.

Stiles had some very low standards, didn't he?

Although that smirk had something going, too.

Stiles looked at Theo reading the back of a nuggets pack with a very concentrated expression on his face, his lips twitching like he was that close to starting to read out loud. He definitely was handsome. Then Stiles looked at the trail of smoke starting to leak out of the oven and up to the ceiling.

"Watch out for the fire alarm," he said, sipping his coke. Theo swirled around, his expression switching to something almost hysterical in a second, and jumped to the oven, swearing.

Anyway, yes, Stiles' standards were low, but this wasn't the point right now either. Because Stiles refused to think about the actual issues.

The point right now was whether he would fuck Theo in a normal situation. And the answer was most likely yes. He didn't know if Theo would be interested in him in a normal situation, but Stiles would be absolutely down.

Or however Theo preferred it. Stiles was fairly easy to convince to do a lot of things.

Stiles' eyes slid down Theo's back, ignoring all the loud swearing, stopping on his ass, not super defined in Stiles' sweats, but it was clear that there was totally something to define.

Still not as good as Stiles', because Stiles knew he had a great ass. But anyway.

Yeah, Stiles would volunteer to do that as well.

Theo turned to Stiles with the frozen pizza in his hands, his face a portrait of the deepest annoyance known to man, not even a rich white woman whose dog pooped on her new white carpet right before a party where her oldest rival was going to be at could even begin to comprehend the annoyance Theo was feeling.

"Well, you made a crisp, congratulations!" said Stiles.

The pretty eyes Stiles thought about moved from the giant round piece of coal to drill into Stiles with what looked like a barely contained rage temper tantrum.

"I've noticed."

"Just making sure."

Theo groaned angrily and went to throw the peak of his cooking craft into the trash, although Stiles could tell that he would have loved to throw it at Stiles. Or just throw it. That's why he took out the nuggets as well. This was a good decision. Theo was learning. They were making progress.

That was great, but then again Stiles had better things to consider right now.

But what if Theo wasn't into guys? Stiles thought about it for a second and dismissed the idea. It was probably presumptuous of him but remembering basically the first thing Theo had said to him, Stiles considered this not to be an issue.

What if he wasn't into Stiles? This wasn't the question Stiles was answering today.

Stiles had to admit, the freaking collar (it was jingling so much, how Theo coped with it, with his superior hearing and stuff? Did he secretly enjoy it? The additional annoyance tactic?) did do things for Stiles as well. He had never actually explored this side of sex, but he did have some thoughts and possibly even a couple of desires. He should explore more kinks.

Theo grabbed a small red box of what Stiles knew looked like salt from one of the cupboards.

"I wouldn't use that," he said, barely enunciating.

Theo stopped and threw a glance at him over his shoulder.

"Why?"

"It might or it might not turn you into a frog. Mason isn't exactly sure."

Theo looked at the box.

"And you have it in the kitchen why exactly?"

Stiles shrugged, briefly wondering if werefrogs existed.

"Well, we all know what it is and don't touch it, so it's fine."

Theo rolled his eyes and grunted something Stiles couldn't make out, turning back to the stove.

What was Stiles thinking again? Ah yes. Right now would be a great time for kink exploration, wouldn't it?

There was always a chance Theo would appreciate some of the kinks as well. Maybe he was trying to subtly show this with the collar. Eggplant emoji, droplets emoji, winking emoji.

Or maybe he actually just liked it. Maybe there was nothing to it, he just found an accessory he liked and wore the shit out of it.

Some questions weren't meant to be answered.

He also knew that he should stop playing your local friendly home therapist and just roll with it, it's not like he could really tell Theo what to do.

Theo was turning over the nuggets on the stove this time, and it seemed to be going fine. Except if those were going to be frozen inside.

Which was fine, he was learning and everything, Stiles was planning to be patient with him.

Stiles' phone vibrated on the table, and he picked it up.

It was a message from Scott informing him that Roscoe was secured and all three of Stiles' roommates were on their way here. Stiles asked Scott to pick up spare car keys from his father and do something about Roscoe on the way here, hoping she was still there.

She somehow was, and even deemed it possible to turn on again, so Scott was driving her now.

Stiles switched to a food delivery app, choosing what he wanted to welcome his friends back with, considering he still didn't tell them about Theo and the fact that he still hadn't found a way to exorcise himself, and now has three very creepy steampunk dudes possibly coming after him at any moment.

When put like that, Stiles did have an extremely eventful holiday.

He texted Mason, who was the least likely to be driving, what they wanted for him to order, and then got a response from Liam's phone saying that they had grabbed something on the way.

With the amount they normally ordered, there would be enough for Theo as well, so Stiles wasn't really worried.

He put his phone down.

Theo put the plate with nuggets onto the table with as much force he could get away with without shattering it.

"Bon Appetit," he grunted, throwing a fork at Stiles and throwing himself into the chair down across from him with another one.

Stiles didn't really mind the fact that Theo decided they needed to share the plate. Nuggets were individual items.

He did, however, mind another thing.

"Aren't you going to add like some ketchup or cheese sauce or ranch or something? Since we are being eight-year-olds right now."

Theo stared at him.

Then he visibly gritted his teeth, stood up and took out basically all of the condiments out of the fridge, dumping all of them on the table.

"Here. Take your pick."

"You are cleaning everything up though, you remember, right?" Stiles picked up some sort of hot sauce that for some reason didn't have a label anymore and wasn't in its original bottle, but Stiles somehow still knew what it was.

He didn't even remember where it came from. By the time he opened the sauce and decided that there was such a small amount left, he could dip the nuggets straight into the jar, Theo had already finished half of the nuggets and was moving a speck of the breading around the plate with a sad expression.

"If you hadn't fucked up the pizza, you would've had more food. Stop pouting."

Theo threw his fork away, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest, like a sulking toddler.

"I'm a werewolf, I have higher metabolism, I need more food!"

Stiles nodded, completely understanding, slowly dipping one of his nuggets into the sauce.

"Then cook some more, there's still stuff in the freezer."

Stiles didn't think it was the best option, of course, but werewolves must be sturdier in terms of how their stomachs reacted to food (because God knows Stiles was going to regret eating this tomorrow, he's twenty-three, he's not young enough for this anymore), and Theo had to start with something, and it was a start.

Plus it looked like werewolves had bottomless pits for stomachs, and Stiles wasn't willing to provide for it.

"Why can't we just order something?" asked Theo with an intonation that clearly indicated that he was seconds away from sliding off the chair and starting to kick and scream.

This was literally like dealing with a toddler.

"Because you don't work and don't have money to order."

"I kind of didn't have the time to do anything, you know, when there are three eldritch horrors after my ass."

Stiles scrunched up his face at Theo's choice of words.

"They're literally nowhere near eldritch horrors. Stop exaggerating. Just some classic, fucked up scientist. Nothing much," he bit his nugget and chewed slowly.

Theo rolled his eyes at him, because apparently, he actually was a toddler.

How fun. To have a toddler as your familiar. Jolene had literally nothing on Theo.

They continued to sit in an annoyed (form Theo's side of the table) and mother-of-ten-under-eight-including-twins-and-triplets levels of tired (from Stiles' side of the table) silence. Stiles ate his nuggets at a snail's pace. They were pretty evenly defrosted and generally fine, so that was a win. The sauce was old and not as spicy as he would like, but still okay.

It was a lot of progress in comparison to the night's peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Stiles finished his nuggets, and no sooner than Theo put the last freshly cleaned fork onto the drying rack, they both heard the front door open.

"We're back!"

"Where's the puppy?!"

"Stiles!"

Theo's head snapped in the direction of the sounds, and by the pattern of his breathing Stiles guessed he was smelling something.

Maybe new people, like dogs did, but most likely it was the takeout.

Then it seemed to click.

"Wait," Theo half-whispered, "you haven't told them?"

Stiles shook his head.

This was going to be fun. He glanced at Theo quickly, making sure that this time he wore Stiles' and his own clothes only, nothing Stiles borrowed from Liam for him. The light pink hoodie Kira got Stiles, and he had never worn because it literally blended in with his skin, looked perfect on Theo, since it was a bit big on Stiles, and this was annoying. It was Stiles' hoodie, why did it look so good on Theo?

Liam busted into the kitchen, freezing into place immediately, his eyes round, when he saw Theo.

Theo's eyes were fixed on the bag in his hands.

Mason ran right into Liam's back.

"What…" and then he was also standing stock-still, staring at Theo.

Scott came in as well, not smashing into anyone. At least one person in this house knew how to walk like a human.

"Stiles, where's the wolf?" Of course, Scott would be the most interested in seeing the new pet. "Oh. I didn't know you had guests over!" Scott smiled his adorable puppy smile. "I don't believe we've met, I'm Scott."

Stiles was pretty sure that if Theo chose to come closer, he would try to shake his hand. Or even hug him. Stiles shuddered at the thought. They all weren't ready for this kind of a relationship.

"I'm Theo," said Theo, not even looking up from the bag.

Stiles rolled his eyes at him. It's like he hadn't eaten anything since Stiles found him. Like Stiles had been starving him.

"Liam, give him the bag, please, or he's going to jump you when you move, he's being a wild toddler today."

Liam set the bag onto the table carefully closer of Theo, and Theo immediately got into it, plopping onto the chair.

"Good thing we got more than we need," said Scott good-naturedly.

"Is that a collar?" asked Mason.

That made Theo look up from the food in his hands. He smirked, glancing at Stiles for a second, and then turned his head to the side, making sure the collar was more visible, rising his chin up a bit.

"Yeah, Stiles put it on me because he owns me now."

Mason's eyes grew even larger, jumping to Stiles now. Liam and Scott also stared at Stiles, completely confused.

Stiles rubbed his forehead. At this rate he was going to rub a hole in there. Self-made lobotomy.

Maybe then, with direct access to his brain, his life would get easier. Maybe he'd be able to look in there and figure out what was wrong with him that he got himself into all of this.

"That's not technically a lie, but he chose to wear it himself. I did put it on him, though," he watched his friends now, Liam looking mildly horrified. "Remember how I got possessed recently? Well, apparently it screwed with my magic so much, I need a whole ass human familiar. He got stuck in his wolf form, so I got him a collar, because that's what you do for a familiar," Stiles stressed the last part, sending a glance Theo's still smirking way. "And then I accidentally got him back into his human form, and he still is wearing the collar for some reason. So yeah, say hi to Theo, he's living with us now, until I die from being possessed."

Theo finally took a bite of the burrito he had lovingly rescued from the bag, seemingly unbelievably satisfied with himself.

"Also, don't believe his act, we just ate, he's just acting like I'm starving him here."

Liam took another chair, sitting down as well, fishing out a sandwich for himself.

"Where is he going to sleep?" He asked.

Theo smirked wider, but before he swallowed enough food to be able to talk, Stiles interrupted him, already sensing some more bullshit:

"With me, I guess. Oh, and he had to borrow some of your clothes, I washed everything, it's on your bed."

"Why did you need Liam's clothes?" Mason asked.

He and Scott also sat down, looking at Theo with curiosity shining in his eyes bright as day.

Theo somehow got Stiles' phone to him and was doing something on it with one hand.

Stiles wasn't sure if he had shown him the password, so he didn't know if the phone was unblocked at all.

"He didn't have anything of his own. Also, Theo has been a great asset in looking for some answers, although we still didn't get far," Stiles was going to give them all the updates in one swoop, so maybe they wouldn't be able to focus on his possession because of how distracting Theo was.

No, that, apparently, wasn't going to fly here. All the faces around the table fell and turned to Stiles.

"So you don't know how to get rid of it?"

"No idea."

"Okay," said Scott. "Tell us where you got so far, and we're going to try to figure it out from there."

Now he was cooking breakfast and wondering if his possession could really affect Theo. Could a demon actually migrate from Stiles to Theo? Maybe if it figured Theo was an easier target?

What were the criteria for an easier target for a demon? Would the fact that Theo had more from an animal and him, and animals statistically had less chances of fighting a demon off make him an easier prey?

Stiles could hear Theo plop down onto the chair behind his back with a sigh so heavy, like getting down the stairs was a whole workout.

"Good morning to the sleepiest of Disney princesses," he said, not turning around and getting a grunt in response.

"Can we go out tonight?" Theo asked after a pause.

Stiles stopped stirring the porridge on the stove in front of him and turned to Theo.

"Why?"

"Because I'm bored and have no money. And you need something else to do for once. Is that porridge?"

"Yeah, you have something against it?"

Theo's face wasn't super enthusiastic.

"It's food."

"Okay, we can go out. You're going to pay me back when you get a job."

Theo nodded, accepting his fate easily.

Stiles generally thought that he himself somehow struggled with their whole situation more than Theo did. Theo didn't look like a person who just accepted his fate on average, but he seemed weirdly fine with their dynamic, considering that legally familiars were considered the witch's property, Stiles would think a person would be a bit more worried about something like that.

Really, history showed it didn't really end well for anyone.

He couldn't have lived in conditions worse than being owned? Did Theo know about the laws? He probably didn't. Where would he learn about them?

And it wasn't like Stiles had freaked out properly about having Theo as a familiar, but he still didn't have time to do it, he was probably still processing and admittedly had a lot going on.

But Theo was calm like everything was how it was supposed to be. Maybe it was the bond fucking him over. If an animal felt like it was at home with their human immediately, he guessed it was buried in some part of Theo's mind that was so deep and so integral, he couldn't get away from it.

Stiles was slowly starting to feel more and more horrified about this whole concept of humans as familiars. How should he treat Theo knowing that he possibly couldn't control anything about needing to be with Stiles? Should he take him out if he knew that he could actually like – like like – Theo when he was basically his owner according to the magical law? What the fuck was with their laws anyway? No person should own any other person. There couldn't be anything ethical about this.

Stiles stopped stirring the breakfast, just looking into space, the spoon still in the pot.

He did realize that his situation was a rarity, but it did happen sometimes, and clearly it needed some special rules. Generally, their whole system was so weird. Were the books in all the libraries like in the one here? So that there was literally no information but still for some reason a special access section? This was idiotic.

"Stiles!"

Stiles snapped back into it, blinking.

"What?"

"Where are we going to go?"

Stiles made a face, not turning to Theo.

"Should we really?"

"If you're going to give me all that is it actually ethical shit, don't. It doesn't matter, I don't care, I'm pretty sure I could take off right now and never come back, in case that's what you're worried about now."

Stiles turned at that.

"How do you know?"

Theo just stared at him, eventually rubbing his eyebrow and saying:

"I know why and how I found you, and it is only vaguely connected with the familiar magic."

It didn't go past Stiles that Theo didn't answer the question.

"Care to share with the class?"

"No." Theo put his head on the table, closing his eyes.

Yes, that was what Stiles thought. Both that Theo was surprisingly awake, which he apparently wasn't, and that Theo wasn't going to talk. Could Theo read his mind? Was the connection clearer on his side?

Stiles was so going to get this information out of him. Through any means. Eventually.

Because he needed to do something about it. About Theo not talking, not the awake part. The last one was adorable.

For some reason, Stiles had a feeling that if he had the whole story he could be much more efficient in looking for a solution for his own problems. Maybe he was just substituting one thing for another and focusing on the wrong issue, but he was used to trusting his gut. So his next goal now was to get Theo to talk.

Yes, Stiles was in a complicated situation right now and could use someone by his side, but he really didn't think it was worse now than it had been when his mom died. So he didn't see why he would get a familiar right now all of a sudden. Then it had to be something different, there had to be something to do with everything else going on in Stiles' life.

All of this sounded too close to some kind of fate bullshit, but when it came to familiars, magic was acting kind of like fate, wasn't it?

"Stiles…" Theo hissed, his face still mostly buried in the table.

"Yeah. We can drive to the town and, like, go to the movies or get some food or, I don't know, like bowling."

Theo made a long kind of whiny sound.

"No bowling. Loud."

Oh now they were regressing to toddler talk.

"And movies aren't loud?"

Theo didn't react, and Stiles wasn't sure he hadn't fallen asleep again.

"We could go to a museum."

At that Theo looked up just to glare at Stiles.

"Oh, okay, I forgot we were a toddler who can't cope with having a little bit of culture in their life. Should we keep the porridge unsweetened? Or are we old enough for sugar already?"

"If you want to, we can go to a museum. I just gathered they aren't that fun."

"Gathered. Have you never been to a museum?" Stiles said, sarcasm dripping from the words.

Theo sat up and scratched his cheek, scrunching up his nose.

"I'm pretty sure I've been to one, on, like, an elementary school field trip, but I don't remember it much."

Stiles raised his eyebrows, his back still to Theo.

He was getting just simply curious about what the hell happened in Theo's life that his life experiences seemed to be so different from average. Just simply honestly curious. Stiles guessed the story was very fascinating.

Worth a Netflix documentary.

"Do you have a high school diploma or GED or something?" He asked, aiming for casual, hoping that this sleepy Theo would fall for it and actually give up some information about himself.

"Does it matter?"

Oh no, he was too awake already. What a bummer.

Although, wait a second, it did actually matter, Stiles realized.

"I'm trying to gather what chances of getting a job you have."

"For that, I do have a high school diploma. Well, not anymore, I don't have any of my papers now, but I'm going to get one."

Stiles stopped again, a disbelieving expression making his eyes round. He whipped around to face Theo.

"Do you have a fake high school diploma?"

Theo straightened on the chair and crossed his arms over his chest, just staring back at Stiles with raised brows, like he expected it to be obvious.

"Why are you looking at me like it's a logical conclusion of literally anything? Why would anyone have it faked? You can just get a GED!"

Theo rolled his eyes at Stiles. What the hell?!

"Yeah, if I have the education to pass GED."

That made Stiles forget about the porridge completely for a second. He leaned against the counter next to the stove, the big wooden spoon he used for stirring probably dripping their breakfast on the floor.

"What… Are you saying… What… How… Do you mean…" and then something clicked in his mind. "You haven't been to school since elementary, have you?"

Theo laughed. He laughed at Stiles' genuine concern. That was rude.

"I have. Not very regularly, but I have. I would pass GED, I'm pretty sure, I'm not uneducated," he shrugged.

Stiles wasn't even sure what he was supposed to think about this. He ran his free hand over his face.

"Were you kidnapped and made to live under a fake name and put in a dungeon under, under or something?"

Theo squinted into the middle distance, running his tongue over his upper teeth, then looked back at Stiles.

"Kind of, yeah. I wouldn't have used this specific reference for this but yeah."

Stiles didn't know how to react to this at all. At least Theo got the obscure reference hardly any of Stiles' friends got. Well, more like just Danny, as Stiles was pretty sure he was the only one to ever listen to Nicki Minaj.

That was so beside the point right now.

"You need so much therapy."

Theo made a face at this, leaning back in the chair.

"I'm fine."

"Yeah, sure."

Stiles turned back to the porridge. He mentally added finding out whether there were werewolf therapists to the list of things he needed to add to the paper list of things he needed to do.

It suddenly hit him how responsible he felt for Theo, which probably wasn't alright, because realistically, he should be thinking about finding a therapist for himself to deal with his own shit first, since said shit was what most likely caused him to immediately be the one in care of Theo.

He guessed there still was something in the familiar bond that was screwing him over. Both of them, probably. The magic wanted, if it could want anything at all, since it wasn't a living thing in the traditional sense of the idea, but it wanted him to be responsible for his familiar, the way anyone would be responsible for their pet, but more. A beloved elderly family member who needed a lot of care and couldn't do much. Or maybe a little baby. Stiles had always thought about it like that, but maybe that was because he had never had any pets like this, his mother's familiar was a python and those are a whole different thing to deal with. People did love their fluffy pets like family members, and Stiles had never felt about that snake this way.

Either way, Stiles felt like he should take care of Theo because of magic. Totally not because he was starting to like him or something. He could kind of feel the magic, and it didn't care that Theo was a whole ass adult fully capable of self-care.

Stiles guessed he was capable of it. He wasn't sure now that he was slowly wrapping his head around the glimpses of Theo's life he gave him.

"Can you cook?" He asked, not turning around.

"I've never tried to, not really."

Stiles nodded. That was what he had expected.

Well, that could be fixed easier than a whole education.

***

That evening, they actually went out. They finally got around to order Theo some clothes online, and somehow they got the sizing right. And Theo apparently knew his colors, because that pink sweatshirt looked as good on him as that damned collar did, even if Stiles hated to accept that he was even thinking about it.

They did end up going to the movies. It was the first run of the open-air cinema this Spring, and it was still too chilly for it, actually, but Theo didn't care, and Stiles could manage with all the unused blankets considering no one wanted to be here in this temperature. For some reason, the owners or whoever was responsible for this chose a rerun of Amelie, which Stiles did find kind of adorable in it's whimsicality, but still was more into the candy he brought for both them but was eating alone, since Theo just straight up fell asleep ten minutes in and only woke up when Stiles kicked him. Their next stop was the nearest cafe.

This was absolutely not a date, this was two people having a night out because their lives were a horrifyingly stressful mess at the moment.

They sat down in a small Italian restaurant Lydia dug out for Stiles and Scott when she was visiting them for the first time back when they lived in a dorm and it was just the two of them. She found it incredibly peasant that they had only discovered all the fast-food chains in the town and around it, so she found all the nice places.

Theo was doing his best to figure out what all the things on the menu were, since they did use at least pretend-authentic names, Stiles was choosing between trying something new and going for the risotto he loved, and everything was going fine.

The place was cute, with kind of half-intimate dimmed light, and nice dark wood panels, and generally tried its best to be fancy, but then the tablecloths weren't real, and the candles were on batteries, and all of this ruined the illusion.

Everything was going nicely.

And then Theo sat up suddenly, inclining his head to the side, as if listening to something, his whole body tensing up in attention, like Stiles' grandmother's dog did.

"What? What happened?" Stiles asked immediately, also tensing up.

He felt the sudden spike in Theo's emotions. There was so much cold terror in there, Stiles felt it almost as his own. What the fuck was happening? It didn't creep up, the feeling was just suddenly there, no explanation.

"We need to go," Theo basically shot up, his chair scraping the floor and almost falling over.

He grabbed Stiles' wrist, tugging him up as well.

Stiles barely had time to leave the laminated menu behind on the table. They caught the glance of the hostess and a couple of guests, and tried to smile at all of them at the same time awkwardly, while being towed by.

When they got outside, he finally ripped his arm out of Theo's grip, deciding that outside was an appropriate place for something that was going to look like a scene, but Stiles would like to understand what kind of danger they were in, especially if it had Theo so freaked out.

Stiles had his guesses, like Theo's mysterious past catching up with him, but still.

"What the hell, Theo? What's happening? Would you explain something for once?"

Theo whirled around, looking positively on the verge of just bolting, straight up abandoning Stiles and running, eyes not stopping on anything, looking everywhere, and as if glowing a low yellow light.

"Don't you hear it? The static?"

Stiles had to pause to listen closely, but then, even over the sounds of the street, he could actually hear it. There really was weird static crackling in the air. He frowned deep. That was strange.

"What is it?"

"A sign that we're fucked, we have to run, like, right now!"

Stiles had already been by his car. He didn't appreciate the yelling, but he could feel Theo's slow cold panic building up, sending chills over Stiles' body. He felt adrenaline starting to course through his own system, responding to his familiar's distress. The way his fight or flight response worked, he opted for acting now, asking questions in the process.

"Run where?"

"I don't know, fast and far, anywhere." Theo hopped into the passenger seat, while Stiles started the car. "Not home, we shouldn't take them there and we'll be trapped there." Theo looked out of every window he could see from.

"Them?" Stiles turned the car around, breaking a couple of rules, possibly getting a ticket, choosing the direction out of town, toward Los Angeles, deciding that in case of emergency he could ask Lydia and Jackson and some other friends there for help.

If Theo decided that it was safe enough. It looked like Stiles was going to have to rely on him in the decision making here. Which didn't sit right with him at all, it never did, but the situation didn't look like it was going to give him a lot of choices. It's not like he could abandon Theo to whatever was happening here.

"Can this thing go faster?" Theo's whole body was tense, Stiles could see it from the corner of his eye, and he wouldn't stop watching their surroundings.

"It can, but not in town, wait till we get out."

Stiles saw Theo's hands clench into fists in his lap in his peripheral vision.

Theo turned to look over his shoulder back at the street behind them.

"So who's them?" Stiles pushed the question again, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel from the stress he was feeling that was becoming his own very fast.

"Some people you really don't want to meet."

Stiles really wanted to feel exasperated, and in a way he did, but at the moment he was like a fairy from Peter Pan: there could be just emotion inside him at any given moment, and right now it was his all-time favorite one. Anxiety. This time, even actually reasonable anxiety for once.

"Theo. Can you stop avoiding questions for five minutes when we are, apparently, in danger, and actually explain what you dragged me into?"

"No." Theo didn't even stop to think for a second.

Stiles had to fight the urge to slam the brakes, and the main reason for him not giving into it was actually that Roscoe would absolutely break down on him if he even thought about trying to pull off something like that on her.

"Theo. Fucking talk."

And then something that Stiles didn't expect happened. He could feel his voice sounding weird. Not like when be used incantations, but similar, with some power behind it. With intention, the thing that went first into every spell according to his childhood magic tutor. But it still somehow felt different.

And then he suddenly realized that he didn't notice the demon in his head wake up, and quietly move closer, and Stiles guessed it was invested enough in his fate to screw with his magic. Just a bit. Just to make sure Theo had even less free will than magic gave him when gluing him to Stiles.

Which was definitely what he needed right now, the understanding that he didn't even notice the presence do shit in his own head anymore. To allow it to get its hands on Theo. Even if this was a kind of situation where Stiles' focus was sort of on a different issue.

He thought half sardonically that he would have appreciated a warning, hoping the demon would hear. Not that it would care. Why would it give any thought to what its human host wanted? It's not like the host was supposed to be there for long.

Stiles couldn't look at Theo, not really if he didn't want to drive them into something (or, even better, someone), but he heard a sharp inhale, Theo's whole figure somehow tensing up impossibly more, twisting. He pressed a hand to his mouth.

Then Theo made a sound like he really didn't want to make it but couldn't keep it in, as if it was ripped out of him.

"Those are the people I grew up with."

Apparently, magic found it a sufficient explanation, and Theo managed to wiggle his way out of the question without clarifying too much, since it didn't explain anything about the danger that freaked him out so much. Stiles didn't exactly agree with magic on this, but it was something, and they weren't agreeing on much recently anyway.

"And what's up with the static?"

"That's how they travel, they use sound frequencies because they aren't really magical, but needed a way to move fast. I have no idea how it works and how they figured it out."

"How many are there?"

"Three," there was a pause, "I only ever knew three," Theo amended.

"So there's more?"

"There used to be a fourth that I know of."

"And what do they want?"

"Me. They want me either back, or dead. But if they notice your possession, they would want to have you, too, and that's even before they figure out I'm tied to you. And they are going to notice it."

The last part didn't sound like it was pulled out of Theo, but rushed, like he wanted it out as fast as he could.

Like he wanted Stiles to see that he was also in danger.

Okay, so it wasn't just annoyed guardians picking up their unruly runaway child.

"How fast can they travel? Are they actually going to pursue us?"

"Pretty fast, although it has to be targeted, so they can't really follow a target on the move, but if they found me here, we should get away. I found you while running from them, and I run mostly in the wilderness from fucking Utah. And they still figured it out."

Stiles frowned.

"Why were you in Utah?"

"Their…" there was a pause, and Stiles guessed Theo managed to find a way around whatever Stiles did to him by accident (which he still needed to freak out later about) by trying to choose his words, "... Work."

"Stealing some more kids?" Because Stiles had a feeling that was what had happened to Theo.

All of this mystery around his life sounded just like that kind of story.

Theo barked out an unexpected laugh. That didn't sound like there was actually anything funny.

"That too."

Stiles wasn't going to ask why they were dangerous. Or what exactly did they do. He was sure that Theo wouldn't have gotten that terrified from something insignificant, Stiles was somehow sure of that. Plus with all that secrecy, Stiles was convinced that it wasn't good, but he didn't have time to force more information out of Theo right now.

They were out of town now, but hadn't gotten to the highway yet. It was this weird short stretch for four lanes at best, and nothing and no one in sight.

Stiles thought that in any damned horror movie this would be where his car, that was prone to this behavior in general, would break.

And Roscoe must be also somehow mentally connected to him, the way everything seemed to be recently, because this was exactly what she chose to do.

She broke down. Just like that. She gave up.

Stiles carefully drove her to the road shoulder.

"What? What's happening? Why are you stopping?" Theo leaned forward, away from the back of his seat, his hands splayed on the dashboard, gripping it, turning to Stiles as much as the seat belt would allow.

Which was honestly strange that he had it on at all, Stiles was impressed.

"The car died," he answered curtly, trying the ignition over and over, and only hearing the sounds of it struggling to start the car.

"What do you mean it died?! Turn it back on!"

Stiles could feel Theo's panic grow even more, fast, bleeding into Stiles' own mind, not helpful at all.

The demon stirred, and Stiles wasn't fast enough to stop it from reaching for their other connection, to Theo.

Stiles tensed up. Of course the demon would choose the worst possible time to do something finally, of course it would be when both of them needed their minds to function right…

But Theo didn't seem to notice anything, still looking thoroughly freaked out, but Stiles couldn't feel it anymore. There was just him and his own stress. It was way quieter in his head now.

Theo whipped his head to look at Stiles, his fear clearly getting him furious.

"Do something!"

"Are you okay?"

"What? Stiles start the fucking car!"

"Do you feel anything weird?"

"What the fuck, Stiles?!" Theo yelled.

Stiles nodded. This was enough for now. If the demon wasn't immediately fucking with Theo, it was okay.

"I have to check the engine." He scrambled out of the car, grabbing the toolbox from the back seat.

"Stiles, we don't have fucking time," Theo hissed at him, also taking off his seat belt and jumping out.

Stiles opened the hood of the car, holding his flashlight in his mouth, looking at all the dirt and duck tape and parts he didn't understand anything about.

Which also meant he probably wouldn't be able to do anything about them not functioning, which in turn meant that they were truly fucked.

Maybe he should've learned some car repair spells by now, since general use ones stopped working on Roscoe almost before he got her. Or maybe even how to do something with this non-magical way.

He could hear the static again.

Theo appeared over his shoulder, peering into the depth of the car's guts.

"Can you fix it?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?!"

"I don't know shit about cars, Theo, so I don't know if I can fix this."

Theo swore under his breath, looking around wildly again, breathing heavily. Stiles coils hear it.

The noise was getting louder, and Stiles didn't know what to do, and the only thing keeping him from losing his shit completely was the demon presence, cool and somehow soothing, always level.

It wasn't bothered by what was happening, it had seen too much to care. But it liked Stiles, and it found Theo adorable, and it wanted to keep them alive. Stiles couldn't tell how it communicated all of this to him, but he just knew it. Could feel it.

Who knew that possession could be good for once? The thought was so worrisome, Stiles pushed it out of his head. Which wasn't hard in the given circumstances.

And he very much appreciated the care of the demon cutting Theo's emotions off for him, because Stiles couldn't have dealt with this as well right now. He had enough with his own shit.

The static grew louder.

The car wouldn't budge.

Theo suddenly stopped pacing behind Stiles' back.

Stiles heard a low growl. He swirled around. He could see Theo's heaving back, his posture rigid, hunched forward a bit. Stiles saw the claws on his hands. He wondered why Theo didn't just shift fully and bolt, leaving Stiles. Was this also a familiar thing? Because Theo had run from these people before, why not try it now?

But he didn't. He stood between Stiles and the people he had run over six hundred miles to get away from.

Stiles' eyes slid past Theo's back toward his illegal adult figures, apparently plural now.

And felt immediately frozen in place with shock.

Because he recognized those masks instantly. He saw them in the papers he had been studying the day before. The papers he took from Theo when he fell asleep.

These were the Dread Doctors.

They were way taller than Stiles could have imagined, with their tall boots on weird platforms. One of them, the tallest in the center, had a long, sharp-looking cane. The low moon lighting them up from behind didn't allow Stiles to see the details, but he could see enough of the masks for it to be clear.

Those were absolutely the Dread Doctors.

Who were alive like three centuries ago.

"Failure should be terminated," said one of them, Stiles had no idea which one.

The sound was clicking and mixed with white noise, as if they were speaking through a bad, old radio; distorted.

"No," said Theo.

The Doctors stepped forward.

Theo stepped back, pressing against Stiles, who in turn was pushed against the car.

Theo was rock-still. He growled again, and Stiles more felt it through his back rather than heard the sound.

Stiles moved a bit to the side so as not to stand behind Theo.

This wasn't possible. These guys should be long dead.

Although it would explain how Theo knew such weird things about demons. If they were alive all this time and kept conducting their experiments, and Theo grew up with them, then of course, he would pick some things up.

Was Theo literally brought up by evil scientists?

Wait.

Did they say "experiment"? And "terminated"?

Stiles would not…

They were suddenly way closer than he expected. They were just there, the one with the cane pressing it against Theo's chest, making him bend over the opened hood of the car. Stiles saw Theo's shirt get darker there.

They didn't seem interested in him.

"Failure should be terminated," one of them repeated, and Stiles still couldn't understand which one of the three was speaking.

Theo's burning yellow eyes moved frantically between Stiles and the Doctor and the cane pressing slowly into his heaving chest. The world was strangely quiet for a second. Nothing moved. The nature around stood still.

When Theo's yellow eyes caught Stiles' for just a moment, Stiles nodded slightly. He wanted Theo to run. He was going to try to deal with the Doctors. Theo clearly couldn't do much, but maybe Stiles could.

Theo slid down along the car, fast, shifting into a wolf just like that, and bolted, initially stumbling over his own clothes, toward the other side of the road. The Dread Doctors, all at once, turned to follow him, again moving way faster than Stiles would have guessed was possible in those platforms.

He thought they were toying with Theo, really. If they really wanted, he would've been dead already.

Stiles had to do something, quick. He watched Theo run away and could tell that the Doctors must have not been there when he got away the first time, because there was no way he would be able to outrun them.

Stiles didn't know what to do. Combat magic was something he slept through completely, and they never let them practice properly anyway, so he wasn't sure it would help him much, even if he managed to remember literally anything from that course.

The demon touched his mind gently, but Stiles didn't have the time for it. He pushed it back down. He was grateful for its blocking their connection with Theo, but he had more important things to focus on right now.

He wasn't a great fighter, but he was amazing with household spells. He threw a small electricity spell at one of the Doctors, the one closest to Theo.

The Doctor didn't even stop. Were they somehow not perceptible to magic?

All three turned to him. They looked at each other. Then at Stiles again, studying him. Stiles sent a cutting spell at another Doctor, putting more power into it, but it just bounced off. After deciding something, at least it looked as if that was what they did, one of them, the tallest one with the cane, turned back to pursuing Theo, and the other two turned to Stiles, slowly coming at him. He knew they could be way faster, and it unnerved him to see them slow down.

He felt like there were sharks circling him.

He was also worried about the fact that in the dark it was hard to see a black wolf from this distance, so he couldn't tell what was happening to Theo, but he still could see the figure of the Doctor following it, and since it was still moving, he guessed Theo was still running.

The thing was that Stiles didn't really have time to focus on following Theo, since he had two out of three Doctors going after him.

They were still stalling, and Stiles didn't understand why, and he threw a kitchen fire spell, a big one. The Doctors moved out of the way, making some grass in the distance catch fire, which was bad, and this was the last thing Stiles needed right now – to cause a forest fire.

He also couldn't believe he had time to think about this.

"Good material," said one of the Doctors.

And that caught Stiles' attention.

Everything looked like it was a bit in slow motion, but really, it was happening fast.

They were circling him in order to catch him, because they wanted him for their experiments or whatever.

Like hell he would allow that.

The demon tugged at his mind again.

But before he figured out what other spell to use, trying to come up with a big one, sending a couple of smaller ones in a quick succession, both of the Doctors were suddenly on him, holding him, pushing him down in a way he couldn't really move his hands to cast anything.

He squeezed his eyes shut, expecting to be taken away immediately, but this didn't happen. When he opened his eyes again, he noticed both Doctors looking into the distance.

They were waiting for their third little buddy to be done with his job.

Stiles saw the figure stop, and then there was a high heartbreaking whine filling the air.

The Doctor caught up with Theo.

Stiles squeezed his eyes back shut, wishing he could close his ears as well.

He was failing as a witch so hard, and Theo was going to die. He tried to wiggle his arms out of the Doctors' hold, but they didn't even budge.

The demon tugged on his mind more insistently, still probably blocking his connection to Theo, because he didn't feel any pain.

And then Stiles felt like he was falling for a short little second.

Stiles had to just allow it to do its thing. It wasn't going to hurt him or Theo, but it wanted to help. Stiles had to let it have the wheel. It had to have access to Stiles' magic in order not to harm him. It knew how to save both Stiles and Theo, and make sure they wouldn't be followed for some time at least. But Stiles needed to let it in fully.

All of this information was just given to Stiles, just like that, he knew all of it.

And he realized it was a fucking demon asking him to let go of his control of his body go let it do stuff.

He would be either absolutely brainless or absolutely desperate if he was going to do something like this.

He heard another high whine, quieter this time. He tried to rip his arms away from the bruising hold of the Doctors'. Again totally uselessly, of course.

Stiles had to do something, for both of them.

And it didn't look like he could in his current position.

He might not be brainless, but he did feel utterly desperate.

He knew there was a chance he was not going to get his body back. One has to be deeply mad to let something like that happen to them willingly.

Stiles knew all of this.

There was a short little whine, breaking abruptly.

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut, fearing to check the bond, not wanting to know.

Maybe there was still hope. Maybe he could do one last thing.

Theo was wrapped around him like poison ivy around the damned Nemeton that fucked his whole life, all of his limbs somehow on Stiles, holding him close, barely letting him move.

Yesterday Theo woke up before Stiles, so Stiles didn't have the pleasure of trying to untangle himself from Theo's grip, but he absolutely did now. Because he guessed that yesterday it was exactly like this. He remembered feeling warm, but not like this.

The first couple of nights Theo slept with him in his wolf form, Stiles assumed he felt so hot because of all the fur that came with a wolf in his bed.

However now he was starting to suspect that it was just Theo. Did werewolves have a higher body temperature? He would have to ask Theo. If he could ever get out of his death grip.

Theo grunted behind his back, his arms around Stiles' waist tightening. It felt like a trap. Like quicksand. The more you struggle, the more it tries to drag you down.

Stiles was honestly surprised Theo still could move both of his arms, considering one of them was firmly underneath Stiles. But either way, this was not the reaction he needed.

He tried to push Theo's arm on his belly down. It didn't even twitch.

"No, Theo, let go."

"But you're going to go away," Theo mumbled, and it was so unintelligible that Stiles had a hard time deciphering what he said, but eventually figured it out.

"Someone's got attachment issues," when this got him no reaction, he wiggled some more: "I'm not going away, I'm just going to, like, pee and make breakfast. You like breakfast, right? Food? Eating?"

There was a pause, and Stiles could swear he could hear the gears changing in Theo's head and lagging mercilessly in the process. A couple of them had no contact with others and they were just turning uselessly, quacking like little lost ducklings, and the two that were actually connected to each other were just stuck.

Eventually, though, something must've shifted, so he let Stiles go, allowing him to shoot up from the bed.

Theo rubbed his eyes, and he somehow managed to look so adorably annoyed by morning as a concept in general, Stiles couldn't believe it was possible for a guy his age to be this cute. Stiles felt this strange need to just squish Theo's gently. He wasn't sure it was even possible with someone Theo's size.

He went to the bathroom instead.

He was halfway through cooking bacon and eggs when Theo finally stumbled his way into the kitchen, and he somehow still looked like he didn't really walk there, but slowly slid down the stairs like a slime, basically falling down every step and then even pausing in the doorway for a second for full effect, rubbing his eyes. Still. Or again.

Stiles hands twitched to just squeeze his cheeks so hard.

When Theo sat down behind the table, he yawned (and Stiles was impressed by him not dislocating his jaw) and put his head on his crossed arms on top of the table.

"Coffee's ready, by the way," Stiles had to fight a smile.

The day was starting off great. The demon seemed to be getting bigger, but it hadn't done anything during the night, and was generally behaving well now, and Stiles had a plan for the day (of sorts).

"I can't…"

Stiles waited, but Theo didn't continue.

"You can't what?"

"Drink coffee. It's… too much."

Stiles didn't understand how Theo had survived that long if he was like this in the mornings. Literally a kitten could kill him right now, and he wouldn't even notice. He was almost asleep on the table.

"Okay. I think Mason has some tea somewhere here…"

Theo just made the saddest little noise Stiles had ever heard in response.

"Do you just want to sleep?"

Theo hummed in agreement.

"Do you want breakfast?"

Theo hummed again.

"We are also going to the library again today. Well. Breaking into it."

That made Theo turn his head to look at Stiles with one eye half-open.

"At night?"

"No, of course not. At night there will be more protection spells. We're doing it before lunch."

Theo frowned.

"And how late is it now?"

"It's ten."

It was kind of surprising Stiles had slept that long.

Theo sighed as if Stiles offered him to run a marathon right now and hid his face in his arms again.

***

After some thinking and watching Theo be a uniquely useless human being while trying to wash the dishes (he almost broke the skillet, which was not the effect Stiles had expected at all, but he was learning to expect the least humane behavior from him), Stiles decided that he, in fact, didn't really need Theo for what he needed to do. So Theo was left at home to clean up the kitchen from all the soap and water everywhere (“Are you training me to be a good househusband?" –"No, Theo, just to be a human." –"Oh, so now you are discriminating me as a werewolf." – and only Stiles' self-control stopped him from turning it into a discussion), and Stiles had a miniaturized gym bag of paper in his pocket on his way to the library.

Stiles couldn't bring the books out, so he had to use a copy spell, and he needed paper for that. Stiles just hoped that there were no spells on the books against copying.

The plan was simple, but it relied way too heavily on the library not having alarm spells on the access-only section during the day. It was a university library, after all, and the government was very strict about where it stored the actually dangerous stuff, so there shouldn't be that much of an issue, why would the security be that strong? At least Stiles hoped so. He didn't have the time to get into trouble for that.

Stiles walked into the library, Caitlin smiling at him at the sound of the tiny quiet bell above the door.

"Oh, you don't have Theo with you!"

Stiles smiled sincerely. This was good, this gave him more chances of his plan working out. Caitlin liked him, he knew that. They were friendly since the first party on campus they both attended, and she swooped in and walked him away from a guy who wasn't willing to agree to a"no". It wouldn't be as weird for him to stop for a chat with her.

"Yeah, he kind of attracts a lot of attention, and I need to study."

“Oh, of course he gets all the attention, he's so adorable! And such a cool familiar!"

Stiles thought that she couldn't even imagine, but the mental image of the human Theo he knew being called adorable to his face almost made him giggle.

They chatted for a bit, Caitlin showing him the dresses she and her girlfriend got for her sister's wedding, and how her weasel familiar was doing after his operation, until the guy Stiles knew was responsible for the special access-only section came back from the pre-lunch check, with his card clearly visible on his hip.

Stiles clutched the roughly same looking one in his pocket next to the bag of paper. The bag he had to hold constantly so his hoodie pocket wouldn't sag suspiciously or even rip, and change hands at that. It might be tiny, but it was still a huge bag of paper. Honestly, his body wasn't ready for this. His arms already hurt. And he still had to make his way home. Maybe he would be able to make it its original size again then and carry it like a normal person. And all of this just to avoid being asked to place it into the storage area. He just hoped against everything that they didn't change the design of the security cards from the time this guy had been just accepted and posted a photo of this card on his Instagram. Like a dumbass.

Stiles said bye to Caitlin, still smiling at her, not looking where he was going, waving at her and wishing all the best to her sister and familiar.

Of course he bumped into the guy, he had always been so clumsy, his whole life, what an unfortunate accident, completely by chance making him drop the card and picking it up for him, apologizing profusely, and generally being his usual chaotic self.

It was good that Stiles was actually like that. Made it believable and easier to fake. Caitlin wouldn't guess foul play, she had seen him walk on the best of days.

Stiles clutched the real card in his hand, heading to the farthest door. He didn't bother stopping by a table and trying to pretend to do something, because there was still just like two very stressed out kids in the library and not a single working camera in the whole building, the door wasn't visible from where they were having their lunch, and he wasn't even doing anything that bad, he just needed to copy some books. That he wasn't allowed to touch. Not even the worst thing he had done this month.

That was people just denying him the knowledge he deserved for the money he paid for this place anyway.

He was just taking what was supposed to be his.

The card worked. No alarms went off. Stiles' spells didn't show anything reacting to his intrusion in any way, and his spells were good.

Why was this section even special access if it was this easy to get into? The university really didn't care about who read what. What was Stiles' money even going to?

This probably just meant that his university didn't have any of the real stuff, the real dangerous things. They were in the central library on the other side of the country.

Inside, he looked around, making sure all of the cameras were actually off and there wasn't anything unexpected. Then he finally took the bag out of his pocket and placed it onto the floor with a sigh. He felt so much lighter immediately.

The demonology section was in a corner without any clear visibility from the entrance in case someone decided to come in, so he dragged the bag there before making it big again.

He looked at the one single, sad-looking set of shelves.

Well at least this way maybe he would be able to copy most of them for studying.

With a sigh, he leaned down, opening the bag, taking out a heap of paper and grabbing the first book from the lowest shelf. This was going to be fun.

He just hoped no-one needed anything here for the next several hours.

The fake card was rigged to disappear back into his room in a couple of hours, so he didn't have too much time.

“Let's find the demon!" He murmured to himself.

The demon pushed against his mind, giving him a skull-splitting flash of a headache for a second, almost making him drop the paper. There was something like an image in this flash, like the demon tried to show him something, and Stiles felt it being unhappy about something, but it seemed like Stiles' conscious mind was still too much for it to take on completely. But it was definitely, undeniably getting stronger, and Stiles was terrified of the day it could actually just turn him off and take his body while he was awake.

Was he going to have to just watch his body move without being able to do anything about it? Was he going to be forced to watch himself kill someone? That sounded like one of Stiles' worst nightmare. And he had been getting plenty of those recently.

He blinked hard several times, trying to piece his head back together, holding himself up with a hand against the bookshelf in front of him. The pain was dissipating almost as fast as it struck him, but it still left him slightly shaking.

Maybe he should've taken Theo with him.

If the demon was disappointed Stiles wanted it out, it should take a good look at its own behavior first.

“Yes, exactly because of your behavior I'm going to get you out," he whispered, blinking his eyes fast, trying to gather himself.

The time was ticking.

He didn't want to think about it.

He had things to do.

***

The whole operation took less time than Stiles had initially expected. Only like four hours, and he only had to hide once, so that went smooth. His eyes hurt from the dim light only provided by a tiny window on the other side of the room, behind other shelves from where he was, and all the endless layers of dust he had to disturb in order to get to the books even with magic. Which was better than touching them with his hands, the trace would disappear faster, but required a bit more time.

It was kind of disconcerting to see how rarely used this section was. He had seen fairly clean books near the entry, the ones on medicine, he thought, but these looked like no one had touched any of them in at least ten years. This level of neglect on such a dangerous topic honestly worried Stiles. Especially because his life depended on it now.

After successfully getting the books he deemed potentially useful from skimming their table of contents copied and the card returned (the whole thing went way smoother than Stiles expected, he should've just done this in the first place instead of wasting his time in the other part of the library), Stiles walked back home with the bag securely back in his pocket, throwing it out and falling down onto the couch with a moan. His arms were killing him.

Theo picked up the still miniature bag, letting out a huff:

“Do you have a whole fucking forest in here or something?"

Stiles half-smiled at that, feeling too tired to react more.

“Almost."

Now, after yet another take-out dinner, they were studying what knowledge he had stolen. The fact that he had to do this was so appalling. So what if there might be ways to summon a greater demon or something in here? So what if he might have thought about trying it? It was knowledge! No one should be denied access to it.

He was just taking what should have been given to him in the first place.

The article Stiles was reading was making him as sleepy as only his grandmother's lectures about how ADHD was just him being lazy did (the ones that were a bit more drunken on Christmas and ended up half in Polish were especially effective as he didn't understand half of it and thus, they were easier to ignore). His vision was kind of blurry, and he was getting a low pounding headache, but he powered on.

They didn't have time for him to fall apart.

The article was about some guys that were into demonology and, Stiles suspected, all kinds of other shit, and it was talking about their experiments from something like two centuries ago with merging people's souls with demons. The guys seemed to be successful, at least to a certain extent, but apparently, their general work was considered to be too fucked up by the scientific community, so it excommunicated them. They didn't get much exposure and most information about them got destroyed. They did summon demons and kidnap people for their work, so Stiles wasn't surprised.

It didn't say anything about how it went with the merged souls. Nothing about how it changed people, what it did to their bodies or something, nothing about the results, no follow-up studies. Nothing about survival rates.

Stiles had to blink hard to try to focus on the text. Even his meds weren't helping, it seemed.

This article technically confirmed the possibility of what Theo had offered Stiles to do, but there was still so little information, Stiles wasn't going to really consider trying it out.

Stiles wondered how whoever Theo grew up with got this kind of information in the first place, but his thoughts were too muddy and slow, and the idea of asking Theo about it slipped his mind as soon as it entered it.

At the end of the article there was a little miniature painting of those guys.

Stiles breathed out a short little laugh.

"Look," he handed the paper to Theo, tapping him on one shoulder.

The guys looked so unbelievably steampunk, Stiles couldn't comprehend how they came up with the aesthetic that long ago. He could only dream about making a costume that cool for his LARPing events. They had boots that came almost over their knees on big platforms, coats, gloves, very complicated-looking masks, and all of it with such a ton of little details, the artist pretty much gave up. One of them even had a cane. Those must have taken years to get in and out of. Stiles wondered about their functionality.

"I want to dress up like them for Halloween."

Theo, laying on his belly on the bed next to Stiles, first just glanced at the picture, and then did a double take, looking closer. He blinked hard a couple of times, squeezing his eyes shut and looking away. All the reading must have been getting to him, too.

"Those masks are hell to breathe in," was all he said, turning back to his own stack of papers.

Stiles considered the picture again.

Theo was probably right.

"But I still can take pictures in it."

"Sure. If you want to spend ages making something you are going to take a couple of pictures in and then never touch it again. Also, have you found anything?" Theo turned carefully onto his back on the bed, trying not to disturb all the papers littering every square inch of space around them.

"Yeah, some interesting bits here and there, but there still isn't enough of actually useful information," Stiles wasn't going to tell Theo that he was actually thinking about his suggestion, because he wasn't. "You?"

"A couple of things about exorcism, but they all end in death. Although in all of these cases the demon has been wearing the person for a while, they probably had injuries they couldn't live with, but the demons could. So nothing about merging?" Theo looked at him with eyes so clear and unassuming, Stiles had to think it was fake.

He stared at Theo, frowning slightly.

Did Theo know what Stiles was reading about? Had he seen the picture before, so he could identify the guys as someone who worked with that aspect of possession? He did say he grew up around someone into demonology, it was still vaguely possible that illegal adult figure had also read about those guys, so maybe he did know.

Theo didn't even blink, just looking back at Stiles.

"As I said, there's not enough information. It doesn't say what happened to the people they did it to in the end."

"Well, someone has to test it properly then," there was a now familiar smirk hiding in the corners of Theo's mouth.

Stiles rolled his eyes.

"Like hell I would make myself a lab rat for a fucked-up experiment initially proposed by a bunch of dudes in steampunk masks. And pushed onto me by a guy I still don't know anything about," he said, pointedly.

Theo raised his eyebrows.

“I'm your familiar, I'm literally the last person to gain anything from your death," and then there was that damned smirk in full force. "Anyway. How exactly did you get possessed? I'm pretty sure you have to either work with demons or do something extremely dumb to do it."

Stiles frowned and looked at a random sheet of paper he had just grabbed. It was upside down.

"This is absolutely irrelevant. And who are you to make a judgment like this anyway, you, a magicless furry?"

Theo laughed.

Stiles felt a weird urge to smile, but didn't, frowning purposefully, turning back to his reading.

***

They continued sorting through the tons copies for the next several hours with one food break, sorting them into useless and potentially something. Stiles had to place his findings into potentially something, even if everything in him protested it. The pile was almost empty anyway.

Around two in the morning under the force of Theo's persistent whining Stiles gave up and called it. They were almost done with everything anyway, and he didn't have much hope for the rest of the books.

Stiles was annoyed to realize that he felt much more comfortable settling into bed than he knew he would normally be with this amount of stress. He hoped it was just having Theo around because he was his familiar. No other reason, just the familiar bond. Stiles didn't have time or energy to analyze anything, so he was willing to put on his clown shoes for now, but he was definitely going to enjoy the good sleep while he could. No matter where it came from.

As soon as his still wet head touched the pillow, and he felt Theo's arm snake its way around his waist, Stiles fell asleep.

***

Stiles was in the tiny vet clinic Scott used to work at back home. In their town, it was one of several non-magical vets, but the only magical one. He was in the main space, with the metal medical tables and cupboards full of syringes and gloves and other equipment. It was dark, and the only light in the room came through the small high windows, which didn't do much, but it didn't seem to bother Stiles. He could see just fine.

He was wet, and he didn't remember why, and he had a katana in his hand, and he was saying something to Scott, and then the katana was in Scott's stomach.

Stiles could see the blood on Scott's lips. He could feel his own hand turn the sword a bit, making it hurt more, and he enjoyed it, every second of it, the pain seeping into his hand, his veins gone black, up, up to his heart, feeding him; his strength.

It tasted and felt better than anything Stiles had ever experienced. He couldn't understand why he denied himself the pleasure before, when it was so clear this was everything he had ever needed. It felt perfect, and thrilling, and like it should have always been this way.

He used to be so stupid.

"Stiles," Stiles lifted his eyes to look at Scott's face, not the blood running down the front of his shirt.

"Stiles!"

But it wasn't Scott speaking. Stiles didn't recognize the voice at first, but then it hit him.

Theo. It was Theo speaking, but Stiles didn't understand where Theo was. He reached for their connection, letting go of the katana. He could feel that Theo was distressed, it didn't seem bad, but Stiles still wanted to be sure nothing bad what was happening to his Familiar, and…

He woke up.

He didn't startle awake, exactly. He just opened his eyes, and that was it, he was awake. He was facing Theo now, his hands gripping Theo's arm, his nails digging in, and there was something liquid under Stiles' fingertips.

He was in the kitchen again.

The moonlight from the window behind Stiles' back was making Theo's eyes glimmer.

There was a knife dangerously close to Theo's abdomen, only held back by the iron-like grip on his own wrist.

Stiles unclenched his fingers. The knife fell down, clinging against the tiles on the floor. As soon as Theo let go of his wrist, he stumbled backwards, plopping onto his ass immediately, pressing his arm to his chest. There were going to be bruises on the one Theo gripped, but Stiles didn't mind. He couldn't think at all.

What just happened?

He looked down at his hand. There was blood under his nails.

Right. It was Theo's blood.

"Sorry." Stiles' mouth felt like parchment, and he had to swallow. "About your arm."

Stiles wanted to run a hand over his face, but the blood was still there. He stared at it, not comprehending. How could he press his nails so deep into someone's skin anyway? He didn't even have nails, not really, and they definitely weren't strong enough to actually puncture skin, how hard had he to push?

"It's okay, I'll heal." Theo's eyes didn't leave Stiles' face even for a second. "Are you okay though?" Theo crouched down next to him.

Stiles nodded. Then shook his head.

His eyes fell onto the knife.

He was about to stab Theo. He forgot about that. He felt dread and adrenaline shoot through him.

“Did I just…"

"It's okay, no one is hurt." Theo took Stiles' hand, slow and careful, very different from his almost brisk tone: "Alright then, come on."

In the next five minutes Stiles was sitting in on a chair with his second glass of water in front of him, while Theo was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for him to snack on.

"So do you want to talk about what you've seen?" Theo placed the sandwich in front of Stiles right on the tabletop without even a paper towel.

Stiles' sighed. Did the illegal adult figure actually mean Theo grew up in a sewer?

He took the sandwich and picked at the crust.

"Can you cut these off?" Stiles wasn't actually that picky, but his mother used to do this because she didn't like the crusts, and it always felt somehow comforting.

Theo frowned.

"Why wouldn't you want to eat crusts? They are also a perfectly fine food," but he did stand back up obediently to cut the crusts off right on the kitchen counter.

With the knife Stiles just tried to stab him with, Stiles thought, absently, like the thought wasn't his. He watched the knife go up and down against the counter, not even the cutting board.

If Stiles still had his deposit on this house, he was sure he was going to lose it over Theo not being socially adjusted to living in a house, apparently.

One day Stiles was going to learn how Theo turned out like this.

If he wouldn't murder Theo before that by, for example, stabbing him.

Getting back his de-crusted sandwich, Stiles took a bite, chewing slowly, taking his time to think. Which was hard. His thoughts refused to form into literally anything.

He frowned, trying to recall all the pieces of the nightmare while they tried their damnest to run in all possible directions into the fuzz out of his memory.

"I think," he started, and swallowed the food in his mouth. "I think, I was killing Scott," at Theo's not understanding gaze, he added: "My best friend, you ate all of his chips, by the way. So, I was killing him with a… katana, I believe. And it was like I was eating the pain, and it felt good, and there were like black veins on my hands."

Theo nodded thoughtfully.

“That explains the knife."

Stiles looked at his hands, nauseous all of a sudden.

He took another bite of the sandwich. Theo somehow screwed up the proportion of jelly to peanut butter so badly, Stiles could hardly taste any peanuts at all, but he could kind of feel the texture of it.

Stiles also hated strawberries, but of course it was the first jelly Theo found.

Stiles chewed.

Theo looked at his hands, frowning.

There was a silence, only once broken by a loud whooping from somewhere on their street. There was probably some sort of small party getting out of control right now.

"We could probably figure out what kind of demon it is from this dream," Theo said, slowly, because his thoughts were alright probably.

What kind of life did he lead if almost getting stabbed didn't faze him in the slightest?

"Wasn't this just a nightmare? Well, aside from the part where I tried to fucking kill you," Stiles put down the sandwich, fighting the urge to throw in across the room. His hands started to shake.

Theo shrugged.

"I would've survived. Better you stab me than anyone who would actually die from something that simple. Anyway, that's not even the important part right now. I think at least sometimes the demons show the hosts how they would conduct themselves, so if you were eating pain, it's probably what it would do if it were in control. Also, the katana might mean something. If it didn't use just any sword, or a knife the way it tried to do in real life, but a very specific type of blade, then maybe there's a reason?"

Stiles stared at his most terrible peanut butter and jelly sandwich that had ever existed.

What the hell had been happening in Theo's life if he knew what possessed people dreamed about? That he treated being someone's accidental murder target so easily? This was suspicious as fuck.

Could there be a chance that Theo wasn't his actual familiar? Could he be just a demon spawn sent in in order to convince Stiles to give in? Of course a demon wouldn't care about a knife in his belly.

Was this Stiles' paranoia kicking in, or did he have actual reasons to think something like this?

He snorted at the thought that Theo made terrible sandwiches because it was his first time on Earth, and they of course didn't eat in the demon realm, so he was just learning to human.

At Theo's questioning look he just shook his head.

"So you are telling me that it's a Japanese demon that likes to eat pain?"

"Or a demon-adjusted entity, they aren't exactly demons, they come from Earth originally and usually are just like evil, so that way there are more chances it's actually Japanese. Like, in its life or whatever it was Japanese." Theo scratched his arm distractedly, over the almost-healed pink scars from Stiles' nails.

Well, realistically, if this healed on him just like that, then Stiles guessed just a knife wouldn't have done much as well, Theo was right.

Stiles just excused himself almost trying to kill a person.

And then Theo's words registered, and Stiles almost choked on his water.

"Okay, no. You are explaining what the hell is your life. There's no way anyone would casually know something like that, especially since you yourself aren't magic. Even if that illegal adult figure you grew up with was into demonology and was magical, why would they tell you all of this? And you just brushed off me trying to kill you? What the fuck, Theo?"

Stiles turned a bit in his chair, so he could face Theo who was sitting to his side, frowning deeply.

If Theo wasn't going to talk now, Stiles was actually going to steal something from Mason's room to make him talk. At least there would be some use out of his illicit collection of once already stolen goods until his lab had finally noticed it and shut it down.

Theo made a very disappointed face.

"You would not have killed me like that. So now it matters how I got the information?"

"Yeah it does. And the fact that maybe you would've survived doesn't matter. A normal person wouldn't be so easily accepting about a knife to their stomach either way."

Would something made for humans to tell the truth work on a demon spawn?

How would Stiles check something like this? Did Theo latch onto his mind, would it hurt Stiles now?

Did he get possessed twice?

All of a sudden, he couldn't breathe anymore.

"Stiles…"

He pushed his chair back, away from the table, away from Theo, and put his head down, bending over.

"Stiles!"

He felt a hand on his back, but he pushed it away, Stiles didn't want to be touched, he wanted to die, and Stiles was going to die, he was dying right now, and he had just tried to kill someone.

Something scratched at the back of his mind, cold, calm, sure.

It felt nice. It felt even, like this part of him wasn't going to die, like it was going to make it better.

It told Stiles he wasn't going to die at all.

Some other part of him was extremely worried, but this part was calm, and it was hugging Stiles gently, it's cool presence already allowing him to breathe.

The presence told him that he knew what to do, and Stiles realized that he actually did, he needed to count.

He pushed himself upright, his chest full of breath he couldn't let out and then couldn't take it in, and his hands were shaking, but he did what he was told, because he trusted the presence, the presence wanted him to feel good, and he was dying, and this wasn't good.

And he knew what to do. He had done it before. He closed his eyes, counting from ten down and then back up with each breath in and out. The way he found it the most comfortable.

He started to count, and at first, for a moment, he couldn't remember where to start, but the presence knew, it told him.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten, nine… He started to breathe in time with his counts, and he realized he could actually do that, he could breathe.

The panic slowly subsided, leaving Stiles exhausted, but he could still feel the worried part of him. It didn't go away. Because it wasn't him. Because that was how familiar bond with a human was described by virtually all of the people who were interviewed on the subject. Because Stiles had looked it up. Theo was his familiar, and he also happened to have a demon in his head that made him first almost try to kill Theo and then helped him to deal with a panic attack.

"I'm okay, it was just a panic attack," he mumbled, picking up the sandwich and looking at it indecisively.

Did he want to finish this?

That did something to the worried part, making it a bit less worried, but not by much.

"Do you get those often? It feels terrible."

Stiles chuckled, the sound barely there.

"Not really, not anymore. And yeah, it does."

Theo rubbed Stiles' back (or more like his shoulder blades, the only thing he could really reach above the back of the chair), and Stiles could feel some of his worry disappearing, dissolving slowly, lowering into the level Stiles couldn't really feel that well.

So it was actually only the strong emotions, not all of them. This was a comfort. This shouldn't be that hard to deal with, at least on Stiles' side of things. Theo didn't seem like a person with that many strong emotions.

Stiles' questions didn't actually go away, and he had even more of them. What demon would help their host through a panic attack? Why? Did it actually know what to do or did it get the counting idea from Stiles' brain? How far could it reach?

"Did the demon do something? It felt… weird," asked Theo, deep frown on his face.

"It did help me calm down. Which demons shouldn't be interested in doing."

"So it has some sort of empathy."

Stiles nodded.

"Maybe because there's a chance that he's going to be thrown back into its place if I die?"

Theo shook his head.

"That would be strange, wouldn't it?"

Stiles had to agree. This didn't make much sense.

“Could it be not a demon?" Theo asked, as if just thinking out loud.

Stiles rubbed his eyes. He was way too tired to think now.

"I'm going to need another shower now," he mumbled into his hands.

He somehow felt drenched with sweat.

Theo rubbed his back again.

"Or we could just go to bed. Do you think you could fall asleep again now?"

Stiles thought about it and nodded. He could fall asleep right here, just like Theo in the morning.

"But I'm still going to take a shower first."

He needed a moment alone to think. He didn't believe his thoughts before the panic attack were that true, he didn't see it as that much of a possibility. But then demons weren't that well-studied and he wasn't a specialist, so he still needed to sort through what was going on inside his head a bit. But he also needed the comfort Theo offered too much to turn it down.

It was so going to come back to bite him in the ass, he was sure of it.

He sighed, rubbed his forehead, and stood up.

"Okay, I'm going to shower, you can go to bed now, I'll join you when I'm done."

Theo nodded.

"You sure you'll be fine?"

"Yeah. The demon's got me in any case, apparently."

***

When Stiles came out of the shower, his hair wet again, Theo was on the bed, but as if he just fell down and wasn't planning to stay there long, just lay down for a second, with some papers in hand.

The room was lit up only by the moon sneaking through the window.

Stiles came over to take the papers away. Theo was frowning in his sleep. He had been reading about the steampunk guys. Now Stiles noticed that it actually said their name on top of the article – the Dread Doctors. He rolled his eyes. Judging by the name and the picture, they were so pretentiously dramatic, no wonder they weren't taken seriously.

Theo frowned deeper and moved jerkily, and Stiles felt a surge of panic going through him, and then Theo woke up with a startle, his eyes flying open and burning yellow. They moved all over the room several times, fast, as if Theo was expecting something to hide there and jump at him as soon as he looked away.

"Hey," Stiles said, quietly.

Theo's eyes jumped to him, still burning, and by the way his facial features looked Stiles guessed he was on the brink of partially shifting. It was weird to look at, as if Stiles could see bones and muscles move and change under his skin, but then nothing happened.

He placed a hand on Theo's cheek.

"It's okay, you're okay, it was just a dream," he murmured softly, recognizing the tone as the one his mother used on him when he was little.

Theo closed his eyes, his eyelashes fluttering and sending long shadows over his cheeks. He turned his face a bit, leaning into Stiles' hand. They stayed like this for a couple of moments, Theo clearly finding this comforting, and Stiles willing to give it to him. Then Theo opened his eyes with a deep sigh, looking up at Stiles.

"Okay. Are you ready for sleep now?" His voice sounded coarse, and he sat up, still looking up at Stiles. Stiles plopped down next to him on the bed.

"Are you? Did you have a nightmare now?"

Theo ran a hand over his face, squeezing his eyes shut for a second.

"Yeah, and I'm fine. And I'm not the one possessed, so it's very unlikely my dreams have any hidden meaning in them, except for excessive childhood trauma."

Stiles felt worried again. Theo might not be the one possessed, but he was connected to someone who was.

"Can the demon fuck with your dreams through me?"

Theo stared at him. Then fell down onto the bed, closing his eyes with a sigh so long, Stiles felt almost impressed with his lung capacity.

"No."

"But no one has ever checked! Or at least no one has ever written it down. Was there something unusual about the dream?"

Stiles bent a leg under himself, turning to Theo more fully, looking at him with full attention.

"No, there wasn't, just my usual nightmare."

Stiles hummed.

"Do you get those often?"

Theo spoke slowly and a bit mumble-y, as if he was falling asleep again already.

"No, just when I get enough sleep. And there wasn't anything unusual about it."

Stiles hummed again, short this time.

"So like Harry Potter when he didn't fall under Imperius spell?"

Theo opened one eye at him, clearly not getting the reference. Stiles was so going to bully him into reading the books.

"The spell is supposed to relax you and stuff, and he was like no, that's wrong, and woke up."

Theo's head fell back down.

"Okay. Whatever you say. Get to bed," he shuffled up, so he was laying on the bed properly, and even opened the blanket for Stiles, patting the sheeted mattress underneath.

"But talking about your nightmares helps!"

"Sure it does. Come to bed," he patted the bed more insistently.

Stiles rolled his eyes.

"That's why you don't have any friends."

"Who said I don't?" Theo was very clearly losing the fight with sleep, his hand moving slowly where Stiles was supposed to be.

Stiles felt something flutter at this movement.

The guy raised his hands up.

"I'm Theo. Your familiar," the guy smirked, and Stiles had a feeling he just couldn't help himself even if he wanted to stop the smirk from appearing.

Somehow the guy had that vibe. Stiles knew an asshole when he saw one.

The collar suddenly kind of made sense, if what the guy said was true, but the whole situation still didn't.

"What? You're human. Like, a whole person."

"Technically, yes. I'm a werewolf," Theo – apparently – didn't make a move to stand up, but he did lower his hands a bit.

He seemed to be completely unbothered by his own nakedness and generally looked way too comfortable for someone in his place. On his knees without any clothes on, in a collar on the floor covered in broken glass, in a stranger's kitchen.

"Like hell I would get a werewolf familiar."

"Well, even a wolf was a strange choice for you, apparently. So why not take it further and get a whole werewolf?"

"Where the fuck would I get this much power?"

Stiles raised one eyebrow at Theo. There was literally no reason for Stiles to have a human familiar, so he called bullshit.

Focusing specifically on Theo's face, of course. Or at least doing his best to.

Theo looked at all the glass all over the kitchen with raised brows and then back to Stiles.

"This was because I'm possessed!"

Theo put his hands in his lap. Stiles refused to let his eye wander past the collar.

On a human it looked very… specifically.

"Yeah, I felt that. I was wondering if it was actually going to do anything that would hurt you in the end, because it seems to like you."

Stiles just stared at Theo, hardly comprehending anything anymore, it seemed.

Which registered, again, as kind of uncomfortable since Theo was completely naked even if he was staring at his face.

"So you're telling me magic gave me a human familiar because I'm going to lose my soul to a demon, and I needed you to deal with how it's going to screw with my magic in the process?"

Theo turned his head to the side, shrugging, looking back at Stiles silently.

Stiles dropped his hands. Then brought them back up to rub his eyes. He settled on pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes.

He wanted to scream. He felt it bubbling in his chest.

"So I got a familiar only to die in… how long is it going to take? A month? To die in a month?" He frowned, dropping his hands down.

He had literally zero energy for cleaning up all the glass. And he also didn't trust his magic enough anyway. What if he blew up something more important than some glasses.

Well, all of the glasses.

Theo stood up, slowly, not making any sudden moves.

"My guess is a couple of months. Do you have any clothes I can borrow?"

Stiles abruptly felt dazed from the lack of sleep, the rollercoaster of emotions, adrenaline leaving his system, and it being literally like three thirty in the morning.

"How do you even know all of this?"

Theo squinted at him.

"I think," he stepped around the glass carefully, clearly avoiding the question, "you need sleep before we figure everything out."

'We'. Stiles felt confused by this word. He didn't know Theo. He didn't even feel like trusting him.

But there was still a part of him that could actually feel Theo in the back of his mind, their familiar bond. It was strange to think about it now, that he knew that Theo was human.

It was like a double vision. Stiles couldn't put the wolf and the guy he was seeing in front of him right now into one thing, even though the magical part of him told him they were the same.

Theo came closer and slowly and gently took his hand, like he was a frightened animal, tugging him in the direction of the stairs.

It was actually good to feel some support. Like a here and now physical one, not with all his friends away. Stiles hadn't realized how alienated he felt, brewing in his little pot with his possession and now a familiar that clearly predicted some fuckery with his magic. Stiles felt how much he separated himself from everyone else simply by staying here on holidays.

Stiles followed his familiar to his bedroom.

***

It was the next morning now, and Stiles was nursing a cup of coffee, his eyes so dry, he had to squint a bit, watching animated people on the screen kill other animated people in some pretty violent ways. Which didn't help his eyes in the slightest, but it was something to do. It was chaotic and distracting.

Theo was absolutely terrible at shooters, apparently, but he really wanted to play anyway, even though Stiles made him turn the volume all the way down.

He lost, and started the level again, for the eighth time.

Stiles had to applaud his dedication.

He reached over to the little coffee table in the middle of their squared, U-shaped couch they had with all the three of their consoles, and turned the one that made it little 'I'm doing my best' noise off.

There was a very loud, very unhappy sound from behind him.

"We need to talk."

"I haven't played in ages! Let me live a bit," Theo threw the controller onto the sofa and huffed.

"What… How… okay," Stiles heard remarks like that several times already, and he wondered what the hell did this mean.

Like how long exactly had Theo lived as a wolf? Or maybe he had some family issues growing up? Were his parents or whoever he grew up with just ideologically against TV or video games and he had to play in secret at someone else's place?

"You will play after we discuss… everything."

"This will be a while then," Theo slid into half laying position on the couch's side across from Stiles and closed his eyes, the picture of disinterest.

"Exactly. You can wait, but the longer you are acting like a toddler, the longer it will take."

Theo cracked one eye open and glanced at Stiles from its corner.

"And what if I can't wait?"

Stiles sighed, rubbing his forehead. He felt more dead than alive, and actually coffee wasn't helping, but it was comforting, and right now he needed all the comfort he could get. He took a sip. It was already annoyingly lukewarm.

"Guess you'll have to be punished for being a bad boy, then," he said, deadpan.

What else was he supposed to say?

Theo hummed and sat up in one swift move, leaning closer to Stiles over the coffee table.

"Oh, and how would you do that? Are you going to spank me?" Theo smirked, his eyes alight with mirth, sparkling prettily, like the broken glass still waiting for Stiles to clean it up in the kitchen.

Stiles sipped his coffee again and rubbed his forehead with his free hand, also again, his arms crossed over his stomach.

"I liked you more when you couldn't talk. And take off that fucking collar maybe? I bought it for my adorable fluffy familiar, not for you."

Because these two weren't the same in Stiles' mind, still. And because Theo hadn't taken it off. Stiles thought there might have been a chance he slept in it. He was in Stiles' sweatpants (a bit long on him) and in Liam's t-shirt (a bit too big on him somehow) and in the fucking collar.

That was still matching his eyes, even though his human eyes were way lighter than his wolf ones.

"No. I like it," Theo laid back down, crossing his arms over his chest and closing his eyes.

"I'm begging you to keep your kinks to yourself and not shove them in my face."

"Oh, you're begging…" Theo smirked knowingly.

Stiles knew that werewolves could smell even the hormonal changes, but still didn't want to accept the things the collar actually did to Stiles' stomach.

Because those things were some teenage-level horny things, and he wasn't a teenager, and it wasn't something Stiles wanted to feel horny about.

Also, did Theo have any other expressions? The smirk was getting old.

Even if it looked good on him.

"Well, you should start learning, you know," Theo added.

Stiles was losing his words. He made a vague gesture with his free hand, still somehow almost spills his coffee over himself.

"Why would I want to learn this?"

"Well," Theo turned to the side, getting his legs onto the couch, propping his head on one arm, "it's not like you have any other perspectives to get any kind of relationship, maybe getting laid sometimes here and there, and you strike me as a relationship kind of guy. And I'm pretty much your closest and the most stable relationship now. Might as well use it."

Stiles frowned and shook his head, swishing the remains of the coffee in his mug.

"What does that even mean?"

"You are emotionally bonded with a very classically hot guy, and I'm going to have to always be by your side. How many people would be able to be actually truly okay with it, what do you think?"

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut. That was nowhere near his radar of problems at the moment.

"I'm sure I will figure it out if it ever comes to it. Because so far it looks like I'm not going to get to celebrate Christmas this year, so everything is whatever right now."

Theo made a face at this.

"Just accept it and you're going to be fine. Better than fine, probably," he waved a hand in Stiles' general direction.

"Accept fucking what, Theo? What do I have to accept? That instead of a cute little hedgehog or something I got a familiar that should have his own job? That it doesn't matter because a fucking tree demon is going to eat my soul, wildly fucking my magic up while at it? That I can't do shit about any of it?"

Stiles was pissed, to say the least.

In the moment of silence that followed his outburst, there was a sudden creaking sound, and then the cup blew up in his hand, covering everything in shards of ceramic and leftover coffee that was luckily almost room-temperature at this point.

"Fuck!" Stiles jumped up, wanting to do something, anything, feeling helpless, trapped, full off a sudden surge of adrenaline and covered in coffee head to toe.

Well, at least now he was fully awake. All these emotional jumps could not be good for him. He wondered if this was also a side effect of possession or if this was just his life.

Theo plucked a piece of the mug off his leg, completely unfazed.

"No, that's not it. You have to just accept the demon. It likes you and, I'm pretty sure, has been behaving this well only because it's waiting for you to figure it out. But it's probably getting bored. It just wants you to take the first step, write it first," Theo glanced at Stiles from under his brow with that ever-present smirk of his.

Unbelievably infuriating especially because it was kind of hot, and Stiles didn't want to go there right after whatever Theo tried to talk him into just now.

And then the last part about the demon caught up with Stiles, and he zeroed in on Theo.

"What the fuck does that even mean?!"

"It means exactly what I said," he sat up again, seemingly uncaring about the sharp shards on the ground next to his bare feet, leaning closer to Stiles to talk looking up right into his face with a challenge glittering in his eyes. "Judging from what I felt yesterday from your brain, since, you know, that's how this bond works, although it wasn't super clear, the demon doesn't want to destroy you, not really. But two souls can't exist in the same body. So either it's just one of you, or you two become one. I'm pretty sure the choice is obvious. Just accept it. It looks like you're going to get super strong then, which is always a cool bonus."

Because there was no telling whether Stiles would survive, really, even if he just got his familiar. Yes, magic decided what familiar to give to a person based on the person's level of strength at their ultimate peak, but sometimes people didn't live long enough to reach that point. A child might get a familiar after they lost their grandmother and it would be the moment when they needed a companion the most, and it would be a cat when the child hardly had enough magic for a mouse, because they are a child, and then they would get hit by a car the next day.

But it was true that two souls couldn't live in one body. Maybe with Kitsunes, who were born like that, or Hellhounds, who technically possessed already dead bodies and were strong enough to maintain the balance between keeping the original owner's soul tied to the body and completely destroying it by being mostly inactive. In other cases the souls would either fight, or the body would deteriorate. In all his research, Stiles had seen a lot about that, but never anything about what Theo was proposing. There was never a third option. Not in Stiles' case. There was no middle ground for him. It was either him or the demon. He wasn't a Kitsune, he wasn't a Hellhound.

Did Theo mean by something like merging with a demon anyway? That sounded like a horrible idea on so many levels, Stiles couldn't even begin to try to wrap his head around it.

"What the fuck are you even talking about? How do you know it's even possible? I haven't read anything about something like this."

Theo looked away for a second, and Stiles saw a muscle move in his jaw, before there was another smirk on his face, the kind Stiles hadn't seen before. It was almost exactly like his usual one, arrogant and self-satisfied, but there was still something the tiniest bit off in his eyes. If Stiles wasn't watching him that closely and didn't feel the barely there vague change in his emotions in the back of his mind, he wouldn't have noticed.

Oh, so Stiles managed to hit a nerve here. That was interesting, but not something to dwell on right now.

"I'm very into demonology."

"That's bullshit," Stiles crossed his arms over his chest.

Theo lowered his head for a moment, accepting being called out.

"I grew up with someone who had dedicated his life to demonology research."

Stiles paused. He squinted at Theo. He tried to bring their connection to the forefront of his mind. This didn't feel like a lie, but that was very obviously just a fraction of the truth turned at just the right angle to pass as something barely believable. Theo must have had some practice at putting things in just the right perspective.

Stiles didn't like that. He needed to know the full picture before forming his opinion on this information. But at the same time he knew he didn't have the energy and the time to argue with this.

Because on the other hand he knew that Theo got literally nothing out of Stiles' death, or even full possession, really. Theo's life was connected to Stiles' now, and if Stiles died, Theo was going to die very soon as well. People sometimes had two or more familiars, even though they rarely died naturally. Familiars couldn't live without their people. Theo was getting nothing out of purposefully pushing Stiles toward a death, but he still might do so accidentally.

Even if he believed something to be true didn't mean it was going to work out well for anyone involved.

"Okay. Let's say I will consider this. You'll have to explain more if you want me to believe you when we actually have time, but we're going to assume that you don't want me dead for now."

Theo raised one brow, crossing his arms over the chest.

"Yeah, I wouldn't like to die, thank you for believing in that. A basic animal instinct."

"Well, you never know if a person is suicidal," Stiles threw himself back onto the couch, thankfully missing all the shards but making them bounce up into the air and there was a clang of some of them falling down onto the floor to their brethren.

"There are way easier ways to do it."

Stiles threw his hands up.

"I don't know! You're a werewolf, maybe you can't kill yourself."

"I can eat like a nice big bowl of salad but simply use wolfsbane instead of actual salad and mistletoe instead of tomatoes, and that would be enough, it's not that hard," Theo re-crossed his arms, somehow making it look exasperated, laying down again and closing his eyes.

"Good to know," Stiles nodded, still flippant.

It was probably good to know. Just in case. File it in a document for later use.

"My death doesn't really benefit you, though. It looks like you couldn't find any information before I offered you some, so if you want to figure out more, you need me around either way."

"For that, I would need to actually trust you and your bizarre information that I can't fact check and that doesn't even sound realistic, and second, I'm not a murder, I wouldn't actually kill you."

Theo huffed out a laugh.

"That's a bummer. I thought that might have added spice to our relationship, but I guess you can't appreciate it properly. Unfortunately. That's a no to all of my murder husbands fantasies."

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He didn't know that it was a blessing to have Theo as a wolf. He didn't appreciate his inability to talk enough. Oh how he missed those times. The ones less than twenty four hours before.

Maybe he could find a spell to force him to shift permanently. Have a human familiar, but in secret. It would look like he has a pretty and fluffy puppy.

Theo told him that he was stuck in his full shift because he accidentally got cursed.

Stiles had absolutely zero questions about why Theo got cursed. It seemed like a fairly logical outcome from how Theo acted. Natural consequences of being an asshole.

Stiles wished now only to learn a spell to shift him back again. He was pretty sure that if his magic didn't get that strong because of the demon, hopefully just for now, Theo would have still been a nice fluffy puppy, and not… a fairly hot guy that still was extremely tactile but even more than that he was annoying.

Stiles let the touching happen last night. It was nice to feel held after figuring out he was going to die way sooner than he expected. And he somehow got used to a constant heater-like presence in his bed, because that didn't change. It might have gotten even more comfortable without the fur in Stiles' mouth, but Stiles used to be too big of a stuffed toy boy not to enjoy the fluff.

Anyway, now in the daylight, it was getting weird. Stiles didn't know Theo, like, at all. Cuddling with a random person was weird as hell.

And, as Theo said, which was extremely annoying, because they didn't know each other, Stiles was a relationship kind of guy. Having a stranger in his bed was not that comfortable. But at the same time their familiar connection made being with Theo feel like things were how they were supposed to be. Like Stiles was in his place. It made him feel way more comfortable with the situation that he should.

Still. It didn't sit right with Stiles.

"You aren't sleeping in my bed tonight." He felt like this was a great time to state this.

"Aww, and here I thought you liked cuddles. Are you going to buy me a dog bed then?"

"No. That would be allowing you too much freedom. A crate."

"Ooh, kinky."

"I bet you'll like it."

"I just might."

Stiles leaned down a bit closer to Theo.

Theo turned his head to the side, a spark of excitement lighting up his eyes for a moment.

"Then go find a job and get yourself one." Stiles stood up.

He was sure they had some cleaning supplies somewhere. While he could feel his magic subside a bit, he still didn't trust himself with any kinds of spells right now. He just blew up a mug by complete accident, which hadn't happened to him, like, ever.

"Then I need to borrow your car."

"Why? There's a coffee shop across the street. I'm pretty sure they're hiring. They seem to pay enough to live. Maybe even afford a crate."

"Yeah, and it's a magical university campus, and I'm a werewolf. Like hell they are going to hire me. Same with any place around here."

Stiles paused and considered this. Theo was right. This was indeed a totally magical campus, and they didn't take non-magical people from the town over on, keeping the secrecy up and everything. They weren't going to hire Theo. Maybe if Stiles said that he was his familiar… But even then, Theo would have to do everything by hand, and they used spells for most of the jobs, if not all of them, so it wasn't likely that they would choose him anyway. And Stiles didn't really want to come out as someone with a human familiar if he was going to crash and burn soon.

"Can you even drive?" Stiles had to raise his voice to be heard from the kitchen, checking the cupboards there.

They had to have a broom, he was sure of it. His father bought one when he was visiting last time.

"Well, I do have a license, but all of my papers are… not here."

Stiles made an agreeing face. Theo's papers really weren't here. But then the phrasing of the answer was still somehow off, so Stiles was going to make Theo retake the test anyway before entrusting him with Roscoe, so that didn't matter anyway.

"You can have Scott's old bike."

"Do I look sixteen to you or something?"

Stiles leaned back to make sure he could look into Theo's eyes across two rooms. Bonuses of not having a door between the kitchen and living room.

"Then be a big boy and earn some money first, using a bike, and then get yourself a car." He closed the cupboard doors and turned to another one. "Because I'm not giving you my car without a driver's license. I'm not your sugar daddy."

Theo appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

"You should think, then, before giving a guy hope. Yesterday you were choosing a bed for me, and now you wouldn't even trust me with your car? I'm hurt," Theo pouted without even trying to make it believable.

"I was choosing a bed for my cute fluffy familiar. You're… not it."

Theo made an exaggeratedly disappointed face that was somewhat different from the previous one.

"Are you saying I'm not cute?" Theo thrust his lower lip forward, making his extremely fake pouting face even faker.

"You are absolutely not. And not even fluffy."

Where the hell could the damned broom be? They didn't have that many storage places tall enough for it to fit in.

Theo nodded.

"That's fair. I can shift back though. Although I do need to shift into my human form from time to time. My mind starts slipping after a while, it gets weird."

Stiles squinted at him.

"Like hell I'll pay for you when you can pay for yourself."

"Then I have to point out that I still need somewhere to sleep."

"There's a fine couch right there."

"Okay. How are you going to introduce me to your friends? How are you going to explain to them a guy now living on your couch?"

That made Stiles stop his search.

Theo was smirking. Stiles scratched his eyebrow with his thumb. This was a good question. How was he going to tell them that they had a new roommate instead of the second familiar in their house?

Well. More like a new roommate as a familiar. Because Theo was his familiar.

Fuck. He had a whole ass human familiar.

And for that he was going to lose his life.

He sighed.

And the short rest of his life was going to be spent in constant stress with an annoying asshole to not make it better. Very fitting.

"Are you thinking you are going to die?" Theo asked.

Stiles stared at him.

"I could feel your mood plummet into the depth of despair."

Stiles shook his head.

"This bond was so not made for two humans."

***

After finally finding the broom and cleaning supplies and cleaning up the coffee and all the shards from everywhere (with zero help from Theo, Stiles would like to note, which was also a thing Stiles was going to make him do eventually) and getting breakfast from the coffee shop across the street, Stiles and Theo sat on the same sofa and Theo told Stiles what he knew about what might be happening to Stiles.

Well, at least what he thought he knew because his sources were still unquoted. To say the least, Stiles was very skeptical about Theo as a source of information, but so far, this had been his best option. Yes, this was how bad things were. Because for the whole time Stiles had been possessed, he came up with nothing, and he felt like his time was running out with the demon moving more than ever in the back of his mind. And Theo did give him at least something to work with. Something to fill the time until his battle is finally lost.

That's what Theo thought was happening: the demon didn't want to actually harm Stiles, for some reason, it liked him, and, unlike Stiles, it knew that there was a third way out. But now it was starting to get restless, and it wanted to do stuff too, so it borrowed Stiles' body when it was the easiest – when Stiles was asleep (part of it Theo felt through their bond, and Stiles could only guess that because of the demon wanting to share its feeling with Theo. The connection was more clear since Stiles definitely couldn't tell what Theo was feeling that clearly, just the general idea; or it was more clear for Theo as a familiar; or Theo was bullshitting him). Also according to Theo, considering the demon had lived in a Nemeton, it must be pretty old and powerful, because those were apparently easier to trap in something alive rather than destroy or send back where they came from. And there were not that many types of actually old ones, and those were the strongest. They might find exactly what it was based on what it did to Stiles' mind and how it interacted with his magic.

The presence in the back of Stiles' head stretched lazily. Stiles made sure it wasn't getting into his connection to Theo.

After that Stiles wanted to go to the library to check this information out, because he wanted the demon out, not fused with his own soul, like Theo was suggesting.

Because in this part Theo was definitely no authority. Who the hell would choose to share their soul with a demon permanently? Especially when your life expectancy was closer to two hundred years. Also, even the possibility of something like this being attempted and not killing the host sounded like the biggest lie anyone had ever told Stiles. And his mother told him she was getting better.

Theo for some reason thought it was a good idea. Stiles had to disagree. Very strongly. Because it was his soul in question. If Theo wanted to try it out, he was free to get himself possessed. Stiles was willing to give tips.

He wondered what would happen if Theo actually got possessed and fused with the demon. How would that screw with Stiles' magic? With their connection?

But it was all hypothetical. He wouldn't get his familiar possessed, even if this would be an interesting experiment and his familiar was annoying as fuck.

***

Anyway, Stiles had been thinking about this either way, but now he at least had some sort of theory he could check. He wasn't sure what books he might want to take, so not just he, but both he and Theo were going to the library, and Stiles didn't want to risk questions by bringing a guy no-one had seen into a public space. The campus was smallish, and the rumors traveled fast, especially about unidentified cute guys. That was not the kind of attention Stiles wanted to get, even if Theo wouldn't have minded it. Most likely tried to get as much of it as he could, from what Stiles had learned about him so far.

Stiles had been asked about who Jackson was three days after Jackson and Lydia came for a visit one weekend, and it wasn't even like they couldn't see Lydia right next to him.

Stiles initially wasn't sure about taking Theo with him, but Theo played the card that maybe there were books he knew in the library that Stiles might need, and that won.

Stiles assumed that it was mostly that he didn't really want to sit at home anymore.

So Theo was a wolf again, with his collar (he shifted without taking it off, but Stiles guessed his wolf neck was thicker than his human neck, and the collar had been adjusted back when Stiles thought he had just a wolf) and the black leash with little skulls that was little Stiles' dream, because all animals had to be on leashes on the campus' territory, and especially inside the library. There was an endless debate about where should familiars be allowed at all going on, but there were always service animals, and familiars normally behaved better than just pets. Something, something, magic added a bit of human consciousness to them, blah-blah-blah.

No one let the person with the bear take it inside though.

But Stiles guessed he shouldn't have that many problems with a wolf. Dogs were allowed in, even the big ones, and Theo was bigger than a dog, but still not that big. Stiles guessed he was actually smallish for a wolf, but he didn't say it. Talking to Jackson made him weary of telling things like that to people with noticeable self-esteem issues. Especially when they needed to hurry.

He was going to bring it up the next time he had a chance though.

When he was walking with a huge black canine on a leash through the campus, he could feel people looking at him, even though there weren't even that many of them around, it being a holiday.

It made his skin crawl. He felt like they could also see the darkness of the demon on him even though he knew they were just checking out Theo. He was very remarkable. Maybe Stiles had played himself by making Theo shift. He could've made up a much easier lie rather than showing everyone that he had a freaking wolf now.

Someone would definitely come up to ask if this was a familiar, and then it was going to spread. Stiles shuddered just thinking about what would have happened if he told anyone he had a werewolf familiar. He was pretty sure at least local news would be involved.

It was an extremely rare situation after all. And he had to figure out what to do with his possession first. And so what if his magic would only make sense for having Theo just with the demon? Then it will have to leave lasting effects, if magic wanted it to go like that, because Stiles refused to die or to lose part of his humanity. Magic was going to have to deal with it. And only then maybe was he going to try to register Theo with the university as his familiar.

Theo walked nicely on a leash. Stiles thought as much. Having enough human awareness about what and how he should do made up for the fact that he probably had never done it before.

At least Stiles hoped he hadn't.

Otherwise he had some screwed up life.

Well, Stiles knew for a fact he had some screwed up life, with all the avoiding talking about it Theo did, but not this way. Right?

After a small chat and some pets from the girl at the registration desk (saying "That's Theo, my familiar" out loud was so weird), they finally got to the tiny demonology section they had in free access.

"You'll have to help me look for books we need," Stiles whispered to Theo when they got to the demonology section.

Theo looked at him with an unbelievable amount of skepticism for a wolf.

"What? You still can read and point." Stiles thought it through again. "You can still read like this, right?"

Theo shook his head, but Stiles felt it was more of an expression of disbelief rather than disagreement.

They went through the two aisles that were dedicated to all things related to demons. Stiles hoped they would find what they were looking for here, and he wouldn't need to look for a way to get into the restricted access section. There might be a couple of nasty spells set as a security measure, and Stiles had already had his two strikes, he didn't need a third and get banned from the library.

He still needed to study after all, you know.

But first, he had to survive this whole debacle.

Theo turned his head to the side, reading the titles, and Stiles hoped no-one would catch on how weird this whole operation looked, with a wolf very obviously reading.

Stiles took around fifteen different books, he wasn't sure exactly, but in the end it didn't seem like any of them had what he needed. Theo dosed quietly under the table since they really couldn't have had him help researching. A couple of people came over to ask about Theo, but he didn't allow anyone to pet him this time. He actually even growled at one guy who was especially insistent. They almost got kicked out because of that, but Stiles couldn't really do anything to, what, discipline Theo, he guessed, except for glaring at him.

This was actually an unexpected issue. Normally, a familiar would be treated like a pet, and whatever way their witch would choose to go about their pet's discipline, would work for their familiar.

But Stiles couldn't do this with his familiar, could he? You wouldn't treat a human the way you would treat a dog, no matter how humanely you treated a dog. Definitely not like an adult human. He couldn't really use treats as a reward for a guy his own age, even if he did look like a wolf at the moment.

But at the same time, everyone expected him to be responsible for Theo and his behavior, of course, and he couldn't do literally anything about it.

They would need to talk about this. Although Stiles guessed they wouldn't need it all that much. Even if Stiles wasn't going to die soon, they shouldn't have that much reason for Theo to be out in this form.

Although they needed to talk about Theo's act in general as well, not just as a wolf in a public space. If they were going to have to live together, they needed to be comfortable with each other, and so far, Theo was mostly frustrating.

So Stiles couldn't run away from Theo, and Theo couldn't run away from him.

They had to find a way to make it work.

In addition to figuring out what to do with the demon in his head, the one that he felt all the time now, moving slowly and lazily, slowly inching closer to the front; and how to generally arrange his life with a human familiar without getting into news or something.

Anyway, it looked like he had to break into the restricted section of the library. Stiles sighed.

He hoped whatever security they had was lame.

***

"Yeah, I couldn't really find much. Probably will have to break into the special access."

"But how would you know what to look for there anyway?" Lydia played with a strawberry blond curl on Stiles' phone screen.

Stiles sighed. He really didn't want to explain to anyone anything about Theo yet. He loved Lydia, but he hadn't processed it himself.

Theo threw his arms into the air in a silent acknowledgment of a win. It was somehow almost adorable to see him be so happy about something so small.

He was also getting better at gaming, fast.

"I got some information to jump off of, but nothing about how to get the demon out. I'm thinking that maybe if I find out what it is, it's going to be easy."

Lydia squinted at him, her face full of suspicion.

"What are you smiling at?"

"What? I'm not smiling!" Stiles rearranged his whole body on the couch immediately, erasing the smile that apparently appeared on his face without his permission.

Theo glanced at him over his shoulder and sent him a wink.

Stiles did his best not to look in his direction and not to react. He didn't need Lydia getting any ideas.

"You know," she said slowly, "you could've just said your new wolf was being cute or something. But now I want to know what you're hiding. Where is he, by the way? Did you figure out a name?"

Stiles absolutely could've said that. And it even wouldn't have been a complete lie.

"Is this Stilinski? Are you talking to him? Tell him that I'm going to kick his ass next time, I just need to go now," Jackson appeared on the screen, pointing at Stiles. "This time wasn't indicative of anything."

Lydia pursed her lips, turning her head to the side, watching Stiles with the little spark of curiosity clear in her eyes.

"But he wasn't playing with you just now."

"What? But I just lost to him." Jackson looked between Stiles and Lydia back and forth.

"Stiles, who are you hiding there that got your smiling and who is using your console?"

Theo chuckled and whispered:

"Yeah, Stiles, who are you hiding?"

Stiles made a face at him.

Theo chuckled.

"Stiles, now you can't deny anything!"

"Wait, how long has this someone been there? And here I wondered why you suddenly became so terrible. They learned very fast though," Jackson put on his jacket in the background. "Maybe now that you have some personal life you would stop getting into shit like getting possessed."

"I wasn't that bad!" said Theo, as Stiles yelled:

"I so have a personal life!"

"You do?" asked Theo.

"Yeah. And you were bad, and I'm usually good, so of course Jackson noticed that switch," Stiles shook his head.

Lydia got this fire in her eyes, the kind Stiles knew very well. He also knew there was no getting out of this now.

He sighed and rubbed his forehead.

"Okay." He shifted so Theo was in the picture with him. "That's Theo," he didn't know what to add to this because he didn't want to lie.

And there was no simple explanation for Theo being there.

Jackson and Lydia both nodded silently, so in sync, Stiles had half a mind to laugh, but he was too stressed about showing Theo.

Theo waved at the camera with a smile, looking like a picture-perfect jock. In Stiles' hoodie. They needed to get Theo his own clothes ASAP.

"Hey, Theo," Lydia said in a sing-song-y voice. "How did you meet our boy Stiles here? And what are you studying?" Lydia went straight for the most important questions in her questionnaire.

Stiles held his breath. He couldn't make Theo lie with the force of his mind, or even blink the idea to him in Morse code, but Theo had to understand what to do himself, he wouldn't just...

"I'm not studying here. I don't think they would've let me. I'm a werewolf. And magic made me come here and find Stiles. I'm his familiar, you know," oh no, he would.

Theo smiled even brighter, and it was a smile Stiles hadn't seen yet, the completely adorable your standard average hot college jock smile.

He could probably pass for a himbo with this smile alone, a skill Stiles envied desperately, but simply didn't have the looks for. And he knew it was going to work on Lydia, Theo did look kind of her type.

Stiles felt the immense need to intervene.

"Well, it turned out that whatever is possessing me is screwing with my magic, so I'm even stronger than was expected, apparently, and that's also an issue, of course, but anyway, the wolf turned out to be cursed to stay in that form, and I had a magic spike, it's a long story, and I accidentally took off the curse, and anyway, here's Theo, he's a werewolf and my familiar. As he said. Yeah."

He scratched his cheek, nervous. Theo retrieved the controller from where he threw it onto the couch before, and started a solo game.

Of course he would knowingly throw Stiles under the bus, and then just chill watching the car wreck happen. The asshole. Stiles kicked his shin, and Theo just laughed quietly.

There was a slight pause.

Then Jackson and Lydia started to talk at the same time:

"A werewolf?!"

"He's hot."

"I am," Theo answered.

Stiles wasn't sure to which.

"You made him wear a collar?"

Theo's hand came up to the silver ring on it, resting right between his collarbones, and he smirked, just looking at Stiles, waiting.

That got Stiles pissed off immediately. He kicked Theo's leg again, less lightly this time.

"I thought he was a wolf! And if I was going to walk him, I needed him on a leash! And now he won't take it off!"

Theo looked unimaginably satisfied with himself, and Stiles could even feel his giddy glee through their connection. He didn't understand it. Why would Theo want to show off technically being someone's pet? Was this even about it? It was so weird. Stiles wasn't sure he could wrap his head around it fully.

Like live and let live and everything, but there was something awkwardly kind of sexual about the whole thing, and Stiles felt very, very strange about it, in a way he didn't want to look at at all, let alone closely.

Because it wasn't necessarily a bad feeling.

Maybe Theo just liked it as an accessory. That was the conclusion Stiles wanted to settle on.

Jackson shook his head and walked out of the screen, muttering something about werewolves. Then he yelled from somewhere off the screen:

"I can't believe Stilinski gets a whole ass werewolf, and I only get a cat! How is this even possible!"

Stiles flipped him off even if he couldn't see.

Lydia smiled cheekily.

"Oh I see how it is, I see," she inclined her head to the side.

Stiles looked at her with round eyes.

"What do you see? That he's being obnoxious?"

Lydia's eyes were sparkling like she was on the wedge of laughing, visibly just barely holding it down.

"Sure thing, sweetie. He's just being obnoxious."

"I'm going to get a snack," Theo stood up languidly.

"Go get a job!" Stiles said to his back.

Theo flipped him off.

Lydia laughed.

"What? Since he can work, he should, I'm not providing for him, he's a grown man."

Lydia just shook her head.

"It's alright, sweetheart. Anyway. You have a freaking werewolf as a familiar, Stiles. That's huge."

"I know," Stiles rubbed his eyebrow. "It means I'm so fucked. Because the demon fucked with my magic, and it is definitely getting more and more active, and it's going to get worse, and I'm either going to fix it somehow and then get my magic permanently screwed enough to have a human familiar, or my magic is going to get strong enough for that and then burn out immediately."

Stiles didn't want to think about what would happen next, because while he would be dead, the demon would have his body, and he didn't know what would happen to Theo then.

Even though Stiles had known him for just a little while (even if you count the time he had spent here as a wolf), he was feeling protective over Theo. This was his familiar, he wanted to take care of Theo.

It was such a bizarre feeling, and this was such a bizarre situation. But Stiles guessed it was natural. They all had been brought up with this idea of finding your familiars, the animal that was going to be your companion for life, sometimes more important and cherished than your partner or family. Because even though you would feel the pain of losing your parent, you wouldn't feel the process of their dying, so looking after your familiar was also a selfish act, in Stiles' opinion.

No-one wanted to feel the process of dying.

But Stiles' familiar was human, and seemed to be absolutely capable of taking care of himself, and people's needs were often bigger and more expensive than animal needs. A dog wouldn't use a console and wouldn't want video games, for example.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a second.

He could hear Lydia's cat meow on the other side of the connection. Well, Jackson's cat.

"Did you get your information from Theo? The one you used to start the research again?"

Stiles nodded.

"Did he explain where he got this information from?"

Stiles scrunched up his face at that.

"Not really. He said he grew up with someone who was into demonology, but he didn't tell me anything else. He doesn't seem to be too keen on sharing much about himself, to be honest. He hasn't been able to talk for that long though."

Stiles saw Jackson's familiar, a chocolate British cat, jump onto Lydia's shoulder, meowing, demanding attention.

She scratched the cat under her chin, thinking Stiles' words over.

There actually was something about the witch's personality and their familiar. Jackson's Jolene (a name Jackson hated, but she was a very cranky kitten when he got her, and demand all of Jackson's attention, and it annoyed Lydia so much, their everyone around them decided the cat was Jolene, like from the song) was very, well, still cranky and picky, and demanded all the attention she could get. And Liam's hedgehog was the friendliest little thing ever, despite how hedgehogs normally were.

He wondered what did it say about him that his familiar was a guy who said 'yeah you should just merge with potentially murderous demon that possessed you because you were being dumb, I think that'll be perfect'.

Stiles absolutely did not need that kind of enabling in his life, he could enable himself just fine, but it seemed like magic thought differently.

Because realistically, it was something Stiles would absolutely offer and consider if he knew at least something about the possible consequences. But it didn't seem like it was a popular method, and it wasn't likely that there had been enough written about it for Stiles to trust it. Especially coming from a person he knew nothing about.

Theo came back and plopped onto the couch next to Stiles with a bag of chips in his hand.

Stiles immediately took one. Lydia smiled.

Stiles stared at her, daring her to say something.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I did grow up with someone who's into demonology, though," Theo threw a couple of chips into his mouth.

Stiles only now realized that yeah, Theo could absolutely hear them from the kitchen.

Then it suddenly hit Stiles that Theo did grow up with someone. Theo probably had a family. Stiles immediately felt guilty.

"Do you need to call them or something?"

Theo actually barked out a laugh, almost choking on a chip.

"No."

That was a very definitive answer. So maybe he didn't really have a family. Or maybe they just had such a terrible relationship, Theo was happy to become bonded to someone else just to get out.

That sounded so bad.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

Stiles adjusted the camera so Lydia could see both of them again and not just half of Theo because he could see her looking at that half.

Jolene popped up again, purring, her little head slotting Lydia in her chin.

"Oh she wants to meet the new familiar of the family. See, Jolene, that's Theo, uncle Stiles' new pet!"

Stiles choked on air. Theo actually laughed.

He looked at Jolene.

"Is there a reason why she's named Jolene?" He asked with curiosity in his voice.

"Is there a reason you're named Theo?"

Theo smirked.

"After Roosevelt. What about her?"

Stiles stared at him now, excited about this absolutely useless new information.

"For real? Are you from some kind of political family or something?"

Theo nodded.

"So you're actually Teddy, not Theo!" For some reason, Stiles found this insanely adorable. "That's why you're so cuddly, you're just a little teddy at heart!" he cooed.

The look Theo gave him could probably freeze the Atlantic, then blow the ice up into huge sharp blocks and transport one into this living room to pierce Stiles right through his heart.

Stiles smiled at him, a smile that could cause some cavities.

"If you try calling me that, I don't care what it would mean for my life expectancy, I am absolutely going to stab you in your sleep."

"Sure. You're not suicidal enough."

"How would you know?"

"I can feel it. Also, are you saying that someone from a political family is into demonology? Wouldn't they have to be magical?"

"Who said I had just one family?"

Stiles squinted into Theo's completely innocent eyes. Theo threw another chip into his mouth, eyebrows raised.

"Anyway," Lydia interjected, "Jolene here is named after the song. But moving on, would you like to tell us something about yourself, Teddy?" She pronounced the last word with this special little stress on it that made Stiles' heart fill up with warmth.

That's why they were such great friends. Lydia was totally his platonic soulmate. They would've never survived as anything remotely romantic for long.

Theo looked at her with an even more annoyed face than he did at Stiles a second ago.

He studied Lydia for a moment, then glanced at Stiles.

Stiles wasn't sure what did it, his face, Theo's general common sense, or whatever he could feel through their connection (it was still fuzzy, and Stiles guessed it wasn't going to get any clearer, but he could definitely feel strong emotions, even if not in detail), but he very begrudgingly, clearly clenching his jaw and scowling, looked back at Lydia:

"What would you like to know?"

Lydia inclined her head, twirling a piece of hair on her finger, pretending to think about her questions.

"Do you have a family?"

Maybe he even planned on being honest.

"No."

"Who was that person you grew up with who was into demonology?"

That made Theo stop for a minute, looking somewhere in the middle distance, his frown turned more confused rather than pissed off.

"It was an adult… figure… of sorts. We aren't related, but I did live with them."

Stiles frowned. That sounded sad. Or criminal.

"Like foster care?"

"No. It wasn't… legal." It was very clear that Theo struggled coming up with the words he wanted to use.

Maybe he wasn't used to talking about himself. Maybe he wasn't used to telling the truth about himself. People sometimes live wild lives.

He ate another chip.

Stiles frowned deeper. Well, now that sounded just bad. He dug a bit deeper into their connection, trying to figure out if he could tell whether Theo was lying, but he really couldn't feel anything clear, everything was mixed up and confusing.

He didn't think Theo was lying, there was no reason to do this. There was actually no reason for Stiles to think Theo would lie, other than his general mistrust. Except this was the most information Stiles had heard from him this whole time.

"You are being very shady, Theodore," Lydia said slowly, again, intonating Theodore.

Stiles could see the muscles in Theo's jaw contract.

"I don't think he likes Theodore either," he cooed.

His free hand, against his decisions, went to Theo's hair, combing it back a bit.

First, it wasn't actually long enough to comb anyway, and second, what the hell was Stiles' hand doing.

He jerked it back immediately. Since when did his body start moving on its own?

Theo looked at him, his expression melting into an extremely smug smirk, his eyes sparkling.

There was a moment of awkward (at least, for Stiles) silence, and then Lydia hummed.

"I see, I see," she was smirking now, too. "I'm going to leave you two to it, then. I feel like I'm a third wheel, and you can continue on your own, birdies."

And she actually hung up.

Stiles hated her so much at this moment, there was literally no trace of the warm feeling he got earlier.

Theo shifted his position on the couch a bit, facing Stiles now.

"So you like my hair or something?"

Stiles moved back, putting some space between them.

"Anyway, I need to find a way to get into the library after hours."

He stood up, going into the kitchen just to move somewhere, hearing Theo laugh behind his back.

***

Stiles fell down into his bed, crossing his elbows over his face.

His life had decided to suddenly stop working out, and that was just it. He was getting tired, and he could feel the demon move even more in his mind, getting interested, waking up.

He felt the mattress dip next to him.

"You're still not sleeping here," he mumbled, not taking his arms away from his face.

"But that would be better, wouldn't it? I can look after you, wake you up in case the demon tries anything. And I'm pretty sure you like cuddles," Stiles could hear the infuriating smirk in his voice.

Theo came prepared for this argument. He had his points down. He didn't even need to pause before reacting.

Like it was about Stiles. It was about the fact that Theo very clearly loved cuddling. Stiles wasn't going to buy it that easily.

Stiles wasn't a specialist, but he was like one thousand percent sure that it came somewhere from "I don't have a family" and "adult figures" and "it wasn't legal".

Which - Stiles had a feeling, just like an educated guess - required a lot of therapy.

Was it something Stiles should worry about? Finding Theo a therapist? Were there werewolf therapists? Theo couldn't go to a non-magical one with all that, but he also wasn't sure any magical therapist would take him.

Although he was not just a werewolf, he was also a familiar, and that might work in their favor, there might be someone who would agree just for the chance to study him and their connection and write a paper about it.

Because it was a rarity. Stiles had to admit, he himself would've been all over a case like that. If it wasn't him. He might get to it later, if the demon ever got out and Stiles was still alive then.

He just hoped Theo wasn't sold out for sex as a child or something, that was it. Or experimented on. This all sounded so horrifying, his heart aches just thinking about someone going through something like this. And then he thought that this was about his familiar…

Maybe he should actually allow him to sleep here, just to give him the contact Theo wanted. Stiles really didn't mind it, he was a fairly tactile guy himself, and Theo might be compensating for a terrible childhood.

Okay. Who was Stiles kidding. At least in his head he should be honest with himself.

Stiles craved the contact himself right now. He hadn't had anyone to cuddle with in a while, and he had always loved it. He always enjoyed the physical contact. It was almost the best part of a relationship for him, although it was hard, because, apparently, he moved a lot in his sleep, so it was complicated to cuddle him at night.

But Theo didn't complain before. Maybe he hadn't even noticed.

Okay, whatever, Stiles was willing to buy what Theo was selling here.

"Okay. You can sleep here, but just for tonight."

Stiles needed this indulgence, even if just for one day. Because it would be the only thing that would somewhat make his life better at the moment, and he had to take all chances he had for nice things right now.

And, of course, Theo was right, he could look out in case Stiles tried to do anything.

Stiles pushed the thought that he was just rationalizing his desire to cuddle away firmly. It was the most logical decision. Of course. Because those were the only decisions Stiles made.

Either way, it was whatever, he might as well get something actually nice out of it.

He was going to let it slide. Again. But this was not a pattern.

"What the…"

And then whatever hit him the first time backed up to hit him again and he remembered finding his familiar yesterday. His eyes flew open.

And promptly closed again, because the sun was still there ready to give him the spots.

The nose nudged his cheek again.

"Okay, okay, I'm awake," he pushed the nose away, afraid the wolf would try to lick his face, which he wasn't mentally ready for yet, they didn't know each other like that yet. "I'm up." He sat up, blinking the spots away and stretching with a long, loud sigh. He could hear the wolf's claws hit the floor despite it being carpeted.

Those must be some big claws.

Stiles dragged his hands over his face, gaining the strength to stand up.

The weather cleared up a lot, but the sky was still gray and gloomy for the most part. And Stiles still somehow got sunshine in his face despite this. That sounded just like his luck.

Stiles checked his phone, yawning. 7:26 am. He slowly turned his eyes to look at his familiar indignantly. The wolf was looking in the direction of the kitchen that was clearly visible through the arch entrance between it and the living room.

"Is this going to be my life now? Waking up at dawn to walk you or something."

The wolf looked at him with its blue eyes, clearly deeply unimpressed. Then it turned around and walked in the directions of the kitchen.

Which made Stiles come to two conclusions: first, from this perspective he could tell this was a boy, and second, he didn't have any food to feed him properly. Or at least he didn't know what to feed him. Now that it was morning, he wasn't sure that he should give the wolf the ground beef he had in the fridge.

Stiles scrambled up, rubbing his eye, that was itchy for some reason. He hoped he wasn't allergic to wolf fur suddenly. That would have been kind of a big problem.

Very unfortunate indeed. Spending his whole life on allergy meds in addition to his ADHD ones. That painted a fantastic life perspective for him.

"I need to figure out your name though," he walked into the kitchen, where the wolf was smelling all the cabinets.

Well, as long as he didn't try to get onto the counter, Stiles guessed it was okay.

"Don't try anything," he said, wagging his finger at the wolf just to be glanced at and mostly ignored.

With a sigh, Stiles opened the fridge, peering into it with bleary eyes.

Wolves were terrible at being trained, weren't they? He was going to have to deal with a huge dangerous animal that would hardly listen to him? No, that couldn't be true. People dealt with them somehow. There had to be some kind of magic in place, Stiles just had to do more research about familiars.

How did it even happen if he hadn't done it before?

The meat was thawed but still cold enough, so it was probably fine. Plus it looked like somewhere during the night electricity came back up. Stiles was planning to make some burgers from scratch, and put it into the fridge from the freezer yesterday morning.

It was just some beef. He should probably Google what domestic wolves eat, since the wolf now had to be domestic, but he didn't have much choice right now.

Because it wasn't like he could get any other form of raw meat, and it was probably the closest thing he could get in general around the campus.

"Do you want some beef?"

There was a huge fluffy head sneaking to look into the fridge from under Stiles' elbow, sniffing the package in his hand with interest.

Stiles petted the head with his free hand and got an ear twitch in response.

He didn't know if this was good or bad. He didn't know anything about wolves, really. He should probably do something about it. Another subject to read up on.

Also, he should probably arrange a vet appointment sooner rather than later. What if this big boy got some parasites or something.

And buy all the things he would need for a wolf. The rules were probably close to a dog, right? How different was a domestic wolf from, let's say, a husky? A leash, a collar, a muzzle, some toys if this boy liked them, a bed, bowls, some shampoos, some clothes for when it's raining and some boots for when the asphalt is too hot…

Were there even vets that knew how to deal with wolves in town?

Was this even a wolf?

Did Stiles have money for all of that?

Stiles looked down at his familiar.

He looked back up at Stiles.

The fridge started beeping.

Stiles closed it properly and opened it again looking for he didn't know what.

This was going to be a long day.

***

"I think giving him the beef was a good call, but you should really find an actual vet. With a license and everything. The uni has to have someone who knows about wild animals, including the big ones, there are several there. And where else would they have one anyway?"

Scott had a point. Universities and a couple of big schools were kind of the centers of magical communities. It was, in a way, the easiest place to congregate around, so if there were magical vets specializing in something like big wild animals, they were most likely to be found in a university.

Stiles waved his hand with a chip in it around, anyway, dismissing Scott. He figured out he actually didn't have the money for a vet, and it wasn't that likely that the wolf would die on him, so he decided to take the risk.

"You are a real vet. Just a budget version. Exactly what a poor student needs."

The wolf was lying across Stiles' lap, like a huge heavy blanket, but breathing and with a heartbeat. And leaving black fur literally everywhere.

"I haven't even graduated yet," Scott rubbed his cheek on the other end of the phone screen.

The wolf turned around and took Stiles' chip gently into his teeth, eating it. He didn't even touch Stiles' fingers, but Stiles still didn't expect it, so he was startled a bit.

"Hey! You aren't allowed to eat this!"

"Did he eat your chip?"

"Yeah, he's being a naughty boy. You're a naughty boy, aren't you," he rubbed the wolf's neck with his free hand, smearing some grease from the chips onto the freshly washed fur, making a face at him, talking to him like to a baby.

The bath went way better than Stiles had expected, so he came to the conclusion that the wolf was most likely actually domestic, so Stiles needed to find his previous owners and tell them, maybe pay them something. Another thing on his endless list of things to do. The wolf jumped into the bath himself, waited patiently while Stiles fumbled with the water, and moved just right to help Stiles try to get all of the fur. And there was a lot to get. Stiles had to use his own shampoo, which was probably bad, but the wolf desperately needed a bath, and now neither of them had any shampoo.

Then the wolf waited patiently while Stiles got a towel and let Stiles dry him without any complaints. Even when Stiles had to resort to a blow-dryer. A very old and cheap and absolutely useless one that Mason once got for some sort of random modeling project or something and had never used since. It almost burned from the strain of trying to get through so much fur.

What didn't go well was the shedding. It was the beginning of spring, and Scott said wolves shed around this time, and, well, it seemed to be accurate, judging by the amount of black fur left literally everywhere. And the wolf had been here for less than a day.

But there was a lot of fur, both on the wolf and on everything around him, including Stiles himself, because the wolf wouldn't leave him alone even for a second. He sighed in Stiles' lap, apparently satisfied with life.

Probably leaving behind more fur.

And not even opening an eye to look at him when Stiles talked to him.

That looked to be Stiles' fate from now on. Being ignored and covered in black fur.

The fact that it was black was the worst part of it, really. There was no hiding it or from it. Nothing would cover it completely, unless his whole friend group re-qualified into Men in Black.

Maybe Stiles should collect it, weave it and then learn how to knit to make everyone clothes that would actually hide the fur attack.

Anyway, the wolf didn't even move when Stiles talked to him, seemingly fast asleep, there wasn't even an ear twitch. Despite having just stolen a chip. Stiles knew he wasn't asleep.

He nudged the wolf with his knee, but he was too heavy for Stiles to move properly.

"You should name him," Kira said from Scott's side, appearing on the screen of Stiles' phone.

"Yeah, probably. Do you want a name?" The wolf looked at him this time, lazily, his eyes barely open, and moved his head in a way that very much resembled a shake.

Was he a trained circus wolf, actually? Could he do that? Were there circus wolves? Were there still circuses with animals?

"No? But I need to call you something. I can't just call you ‘Wolf'," Stiles knew he was talking in this voice people only ever used for very little children and pets (or to be annoying), and he had already established that the wolf didn't enjoy it, but Stiles couldn't help himself.

It was an automatic response.

He still felt kind of euphoric from finding his familiar. Well, from his familiar finding him. That's how this magic worked. Your familiar would find you in the time of greatest need and shit.

Liam got his Sega when his parents were divorcing. Stiles tried not to think about what it meant for what was ahead of him in the nearest future, considering the wolf didn't come when his mother was dying and his father was slipping away with her.

The wolf turned away from him, but didn't leave completely, so Stiles counted it as a success.

"Lord Barkula! Like, you know, from that movie where he could only die from a lycanthrope's bite, but like… also Dracula…" both Kira and Stiles looked at Scott with a healthy measure of skepticism.

The wolf made a noise that vaguely resembled a laugh, and Stiles got briefly worried, but he seemed to be breathing fine and not choking on anything, so it must be okay.

"He's a wolf, not a dog."

"I know! But what do you call a wolf?"

"That's exactly what my question is."

"Is it even that different? We named both Jackson and Liam's familiars after jokes, why not mine?"

"Well, yours is way cooler…" Scott shook his head in disbelief.

"I can't believe you got a wolf though," Kira interjected.

"I know, right?! That's so cool!" Stiles ran a hand over the wolf's back.

He seemed to enjoy touching, which Stiles was very relieved about. But then again, why wouldn't his familiar enjoy touching? Magic always made a perfect match. Like soulmates or something, but with animals.

"I wonder why you would become that strong," Scott's expression was thoughtful.

And this was also a great question Stiles hadn't asked himself yet. Well, more like he actively pushed it out of his mind.

He knew some of the magic theory about how familiars worked, and according to it, a familiar was determined by how powerful the magician would ultimately become, and it made sense when you got a familiar as a child when the familiar was clearly meant for a stronger person, your magic was still growing and changing, and you would grow into your familiar. But Stiles was an adult. His magic wasn't supposed to grow anymore. That's why most people found their familiars in their twenties – their magic was finally stable. And Stiles' magic wasn't strong enough for a wolf.

The thing was, the stronger the person was, the bigger and, hypothetically, smarter their familiar was, and a wolf was very much up there. Normally people had animals like hamsters or mice, cats were a bit less common, and dogs were already super cool, but a whole wolf – this was a lot.

Of course, these things happened. Stiles had a person with a bear in his class, which was super inconvenient. There were even known cases of people having had other people as familiars. Which was way out there, there were maybe two people like that now living in the world.

Well, their familiars weren't exactly people. They were were-creatures. Which automatically put them below witches in the magical society. Closer to the non-magical population, because apparently you couldn't be both a werewolf and a witch. Same as Kira was a Kitsune and Lydia was a banshee, and neither of them were witches and couldn't have familiars and their magic was different at its core, etc. Were-creatures could probably be fine in the non-magical world, but it was harder for them to properly control their shifts without magical help. So it was weird and created dynamics that were sometimes abused, but then were-creatures who learned their control well enough could live fine without witches that treated them badly.

Luckily, it still wasn't a general trend.

Although Stiles thought that Lydia could actually have something like a familiar, but not quite and there were no guarantees she would ever get it.

Anyway, a person had to be, well, extremely powerful to get a were-creature as their familiar.

And while a wolf did boost Stiles' confidence, like, immensely, he objectively wasn't strong enough to need one. So the question was, when and how he was going to become strong enough to need a wolf as his power bank.

The thought was terrifying even without Stiles spiraling into an anxiety-induced guessing game of growing and growing horror.

Because the magic was never wrong, and there were things that could make someone stronger. And none of them were good or safe or even wanted most of the time.

Like a possession.

For a short period of time. Like a flash of power that immediately went away.

Stiles felt the presence in the back of his mind, and it was satisfied with his thinking process. It was definitely getting bigger, slowly sending its tentacles deeper into Stiles' mind, finding its rooting there. Stiles was still surprised he didn't have a nightmare last night, but he didn't expect it two nights in a row. At least the demon wasn't strong enough to get to him in the waking world yet.

Or maybe it didn't go with its plans.

The wolf turned back at him, suddenly, sniffing the air, watching him closely, as if feeling something, something that interested him.

Interested but not worried. He didn't growl or show any kind of sign of feeling threatened.

Stiles wondered if it was actually possible for the presence and the wolf to feel each other through Stiles, because he could very clearly feel both of them. Or maybe he sensed Stiles' spike in anxiety? Could it feel the demon? Smell it on Stiles? Would he understand that it was dangerous even if it was in the body of his witch?

Stiles looked at his familiar, and his familiar looked at him.

"Can I spread a possession to my familiar?"

Scott seemed to be confused about the connection, but still nodded.

"Yeah, but only if you lose yourself completely. Your familiar is kind of the last safe space for your soul in case of possession. Some people had moved their souls fully into their animals until there was a way to stop their possession."

Stiles felt horrified.

"And what if they never figured it out?"

Scott shrugged.

Stiles shook his head.

Kira pressed her hand over her mouth.

This sounded like a terrible fate. Both for the human and for the animal, and them both together. A witch loves their familiar, and to knowingly move into them, probably push them out of their own body… That's why Stiles has never even considered becoming a magical vet when getting into university. Plants didn't get possessed.

On the other hand, they also usually didn't get one possessed.

Of course, only Stiles could get into something like that. If there was a way, he would find it.

The presence stirred some more. Stiles didn't understand what triggered it to wake up suddenly.

"Have you found something about what happened to you?" Kira asked.

Stiles shook his head.

They talked about Lydia and Jackson's wedding preparations.

***

The day went by amazingly uselessly. Stiles had done literally nothing, and was trying to tell himself that he was bonding with his familiar and that took a lot of time. He wasn't just losing valuable time, not even working, getting some money for some adorable raincoats for his familiar.

And this actually was mostly what he did: first he ordered some food for both of them (after asking Scott and doing some googling instead of finding a proper vet, of course), fed both of them, took the wolf for a little walk, washed someone's huge paws that left huge prints on the carpet, talked to Scott and Kira (again), and then just mostly looked at dog stuff on his phone sprawled on his bed with his head on the wolf's side. A wolf made a great pillow, it turned out. Stiels' one was also amazingly chill for someone the magic considered a perfect match for, well, Stiles.

The wolf seemed to be content with this and happy to just cuddle while Stiles was having an existential crisis out loud about how he was having a feeling that "the wolf" was going to just stick. He couldn't even name him properly. Was he going to have to lie that the wolf's name was actually "The Wolfred Campbell Pigsley III" or was it too weird even for him and his familiar?

"Maybe I should just call you Wolfgang to have a legit reason to call you Wolfy," he asked the wolf with both of his hands wrist deep in his fur over his head.

Stiles felt already exhausted just thinking about all of it slowly falling out. On him. On the bed. On the couch. On the carpet. Into the bath darin.

The wolf made a sound so full of indignation, it was hard to understand how so much could be contained in one body, and even sat up, looking at Stiles with that doggy frown that apparently wolves had no problem using as well.

"What? You don't like 'Wolfgang'? You have something against it?" He took the wolf's face into his hands, shaking it a little, and talking in his baby voice.

The wolf huffed again, and wiggled away, only to circle himself around Stiles' back again, and Stiles felt so much eye-rolling energy emanating from him, he couldn't not chuckle. Who knew canines were capable of such specific and complicated emotions?

Also, the wolf hated to be talked to as a little cute thing, but he was so unbelievably cuddly, Stiles just couldn't contain himself. It was just so adorable. What did the wolf expect when he wouldn't leave Stiles' side for a second, constantly finding ways to put at least one part of his body on him? It was good when it was just one, because this boy was heavy, and Stiles was full of fragile human bones.

Which Stiles guessed was normal for a wolf, but he still didn't appreciate all of it pressing onto his very breakable body. He wasn't sure that much cuddling was okay, though. Maybe there was something wrong with him and he was afraid of losing Stiles so much he wouldn't let him out of his sight. Maybe he had some kind of trauma like that. Maybe he was left somewhere.

Or maybe it was just him feeling the need to bond more until the magic settled completely and then he would chill separately from Stiles.

Stiles wasn't sure which one he preferred. He couldn't afford a therapist for himself, how could he afford one for the wolf?

He slid lower against the warm fluffy side, his chin now almost pressed to his chest.

He was pretty sure it was the wrong texture for wolf fur, although he had never touched a wolf. But then again, he had to use his own shampoo on the wolf. So now everything smelled like that weird specific aroma that all things for guys had because as much as Lydia loved to complain about it, this was the only shampoo that worked for Stiles.

It seemed to have gotten some stuck dirt and, more concerningly, what looked like blood (but then again, Stiles didn't know how long the wolf had to travel, even if it was domestic and could be from anywhere, he had to get food somewhere) off the fur, so it was fine for now.

Stiles groaned when he remembered that he still didn't clean up the dirty prints all over the living room and in the bathroom.

But this was tomorrow Stiles' concern now. Stiles wished him good luck.

For now, he was going to choose things to spoil his familiar with.

In reasonable borders, of course. And probably still buy none of them.

He was meaning to start with food and maybe basic meds, like humans had, but he still somehow ended first in the dog beds sections (the choice for big puppies was way too limited for his taste, why was his wolf discriminated against in the puppy community immediately), and from there, in collars and leashes.

That seemed to interest the wolf for some reason, if the fluffy ear appearing in the corner of Stiles' vision was anything to go by.

"Oh now you want to be friends again, but not when I'm trying to figure out a proper name for you. I see, I see."

The wolf huffed.

He scrolled through the big dog collars and opened one with spikes on it.

"Do you like this one?"

The wolf just turned his head to the side a bit. His level of communication skill was still concerning for Stiles. He had to be brought up with humans.

Maybe he knew what collars and leashes were the best, so he just saw a familiar picture or something, and he reacted to it.

"Okay."

Stiles went back to scrolling, slowly, looking himself and letting the wolf look.

Until the wolf nudged his hand with his head.

"What? Did you see something?" he scrolled back up a bit, even slower this time.

The wolf nudged his hand again and then tried to point at something in the screen with his nose.

"This one? Do you like this one?" The wolf nodded.

Stiles wasn't sure exactly how intelligent wolves were, but he was fairly sure dogs didn't normally communicate in what was clearly human gestures even if they were brought up with humans. Was this also familiar magic, or did he get a genius familiar?

"I'm starting to think you have been brought up by humans with kids and have never been socialized even with dogs, that's why you're so weird. I should find the family then, tell them that you're fine," Stiles could feel something very confusing and complicated through their connection.

Because now he apparently could do that. The emotions weren't that clear in general, just a vague shape if he concentrated, but it was still weird to feel it next to the presence still in his head, but it was almost like the connection pushed it a bit deeper, making it relinquish whatever territory it had gotten before.

Anyway, the connection still wasn't strong enough yet for Stiles to figure it out.

The wolf made that laughing sound again.

The presence in Stiles' head still tried to reach its little grabby metaphysical hands toward Stiles' familiar.

Stiles felt instantly alert, and this apparently stopped it somehow. Maybe it didn't like to be noticed. Maybe it could only do things when Stiles wasn't paying attention.

Maybe it was just adjusting and planning how to attack Stiles in full force later, rebuilding everything with the new player in the game, since the wolf was also in Stiles' head and could become Stiles' last hiding place from full destruction. Why a demon would want to destroy Stiles if he wasn't fighting him for the body wasn't a question that Stiles had an answer to, but that didn't matter for the ideas he had built in his mind.

He had to hurry up with his research. Instead of laying here and staring at things he couldn't afford anyway.

The wolf must have felt something, through their connection or just because he was, well, a canine, and could smell hormonal spikes and shit, but he looked at Stiles with his ears up and alert, the body behind Stiles' head tense.

Did he also get a free service dog?

"It's okay, I'm fine. I just need to find a way to get rid of it. I'm not going to let it touch you."

The wolf looked at Stiles for some time more and then bumped the phone with his nose.

"Oh yeah. Do you like this collar? It would look amazing with your eyes. Although you can't tell, you can't see color. How do you even have a preference about collars? You're so weird," Stiles glanced at the wolf with a frown, fluffing the fur somewhere on his thigh with the free hand.

The collar was simple, actually. It was just a broad soft leather band with a silver metal piece and ring on it. The dark-green color of it would actually look beautifully against the wolf's fur, not the eyes, but Stiles said what he said.

"You are into elegant stuff, aren't you? I'm pretty sure this one could pass as a pretty kinky human choker. Although the one with the spikes could too. You sure you don't want that one? That one is metal," Stiles pet the one fluffy leg he could reach comfortably in slow motions now, playing with the fur.

It was so deep, Stiles was still amazed.

So much to put everywhere, huh. Stiles should be getting used to it, with all this cuddling, He was probably going to have it with every meal and every drink from now on.

The wolf pointed at the simple collar again, as if confirming his choice.

"Okay, I'm going to get you this one. But I'm getting the leash with skulls."

Stiles thought that they would clash terribly, and he liked the idea.

The wolf turned away from him and placed his head on his front paws.

"You don't understand the art of it! Both of those are going to be here tomorrow morning."

***

The next two days went in a similar way, and Stiles was getting more and more anxious about how he should find his routine again. He hated the routine, but he had to admit he was the most productive with one, and he still had things to do for school before the break ended. Also, he should work. And the wolf would probably benefit from a structured day.

The more his anxiety grew, the deeper Stiles sank into the floor he was laying on, even despite being quite happy that the demon in his body still hadn't done anything.

But right now that wasn't what he was thinking about.

In fact, he wasn't thinking at all. He couldn't.

Right now, Stiles was having a nightmare.

He was pretty sure that was what was happening, but he couldn't wake up. He didn't know how to stop this. He couldn't get out.

The house was covered in blood. Stiles knew he did this. He didn't remember how, or who exactly was in the house, but he was sure it was him. There was blood on his shirt, on his pajama pants, on his hands, he could feel it on his drying into a solid mask on his way too hot skin.

He felt laughter bubble up in his chest as he walked the corridor from his room to the stairs into the living room, trailing a hand against the wall, leaving a long streak of red on the light-blue paint. There was someone else in the house, he didn't care who, he wanted to murder them, slowly, painfully, relishing their screams, feeling their suffering fill him up with energy.

Stiles loved this.

Stiles hated this.

He was in his element.

He wanted to get out.

He couldn't decide whether he wanted to use a knife or some glass for his next kill.

He didn't want to live in his nightmare.

Glass won.

He slowly walked into the kitchen, quietly, making sure to produce the least amount of noise possible so his little victim wouldn't know when to run. Stiles could hardly keep himself from whistling, he was so excited, more full of life than he had ever been before.

There was a loud bark behind his back, and the glass that he got out of the cupboard fell down, breaking into pieces. Well, that was according to his plan, but in his dream, there were no dogs.

His heart was beating like a rabbit's. He couldn't catch his breath, but he was pretty sure he wasn't having a panic attack, at least not yet. Which was good. It was a start. He looked down at his bare feet next to some broken glass. It was glittering prettily in what little light sneaked all the way around the house from the street to find its way through the kitchen window.

Stiles felt sick, and he was soaking wet with sweat, and he was trembling. Leaned heavily on one arm on the counter, wiping some sweat from his face with the other.

He slowly turned around, trying not to step into the glass, his back leaning against the counter now.

The wolf was sitting in the kitchen entrance, the ring on his elegant collar glittering in the same light almost as prettily as the glass, watching Stiles with what Stiles most closely identified as interest and excitement.

Still absolutely no concern. Did the wolf trust his witch that much? Didn't this clearly crazy shit bother him at all?

Stiles was probably giving him too much credit. He probably only felt Stiles' weird mood but didn't understand anything. He was a wolf, after all.

"Why are you excited, you weird ball of fluff?" His voice was hoarse, and his throat was so dry he could hardly speak.

It was like that time he ate sand.

The wolf came closer slowly, his eyes still on Stiles.

"Don't come here, there's glass, it's dangerous. It can cut your paws. It'll hurt," Stiles pointed at the glass and tried to speak clearly, like to a toddler.

Maybe the wolf knew some of these words.

Stiles slid down the counter, sitting on the amazingly cool tiled floor, despite his own warnings, but he couldn't stand right now.

The wolf sat next to him, taking Stiles' hug readily.

They just sat there for a bit, Stiles' heart slowing down, the wolf a warm calming presence. And the thing in his head was somewhere in hiding again.

"Thank you for waking me up, though" he placed a gentle kiss on the wolf's forehead. "Now that we're awake, how about a snack?"

Stiles stood back up slowly.

"It's not like you brushed your teeth before bed. Oh hell, I'll need to get you those little cleaning bones or something, don't I?"

He didn't sleepwalk normally, but he knew that sleepwalking and nightmares could be side effects of possession.

So his demon was getting more active. It hadn't done anything like that before.

Stiles had to do something about it, and fast. Like yesterday.

"Let's see what we've got here," he opened the fridge, making sure to avoid as much glass as he could, casting a little spell to get a glass out of the cupboard without even looking at it.

He turned around with a jump at the sound of breaking glass. And then another. And then another.

And then another.

All the glasses were throwing themselves out of the cupboard and onto the counter and breaking in a shower of myriad sparkly glass shards, almost like a frozen waterfall.

The wolf was looking at all of it, a bit to the side, startled. At least he was far away from the sea of glass right now, he must've jumped away or something.

"Shit, shit, shit, what the fuck, what's… stop, stop, stop," Stiles made the stop spell motion several times until he remembered the words, but it somehow worked anyway. Worked very well, throwing the doors shut so hard, they flew right back open again, gallivanting to a stop in the ringing silence that fell over the kitchen suddenly, like a snow blizzard.

Stiles couldn't pull off magic without words. He didn't have enough power. He looked at his hands, confused. This shouldn't be possible. First his simple spell took out all of the glasses instead of one, and now he stopped it without the incantation.

Stiles shouldn't be able to do this.

He shouldn't need a wolf familiar.

"What the fuck…" he muttered, still looking at his hands, moving them, bending and straightening his fingers, feeling like these hands weren't his.

By the feeling of it, the feeling of how much magic he threw out just now, he actually had to do more than close the doors, but there were magic absorbents in the wall, he hoped he didn't destroy them. The spell was way too strong. And just from an intention.

Was it possible that the demon in him was making him stronger? Was it going to have lasting effects, and was this why he got a wolf? He knew it was possible, he just didn't expect it to happen to him.

He was going to burn out soon this way. Was he going to die? Stiles suddenly was too exhausted to feel anything about it.

He really didn't want to deal with adjusting to the new power level, not right now, he felt exhausted by simply thinking, even if this level wasn't going to last long.

"Hell," said someone.

And it wasn't Stiles' voice.

That made Stiles tense up immediately. His brain flew back into panic mode again in an instant. He was home alone. He didn't recognize the voice, so it wasn't one of his neighbors. And they didn't have keys anyway, and Stiles was a cop's son, he made sure his doors were locked. So it was a stranger in his house in the middle of the night.

All of this went through his head in the second it took him to turn to the source of the voice.