Friday When he’d been growing up, Stiles had imagined all sorts of exciting futures. He’d be a cop, like his dad, and be a hero. Or he’d be a scientist who discovered the cure for cancer. Instead… He worked as a data entry clerk. For a tiny wage. But he had benefits, at least. He spent day after day stuffed into a cubicle interacting with almost no one. His life was sad and lonely....
Stiles was a ghost. Or invisible. Or something. No one could see or hear him. He couldn’t interact with the world. The problem was that he didn’t understand how he’d arrived at his current non-corporeal—or was it intangible?—state. It was odd. Not to mention somewhat distressing. He could remember yesterday. He’s pretty sure he went to bed but can’t quite remember. Stiles also doesn’t remember waking up—he’s not dreaming, he totally counted his fingers....
Stiles stops. He stops because Derek Hale is walking down the street in his direction. He has a moment to hate the world just a little because Derek is improbably hotter than he was the last time Stiles saw him. The last time he saw him was twelve or thirteen years ago. Derek has grey hair in his beard. He’s also softer; physique not as cut as before. Stiles might even guess that he doesn’t have abs anymore....
Stiles hates the beach. Hates it. With the fire of a thousand burning suns. Convenient, since burning is about the only thing he does at the beach. He’s all pale skin and freckles! Even with sunscreen, it takes about half an hour for him to start burning. Combined with the fact that he had a sort of bad – okay, awful – experience with water not too long ago, he isn’t thrilled when someone in the pack mentions going to the beach....
Stiles found himself spending a lot of time with Derek. He would say that he didn’t know what changed, except that he did. It wasn’t surprising that he’d constantly seek out the one person able and willing to listen to him talk. It also helped both of them get much better at signing. There was a strange, unintended consequence: Derek was talking more. Turns out that he found it easier to communicate if he didn’t have to speak out loud....
Derek was almost to Beacon Hills when the bond to his alpha snapped. So. Some wolf killed his sister and alpha. Stole her spark. This wasn’t something Derek was willing to accept. It takes Derek a few days too long to situate himself. By the time he’s ready to get started, the police have already found half his sister’s body and the new alpha has bitten some kid. He doesn’t care much about the new beta beyond the fact that he might be a way to track the alpha....
1 Stiles almost groans when he spots the werewolf three rows away in his freshman English class. For the first time, it isn’t because he’s being forced to take freshman English. No. This groan is because there’s a werewolf sitting three rows away. He’d gone to college to get away from the supernatural. Okay. He can do this. There is no reason for the girl to pay him any attention. He’d taken at least ten showers in the past few days in the hopes of scrubbing the stench of werewolf off of him....
Prologue It wasn’t until the Great Pack Schism that Stiles realized that he didn’t understand werewolves nearly as well as he thought. It’s probably because he has two alphas to compare, when before he’d only had Peter and Derek to compare. And despite how not great Derek was at the whole alpha thing, he looked like a saint next to Peter. Then the whole alpha pack mess started, Scott is suddenly the True Alpha, and werewolves were choosing sides....
“How’s Stiles doing? He out of the hospital yet?” Parrish asks him. Noah is taken aback, because as far as he knows, Stiles isn’t in the hospital. He clears his throat, “Yeah, he’s doing better.” A vague answer because Noah doesn’t want to make it look like he doesn’t know. Especially if Stiles actually is in the hospital. Parrish smiles and nods. Noah goes straight to the hospital. He tracks down Melissa and before he can say anything, she asks, “Are you here to see Stiles?...
Stiles tells people that he ‘used’ to have panic attacks. As if it were past tense. It isn’t. He still has them. He just learned how to have them quietly so that he wouldn’t worry his dad anymore. After his mom died and his dad lost himself to grief for a while, Stiles didn’t want to add anything more to his dad’s plate. So after he’d been pushed into therapy, he pretended that they went away....