fandomweekly | [#228] Belief (Teen Wolf X Highlander)

Theme Prompt: 228 - Deity
Title: Belief
Fandom: Teen Wolf, Highlander
Rating/Warnings: None
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1215
Summary: Stiles is becoming something. A stranger knows what it is.

“What am I turning into?”

Stiles should have been comfortably seated in his room at this time of the evening. Doing research for the pack, as he often did, because like it or not information was a weapon and often the only one he had at his disposal.

Instead, here he was. Alone, in a forest he should have learned not to be in by now. Alone, in a forest, because he’d felt a shiver of something during the day, and he knew it had something to do with this place.

That sensation had only been the latest in a series of oddities that even the aftereffect of the Nogitsune possession couldn’t explain, and Stiles wasn’t about to push away his symptoms until they blew in his face. Not this time.

“What do you think you’re turning into?”

Stiles saw a silhouette at the periphery of his vision, but something in him told him not to turn. That shiver of electricity at the back of neck was back again, and he was almost certain the stranger was causing it.

“I don’t know, a god maybe?” Stiles said, sarcasm getting the better of him in place of fear. “Godly powers would be very useful right about now actually.”

“Do not compare yourself to the gods of old, child. For you should not seek to become one of them.”

The tone was stern, and the voice was now coming from right behind him, a trickle of air he could barely feel hovering over his skin. There was a slight pressure on his shoulders, fleeting and heavy at the same time, and to be honest?

Stiles was terrified. The man so close to him was not meant to be terrifying, nor did he mean to, but something about him was terrifying nonetheless.
Stiles’s vocal chords still managed to work even though his body wouldn’t cooperate and make him turn around.

“I am something though, aren’t I?” he asked defiantly.

And Stiles was certain this man knew exactly what he was becoming.

---

Methos didn’t answer the boy’s question, rhetorical as it probably was. He’d felt the familiar sensation earlier in the day and had remained in this isolated place instead of hunting the pre-immortal down. Immortals all in all tended to be a curious breed, and if whoever it had been didn’t come back out of curiosity, Methos could just as well go looking for them.

And here he was. A young pre-immortal. Scared and resolute, and at least aware of the supernatural, which could be both a boon and a fatal flaw, depending on the recipient. Had it been someone else, they might have gotten rid of the possible danger.

Methos would not take his head though, nor would he give him his first death. Not right now. The boy was too young to forever be frozen with the features of his death, the youth more of a hindrance now than it had been in the days of old. There was potential in that body, another potential aside from the potential immortality Methos could feel and the boy surely could as well.

“Who are you?” he asked instead.

“Stiles.” The answer came immediately. He hadn’t meant to say it, Methos knew. A hitch in the rhythm of his breath, that Methos could feel as his cheek was still nearly pressed on the boy’s own. They weren’t quite hugging, but Methos had his hands on the boy’s shoulders, Stiles staring fixedly ahead as though frozen, arms tense at his side. With this posture, Methos could feel every shift of the boy's position, and thus his intentions. Stiles hadn't meant to give his name, but he had said it nonetheless, and he wouldn’t take it back.

“Stiles is your name.” Methos acquiesced. “I am asking who you are at the core of yourself.”

He slid his hand down from the boy’s shoulder to reach his heart, where he could feel it beating to a frantic rhythm, like it was trying to beat out of his chest. The boy didn’t answer. Methos breathed in, and the boy unconsciously matched his own rhythm.

“Who are you Stiles,” he murmured. “when no one is looking.”

---

Stiles had felt it, that potential. Had been feeling it for quite a while if he was honest, but he’d desperately tried to ignore every glaring hint that he wasn’t normal. It had to be leftover from the Nogitsune, right? He wasn’t healing faster, wasn’t supernaturally quick nor did he have amazing reflexes. He just… felt weird (which, story of his life tbh). So it couldn’t be a new thing, not when the pack had so much on their plates, and Stiles didn’t plan to become the latest flavor of the week.

“I know I’m not a god,” he said, breathing in. He still hadn’t turned to watch the man at his back, because he knew that would be a point of no return somehow. He didn’t know why, didn’t dare to examine the feeling any further, but he knew. He knew that the same way he knew the man was smiling at his reply. He kept talking above the feeling of his heart beating out of his chest. Anything was better than not talking at this point. “Everything I’ve read about gods so far tells me there would be far more tangible signs and drama if that was it, and honestly I could not take any more of that.”

“Has no one ever told you?” The man behind him lost some of the weight he was pressing on Stiles’s shoulders, and Stiles felt him move at his side. “Don’t believe everything you read, child. Books are wondrous but frozen in time and filled with the biases of their authors and publishers.” He was stepping around, step by step, and Stiles was frozen, not with fear, but with anticipation, trepidation.

“That, and the most valuable information is often not contained in them, barely alluded to.”

The last word and the last step fell together at the same time, finally revealing the stranger to Stiles’s sight. He didn’t linger on the stranger’s features, both unique and common at once. It wasn’t the stranger’s appearance that was keeping him in place, but rather the odd gravitas he had to him, the weight of his presence, and the almost electric feel he felt at the back of his neck.

“You’ve been lonely for quite a while, haven’t you?”

Stiles had no reason to bristle, but he did anyway, feeling like he’d become one of the wolves, the way a growl was beginning at the back of his throat.
The man didn’t care, walking around Stiles with slow, steady steps. This time Stiles followed him, turning on himself to keep the man within his eyesight. A shiver was running down his spine, both like he sense of belonging and danger, and he distrusted both sensations.

The stranger stopped after a full turn, the faint smile that had been growing on his lips still present, like Stiles had passed some kind of test or inspection.

“Not alone, but lonely nonetheless.”

“Tell me Stiles,” he took a sword out of his back, and Stiles didn’t know how he’d missed that. “In all of your… readings, what have you found about the Quickening.”

[#228] Belief (Teen Wolf X Highlander)

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