┌─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┐
chapter twenty-seven!
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
WEREWOLF
└─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───┘

( anchors, pt. ii — more bad than good, pt. i )

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

AT THIS POINT, Vera has no doubt that her friends have something seriously wrong with them. In English class the next day, Stiles is called on to read a paragraph from their book, except he merely stares at the text for so long that their substitute teacher eventually has to call on someone else. He explains to Vera that he's been having difficulty reading lately. What's even more frightening is the fact that he can hardly tell when he's awake or when he's sleeping— especially since reading is impossible in dreams as well.

The six of them sit at a picnic table in the courtyard after school to discuss what the hell is going on. Vera is seated beside Stiles and across from Lydia, which quickly turns out to be a bad choice because Stiles' nervous energy only adds to her own. Her fingers tap on the cover of her Physics textbook while the raven-haired boy's leg bounces up and down beneath the table. The movement shakes the whole bench, but nobody makes a comment.

"Hey, Vera," a familiar voice greets her. She looks up to see Sebastian Balotelli, a boy a year above them, waving at her as he passes by with a group of his friends. They'd met in Vera's first year of high school when he'd been the president of the Foreign Language Club; he's near-fluent in Italian and it shows a little in his voice.

"Hi, Seb." She waves back and gives him a grin. God, how she'd used to crush on him. With his light brown hair that falls messily over his forehead, his hazel eyes that are always half-lidded, and his good-natured personality, pretty much everyone who's into boys has liked him at some point. He's the Golden Boy of Beacon Hills High School and the star of the soccer team. It's embarrassing, but Vera used to pretend to do her homework near the field so she could watch him practice.

The boy passes by with a soccer ball tucked under one arm. He laughs at something a friend had said, greeting a few more people he knows while he walks.

"Sorry I'm late," Dom says. She diverts her attention from Sebastian and focuses on him as he wanders up to their table and crouches on the grass, placing his elbows on the table between Isaac and Scott. Both boys flinch away from him in response. "Oh, come on, guys. I'm not going to burst into flames and burn you. I think."

Way to boost their confidence in you, Dom.

"Oh, yeah, Scott. So, how does the whole Alpha thing work? Do you kinda just adopt me? Do I have to swear fealty?" He places a hand on his heart, the other next to his face as he recites, "I pledge allegiance to Scott McCall—"

Scott chuckles and shakes his head. "Honestly, I'm not really sure, either. I guess it just sorta happens. But for now, we need to figure out what's going on with us, because Stiles is getting worse. What happens to a person who has a near-death experience and comes out of it seeing things?"

"And is unable to tell what's real or not?" Stiles adds.

Allison continues, "And is being haunted by demonic visions of dead relatives?"

Vera glances at Sebastian again. He's further away, but his head is slightly turned toward them. Her brows pinch in suspicion until someone else gets his attention, causing his signature smile to illuminate his face and he returns back to normal.

"They're all locked up because they're insane," Isaac answers matter-of-factly.

"Ha," Stiles fakes a laugh. "Can you at least try to be helpful, please?"

"For half of my childhood, I was locked in a freezer, so being helpful is kind of a new thing for me."

"Oh, are we still milking that?"

Dominic reaches over Scott and whacks Stiles' chest at the same time Vera elbows him in the gut. He recoils in response to the simultaneous blows, his brows furrowing in offense and mouth dropping slightly open. Dom gives him a scathing glare that makes him sigh.

"I'm sorry, Isaac. Thank you for being open about your trauma."

Dom slightly cringes while Scott drops his head on the table. "We'll work on that."

"Hi," a voice greets just as a shadow washes over Vera. She looks to her right to see an unfamiliar girl standing nervously in front of them, her wavy hair swept over one shoulder and angular eyes flickering between each of them. "Hi. Sorry, I couldn't help overhearing what you guys were talking about. And I think I actually might know what you're talking about."

All of them give each other slightly alarmed looks in fear of what the girl had heard.

"There's a Tibetan word for it," she explains, slightly stumbling over her words due to all of the eyes on her. "It's called Bardo. It literally means 'in-between state' — the state between life and death."

Lydia squints and turns her head to the side. "And what do they call you?"

"Kira," Scott answers. "She's in our History class."

Now Vera recalls their new teacher, Mr. Yukimura, mentioning his daughter being a student during class that morning, but Vera's seat toward the front of the room hadn't given her a clear view of the girl. Even within the first few seconds of meeting her, she already seems incredibly nice and adorable.

"So, are you talking Bardo in Tibetan Buddhism or Indian?" Lydia questions.

"Uh, either, I guess," Kira responds. "But all the stuff you guys were just saying? All that happens in Bardo. There are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations— some you see, some you just hear. And you can be visited by peaceful and wrathful deities."

"Wrathful deities?" Isaac repeats, his chin in his hand. "And what are those?"

"Like demons."

Stiles raises his brows. "Demons. Why not?"

"Hold on, if there are different progressive states, then what's the last one?" Allison inquires.

"Death," Kira says with another nervous smile. "You die."

"And there's no way around it?" Vera asks. "Like, can you avoid the death stage?"

The girl frowns, her mouth twisting to the side as she ponders the question. "I don't think so. At least, not that I know of."

Ah, so this is some very wonderful news. Three of Vera's friends are on a seemingly one-way trip straight toward premature death while being psychologically tortured by hallucinations. Vera can't say she's particularly surprised given what they experience on a daily basis, but she would like to somehow stop the final stage from occurring right now.

Everyone is stunned into silence after that revelation. Dom stares open-mouthed at nothing, Stiles is fidgeting, and the others are merely soaking in all of the information they'd just been given. It results in Kira awkwardly glancing around the table and tightening her grip on her books, unsure of what to do.

Vera looks at her and gives her a smile. "Thank you, Kira. I'm Vera. I'll see you around, okay?"

The girl nods and gives her a brief grin before hurrying away. Vera looks back at her disgruntled friends and sighs, wishing that she could provide some form of comfort after that bomb had been dropped on them, but there's nothing she can do. They'll just have to figure this out as they go.

— ✯✯✯ —

"Did you hear anything from Derek?" Scott asks her the next morning before History class. He, Stiles, Vera, and Allison are huddled near the window, discussing the latest mission that the sheriff had sent them on— a car crash that he now thinks may have to do with the supernatural. It turns out that a coyote that has been bothering a local man is actually a girl named Malia, who had wolfed out and had something to do with the accident.

"Nope," Vera responds, scrolling through the unread messages on her phone. "Cora doesn't know where he is, either. They separated a week ago."

Scott needs the former Alpha's help with turning Malia back into a human. Unfortunately, when Derek doesn't want to be contacted, he could go months without responding to messages or calls. She'd thought he'd at least reply to her, though. It kind of stings.

"Okay, well, here's where we found the den," Stiles says. He holds his phone screen out to Allison and Vera, showing a pinned location in the woods. "It's right in the middle of the hiking trails."

"Well, that could narrow it down," Allison replies. "Coyotes travel in fixed trails. But I think you're right about her not going back to the den— coyotes don't like wolves, and they're really smart. If they don't want to be heard, they actually walk on their toes."

"Coyotes tip-toe?" Stiles questions in confusion.

Allison rolls her eyes. "They tip-toe." They're cut off by the sound of the bell slicing through the air, causing her to jump. "I gotta go, but send me the pinned location."

"Okay," Scott says.

Vera's phone vibrates with a message from Stiles— he'd forwarded the location of Malia's den to her. Apparently, last night, the boys had infiltrated the coyote's home and touched the belongings stashed away there, which is something Vera is disappointed yet not surprised about. Boys are dumb. Now Malia is out of a den.

The three of them retreat to their assigned seats. Vera's is beside Stiles at the front of the room, which she'd requested to Mr. Yukimura when he'd changed their seating chart so she'd be less distracted. It has hardly worked so far; she has an extraordinary ability to be yanked away from reality by the smallest of things. The kid on her opposite side could sneeze and she'd think about it for the next twenty minutes.

"All right, everyone. Let's get started," Mr. Yukimura says from his spot near the chalkboard. "We were just talking about internment camps and prisoners of war. There's a passage in our reading that I'd like to go over in more detail. Who would like to come up and read aloud for us?"

Nobody volunteers, but that's not a surprise. Each student attempts to avoid their teacher's eye as he examines the class. Vera finds interest in one of the rings on her fingers and twists it around.

"Mr. Stilinski, how about you?" Mr. Yukimura asks.

Stiles' head jerks up at the sound of his name. "Oh, uh, maybe someone else could."

"I'll do it!" Vera exclaims, shooting her hand into the air more enthusiastically than necessary, attempting to divert the teacher's attention to her.

The man gives her a kind smile. "Thank you, Miss Pérez, but everyone needs a participation grade in this class."

Vera lowers her hand back to her desk and shoots Stiles an apologetic look, mouthing, I tried. When Stiles finally concedes and rises from his seat to walk toward the podium at the front of the room, she gives him a supportive double thumbs-up. Maybe this time he'll be able to read something without any issues.

The boy stares down at the textbook and blinks hard. His hands curl on either side of the wooden podium, grasping so tightly onto the surface that his knuckles turn white. Vera's brows crease in concern when she notices his breath coming out in shallow pants. She glances two rows down to see if Scott has noticed Stiles' odd behavior, but he's looking down at a packet on his desk.

Stiles' eyes turn faraway and glassy. Vera stiffens, eyeing the way his chest is now heaving and his pale face is flushing even though the room isn't warm.

"Stiles?" she asks, grabbing her backpack and swinging it over her shoulder as she stands.

By now, Scott has finally caught on to their friend's increasing panic and has also gotten up. His steps are slow and careful. "Stiles, you okay?"

Vera recognizes the symptoms of a panic attack right away. She rushes toward him, a sharp contrast to Scott's cautious movements, and places her hands on his arms. He doesn't budge at first, but soon complies with her urges and allows her to guide him toward the door.

"We should take him to the nurse's office," Scott tells Mr. Yukimura. The man nods in agreement and lets them leave.

Stiles' shaky, unsteady breathing only worsens the longer they spend in the hallway. Vera attempts to talk to him, trying to help him ground himself to reality, but he doesn't listen. Eventually, he makes a detour into the men's restroom. Vera instinctively stops short in front of the door. Scott pushes her inside, the door swinging open to reveal Stiles steadying himself on one of the sinks.

"Stiles, talk to us, man," Scott pleads. "Is this a panic attack?"

"It definitely is," Vera confirms. "We need to ground him. Stiles, no offense, but I am not kissing you like Dominic did."

The boy stares at his reflection in the water-stained mirror in front of him, his arms straining as he grips onto the porcelain sink. He tells himself in a trembling voice, "It's a dream, it's a dream. This is just a dream."

"No, it's not," Scott assures him. "This is real. You're here. You're here with us." When that doesn't seem to quell Stiles' fear, he scrambles for another way to help. "Okay, what do you do? I mean, like, wh— how do you tell if this is— if you're awake or dreaming?"

"Your fingers," Stiles replies through a desperate gasp for air. "You count your fingers. You have extra fingers in dreams."

He hunches over the sink, his breaths so heavy and violent that Vera has half a mind to slap a hand over his mouth like Lydia had done to her. But Scott catches her eye and lifts his hands up so Stiles can see them in the mirror.

"How many do I have?" he questions. When Stiles doesn't move, he raises his voice a bit. "Hey! Look at me! Come on, Stiles. Look at my hands and count with us." He holds up his index finger as Stiles finally turns to look at him.

"One," Scott and Vera count in sync. He raises a second finger, motioning for Stiles to continue the count.

"Two," Stiles spits out as if speaking hurts. He ducks his head down and stumbles, but Vera reaches forward and grasps onto his arm to help him stand.

Scott urges, "Keep going."

"Three," Stiles counts, leaning heavily into Vera. "Four."

The Alpha nods supportively. "Five."

"Six. Seven."

When they finally reach ten, proving that Scott doesn't have any remaining fingers, Stiles' voice is substantially steadier. He still has a thin layer of sweat dotting his forehead and his breathing is harder than usual, but the sheer panic in his eyes has vanished. His brow wrinkles in perplexity as he backs up and slides down the wall until he's sitting. Vera releases his arm before it can bend awkwardly and crouches down to be level with his gaze.

"What the hell is happening to me?" Stiles questions in a voice so fearful it breaks Vera's heart. She knows firsthand how terrifying and exhausting panic attacks can be, and mixed in with all of the other psychological shit he's going through, she can't imagine how afraid he is.

"I don't know," Vera admits gently. She places a hand on Stiles' bent knee to ground him. "We'll figure it out, though, like we always do."

Scott nods, having also ducked down to Stiles' level. "You're gonna be okay."

"Am I?" Stiles questions. "Are you? Scott, you can't transform. Allison's being haunted by her dead aunt. Right now, Vera's the most normal person in the room, and that terrifies me more than anything." She doesn't huff a laugh at his half-joke because she can tell that his attempt to deflect his pain through humor hadn't worked. "I'm straight-up losing my mind. We can't do this. We can't... We can't help Malia. We can't help anyone."

"Stiles." Vera puts a hand on the side of his damp face and moves his head so he's looking at her. "We have been up against a murderous Alpha. One of our classmates turned into a homicidal lizard and paralyzed us more times than I can count— not to mention he almost killed me. Last month, a whole pack of Alpha werewolves and a Darach terrorized our town and we figured it out. We figured it all out. 'Can't' is not in Stiles Stilinski's vocabulary, okay? We can always do something to help. Always."

Stiles' face remains pinched with worry, but he manages to meet her gaze and nod. She gives him a small twitch of her lips and reaches for her backpack.

"Okay, do you need pain medication? Does anything hurt?" Vera questions as she unzips one of the pockets. "I've got Advil and some water. Here, take this."

She passes him a fidget toy— a small square with buttons on it that can be popped in and out. He takes it and immediately starts pressing the circles, purging the remainder of his restless energy out of his system while she locates the bottle of Advil.

Even though they're sitting on the floor of a men's public restroom at school, Vera can't help but feel slightly nostalgic. It hasn't been just the three of them in a while. It seems like a lifetime ago when she and Derek had met them in the woods as they'd been looking for Scott's inhaler. Stiles had thought Derek had been her drug dealer, and that was the start of a beautiful friendship (well, once Stiles stopped hating her). Yes, Vera had also been friends with Allison at the start, but it had largely been the three of them figuring out supernatural things at first. Then Dom had been dragged into the mess, and the rest is history.

Vera just really hopes that nobody else walks in and she has to explain why she's there.

— ✯✯✯ —

They have to help Malia now if they want a chance to save her. As a coyote, she has been breaking into her father's house for years. Mr. Tate, who obviously doesn't know that the animal is actually his daughter, has gotten so fed up with the coyote that he's practically gone off the deep end about killing her. But the question is, how the hell do they turn an animal back into a girl?

In an effort to have some supernatural guidance as well as veterinary advice, Scott, Stiles, Dominic, Isaac, and Vera gather at the animal clinic. They stand in a circle around the table in the examination room, anxiously waiting for Deaton to bring something that will help them.

"Weird," Dom says, absentmindedly tracing a random pattern on the table with his fingers, "it's like I was just here, on fire, and sprouting wings."

"Where do they go when they're not, you know...?" Isaac imitates having wings by putting his hands slightly outward and fluttering them.

"Back into my skin," he replies. Scott scrunches his nose in disgust and turns away. "My back closes up like they were never there. It's disgusting, really. And I'll have to do a lot of training before I can even move them, much less fly. But, I've been working on this."

He flicks his palm out. They all watch in anticipation of something happening, but nothing does. Dom clears his throat awkwardly before bringing his arm in and snapping it out again. Once again, it remains a regular hand.

"Wow," Stiles says with a sarcastic raise of his brows. "Very anticlimactic."

Deaton's return from the supply room directs all of their attention away from a struggling Dominic. "Xylazine. It's a tranquilizer for horses." He places three small vials on the table, each holding about a small syringe-worth of liquid. "For a werecoyote, expect it to work within seconds."

"Anything's better than ketamine," Vera sighs as she elbows Isaac. The two of them, along with Erica, had tried to knock Jackson out with the tranquilizer at a rave in March, and then they'd almost gotten mauled.

"I only have three," Deaton continues, "so whoever's shooting needs to be a damn good shot."

"Allison's a perfect shot," Scott replies.

"She used to be," Isaac counters, arms crossed over his chest. He's wearing a jacket and a scarf draped around his neck, which Vera finds odd considering they live in California and it's hardly cold enough for one, especially in the middle of October.

"She can do it."

"If we manage to find the thing."

"Okay, what is the point of him?" Stiles asks with a point to Isaac. Scott and Vera share twin expressions of exasperation while Dom continues his attempt to light his hand on fire. "Seriously, I mean, what is his purpose? Aside from the persistent negativity and the scarf... what's with the scarf, anyway? It's 65 degrees out."

Isaac tilts his head and gives Stiles a falsely sweet smile that usually makes people want to punch him. Vera, deciding to step in before they start arguing, shrugs and suggests, "Emotional support werewolf?"

"Emotional support for who?" Stiles demands.

"Uh... me?"

"Look," Isaac says, "maybe I'm asking the question that no one here wants to ask. How do we turn a coyote back into a girl, when she hasn't been a girl for eight years?"

"I can do it," Scott answers.

Stiles blinks. "You can?"

"Yeah, remember the night that Peter trapped us in the school?" he asks with a brief glance at Vera, who prefers to forget that dreadful night where her uncle figure had tried to kill her, and Dom, who is not paying attention whatsoever. "In the gym, he was able to make me turn using just his voice. Deucalion did the same thing in the distillery."

"This is a werecoyote, Scott," Deaton reminds him. "Who knows if it'll even work if you can find someone who can teach you?"

Stiles says, "That's why you called Derek first."

Scott sighs, leaning his hands on the table. "Yeah, I could try it on my own, but right now, I'm too scared to even change into just a werewolf."

"We need a real Alpha." When Scott shoots his best friend an offended look, he quickly rectifies, "You know what I mean. An Alpha who can do Alpha things, you know, and Alpha who can get it going. You, know, get it..."

"Up?" Isaac suggests. Stiles nods, but Vera stifles a snort of laughter behind her hand when her mind goes straight into the gutter.

"Great. I'm an Alpha with performance issues."

"Vera?" Deaton asks. She quickly shoves her amusement down and folds her hands placidly in front of her. "You've been close to werewolves your whole life. Have you seen Derek do something like that?"

She ponders it for a moment, twisting her mouth to the side in thought. "Um, I mean, when Derek wanted us to stop doing something, he would yell really loudly—"

"Roar," Isaac corrects.

Vera shoots a glare at him. "Roar. So maybe if you just let it all out, she'd stop being a coyote."

"Is there anyone else who could help?" Deaton questions.

"I wouldn't trust Peter," Isaac pipes up, making Vera nod in agreement.

"The twins?" Stiles inquires.

"They're not Alphas anymore," Deaton replies. "After what Jennifer did, almost killing them? It broke that part of them."

Yikes. Vera remembers the story Lydia had told her about that. When Aiden and Ethan had tried to combine into their Hulk-wolf form, Jennifer had forced them apart and used her power to nearly kill them. She can't say she'll exactly miss the two having that sort of ability.

"Right," Stiles says, "but what if they know how to do it?"

"Nobody's seen them for weeks," Scott points out.

"Well, actually, that's... uh... that's not totally true."

Vera closes her eyes when she realizes who Stiles is talking about— Lydia. Even after all Aiden has done, she's still into him. It seems like she has a thing for bad-boy types. First Jackson, now an ex-homicidal Alpha. She honestly can't tell which one she would rather have; Jackson had been an absolute dick.

Dominic flicks his hand out for the millionth time, startling them all when a large flame ignites above his palm. He gives an excited whoop and grins from ear-to-ear as he watches the fire dance above his skin, slightly warming the air around them.

"Ha!" he exclaims joyfully. "I did it!" He quickly extinguishes the flame and plops his hand down onto the table, glancing between all of their staring faces. "Okay, now repeat everything you just said, because I honestly wasn't listening."

_________

a/n:

not me hyperfixating on isaac once again and updating super fast😃 but hmnggg THANK YOU FOR 100K READS OMG !!!! y'all i'm so happy you guys like this story!! i started it to indulge in my own obsession with isaac and your responses have made me so happy🥺 cheers to us all being affection-starved and too in love with fictional characters for our own good

just saying, i have stiles and scott's first encounter with vera (in the show) written out and them thinking derek is her drug dealer is SO FUNNY, especially when scott can hear her pills rattling in her bag and she's like "it's adderall dumbass. now get lost."

i'm actually planning on publishing some scenes from seasons 1 & 2 as extra chapters once this book is over so you guys can get an insight as to what things were like for vera. plus, you'd get some "vera and isaac ACTUALLY hating each other" and "vera and erica being HBICs" action, which is always a plus.

ok bye the next chapter will probably be up pretty soon because i'm on a roll and nobody can stop me HAAAAA

—kristyn

( word count: 4.3k )