veintseis

Derek Hale sighed as Violeta's aunt who had introduced herself as Tomei changed the radio station.

When she first arrived at the train depot, he had surprised her by saying that he already knew who she was, that she was a former FBI who had left the force when she got the call that her step-sister was killed and left with an eleven year old girl called Violeta in her care.

What did she respond with?

"Okay you're either a stalker or I'm not aware that we're Facebook friends."

Derek had rolled his eyes, saying they knew each other from school. Or, he knew her. Tomei was the cool Italian chick who rode a motorbike to school and wore leather jackets and all the guys fawned over her. Derek was the dork who sat with his sister or alone at lunch because he was a werewolf and didn't know how to make friends with normal people.

"Oh." Was all she had then said. "Well forgive me, I've repressed high school."

Now, she was still here. Derek at first scoffed at the idea of protection. Sure, she was trained by the FBI - but even they didn't deal with the supernatural. Tomei was Violeta's aunt, yes, but that was a far as it went. 

But then Peter made some ill-advised sarcastic comment and Derek saw her swiftly take him down in three seconds, resulting in Peter on the ground in severe pain and clutching the wind pipes she had somehow crushed. Tomei had shrugged, saying he talked too much anyway.

And so, she was still here. 

Even as Derek decided to go visit Scott at the school to fill him in on what happened with Peter, she still decided to come and visit. When they arrived at the scene, she walked in with Derek to find two teenage boys holding clothes. Stiles' clothes.

"Why are you holding Stiles' clothes like that?"

Scott looked up at who had spoken and recognised the Italian woman that had sat with his mum and Stiles' dad at the game. "You're Tomei." He said, "Vi's aunt."

"You're Scott. Melissa's son." The werewolf frowned and she gave him a look. "Sorry, I thought we were saying names and then relations to certain people. Like he's Isaac Lahey... someone's kid."

"Both my mum and dad are dead." The werewolf deadpanned.

Tomei blew a raspberry and rolled on the back of her heels. "I'm gonna stop talking now because it got awkward and I don't know what to say." A beat. "Even though you still haven't answered my question."

"He's missing." Scott said.

Tomei threw her head back in laughter. Everyone was surprised at the reaction and Scott became slightly defensive. Why would she laugh at that? He knew that Stiles had spent a lot of time with this lady after Vi's grandma had died and he thought she was would at least care. Or at least show some worry.

"Scottie, sweetie, Stiles' is Violeta's soulmate." Scott and Isaac's eyes both widened at that. "Yeah, I know. So if you know how powerful she is, you'll know that literally nothing would get to him."

"He was still taken." Scott said.

"By a very stupid person who will really regret the decision making process that went behind kidnapping Stiles Stilinski." She said. "Like, if I'm being completely honest, I would say the safest person in all of Beacon Hills is, you know, Stiles."

"If you're not here to help with Stiles then what are you doing here?" Scott asked, now looking at Derek.

"We need to talk." The alpha stated after a short moment.

A snort.

Tomei.

"Sorry, that just sounded dramatic." 

Derek just sighed.

"What's going on?" Scott asked, bringing them back on track. He had never really spoken to Tomei before and wasn't really used to her laid-back attitude. And it really clashed with Derek who was always super serious.

"Peter's alive." Derek finally said.

"Peter?" Scott asked. The former alpha in question then stepped out from behind some lockers, revealing himself. Peter grinned widely at Scott.

Cue another snort.

"Sorry but, that, like why were you waiting behind the lockers?" She asked, turning to look at Peter.

"I wanted to make a dramatic entrance." Peter said with a shrug as if that explained everything. Tomei gesturing with a thumb jerked at Peter, looking at Derek. The alpha pinched the bridge of his nose, running out of patience. 

"What the hell is this?" Scott demanded.

Derek eyed him in return. "You know, I thought the same thing when I heard you talking to Gerard at the sheriff's station."

"Okay hold on he threatened to kill my mum." Scott defended. "And I had to get close to him, what was I supposed to do?"

Tomei was about to put her hand up but felt that it was a bit 'inaprops' and decided against chiming in at this point. Peter, however, jumped in with a nice comment about Scott's mum. "I know right! Doing really well for her age." Tomei agreed from the side. She even gave Scott a thumbs up. 

"She's gorgeous." Peter finished.

"Shut up." Both Scott and Derek said to both Peter and Tomei, not appreciating their quips. The latter looked down at her feet, muttering something that Peter had started it.

"Wait, who is this guy?" Isaac asked, looking at Peter.

"This is Peter!" Tomei said with a little too much enthusiasm. "He's Derek's uncle. He turned Scott and, for some reason that is yet still to be identified, tried to kill everyone and so, naturally, they set him on fire and Derek slashed his throat." She paused and then added, "Which was funnily enough around the same time I swore off dairy."

"That's good to know." Isaac said, eyeing the woman who was definitely human yet super at ease considering everything that was going on.

For example, Tomei looked at him, winked and did the finger guns.

Scott asked the expected question of how Peter was still alive, which Derek completely did not answer and just said that all that was important was that he knows how to save Jackson.

"Well that's very helpful except Jackson's dead." Scott said. 

"What?" Derek said.

"Yeah, Jackson's dead. It just happened on the field."

"How did he die?" Tomei chimed in, her voice sounding more serious than Derek had ever heard it.

"He did it to himself." Scott explained.

"Yeah... he's not dead." Tomei said, laughing slightly.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm saying that I'm guessing the reason why Violeta didn't kill the kanima is A) because she wanted to save Jackson and B) she didn't want to give it the chance to develop."

"Develop? What do you mean develop?" Scott asked as his phone rang. Everyone stood silent as his mother asked him in a panicked voice to meet him in the hospital because something was very wrong with Jackson's corpse.

"This is definitely Gerard's plan." Peter said, stepping forward.

Tomei let out a very long, very dramatic sigh and she felt herself joining in on the supernatural drama that he been her niece's life for the past few— actually past many weeks. Months actually.

"I'm guessing now is a good time to say that shit's hitting the fan." She said, mainly to herself. And by the rate things were going, she was going to have to start doing some stretches because, knowing their luck, there was bound so be some sort of a fight. 

And to think, she had planned to go home after the game, drink some wine and watch Ru Paul.

-

Violeta rushed out of the car before Rico had even parked. She darted up the pavement to the door, knocking twice before letting herself in. She was met with Noah talking to Jonesy and UG. She saw the frown set in his brows and the way his shoulders slumped. She rushed forward and didn't think twice as she wrapped her arms around Noah Stilinski.

"I'm so sorry." She muttered into his chest.

"You didn't do anything wrong." Noah said, bringing his arms around Violeta. "You didn't do anything."

"I should've been with him sooner. I should've—" As she began spluttering, Noah pulled her back so she could stare him in the face.

"Listen, you did enough. Those kids hurt him. I locked up Antonio Sebastian who was following Gerard's orders." Noah said. "Now I don't know why the Principal wants Derek Hale and went after my son," he stopped and shook his head, moving to stand away and lean against a chair. Violeta took a breath, realising what she had to do. She looked at the boys and nodded at them. They understood and walked out, Jonesy telling her to let him know if she needed anything.

"I want to show you something." As she spoke, she brought forth her right arm. She showed him the sword and rubbed the inside of her left thumb down wards. She kept her eyes focused on Noah as he watched the sword move into the letters.

M I E C Z Y C L A W

"All those folktales, the rumours, the legends, the myths, they're all right. It was supposed to be my mother but she had died. So it fell to me. It's me now. And with all that power... with all that responsibility, well I can't have it unless I don't have something to tether me down."

"Stiles." Noah finally spoke.

"My grandma used to say we were lucky. That out of everything from the fairytales that turned out to be true, soulmates was the best thing." She said. "Because she believed love was the purpose of life. To live is to love. That's why she passed so soon after my grandfather."

"Joseph." Noah said. Violeta nodded. She dropped her arm.

"I know he won't take it, but I'll always give him an out. If it gets too much... people want me dead because I'm abuela Maria's protegida and they want me dead because I'm Violeta Rodriguez."

"Gerard?"

"Wants power. He doesn't like to have someone above him." Violeta knew it was risky to be shedding so much of the plan, but this was another one; another pinnacle moment. This time between the man who'd acted as her partner for the past three years. "He's dying. He wants a cure to his cancer and believes I have something that will give it to him."

"And are you going to give it to him?"

"If you have to ask me that, then you don't know me at all."

"I-I-I can't lose him. Not him too." Noah said, his eyes shining.

"I know." Violeta said. "Believe me, I know. He's... You know I can understand why my grandmother wanted to die because without her Joey—" Violeta felt tears brimming in her own eyes. "God-ah, what I'm trying to say is that now I don't know how I could live in a world where your son doesn't exist... and I'm shit scared if anything happened like tonight. I don't know how you do it Noah, I don't know how you do it without her—" Noah grabbed the blubbering girl and wrapped his arms around her. He felt her shake in his arms, the sobs of the night's events shower done on her.

He had never expected it to come to this; that it would be Stiles who would be the one thing that would finally tip her on the edge. Not when her parents, or Maria died, not with any of the horrific things he read done to her in the reports, not any of it. It was his son had been beaten up by some thugs because she can't stand seeing anything harmful happening to him.

Stiles heard the voices but didn't want to go downstairs. He had showered and changed and wanted to be left until Violeta had come. So when he heard her voice, he to the top of the staircase. And stopped when he saw her hugging his father.

He heard her admit to him, tell him it was all real. He saw her show his father his birth name on her right arm. He heard her try to explain Gerard. Then he felt her break down when she admitted to his father that she doesn't know how she could live without him.

"It's okay... he's not going anywhere. We won't let him." Noah said, stroking her hair. "Nothing will get to him. We love him too much for that. Remember, we're Batman and Gordon."

Violeta pulled back, a sad smile on her face. "Turns out your son's actually Batman." Then her smile dropped when she saw the bruised and battered boy standing at the top of the staircase, watching her hug his father. "Stiles? Oh my God, Stiles." She ran to the staircase. Stiles ran forward and they met in the middle, arms going tight against each other. He gripped at her clothes. His head buried into the crook of her neck, wanting to just have closer, closer still. He felt her ran her fingers over his head, rub comforting circles on his back. She shhhed him an soothing voice, making him realise he was crying into her.

"You're okay my love, mi alma, you're okay. I'm here and nothing will keep you from me."

-

"They say he's in some kind of transparent casing made from the venom coming out of his claws."

"That sounds sufficiently terrifying." Peter said, scrolling through the laptop Derek had thought was a book and Tomei had to leave the room from laughing so hard. Upon returning, the alpha was on the phone to Scott and Peter was scrolling through all the Hale files he'd uploaded onto a Mac.

"They also say he's starting to move." Derek said, his eyes glancing to Tomei as she came to stand close to him, leaning over to read what Peter had displayed on the screen.

"Okay I think I've found something." Peter said. "Looks like Miss Tomei was right and what we've seen is the just kanima's beta shape."

"Meaning what? It can turn into something bigger?"

"Like a Pokemon?" Tomei added. Both Hale men turned and stared at her. She gulped. "What? It's a fair comparison."

"Bigger and better." Peter said, when he turned and scrolled down to see the picture displayed on the screen.

"He's turning into that?" Derek asked. "That has wings."

"Went from lizard-man to flying lizard-man." Tomei added. Derek immediately called Scott back and asked him to bring Jackson to him. She slapped him on the shoulder.

"What was that for?" The werewolf snapped, clearly very irritated by being hit. And probably her general persona in general.

"How is a sixteen year old boy going to sneak a dead body out of a hospital?" She asked. "Use your damn brain." She huffed and moved back to where Peter was still scrolling.

"Oh look! Someone made an animation." Peter said.

"Why would anyone waste time making an animation?" She mused.

"Maybe it won't be so scary as an animation."

"I sincerely doubt that." She said as Peter moved the mouse to click play.

The screech itself made them all step back. Tomei flinched, feeling like it was one of those jump-scare videos where it's all peaceful until a demon pops out and scares you. Peter promptly closed the laptop and looked at Tomei and Derek. "Nope, not at all. You should probably meet them halfway."

"Scott get him out of there now. Now." Derek said, moving to leave. Tomei and Peter followed suit. Derek rambled off directions to a corner alleyway to meet and they walked to the cars.

"I'll meet you guys there." Tomei said. "I need to pick up some stuff."

"What stuff?" Derek asked.

"Well, as previously stated, I feel like shit's about to hit the fan and I want to prepared when it does." She climbed into her car and sped off. 

Derek stared off after and Peter laughed, watching the alpha. "You're seriously not crushing on her again, are you?"

Derek snapped his gaze onto his amused uncle who was staring at him with knowing eyes. Derek glared at him and opened the door the the driver's seat. "Just get in."

-

"I appreciate the t-shirt."

Stiles half-smiled, seeing her at the archway of his bathroom, drying her hair with an old cotton t-shirt of his. Having practically lived with her after the death of Maria, he had learnt so much about hair care and that curly hair was supposed to be dried with a cotton t-shirt because towels were bad and made your hair frizzy. Just like it was good to sleep on a satin pillow case and do oil treatments every so often.

"By the way, the, uh, pants didn't fit." He had given her another, oversized t-shirt to wear and a pair of track pants. However, she was only wearing the t-shirt. His eyes attached themselves to her legs, the toned, olive skin of her legs. She glanced away from the mirror which she was using to dry her hair when she felt his eyes on her. He blinked and gulped, feeling caught out for practically checking her out. He blushed, wondering if he was allowed to do such a thing now or—

"Stiles, I literally have your name tattooed on my arm. You can look." She put down the t-shirt and walked back into the room. Hesitating for a moment, she took a breath and  crawled onto the bed with him, "Hell, you can touch."

"You mean..." He said, his eyes lighting up.

Violeta let out a small nervous cough but they were already here, weren't they? This was her soulmate. More importantly, this was Stiles. "I don't think you understand that as your soulmate I'm... well, I'm yours Stiles. Your bestfriend, your--"

"-- girlfriend?" He asked from his place on the bed. 

Violet blinked at the interruption for a short moment before continuing on, a growing on her lips, "-- girlfriend, your partner, your, well, your everything. And vice-versa."

"So I'm your boyfriend?" Stiles asked, the sentence hesitating between being a question and a statement. 

"So you're my boyfriend." Violeta confirmed with a nod, purely for his sake. His teenage, human boy sake. If he needed the verbal confirmation of that label, he could get it. 

"Violeta Rodriguez is my girlfriend." Stiles said. Then he abruptly laid back down and stared up at the ceiling. "Holy shit. Violeta Rodriguez is my girlfriend."

"Are you okay?" She said, coming up closer to him, looking down at him as he continued to stare at his ceiling with faraway eyes. 

"Yeah. Fine. Amazing. Just thinking back to Stiles a few months ago. If only he knew..." Stiles exhaled and finally met her eyes. "I can't believe this is real."

"Me neither." She said, unable to wipe the smile off her face. "You broke a vending machine."

"I broke a vending machine." He repeated. "We also went to a gay club together."

"We did go to a gay club together." She found her hands reaching to grab his hand. She placed a small kiss on his hand. Her fingers then danced between his, interlacing and unlocking. She looked at his hand between hers. And he looked at her. 

"You looked really hot that night."

"Thank you."

"You also looked really hot at Lydia's party."

"Thank you." 

"And you look cute in those big hoodies. Really cuddly." She was surprised at this since those big hoodies made her look like an intimidating boy. Stiles must have noted her surprise because he continued on. "I know you have that tomboy look and even though you looked ridiculously good looking at the club - like, phenomenally good looking, like how are you even real holy shit good looking um, I- you, what was I saying?" 

As he'd been speaking, Violeta had come to lean down on her elbows, her face drawing nearer to Stiles. She watched his eyes dip down to her lips. Her smile grew. 

"You were talking about hoodies." 

"Yes, you. In a hoodie. You look good in them. Like a teddy bear. A cuddly one."

"That's not usually the impression I've been told that I give." Violeta said. 

"Oh. Well. Maybe I'm biased." Stiles said. "I am your soulmate."

"That you are."

Stiles' eyes were now spending more time looking at her lips than anywhere else. Violeta took a small breath and said, "Stiles, um, look. I know we're both a little awkward and inexperienced in this," at the serious tone, his eyes shifted to look at her but she couldn't face him, staring at their hands, "but you are my soulmate. And in the traditional sense of our dynamic, you lead the relationship. I might have all the supernatural power, but you have all the power otherwise."

"What does that even mean?"

"There are stories of soulmates who don't... you, know... marry." Violeta fumbled. She risked a glance upwards and saw him still confused. "Um. How do I put this? There's a reason why I have your name on my skin. I'm always going to..." she took a breath, knowing exactly what she had to say, "I'm always going to want you but it's up to you to decide and lead just what that capacity is."

"Vio," Stiles began, coming to sit up, "I thought we just established, you know, boyfriend girlfriend like three seconds ago."

"No, I know. And that's good, that's what you need to do." Violeta said. "I guess, um -- fucking hell." She swore, struggling to put it into words. Violeta took another deep breath and looked him in the eye. "Stiles, you need to set the pace. Some soul bonds don't have the pair being... lovers," there, she forced the word out, "because her counterpart never wanted it that way. And she will always want whatever her counterpart wants. I'm not saying our bond fucking forfeits consent or whatever... but I'm always going to be there with whatever you want. So whenever you're ready-- if, you, um, ever are. For anything. Yeah. Just know that I'll be right there. With you."

Stiles stared at the girl in front of him, starting to understand what she was saying. 

So he pulled her to him and smashed his lips against hers. 

He could feel her lips move against his but they were still hesitant. Going off what she had just told him, he took the initiative and slipped his tongue.

One hand remained on her face while the other moved down her lower back, holding her tight. Feeling this, Violeta moved her entire body and rolled on top of him. Stiles sat up, continuing the kiss, moving his hands now down to her hips while Violeta felt herself gasp for air. He continued to roam his hands around, one going to her hair and moving it aside to expose her neck. He groaned, thinking he was now finally able to kiss the shoulders he he had imagined kissing like this when he saw her at the club and at Lydia's party.

Thinking of Lydia's party made the hand on her waist squeeze her tight as she thought about the other guy that her held her like this. Faintly, the back of his mind, he recalled the possessive soulmate trait she had said as a joke and realised just how real it was becoming for him.

"Stiles." She said, voice full of breath. She let out another sound and he took pleasure knowing that he, Stiles Stilinski, had made Violeta moan.

She moved his face back to hers and kissed him. He could tell she was a lot more comfortable now, running her hands up and down his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck, running her fingers over his hair. Stiles imagined what it would be for her to run her fingers through his hair. Would is make give him the same pleasurable reaction it gave her when he did it to her?

He would have to grow it and find out.

She pushed down and Stiles understood she wanted him to lean down. However, as he did so, he wanted to finally see what it felt like in reality to be on top of her and tried to roll them over. Both of them too caught up in each other, none realised that they had come to very edge of his bed and thus they both ended up in a heap on the floor.

"Ow." Stiles groaned, this time in pain. Violeta laughed, smiling up at the boy who had landed on her. Stiles looked down at her and laughed. He brought his arms up so he wasn't crushing her and leaned down to kiss her. She giggled and tried to sit up. Stiles moved off her and Violeta stood up and walked over to his desk. Stiles groaned once more in annoyance that that make-out session, his first one ever, was apparently over.

His phone beeped and he didn't make any move to answer it. The only two people he wanted to talk to were in this house, one in his room. A room Violeta immediately moved around inspecting.

"You know, I've never been in your room." She said, moving past his desk. She picked up a paper and reading it, laughed. "I see you've been doing your research on vampires." She dropped the papers detailing the history of the Original family. She moved past and inspected his book shelf. She ran over the titles, seeing the magnitude of novels, comics, DVDs and CDs that were messily organised.

She danced her fingers over a few titles, smiling when she saw every Arctic Monkeys album and all the Batman comics. She raised an eyebrow and pulled a black book out to hold it out to Stiles. The boy was laying on his stomach, watching her. His face became red when he realised what she'd pulled out.

"I, uh, I thought it might be useful research."

"Twilight? Stiles, really?" She put the book back and shook her head. "No, everything in that is false."

"But vampires can compel?"

"Yep." She said. She turned around and gave him a soft look. "I don't know if you heard but I told your dad."

"I did." He said, moving to sit up. Violeta finally moved back to him on the bed. She sat in front of him and brought one of his hands into hers. She pressed a kiss onto it and held it firmly in hers.

"Are you mad?"

"I don't think I could ever be mad at you." Stiles said. "Except about Star Wars. Like you're wrong about that and I can't believe you can't see how amazing it is and why are you staring at me like this?"

"I'm... remembering this." She said. "You, me, finally together. I didn't think you could want it."

"You must've hit your head hard." Stiles said, knocking her forehead, "I don't think you know how much I wanted you."

"Well... twice in a day." She said, raising an eyebrow at him.

His smile slowly fell as the dread set in. "You... heard... that?"

"Yeah, you guys weren't exactly being quiet." Violeta gave him a look.

"Oh my God..." Stiles said, unable to move. He could not believe this was happening. Seriously? Right now? This? He heard laughter and Violeta shook her head at him. She pulled him forward and pressed a kiss to him. "Don't be embarrassed. You should hear what D-Bo says about me and you."

"What does he say?"

"Oh, you know, stuff along the lines of what you said in the locker room that one time."

"You heard that too!?"

She cut him off with a kiss again. He relaxed underneath her, melting into the kiss once more. She pulled back, kissing him once more. A peck. He smiled, leaning his forehead against hers. "I think you keep forgetting that I'm in it just as much as you. Only, uh..."

"Only what?"

"Do you," Violeta began then wished she hadn't. Stiles became fully focused on her, waiting to see what her question would be. Violeta kept opening her mouth and closing it. It didn't matter. It shouldn't. It was none of her business and there as no reason as to why...

"Do I what?"

"Do you, um," she blew a out a breath, "I mean I just assumed but is it... me... that... you..."

He snorted, "Yeah, since the gay club I can only think of you." Stiles said as if that were obvious. Then his eyes grew when he realised he'd actually said that. He began blubbering out an apology when he saw the smile on her face. "Wait? You're not mad?"

"To be honest I would've felt worse if you didn't." She said. "Possessive soulmate trait, remember?"

Stiles let out a deep breath and sat on the edge of his bed. "I cannot believe we're having this conversation."

"Well, we are bound to have these sort of conversations." She said, coming to sit next to him. "We haven't officially gone on a proper date." 

"Haven't even admitted that I like you." Stiles paused and thought about it. "A lot. Like a whole lot." She gave a sideways glance to the boy sat beside her and saw the cheeky smile on his face when she said that.

"I, uh, like you a lot too." Violeta said. "Like a whole lot." 

Stiles lifted his hand and brought one of hers in both of his. "I really would like to take you out on a date."

"Name a time and place and I'll be there." She said. With her free hand, she lifted it up to Stiles' face brought him to her for a chaste kiss. It was of that short and sweet kind and she pulled back to him pulled her to his side and hugged her tight.