Title: Red Sisterhood

Author: Sibyl Moon

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Genre: Folk Tale Red Riding Hood & Teen Wolf

Relationship: Stiles/Derek

Warnings/Rating: Canon-Typical-Violence

Word Count: 4929

Summary: The Sisters of the Red Hood have been a part of the supernatural world since the first of them drifted off the path that humanity walked, and none of them have regretted it. Claudia Stilinski was a sister; she passed her legacy on to her son when she died. This is his story because Mieczysław Stilinski would never walk the same path everyone else did.

Author Note: Originally meant for Big Moxie Q2 Fusion 

 

Chapter One

Stiles sighed, glancing out the window briefly before turning back to the grimoire laid out on the table. It had only been a couple of weeks since he’d settled into the cabin in the preserve outside Beacon Hills. Finally, after all these years of waiting – of training – he had a place to call his own, a place that could become his home if he let it.

His cell phone rang, startling in the quiet of the cabin. Stiles scooped up the phone as he stood, the need to move pushing him away from the table even as he lifted the phone to his ear.

“Hello,” He bit out as he paced away from the table, his gaze sweeping the file boxes still waiting next to the front door. They’d just been delivered that afternoon, and he was not looking forward to organizing the mess.

“Still no manners, Young Stilinski.”

“I could say that I’m a product of my education,” He replied as a smile curved his mouth, and the tension that had been building in his chest lessened immediately. Stiles stopped in front of the large window that looked out over the front of the cabin. Lifting his arm, he leaned against the window frame as he watched nightfall outside the cabin, his reflection in the window becoming more visible the longer he stood there. “My teacher is worse than I am.”

“Mentor, you little brat,” Peony Wellington snapped before sucking in a whistling breath through her teeth. “I didn’t teach you a goddamned thing. Getting you to listen and apply any of those so-called lessons was torture—for me. I’m almost sure I’m being punished for something; I just haven’t figured out which one of those jackasses set me up yet. When I do—”

“I always feel warm and fuzzy all over when I think of our unbreakable bond. Like family—” Stiles said, the grin on his face stretching wide. 

“More like asylum cellmates or those old television shows you used to watch. There can be only one, right? When are you coming for my head, kid, I want to know when to move into the graveyard.” She said dryly, bringing up the time he’d been sure that the Red Sisterhood was just a front for some Highlander-esque group or a setup for some Mortal Combat event that he was never going to be ready for.

“Are you sure they were punishing you or did they expect you to just bury me in the backyard somewhere? I wasn’t exactly an expected Society inductee if you remember. All of my concerns were completely legitimate,” Stiles argued, even as he felt his face grow hot. “Even if my imagination was too commercial.”

“You were a Legacy student and you had the magic,” Peony said dismissively, as she always did when the subject came up. “Doesn’t matter if that all came attached to a body with a dick. Plus, you had the chops, kid and you stuck it out through every second of your training.” She huffed over the phone. “That’s more than I can say for some of those other prize pupils. As for you imagination, at least you had one—although it would have been better if you hadn’t attacked the Dean of the Summerland Sanctuary while shouting that she wasn’t on holy ground. Not that I blame you for attacking her, but subtlety would have been a better strategy.”

“Wow, teach,” Stiles said, fluttering his eyelashes at his reflection. “I’m touched. That was definitely a compliment.” He didn’t mention that the reason he’d attacked the Dean was that she’d said that Peony was a second-class Sister and who else would take on a student like Stiles. The Dean then said both of them would fail out of the program eventually, so they should be censured, condemned, and excommunicated from the Red Sisterhood before they destroyed it.

“Fuck you, kid,” Peony replied without heat. “I’m calling to check in on you. Two weeks in your new place, any news to report?”

“Not really. The file boxes arrived this afternoon—finally. They’re a mess, but I’m making progress with what was already here and I’ve started going through a couple of them,” Stiles said, his smile sliding off his face. “Mostly, I’ve just been settling in, there isn’t much going on around here. The local pack seems to have everything under control.”

“Yes, the Hales.” She sniffed in disdain.

“Oh please tell me how you feel about them again.” Stiles smirked at his reflection before leaning his head against his arm. He ignored the huff of annoyance from his teacher. “What I remember about them from before the Sisters isn’t much and I’ve barely seen them around town since I’ve arrived, but they don’t seem that terrible to me. Do you have some information that you’re holding back?”

“No, but I disliked and disagreed with Talia Hale’s decisions multiple times over the years. She was a disaster.” Peony sighed. “She barely managed to keep the hunters from wiping out packs visiting in her territory on a number of occasions; one of those almost ended in her own death. She refused to work with the Sisters multiple times. Not just refused to call for our help—which is anyone’s prerogative—idiotic though it might be, but she would actively refuse to help investigations that ended up leading through her territory. She didn’t quite obstruct us, but she did everything right up to the line.”

“She’s not the alpha here anymore though, right?” Stiles frowned; he was positive that his files on the Hale pack indicated that Peter Hale had been raised to alpha eight years ago due to some internal pack politics. He didn’t know the details; the Sisters didn’t get involved unless those politics bled over onto the rest of the world or they were asked to investigate the events. 

“No, but the Hales have been nothing but a headache since I first heard of them,” She said; she blew out a breath. “But that’s neither here nor there so long as they don’t give you any trouble.”

“They haven’t,” Stiles said, rolling his shoulders in an unseen shrug. “I’m not even sure that they’re aware of my presence here. You know as well as I do that even though I live here, it doesn’t mean that most of my work will be here. I’ll go where the Council sends me. I do need to introduce myself to Alpha Hale now that I’m relatively settled in here though. There is protocol for that. I’m surprised no one has shown up at my door yet. It’s part of the reason I’ve been thinking they don’t know about me yet.”

“If Peter Hale is half the wolf I’ve heard he is, then I’m sure he knows that you’re in the area. Whether he knows you’re a member of The Sisters or not is something that is yet to be determined.”

“You think he’s one of those that thinks we’re all women?”

“Male or female, we’re all sisters,” Peony replied. “You haven’t forgotten that Sister Stiles, have you? I thought I managed to thump that much into to you.”

“If anyone could,” Stiles agreed, feeling the faint smile curve the corner of his mouth. 

There had been a brief moment when he’d been younger where he’d argued against being a Sister until Peony had knocked it into his head that being a sister was a title for the Red Hoods in the same class as Mage or Druid was for others in their world. He still wasn’t sure how much he really believed that when the overwhelming number of Red Hoods were women in one way or another. Stiles had decided to embrace the title over time, though. He’d refused to treat it with anything less than respect because it honored the Sisters—including his mother—who had walked the paths before him.

“You’re a good lad,” Peony said, blowing out a long breath again. “Some of the time.”

“Are you smoking again?” Stiles listened carefully and heard the telltale sounds of Peony standing out on her balcony and, sure enough, drawing from a cigarette.

“They’re these herbal things from the quartermaster,” Peony replied grumpily. “I’m not going down to the corner grocer or anything.”

“You know that doesn’t make me feel any better. I thought you stopped for good, what happened?”

“Fucking Florence and her vamps are making this investigation difficult is what is happening,” Peony said. “Fucking vampires. They’re almost as bad as witches sometimes.”

“She’s not directly involved though?” Stiles frowned as he tried to remember the case details. “This is the vandalism-robbery case with that group of lost boys and the kiss, right? 

“Yes, but Old Flo has to poke her nose into everything in her city just to make my life difficult,” Peony sighed and took another drag of her cigarette. “It’ll be fine and I’ll manage to get around her. It’s why the Sisters always send me to deal with investigations in this area more than anyone else. I just hate dealing with her. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that this will be taken care of if I can just find out who is leading this troupe of boys.”

“You hate dealing with most people,” Stiles replied with a chuckle. “Let me know if you need a hand though. I haven’t been assigned anything yet and I’m going a little stir crazy here.”

“What, you think I can’t handle Flo and her nosy mates on my own?”

“Oh, I have no doubt that you can,” Stiles said, finally moving away from the window. “But no reason why you should if you don’t have to.”

“Well, there is that,” She agreed. “Fine, if things go on much longer I might give you a ring. Hopefully I’ll have some answers in the next day or so though.”

“I’ll keep my phone on me,” Stiles promised. “And not just because I’m hoping for a break in the monotony here.”

“They’ll assign you a case soon enough,” Peony said. “If not, I’m sure they gave you enough unsolved cases to trawl through. It’s what they do with every new Sister they send out.”

“I’ve got a couple of files,” Stiles said with a sigh, glancing at the box on his kitchen table and then back at the dozen or so still by the door. “I’m pretty sure one of them is from the 1800s though.”

“You’ve done well with the unsolved in the past, even the older cases. I wouldn’t be surprised if they started to send their hopeless ones your way.”

“It helps that, unlike mundane cases, even our oldest cases tend to have living witnesses and perps,” Stiles said, picking up his coffee from where he’d left it on the table. He made a face when he realized it had gone cold but drank it anyway. “Depending on the case, there can even be living victims to interview again.”

“Perps? I swear you picked up more cop talk from your dad than the Sisters ever knew what to do with.” Peony laughed.

“He was a cop when he died. It was after that when I ended up completely in the Society’s care.” Stiles shrugged even though there was no one to see. “You know that, as soon as he couldn’t demand visitation with me was when I was finally assigned a teacher.”

“And you know why,” Peony rebuked softly. “It was nothing against you or your dad. For all that you wanted and needed to be trained. Your father didn’t want you to become a full Sister. We honored his wishes by teaching you the basics to keep your spark under control and giving you what amounted to basic magical emissary training. When he died, leaving you without a guardian we took custody of you and honored the legacy of your mother and your desire to become one of us. Don’t denigrate your father’s wish for your safety and protection just because it wasn’t what you wanted. You don’t know how life might have changed had he lived—he very well could have changed his mind about your training as you got older.”

“I know,” Stiles said, and he did. It was still a point of contention inside of him. The desire to please his dead father fighting his need to follow his mother into the Sisters. “I’ve mostly dealt with it, but it still comes up now and then.”

“You’d have been given the choice to join us when you hit your majority like any other Legacy,” Peony reminded him. “You know I don’t think your father was being malicious about it. He was just trying to protect you in the only way that he knew. He didn’t want to lose you.”

“I know. It doesn’t help that the supernatural world was still so foreign to him,” Stiles said; he flipped open the box’s lid on the table and pulled out the first file. “He’d only learned of it a couple of months before Mom’s death and then that clusterfuck.”

“Exactly.” 

“I’m going to let you go before we delve into my entire childhood and this turns into a therapy session.” Stiles flipped through the first few pages of the file.

“I don’t do therapy. That’s what Arthur is for,” Peony huffed. “You keep up with him and that is an order. I still outrank you, even if you aren’t under my direct guardianship any more.”

“I know,” Stiles replied, huffing back at her. “I make all my mandatory checks, plus I don’t have a problem checking in with Arthur, unlike some people.”

“If I wanted to sit in a room and discuss my failings, I would spend more time at headquarters.”

“It’s feelings, not failings.” Stiles heaved a sigh that echoed over the phone line. “Peony—”

“I’m alright padawan. I make my checks as well, it would be a poor mentor that failed to follow what they taught.”

“Exactly.”

“I’ll call again in a couple days,” She said, laughter in her voice. “If I wrap this up and nothing urgent gets dropped on my plate, I’ll get over to see you in the next month or so. I haven’t been to Beacon Hills since we finalized your mentorship. I’m interested to see how it’s changed.”

“I’d be glad to host you, be welcome on my land and in my home,” Stiles said, quick to say the ritual words inviting her into what amounted to his territory when she wasn’t chasing a case. “You can see my cabin, it’s great.”

“I’ll get a hotel, you know I’m not one for the woods if I can help it.”

“You can be such a city dweller,” Stiles laughed. “You seem to forget what I’ve seen you slog through—what you’ve made me slog through with you.”

“Well, needs must at times,” Peony replied, laughing. “Doesn’t mean I choose to spend time with the trees and dirt when I have other options.”

“You’re missing out, it’s gorgeous out here,” Stiles said, shaking his head. “I’ll talk to you later and we can make plans if things pan out for you.”

“Talk to you soon. Keep an eye out for woodcutters and hunters, huh?”

“Always watch out for the ax,” Stiles responded, automatically pressing a closed fist to his mouth, heart, and stomach. He hung up the phone and set it on the table with a sigh.

 

Chapter Two

“Derek, I need you to take some things to Aunt Maddy, she says she’s not feeling well.” Peter sighed heavily. “I’m certain she’s fine, and is just too involved with something to leave her cabin right now, but you know how she gets.”

“Uh, sure,” Derek said, looking up from his book and blinking blearily at his uncle. “I could use a break from this anyway. Where’s Cora? Usually, she’s the first to volunteer for errands to Aunt Maddy’s.”

“She’s interviewing over in Sweet Home,” Peter said, leaning against the door frame and crossing his arms. “The forensic department there is small, but there is an opening for someone with her experience.”

“She’s trying again then?” Derek pushed back from his desk. He stretched his arms over his head as he stood. He’d been sitting with his research materials for too long today. “I thought she was giving up on practicals and going to be a hermit in the woods, living off of published works.”

“Really, Cora as the hermit in our pack?” Peter raised a brow at Derek. “She’s not the one who barely goes into town. Does anyone in town even remember what you look like?”

“Me? As if I’m the one they worry about,” He said, laughing. “Like the town doesn’t think we’re some weird cult out here?” Derek quirked his brow at Peter in what he knew to be an exact replica of the look he was getting. “They know who we are, but none really want to know us, not since the fire and the fallout of mom’s devolution.”

“Not that any of them understood exactly what happened,” Peter said, his mouth curved down.

“She was hauled halfway across the country and placed into an asylum,” Derek said with a sigh. Ten years later, the events still cut at him, even if the pain of it had dulled with time. “They know enough to give us a wide berth and whisper about us when they think we can’t hear them. I’m just glad we don’t have any kids in town anymore.”

“Talia when to a psychiatric ward, and she’s getting the help she needs after that fuckwit screwed with her head,” Peter said, backing out of the doorway. “That’s beside the point. The point is that I replaced my sister as alpha to raise the pack back up to where we should be in both the supernatural and mundane world. I’ve done well in the supernatural circles. We’re respected and well thought of again—it’s only taken me a decade.” Peter rolled his eyes.

“Only,” Derek said, bumping his shoulder against Peter’s. “You’ve done a great job, Peter. You know it and so does the rest of the pack.”

“Apparently I’ve neglected our standing in our hometown in my plans,” Peter said, rubbing a hand over his mouth. “I’ve been so busy concentrating on the supernatural world and the larger mundane sphere that I haven’t been paying attention to our immediate territory and that’s not just poor planning—it’s dangerous.”

“It’s why Cora is looking for work outside Beacon Hills, isn’t it?” Derek followed Peter into the kitchen and leaned against the counter as he watched the other man put the last few items into the basket going out to his Aunt’s cabin.

“And more than likely why Madelyn never comes to town anymore.” Peter nodded. “I’m surprised she never said anything to me, she hasn’t held her opinion back about anything else. She told me my muffins were dry last week.”

“They were,” Derek said. He grinned at the glare Peter shot him. “You were distracted by that phone call you refused to talk about and overbaked them. They weren’t inedible if I put enough butter and jam on them, but not your best effort.”

“Ah, yes,” Peter closed the basket’s lid with a snap and latched it. “That call.”

“The one that had you distracted and grumpy for the next week, yeah.” Derek tilted his head and watched Peter frown at the counter next to the basket and tap his fingers. “An ex-lover we should be worried about?”

“No, nothing like that.” Peter tapped his fingers on the counter several times before meeting Derek’s gaze. “I supposed I should tell you and the others about it. It’s not like I meant to keep it from the pack. I was just—” Peter grimaced and whirled his hand in the air.

“Annoyed?” Derek said as the tension that had been gathering in his shoulders began to loosen. 

“Something like that,” Peter agreed. “I’d planned to talk to everyone at the next meeting when I had a few more details. It’s nothing dangerous, just something unexpected.”

“And we all know how much you and the rest of the pack love surprises.”

“You say this like you’re any different nephew.”

“Oh, I firmly embrace my hatred of them. Are you going to keep dancing around the issue or are you going to tell me about it?”

“There’s a Sister taking up residence here,” Peter said with a sigh. “She moved into one of the cabins at the north end of the preserve.”

“A sister?” Derek searched his mind for the term. He had a feeling that Peter hadn’t just discovered a long-lost sibling. 

“One of the Red Sisterhood Society,” Peter replied. He rolled his eyes and sighed heavily when Derek just shook his head. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t know about them. Your mother managed to ostracize them fairly well in her years as an alpha and as much as I’ve mended fences I haven’t personally reached out to them yet.”

“It doesn’t seem like they need you to if they’re moving into Beacon Hills,” Derek said. “You said they aren’t dangerous to us, but you seem concerned.”

“The Sisters aren’t inherently bad,” Peter said, pressing his lips together as his gaze went to the large window behind Derek for a brief moment before he looked back at Derek. “The Reds, another of their many monikers, are the best at supernatural investigations—though they’ve been known to take on mundane cases for our kind before. They are known to be even handed and capable both in the solving of their investigations and the meting out of justice—when its called for. They work for whoever pays them, but they will find out the truth, even if it’s against their employer.”

“I’m not seeing the downside yet,” Derek said, but he was beginning to see why he hadn’t heard of them. His mom had kept him and his siblings sheltered to their detriment, especially about the supernatural world. Peter had done a lot to expand their horizons in the last few years, but all three of them were still learning just how little they knew of their world every day.

“There shouldn’t be,” Peter acknowledged. “But like I said, Talia burnt quite a few bridges and one of those was with the Sisters. The fact that one of them is willing to set up a base here is either a show of faith in me as a different alpha than she was and someone that they are willing to make overtures with or its to keep an eye on me because of a variety of other reasons.”

“Which do you think it is?”

“I think it’s probably half a dozen of one and six of another,” Peter said, shrugging. “They did call and let me know since it’s my territory they settled into. They didn’t have to do that, even if it’s standard protocol. The Sisters have some magical ability usually, but they aren’t held to the same rules as the supernatural hierarchy. Apparently, they mete out their own justice and punishment when one of their own falls off what they call the path.”

“The path?”

“The legend of Red Riding Hood came from somewhere,” Peter said with a smirk. “Apparently the Sisters are pretty adamant about staying on the path in their tenets. Leaving the trail has some pretty dangerous conotations for them. I’ve never had the ability to dig into what those are.”

“Aren’t the wolves evil in that story?”

“Not in the source material,” Peter said, then shrugged. “Few people outside the supernatural scholars read that or even know about it. The evil villain is the woodcutter slash hunter who shows up to rescue the girl and kill the wolf. The wolf who has been protecting the girl all through the forest from all sorts of traps set by the woodcutter, who it’s said was out to get the girl to begin with. The original story doesn’t have a happy ending, even though the girl escapes shortly after and becomes the first of the Sisters. The first of the Red Hoods.”

“I think I want to read that,” Derek said, his mind spinning. That could be the spin he was looking for in the next book in his series. “Do we have any books on it in the library, or do I need to start searching for them?”

“I have a few in my private collection,” Peter laughed. “Are you sure you want to take this out to Aunt Maddy? Your face is doing its writer thing again.”

“It’s fine, I need to get out and a walk through the preserve will definitely put me in the mood for it,” Derek said, even as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and jotted down a few notes. He looked back up at Peter when he finished, frowning. “You’re sure we don’t have anything to worry about with this Sister, she isn’t going to be a threat to us?”

“Even if there is a case that she is working on, she won’t move against us without some proof of our guilt and we haven’t done anything. The Sisters don’t tend to carry out the punishments most of the time anyway, they just turn the information and evidence over to our own councils or the appropriate authorities. Whether that’s the alpha, the high priestess, or the queen of a kiss.”

“So if they have just moved here to live, then we don’t have to worry about them any more than mundanes would have to worry about having a cop in the neighborhood?” Derek frowned harder, not sure if he liked the thought of that.

“I would compare the Sisters more to private investigators if you’re going to associate them with any form of the mundane world. But that’s probably pretty accurate, they aren’t on the clock so to speak unless they have an actual case though. At least that’s what I could get out of my contacts and those that have had Sisters in their territories regularly over the last few decades,” Peter said, reaching over the counter and squeezing Derek’s shoulder. “As concerned as I might feel, there really isn’t any danger here. I just didn’t expect to have a Sister want to settle in my territory or to choose to settle here in Beacon Hills. There hasn’t been one here in a very long time, I suppose I just feel…”

“Concerned?” Derek laughed at the look Peter shot his way. “You should meet with her and welcome them to the area then. It might settle you. You know your wolf better than I do, but this could be an alpha thing more than anything else couldn’t it?”

“Fuck,” Peter breathed and ran a hand over his face. He huffed out a laugh and looked at Derek, shaking his head. “How did you come up with that?”

“I have a very smart alpha who has been really big on my education over the last decade,” Derek said, laughing; he sensed that he’d brought up something that his uncle hadn’t even considered. “And just because this Sister isn’t a shifter or part of the hierarchy in the normal sense doesn’t mean that having them in your territory isn’t going to affect you. It’s probably part of the reason behind their protocols when they settle down in an area already under the care of an alpha or other authority.”

“You could be correct.” Peter tilted his head, pursing his lips. “I’ll go introduce myself to them tomorrow and see if that helps. At the very least I’ll get a feel about what type of person our Sister is.”

“And I’ll take Aunt Maddy her basket before we end up with a phone call from her,” Derek said, lifting the basket from the counter. “Should I mention this Red Hood to her?”

“Yes, go ahead,” Peter said after a moment. “Tell her to call me if she has any questions, but I imagine she knows more about them than I do. She was living here when the last one was in the area if I remember correctly. I might call her actually and see what she has to say about the situation.”

“You do that,” Derek said. “I’ll be back this evening.”

“Be safe,” Peter called after him. 

Derek nodded, already halfway out the door; he waved a quick goodbye to Peter before shutting the door behind him with a definitive click. 

He wasn’t interested in getting caught up in Peter’s conversation with Aunt Maddy on this end. Derek was sure he’d hear enough about it if Peter called before Derek dropped off the basket. 

Derek began to walk to his car, grumbling to himself. He knew he would hear about it when he told his aunt what he knew, but he’d only brought it on himself by volunteering. He didn’t regret it, though. Peter might be the alpha, but the man needed to learn to delegate some now that the rest of them were adults and ready to shoulder some of the burdens with him.

Derek lifted the basket onto the hood of his car so he could open the door and grab his jack out of the passenger seat. He slid it on, shutting the door, and grabbing the basket again before heading into the preserve. He wondered if Aunt Maddy would know more about the original story behind the Red Sisterhood. He’d have plenty of time to decide how to tell her about this modern-day red riding hood.