Chapter Text
Stiles wakes up the next morning ready to make pancakes, and it’s really early and not a lot of people are awake, so he starts wandering around the kitchen trying to find all the things he needs to make pancakes, like flour and sugar and eggs. He thinks that the recipe he knows is for four people, and there are more than four people who live there, so he thinks he’ll have to make more than one recipe.
He knows his mom would do all the math and double all the ingredients, but some of the ingredients have fractions, and he’s not sure how to do multiplying fractions, so he thinks he can just make one recipe and then make another recipe and then it’s the same as doubling the recipe because he’ll have two recipes.
When he turns around from trying to find big bowls, Mrs. Hale is standing in the doorway to the kitchen, and Stiles jumps and almost drops the cup measure he’s holding.
She smiles at him. “What are you doing, Stiles?”
“I’m making pancakes.” He looks at the counter, where he has most of the ingredients and things he needs. “I’m going to make pancakes. I don’t have all the things I need to make pancakes, but once I find them I’m going to make pancakes.”
“By yourself?”
Stiles nods. “I know how to make pancakes by myself. I’ll make the pancakes and then you can eat pancakes.”
Mrs. Hale looks like she wants to say something, but then some of the kids show up, Mia and Cora, and then Alain shows up, and Derek, and Derek asks, “Why didn’t I hear you wake up?”
Stiles shrugs, because he doesn’t want to talk about the thinking really hard thing, and then he finds the mixing bowls and pulls them out and puts them on the counter.
“Ooh,” Cora says, “what are we making?”
“I’m making pancakes.”
“Why don’t I help you with that,” Mrs. Hale says, and starts moving towards one of the cupboards, and no.
Stiles realizes he screamed that when everyone stops and stares at him, but she can’t, she can’t, and he says, “I’m making pancakes, I’m making pancakes by myself.”
“You’re a bit young to try to do all that by myself,” Mrs. Hale says. “Why won’t you let me help you?”
“Because it’s my mom’s pancake recipe,” he yells, “and you’re not my mom.” She keeps staring at him, everyone does, and he doesn’t know why that’s making him even more mad but it is, and he shouts, “This recipe is my mom’s and I learned it for my mom and I’m going to make it and if you make it then it won’t be my mom’s recipe so I’m going to make it myself and then you can eat it but I’m going to be the one to make it because you’re not my mom.”
“Okay,” Mrs. Hale says, and her voice is low and calm and Stiles thinks he should feel bad about yelling at her but he’s just so angry, because his mom is gone and nobody is allowed to take this away from him because people already took her away from him. “Okay,” she says again. “Would it count as helping if I show you where things are? You’ve found most of it, but it might make it a little faster if you have someone showing you where things are.”
Stiles thinks about it, then nods. That’s not part of the recipe, and he doesn’t know where things are, and he thinks that’s okay.
“I’m also going to have Derek start making some sausage and eggs,” Mrs. Hale tells him, “because werewolves need to eat a lot of food, and we need to eat meat, and that doesn’t mean we don’t want to eat your pancakes, but we’re going to need other food too.”
Stiles shrugs. He doesn’t care what other food they need to make, or that they’re going to be making it while he’s making pancakes, because his dad would make coffee while he and his mom would make pancakes, and if they need meat then they should eat meat.
It takes him a while to make pancakes, and they’re not all the same size, but Laura compliments him on them and so does Mrs. Hale and Derek and Ry, and he thinks his mom would be happy that he made the pancakes right, and he just wishes she were here because he thinks she would like them too.
Mrs. Hale eventually makes him sit down and eat too, and he eats two pancakes and a thing of sausage, and he kind of wants to throw up, but Derek sits next to him and makes him eat and asks him how the sausages are.
Stiles doesn’t want to lie to him, but Derek looks sad and anxious and kind of like he wants to throw up too, so Stiles says that they’re good.
Derek looks a little less anxious, and then he stands up and starts washing dishes, and nobody else is around but Derek and Stiles wonders if Mrs. Hale told him to watch Stiles.
Laura comes back again at some point, though, and she walks up and wraps her arms around Derek from behind, and Derek drops a plate in the sink but then relaxes all at once like someone pulled all the anxiousness out of him, and Stiles thinks that maybe he’s here to keep an eye on Derek instead of the other way around.
“Mom didn’t tell me,” he hears Laura say, “and I’m not going to ask, but I know something is up, and you can tell me if you want.”
“Someone tried to burn our house down,” Derek says. “Isn’t that enough of a reason for me to be upset?”
“It is, but I know that’s not all of it. Is it because we weren’t inside? That’s not your fault. We couldn’t have known.”
“I should have, though. I should have known.” It looks like Derek tries to pull away from Laura, but she doesn’t let him. Stiles thinks he should leave, but maybe he’s not supposed to, and he doesn’t know where he would go.
“Oh, Derek.” Laura sighs. “We’re not magic; we can’t see the future. It’s not your fault for not seeing this coming. None of us could have.”
Derek jerks away from Laura, backing away from her. His eyes are glowing yellow, and it looks like he has fangs. “It’s my fucking fault, Laura, so I should have fucking seen it coming. She got in because I let her in, and I should have known better, but so many people are hurt and Uncle Peter is burned, and the kid’s an orphan now, and it’s all because of me.”
Stiles flinches, but nobody is paying any attention to him.
“Who?” Laura asks. “Who did you let in?” Derek turns his face away, but then Laura’s eyes glow yellow too, and she demands, “Who did you let in, Derek?”
“Kate Argent.”
Laura’s the one who flinches now, catching herself on the side of the sink. Derek looks like he wants to cry, and Stiles feels like he wants to cry, and everything hurts.
“Why?”
Derek makes a hurt noise, then turns and runs out of the room, and Laura looks like she’s going to go after him and maybe hurt him, because her eyes are yellow and she has fangs, and so Stiles stands up and goes in between them and says, “He said he felt bad, and he didn’t meant to do it, and he didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, and please don’t go and hurt him.”
Laura stares above him, past him, and then she tilts his head down towards him, but her eyes are still up. And then, finally, she looks down at him and says, “I’m not going to hurt Derek. I wouldn’t hurt him.” She frowns. “Do he tell you what happened?”
Stiles shakes his head. “He just said that he did something bad and that he didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” Stiles looks down at his hands, which have bandages on them still. “Is Kate Argent the person that I shot?”
Laura flinches, then says, “I think you should talk to mom about that” She drags her hand over her face, looking past Stiles again. He thinks she’s still mad at Derek. “Kate Argent. Fuck.”
--
It doesn’t rain the during Stiles’s parents’ funeral. He kind of thinks it should rain, like in movies, like the sky is crying and so that’s how you know it’s sad, but he doesn’t want to stand out in the rain. His parents are buried next to each other, or at least boxes that everyone says have his parents are buried next to each other, and people talk about how nice his parents were, and the police do something, and they talk, and someone sings, and Stiles doesn’t care.
He should, he should care, he should something, but his mom and dad are gone and none of any of this matters, because it’s not going to bring them back.
Scott sits on one side of him, and Mrs. Hale sits on the other side, and at some point they fold up a flag into a triangle like Stiles has seen in those movies about military people, and Officer Richards crouches down in front of Stiles and hands him the flag.
Stiles doesn’t know what to do with it, because it’s just a flag, so he just sticks it on his lap. Officer Richards touches his hair then stands and walks away.
When the funeral is over, people start talking to each other, and Mrs. Hale gets up, but Stiles doesn’t. His parents are buried here, now, and he thinks he doesn’t want to leave them alone. What if something happens to them?
Scott grabs his hand and says, “Even if you’re living with the Hales, you’re still my brother.”
Stiles looks down at the flag in his lap. There’s water on it, like it’s raining, but it’s not raining. “I think I killed someone.”
“Oh,” Scott says, then is quiet for a while. Stiles closes his eyes. He’s crying. He wants his mom and his dad, but they’re stuck in the ground, and dead, and all Stiles has is this stupid flag. “Why?” Scott asks finally.
Stiles shrugs. “The house was on fire, and they had a gun, and then I had the gun, and I think I killed them.”
“Oh,” Scott says again. He keeps holding Stiles’s hand. “You’re like your dad. You stopped a bad person.”
“What if they put me in jail?”
Scott thinks about that for a minute. “There are a lot of police here, right? If they were going to put you in jail, wouldn’t they have done it?”
That sounds like it could be right. Stiles opens his eyes. Mrs. Hale is talking to Scott’s mom. Stiles’s hands hurt. “How long do you think the Hales are going to keep me for?”
Scott shrugs. “I don’t know. But maybe after that you can live with me. I’ll ask my mom.” Stiles nods. He likes that. “When are you coming back to school?”
“I don’t know.” Mrs. Hale and Scott’s mom walk over to them, and Stiles asks, “Mrs. Hale, when am I going back to school?”
She looks surprised, then says, “We can figure that out. You don’t need to worry about that right now.”
“But if he doesn’t go back to school then I can’t see him,” Scott says, gripping Stiles’s hand tighter. It hurts a little, but that’s okay, because it hurt anyway, and Stiles likes holding Scott’s hand, even if Jackson says that makes them gay.
“Why don’t we give Stiles a little bit of time,” Scott’s mom says. “It’s really scary to lose both of your parents, and he might need some time before he’s ready to go back to school.”
“And you can come visit him,” Mrs. Hale adds. “Just call me, and we can figure it out.” She looks at Scott’s mom. “I don’t want to isolate him, particularly not now.” She looks at Stiles again. “Do you want to go?”
Before Stiles can say anything, he hears someone say, “I don’t see why he should be going with those animals. A lot of good families would take in the Sheriff’s kid.”
“Mikhail was saying,” another person says, “that he was the one who saved them when their house was on fire, and they want to keep him as some sort of insurance policy in case it happens again.”
Mrs. Hale starts to move, but then Scott’s mom walks over to the people and says, “You can believe whatever bigoted nonsense you want inside your own head, but don’t make Stiles listen to it.”
They all look over at Stiles and Scott and Mrs. Hale, and then the people walk away, and Scott’s mom walks back over to them. Mrs. Hale nods at her. “Your defense is unnecessary but appreciated.”
Scott’s mom looks at Stiles. “I would defend you, Talia, regardless, but this isn’t about you. I don’t want Stiles to think that you’re only taking him in to use him.” She crouches down in front of Stiles, putting one hand on his hand. Scott is staring at her with big eyes. “If you ever think that Mrs. Hale or any of the Hales are using you, or are mistreating you, or there’s anything wrong, you can tell me. I don’t care if you think it’s silly, or doesn’t mean anything. Especially if they start acting like Scott’s dad. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”
“But they’re werewolves,” Stiles says blankly. Werewolves aren’t like Scott’s dad. They’re werewolves.
“I don’t care if they’re the President of the United States,” Scott’s mom says, and looks back at Mrs. Hale.
Stiles isn’t sure what that means, and after a minute he says, “I don’t think any of the Hales are going to become President of the United States.”
Scott’s mom starts laughing, looking startled, then says, “Talia—Mrs. Hale might.”
Mrs. Hale shakes her head. “Never. I am never doing that.” She looks at Stiles, who’s clutching the triangle flag because he needs to hold on to something. “Are you ready to go, Stiles?”
Stiles looks at Scott, because he doesn’t want to leave him, because it’s been so long since he’s seen him, and seeing him makes everything feel better, and Scott throws his arms around Stiles and says into his ear, “You’re not bad, I promise.”
A noise comes from Stiles’s throat like when Derek told Laura about the thing that he did, and Stiles starts crying again, but if Scott says he’s not a bad person then he’s not a bad person because Scott is the most good person that Stiles knows, and he wouldn’t lie to Stiles, not about anything, and Stiles would ask his dad but his dad is gone, and everything hurts like he just slept on the floor curled up tight and stiff like he was scared, and he’s scared and angry and so so empty.
He wants his mom and dad back, and he knows they’re never coming back, and it hurts.
--
Mr. Hale is at the Hale house after the funeral, painting the outside of the house, but he stops when Mrs. Hale drives them up to the house. Mrs. Hale gets out of the car and walks over to him, and Stiles gets out too, holding the flag triangle to his chest. Mr. Hale gives Mrs. Hale a kiss then looks at Stiles. Stiles recognizes him from that one time that he met him when he was with his mom.
Mr. Hale walks over to him and says, “Hello, Stiles. My name is Roger Hale.”
Stiles nods. “Is Ry’s dad okay? They said you were with him in the hospital.”
Mr. Hale looks surprised, and then he says, “Peter was burned, but he’s getting better now. It just takes werewolves longer to heal from fire than from other things.”
“Did you leave him alone, if you’re here now?”
“Laura and Ry are with him now,” Mrs. Hale says. “We need to make sure there’s always at least one werewolf with him, in case something goes wrong.”
“But I wanted to meet you,” Mr. Hale says, “because I heard you’ll be staying with us.” He reaches out and touches Stiles’s hair, like the cop had. “How are you feeling?” Stiles shrugs. He’s not really sure how he’s feeling. “That’s okay. Sometimes when we get scared or confused, or a lot of things change at once, it’s hard to tell what we’re feeling. But you can tell us what you’re feeling, even if you don’t think we’re going to like it.”
Stiles thinks about it, then remembers what Scott’s mom had said and says, “I think Mrs. McCall thinks you’re going to become the president.”
Mr. Hale looks at Mrs. Hale, who sighs and smiles and says, “She was telling Stiles that, if he needed her to, she would defy us to help him, and that she didn’t care if we were werewolves, or even the President of the United States.”
“Ah.” Mr. Hale smiles and looks at Stiles again. “If anyone’s going to become president, it’ll be Talia. Mrs. Hale.”
Stiles considers that, then shrugs. “Lydia wants to be president, I think. She said she’s going to be the first girl president, but if Mrs. Hale is president then I guess Lydia could be the second girl president.”
“That sounds good,” Mr. Hale says.
At the same time, Mrs. Hale says, “I don’t want to be President.” She looks at Stiles. “Why don’t you go put that inside and then go see if Derek can give you a snack from the kitchen. You can tell him I said you were allowed one.”
Stiles nods, then heads inside. He puts the flag down on the bed he’s been sleeping in, because he’s not sure where it goes, then goes to find Derek.
Derek is sitting on the floor of the living room, shoving into a corner like he’s trying to make myself as small as possible or maybe teleport into another room, and he looks sad. Stiles is sad, too, so he sits down next to Derek, who puts an arm around him.
“If an adult tries to touch you,” Derek says finally, hoarsely, after they’ve been sitting there for a while, “and you don’t want it, or it seems wrong, or they say you love them so you need to touch them back, and you can’t tell anyone else, and you need to tell them things, things they’re not supposed to know, don’t listen to them. Tell me and I’ll rip their throat out.”
Stiles thinks about that for a minute, then nods. “Okay.”