Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

T-0 Days

Rubbing at his face, Stiles lets the cover of the heavy-ass tome thump closed. All around him, other books and papers are strewn about Scott's room, crumpled paper balls and hastily-drawn symbols in Lydia's handwriting, layers of printouts burying the room in tents of white and flashes of color. Plates of food dot the paper landscape here and there, most half- or three-quarters uneaten. Stiles tries half-heartedly to remember when he had eaten them, or when Lydia had, but gives up. He doesn't care enough.

Instead, he stretches the last of the kinks out of his spine and unfolds to his full height. Muscles in his legs and back cramp, scatter into pins and needles as they move out of positions they've been holding for days; Stiles groans and tries to work out the cramps, shake the static away.

"You all right?"

He looks up. Mrs. McCall is in the doorway, leaning on the doorjamb like it's the only thing holding her up. Guilt strikes, quick as a cobra, through him; he averts his eyes, bends to pick up the book he'd just finished reading.

"Stiles?"

Stuffing the notes and Lydia's most up-to-date drawing of the starscape they need, Stiles says, "Yeah."

"Today's the day, isn't it."

Startled, Stiles meets Mrs. McCall's eyes again. They're liquid brown, the same color and shape as Scott's, and they hold the same piercing insight that made Scott so devastating sometimes, makes his mom just the same way.

He looks down again, can't give an answer. Can only give a shrug.

Mrs. McCall's sigh sounds like it comes from her marrow of her bones. Stiles flinches, not only at the sigh, but at the comparison. His brain... is not the best place to be right now. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her legs move backwards out of the doorway.

He's made it halfway out the door himself when next Mrs. McCall speaks. "You fix it."

"Huh?" Stiles looks up, meets those eyes again. This time, Mrs. McCall doesn't let him look away.

"I don't care what you have to do," she says. "As long as Scott's alive..."

"And my dad," Stiles interjects, stung. Scott wasn't the only one who—

"Oh, of course, honey. And your dad." Mrs. McCall looks contrite. Her hand rises, hesitates, falls away. She starts again, "As long as everyone's alive..."

Stiles subsides, nods his head sideways to the concession.

"...you do what you have to do."

For a moment, Stiles stands there. There's so many things going on inside of him that he can't put a name to any of it, can only struggle through a bare understanding. Mrs. McCall stands with him, her eyes fierce and looking, herself, a lot like a specter of vengeance or something. Absolution, maybe. Or maybe that's Stiles's grief speaking. He moves without thinking, has his arms around her, tight, squeezes his eyes shut against the fucking ever-present tears when she hugs him back just as tightly.

They stand there for a long moment, Stiles breathing in the scent in her hair, fighting against the tears that keep trying to well up. From the hitches in Mrs. McCall's breathing, he knows she's doing the same thing, and that makes his own fight harder.

At last, Mrs. McCall draws back. "Go on," she says, pressing her hand to her eyes. "That moon isn't going to wait forever."

Stiles emits a weak laugh. "No, it won't."

"Say hi to Scott for me on the other side," Mrs. McCall adds. "And make sure your dad is eating right."

Stiles's eyes sting again. "I will, Mrs. McCall." He takes a step, turns back. "Uh..."

Mrs. McCall's eyes soften. "You do what you have to."

He nods. "Yeah." He hugs her once more, breaks away to hurry down the stairs and outside. Lydia, a pale, bruised-eyed version of herself at the bottom of the stairs, falls into line with him.

"You ready?" he asks, not looking at her.

"As I'll ever be," she says, sounding distant and far away.

They don't say anything more, not when they get to the Jeep, not during the noisy drive, not until they get to the site. Then, for a brief moment, the both of them come alive again, for better or for worse, to do what must be done.

The nemeton is a dark shadow underneath him as he slides across its broad, cracked face. He imagines that there's a pulse of recognition from him to it, it to him, as he touches it, imagines that it warms under his hands the longer he's in contact with it.

"This had better work," he says despite himself, despite all the work they had done, all the time, hah, time they spent poring over getting the details exactly right, on making sure it would work.

"Of course it will work," Lydia says from where she's laying out the last of the green powder in place around the nemeton. She pauses, meets Stiles's eyes. "It'll work because it has to work."

Stiles holds Lydia's gaze, nods. He forgets, sometimes, that he wasn't the only one affected. Sure, Mrs. McCall, too, but also Lydia...and Isaac, who's coming through the edge of the clearing.

"There you are," Lydia says, evidently not surprised. "Get over here, hold the flashlight for me. It'll be easier to read if I don't have to juggle everything."

Stiles watches Isaac as he makes the trip across the clearing to Lydia's side. Isaac looks back at first, defiant, his shoulders hunching, then away, as Stiles's gaze becomes too heavy for him to bear. He accepts the flashlight Lydia hands him, obediently angles it where she needs it.

"Isaac..." Stiles starts.

"You're not the only one who needs everything to change," Isaac bites, still not meeting his gaze. "We may not be best friends, Stilinski, but this is a bad situation for everyone. I'm not standing on the sidelines and just letting things happen anymore."

Right, because he lost everything with Scott's death and Allison's leaving, too. Stiles looks away, into the shadows on shadows darkness of the preserve, and listens to the woods grow still, listens as the trees wait with bated breath.

"Time," he says in a voice far away from his own ears. Lydia immediately begins chanting, the cadence of her voice reading the Archaic Latin syllables alternatively soft and loud. Light, phosphorus-green and curling like smoke, glimmers from the base of the nemeton, inches slowly up its roots, the stump, towards Stiles. At the first touch, Stiles has a flash of sensation: strong fingers on his shoulders, a soft reassuring voice: "You've still got me, kiddo. You've still got me."

"Dad!" Stiles cries out, his arm automatically reaching. But the sense-memory fades, his dad's hands and voice retreating from him. Oddly, the feeling - half-choked grief, relief and the warmth of fierce love - doesn't vanish. Stiles hangs onto that feeling like a lifeline, as the pale, pale green light steals in through the legs of his jeans, creeps over his waist and under the hem of his shirt.

"Stiles." Lydia's voice echoes strangely, like tinnitus. Turning his head, he startles slightly; she is lit up by the green of the smoking light, her eyes catlike as they peer at him. "Scott was a True Alpha. Deucalion may have killed him, but power derived by will rather than by might follows different rules. Remember that."

What? Stiles opens his mouth to say, but the light chooses that as an opportunity to pour into him. Swallowing, Stiles tries to gag, but it's too thick. It coats the back of his tongue and throat, seeps downwards to his lungs.

The world blurs. He blinks, feels rather than sees his eyelids slide over a flexible pane over his eyes. Pale green covers everything he sees, Lydia and Isaac, the trees at the clearing's edge (so, so still, frozen in the hope that if they don't move, he won't notice them there), even his hands when they slowly lift into view.

Lydia is back to the book in her hands, her mouth moving silently over new words. Isaac is staring, but slightly off-center of Stiles. He seems caught between morbid fascination and horror, as if he can't make up his mind which he would prefer to feel. Stiles would say something about that, but the words slide away from him, filter out of his brain like water through a hole in the bottom of a reservoir.

"Stiles," Lydia says again, clear as a bell. He finds his vision swinging slowly to her, traveling over the (still as stone) trees, the shadows in between (hiding everything and nothing; the life it could have sheltered within has fled for the safety of distance, an illusion no creature could withstand the call of even with knowledge of its deceptive nature), Lydia’s face. She looks like she is a reflection in water, rippling, ebbing, eddying back. Then it straightens out, sharp against the soft edges of everything else, and he feels like he sees her, all of her, for the first time.

For the first time he begins to understand the shape of the Darach's word for her, banshee reverberating through him as she stares boldly at him, into him, through him. "Don't forget us," like a command, a bullet, a strike of lightning through him –

White sears into his mind, through it. Pain upon folds of pain assault him, drive deep fissures into his brain. Lydia's and Isaac's faces fracture into shattered mirrors. The ground falls away and spins him, adrift, into the darkness surrounding. He opens his mouth to –

Nothing left. He’s nothing but pain, as the white sear starts to move downwards, behind his eyes, down into the cavities behind his nose, burning into his chest, towards his heart –

He knows, suddenly clearly, that he’ll be nothing but ashes when the burning white is done with him. He’s almost glad, can almost see where this is going, almost hears Scott’s voice shouting his name, can almost see Erica’s wild curls, Boyd’s unimpressed stare. Almost, almost there, except –

Except. Bubbling up against the searing white is that feeling again. The knotted hollow ache, the hot seething scald of alive, she left me, she left me, but I’m not alone, "You've still got me, kiddo" a drumbeat against the abyss, a thm-thm-thmp, thm-thm-thmp, thm-thm-thmp rhythm in his ears.

The rhythm rises up and overtakes him, sweeps him away before it. He falls against it, lets the wash take him where it will, knowing nothing of anything but the choke of grief and the surge of love as he stumbles through the shadows, farther and farther from everything. The Void opens wide before him; with a snap, it closes shut around him, swallows him whole.

The laser of white still sparking through him, grief-choke and warmth-love blossoming outwards, Stiles closes his eyes and doesn't think of what's to come.

When the doctors at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital examine the John Doe’s MRI scans, they notice a very strange buildup in one part of his brain – namely, the pain centers. Naturally, this discovery is very concerning to them, for not only is it a lesion in the Doe’s brain, but it has also complicated the Doe’s case. They’re already baffled by the way the Doe won’t wake up, by the damage to his throat as if he were screaming for a very long time, and how every so often the Doe twitches, sometimes spasms in a manner similar to epileptic seizures.

But there’s no evidence of epilepsy in the Doe’s brain that they’d expect, and the buildup that is there looks like nothing the Memorial Hospital surgeons have seen before. Their only course of action is to try several drugs and techniques to try to reduce the buildup, and if nothing happens, to resort to open-brain surgery.

Of course, just as they’ve decided on this, the John Doe opens glowing red eyes and begins to scream.

They work for two days to stabilize the Doe's condition. Not consecutively, for the seizures and the lucid intervals (if you can call the screaming periods “lucid”) only occur in fits, spaced wider and wider apart over time, until forty-eight hours exactly after the first scream, the seizures stop altogether. The doctors remain on watch for another twenty-four hours, but the fits don't return. When they run another scan on the Doe's brain, they find that the lesion in the pain centers of the brain is gone, just as if it never existed.

Strange, they say, scratching their heads. Well, we're going to figure it out, they reassure themselves. Not like John Doe is going to go anywhere in his medically-induced coma. We might as well get some sleep and come back to this problem with fresh eyes and brains.

Six hours later, the head surgeon is woken up from a deep sleep cycle to the hysterical voice of one of the nurses. She jumps out of bed, to the complaints of her husband, and rushes to the hospital, sliding to a stop outside of the John Doe's room. There, she stops for breath, only to lose it again when she takes in the sight in front of her.

The IV is disconnected. The sheets are half-torn off the bed. There's the hospital gown printed with general geometric shapes puddled on the floor. One of the blinds on the window has been pulled down and now lies in a heap near the door, nearly ruined. The window itself hangs crazily in its frame, the bottom half pushed out and slightly bent upwards, despite the steel frame and the flexible glass.

It looks like a bomb went off in there, the head surgeon thinks. Or a localized hurricane. A very small localized hurricane. The only thing it needs to complete the picture is splatters of blood everywhere, across the walls, the bed, the window, and all over the patient, who would look up with empty eyes from the serrated knife in his hand, and say, The voices made me do it.

Except. There’s no blood. There’s no serrated knife, no dead body on the floor, its eyes glassy and limbs distorted, its neck slashed. There’s no patient with empty eyes, who has voices in his head that demand a murder sacrifice. In fact, the surgeon thinks, as she looks around, sluggish, there’s no patient at all.

The John Doe is gone.

The woods aren't the ones the wolf is used to. Or they are, but they are younger, smell differently than he remembers. He doesn't like it. These are his woods, but they aren't. Now they are someone else's; the stench is ingrained into them, rubbed and scratched and pissed into them, potent now where only stale traces, ghosts, remained in his territory-that-was.

He shakes his head with an irritated growl. Focus, an echo tells him. Yes, that's what he has to do. He has to find the ones who are the source of the stink on the trees and the earth, and he has to warn them. He has to warn them about....

The trees flash by. He skids to a stop in a clearing, crouches down. Another wolf, growling with eyes glowing amber, pops up, snarls at him and slashes the air at him with sharp claws. He doesn't have claws, nor does he have the fangs the beta bares at him, but he is unafraid, for he is stronger. One roar and the beta's skittering back, fear and shock in its eyes. He likes that, wants more of that, wants to take the beta's throat into his mouth and clamp down, demand submission or wreak death.

The beta bares its fangs at him again, fear jack-rabbiting its heartbeat like a song in his ears. Suddenly it bursts into a howl, loud and ringing through the trees. Snarling, he launches at the beta and swings at its head. But the beta fends him off and throws him across the clearing; he lands with a grunt and then has to scramble out of the way as another beta, different from the first, puts its fist where his head used to be. He gets to his feet and hustles to get on top of a rock, whereupon he whirls on the betas and draws himself to his fullest height.

The betas instinctively crouch into attack positions, but they don't come closer. One of them snarls something at him. He snarls back, jerks forward as if to snap the beta's head off. The beta flails back; the other one tries to take advantage of his momentary inattention and leaps. He simply drops underneath the assault, kicks out wildly, and connects solidly, sending the beta with a yelp into a pile of leaves. He swings around with bared teeth at the first beta, but the first beta hangs back rather than rush in.

The second beta is up again in a flash, his kick having done nothing but surprise, but it and the first beta freeze in the next second. He has one second to tense before something bulls into him, sending them both into the ground and tumbling over. He fights to get the thing off his back, manages a wild punch and a grunt from the newest enemy. Then he's flipped over and red eyes, red eyes, fangs, claws, it's an Alpha, a real Alpha, not like him, and its power, its power is overwhelming, pressing him down and scaring him witless. The Alpha roars in his face and gets a hand around his throat; somehow he finds his hands yanking at the Alpha's wrist, and he's baring his teeth and growling at the other Alpha. But this is a token resistance. He knows deep-down the other Alpha is stronger than he is, but he won't go down without a fight. It's just that he has to warn....

Then the Alpha ducks downwards and fastens its teeth on his neck. He bucks at first, off! off! off! screaming in his brain, but the Alpha bites down harder, not enough to break the skin, but enough to make him freeze. Breathing hard, he requires a second warning squeeze from the Alpha before he pries his fingers off the Alpha's wrist and spreads them against the ground, a third before he turns his neck, hating having to do it while he does. The Alpha rears up in a flash and before he can do anything to get out from under the Alpha or to defend himself, the Alpha's hand collides with his face and he's out.

He's in a room. A room trapped by mountain ash. Snarling, he lunges forward, only to be yanked to a stop. Restraints! He growls. Whoever has him caught will pay for this. Pay for keeping him from his goal.

Movement; sound. Intruder. He flashes his eyes, growls. Intruder: flash of surprise. A quick blip of the heartbeat, then settled. Slight trace of nerves. No fear. No fear?

He turns his eyes back, sniffs. Familiar. Dark skin; bald head; scent of disinfectant, animals, traces of herbs. Veterinarian. Druid. Emissary.

Not his goal, but connected. He stops the growling, uncurls his fingers from claw-like projections. No claws yet, still, but unnecessary. Stares at familiar/not familiar. Veterinarian, druid, emissary. Not a threat, not a comfort. Neutral, but uneasy.

Noise spills from the emissary's mouth. Words? Questioning. Cautious, but calm. At home. Emissary's territory, yes. He is intruder. His shoulders hunch, he needs to make himself smaller. Apology for rudeness.

The emissary seems to understand. More indecipherable noise from his mouth. Except: Hale. Yes. Hale.

"Hale," he repeats. Noise is strange in his throat, rasping his throat. Not a growl, but not the way emissary speaks. Emissary startles, steps forward. He tenses. Attack?

Hands, emissary's. Palms up. Relax of body. No attack. Surprise only. He settles.

"Hale?" emissary asks.

Yes. Hale. His goal. "Hun-ters." He bares his teeth. Murderers. "Here. Hale, not-safe."

"The Hales are not safe?" Alarm, emissary's heartbeat increasing. Good.

"Not-safe," he insists. "Ar..." The rasp gets tangled up at the back of his tongue. He snaps his teeth at himself.

"Are?" Emissary asks. Hands lowered, not threat. Concerned. "The hunters are?"

No. Not are. He must finish name. "Ghent," he grits. Not the true word, but as close as he can approximate, as he is now. "Ar-ghent."

"Arghent?"

"Yes." Close enough. If emissary thinks, will get name. "Ka-te. Ar-ghent."

Emissary stills. "Kate Argent?"

He snarls, bares teeth. His eyes film red, claws curl. "Yes."

"I...see." Emissary's heartbeat pounds once, twice, then steadies. Control is impressive. "Thank you for telling me. I will inform the Alpha, Talia Hale. I imagine she will want to speak to you as well."

He preens. Goal: accomplished. He will keep an ear up, to make sure the emissary passes on the message, but for now he may rest. He has come far to get to this point; his strength is still depleted.

He nods to the emissary, who seems to expect an answer to his last words. The floor is not comfortable, but he wiggles himself into a better position, minding the restraints, and closes his eyes.

Emissary's footsteps exiting the room underscore the fade of his senses as he relinquishes consciousness.

When he dreams, it's mainly of being encased in the earth. He can feel the worms wriggling in the soil all around him, how the air whooshes down the trails they leave. The earth has a lot of ways that it gains nutrients and lives, he knows, and that's one of them.

Just as he knows there are more things in the earth than worms and moles.

The bodies can't move, yet they cry out for him. They can't see, but they turn in his direction. They can't feel, yet they know injustice was committed. For all that they don't tell tales, the dead never do like injustice.

He should be scrabbling, pushing against the earth, trying to get out. It’s what Peter did (Whoever “Peter” is - the name brings him feelings of dread, of being reluctantly impressed, and bone-deep discomfort - he doesn't want to cross “Peter's” path again). Yet he's pinned in place not by the earth or by anything physical, but by something more powerful.

Red eyes peer back at him from the water that drips down on him. He blinks, sluggish, dirt dislodging from his eyelashes into his eyes, but the red's still there. He wants to scream, suddenly, to open his mouth and let rip, to know he can, but he doesn’t, can’t. He's still, unmoving, lying pinned and immobilized as the water drips, the red eyes stare, the dirt gets into his eyes, his nose, his mouth. When he closes his eyes against the dirt (or thinks he does – it’s hard to tell), the red follows. It always follows.

Gaze not long into the abyss, lest the abyss also gaze into you.

Chapter Text

He snaps awake with a jerk. Danger, Will Robinson, danger! his brain screams at him. He looks around to see whatever’s pinging off his Stiles senses, but the room’s too dark.

And then he hears them. Voices.

Shrinking into the corner, he holds up his hands and waits.

“…why didn’t he shift when we were fighting him? Or when Talia was?” This voice belongs to a male, a beta, judging by the timbre and resonance of his voice.

“I don’t know, Caleb,” a man replies. Stiles tenses; this is not the Alpha, but he’s strong. So strong that Stiles is basically fucked. There’s no way he’s getting out of here alive, not with the second man and the other beta in the way. “I don’t know any of the answers to your questions.”

“Luckily for us, he’s awake, so he can provide us with them,” a third person drawls.

Oh, no. No, no, no. Of course fucking Peter Hale is here. Of course. Stiles’s day has just gone down the tubes quicker than you could say “Molotov cocktail.”

“I’ll do the talking, Caleb, Peter,” the second man – the one not an Alpha – says, distracting Stiles from the horribleness about to come. “Whatever happens, do not attack until I say so.”

“Are you sure?” says the second voice – Caleb? “He did attack us on our territory. He might not respond to reason, Kurt.”

“He’s a teenager, teenagers don’t know what reason is,” Peter snarks.

At that, Stiles rolls his eyes. Good to know Peter’s still a snotty shithead. Apparently the fire didn’t damage that.

Wait. The fire. Shit, shit, shit, what day is it? Is he – did the ritual – oh, fuck, he got captured by Peter working with the Alphas, didn’t he. Just his freakin’ luck. Of course, Peter somehow found out about the ritual and went to the Alphas behind their backs - that has to be how Stiles got here, wherever he is. If he doesn’t die from whatever they do to them, and if he gets out of here (which, let’s be real, he won’t, but he’d like to pretend), he is going to set Peter on fire for the second time and he is going to enjoy it.

CLICK!

The sound of a doorknob being turned shoots through the room like a bullet. Gulping, Stiles presses himself into his corner even more, before changing his mind and sitting up. Whoever these assholes are, they aren’t going to find him hiding. He may be the puny human, but he’s not going down without a fight.

He’s prepared to come face to face with Deucalion. Or someone who took up the mantle where Deucalion left off, another Alpha and their betas to fall into place to replace Kali, Ennis, Aiden and Ethan. Stiles doesn’t recognize the names that got said other than Peter’s – who the hell are Kurt and Caleb? And Talia? Whatever, they’re the new bad guys, he will probably get to know way too much about them very quickly.

Ugh.

Anyway. He’s prepared to see a band of leather-wearing cocky wolf supremacists, Peter on their heels with his smug smirk and smugger walk. Asshole. But the three people who do come through the door are definitely not Deucalion, and they definitely don’t look like wolf supremacists.

They’re not even wearing leather.

“The fuck?” he splutters out, as his (interrogators? captors? kidnappers?) come into the room. The not-an-Alpha (the head Beta?) is a stocky, greying man with long hair pulled into a short ponytail. On his left is a tallish, lighter-skinned black dude with close-shaven hair. On his right is a twentyish white dude with dark brown hair and brilliant blue eyes. “Who the hell are you?”

The greying man bristles. “You watch your tone. You’re speaking to the Second of the Hale pack.”

“Hey, Kurt,” the black dude says, placating, but Kurt levels him with a glare that has him backing off, hands raised. Kurt returns his gaze to Stiles, hostility practically radiating off of him. Stiles, like the monumental idiot he is, glares back.

To his surprise, Kurt seems to strain to meet his gaze. After barely a second, the older dude looks away. Stiles feels a strange thrill, a bone-deep satisfaction that could be likened to triumph….

…before there’s a snap of fingers in his face. “Don’t get cocky, punk.”

Stiles snaps to, his hackles raised and snarl already rumbling from his throat. Kurt doesn’t bare his teeth, but his claws are extended, and his eyes blaze electric blue, which only serves to piss Stiles off even more.

“What do you want?” he spits. He reaches forward, but something – he takes a quick glance – shackles tug at his wrists – cowards. “If you’re gonna kill me, you picked a really brave way of doing it. Let me out of these shackles,” he rattles his shackles, “and we’ll see how easy I am to kill.”

(Actually, on second thought, don’t let him out of these shackles. If he had his hands free, he’d be trying to wrap them around Kurt’s neck. There’s just something about the dude that really, really gets to him – to the point of ragey murder, beyond any level he has felt before. Yeah, seriously, don’t get him out of the shackles. Not only does this dude not look like he would be easy to wrangle, but he doesn’t think the other two betas would be willing to sit idly by. Just a thought.

In fact, he is reasonably certain that Kurt and the other betas would win in a drag-down, no-holds-barred showdown between them, and he would get killed. Yet he’s still eyeing the dude up and down, wondering if he had his bat, if it would break over Kurt’s head like it did Ennis’s, or if it would actually give him a good knock.

So, uh, that’s not cool. He is not normally one for bare-handed violence, especially with werewolves. Yeah, he’s reckless, but not that reckless. Soooo…)

"Don't test me," Kurt retorts. “You’ve already upset the entire pack by coming into our territory without proper greeting protocol. You’re on a very short leash. I suggest you mind it.”

The rage and urge to murder returns. “So even ‘Seconds’ aren’t above using dog jokes,” Stiles snorts, even as his brain screams at him are you fucking insane? What the fuck are you doing?? “Good to know.”

Kurt’s jaw visibly ticks. Stiles smirks, only to have Kurt slam him against the wall, rumbling deep in his throat. Stiles snarls back, his hands reaching up to claw at Kurt’s arm, except, these fucking shackles, they are so fucking –

“Kurt!”

As one, both Stiles and Kurt look around. In the doorway is a woman, tall and regal; for a moment Stiles thinks it’s Kali. But Kali’s dead, the part of his brain not very, very aware of Kurt’s arm like a bar across his throat points out. A blink, and the woman resolves into someone else. Tall and regal, yes, but wearing low-heeled heels and a flowery dress Lydia wouldn’t be caught dead in.

“Talia.” Kurt jerks back from Stiles like he’s been electrocuted. Stiles, falling back against the wall gasping for air, thinks mutinously it’d be Kurt’s just desserts. Then his mind catches up with what he just said and oh, God, no, no electrocution for anybody, least of all werewolves. No. None. Nope. Just. No.

“I told you,” the woman – Talia – says as she strides up to them, “not to talk to him until I had come back from Alan’s.”

The set of Kurt’s face shifts, almost like a flinch. “He woke up,” he says gruffly. “I was going to ask him his name –”

“What, no, you weren’t, dude, you basically came in here and attacked me on sight!” Stiles protests.

One glance. One glance from her is all it takes.

Her… aura, power, whatever washes over him, heavy and oppressive like a pillow over his face, cutting off his air circulation without moving. Oh God, he’s going to die. This is an Alpha. Deucalion had nothing on her, Demon Wolf and all – Stiles flattens against the wall as far as his shackles will let him and stays there, knowing that his mouth, his stupid fucking mouth, has landed him in this, as usual. As usual, it's going to have to be his mouth to get him out of it again.

"Look," he tries around the ache of his throat from stupid fucking Kurt’s arm over it. It's no surprise his voice comes out thready, but he refuses to admit that it's fear doing it, chooses to blame it on Kurt instead.

"It's been a long couple of days for me,” he says. “I've been chased by an Alpha pack, then me and Lydia and Isaac did some magic ritual to – do something."

Even in the supernatural world, “time travel” is not something you can say easily and have people believe you. Yeahhh, Stiles would call party foul, himself,

“And next thing I know, I'm here, and I don’t remember how. I don't even know who you are, and could you stop smothering me already? Human here, can't heal like you can!"

Surprise filters over the woman’s – Talia’s – face. Stiles gasps in a breath when her presence lightens, then falls away. He doesn't get to breathe long, however, before Talia steps right up to him.

“If you’re human,” Talia begins, “then why do you smell and feel like an Alpha?”

"Huh? I smell like an Alpha? What are you talking about?" Stiles splutters. "Oh, God, one of them did something to me, didn't they? If Aiden somehow pissed on me, I'm going to have so many words with him he'll wish – well, I don't know what he'll wish, but he'll regret having done it!"

Talia’s eyes narrow. “You’re lying.”

"What? No, I'm not!" Stiles says, scrambling to try to get away as much as the shackles and the woman’s own presence will allow. "You're a werewolf, listen to my heartbeat and see for yourself!"

Talia’s nostrils flare, but she does as Stiles asks: her gaze goes distant and concentrating, and for a second the press of her will against Stiles’s chest lessens...

Waiting for her to get it, Stiles gets the sudden hysterical urge to laugh. Nothing about this is remotely funny, but he's just reminded of Derek in their early days, when neither trusted the other as far as he could throw him. (Of course, Derek was capable of throwing Stiles a lot further than Stiles could throw Derek, but that was beside the point.) Derek loomed in much the same way that Talia is doing –

His laughter dies when he remembers. Oh. Yeah. There's that. Derek isn’t here to loom over him anymore, or do anything. He and Cora disappeared somewhere away from Beacon Hills, not even a goodbye. Stiles tries not to think about that, how much that actually really hurt. Instead, he looks up into Talia’s red eyes as they clear, and suddenly he has other things to worry about.

"What – what's your name?" he bursts out, a horrifying suspicion collecting in the pit of his stomach. Now that he's looking, though, he can see it: This woman doesn't have Derek's eyes or his propensity for perpetual stubble, but the way that she stares at Stiles, the way she holds herself, the jawline, god, even the color of her hair….

"You're Derek's mom, aren't you?" Stiles says half in despair, half in resignation. Then his eyes widen as he actually thinks about it. "Oh, my God, you're Talia Hale!"

You're the one I'm supposed to warn about Kate, he means to say, but Mrs. Hale interrupts him.

"How do you know my name?" she says, sharp. The press of her power that had been lessening returns in full force, forcing Stiles up against the wall. The red of her eyes are freaking glowing now, and well, crap, this is not the way Stiles had imagined this would go.

Well, at least he knows the ritual worked. But now Stiles has the image of Mrs. Hale burning up in the Hale house, her eyes neon red as around her, her family burns while she’s helpless to do anything, and oh, God, oh, God, he feels sick, he’s going to be sick.

“Gonna,” he tries to say, but then the bile hits and he’s bending over as much as he can past the shackles’ grip on his wrists. The contents of his stomach are yellow and white, he notes in a distant part of his brain, and he thinks that’s an undigested piece of fruit from a fruit cup. (Why a fruit cup? He doesn’t remember eating any fruit cups lately.) (He hopes it was a peach one, he loves those.)

It doesn’t take long for him to recede to dry-retching, and ugh, he feels stupidly gross that he can’t wipe off his mouth afterwards. Freaking shackles.

Mrs. Hale is standing beyond the puddle of vomit, said puddle almost touching her high heel. The expression on her face is… kind of hilarious. As shitty as Stiles feels, he can’t help but think Derek’s mom looks like a cat confronted by water.

Then his brain reminds him that he has a job to do, and he stands bolt upright in the shackles, startling Mrs. Hale, who steps back. But Stiles can’t focus on that, he has to warn them, he has to tell them –

“Listen, you’ve got to listen to me,” he says urgently. “There’s someone who’s going to –” He means to say kill you but his throat, like an asshole, locks up on him. “Kill you” comes out as the very eloquent “hrrkgk!” He tries to keep speaking but nothing is coming out properly, it’s gibberish and now he can’t breathe, he’s choking, he can’t stop –

He gets a huge lungful of air at last, but he’s so rattled from choking that it doesn’t really do any good. Instead his lungs scream for more air while blackness crowds at the edge of his vision, his heart pounds faster and faster. Oh my god, I’m having a panic attack, he thinks. Shit, shit, shit, no, don’t think about it, don’t think about Dad, don’t think about him.

Oh, God. He can’t stop seeing his dad in the root cellar, eyes locked on Stiles’s, and the cascade of dirt. Allison’s worried expression and Mrs. McCall’s, as Allison’s dad tried to poke around and nearly got himself killed, too. And it’s all Stiles’s fault, he killed him and he killed his mom, and killed Scott. He’s killed everyone he loves, oh Jesus, he’s shaking stupidly hard, this is a bad one, the worst he’s had in years, oh God, oh God, oh God –

Someone touches him on the shoulder. Breath jerking, he flails backwards, hitting his head against the wall. Flinching at the ensuing yell, which does nothing but crank the knot in his chest tighter, he flattens along the wall, scrambles away from the people crouched over him, until he hits the very end of the shackles. There, he collapses, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms tightly around them.

“Let me handle this,” someone says in a firm voice. It sounds like Deaton. Oh, God, just let Stiles disappear into the ground. Mrs. Hale, Kurt, Peter, and whoever the last dude is, and now Deaton can all see him shaking apart. They’ll never listen to him now, not after seeing him this weak. Goddamnit, not even a full day on the job and you’ve fucked it up. Way to go, Stilinski, oh. my. God. You had one job. One. Job. And you couldn’t even –

“Young man. Listen to me. Are you listening? Nod if you can.” Deaton sounds reassuring, familiar.

He reaches out a hand to Stiles’s shoulder; Stiles instinctively arches away from it. “All right, I won’t touch,” Deaton says, still in that steady, firm voice. “We’ll just sit here until you tell me in some way that you can hear me.”

I can hear you, he thinks. He tries for a nod, but through his gasping, he doesn’t know if the movement carried over enough. He’ll have to talk. His mouth is already open, so all he has to do is make sound with it. Easy, right? Ha.

Finally, after several attempts, he chokes out, “I – I’m listening.”

“Good,” Deaton says. “That’s very good. Now look at me. I’m going to introduce myself. My name is Alan Deaton. What’s your name?”

Stiles would laugh, except for the part where he can’t breathe. He’s having freaking small talk in the middle of a panic attack, his life. “S- S- Stiles.”

“Stiles? That’s your name?” Deaton asks. Stiles’s mirth drops away. Right, he’s in another timeline, this guy isn’t the same Deaton, this Deaton doesn’t know who he is. Fuck.

“Focus.” Stiles doesn’t, he doesn’t jerk, really, at Deaton’s stern tone, but he does start, sort of, but Deaton has the grace to wait until Stiles is registering again before asking, “Do you know what’s happening to you right now?”

Well, yeah, he’s had so many he can’t not know what’s happening to him. “Y-yeah,” Stiles gets out, when Deaton’s presence grows expectant (how he can tell that, he’s going to have to think about another time when his heart isn’t pounding so hard he thinks he’s going to die, Jesus it’s so fast it seems it’s gotta explode and Stiles doesn’t want to die, he really really does not want to die). “I – I’m having a p-panic attack.”

“Good,” Deaton says, cutting through Stiles’s racing thoughts. “Then you know what we’re going to do. I’m going to ask you to focus on your breathing. Can you do that for me, Stiles?”

“You’ve got to – you’ve got to tell them,” Stiles says, gasping loudly. “Deaton –”

“I will, once you focus on your breathing,” Deaton comes back. His face is coming into focus now, and even faced with a panicking Stiles, he’s still Zen, still calm. He looks, sounds exactly like the Deaton Stiles left behind, even though he’s got to be seven years younger.

Stiles latches on to that, he grabs onto that as fiercely as he can. Logically, he knows that he’s not really in any danger, but it’s hard to think about that right in the middle of it. Deaton is real, he’s here and not part of Stiles’s ghosts, and most importantly he’s outside of Stiles’s head, and that’s where Stiles really needs to be right now.

So he focuses on his breathing, in. And out. In. And out. Iiiin. Aaaand out.

“Good,” Deaton says, when Stiles’s breathing isn’t going so fast. “Do you feel like you can talk now?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, forcing himself to breathe calmly. “There’s a hunter,” he says. He’ll admit to tensing in anticipation of choking, but nothing happens. No choking, no throat closing up, still breathing in. And out. Stiles is going to cautiously say this is a success.

That’s when, of course, Kurt bursts in with, “What’s this about a hunter?”

Jolting, Stiles loses concentration and starts sucking in too much oxygen again. Deaton says, still calm but with an edge, “Not now, Kurt, please. Wait until I have this young man settled before you try to ask him questions.”

But Stiles is growling, glaring at Kurt. Kurt stares back, holds his gaze for longer this time, his eyes bleeding neon blue. The oppressing feeling of power comes back again, but this time it’s not nearly enough to bowl him over, not like Mrs. Hale’s did; Stiles is not impressed. He’s faced down any number of Alphas, from Peter to Derek, hell from Kali to Deucalion himself. Unless Mrs. Hale shifts and attacks him, Stiles isn’t going to back down. Is he scared right now? Sure, but he’s still not going to back down.

“Quit it, pup,” Kurt rumbles. “You’re not Alpha enough to take me and my pack on.”

“I keep telling you,” Stiles grits out. Seriously, what is with this growling thing? He’s not a werewolf, he would have noticed if he started turning into one. “I’m not an Alpha.”

“Gentlemen,” Deaton attempts.

“Kurt,” Mrs. Hale shoots a look Kurt’s way. “I know he smells like an Alpha – ”

Stiles yells with frustration. “I can’t smell like an Alpha, I’m human,” he argues, as much as he can with his breath still shaky. Although, now he’s remembering… Lydia had said something. Something about Scott being a True Alpha. About power by might or something like that.

He has the sneaking suspicion he really doesn’t want to remember what she said.

Mrs. Hale turns back to him, her eyes no longer red. She regards him for a moment. “I don’t have an answer for that,” she says, finally. “Even a new Alpha should be able to recognize that something has changed, beyond any capacity for denial.”

“You think I’m in denial?” Stiles gapes. He takes in Mrs. Hale’s serious expression, looks over at Deaton, who only looks back with raised eyebrows. “Oh, my God,” he drops his head into his hand and starts to laugh.

“Sorry, sorry,” he says to Deaton’s sharp look and Mrs. Hale’s frown. “This is just so ridiculous. Me in shackles, Talia Hale, Derek’s mom, glaring at me,” Holy God, Derek’s mom. Somehow Stiles hadn’t realized how real Mrs. Hale would be, or how she wouldn’t take him at face value. How did he even get into this?

Oh yeah, a time ritual. There’s the sobering thought he needed five thoughts ago. (Can he say that, five thoughts ago? How would anybody be able to tell time if they measured it by thoughts? They’d have to be telepathic or something, and once he would have thought that would be a cool superpower, being telepathic. Not so much anymore. He has learned to be careful what he wishes for, both because werewolves oh my god and shit, werewolf hunters, oh my God.)

“Yes, about that. How do you know Derek?” Mrs. Hale’s eyes are piercing. “Last I knew, Derek didn’t know anybody from another pack named Stiles, especially not an – ”

Deaton, next to him, gives her a warning look. Stiles barely registers it, though. Instead, he’s thinking, fuck, what’s the cover story he and Lydia came up with for knowing Derek? Shit, shit, shit, they had gone over it thousands of times, too, until even Lydia was satisfied he had it down. Lydia.

“Talia,” Deaton says. “Don’t you think Stiles has been through enough already? He’s just suffered a panic attack, he’s in no fit state to answer questions.”

Mrs. Hale rears back in surprise. She looks from Deaton to Stiles, who, yeah, has to admit he’s still feeling shaky and not at all up for an interrogation, no way, Jose.

For the first time, Stiles sees Mrs. Hale falter. “You’re right, Alan. Here, let me get some food for him. Caleb?”

“On it.” The black dude is there and gone. Stiles would bitch about werewolf speed, so unfair for the rest of we mere mortals, except the humiliation and the embarrassment is setting in.

Ugh, not only did have a panic attack, he had one in front of Talia Hale, and jeezus, now would be a great time for the earth to swallow him whole. Barring that, he’ll settle for a safe rock and crawl under it, where he’ll never emerge. Not even for food, he’ll rig up a pulley system or something so the food can come down to him. Jeezus Christ.

Speaking of safety. “Uh, any chance you can let me out of these shackles? I, uh, would feel hella lot better if you’d take them off. More like a person, y’know? Less like a dog in the yard, if you know what I’m talking about.”

Mrs. Hale’s expression, which had been hovering on the edge of concerned (for him? Seriously?) sours. “If you promise not to harm me or any of mine,” with emphasis on any, “and you promise to stop making dog jokes. We are human, too.”

Oh, ouch. Um, awkward much? “Yeah, yeah, I can totally do that,” Stiles says. “The dog jokes are a defense mechanism, anyway, against the horrible nightmare my life has become. I mean, look at me! I’m only seventeen, and I’ve already gone through so many things I really, really shouldn’t have. And Scott – ”

Oh. Scott. For a moment, he had actually forgotten about Scott. His stomach clenches. Some friend he is, Scott’s only been dead less than two months and he’s already forgetting him. Fuck.

A touch to his shoulder makes him look up. Deaton and Mrs. Hale both are looking at him with knitted eyebrows. Shit.

“I’m fine,” he tells them, but he can tell they don’t believe him. “So, uh, the shackles?”

Mrs. Hale and Deaton glance at each other. A quick glance, but Stiles can read the meaning loaded into it. Great, more intervention type stuff he’s going to have to deal with. Hopefully he can get Kate Argent to show up and distract them before they do anything about it. Then he can slip away and not have to deal with their pity and well-meaning concern on his part. As if it ever worked out for him.

Mrs. Hale clears her throat. “I’m still waiting for your promise.”

“Oh, right.” Stiles shakes himself vigorously. “I promise not to hurt you or anybody in the Hale pack.”

“And…?” Mrs. Hale presses.

“Oh, yeah, and not to make any more dog jokes,” he finishes. “Although I might need some practice at that, my brain to mouth filter is like Swiss cheese at the best of times. Worst of times, pffft, forget it.”

Mrs. Hale raises an eyebrow. “I suggest you start practicing now. If nothing else, Kurt will make sure you don’t forget.”

Stiles looks over at Kurt, who scowls at him. Back to Mrs. Hale, he says, “Heh, thanks. Thanks a lot.”

She quirks her eyebrows nonchalantly. “I’ll let Deaton open your shackles.”

“Uh, okay?” Stiles watches Mrs. Hale produce a key out of literally nowhere and hand it to Deaton. She then backs off, her heels clacking quietly on the concrete of the basement floor.

The farther away Mrs. Hale steps, the more Stiles relaxes, shedding tension he didn’t know he was carrying. Deaton waits until Mrs. Hale is five or six steps away and shows no signs of stopping before he gets to work on the shackles.

Deaton looks at Stiles thoughtfully as he unlocks first one manacle, then the other. Stiles hisses as the feeling comes back into his arms, holds his hands close to his chest. Huge bruises circle each wrist, deep purple and throbbing with Stiles’s pulse. Great, more ugly body decoration to cover up. Guess it’s a good thing Stiles prefers long-sleeved shirts anyway.

The leg irons (yes, actual leg irons. Can anyone say overkill? Seriously? Seriously?) clink as they open, clang as they fall away from Stiles’s ankles. Stiles stumbles when he tries to stand, would have fallen if Deaton hadn’t caught him. His ears burn as Deaton steadies him; he tries to pull away, but Deaton grabs his arm again.

Good thing, too, for suddenly Stiles is feeling light-headed and his stomach is pinching, ow, like he’s never fed it and oh, food sounds really good right now. He would have thought he wouldn’t want it, considering oh, yeah, he threw up, but nope, his stomach is pretty clear on what it wants.

Footsteps herald the arrival of yet another person to the scene. Stiles lifts his head just as the black dude from earlier appears, carrying a plate that’s literally steaming. “Here’s the leftovers from yesterday, Talia. I heated them up for him.”

“Thanks, Caleb.” Mrs. Hale’s smile is an uptick of the corner of her mouth, but it goes a long way towards smoothing the concern lines off her face. Caleb grins back, his entire face lighting up.

But Stiles’s attention is captured by the food, the literal aroma and heat steam trail coming off of it, and oh God, just get it in his mouth now.

He has enough presence of mind to wait for Caleb to back off from the plate before he pounces, but after that it’s all. Freaking. Hands. Off.

“Whoa,” he hears Caleb say, “I think you just, like, set a world record or something.”

“Heh, well you know what, I am a growing boy,” he says through his mouthful. “Feel free to call Guinness World Records, though, I’ve always wanted to be in there.”

Caleb snorts. So does Peter, but Stiles is emphatically not thinking about him. Not until he can freak out in peace, incidentally not where apex predators can hear his heartbeat and make judgy mcjudgerson comments about it.

Stiles may thrive on trouble, but he doesn’t need that level of interest in his life, thanks.

(He’s so hungry, he even eats the green beans. Yeah, he eats the veggie burgers and the veggie pizza and the whole-wheat crap he forces on his dad, but that’s for solidarity’s sake, okay? Come on, he’s a seventeen-year-old guy. When they don’t apply to his dad, vegetables are, like, voodoo as far as he’s concerned. He never claimed he wasn’t a hypocrite.)

When the whole plate is cleared, crumbs and all, he pushes it away. He feels better, but still shaky from the panic attack (even if he did get all up in a werewolf’s grill – and not in the sexy way – right after. He’s torn between thinking oh, my God what was I thinking? And oh my God I am so badass, I should get a plaque that says Stiles Stilinski, Legitimate Badass. Obviously, he prefers thinking the latter, so he’s gonna roll with it). What would make everything a lot better is either something to do or a nap. Actually, scratch something to do, a nap sounds like the best thing ever.

Looking up at the adults nearby, all of whom are looking back with frank stares, Stiles has the feeling he’s not going to get any sleep for a while yet.

Great.

“You done?” Caleb comes over to inspect his plate. “Man, you cleaned out even the green beans. Growing boy like you likes green beans?”

“Pffft,” Stiles says by way of answer.

Caleb smirks, rolls his eyes. “Hey, I feel you, dude, green beans aren’t my favorite, either.”

As Caleb turns away, Stiles blurts, “Hey, uh. Thanks. For the food.” He nods to the plate in Caleb’s hands.

Caleb raises his eyebrows, why, Stiles doesn’t know, but jerks his chin, says, “You’re welcome, man,” and leaves. When he passes by Mrs. Hale and Kurt, their shoulders relax, the tension in the room eases a little. Deaton shoots Mrs. Hale a knowing look, but doesn’t comment.

Instead, in eerie synchronization, he and Mrs. Hale both turn to Stiles, and yeeeeeeeep, that nap isn’t happening anytime soon.

Mrs. Hale crosses her arms. “What are we going to do with you, Stiles?”

“Uh, not hurt me?” Stiles tries for a winning smile.

Again, that exchange of looks between Mrs. Hale and Deaton. “No one’s going to hurt you,” Mrs. Hale says. She ignores Kurt’s snort. “Not unless you do something unwise, like attack my pack.”

“Yeah, no,” Stiles mutters. “That would just end with me in the ground.”

“That’s right.” Mrs. Hale’s look is serious. Deadly serious, Stiles would say, and the look holds his eyes like a compulsion. “The pack is everything.”

For some reason, Stiles is getting the feeling Mrs. Hale is testing him. She doesn’t feel like she’s threatening him, not like before when she was totally pulling the Alpha whammy on him. Now it’s more like she’s warning him, letting Stiles know what’s up. The thing is, he already knows. He did wake up in shackles because he trespassed onto the Hale pack territory (how? He doesn’t even remember how he got here, for Christ’s sake) and Mrs. Hale did act all suspicious of him (at least, up until Stiles introduced himself by having a massive panic attack, great first impression there, Stilinski). It’s not like it was hard to tell he wasn’t exactly everyone’s favorite class clown, or anything.

The point is, Stiles knows. He’s been in that position, is still in that position. The position where your family is before everything else, before school, before, uh, biological family (he flinches at that thought for so many reasons), before even himself. It’s been like that for over a year, and seriously, it’s the drive to protect that family – protect Scott – that’s brought him into this situation.

He knows what it’s like, and it’s not like he can hold a grudge against Mrs. Hale for it. He would have done exactly the same thing. “I know,” he says quietly, still caught by Mrs. Hale’s gaze. They stare at each other for a moment that stretches unto forever, Mrs. Hale staring into Stiles’s soul, it feels like, while Stiles awkwardly tries not to fidget. Then she nods, and yeah, she’d definitely been testing him.

He’s not entirely sure if he passed.

With his usual gift for timing, Deaton steps up. “Come on, Stiles. There’s a conversation we need to have, and I suspect,” dry as dust, “you won’t want to have it here.”

“Hell no,” Stiles says, more vehemently than he expects. Deaton only smiles that annoying cryptic smile of his (oh, God, even now he has that stupid smile? Jesus, how long has Deaton been doing that? Does he practice in the mirror every day or something?), and holds out his hand. It takes Stiles waaaay too long to figure out it’s for him, to haul him up. When he’s on his feet, Deaton places a steadying hand on his shoulder, which, yeah, he probably needs it.

Mrs. Hale keeps an eye on them as they shuffle towards the door of the basement, but doesn’t hover, for which Stiles is ridiculously grateful. People who hover are the worst, take Derek and his weird hangup with leaning over Stiles while he’s doing research….

Yeahhh, backpedaling away from that thought. He focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, cheers internally when he gets to the door. Of course, then there’s a freaking tunnel on the other side, which means an uphill climb through yet more creepy locales before seeing daylight, so to speak.

Great. Wonderful. Absolutely fantastic.

Muttering, “As if I didn’t have enough nightmare fuel already, thanks,” under his breath, Stiles starts up the long, long tunnel. Here’s hoping at the end of it he’ll never have an excuse to come back. Ever.

Chapter Text

The tunnel’s not as long as he thought it would be, thank God. When he emerges aboveground, however, he has to clap a hand over his eyes.

“Ow!” Stiles moans. “Ow, ow, ow!”

“Stiles?” he hears Mrs. Hale ask.

“It’s all right, Talia,” Deaton says, amused. “He’s not used to the light.”

“Stupid sun,” Stiles adds. “Sending its evil rays to hurt me. What did I ever do to you, huh?!”

“You’ve been in a basement for two days,” Deaton says dryly. “Give your eyes time to adjust.”

“Two days?!” Stiles squawks.

“Two days,” Deaton agrees. He must see Stiles stiffen, for when next he speaks, he sounds wary. “Is there somewhere you need to be, Stiles?”

“Uhh, noooo,” Stiles says slowly. Technically, he’s right where he should be for this part of the plan, but that’s two days wasted he could have used to look for Kate Argent. She could be planning to start the fire any time now, holy God. “When’s the date?”

Now Deaton sounds skeptical. “The 12th.”

“Of January?!” Shit, shit, shit, Lydia was supposed to have sent him to the first of the month! He was supposed to have a whole month to convince the Hales about Kate, then set up a patrol so he could be there when Kate appeared. Shit, shit, shit the plan has already gone to shit. Why does the plan always go to shit before it begins?

“No, of November.”

“November?” Stiles blinks, his brain grinding to a halt. Ooookaaaaay, that isn’t part of the plan, but honestly, he wouldn’t be surprised if something went wonky with the ritual. Of all the rants Lydia had gone on during their research, it’s the ones about “magic isn’t an exact science” and “of course there’s no literature on banshees” that still ring in his ears.

Okay. Okay, this is still doable. New plan, go. First, what are the facts? He’s got roughly two months before the fire happens, until the end of January. From what bits and pieces he got from the Hale House fire file, Kate was around for a few months before the fire, so she’s probably still here. She may or may not be planning the fire at this point, he can’t exactly remember when she talked to fucking Harris about accelerants (despite the fact that he’s gone over that file a thousand times at this point). But he’s got time now, he can figure out what to do from here.

He takes his hand from his eyes to rake it absently over his newly shorn buzzcut, relishing in the sting of his hair against his hand. He looks up to look at – something –

“Whoa.”

The Hale House rises tall and majestic in front of him. It’s three floors and has a covered porch like the house he knew, but other than that it’s nothing he would have been able to imagine. For one, it’s whole, like, the roof is still there and a color other than charred grey. For two, the house is actually pretty, like it looks like someone’s keeping it up. There’s a garden on Stiles’s side of the house of all sorts of flowers he can’t name, and there’s even a sign that says VEGETABLE GARDEN – STAY OUT next to it that has Stiles speechless. A vegetable garden! At the Hale House! Who would have thunk?

The best part about the new – old – Hale House, though, is that it looks like there’s life in it. He’s not just talking about the activity he can see behind the curtains – who is that? She looks Latina – but the overall impression that people live here, are alive here.

He has to admit, he was not expecting that when he traveled back in time, but just for this, he’s glad he did.

“I see you like my house,” Mrs. Hale says behind him.

He’s used to being crept up on, thanks Derek, but the foot he clears would say otherwise. “Don’t do that,” he complains to Mrs. Hale’s raised eyebrows. “God, you’re just as bad as – ” Derek, he only barely manages not to say. Gahh. Boy, that’s already getting old, not being able to talk about Derek, especially not to Derek’s mom.

…Dude. He’s never going to be able to get over that. Derek has a mom. Like, objectively, and thanks to Peter, Stiles knew Derek didn’t spring up from the ground, all appearances aside, but seeing it is totally knocking his world sideways. Duuuuude. That’s so weird.

“As bad as…?” Mrs. Hale’s tone is suspicious, verges on dangerous.

“Uh, as bad as my cousin Miguel!” Stiles says, so smoothly. “He, uh, liked to sneak up on me all the time, too.”

Mrs. Hale doesn’t really look like she believes him, but that’s okay, Stiles doesn’t plan on talking about “Cousin Miguel” all that much anyway. Although thinking back to that memory of Danny’s dazed expression does bring a smirk to his face.

Just then, a girl dashes up to Mrs. Hale. “Mom!” she bursts out, “you let him out already?”

“Hey!” Stiles objects.

Mrs. Hale casts Stiles a look, turns back to the girl. “Yes,” she places a hand on the girl’s shoulder, “and he mentioned something about a hunter.”

“What?” The girl, who, huh, actually looks like Mrs. Hale, pales.

Mrs. Hale nods, turns her to face Stiles. “Stiles, since you already know Derek somehow,” her eyebrow raises again, pointedly, “you should already know my eldest. In case you don’t, this is –”

“Laura.” The name slips from Stiles without his conscious input.

Laura Hale, Derek’s sister, whose body Stiles and Scott found half of in Beacon Hills Preserve a year and a lifetime ago, looks… nothing like he would have imagined her, had he spent the effort (which he hadn’t, and he feels so guilty about it now, god, that was Derek and Cora’s sister, he really is an asshole). She’s tall, like every Hale ever, with dyed black hair and brown eyes. But that’s about all he can tell under the heavy emo makeup she’s wearing, the zillion piercings all over her face, and the absolutely godawful, like seriously? Seriously?, Goth clothes she’s sporting.

This is Laura?

“What? Do I know you?” Laura looks him up and down. It’s not like the kind of look Lydia used to give him, where he was lower than the dirt on her shoe (in retrospect, dude, that had not felt good), but her half-baffled look is humiliating, all the same.

The look she shoots Mrs. Hale, all incredulous eyebrows, doesn’t help.

Mrs. Hale offers Laura a smile that Stiles thinks looks wry. It’s a good look on her, less stiff and more relaxed. She looks more like a person, less like she’s going to bite Stiles’s head off. “Laura, this is Alpha Stiles…”

“Uh, Vrilinski,” Stiles offers, when he realizes what Mrs. Hale is waiting for. “Stiles… Vrilinski.” Thank God he had thought that someone would ask for a last name when he and Lydia’d been planning. Lydia had pointed out that he couldn’t use his real surname when he traveled back, as someone inevitably would go to his dad (oh, God, his dad is alive. He has to swallow past the painful urge to ditch Mrs. Hale and Laura and go see him right now).

“Vrilinski?” Laura wrinkles her nose. “What kind of last name is that?”

“Uh, the kind that’s way more memorable than ‘Hale’?” Stiles shoots back. Then he remembers Mrs. Hale. “Uh…”

Mrs. Hale, who looks like she’s five hundred percent done. “This is Alpha Stiles Vrilinski,” she finishes. “Treat him with respect, Laura.”

“Uh, that’s okay,” Stiles says, uncomfortable. “You don’t have to – and hey! I’m not an Alpha!”

The look Mrs. Hale sends his way says loud and clear her opinion of that. Rude.

“Don’t frown at my mom like that.”

Stiles transfers his frown to Laura. She’s staring at him challengingly, her posture not quite tense but with the impression that that could change the second she wants it to. The hell? “What’s your damage?”

Oops, there goes the full-on tense position. “What’s yours?” Laura returns, eyes flashing amber.

At first, Stiles is taken aback. Then his brain gets into motion, and he narrows his eyes. Now, he’s not a werewolf, and he’s painfully aware that he’s seventeen and probably doesn’t look like someone could hold his own in a fight. Especially not against a werewolf. But he’s also aware that he’s been essentially held prisoner on Hale land for two days, and he doesn’t know about you, but that’s not exactly what he’d call “hospitable.” And now Laura wants to fight him?

Rude. Very rude.

“Laura.” Huh, look at that. Mrs. Hale uses the exact same tone on Laura that she did him. Guess the Alpha whammy isn’t restricted just to Stiles’s particular brand of ill-advised humor. Good to know. “Inside, now.”

Laura shoots another glare at Stiles, but turns on her heel and stomps off without another word. Stiles watches her go, his jaw hanging open. Damn, he has got to learn how to do that. He has visions of Jackson, if the jerk ever comes back, and Isaac cringing from him using that. Well, not Isaac so much. As much as Stiles hates to admit it, the guy’s been through enough already. But Jackson? Oh, hell yes. He still hasn’t gotten even for everything the asshole has done to him over the years.

“Is that an Alpha thing?” he bursts out, gesturing to Laura’s retreating back. “Like, you growl and the betas jump? Or is that a Mom thing only with some extra oomph, because let me tell you, Scott’s mom has the same thing,” he catches the look Mrs. Hale is giving him, “and that is clearly not up for discussion right now. Shutting up.”

Mrs. Hale raises her eyebrow at Stiles – is that amusement lurking in her eyes? – then nods her head sideways. “Well, if we’re going to talk, we may as well do it somewhere comfortable.” She turns away and moves towards the Hale House, her heels sinking into the grass as she goes. Stiles gapes after her.

“Don’t worry, Stiles. Talia may seem standoffish, but she’s fair. She’ll let you say your piece.”

Stiles whirls. Deaton looks back at him, Zen master as always. “Holy God!” Stiles yelps. “Where did you come from?”

“I never left,” Deaton smiles. “Talia does have a way of taking up all the attention around her, doesn’t she?”

His heart still rabbiting in his ears, Stiles takes a gulp to calm down. “Uh, I guess.”

“If it’s any consolation,” Deaton motions towards the house, “it’s not in my job description to attract notice. Shall we go in?”

“Uh, sure. Wait, what is in your job description, anyway?” Like, sure, Deaton’s a veterinarian, and also a Druid, or emissary, whatever, but what does that mean? Other than spouting off bullshit advice and never being anywhere when Stiles and Scott need him, anyway.

Deaton gives him a placid look. “I’d think you’d know, since you don’t seem surprised by my being here.” There’s an odd note to Deaton’s tone, like maybe he means something else by his statement, but Stiles can’t figure out what it is.

“Cut me some slack,” Stiles groans. “I’ve only been in this for a year. Bestiaries and Google fu only does so much before the sheer fucked-up-ness gets to you. Also, don’t think I haven’t noticed you didn’t answer the question about your job description.”

He scoffs at the look Deaton offers him, I don’t know what you’re talking about, is about to go on when both Mrs. Hale and Laura freeze, their heads going up, noses in the air. Stiles jumps as someone growls behind him; it’s Kurt, half-shifted.

“Alan,” Mrs. Hale says tersely. “The wards, then Cora, Iñez, and Juan. Laura, guard our… guest.” She’s off before Stiles so much as blinks, bounding off into the woods in that weird four-legged lope. It should look ridiculous on a woman with a floral print dress (it certainly does on Scott and Derek), but on Mrs. Hale it really, really doesn’t.

“What’s going on? Who’re Iñez and Juan?” Stiles asks. Laura ignores him, spinning to follow Mrs. Hale.

“No, wait,” Stiles makes to grab Laura by the shoulder, misses. Laura stops in her tracks a second later, anyway; Stiles has to skid to avoid knocking into her. He looks up to see Mrs. Hale’s red gaze in their direction, then as she looks towards the woods and bounds away again.

“Mom!” Laura shouts after her. “You can’t expect me to – Mom!”

Mrs. Hale doesn’t turn back. Laura looks after her, her fists clenched.

Kurt rockets past him, still with that growl, followed by Caleb, also partially-shifted. Stiles waves at them wildly, willing them to stop before they can take off after Mrs. Hale. “Hey, hey, wait, what’s going on, where’s the fire?”

As soon as it comes out of his mouth, Stiles is cringing. Really, Stil- Vrilinski? What is with your lack of thinking, oh my God, tasteless much?

Kurt and Caleb aren’t paying attention. They bull ahead, dirt and leaves flying up in their wake. Stiles flings his arms up to protect his eyes, lowers them to find that they’re gone. Completely, like they were never there except for the trail of leafy destruction behind them.

“Oh, come on!” he complains. “You couldn’t have taken five seconds to answer my question?!”

“No. Obviously,” Laura snaps.

God, this is just like dealing with Derek. Stiles turns to Laura, glare fixed into place. “Excuse me for wanting to know what the hell is going on, asshole,” he grinds out. “It’s not like I’ve been left in the dark too many times or anything. You know what happens then? Everything goes horribly wrong!”

“What would you know about everything going horribly wrong?” Laura scoffs, her piercings making her scowl even worse. (Stiles has to take a moment to wonder if the piercings get in the way during the shift. Do they hurt, or do they pop out every time? Or do they just disappear thanks to werewolf voodoo, just like Derek’s eyebrows?)

He opens his mouth to educate Laura on exactly how much he knows about everything going horribly wrong, when Deaton interrupts.

“I’ll go set the wards,” he cuts in smoothly. “Laura, try not to antagonize Stiles too much. He’s had a rough day so far.”

Laura growls, but subsides. Stiles watches forlornly as Deaton heads off, abandoning him to the yellow glare of Laura’s gaze. “Uh, so, this isn’t awkward or anything.”

“Whatever.” Laura turns away, crosses her arms.

“So… what is going on?”

“Are you serious?” Laura whirls on him, has her finger pushed up hard against his sternum – ow – and jabs. “Are you seriously doing this right now?”

“Dude! What is your problem?” Stiles yelps. “All I asked was what the hell was going on!”

“As if we didn’t have you on our territory already,” Laura snaps, “now we have another intruder! Someone else came with you, didn’t they?”

“Hey!” Stiles is starting to get really pissed off here. “Quit it with the attitude, okay? I have no idea who else could be here, I’m here by myself. Listen to my heartbeat and tell me if I’m lying.”

Laura’s glare is nowhere near as intimidating as Mrs. Hale’s, but Stiles gives her points for trying. Still, she fastens her gaze on his heart as if she wants to set him on fire; Stiles tilts his chin up, doesn’t move.

The moment stretches out long and tense, Stiles gritting his teeth with the longer that Laura listens to his heartbeat. He knows, he knows she’s doing this on purpose, trying to catch him out on a lie, but there’s no lie, only the weight of his life, the people he’s left behind. All for the chance to save Laura’s ungrateful ass.

Finally, Laura snorts, her lip curling. She turns from Stiles and goes back to pacing, her arms wrapping around her as she sends short, agitated glances at the woods. Stiles, released from Laura’s glare, doesn’t feel as vindicated as he thinks he should. Rather, he feels tired, and clearly nothing good is going to get done while Mrs. Hale and the rest are chasing this intruder down, so he might as well sit down.

He wanders over to the porch of the Hale House, debates going in. Deaton, who’s inside examining the wood next to the door, looks up at him. “Coming in?” he offers neutrally.

Stiles opens his mouth, but the “Yeah, sure” on his lips dies before it’s born. He feels… weird about going into the house. Like it’s… not his place or something. Not that he wasn’t invited in or anything, Mrs. Hale had said they would be talking inside the house, but. Well. His instincts are telling him not to go in the house, no, really, like they’re saying, Don’t do it, don’t open that door, the killer is on the other side, you freaking idiot!

The thing is, this isn’t his pack. It’s not the Hale House he knows. He has no idea where he fits in here, or, hell, what’s going to happen next. No one in the Hale pack seems to like him much, and even if Deaton covered for him, he’s not sure waltzing into their house like that would win him any points.

“Uh, you know what, I think I’ll stay out here,” he says. As soon as he does, a huge weight seems to fall off his shoulders. He no longer feels like he’s in a horror movie waiting for the killer to cut through the door and go “Here’s Johnny!” at him, or to come after him with a hockey mask. Deaton is looking at him, but Stiles has no answer for his questioning look, for why he feels down to his bones, what the fuck, that this is the Right Decision.

“Interesting,” Deaton says. “It appears that even as a human, you still have an instinctual respect for the heart of the territory.”

“Instinctual respect for the – hey, you believe me about being human!” Finally, some freaking validation!

“I don’t know what you are,” Deaton responds, winning a groan from Stiles. “But it apparently means you won’t be coming in until Talia gets back.”

“Great. That’s just wonderful.” Stiles slumps down on the steps. Now that he has nothing else to focus on but waiting, he notices the chill in the air and rubs his arms. How long is it going to take for Mrs. Hale to come back? Hopefully she does before he freezes to death. Nothing like driving home the “squishy human” point home like a Stiles icicle, à la Captain America.

He amuses himself with that image, skinny, scrawny Stiles all beefed up and dressed very patriotically in red-white-and-blue, the shield brandished like a threat against Nazis and HYDRA. Or Jackson. Or Peter. Definitely Gerard, and definitely Deucalion. Asshole.

He’s not wearing tights, though, that’s where he draws the line. All those USO girls, though….

On second thought, maybe not. Knowing his luck, it’d take seventy years before they thawed him again, and he’s just not that into drawing the parallels between him and Steve Rogers.

He’s just jumped up, restless, and started wandering around, wondering how badly Mrs. Hale would take it if he came and checked out how they were doing – he’s never been great at sitting still and waiting, even worse when others are putting themselves in danger, understatement of the year – when something roars out of the woods like a demon.

Stiles goes “agh!” when his back hits the side of the house, an iron bar across his throat again. He looks up, his eyes watering, into Kurt’s face, his mouth full of fangs and eyes flashing neon blue.

“You!” Kurt snarls, his iron-grey hair in his face, spittle flying. “You brought them here!”

“What?” Stiles manages to choke out. “What the hell – are you talking – about?”

“You brought the hunter with you.” Kurt’s voice is a mere rumble, but one that rattles through Stiles’s bones.

“What?” Stiles kicks as Kurt slides him farther up the wall. “What the – ?”

“Kurt!” Caleb shows up from out of nowhere, too, and hangs onto the arm holding Stiles up. “Kurt, come on, man, you gotta drop him, you’re not doing anybody any good right now. Kurt. Kurt!”

“How else would you know that a hunter was here?” Kurt sneers, ignoring Caleb. His fangs are very sharp-looking. “You were being chased by one! And now you’ve brought them directly to our doorstep!”

“What, no I didn’t! Let – let go. I can’t – I can’t breathe!”

“KURT.”

Kurt lets go. Stiles falls with a “oof!” as he renews his acquaintance with the sweet, sweet solidity of the ground. His throat feels like it’s on fire again, thanks Kurt, and seriously, he hasn’t had this many bruises since the time Gerard decided to prove just how “decrepit” he was.

A pair of pumps comes into his view, plain and sensible. That feeling of oh, shit I’m gonna die descends on him heavily, pressing into him like it wants his head to hit the ground. Stiles bristles, fights against it. Manages to pick his head up far enough to see Mrs. Hale’s dress, the cross of her arms, the blazing red of her eyes.

Oh, shit.

“I am going to ask you this exactly once.” Mrs. Hale’s voice is low, rumbling, and way scarier than Kurt’s. “Why did I find the scents of gun oil and wolfsbane in my territory, and why,” her eyes blaze brighter, “did you bring the hunter chasing you here to threaten my pack?”

Stiles squeaks. He’ll deny it later, insist it was a very manly grunt, but in the moment, here, he squeaks. “What – what, uh, are you talking about?”

If anything, Mrs. Hale seems to get angrier. “You can drop the act. We know the hunter is after you. If you want to live, you will tell me everything.”

“Whuh, but she’s not chasing me!” Stiles flails. “She isn’t, she’s after – ”

This time, he doesn’t quite freak out when his throat closes up. He’s beginning to get an idea of why that’s happening, and of course, of course the ritual would have something like this built into it. Why hadn’t Lydia told him? She’d done all the translating from the Archaic Latin, she could have at least, oh, he doesn't know, given him a hint or something. It’d be just like her to consider it a good idea, though, even though it makes his job a thousand times more difficult –

“Pay attention!” Kurt’s fist crashes by Stiles’s head. Stiles jumps, crashes into someone’s legs. Laura’s face looms above him, and ohh, crap, she is angry. Very angry.

“I’m not going to repeat myself,” Mrs. Hale says.

Stiles looks around to see that Kurt has taken advantage of his distraction to get closer. He’s sandwiched between Kurt, the wall, and Laura now, with Caleb still hanging onto Kurt’s arm. Mrs. Hale stands in front of the only way out, close enough to grab him should he try to flee her way, aaaand he’s screwed. He’s so totally screwed.

Now would be a totally awesome time for a surprise superpower to kick in. Annnytime now….

Nothing happens. Shit.

“I can’t tell you.” Slowly, so slowly, Stiles holds his hands up. “You know I can’t tell you. Or the – the choking thing happens to me. Besides, what makes you think she’s after me, anyway?”

“She was following your trail, the one you made through the woods to get here,” Kurt growls, practically on top of Stiles now. “Said she heard about someone in the hospital with red eyes.”

“What?” Stiles leans away, as far as Kurt will let him. As it turns out, that’s not very far. “I was nowhere near the hospital.”

“You smelled like the hospital when we picked you up,” Mrs. Hale cuts in. “How do you explain that?”

“And you definitely had red eyes then,” Caleb adds.

“What? No, seriously, that’s impossible, I only woke up this morning. In your basement,” he adds pointedly.

Mrs. Hale’s eyes narrow. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Not being in a hospital,” Stiles shoots back. “And definitely not with red eyes, or being in the woods, making a trail or whatever.”

“Are you sure?”

The whole group, Stiles included, turns. Deaton is not very far away from them, his eyes trained, intent, on Stiles. “You don’t remember any of that?”

“No,” Stiles retorts. “And seriously, guys, this isn’t funny. Is this a prank? Pretending I was wandering around in the woods, red-eyed, all hair, fangs and claws, like you guys? Puh-lease.”

Deaton looks at Mrs. Hale, who looks back. They have some sort of wordless communication between them, Mrs. Hale’s eyes losing their red luster. The weight lifts from Stiles’s shoulders, no longer trying to pin him to the ground, but not dissipating the feeling of oh, shit, I’m dead, I just don’t know it yet. The both of them turn to Stiles as one, odd twins with the same gaze spearing through him.

“What?” Stiles asks, wary. “What are you looking at me like that for?”

“This is going to be difficult to believe,” Deaton says, after another look exchanged with Mrs. Hale. “But if you don’t remember anything….”

“For the last time,” Stiles starts, annoyance sparking through him.

“Two nights ago,” Mrs. Hale interrupts, “Kurt, and Caleb, and I felt a disturbance in the territory. We came across this Alpha, weak, no pack, but strong enough to hold off Kurt and Caleb until I arrived.

“You smelled distinctly like hospital, disinfectant, anesthesia, and hospital bed. Your eyes were red. Your hands were curled into the shape of claws, but didn’t have any claws on them that I could see. I thought that was strange, especially when I was fighting you. Wouldn’t you shift, facing an Alpha stronger than you? But you didn’t, and now, apparently, you don’t even remember it at all.”

“And when I came in the next morning to check on you,” Deaton adds, “you woke up, told me to warn Talia that Kate Argent was here, and then went back to sleep. You had red eyes then, too.”

Stiles stares. Nothing Mrs. Hale and Deaton are saying should make sense. None of it. But. They’re not lying. He doesn’t see any of the tells that people give when they lie. He suspects that if he were to listen to their heartbeats, they’d be perfectly steady. Plus, the story is a little too well-meshed to be something they’d made up on the fly. When he looks at Caleb and Kurt, the both of them nod, Kurt with a rumble, Caleb with an apologetic look.

It can’t be real. But something in him, something in his insides, says it is.

“Okay,” Stiles says slowly, “even if I was wandering around in the forest, with red eyes,” his doubt comes through, clear enough for Stiles to hear it. Kurt growls again. “There’s no way I could have held off two betas by myself. Did I have a bat on me, a baseball bat? Because that’s served me pretty well running with you wolves, saved my life a couple of times.” Aside from the time he broke it across Ennis’s head and it did nothing but make Ennis go after him, but that’s a minor detail, who cares about those, right?

Mrs. Hale’s expression is not amused. “No, you did not have a baseball bat with you.”

“See? There you go, then.” A wave of relief washes over him. “Now I know you’re yanking my chain.” He laughs awkwardly. “Haha, very funny, you can stop pranking me now. Pick on the human who can’t hear your heartbeat, great job, guys.”

He looks around, but no one else is laughing. Only grim faces look back. Deaton’s frowning too, his Zen Master Look cracking. Shit.

“Guys, come on,” he tries. “There’s no way. I can’t have done that, I’m not even a wolf, I can’t do that stuff. The red eyes and – everything.”

“Yet here we are, with a hunter tracking you.” Mrs. Hale’s eyes drill into him.

Stiles opens his mouth, closes it again.

After a moment in which Stiles tries desperately to think of something to say, Mrs. Hale nods. “Tell me why Kate Argent’s in my woods, looking for you.”

“She’s not,” Stiles says weakly. Actually, wait. Maybe it’d be a good thing for them to think that. An idea starts forming in his mind; then Kurt growls in his face, and it’s gone.

“Down, boy,” he says automatically. He winces at Mrs. Hale’s glare. “Ah, I mean, could you please not do that? Personal space, it’s a thing.”

“Kurt.”

Kurt doesn’t stop snarling, but he does take a step back, as much of a step as somebody in a wolf-crouch can take.

“Why is – ”

“Okay, okay!” Stiles holds his hands up; shit, when had he put them down? “She – I don’t have any pack members. Anymore.” Technically, he does, but without – without S—

He grabs at his chest, fights against the tears, the fucking tears that never stay down, goddammit. Funny, but it’s just now hitting him, the enormity of the empty space inside him where they should be: his dad, Scott, Mrs. McCall, Lydia. Allison. Derek. Cora. Isaac. Erica. Boyd.

They’re not – he’s never going to see them again, even the ones who’re alive, and oh God. Fuck. Fuck, this was a terrible idea, he never should have done this. He should have stayed there and died with them instead of taking the coward’s way out. He should have been there for Lydia, for Mrs. McCall, fuck, he’s so fucking selfish, he’s the worst person ever.

Hands on his face make him look forward. Mrs. Hale’s gaze is not sympathetic, but it is direct. “Breathe,” she says. “I said, breathe. Deep.”

Stiles breathes.

“Again.”

Again.

“Keep breathing.”

He keeps breathing, deep, straining against the way his lungs come up to a barrier and go no farther. The haze he didn’t realize is over Mrs. Hale’s face begins to clear, and when he’s focused on her, she inclines her head.

“Good. Two more questions, then we’re done. First question, how did she kill them?”

“With fire,” he says, thinking of Derek, his misery hanging around him like a shroud. “And wolfsbane.” Derek, half-dead in Stiles’s Jeep, bleeding all over his upholstery. “And another Alpha.” Scott, his eyes lifeless, staring.

“Another Alpha?” Mrs. Hale wrinkles her brow. “Why would she work with another Alpha?”

Stiles stirs. His brain starts working again, which, thank God. “Well, she didn’t, but the Alpha came to us because of her.” It’s not even a lie. Because of Kate’s death, Gerard had come for revenge. The Alpha Pack came because of Gerard.

Thinking of the Alpha pack makes him think of Scott again, not just his eyes, but also the way his body was twisted around, blood seeping from the claw marks over his heart. Stiles knew before he got over there, had known through the fruitless rounds of CPR, known when Mrs. McCall threw him off and tried her own resuscitative measures. He’d known, but he’d had to try anyway.

He’d tried. And failed. Just like he’d failed everyone else.

He can’t speak anymore after that, not because of the choking thing, but because he literally can’t speak from the memories crashing down on him. Erica in Derek’s arms. Boyd, impaled on Derek’s claws. Isaac, his expression defiant in fluorescent green light. Derek, run through by Kali’s lead pipe. Cora in the ambulance. So many people caught up in this stupid thing, and all because Gerard couldn’t trust worth a damn, and Kate had a liking for statutory rape and fire.

Fuck Kate. Fuck Gerard. Fuck all the Argents. They are, as a whole, a horrible breed, although Allison seemed to have come back from the Dark Side. He still blames her, deep down, although he has firsthand experience of how well Gerard could manipulate people. Still, but fuck the whole world would have been a better place if Gerard Argent hadn’t been born into it.

Fuck. Stiles’s breath whooshes out in front of him. Think of something else. Anything else. When going through hell, keep going.

Mrs. Hale must some sort of sense for when Stiles’s focus comes back, for that’s when she asks, “What can you tell me about Kate?”

“Uhhh.” What to say? So many ways to throw shade, so little time. Too bad this crew wouldn’t understand half of it. “Psychotic. Blonde, tall, likes to laugh. Favors the shotgun with Nordic Blue Monkshood bullets or fire, loves to fuck with people. Oh, and she kills packs for no reason other than it’s fun.”

All right, so that last bit is sort of a misleader, but from what Scott had told him about Crazy Aunt Kate, Stiles would bet his college savings it’s true.

Mrs. Hale searches his eyes for a long moment; Stiles has no idea what she’s looking for. Then she sighs, lets go of his face, and stands. “Hmm. Well, thank you, we’ll keep that in mind,” she says.

Kurt stands, finally giving Stiles his personal space. Stiles lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. Laura and Caleb back off, too, which, awesome, more breathing room. Phew.

“I am sorry for your loss,” Mrs. Hale continues. “However, because you didn’t tell us that Kate was pursuing you, specifically, I’m afraid we cannot offer you asylum.”

“Asylum?” Stiles looks up from where he’s tugging his shirts back into order.

Mrs. Hale’s eyebrows do their steepest climb to her hairline yet. “You weren’t going to ask for asylum?”

“Why would I ask for asylum?” Stiles asks. “I’m not a refugee from a foreign country.” Except, he really kind of is. That’s… a cheerful thought.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d say that the look Mrs. Hale wanting very badly to rub her face with exhaustion. “When someone asks for asylum, he is applying to a pack for a place to rest and be protected from outside threats while he or she heals. Normally, proper introductions are made then, rather than coming onto the pack’s territory flashing red eyes –”

“I didn’t,” Stiles protests, automatic.

“But that might have been laid aside in this case, given extenuating circumstances,” Mrs. Hale continues. “But, as I said, because you didn’t tell us Kate was after you, specifically…”

“You can’t offer me that.” Stiles’s heart sinks. To be honest, he never really thought about asking for asylum from the Hales (mostly because it’s not him Crazy Aunt Kate is trying to kill, come on), didn’t even know about it before Mrs. Hale explained it to him. However, she has pointed out something that nobody, not him, not Lydia, not Older Deaton, nobody remembered to calculate – where is Stiles going to live? All the plan accounts for is warning the Hales and then helping to take down Kate. There isn’t anything else, and wow, this is the biggest case of “they really should have thought this through” ever.

Deaton steps forward. “I’ll take him in,” he offers. “It shouldn’t be for long, just until Kate is dealt with. Once that happens, Stiles should be free to go his own way. Shouldn’t you, Stiles?”

“Uh, yeah,” Stiles says, totally lost. “I should.”

“In the meantime, that lets me keep an eye on him.” Deaton ignores Stiles’s squawk. “Does that work for you, Talia?”

Mrs. Hale takes a moment, her dark eyes flitting between Deaton and Stiles. Then she nods, her arms falling away from their cross over her chest. “That sounds good, Alan. As always, you have a talent for solving problems almost before they come up.”

Deaton smiles. “You’re too kind. I’ll see you next week?”

“Barring other unforeseen circumstances.” The corners of Mrs. Hale’s mouth tuck in on themselves; after a moment, Stiles realizes that’s a smile.

“Wait, what – Mrs. Hale can – and you – with Deaton?” Stiles splutters. Holy God, too many shocks today. He has received way too much information to be able to process it all right now. His brain is, like, seizing, he can’t handle it.

“Come on,” Deaton says. “I think it would be best if we removed ourselves soon.”

“Whuh?” Stiles looks over at Mrs. Hale, who’s standing with Kurt at her shoulder. Behind her, Caleb and Laura stand, their eyes riveted on Stiles, expressions unfriendly. At their back, the Hale House is partially blocked from view, like they’re a wall –

Oh. They don’t want him here. They’re presenting a united front against him so that he knows he’s not welcome. That hits him hard, although he doesn’t know why, he’s not one of their pack. He isn’t, but.

But nothing so far has been as it should be.

Chapter Text

T-23 Days

Scott’s expression, as he looks at Stiles, is kicked puppy sad. “Are you sure about this, bro? I can talk to Allison another time.”

“I’m sure, bro.” Stiles rubs at his eyes. They burn like hell, but any time he closes his eyes, his dad’s horrified expression leaps out at him. “Tell her hi from me, huh?”

“Stiles…”

No. Don’t look like that, Scott. “She’s leaving for France tomorrow, right? Just go!”

“Stiles—” Scott’s hand lands on his shoulder, right where the bruise on his collarbone sits.

“Gahh!”

“Sorry, man!” Scott snatches his hand back, as Stiles winces and gasps over the pain. “But dude—”

He looks up to see Scott’s puppy eyes are back and ramped up to their fullest. “I just,” Scott shuffles his feet, “I wanted to say sorry, and thanks. I know I’ve been a shitty best friend and I haven’t been there for you when you really needed me—”

“No, really, Scott?” As soon as he says them, Stiles wants to take the words back. He doesn’t want to have this now, not with where they are.

“—you’ve always been there for me. Remember when Deucalion made that offer to help find your dad?”

Stiles hangs his head, tries to hide the tears welling up again. Yeah, yeah, he’d tried to be there, only for Scott to abandon him without much more than a look back. “Way to go, bro, bring that up and cause me more pain, why don’t you.”

“I know, and I really am sorry, dude,” Scott says. “But you’re my brother. I’ve been horrible at showing you that. From now on, I’m going to try harder. No more brushing you off, no more making you feel like you don’t matter. I’m sticking with you, all the way to the end.”

Stiles means to say, “Thanks, bro,” but what comes out is, “What about when Allison decides to get back together with you?”

Scott’s face falls. Stiles, or the cynical part of him, thinks: That’s what I thought. But then Scott’s expression firms, becomes determined.

“Then she’ll just have to deal with it.”

“Scott?”

Scott puts his arm around Stiles’s shoulder, making sure to the avoid the bruised collarbone. “Allison will have to deal with it. You’re my family, bro. There’s nothing that can replace that.”

Shit, now his eyes really are burning. Stiles scrubs at them even as he turns to envelop Scott in a Stilinski hug, which Scott returns, his arms tight around Stiles’s ribs.

Bzzzt…. Bzzzt….

They break apart, Scott going for his phone. “It’s Allison,” he says unnecessarily. “She’s wondering where I am.”

“Go on.” Stiles waves his hand. “Go meet up with her. I’ll be fine.”

Scott studies Stiles’s face. “You know what? I’m going to call her and tell her I can’t make it.”

“What?”

“Dude, your dad’s funeral was today.” Scott’s already scrolling down his recent calls list. “If ever there was a time you needed me, it’s now.”

Stiles watches, stunned, as Scott puts the phone to his ear. “I’m going to go over there, okay?” Scott points to another row of headstones, probably far enough away that Stiles won’t be able to hear him. Stiles nods, watches as Scott wanders away, Allison’s voice already tinning out of the receiver.

“Scott. No. No, Scott, don’t!”

Stiles startles up into consciousness, the echo of Scott’s voice still ringing in his ears. Shit! Scott, where’s Scott?

He scrambles out of bed, trips over the bedsheet that manages to cling to him. By some miracle he makes it to the door, wrenches it open, only to nearly collide with someone else on the other side.

“Whoa!” he yelps, windmilling backwards. He’s falling, he’s falling, he’s –

- saved by an iron grip on his forearm. For a moment, Stiles’s heart skips. Scott! Scott’s here, he’s safe, it was a dream, thank God, it was just a dream.

Then he looks up, and reality crashes into him with the force of an angry Alpha broken loose on the full moon.

Deaton looks back at him, nonplussed. In the arm not raised for knocking, he’s holding a pile of clothing.

“Whuh?”

Following Stiles’s gaze, Deaton shifts the pile forward. “I went up in the attic and found these for you,” he says. “They may not be an exact fit, but they’ll probably do until everything blows over.”

“What? But, but —” He’s so confused. Where’s Scott? Why is Deaton even here in the first place? Whatever, that’s not important, he needs to find -

Wait. Scott’s dead. Stiles is in the past, trying to change everything so nothing falls apart. Right. Oh, God.

“I thought I’d offer you these,” Deaton continues, apparently oblivious to Stiles’s mental breakdown, “since when they found you, you had only the clothes on your back. Quite literally.”

“Uh, yeah.” Stiles numbly accepts the neatly-folded pile. “That’s really – yeah – thanks.” Jeez, but being here gives him whiplash. One moment, he’s worrying that Scott’s going to die, the next he has to worry about not having fresh clothes. God.

“Old clothes of mine,” Deaton says, finally employing his powers of telepathy. He quirks an eyebrow at Stiles’s look. “Not hard to guess what you’re thinking,” he teases gently. “You are very expressive.”

“Yeah, yeah, face like an open book, whatever,” Stiles grouches. He picks up the shirt on the top and holds it out. Well, it doesn’t look like it’d be too huge on him, at least? Not any more than Stiles’s shirts are usually, and wow, this shirt must have shrunk in the wash or something, and that’s why Deaton doesn’t wear it anymore. “Well, uh, thanks, I guess?”

Deaton nods his head in a sideways gesture. “I suggest you get dressed quickly, Talia is coming over in a bit to retrieve you.”

“Retrieve me? What?”

“She wants you to help them look for Kate Argent.”

Stiles holds up his free hand, waves it quickly. “So, wait, first they won’t let me hang out with them, too cool kids for that, but they’ll make me help them the second there’s danger? Ugh.” Sounds… suspiciously familiar. Older Derek, anyone? Mrs. Hale must have been the one he learned it from. Jeez.

“In their defense, you did lie about the severity of the threat.”

Stiles bites back his first choice of words. Namely, those about a) not being able to for fear of dying from suffocation, and b) not actually being the one Kate’s hunting. But whatever, whatever gets them to keep their eyes open and stay alive. He doesn’t care. Much.

“What makes them think I’ll be any help? They’re all super-wolves, aren’t they? And no matter what they keep saying, I’m not.” Stiles turns to toss the clothing on the bed, watches as half the pile slides to the floor. Eh, he’s worn worse. “I’m not even a part of their pack. According to them, I’m a threat. Why would they want me around?”

Shirt, sweatshirt, pants, socks. No underwear, but there’s no way he’d accept any of Deaton’s anyway. Awkward, and also, disgusting, much? He’ll have to wash his current pair in Deaton’s laundry when he gets a chance. Or go commando, which he’s not actually a fan of. Awesome. Really, just super awesome.

What’s not awesome, when Stiles turns back to the door, is the way Deaton is considering him: thoughtfully, as if Stiles has given a piece of himself away. “I think,” Deaton says carefully, “that you will be needed in on this, if Kate Argent is going to be taken care of without any casualties.”

Yup, Stiles has definitely given something away. Deaton’s watching him like he’s about to do something batshit stupid, which, yeah, not a totally wrong idea.

Irritated, he snaps, “Whatever, dude,” turns away and closes the door so he can get dressed in peace.

It’s as he’s putting on his pants (not too bad a fit, though he should probably wear a belt) that it hits him.

Scott’s dead. Stiles will never joke with him again, never say “bro” and mean it. He won’t get to hear Scott rhapsodize about Allison in retribution for the times Stiles went on and on about Lydia. Never be able to help him figure out his new wolfy powers, never have someone, the only one, understand him like Scott did.

Sure, Scott had been a shitty brother at the end, but what they’d had was one of a kind. Now he and Scott can’t make up and go back to what they were.

God, this sucks balls.

He doesn't know how long he's been sitting there when a sense of... something, a change in the air, a new heaviness to it, just something different – alerts him. Then it's like, once he's aware, it's blindingly obvious. Something's coming, something powerful. Something that raises the fine hairs on his arm and makes him think of razor-sharp fingernails, a yellow glare sharp enough to strip paint, and… metal?

He gets dressed in a hurry then, is down the stairs and bounding towards the front door when Deaton pokes his head out. "Stiles? Remember Talia is coming over any minute now."

“No, it’s Laura coming over.” Stiles stops dead. Laura? He sees again the flash of yellow eyes and tang of metal. Oh, the face piercings! As soon as realization registers, his whole body goes down from DEFCON 2. His breath slows, his heart stops its frantic drumbeat in his throat, and he sags, all at once. Of course Laura is the something powerful coming this way. She’s next in line to the Alpha-dom, right? It makes sense that if Mrs. Hale makes Stiles feel like he’s drowning, Laura should make frissons go up his spine.

"Are you all right?"

Deaton's emerged from whichever room he was in. He's studying Stiles with that look again, the he's-going-batshit-quick-contain-him one. Annoyed, Stiles shrugs him off, heads towards the kitchen.

"I'm starving," he announces. "What've you got in here for a growing boy, Doc?"

He won't get an answer today, for right then, Deaton's phone rings. Deaton takes one look at it, an ancient Blackberry with stylus attached and physical keyboard, gawd, and starts walking to the door.

Stiles beats him there, pulling open the door as his hackles rise again. It's on the tip of his tongue to yell at Laura to get off his lawn like an old geezer, but the sight strangles his tongue and leaves him mute.

A Hummer. They’re here, in a Hummer. There's Laura staring belligerently at him from the front passenger seat, that's Caleb flipping shut his phone, and that's – that's –

"What's the hold up, Vrilinski!" Laura shouts. Stiles tears his eyes away from the figure in the middle row, glares. Laura glares back, all but flashing her eyes gold.

“Laura, your mom told you to behave,” Caleb cuts in. “If you can’t do that – ”

"He's the one staring at us like a stupid fish," Laura grumbles, crossing her arms. She turns, though, and settles into her seat, her face piercings heightening the deepness of her scowl.

Meanwhile, Stiles has crossed Deaton’s lawn and stands at the edge of it, shifting back and forth. He feels like he's at a line of some kind, like if and when he takes a step farther, he's not going to be on safe territory anymore. It reminds him, super randomly, of Capture the Flag, where he's crossing into enemy land to capture the flag, only three members of the opposite team are already there and just waiting for him to make a move.

Fuck it. They came here for him, so or Deaton said. They're going to get him.

He steps out from the fence onto the sidewalk. Immediately Laura's eyes are on him again; Stiles meets her glare for glare as he steps up to the Hummer, reaches for the door.

The door swings open before he gets there. Stiles finds himself frozen again, face-to-face with the person who’d stopped him in his tracks before. Derek – it is Derek, there's no mistaking those eyebrows or the pale heterochromia of his eyes – quirks one of said eyebrows at him, slides backs to let him in. Stiles remembers what he's supposed to be doing, follows after a second. All without looking away.

Derek... is shorter than Stiles remembers. Here doesn't have the heavy stubble, either, and is not a punishingly hot. He's softer, unfinished looking even, no cheekbones to cut glass on, no broad shoulders to carry the weight of the world's sins. He looks like a baby version of himself, which, oh God, he is.

This Derek hasn’t met Kate yet. He hasn’t – Kate hasn’t had the chance to work her awful, pedophilic wiles on him, hasn’t used him to figure out the weakness of the Hale House and set it on fire with the Hales inside.

This Derek could grow up to be free from the guilt that hung over Older Derek like a cloud.

SNAP. “Hey, creep, don’t stare at my brother like that.”

Stiles jerks, resists the urge to bite Laura’s fingers. “What the hell was that for?”

“What, can’t you hear?” Laura snaps her fingers in his face again. “You. Were. Staring.”

“Laura…” Caleb says, tiredly.

“I can take care of myself, Laura,” Derek butts in. “I can tell him to stop staring by myself just fine, thanks.”

Stiles startles. Despite Derek sitting right there in front of him, the sound of his voice- the same light voice Stiles remembers with a crack in the middle – is a shock. “Sorry, dude,” he says awkwardly, his face on fire.

Derek shrugs, turns to look out the window again. Stiles notices he has something in his hands he keeps flipping over and over. Before he can ask what it is, Caleb cuts in. “You had breakfast yet, Stiles?”

“Wha? Uh…” Stiles’s stomach growls. Loudly.

“Guess that’s my answer,” Caleb chuckles, as Stiles closes his eyes. God, today is not his day, and it’s only just started. “We’ll stop by In-N-Out on our way to the woods.”

“Speaking of which, anything new on Kate?” Stiles shifts forward as much as the seatbelt will allow, sticks his head in between Laura and Caleb, much to Laura’s disgust. He ignores her.

“No,” Caleb says, glancing over his shoulder at Stiles. “But Talia wanted to start early, see if we couldn’t get something while the scent’s still relatively fresh.”

“Have you tried looking in town? Anybody new is bound to stir up interest, even in Beacon Hills.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Laura demands.

“Peter’s looking into that,” Caleb says as if Laura hasn’t said anything. “He’s really good at using computers, so even if Argent’s used a fake name or a flunky of hers has registered, he’ll be able to dig it up, given time.”

“…Right.” He’d actually forgotten about Peter. How could he have forgotten about Peter? Fuck, now he has to keep an eye on him and Kate.

Fuck.

“What, what is it? Stiles, do you see her, is she here? Stiles!”

“What?” Stiles jerks up to see that Caleb, Laura, and Derek are all staring at him. Laura has her claws out. “What’s happening?”

“That’s what we want to know!” Caleb exclaims. “Your heartbeat went through the roof! Is Kate here?”

“Uh, no. At least I don’t think so?” Stiles sits up to make sure, peering out of the windows of the Hummer every which way. They’re stopped at the stoplight on the intersections of Main and Picketer Streets, and Stiles automatically looks to the police station on the left. It’s just a glance, a quick shuffle of his eyes over the station doors, but it’s the glance that changes everything.

Coming out of the station doors, lunchbox swinging from one hand, the other hand lifted to shade her eyes, is his mom.

Stiles’s heart stops. Then starts beating again, at twice the speed.

“Stiles?!”

Stiles flaps his hand irritably, wanting Caleb to shut up. His mom is thin, thin as a pole, and he remembers that from when he was ten, how he was afraid she was going to disappear if she lost any more weight. Or that he was going to be able to see through her or something. He wonders if she’s throwing up food yet, or if she’s still at the stage when she’s able to eat but doesn’t have much of an appetite.

The car pulls into motion then. Stiles scrambles in his seat to keep watching his mom as long as possible. She’s walking away now, so he can only see her back, but her silhouette is so familiar heat prickles at his eyes.

Damnit. Goddamnit.

When the Hummer turns the corner and his mom’s out of sight, Stiles doesn’t turn around for a full minute. When he does, Derek and Laura are both watching him, while Caleb is glancing between the rearview mirror and the road. Derek looks away when Stiles meets his eyes, but Laura tilts her head and opens her mouth. A quiet chuff from Caleb stops her, she snapping her mouth shut at the look on his face. Stiles looks down at the floor of the van and keeps his eyes there, his heart squeezing in his chest.

After that, the atmosphere in the Hummer is very quiet.

When they pull into the back entrance of Beacon Hills Preserve, Mrs. Hale and Kurt are already there, waiting for them. If possible, Mrs. Hale looks even more regal than yesterday, her dark eyes unreadable as she regards the four of them clambering out of the Hummer.

“You all stink of adrenaline and sadness,” Kurt informs them. “What happened, did Laura run into that kid on the way out here, what’s his name?”

“No,” Laura snaps. “Stop bringing him up already, oh my God!”

“Nobody’s bringing anybody up, Laur,” Caleb soothes. “Just calm down before you freak out.”

Stiles looks to Derek for an explanation, but Derek is looking into the woods. Following Derek’s gaze, Stiles inhales.

This is the spot he’d dragged Scott to the night they looked for the half-body. His feet, totally without Stiles’s permission, carry him over to the edge, where the leaves from the woods blow onto the lot. God, what would have happened if he hadn’t convinced Scott it was a good idea? He’s asked himself this question before, spent plenty of sleepless nights devoted to it (and lots of other things, too, yay ADHD). He’s never asked himself while actually standing where the werewolfy stuff all started.

“What’re you looking at?”

Stiles looks up to see Derek hovering over his shoulder. “Oh, nothing,” he says quickly. When Derek raises his eyebrows at him, he adds, “Just, reminded me of a friend. That’s all.”

“One of your packmates?” Derek asks.

“What?” Stiles gets whiplash snapping to look at Derek so quickly.

“You smell sad again,” Derek tells him bluntly. “And I overheard Mom talking to Kurt and Peter about you having no pack anymore, so…”

Oh. That’s… that’s actually really thoughtful. Stiles opens his mouth to tell Derek that-

“Kids, over here!” Kurt’s voice shouts. “Your mother’s caught a faint whiff of wolfsbane and gun metal!”

Well, okay then. “Hey, wait for me!”

Stiles fetches up against another tree. He’s already sore and sweaty, though it’s only been fifteen minutes. The Hales set a fast pace, and they’re going over parts of the woods Stiles doesn’t recognize. Figures that Stiles doesn’t know all of it, even though he’s practically grown up going into the woods. He’d feel bad about it, but it was like this back home too, pretty much, with Derek showing off how much better he knew the Preserve than they did at every opportunity.

At least that hasn’t changed.

“Wow, you’re slow,” Derek laughs as he circles back to Stiles.

“Well, excuuuuuse me, princess,” Stiles pants. “I can’t do the super speed like you guys. Sorry for being just human.”

Derek’s eyebrows scrunch together. “I thought – Mom said—”

Stiles groans. “They still think I’m an Alpha? Jeez.” He’d been hoping they had been kidding about that, even though it was clear then that they really, really weren’t.

Derek stops where he is. “You don’t think you are?”

Stiles sighs, throws his hands up in the air. “The thing is, I wasn’t bitten. I certainly wasn’t born one, either. How can I be a werewolf if neither of these things happened?”

That clearly takes Derek aback. “But you smell—”

“Yeah, I have no idea what’s up with that.” Stiles shrugs.

“Huh.” For some reason, Derek closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. “Nope, not smelling anything other than Alpha wolf.”

“Wait, did you just sniff me?”

“No.” Derek’s deadpan expression is so like Older Derek’s, Stiles almost chokes. “I would never do that. It would violate the bro code.”

Stiles stares, open-mouthed. He has no other choice. Derek literally just said “bro”, unironically, without torture or other form of duress. His mind is, like, utterly blown.

Then Derek snickers, and any resemblance, behaviorally, is gone. “The look on your face!”

Stiles rolls his eyes. “Whatever, dude. Hey, shouldn’t we be looking for the trail?”

“Oh, yeah.” Derek darts a furtive look around. No one’s there, but he still pulls Stiles after him, back into the invisible path they were following. “We wouldn’t have been distracted if it weren’t for you, anyway.”

“Hey, you’re the one who decided hanging out with me was a good idea,” Stiles points out.

“Well…” Derek hesitates.

“What?” Stiles squawks.

“It was between me and Laura, since Caleb and Kurt are our best trackers,” Derek shrugs. “Since Laura seems to get even angrier when she’s around you, Mom elected me for the job.”

“Great,” Stiles grumbles. “What is Laura’s deal, anyway? Is it just me, or does everything make her Hulk out?”

“Hulk out?” Derek says blankly. “Are you talking about the movie they made in 2003?”

“What, no, I’m talking about the one with Edward Nor—” Wait, wait, wait. Right, it’s 2004. Shit, he can’t remember when the movie with Edward Norton came out. “Uh, yeah, the one from 2003. Who played Bruce Banner in that one?”

“Eric Bana,” Derek says absently. Eric Bana?! Stiles makes a face to himself. “You know, I never thought about it like that before, but I think you’re right. She is like the Hulk.”

Stiles smirks. Derek’s lips twitch. After a moment, they both break down laughing. “It’s so appropriate, though!” Derek gets out. “Sometimes she gets so angry, she will actually—”

“I’ll actually what?”

“Eee!” Stiles jumps a foot in the air. “Stop doing that!”

“Not my fault you weren’t paying attention,” Laura retorts. “What were you saying about me?”

Shit. Shitshitshit. “Uhhh, we weren’t talking about you!” he stammers. “We were, uh—”

“We were talking about why Stiles doesn’t think he’s a werewolf,” Derek puts in. “Even though he smells like one.”

“Yeah!” God, Stiles could kiss Derek. If he thought he could get away with it. And not get punched six ways to Sunday. “I was telling Derek there is no way I could be a wolf because I wasn’t born or bitten.”

“Actually, Mom has a theory about that,” Laura says. “She thinks that maybe you were bitten, but it was such a traumatic event that your brain has blocked it out and repressed the shift. Losing your pack probably didn’t help, either.”

“Uh.” Stiles’s brain goes blank at the horrifying prospect. “How about no.”

Laura lifts an eyebrow. “You saying Mom’s wrong?”

“Uh, yeah. Traumatic or not, I really would have remembered being bitten. It would have been important to my continued survival, and believe it or not, I happen to like being alive.”

At least until this thing is done, part of him says. Stiles does not repeat that out loud. Or thinks he doesn’t, anyway.

“Maybe you were bitten when you were too young to remember,” Laura shrugs. “Mom says that shift repression can happen for a long time.”

“To the point where nothing happens?” Stiles says skeptically. “Even repressed, there would have been something that showed up, if subconsciously. That’s how repression works.”

“You mean like your eyes flashing?” Laura’s mouth turns up in a smug smile. “Which, oh yeah, they’re doing right now, by the way.”

“What?” Stiles glances at Derek, who promptly looks away. “Derek?”

Derek raises his head, but doesn’t meet Stiles’s gaze. “Yeah, they’re red.”

Laura grins, teeth sharp. “Told you. Now come on, Mom thinks Caleb’s found something, and she wants us all to gather up.”

Stiles grits his teeth. All he wants to do, right now, is rip Laura’s smirking head off her shoulders. He hates her smugness, the way she saunters off into the woods like she didn’t fucking listen to a word he said, which, oh yeah, she didn’t. maybe he could get Kate to shoot her, see how she’d like that while Stiles dug out the wolfsbane bullets. Maybe Laura would listen to him then.

A light touch brushes over his shoulder. “Stiles?”

“What.” Stiles glances out the corner of his eye at Derek. Derek instantly flinches away, but he doesn’t remove his hand from Stiles’s shoulder.

“We’d better follow her,” Derek says quietly. “So we don’t get left behind.”

“Fine.” Stiles moves towards where Laura disappeared. Derek catches up to him, then edges ahead to lead when Stiles jerks his hand for him to show the way.

They’ve gone a few steps when Stiles bursts out with, “If I’m really an Alpha, which I’m not saying I am, then why don’t I feel any different?”

“You’re not supposed to,” Derek answers.

Oh, gee, that’s just great. Thanks, Derek. Thanks a lot.

Caleb’s lead, and the hunt overall, are a bust. Stiles kind of thought it would be, since no one really knows what they’re looking for, including him, but it’s still frustrating. Neither the woods nor the search of the town revealed anything. Although, there was some excitement for a while at one of the motels in Beacon Hills Township (sending him into a horrible flashback to the suicide motel - if the Hales don’t think he’s a nutcase by now, he’ll eat his Jeep), but ultimately, no dice. Hopefully Peter will have something, and boy, there’s a sentence Stiles never thought he’d say again.

The clinic is busy when walks into it, so he just darts into the back to tell Deaton that he’s back and going to walk down the road a bit. Deaton looks up from the male cat whose underbelly he’s examining, says, “Be careful,” and goes back to what he’s doing. Stiles looks carefully away from where the scalpel is going and backs out the door of the surgery.

The sidewalk of Picketer is reassuringly familiar. Stiles can pretend that he’s walking with Scott from the clinic to the police station to check on his dad before driving Scott and himself home. Even some of the faces are the same, if younger; he says hello to Mrs. Strutherton and Mrs. Willis, only realizing after he’s already passed them that that’s a mistake. Now the gossip mill is going to go into overdrive about him (luckily, he hadn’t greeted them by name. Maybe they’ll just say he’s really friendly and polite, and not oh my God, he’s such a stalker). He bets by early morning tomorrow the rumormongers in town will have found out he lives with Deaton and will show up with casseroles and thinly-veiled smiles and the most invasive questions, holy God –

He looks up at the police station then, his heart stuttering in his throat. His dad's only been dead for a few weeks, but it feels like forever, according to the maw in his chest. From the first days after, through the funeral, to now, Stiles had been so busy - had kept himself busy - enough that he could get by without being wholly swallowed by the maw. Doing this, stepping into the police station, will undo all of that. He’ll be voluntarily stepping over the edge of the abyss, voluntarily letting himself misstep and give in to the sobbing mess of a breakdown waiting patiently on the periphery. But he has to, he has to see his dad as he was, not as he is, dead as a doorknob.

The doors swing open, then closed behind him. There's the counter, and Deputy White behind it like every day before his death in 2007, two years from now. He forces himself not to think about that, just looks towards the rec room, where his dad, still a deputy, always was when not on the beat. Stiles drifts over as close as he can get, ignoring White's query of "Can I help you?", peering in without blocking or going through the door.

And there he is. His dad is in a wrinkled uniform, clutching a cup of station coffee as he jokes with, oh jeez, Tara. Tara looks as beautiful and put-together as always; Stiles is reminded of the crush he used to have on her when he was little, before Lydia came into his life. Then his dad gestures, and Stiles’s attention is dragged back. It looks like his dad has just come off shift, probably waiting for his relief to come in before he heads home. Jeez, he looks so much younger, his wrinkles less entrenched, his smile coming easier, flashing brighter, chuckles coming out without that bone-tired edge Stiles remembers.

Stiles likes to think he doesn’t get angry or resentful often. Normally he has too much to do and/or other things to focus on, and then whatever he's resenting will disappear under the thrill of new research, new information. Such is his way of coping with anything new. But this hot new flare of anger and the desire to wring someone’s neck (which isn't actually new), he doesn't think he can bury it underneath research.

He turns on his heel and brushes by White, who has come out from behind the counter. The old man shouts after him, "Quit running in the station, boy! Show some decorum!" But Stiles isn’t paying any attention.

The stairs disappear. The sidewalk rushes by underneath his feet like water. His breath pants roughly in his ears, though the sound of his heartbeat threatens to drown it out. He turns down one alley, and then another, before he starts punching the wall.

“Gahh!” He bends over his hand, shaking it as the pain roars up his nerve endings. How pathetic is he, that he can’t take one measly punch to the wall? He wasn’t even hit this time, but he’s still carrying on like a pathetic, stupid baby.

He puts his other fist into the wall. And ow, that was a really bad idea, Jesus, and he's sobbing. The maw has roared up from the depths, catching him up in an overwhelming wave of emotion. He can only think, as his ragged sobs ring in the alley, that he hopes no one comes across him. He doesn't want anyone to see him like this, as he rocks back and forth and wraps his arms around himself in a stupid parody of a hug. He would kill for one of his dad's hugs right now, but he really doesn't want anyone to see or hear him either.

So he chokes down the sobs, keeps his head down, and does his best to keep going, even in hell.

Long before he gets back to the clinic, Stiles senses the shift in the air. Black fur (wait, what?), gleaming red eyes, and a regal air that translates in wolf or human form – Mrs. Hale.

What’s Mrs. Hale doing at the clinic? She had driven Laura and Derek home in a flashy silver Saturn Vue (excuse him), while Caleb and a glaring Kurt took Stiles in the Hummer to the clinic to drop him off.

He picks up his pace. Whatever Mrs. Hale is at the clinic for, it can’t be good.

The closer he gets, the more oppressively the sense of Mrs. Hale power settles on him. He keeps expecting Mrs. Hale to step out of the clinic and stare at him with his dark eyes – or attack him – or something.

She doesn’t.

He gets all the way to touching the wall of the clinic before anything happens.

“I see what you’re saying, Talia, and I agree with you, his shift is being blocked.”

Wait, that’s Deaton talking. Stiles looks around, spots the ajar clinic back door. Huh. For a moment there, he’d thought he actually had werewolf hearing – Deaton’s voice is so loud and clear like Stiles is in the room with him.

“But not in how the shift is being blocked?” Mrs. Hale’s voice is even, betraying nothing of what she’s feeling. “Alan, the boy wears pain like a cloud, it comes off of him nearly constantly. I don’t see what else could be the block but that.”

Whoa, what? Werewolves can smell emotions? Oh, God, Older Derek must have smelled Stiles’s boner for him so many times – no wonder he’d always looked like he’d smelled something dirty! That’s so embarrassing, he can never look Derek in the eye again –

“Maybe that is some of it, but there is more. Last night, I took the clothes he was wearing and did a reading of them.” Stiles barely stops the noise of indignation from coming out, but dude, those are his clothes. So not cool, man.

“And? What did you find?”

“To be honest, the reading was… confusing. I got a sense of power, like a wolf’s, as well as a sense of Stiles – always moving, always thinking—”

“Mm.”

Rude! Stiles wants to say at Mrs. Hale’s response. He bites the urge back. With a Herculean effort.

“—but that wasn’t all. I also felt a third presence.”

“A third?” Mrs. Hale sounds surprised.

“It wasn’t anything I’d felt before. It was old and corrupted. It was twisted around Stiles and his power, even in between, like it was trying to keep them apart.”

“That’s why you believe Stiles himself isn’t blocking his own shift?”

“Yes. I’d love to be able to tell you what it is,” Stiles snorts to himself, as if Deaton ever tells anybody anything except in riddles, “but unfortunately, I’m not familiar with it. I can tell you it reminded me of vines, the way it twisted around, but that’s all.”

“Vines?” Stiles says, almost before he remembers he shouldn’t. Then he claps a hand across his mouth, but it’s too late, he can already hear the footsteps. The back door opens, and Mrs. Hale fills it, looking down at Stiles with an eyebrow raised.

“Uh, hi.” Stiles waves, awkwardly.

Mrs. Hale starts to respond, but then she gets a good look at him, and her whole face changes. “Are you all right? What happened, did somebody jump you?”

Her hands on him are gentle as she plucks at his shirt, peers into his eyes. At first, Stiles has no idea why Mrs. Hale is doing this, except he gets a glimpse of his cracked, bleeding knuckles. Oh. Right. He ran into a wall. An extremely unforgiving wall. Repeatedly.

“I’m fine.” He pulls away from Mrs. Hale’s touch, tries to shrug. Winces. “I just, uh, needed a moment. To myself.”

Mrs. Hale’s concern changes to understanding. Stiles looks away, gestures behind her, where Deaton is hovering. “So, can I come in?”

“I’ll get the first aid kit.” Deaton disappears. Stiles is shadowed to the exam table, where he drags his heavy as lead body up on to swing his legs. As soon as he gets situated, Mrs. Hale is there, leaning against the cabinets across from the table.

It’s a long silent moment waiting for Deaton to get back. Mrs. Hale’s eyes are on Stiles like a hand across the back of his neck, firm and unyielding, but Stiles is so tired. Every part of him feels like it’s got an anvil attached to it, pressing him down like he’s one of those bendy trees he sees on the Internet all the time. He – has no energy left, is the thing. He feels like – like the time after Gerard beat him up: achy, humiliated, and defeated. Only he’s the one who beat himself up, this time, and not as a message for anybody else.

Deaton returns with the first aid kit, starts patching up Stiles’s knuckles. Stiles winces through the alcohol, says nothing when the gauze is applied, wound around his hand. Deaton is quick and professional, rolling the gauze easily and taping it down with hardly any pain on Stiles’s part – way better than Stiles’s own attempts to self-bandage, and neater. Perks of being in a medical profession, he guesses, even if it’s not oriented towards humans.

Mrs. Hale waits until Deaton’s started on Stiles’s other hand before she speaks. “I owe you an apology.”

“Wha?” Stiles blinks. “What for?”

“I’ve been focused on protecting my pack, from Kate Argent and whatever hunters she brought with her, and from you. I thought that by finding Argent, I could see you move on as well, and not have to worry about you.”

“…Okay…? Not seeing what you need to apologize for here.”

Mrs. Hale sighs, uncrosses her arms. “It’s obvious you’ve lost people. Multiple people. Maybe even your whole pack.” She pauses for Stiles’s shudder to recede. “However, I only thought of you as a threat. An intriguing threat, one who didn’t seem to be able to shift…”

“You were thinking grief was blocking the shift.” Stiles smiles, bitterly. “That I was repressing it because what, I’d rather have Scott here than believe I’m an Alpha?” Actually, that – that sounds plausible. He would rather have Scott alive than be stuck here, told at every turn he’s an Alpha when he’s clearly not. It’s not just he doesn’t feel like one, it’s that there’s just not enough evidence that adds up, not least of which is that he wasn’t bitten….

“If Scott is who was your Alpha, then, yes.” Mrs. Hale nods. “But I forgot to look at the whole picture. You’ve just lost your whole pack, Stiles. You’re only seventeen, you shouldn’t have to deal with this. You don’t deserve to be treated as an enemy, you deserve to rest. I’m sorry that it’s taken me this long to see that.”

Stiles stares, unable to look away from the determination in Mrs. Hale’s eyes. “Uh, that’s okay, I’d really rather you didn’t see that. Actually, that would be great, could we just ignore everything and pretend this didn’t happen?”

“You are not alone, Stiles,” Mrs. Hale says. “We can help you. You don’t have to go through this by yourself.”

Oh, it’s an intervention. Laughing mirthlessly, Stiles slumps over, puts his face into his free newly-bandaged hand. God, he’s so tired. The anvils are getting heavier. “No offense, Mrs. Hale, but there’s no way you can help me. Nobody can help me. So, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I’m just here to stop Kate, okay? I don’t need anything other than that. So if we’re done here, I’d like to go to sleep.” The sooner he sleeps, the sooner the next day comes, he doesn’t add.

Mrs. Hale and Deaton share a long look. Any other time, Stiles would roll his eyes, but he really wants to get out of here, away from this conversation, and faceplant into his pillow. Today needs to end, like, yesterday. Last millennium yesterday, it needs to be done, now.

“Just let me pack this away,” Deaton says, finally. “I’d also like to do one last check on my patients, and then we can go.”

“Fine. Great. Whatever. I’m going this way so I don’t have to deal with Mrs. Stare of Doom over here looking at me all the time.”

Mrs. Hale’s lips purse. Deaton, as much as he can, looks horrified, but Stiles officially gives no fucks. Zero. None. Zilch. Nada. Zed. His “give a fuck” is broken, and he doesn’t have enough fucks left to fix it.

So he retreats. He beelines for the front room, ducks under the counter and plops into the first uncomfortable waiting area seat he sees. There’s a frisson as he goes under the counter, but again, his give a fuck is broken, and it’ll stay that way until all the shit blows over.

After that, maybe he’ll see about getting fixed. Maybe.

Dinner is quiet, Deaton having tried and failed to get Stiles to “open up” about his feelings. Stiles doesn’t taste whatever’s on the plate, just takes three bites and plays with the rest. As soon as he thinks he can get away with it, he stretches and announces he’s going to bed.

Deaton doesn’t seem to be fooled, but he says, “Good night, sleep well,” so Stiles takes it as a win and escapes upstairs.

God, this day. If pictures could be taken of abstracts, today would be next to the dictionary definition of “shitty,” easily. It wasn’t going to be the last shitty day, either, he can see that written clearly on the wall, ugh. At least this one’s over, and he doesn’t have to deal with suspicious, bitchy werewolves, or worse, adults trying to help. Ugh. That was awful.

He can’t help but wish his dad were here. Or Scott. They’d have some way of cheering him up, a different take on the situation that would make everything not seem so bleak. Heck, Scott would say that even if they didn’t find Crazy Aunt Kate, at least she hasn’t killed the Hales yet, so that’s something, right?

Then Stiles would say something about Yeah, but that doesn’t mean she won’t. Stiles isn’t stupid, he knows he’s changed things. For one, the Hales have canceled the pack reunion that was going to happen two months from now, in January, which, as far as Stiles and Lydia could [tell] figure, was when Kate originally caused the fire. For another, the hunt they did today is another change. The Hales apparently had no idea that Kate was there last time.

It should make him feel better about things, but it doesn’t. How does he know that by changing these things, Kate’s not also going to change? She could get to the Hales not by fire, but by some other method; she could use another member of the pack to get in, instead of Derek. Just by being here, Stiles has changed so much, including so many other things, little things, that he can’t even imagine. Like, his dad here could spill coffee down his uniform shirt because of something Stiles has done, could go home on a day he originally didn’t, and end up shot dead by a perpetrator on the way back. God!

No, no, no, don’t think about things like that. But it’s already too late, Stiles feels like his skin is too tight, his heart is starting to pound, and the world is tunneling down to pinpoints. Staggering upright, Stiles makes himself move, get out of the room and into the next one, which is… the bathroom! Okay, okay, cold water, he can do that, cold water is going to suck, but sometimes it worked for him after his mom died.

Splash! “Gahh!” Stiles yelps. The water’s cold, but not cold enough: he can still feel the edges of panic creeping over him. The water has to keep running, get colder so it really shocks him. He tightens his hands on the sink, trying to hang on and breathe, as his heart thuds faster, harder, louder, feels like it’s going to knock right out of his chest, Jesus he’s going to die. This is it, this is where he kicks the bucket, in a fucking bathroom with fugly as hell green tiling, a vanity that looks straight out of an 80’s movie –

“Shit!” Stiles scrambles away from the mirror, plasters himself against the shower door. Red eyes, he’d seen red eyes, an Alpha is in here! He looks around for something, anything to defend himself, comes up with nothing. He glances back at the mirror to gauge where the Alpha is –

- only to meet his own eyes.

Eyes which are glowing bright red.

“Shit!” As he says that, the red disappears. But he knows what he saw. Laura was right, Mrs. Hale was right, Stiles is an Alpha. What the fuck? How? How did it happen, he wasn’t bitten, he wasn’t –

Fuck, they’re never going to let him live this down. He’s an Alpha. Somehow, the universe shitting on him, the hand of God slapping down on him, whatever, he’s an Alpha. He feels like breaking into hysterical laughter. God, isn’t that just his freaking luck? He gets his best friend bitten and ultimately killed, his dad is buried alive, he time travels to the past where nobody believes or trusts him, and he becomes an Alpha. He just can’t catch a freaking break.

Okay, okay. Deep breaths. He’s an Alpha, fine. Does that mean that he is going to have claws, the fangs, and all? Oh, God, please let him keep his eyebrows, he likes his eyebrows, he doesn’t want to look stupid when he shifts, like Older Derek does –

Click.

Stiles startles. What was that? It felt like something in his chest shifted, or something, and now it’s like a pulled muscle easing back into alignment. Thanks to lacrosse, he knows exactly what that’s like. Freaking Jackson. But no, seriously, what just happened? Is it something to do with his heart? Is he dying in other spectacular ways besides a panic attack? Is it the Alpha power??

He looks up into the mirror, but nope, boring old brown eyes. No red. Or blue or yellow. Looking at his hands, he twists them back and forth. No claws. No fangs, either, when he opens his mouth, and yup, his eyebrows are intact, with no fugly muttonchops for sideburns (guh). Nothing except plain old Stiles, beauty-marked face on a gawky head, giraffe neck, and scrawny shoulders, and all.

Huh. “So, that happened,” he says to thin air. “Gotta say, that is… probably the freakiest thing to happen to me, and these days, that’s saying something.” He blinks. “What is my life.”

It isn’t bad enough he has ADHD, which already marks him out to be different and a loser. Or that his best friend got turned into a werewolf. No, Stiles also has, let’s see, what has he done in the past year or so? He’s helped kill Peter Hale. Got his dad fired, freaking Jackson. Was paralyzed, also by Jackson, multiple times, as around him people were killed. A geriatric psychopath with fucking cancer beat the shit out of him. He yelled at Lydia, drove his Jeep into the side of a warehouse, and got his heart shattered into a million pieces.

Then, he fought against the Alpha pack and fucking Ms. Blake, where his dad and Scott got killed. Then he came here with the express purpose of stopping all that. In the process, he somehow became an Alpha himself, despite not being bitten.

Wow. When he puts it that way, he has no choice but to break into hysterical laughter after all.

His life sucks.

Twenty minutes later, Stiles is on the bed in the guest bedroom, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling plaster. He wants so badly to sleep, but the bitch is as elusive as ever, no computer to wind himself down with kitten videos and Wikipedia binges, no pillow that’s his, the lighting’s wrong, his bed isn’t in the right corner, the sheets don’t feel right –

ADHD makes everything, including getting to sleep, so much fun.

Honestly, it was a miracle he got any sleep last night. Pretty much the only reason was because he crashed, hardcore, as soon as Deaton showed him where the guest bedroom was. Doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen tonight, even though it’d been just as long a day.

Whee.

He throws off the bedclothes and starts pacing. No laptop, no phone, not even a USB so he can work offline should his dad’s crappy wifi crap out. Deaton’s probably not in bed yet, so Stiles can’t go downstairs and turn on the TV on low volume, or better yet see where Deaton’s office is, do some snooping.

Too bad Deaton is down there, and too perceptive by half for Stiles to sneak past him. Not to mention if he goes downstairs, Deaton will think it was weird he hadn’t gone to bed, and might try to get him to “talk” again. Ugh. No thanks.

He has to get out of this room, though. There’s nothing here to distract himself with. May as well explore the rest of the upstairs, see what he can find.

The second floor is essentially a corridor with stairs at one end and Deaton’s master bedroom at the other. The bathroom is across from Stiles’s room - er, the guest room – near which Stiles avoids going. That leaves one other door left on this level for him to investigate, and he wastes no time reaching for the doorknob.

Initially, when the door swings open, Stiles has no idea what he’s looking at. There’s an old, sagging couch situated against the far wall with blankets and big vinyl record cases stacked on top. Next to it is a chest of drawers that doesn’t look like it’s gotten much love: Its varnish is peeling, and one drawer is cracked while another is missing its handles.

Next to that is a long, ugly 70’s-ish filing cabinet; Stiles’s fingers itch to open it. It must need a key or something, though, because the drawer doesn’t give when he tugs on it. Figures.

All right, so this room’s a bust. He’ll just have to find something, some way to – whoa.

At his back, behind the door where he couldn’t see them at first, are two wide bookcases. Both are chockfull of books, with every shelf stuffed, and more books crammed into the spaces above each row. Jackpot. And dude, some of this stuff is relevant – wolf tales, cultures with wolves in them – they could be exactly what he needs. Why hadn’t Deaton told him about these?

Loading the books in his arms, he looks over the other shelves. In short order, he’s added not only the wolf books, but also a bunch of others: stuff on plants, holistic treatments for some really bizarre-sounding diseases, and even a copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. He’s always wanted to read that, but never sat down long enough to actually do it. Nothing but time now, that’s for sure.

It’s still doubtful Stiles will be able to sleep, with so many things in the guest room that are plain wrong. But hey, in the meantime, he’ll get to learn more about wolf symbolism – always good to have handy – and possibly be inspired with some ideas for how to slow down his mom’s frontotemporal dementia.

It’s far-fetched, especially given her current state (the image flashes of her being so skinny, Jeezus, no, no, don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’tthinkaboutit). But he can’t do nothing. Maybe there is something in these books that nobody else would think about. It can’t hurt, right? At least this way, he can feel useful and not like he’s hanging on to his sanity by the last of his bitten fingernails.

He settles into a cross-legged position, his pile of books laid open around him, and gets to work.

Chapter Text

Stiles’s hands are weird.

Long-fingered, broad, and skinny, they look almost like spider’s legs, if spiders had five limbs instead of six.

They also bear no resemblance to a werewolf’s. No matter how much staring he does at them, willing them to pop claws, turn hairy, something, they just. don’t. change.

“Come on, shift already,” he mutters. “Why is this so hard? Scott never seemed to have so much trouble.”

Of course, Scott’s problems had more to do with controlling the shift from happening, not in inducing it. So maybe Stiles needs to think about this a different way. How had Scott put it, when Stiles asked how he wolfed out? “I don’t know, bro, I just… let it come.”

Helpful. Real helpful.

Okay. He can do this. Just has to relax, let "it" come, whatever "it" is. Which can happen aaaanytime now. No hurry, it's not as if this isn't important for his well-being or anything, nope, just take your time, no biggie, no...

Nothing.

"Oh, come on, there has to be another way!" He throws his hands up.

"Whoa, watch it!"

"Dude!" Stiles clutches at his heart, stares daggers through Derek. "I swear, you Hales and your sneaking up thing!"

"How was I to know you would do that?" Derek’s caterpillar eyebrows set into an indignant angle. "Jeez, Stiles, I think you almost broke my nose!"

"Please, your nose would have been fine," Stiles grouches. "I'd be more concerned about my hands." He checks said hands over. Nope, nothing new to them, not even the merest hair out of place. Dammit. There went his theory that he could be startled into shifting.

Noticing what Stiles is doing, Derek asks, "Oh, you still trying to reach your form?"

"Yeah," Stiles says glumly. "No dice, though. I got nothing."

"Not even with my mom coaching you?"

"Nope." Stiles pops the "p". "Like, I hear what she's saying, but it makes no sense to me, right? It's all mystical stuff like 'listen to your inner self' and 'let what you hear dictate your feelings.' Drives. Me. Crazy."

Derek nods. "I've never had any problems trying to shift, but she's tried to give me advice on other things, too. Like with my girlfriend, Pai—"

He cuts himself off. Stiles stares, as Derek's face literally shuts off in a maneuver entirely too familiar. But now, knowing what lies behind the facade, Stiles gets so much more why he would do that, and hell, if he could do that, he would, too.

Uh, okay. He’s got this. Come on, think, what’s a good topic to change to?

“So, uh,” Stiles coughs. “Where are we going today, dude?”

“Huh? Oh, we’re supposed to go around town,” Derek says. He’s still closed off, but at least he’s talking, right? “Mostly sticking to Main Street, though, since pretty much anything that happens in town will cross there at some point.”

“Good point,” Stiles nods. “So, she still hasn’t shown up yet, huh?”

Derek shakes his head. “It’s driving Mom and Kurt crazy. They swear they can smell gun oil all over, like in the warehouses on the edge of town, but they just can’t find her. Caleb is starting to draw up theories that she’s fucking with us, leaving down these false trails and then laughing at us as we stumble around.”

“Dunno, man, she seems to like to toy with the wolves to their face,” Stiles says. “Up close and personal, if you know what I mean.”

Derek’s eyebrows draw together. “Uh, okay…? Whatever you say, man.” He gives Stiles a weird look. “Anyway, Peter says that he might have found something, but he has to check with the public records before he can confirm anything. Wouldn’t say what it was,” damn, that was Stiles’s next question, “at least not to me.”

Stiles looks over at Derek. His forehead is scrunched over a pretty familiar frown. “You think they’re holding out on you? With information, I mean.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “When don’t they hold out on me? I swear they all think I’m still five years old. Even Laura is in on it, which is so not fair. Like, come on, if you’re going to bring Laura in, at least trust me, okay? I know I’ve messed up in the last year, but that’s no reason to shut me out of everything.”

“Whoa, dude, what are you talking about?” Stiles almost stops in his tracks, except for where Derek takes him by the arm and makes him keep going. “Don’t yell at me, I have no idea what’s going on.”

Derek blinks at him, even as his grip tightens a little. “Oh, right, you haven’t been around for – That’s so weird, it feels like you’ve been around forever.” He seems to notice his hand on Stiles’s arm, drops it like he’s been burnt. By a hot potato. At 451 degrees Fahrenheit. While also devouring a house.

Okay, his brain can stop with the burning analogies anytime now.

“It’s just,” Derek continues, while Stiles’s brain is occupied with counting how many times it’s thought about fire over the past week, “Mom and Kurt and the rest are so focused on Laura, and her problems, and how she has to be the head of the family when it’s her turn, it’s like there’s no one else, even though there’s me and Cora. And even Cora gets some attention, she’s always off to karate and sleepovers and—”

“Wait, karate?” Images storm through Stiles’s head at Cora – Older Cora – accidentally-on-purpose breaking the hands of kids left and right. Who in their right mind would—

“See, you too!” Derek rolls his head back in frustration. “No one has enough time for me, not even Peter.”

“Oh, no. Be glad about that, dude,” Stiles mutters under his breath.

Not quietly enough, apparently, for Derek turns on him, expression fierce. “What is it about Peter that everyone hates so much? You, Mom, Kurt, even Laura doesn’t like him! He’s the only one who’s been looking out for me for the past year, when I’ve been having trouble controlling the shift—”

“Dude, you’re having trouble controlling the shift?” Stiles’s brain kicks into overdrive. The images of Cora on a karate-chopping rampage get shoved aside in favor of Derek going on a rampage. Following on the heels of that is Kate, her smirk twisting up her face, as she levels a gun at Derek lying at her feet.

No. Don’t think about it. Don’t. Think. About. It. Don’t think about – “That’s so ironic,” Stiles blurts out, “you’re having trouble controlling your shift and I’m having trouble shifting at all.”

He blinks, looks at Derek. Derek is frozen half between hunched shoulders and a concerned expression, surprise dawning on him as he takes in Stiles’s words. He looks, succinctly, like a deer in headlights, which, pfft!

Helpless, Stiles bursts out into snickers. Get it? Like a deer in headlights, but a wolf? The hunter turns into the hunted? Anyone?

Derek, looking confused, also starts laughing. Stiles laughs harder, bends over and stands his hands on his knees to keep from toppling over. It doesn’t stop Derek from shoving him over, demanding through chuckles to know “what’s so funny,” and oh, God, Stiles can’t. stop. laughing.

“Stop it!” Derek hisses.

“You stop it! You’re the one who keeps making me laugh,” Stiles returns, flailing out an arm for Derek’s shoulder. He hangs on with a desperate grip, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes, as Derek’s arm comes around his shoulders.

“You’re the one who keeps laughing like a maniac!” Derek retorts.

“Pfft, a maniac! Oh, God, stop,” Stiles moans, clutching at his stomach. “Just, okay, we gotta stop looking at each other. Let go, dude.”

Over their heads, someone says: "What are you boys laughing about?"

He looks up. The laughter dies a quick, sudden death. A heart attack, wolfsbane shot to the heart sudden death.

Like she’s been summoned from his waking nightmare, Kate’s there, smiling down at them, looking back and forth between them. Stiles shudders as her gaze sweeps him up and down. Ugh.

Her eyes widen as she gets a good look at them; they go from curiously amused to a wicked smirk, and she straightens up. Stiles gags as Kate's chest puffs out – ugh, ugh, ugh. So wrong, seriously, Spiderman beating Batman in a fight wrong, two plus two is five wrong, practicing kissing with Scott wrong—

"Well, aren't you two handsome young men." Kate's voice grates on Stiles's ears, especially with how husky (urgh, does that actually work on people?) and low it's gotten. So, so wrong. "What's the matter, wolf got your tongue?"

Freezing, Stiles stares up at Kate. Oh, my God, Kate. Kate's here. Finally! He has to tell the Hales, they can find out where she's hunkering – actually, he'd better do that, he doesn't want Kate anywhere near them, especially not—

Derek. Shit, Derek! Stiles whirls on Derek, somehow surprised to see him still standing there, and not writhing on the ground. In fact, he's chatting with Kate with a smile on his face – oh, no, nonono, no, this is not happening.

"Sorry, we have to go," Stiles blurts, seizing Derek's arm. "We're – late for something. A movie! We're late for a movie! So, we gotta go, sorry, sorry—"

"What movie are we watching?" Derek asks.

At the same time, Kate says, "Ooh, can I tag along?"

She and Derek look at each other, turn to Stiles.

"Uh," Stiles blanks. He frickin' blanks. So he does what he does best: opens his mouth and word vomits. "Uh, no, because my bro here and I, we've been wanting to watch this movie since forever, and it's kind of our last chance to see it, and it's really something only the two of us like, like it's super geeky, so it's not something you'd enjoy—"

"We're going to watch The Spongebob Movie," Derek supplies, earning the coveted spot of Stiles's most best favoritest person ever, sorry Scott, "and Stiles doesn't want anyone to know because he thinks it's embarrassing." He nudges Stiles.

"It is embarrassing!" Stiles squawks. "It is not natural to love a talking sponge that much. It's a stupid cartoon, like, a really stupid cartoon, but watching it gives me joy, okay? Now, dude, we really do have to move. I gotta get my popcorn, you know how much I need my popcorn—"

He gives Derek meaningful eyes. Derek widens his in turn, but he's not Scott, he doesn't get what Stiles is trying to say. Still, when Stiles yanks on his arm, Derek comes easily.

However, Kate, bitch that she is, says, "Oh, come on, a 'talking sponge' is more fun than hanging out with little ol' me? Come on, don't leave me heartbroken here," and slinks forward. Slowly.

Damn, if Lydia had done that to him before the Great Heartbreak, that move would have made all the blood in his body rush south. Going by the look on Derek's face, it's having that effect on him.

But Stiles takes a look at Kate's face, calculating and hungry, and he so isn't turned on by psychopathic hunter ladies. Is, in fact, very very turned off – and that enables him to tighten his grip on Derek's arm and bolt.

"Hey!" Derek shouts. "What are you doing?"

Stiles looks over his shoulder at Kate, who's thrown back her head and is laughing as she watches them race away. Stiles runs faster, his grip on Derek's arm the only reason he doesn't smack into a lamppost, as Derek pulls him out of its way.

"What is your problem, Stiles?" Derek hisses. "Why are you trying so hard to get away from her?"

"Because," Stiles checks over his shoulder to see that Kate is still watching them. She lifts her hand in a lazy wave. "That's Kate. Kate Argent. The hunter? The one we're all looking high and low for?"

"What?" Derek nearly jerks Stiles to a stop in his surprise. "That's Kate Argent?"

"Yes," Stiles retorts, yanks on Derek's arm. "Now come on, we need to get away from her as far and as fast as possible!"

This time when Stiles runs, Derek is right there with him.

They get three or four blocks away before Stiles has to slow to a walk, wheezing and clutching at the stitch in his side. Derek, of course, looks fresh as a daisy, frowning down at Stiles. "Hey, are you okay?" he asks, reaching out a hand as if to put it on Stiles's shoulder.

"Of course, I'm not okay," Stiles pants, " That was Kate, Kate's here, and she's, she kills—"

He breaks off with a "urgkch" as his throat clamps down on him. Not again! Flailing, he catches at Derek as he chokes, feeling like a big ball of something is lodged in his throat and he can't get it out. Just as he's really panicking, coughing hard, his throat opens up again, and he can swallow like the ball was never there.

"Stiles?" Derek is hovering over him, his rainbow eyes on Stiles's face. Stiles waves him off, still focused on being able to swallow and breathe properly.

"I'm – all right." Damn, his voice is scratchy as all hell. "But dude, we've gotta," he stops to clear his throat, "call someone. Tell them about her."

Of all the times not to have his phone on him. Not for the first time, he wishes he'd said fuck it to the ritual's ban on anything other than clothes and stuck his phone in his pocket anyway. Fuck Lydia's rants on the limits of metaphysics anyway, he's seen twins merge into a huge-ass monster, that means he could have taken a tiny, practically weightless phone with him into the ether—

"Okay. I'll call Peter."

"What?" Stiles watches, mouth open, as Derek pulls a seriously, seriously old Nokia brick out of practically nowhere. "Since when have you had a phone?"

"Since I was thirteen," Derek says distractedly. He's busy pressing the button on the top of the phone, eyebrows furrowing as he holds it down and keeps holding it down. Finally, the screen switches on, only to show the Nokia logo as it loads.

"How long does it take to turn on?" Stiles gapes after a few seconds of Nokia logo. "Jeez!"

Derek rolls his eyes. "It takes forever," he agrees, "but it's the only one Mom will let me or Laura have, since we broke the first two phones she gave us."

"Let me guess, they were flip phones," Stiles snarks.

"Yeah, Mom wasn't too pleased when we broke them," Derek winces. "Aha!"

Stiles watches as on the teeny screen, Derek uses the arrows and the round button underneath the screen to navigate to his contacts, where he scrolls, repeatedly punching the down arrow, until he gets to "Peter."

"Wait, you're calling Peter?"

"Yeah, that's what I said," Derek says, annoyed. He punches the Call button before Stiles can stop him. "What's wrong with Peter?"

"Uhh, that he's not trustworthy?"

"He is, too!" Derek protests. "He's the only one who - Oh, hey, Uncle Pete. I'm glad you picked up."

Pete? Derek calls Peter Uncle Pete? Oh, God, there's not enough brain bleach in the world. Stiles tries to scratch his ears out as Derek goes on, "No, no, nothing's wrong. Well, we just ran into the, uh, person of interest the whole family is going on about—"

Even to Stiles's supernatural-free, all-too-human ears, Peter's "WHAT" is audible. Derek winces, but hurries to say, "We're all right, nothing's happened. Stiles got us away before she could, like, kidnap us or anything."

"Stiles is with you?" Peter says. Then Derek puts the phone back to his ear and Peter's voice is muffled. Stiles still hears to hear the interest in Peter’s tone, can’t help but flash back to a certain parking garage.

“I can hear the lie in your voice,” Peter smirks, his red eyes boring into Stiles. “Your heartbeat gives you away.”

"Near the boutique," Derek says, startling Stiles out of his reverie. "Mrs. Miller's – which other boutique is there?"

What the hell is Derek talking about? There’s no boutique on Main. The closest thing they have to a boutique on Main is the florist's.

"Wait, you're calling Mom?" Derek's voice spikes higher, goes panicky. "Peter, do you have to?"

Whatever Peter says on the other end has Derek slumping. "Fine. Yeah, whatever, Peter. What? No way, I'm not – Fine. I said fine, Peter, I'm not Cora, I know how to sit and stay like a good boy. Fine. Fine. Goodbye."

Derek stabs the END CALL button. Stiles is honestly surprised the phone doesn't break underneath the assault, but then again, he guesses that's why Derek has that phone and not the crappy flip phone version.

"So... we're stuck here?" he ventures.

"Yeah," Derek says, scowling. "Until Mom can pick us up."

"You, uh, don't seem too happy about that," Stiles points out.

"I'm not a baby," Derek crosses his arms. "I can look after myself just fine. I don't need Mom coming in all the time."

Stiles eyes Derek up and down. Tall (not as tall as he would be) with a solid frame and his already signature Resting Bitch Face, a few years from now, nobody would dispute that statement. As it is now… yeahh, not so much.

Derek must see what Stiles is thinking, for his glare multiplies in magnitude. Stiles would be scared, except he's withstood the glares of Older Derek and various members of the Alpha Pack Alphas – Derek's has nothing on them. He actually looks more adorable than threatening, the furrow in his forehead over his caterpillar eyebrows ruining any ferocity the look might have had.

"Gotta work on your glare, bro," Stiles advises, reaching out to pat Derek on the shoulder. "It's a little weak."

“Shut up,” Derek snaps.

Stiles would totally tease him more, except, wait. Wait wait wait waiiiiiiit. Derek’s mom is coming. Derek’s mom who is Mrs. Hale. Mrs. Hale is coming. She’s coming here. And going by her protective instincts that he’s already seen while he was on her territory, she’s going to be in a great mood.

"Oh, dude." Stiles runs his hand over his head. Jeez, he really needs to get a haircut (he feels like he's had this thought before). "Just great. Fantastic way to start my day." There’s no way Mrs. Hale is not going to blame him for this. She’s going to demand that he stay away from them and then that’s his one job fucked up all over again. Fuck.

"First Peter, now my mom? What's with you all of a sudden?"

Stiles looks up at a glaring Derek. “Huh? What? What’re you talking about?”

“I’m talking about you,” Derek retorts. “Why are you so distrusting all of a sudden? I thought you liked my mom? But then Peter comes up and you hate him and Mom?"

"Whoa, whoa, dude. I don't hate your mom, where'd you get that idea?" Stiles is totally bewildered here, not going to lie. What is Derek talking about?

"So it's just Peter, then." Derek crosses his arms. His – okay, not as big as Older Derek's arms (he knew noticing Older Derek’s arms was going to come back and bite him in the ass one day) – but no slouch arms, either – arms which make Derek a little more....

Nope, can't even say it to himself. Derek's still adorable in his protectiveness, even if Stiles is torn between wanting to squish Derek’s cheeks and groaning about this being brought up again.

"Look, no offense, okay? But Peter, he gives off seriously creepy vibes," at which Derek rolls his eyes but relaxes, hooray for Stiles, "and he, uh, well, he—"

"He what?" Derek butts in, impatient, when Stiles trails off. He raises those caterpillar eyebrows at Stiles in such mimicry of Older Derek that Stiles gets the chills.

Besides, how do you tell a dude that his uncle, with whom he's clearly close, is – was – might become a murdering psychopath who kills his own family for power and has no compunctions about biting and manipulating teenagers for his own gain?

Yeahhh, that's going to go over well. Not.

"He just creeps me out," Stiles says, feeling lame. "He sets off my Stiles senses."

"Your what?" Derek's eyebrows fly from scrunched down to high on his forehead. Oh, right, he's never been introduced to Stiles's Evil Person Radar. Not that that worked with Miss Blake – he'd never have guessed she was the Darach at first glance. But with Matt and Gerard, and most especially Peter, it worked just fine. Three out of four is still a passing grade.

He's opened his mouth to explain when a RRRrrrRRRRRummm overwhelms anything he would say. Derek's face splits open on a grin, so Stiles has a pretty good idea who it is before he turns around — and yup, it's Peter. Not only Peter, but Peter on a motorcycle.

What. The. Fuck.

Peter slides to a stop in front of them, smoothly kicking the stand down and flipping the visor of his helmet up. Showoff. “Derek, get over here,” he orders, but Derek is already hurrying over to him. Stiles is so not comfortable with the adoring expression on Derek’s face, directed at Peter, God, but Derek is too fast for the arm Stiles puts out to stop him.

Of course, Peter’s eyes miss nothing, and the eyebrow he sends Stiles’s way is full of Hale sass. Ugh.

“I thought you were going to call Mom,” Derek says happily, breaking their staring contest.

“I did,” Peter says, looking down at Derek. “She’s on her way as we speak, likely.”

“Awww.” Derek slumps again.

Peter smirks, ruffles Derek’s hair. “Now, Derek, don’t be like that. You know your mom just wants what’s best for you.”

“Whatever.” Derek swipes at Peter. “What are you doing here, anyway, if Mom’s on her way?”

“I’m going to check out the scene,” Peter says. He finally climbs off of his motorcycle, setting it to lean against its kickstand and placing his helmet under the seat. “You said Mrs. Miller’s boutique?”

“Yeah, up that way.” Derek points in the direction he and Stiles ran from. Peter looks up that way, and the corner of his eye flashes.

“Got it,” Peter says. “Stay here. I’ll just head up that way and see what I can catch.”

Without further ado, Peter whirls on his heel and stalks off.

“Uhh?” Stiles flails at Peter’s retreating back. “What is he doing?”

Derek looks at him oddly. “He just said he was going to check it out.” The ‘duh’ is very clearly audible.

Instantly, Stiles says, “Oh, no, nonono, that is a bad idea,”

He makes as if to go after Peter, but Derek grabs his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“I’m stopping Peter from showing up right after Kate saw us,” Stiles tells him. His own ‘duh’ is equally audible.

“Why?”

“Uh, because people showing up and sniffing around not long after she harassed some kids is not suspicious at all?” Stiles thinks he can be forgiven his incredulity – after all, Hales are not known for their subtlety. Like, at all.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that, Peter’s the best at passing,” Derek waves, dismissive. “Passing as human,” he adds at Stiles’s look.

What. What did that mean. “What does that mean?” Stiles splutters. “I thought – Wait, you mean some wolves don’t pass as human?”

Derek’s face closes down a little. “Well, most of us, we look human on the outside, but we can give ourselves away.”

“How would you give yourselves away? Oh, you mean like wolfing out when under stress?” Stiles remembers the first days of Scott’s werewolflihood vividly. Very. Vividly.

Derek’s shrug is stiff. “Something like that.”

“But that’s not the only way? Also, only most of you look human?” Stiles’s brain is whirring a mile a minute. How else could someone out themselves as a wolf if not from shifting in public? And how many wolves in Beacon Hills alone have given the game away, not to mention the world? By “most of us look human,” does that mean there are other people like Peter’s Rogue Alpha form out there? The idea is mind-boggling.

“Look, leave it alone, okay?” Derek snaps. “I don’t want to talk about it, so just leave it alone!”

“Whoa, dude, calm down.” Stiles holds up his hands placatingly. “Sheesh, touchy much?”

Derek just looks away, his arms still crossed, face creased in that Moody Derek Expression Stiles has come to hate on Older Derek. Great.

“Just answer me this: There are other ways besides shifting than can give the game away, right?” What? Stiles never met an uncomfortable topic he didn’t like to push, push, push at.

He gets a Glare of Doom Lite for his efforts, so he decides that yeah, he’d better back off. That doesn’t mean he can’t leave the topic for later. Much later. When Derek forgets his Woe Is Me mindset and is up to answering more questions.

For now, looks like he’s going to have to get Derek’s mind off of it or else deal with Sulk Central for longer than he has years to live. “So! What sport do you play, dude?”

When the Saturn Vue finally roars up, Stiles is so relieved, he could kiss it. In between Awkward Silences and Stiles’s (unsuccessful) attempts to make conversation about everything else under the sun except for werewolves, Derek kept trying to pester Stiles about his skeeviness of Peter or about Stiles's pack. At least once he came out of his brooding funk instead of leaving Stiles to flounder around by himself. Typical.

He only stops when the door of the Saturn Vue opens and Laura's there with a hot yellow gaze and a "Are you all right?" Her arm flashes out, lightning fast, to yank Derek into the car.

"Hey! I can get in by myself, thanks!" Derek yelps. Laura ignores him, dragging until Derek is on the other side of her. Stiles is left to climb in by himself, sitting awkwardly next to Laura, who twists to glare at him. Great. Really feeling the love.

As Laura is attempting to eviscerate him through the power of her Yellow Glare of Doom alone, Mrs. Hale turns around in her seat.

"Are you all right? She didn't hurt you or anything?"

Derek looks like he wants to roll his eyes. "No, Mom, we're fine." He makes no attempt to break away from the hand Mrs. Hale lays on his cheek. "In fact, she seemed more focused on Stiles than on me."

Stiles finds himself the object of not one, not two, but three intense gazes.

"Is this true?" Mrs. Hale asks.

"No?" Stiles asks-answers, although looking back on it (brr, not a thing he ever wants to do again), it does seem like she was. Good. The more attention he can get away from the Hales, the better. "I was mostly focused on trying to get Derek the f-fffreak out of there."

"Derek? Not yourself?" Oh, there goes the Hale Eyebrow of Doom. Seriously, it must be a Hale thing, to say entire sentences with just the eyebrows. "Stiles?"

"Huh?" Stiles looks at Mrs. Hale properly, sees she's got the forced patience look on, the one that says he's lost track of the conversation and needs to back on it, stat. Right, wait, what were they talking about? "Oh, uh, no. I didn't want her to, like, get fixated on Derek or whatever – plus she was seriously giving off the Bad Touch Vibes."

"'Bad Touch Vibes'?" Mrs. Hale's eyebrows scrunch down. Entire. Sentences.

"Yeah, it was really weird, she kept trying to go along with us to our 'movie.' Stiles made it up as an excuse not to hang around," Derek explains.

“Which movie were you going to go see?” Mrs. Hale wants to know.

"The Spongebob one."

"Spongebob, really?" Laura's eyes may no longer be yellow, but Judgy McJudgerson is in full effect.

"And yet you're the one who knows what that is," Stiles retorts.

"Tell me more about these 'Bad Touch Vibes'," Mrs. Hale says, patiently. Oops. "Did she actually touch you?"

"No," Stiles and Derek say together. They look at each other; Stiles gestures for Derek to go first. "No, she kept saying things like 'don't leave me heartbroken here,' and uh, standing like, uh—"

Derek's face goes aflame. Stiles, remembering what Derek's referring to, feels sick all over again. God, what a perverted, sadistic bitch.

"She was hitting on you? Two teenagers? Isn't she, like, thirty?" Laura's mouth turns down into a moue.

"More like twenty-five," Stiles corrects, "but yeah, she's got a taste for nubile, underage flesh."

At that, Mrs. Hale casts him a sharp look. Stiles doesn't understand why until: "She didn't.... When she hunted your pack before, she didn't... do anything to you, did she?"

"Oh! No." Stiles flails in the language of no way, you don't have to worry about me, I'm totally fine, see? Mrs. Hale doesn't seem to be get it, going by the way her eyes narrow.

Stiles hastens to reassure her further, "No, she, uh, just made a lot of comments about Scott. Skeevy things, yeah, but nothing other than that." And she was even older at the time when she said those things than she is now, which takes the creepy pedophile thing up a few more notches.

Still has nothing on Older Peter, though. Stiles shivers, involuntarily.

When he looks up, Mrs. Hale is still staring at him with those narrow eyes. Stiles’s internal klaxon of Oh shit starts ringing; he recognizes that look from his dad and his deputies, as well as more than a few teachers. It’s that look of I know you’re in trouble, and come hell or high water, I’m going to find out what it is.

Seriously not what Stiles needs right now. They’re supposed to be focusing on Kate, not him. Stiles is not the important one here.

“Dude, shouldn’t we be moving?” he says as obnoxiously as possible. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Yeah, Mom, where are we going?” Derek pipes up.

“Back home, duh.” Laura rolls her eyes. “You’ve just become the most liable member of the pack, we’ve got to protect you until Peter comes back with what he finds.”

“Yeah, about that, we’re really sending Peter to do the investigative stuff?” Stiles asks. It’s just so weird to him to see Peter being a halfway normal packmate, let alone having people who trust him to do something for more than just Fucking Shit Up and Being Obnoxious reasons.

“Not we,” Mrs. Hale says.

“What’s this ‘we’ stuff?” Laura says at the same time.

Oh. For a second there, Stiles forgot where he is and, more importantly, when he is. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course they’re not going to include him, he’s not part of their pack. Stupid, that he felt for one second like he was part of something again.

“Hey, Stiles?” Derek’s voice is tentative, even as Laura shifts in her seat, bodily pushing into Stiles. “You okay?

Oh yeah, he’s totally fine. He only feels like he’s been sucker-punched six ways to Sunday, no big deal. “Yeah, I’m fine. So, if you’re going home, you can just drop me off at Deaton’s—”

“Oh, no, you’re coming too.” Finally, Mrs. Hale turns around and starts the car.

Uhh, what? “What?” What, he never claimed he was the fastest brain around. That title would always belong to Lydia. “But you just said—”

“Mom, what are you doing?” Laura interrupts.

“You were also there when Kate showed up,” Mrs. Hale says, keeping her eyes on the road as she pulls out from the curb (of which Stiles is appreciative. No, really. The number of times he’s had to tell Scott to keep his eyes on the road—) “We’ll need you to tell us everything you know, especially since Kate seemed so focused on you.”

Well. This isn’t getting awkward at all, no way, Jose. “Okaaaayyyy, this is sounding more and more like an interrogation,” he jokes.

“Yeah, right, like you know anything about real interrogations,” Laura snorts.

“Uh, since my dad is the Sheriff, I actually do?” Stiles gets the pleasure of seeing Laura’s eyes go wide. “Of course, I’ve never been interrogated personally,” although his dad’s lectures and disappointed faces would make anybody cringe and fess up their crimes, no interrogation necessary, “but I’ve seen him at work, and the other deputies, too.”

“Your dad’s the Sheriff? Of what town?” Derek jumps up to ask. Ugh, he would ask, this is exactly what he’d been prying for since he started up pestering Stiles for information on his pack. And Stiles just gave it all away with one well-placed scoff on Laura’s part. Seriously, great job, Stilinski. Uh, Vrilinski.

“Of where I’m from,” Stiles manages to sketch by with. Derek’s disappointed face is almost as heart-jerking as Scott’s puppy dog eyes. Except Stiles is immune to those (mostly), so Derek’s disappointment doesn’t make much of a dent. “Yeah, good try there, Der.”

Predictably, Laura snaps, “Don’t call him that.”

“Children,” Mrs. Hale says placidly.

Immediately Laura and Derek sit upright in their seats, looking contrite (or as contrite as Laura ever gets). Wow, Mrs. Hale is even more badass than Stiles thought.

“You know, Stiles, it wouldn’t be so bad for you to tell us a little bit more about your pack,” Mrs. Hale says, when she’s certain that Laura and Derek are going to behave. “We could help you get justice for your pack if we knew who they were. Where they patrolled. What area your pack held as its territory.”

Scott’s face flashes into his head, the puppy dog eyes in full effect. Mrs. Hale’s voice is casual, but soothing, until his brain catches up with the words she’s actually saying. Oh, no, no way. There’s no way he’s going to be able to answer that. Oh, my pack’s territory was Beacon Hills, except nine years in the future, because you guys were dead and not around to keep it. Suuuuuuuuure. That would totally fly as an answer.

“Sorry,” and even he can tell his voice is bitter, “but if I told you that, I’m pretty sure something bad would happen to me.”

“Like what?” Laura wants to know, Hale Eyebrow raised.

“We can protect you from Kate,” Mrs. Hale says. Her eyes flick briefly to his in the rearview mirror. “You don’t have to worry about retaliation from her if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Stiles barks a laugh. “Pretty sure that’s not something I’m worried about.” No, it isn’t retaliation against him that is the problem here. He’s probably still hoarse from choking on air not too long ago. But he’s gotta say this in a way that won’t come back on him later, choking thing or not. “Pretty sure that with my pack gone, any thoughts of retaliation went out the window.”

Well, aside from the thoughts of him retaliating against the whole start of the chain of events that cascaded in everyone he loves dying, but those don’t count. It isn’t really revenge if only one person dies, instead of a whole group, right?

Older Peter would know, not that Stiles ever plans to ask him.

With that logic to comfort him, he almost misses the look that Mrs. Hale gives him. Yikes, that eyebrow is not to be messed with. Also, she totally knows what he’s thinking. In fact, she almost looks like she understands? Weird, he would have thought she’d be disapproving.

Well, whatever. They’re headed to the Hale House now, and that’s where he’ll be grilled to within an inch of his life. Knowing Kurt, he’ll be angling to make it more than an inch. (Or is that less than an inch? Whichever one ends up in a deader Stiles, that’s the one that Kurt will try to go for. He can probably count on Mrs. Hale not to let Kurt kill him outright, but how close Kurt gets in the process is up for debate. Stiles really wishes it weren’t, but it’s out of his hands. Like so much else in this time.)

This is going to be so much fun.

“Talia!”

The instant the Hale Mystery Machine stops in front of the Hale House, Kurt’s grizzled face is in the window. “What happened?”

“Whoa!” Stiles, closest to the window, jerks back, nearly braining himself on the seat. “Dude! Chill!”

“What’s he doing here?” Oh, yeah, that’s a look to kill. Stiles would be six feet under and plummeting if that were a Death Ray power. Thank God Kurt isn’t Cyclops. Or Scarecrow.

Then Kurt’s face contorts, and he turns to Derek, gritting out, “Urgh, you were near that woman’s boutique, weren’t you. I can tell by the godawful smell.”

Stiles snorts. Which turns out to be a bad move, because it brings Kurt’s eyes, once more flashing electric blue, onto him.

“We’re fine, Kurt,” Mrs. Hale interrupts with a Look. “Can I turn the car off?”

“...Oh.” Kurt disappears from the window. Mrs. Hale turns the car off, and almost before their seatbelts clear their bodies, Laura and Derek pile out. Stiles follows a little slower, but only because he doesn’t have wolf mojo to help him. Stupid wolfy powers. So unfair.

Not that he’s bitter or anything.

“But you are all right?” Kurt is demanding of Mrs. Hale when Stiles comes around the car. He glances at Stiles with that electric blue flash, but continues, “We heard the Saturn tear out of here like there was a fire.”

Ouch, bad choice of words, Stiles winces. But, wait, no, it isn't. The fire hasn't happened yet, so there's no reason for it to be. A bad choice of words, that is. Gah, so confusing.

“Yes,” Mrs. Hale says, the exasperation Stiles is used to seeing directed at him now for Kurt. Hah, serves Ol’ Grizzly right. “Now, let’s start over. Hello, Kurt. How are you?”

Kurt looks taken aback, then sheepish, which, dude, mind-blowing much? The grumpiest Second ever, outdoing Older Derek by a mile, done in by a simple hello, how are you. “Hello, Talia. Kids.”

“Hey, Kurt!” Laura and Derek chirp. In unison. Where they’re both already at the door to the Hale House. God, it’s like the Wonder Twins or something. Only thing they need are the rings, seriously. Hell, they even have the transforming part down pat! Heh.

“Do we need to have another talk about boundaries?” Mrs. Hale asks.

“Yeah, Kurt, boundaries,” Laura teases over her shoulder. Derek snickers, even as Stiles looks at her incredulously. Laura is talking about boundaries? Laura “In Your Face, Literally” is on Kurt’s case about boundaries??

“Don’t start, Laura,” Mrs. Hale says, discreetly rolling her eyes. “You’re not the one who should be talking about boundaries.”

“Thank you!” Stiles gestures at Mrs. Hale.

Mrs. Hale turns a tolerant look onto Stiles, while Kurt’s hackles get back up. “Why are you here?” he accuses.

“I brought him here,” Mrs. Hale says. “Calm down, Kurt.”

“Talia—” Both Mrs. Hale's and Kurt's heads jolt. A smile spreads across Mrs. Hale’s face. "It won't be long now," Mrs. Hale says. "Peter feels like he's got something."

"Huh? How do you figure?" Stiles casts a confused look her way. “Don’t tell me you have some kind of psychic link with him?”

"In a manner of speaking," Mrs. Hale says wryly.

"Really? That’s a thing? I always figured those were bullshit. Y'know, because Scott never seemed to—"

Stiles is cut off by a hand at his collar. Oh, hello Kurt, there’s the manhandling Stiles has been missing so much. "Pack bonds are not 'bullshit',” Kurt growls in his face. "Now, I don't know if you're doing this deliberately, which you must be, you can't be this consistently offensive so many times without working at it, but I have had enough of your—"

Kurt freezes with a gasp. His hand tightens on Stiles's shirt, then convulsively opens. Stiles hurriedly steps away, taking in Kurt's wide eyes as Mrs. Hale comes around and looks coolly down at Kurt's petrified wood expression.

"I don't appreciate having to order you down so much," Mrs. Hale says in a deadly cool tone to match her expression. "This is the fifth time. You are an adult, and the Second of this pack. It's past time you behaved like one, instead of attacking people who offend you, especially a teenager whose education is clearly lacking—"

"Hey! I'm competing with Danny for salutatorian!" Stiles yelps.

"—about pack culture, and who, incidentally, is trying to learn about it. By asking questions."

Mrs. Hale (who, Stiles sees now, has Kurt by the back of his neck. Dude, no wonder Growly Grump froze, she's not holding on to him tightly, but those claws are not messing around) lets go. Hunching in on himself, Kurt puts a hand to his neck, which is bleeding, holy God, what the hell!

"Apologize to Alpha Vrilinski, now,” Mrs. Hale orders. Kurt visibly shudders as MRs. Hale’s humid wash of power rises, flares out. “Before you give him even more grounds to demand reparation from us. Do it properly."

"Oh, no, dude,” Stiles waves his hands, “it's okay, I totally wouldn't, uh, demand reparations or whatever – what is that, anyway, what would that even entail, is there a court or something I'd take you to, because, dude, I would so have done that with the Alph – and I'm going to stop talking now."

Stiles stammers to a stop as Mrs. Hale's heavy gaze finally sinks in. Damn, Derek - Older Derek – both of them – really needed more pointers or something, because that is some effective Stare of Doom.

Rather than say thank you or otherwise acknowledge Stiles's newfound respect for her Powers of Silencing, rude, Mrs. Hale just turns to Kurt and stares at him. With the Eyebrow of Doom, too! Dude, Kurt is in so much trouble.

Kurt knows it, too, for he clears his throat and looks away, over to Stiles. "Vrilinski—"

"Alpha Vrilinski," Mrs. Hale adds pointedly.

So. Much. Trouble.

"Alpha Vrilinski," Kurt winces. "I apologize for attacking you so often."

"And."

"And for not stopping to think beyond my initial impression of you," Kurt continues. "I should have realized how ignorant you were—"

"Ignorant?" Stiles squawks. At the same time, Mrs. Hale growls. Whoa, Stiles felt that. He felt that, like, in his bones. Dude. But that's nothing compared to effect on Kurt, who has paled, and is that sweat on his forehead?

"I mean, how much you didn't know about pack!" Kurt hurries to say. Mrs. Hale's growl eases, but Kurt doesn't relax. "I should have acted like the Second of the Hale pack and treated you with respect, instead of looking at you as an insulting teenager who doesn’t deserve the Alpha power he has. I'm sorry."

Both he and Mrs. Hale look at Stiles expectantly. Stiles has to fight against the hysterical laughter trying its level best to claw out of him. This is so bizarre. Two adults, one making the other apologize to Stiles – Stiles of all people – for not treating him with respect. He’s about the last person anyone needs to apologize to, what with his own laundry list of defects – annoying and mouthy being two of them. Yet here they are, looking very serious about this.

“Uh,” his voice cracks, so he has to swallow – at least it didn’t break and squeak, thank God this isn’t last year - “thanks?”

Both Mrs. Hale and Kurt relax, the latter with a deep breath, the former’s eyes losing their red tinge. Stiles, in turn, feels like the air’s gone out of him like a very tightly-strung balloon suddenly let go.

“Thank you, Stiles,” Mrs. Hale says, with, like, real gratitude. Awk. Ward.

“Sure, I guess.” Stiles tries to shrug. “I mean, you’re not exactly wrong, about me not deserving the Alpha mojo. But, dude, I didn’t exactly ask for it in the first place, either. Or know I had it, for sure, until three days ago. So, a little slack would have been. Yeah.”

“Three days ago? We’ve been telling you that you were an Alpha since we met you,” Mrs. Hale points out.

“Yeah, I didn’t believe you,” Stiles says frankly. “Not when I didn’t feel any different and didn’t want to believe I was different. More different than I already am.”

At that, Mrs. Hale sighs. "Teenagers," she mutters.

“Hey, I resemble that remark,” Stiles quips.

Surprisingly, Kurt's the one to snort at that.

“What made you change your mind?”

Stiles gives Mrs. Hale a wry smile. “Not much denial you can keep yourself in when you see red eyes in the mirror."

Mrs. Hale’s mouth turns up at the corner. “You’d be surprised.”

“Try me,” he invites. “I’m the king of denial. My usual method of solving problems is to ignore them until they go away. It’s a Stil— Vrilinski family trait.”

“How often has that worked out for you?” Mrs. Hale raises a challenging eyebrow.

“Not at all,” Stiles admits without shame, making Mrs. Hale snort. “It doesn’t stop me from trying, though, at least not until it blows up in my face.”

Beside and behind Mrs. Hale, where he’s retreated after his little apology, Kurt is pinching the bridge of his nose. Mrs. Hale sighs again, but this time it’s that fond sort of sigh like his dad makes – used to make – whenever Stiles was being especially Stiles.

"Hey, don't lie, you totally thought that was funny," Stiles needles, finger guns it.

Mrs. Hale gets a pained look on her face. "You’re not old enough to use those. Just stop," reminding Stiles so much of Older Derek that Stiles actually gets an ache for the dude in his general chest region.

“What, you don’t appreciate my finger gunning skills?” Stiles mock sniffs. “Man, what a tough crowd.”

“Ugh,” Kurt says. Stiles opens his mouth, but Kurt’s not even looking at him. Rude.

“And on that note,” Mrs. Hale says, amusement in her tone, “I’d like to talk to you about something else.” The smile falls away from her face. “Since you have now officially recognized that you are an Alpha—”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Stiles groans.

“That means that you should be getting something in the way of training,” Mrs. Hale finishes. “As no doubt you remember from our conversation in the clinic, it’s… odd that you aren’t having more of a reaction to your Alpha spark, given that you are new to it and, it seems, to being a werewolf in the first place.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m pleasantly surprised,” she says as Stiles opens his mouth to say something along the lines of of course I get it wrong, “but I think it would be prudent to get something of a foundation down to help you understand and control your new ‘mojo’—”

“Ha!” Stiles says gleefully.

Mrs. Hale’s mouth turns up again. “—and also to find you an anchor before your first full moon. As soon as possible.”

Oh. Crap. He hasn’t even thought about that. That’s right, being a werewolf, and an Alpha on top of that (he still can’t quite believe it, no matter what he says to the contrary, it just seems too weird, no wonder Scott was resistant to the idea at first) means he has to deal not only with the anger management problems, but also the full moon. Craaaaaaap.

Seeing the realization on Stiles’s face, Mrs. Hale nods. “I see you know what I’m talking about. Good, that makes getting you to agree easier.”

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all,” Stiles points out. Mrs. Hale smirks. “That doesn’t make it any better, either.”

“Be that as it may,” Mrs. Hale says, still with that smirk. “After Peter finally gets here, you and I are going to go over to Alan’s to see what we can do about setting up a time and place. Likely, Alan will volunteer his clinic, since it’s the safest place and most neutral for us to meet, but it never hurts to get his input on things, especially if he has someplace else in mind for the two of us to go that would best help you settle things down.”

“Yeahhh, that wasn’t cryptic at all,” Stiles shakes his head. “Are you sure that you and Deaton didn’t go to the same School of Cryptic Mystic?”

“Who do you think taught him everything he knows?” Mrs. Hale arches her eyebrows.

Stiles gapes.

Mrs. Hale’s smile returns. “You are too fun.”

“Not fair!” Stiles protests. “That was – that was uncalled for! Party foul!”

Rrrrrummmmmm. It’s a faint sound, but it’s more than enough for Stiles to recognize it. Guess Peter’s back.

“Uncle Peter!”

There’s a blur out of the corner of his eye, then something slams past him. Stiles staggers back with the force of the backwash, which narrowly saves him from being tackled out of the way by two more somethings.

“You okay?”

Stiles looks up at Caleb. “Who was driving that semi wheeler truck that just tried to run me over?”

Caleb chuckles. “Cora never did know how to moderate her speed when she was excited. Makes karate class an interesting lesson in control.”

“That was Cora?” Stiles gapes.

“And Laura and Derek right after,” Caleb confirms. “You wanna come in? They’ll be a while, Peter isn’t even at the driveway yet.”

“Uh, sure.” Stiles looks around one more time to make sure that no more werewolf impressions of eighteen-wheelers are coming, then takes a step onto the porch. Or, he tries to.

Instead his foot just comes down on more grass, although the porch was right there under his foot. “What the hell…?”

Caleb’s eyebrows fly up his forehead. “That’s so strange, I’ve never seen that happen like that before.”

“You’ve seen this happen before?” Stiles asks.

“Not like that,” Caleb nods to Stiles’s foot resting just in front of the porch stair. “Usually it’s a lot more….”

“A lot more what?” Stiles asks.

Just then the hair rises on the back of his neck, and there’s a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye. Stiles turns just as a hand lands on his shoulder, aaaaand hello, that’s Kurt glowering right in his face. Guess that apology meant nothing, huh?

“Don’t think that because Talia has allowed you to come onto the territory once means you can come and go as you please.”

Kurt’s not overtly hostile (by “not overtly hostile,” that just means he’s not slamming Stiles up against something and choking him to death, and oh my God, Older Derek makes so much sense now), but those are definitely the Eyes of Murderous Intent, and that rumble in Kurt’s chest does not promise Good Things.

“She kicked you out of here before, and she has every right to kick you out again if you don’t keep your hands to yourself,” Kurt growls. “Do you understand me?”

“Actually, what she said was that you couldn’t offer me asylum,” Stiles blurts out. “She didn’t say anything about being on your territory.”

There’s a brief moment of shock, then Kurt growls and lets go of Stiles’s shoulder. Dude, miracles do happen after all.

“You can try getting up the stairs all you want,” Kurt suits action to words, “but without Talia’s welcome, you aren’t getting anywhere.”

“What does that mean?” Stiles shouts, but Kurt ignores him. “Hey come on, you can’t just leave a guy hanging!”

Kurt just opens the door and disappears without answering him. Ugh, werewolves! So rude!

Caleb, when Stiles looks back at him, looks apologetic. “Sorry, but Kurt’s right. It seems Talia hasn’t officially given you a ‘Welcome to the Den’ message, so you’re kind of stuck out here until she does.”

“Great, that’s just great, just what I need to extend this absolutely fabulous day,” Stiles snarks. “Always wanted to know what it felt like being left out in the cold from a big house.”

Caleb shrugs one shoulder. “If it helps, I can stay with you?”

For a moment, Stiles is sorely tempted to say yes. He doesn’t do well by himself, he really doesn’t, like half the things he’s done in his life are to make sure that he isn’t by himself, despite Fates, the Powers that Be, the Universe, whatever conspiring against him to make sure that he is alone. But then he sighs, flaps a hand.

“Naw, dude, you go on in. I’ll just… hang around until something happens.”

“If you’re sure,” Caleb checks. “All right, then. Just say the word if you need anything.” And off Caleb goes.

As soon as the door closes, Stiles immediately regrets it. Now he has no one to distract him from the horrible reality that oh, yeah, they just ran into Kate Argent, and oh, yeah, there’s one more (magic!) aspect in which Stiles is Very Obviously Not Welcome. Putting his hands on his hips, he turns around and surveys the lawn, which, can you call it a lawn when it's not even a lawn in the traditional sense, just an extension of the Preserve? The maintenance must be a bitch, given how huge it is. Do they use one of those lawn mower cars like the John Deere commercials they’re always showing?

Stiles has always wanted to ride on one of those, but he could never convince his dad to get them one. No matter how much he said it would make his chores easier, prevent sunburn, reduce how sweaty he got, and thus reduce showering time, the waste of water, and was therefore beneficial to the environment! He still doesn’t understand how his dad didn’t agree after those convincing arguments.

A chatter of voices has him raising his head, and dude, he must be dreaming or hallucinating or not seeing right or something, for there is no way he can believe the things that his eyes are seeing right now. There is no way that, coming up the driveway, that that is Peter wheeling along on his motorcycle, a suspiciously familiar (thought way smaller than he’s used to) monkey werewolf clinging to his back, Derek and Laura on either side of them laughing and snarking, with Mrs. Hale looking on with an indulgent expression.

What. The hell.

Peter looks so… normal right now. Like, Stiles had noticed how young Peter looked when he came up to them outside of the boutique, but he’d been more focused on Derek’s safety and hadn’t taken in much other than the sameness of those cold blue eyes. Now that his attention is undivided (so to speak, ADHD means it’s never undivided for long unless he’s in Hyper Focus Mode), he can take in the details.

Like this, with Cora around his neck and the rest of the family surrounding him, Peter looks almost soft, like he could actually be someone’s uncle. His expression is not the hard, calculating expression Stiles is so used to seeing on Older Peter, and the laughter that he can hear is genuine, not mocking – at least until he turns to Laura and snarks at her – Stiles knows that expression like the back of his hand.

None of the other family members seem aware of the snake they have their midst – the wolf in sheep’s clothing, only the wolf is a wolf, but is actually a snake? Man, his head comes up with the weirdest shit sometimes, and this is himself he was talking about.

And that’s not even getting into the weirdness of Cora. Cora, who when she turns up to scowl at Laura (who is smiling! What the fuck!), has the same downturn, the same brown eyes, light brown hair, the same set to her cheeks (so much pudgier, and Older Cora would kill him if she’d ever heard him say that). What a difference seven years makes, because he would absolutely not have connected Older Cora with the Cora that he sees here. She’s a little kid, for Christ’s sake! And if he ever runs into younger himself, oh man, that’s going to be even weirder a trip, he just knows it.

“Peter, you’re back!”

Stiles turns to see Caleb and a woman, heavily pregnant, with pitch-black hair and Scott’s abuela’s black eyes on the porch. In Caleb’s arms is a boy, about three years old by Stiles’s best guesstimate, and he has the strange woman’s eyes and floppy brown hair falling over rounded cheeks and over the hand the little boy is using to rub his eye.

Immediately in his mind’s eye, Stiles flashes back to his dad’s file on the Hale House Fire. Of the eleven who had died in the fire, one had been a woman of Latina descent, and although her face was badly burnt, she still had most of her head of hair left. The same hair that this lady has, only instead of being stringy and stiff, the woman’s hair looked soft and well-cared for, shiny as it tumbles straight down her shoulders.

That isn’t the most chilling part, though. In stark, clinical letters, in the notes section below her picture, the words had stated in blunt, unfeeling characters: “Deceased eight months pregnant at time of death. Fetus did not survive.”

It’s then that Stiles gets it. Really gets it. The real impact of what Kate pulls when she burns the Hale House down.

He steps back to take in the three on the porch and the gaggle coming in. These people at whom he’s looking, the ones who are currently laughing and breathing and being alive, and have no idea what could have happened? All of these people are a part of the Hale pack. These are the people that Kate kills or destroys the lives of in the Hale House fire. And these aren’t even all of the ones in the house when the fire happens. Stiles remembers more faces from the case file than the ones present here, and there were a lot of faces.

But those pictures are nothing compared to the reality, the living breathingness of the Latina woman as she leans into Caleb, of Cora and Derek shoving at each other with their elbows as Peter offers completely unnecessary commentary and advice for Cora, of Mrs. Hale sighing at them. Or of Laura, her head thrown back, her face piercings flashing with her movements as she eggs Derek on.

No pictures of dead bodies on the morgue table could have prepared Stiles for this. This is the real impact of what Kate does with the Hale fire. She destroys all of this.

When he had first thought to come back in the past to change things, sure, he was only thinking of how anything would be better for his dad and Scott. Anything was better, for better and for worse, than what had happened to them, to Stiles, to Lydia, Isaac, Allison, hell, Heather and Tara, everyone he knew who had been impacted by the consequences of Kate’s actions. It was all about his people.

But standing here amongst people who weren’t alive to him, who wouldn’t be alive if he hadn’t come back, it… it’s overwhelming. The enormity of what he’s doing. Not only is he changing the lives of the people he loves, but he’s also changing other people’s lives, too.

He can’t stop glancing at Cora, or at Caleb and the Latina woman (his wife?) passing the little boy in between them. He can’t stop wondering how they’d be integrated into Beacon Hills if they had lived in his time. If Cora hadn’t been forced to run, would she be in his classes with him at Beacon Hills High? Would he have gotten glances of the little boy at the elementary school, another one of “those Hales” in town? Who else would be here, if the baby had been born? Would they have been in Beacon Hills, or would they have gone somewhere else?

So many questions to which he’ll never know the answers, because of Kate. Kate, who takes an innocent family which happens to be made up of werewolves, and tears it apart.

Intellectually, and also from his own experience of Kate’s actions when Older Peter was on the rampage, Stiles knew that Kate was a monster. But nothing like this. Nothing could have prepared him for realizing just how evil she was – is.

If she’s not taken down, if he doesn’t succeed, then she’ll take away all of this, the energy, the comfortableness of everyone with each other, the – the family that’s here, together, enjoying each other’s company. They have no idea what happens to them, what will happen to them if Kate gets through.

Heck, maybe things would be even worse this time. Maybe the whole pack will be murdered, with no one left, not even Derek, or Laura, or Peter, or Cora. Maybe they’re all on the morgue slabs, their faces pale and lifeless. Laura’s laughing face, empty of the dynamic energy it has (if she’s not faced with Stiles, anyway). Derek’s unexpected adorable, wiped clean and hidden under eyelids that won’t open again. The three-year-old never getting to go to first grade, Cora never graduating from middle school. Even Peter, his sly wit gone (although Stiles thinks that wouldn’t be so much of a loss). All of them gone, never to hold a family meeting or to be so relaxed around family, again.

Imagining that is – well, it’s basically an exercise in masochism. But it could happen. If Kate gets through, and Stiles doesn’t stop her.

Even worse, Kate apparently enjoyed it, too. Enjoyed putting them to the match, just because they were werewolves.

God, he feels sick to his stomach, and they haven’t even gotten to the meeting yet.

Chapter Text

The Hales come away from the debriefing with, honestly, not much of a plan.

All they’ve come up with is to buddy up (even Stiles) at all times, not just on patrol; act natural but keep an eye on anyone or anything suspicious; and to call for help immediately if something happens.

Like acting natural when there’s danger nearby is totally a thing anyone can do. Suuuure. Nobody’s going to notice a change in behavior at all, nope, nothing to see here, move along, we’re totally not werewolves on high alert, no sirree. Ugh.

Oh, and Peter is going to keep digging, now that he’s got a few new choices on directions in which to go. (How scent is going to help with that, he has no idea.)

He’d tried to point out the utter hopelessness of this plan, but he was shut down pretty much as soon as (or whenever) he opened his mouth. If not by Kurt, then by Laura, and once when Stiles would have made a snarky remark, by Caleb’s elbow in his ribs. Ow. So fine, he’d got the message, apart from the interrogation, he wasn’t a part of this. Whatever, it’s a shitty plan and they’ll find out for themselves soon enough.

But this? This is just the last straw.

“Meditation. That’s your big secret werewolf training thing, meditation?”

“Believe it or not, a wolf’s spark has a lot to do with the spiritual,” Deaton offers mildly. “I don’t mean in the religious sense, but in the sense that there’s a plane of existence next to ours that a wolf is inherently connected to, whether they can sense that connection or not.”

Unbidden, the image of that white-on-white space where he, Scott, and Allison had gone when they’d sacrificed themselves for their parents comes to mind. Immediately following that is Lydia, her color up, as she tries to explain for the fifth time why Stiles can’t take his phone with him through the ritual, and yeah, he gets that.

“So you’re saying that I have to learn how to get in touch with my feminine side?” Sarcasm drips from his tongue, hisses holes in the floor a la Alien.

(Okay, it doesn’t, but he’d like to think it would if it could.)

“Not as such. More like you’re getting in touch with your ‘wolf side,” Deaton says, straight-faced.

“I would encourage you not to think of it as a ‘side’,” Mrs. Hale interjects. “These new, new to you, abilities and instincts and ways of thinking are not a different part of you, able to be shoved down and away when you want them to be.

“Rather, they’re always a part of who you are, it’s just a matter of you learning how to interpret the new information and deal with it in a way that prevents you from losing control. Especially at the wrong moment.”

“Huh. I never thought of it that way before,” Stiles comments. “Sure would have helped Scottie when he was first bitten. But look – what?”

Mrs. Hale and Deaton stop glancing at each other. “What?”

“What was that? That look?”

“You don’t miss anything, do you?” Mrs. Hale says, wry.

“Nope.” Stiles pops the “p”. “To the annoyance of my dad and my teachers.”

“I’m sure.” Mrs. Hale’s mouth purses. “You mention Scott, was it, and your dad often, but not many of your other pack members. To the point I’m not sure you had any other pack besides those two.”

Uhh, that was definitely not what he was expecting. “The whole pack thing was, uh, complicated. Stupidly complicated.” Under. Statement. “There was a lot of drama,” he offers lamely.

“Would it be accurate to say it was a young pack, just newly formed?”

“Ye-ahh…” Stiles says slowly, drawing it out. “Why are you asking?”

Mrs. Hale nods thoughtfully. “It explains a lot, like the holes in your knowledge about pack. Seems like history lessons are in store for you, as well as meditation.”

Oh, right, that’s what he was going to say. “Dude, don’t even try it with the meditation thing. That’s just not going to go well.”

Mrs. Hale’s eyebrows go up. “Why not?”

“Have you met me?” Stiles demands. “Me and sitting still are not friends. We are mortal enemies, that’s how much we’re not friends. Me, do meditation?” He snorts. “Yeah, good luck with that.”

“Really? I had thought that you were unable to sit still because of the repressed shift,” Mrs. Hale says, fascinated. “But this is normal for you?”

Stiles has to take a breath for himself. No matter how many times he’s given this speech, it never gets any less annoying to have to give it. He really wishes, not for the first time, that knowledge about ADHD was more commonly widespread, so he wouldn’t have to do this every time.

“Yeah,” he says, once he’s psyched himself up appropriately, “I have this thing called ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It’s where I can’t focus on anything for more than, like, five minutes at a time (that’s the attention deficit part), and I move, like, constantly (that’s the hyperactivity part).

“I ramble and get stuck on one thing for hours and pretty much a whole bunch of other shi- stuff,” he corrects himself at Mrs. Hale’s expression. “You can look it up online if you want, but the basic gist is, yes, this is completely normal for me, yes, there’s a treatment for it, no, I haven’t been taking it because it’s back home and the prescription’s probably expired by now.”

Hell, it hasn’t even been written yet. Not his current prescription anyway. Wait, when did he get diagnosed again? Around eight or nine, and even then it took them a while to get him on Adderall. The doctors had wanted to try a bunch of other things, including meditation, before they put him on it, due to the side effects it could have on his heart rate.

Needless to say, none of the other stuff had worked, or hadn’t worked to a degree with which the docs were satisfied, so on Adderall it was.

“That’s strange,” Mrs. Hale muses. “You haven’t seemed overly distracted to me. You’ve been able to focus on Kate for quite a while—”

Ugh. Every time. “Seriously? Why does everyone not believe me when I tell them? Is there something about my face that automatically says, ‘don’t believe me’? I’ve been living with my ADHD for years, I know my own symptoms better than you do.”

He glares at Mrs. Hale, who looks taken aback. “Of course. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to – I only meant that the Bite should have….”

She shuts her mouth, but it’s too late. Stiles’s brain has already caught onto the implications.

“You’re saying that the Bite should have made me normal,” Stiles says slowly. “If it weren’t being repressed, anyway.” Even as he says it, he remembers Erica and her epilepsy, and how it was gone once Derek gave her the Bite.

“That depends on what you mean by ‘normal’,” Mrs. Hale warns.

“I mean I wouldn’t be a hyperactive attention spaz,” Stiles retorts. “I wouldn’t have to have special accommodations in the classroom, wouldn’t have to take my tests in a separate room with extended time just to make sure that I actually got to everything. I wouldn’t need someone there to remind me to stay on task instead of wondering about the cracks in the plaster and whether I should be worried about structural integrity. Or—”

“All right, all right, I get what you mean,” Mrs. Hale raises her hands. “In your case, yes, the Bite should have made it so you didn’t need all of that. That being said, the Bite is a gift, not a cure. It has its limits.”

“Limits such as what?” Stiles inquires.

“Well, pain, for one. Enough pain and the Bite gets overwhelmed, essentially turning out human again. When that happens, then whatever underlying conditions a person has or had before the Bite may re-emerge exactly as if they were never bitten.”

“Like Erica and her epilepsy,” he remembers. “Or Scott, that one time when he needed his inhaler but didn’t have one because he wasn’t used to needing one anymore.”

“Exactly,” Mrs. Hale nods. “So take care in exactly how much you view the Bite as a cure.”

Stiles nods, fully chastised.

“That being said,” Deaton pipes up, “that makes it even more important to find a way to open your connection to your lycanthropy. I, too, thought your restlessness was a symptom of your repressed shift, but seeing as it’s not, that means that without a release, the energy and psychological effects will continue to build up.”

“What about psychological effects?” Stiles asks sharply.

“Did you not hear me when I said a wolf’s spark as a lot to do with the spiritual?” Deaton is almost annoyed.

“Well, yeah, but that’s spiritual, not psychological,” Stiles retorts.

“On the contrary,” Deaton counters, “the spiritual, psychological, and the physical all have a great deal to do with each other. Any change in one impacts the other two in countless ways, and vice versa. For werewolves, that impact is heightened due to their deepened relationship with the spiritual.”

Oh, boy. He can feel his head tightening, signaling the onset of a headache. Honestly, he’s surprised he hasn’t developed one yet. Between Kate and Peter, the Hale’s idiotic planning skills, and this- yeah, it’s been a long day. And it isn’t even dinnertime yet.

Mrs. Hale must notice, for she says, “In summary, we need to find you a way to release your shift. Since you’re not convinced that meditation will work,” Stiles rolls his eyes- he knows it won’t work, why can no one take his word for it, jeez, “we’ll work on finding something else. You, too, Stiles. Think of some ways besides ‘sitting still’ that you think will help.”

“There are other forms of meditation besides traditional meditation,” Deaton offers. “I’d have to look them up as I don’t know them off the top of my head, but I’m sure one of them could work, if only you’d give it a try.”

“I just told you—” Stiles begins.

“Try them,” Mrs. Hale cuts in, not unkindly. “It won’t do you any harm, and you never know, one of them could work out.”

Aaaaand his burgeoning headache just bloomed into a full-on throb. Stiles massages his forehead, but it’s no good, he’s too fed up with the adults thinking they know better. Even with the expert on his own body’s reactions right in front of them. “Whatever,” he says, five hundred percent done. “Are we good here? Can I go now?”

“Actually, there’s something else we need to talk about,” Mrs. Hale says, giving Stiles a stern look. “And that’s where you are going to be for the full moon, which is in two days.”

“Whoa, what? Two days?!” Stiles flails.

“You’re right, it is in two days,” Deaton says at the same time. “I’ve been so busy, I lost track of time.”

“I only remembered because I looked at the calendar in the kitchen,” Mrs. Hale returns. “With everything that’s been going on, and Thanksgiving tomorrow--”

“Two days isn’t enough time to learn to control the shift,” Stiles butts in. “Do you expect me to come up with an anchor in that time?”

Mrs. Hale gives him another Look. “No, which is why we’re discussing finding you a safe room, where you won’t be able to run rampant and bring Kate down on our heads.”

“...Oh. Right. Uh, good thinking.”

“I thought so,” Mrs. Hale agrees dryly.

“What about your safe rooms, Talia? I would think that would be the best place for him,” Deaton asks.

“We’ll be using those,” Mrs. Hale says. “It’s not safe for the normal pack run with the hunters around. They’d undoubtedly be looking for us there.”

Stiles perks up. “Uh, are you talking about the basement with the tunnel you guys were holding me in?”

Mrs. Hale turns to look at him. “Ye-es...”

“Uh, that? Not such a good idea. Really not a good idea. Like, really, stupidly not a good idea.”

Mrs. Hale cocks her head. “Why not?”

“The hunters—” Stiles jerks in a slight breath. The ball in his throat is back, but more as a warning sign rather than full-on choking him.

“Stiles?”

“Uh...” He thinks fast. “They’re pretty good at finding hiding places,” he manages. “And doing pretty bad things to anybody they find in there.”

Mrs. Hale’s face softens. “It’s all right, Stiles,” she says, one of her hands twitching upwards. It falls again by her side before Stiles can get an idea of what she meant to do, “But we’ve been using our safe rooms for decades without harm. We’ll be fine.”

“But—” Stiles starts.

“We’ll be fine,” Mrs. Hale repeats. “Leave protecting my pack to me.”

Oh, my God. Really? Really? He must have a face no one can take seriously, because this is ridiculous. He’s obviously trying to warn about a serious danger, and he gets brushed off because the Hales’ hiding place has worked “for decades.” That just means it’s about time it stopped working, duh!

Oh, God, he gives up. He really does. He’ll just have to do what he does- did- with Scott, go along for the ride and try to do damage control (as much as can a pasty, white, a little over one hundred and fifty pounds human Alpha werewolf who can’t shift, anyway). If and when they survive this, then he can and will absolutely say I told you so, loudly and with extreme prejudice. Extreme. Prejudice.

“Werewolves!” he says sotto voice. “Can’t be bothered to listen when they know everything there to know about anything! Even when there’s someone right in front of them telling them otherwise! But noo, it’s all ‘we can handle this, Stiles, go away, Stiles, we know better than you, Stiles.’

“Excuse you, but who’s the research guru of the pack? That’s right, me. I’m the one who figured out Scott was a wolf, I’m the one who found out he needed an anchor to control the shift, I’m the one who researched what all to do with the kanima, hell, I took the fucking kanima out with my own damn Jeep! And then Lydia transformed him back with the power of true love,” nope, that wasn’t bitterness in his voice, not at all. Bitterness, what bitterness? “but it was me who got us to the point! And then I held up the damn ceiling with a fucking aluminum bat, if I hadn’t gotten there in time—”

He fists his hands on the table and hangs his head. He is so, so tired of people dismissing him like he doesn’t matter. Sure, he’s a clumsy attention deficit spaz, but he’s freaking smart and has shit to say that’s just as valid as anybody else’s shit, okay, but even more because his is backed up by evidence, hours of poring over useless (and mentally scarring) shit for the diamonds in the rough, of popping extra Adderall pills to stay awake, and then bringing together the disparate bits into a solid plan, with jobs for everybody.

So what if those plans didn’t normally survive first contact with the enemy? That isn’t the point. The point is that he works his butt off, for very little reward (except mostly everybody staying alive), and about as much thanks.
His entire life is like this. Nobody, not even his dad, has taken him seriously, and normally it wouldn’t bother him this much – that’s not to say it never bothered him, because it did, all the time, but he was able to laugh it off – but that was before lives were on the line and he seemed to be the only one who saw the danger coming at them.

Feeling about as close to one hundred years old as he can get, Stiles lifts his head. He’s about to rejoin the conversation – they’re arguing about using Deaton’s basement now – but then he catches a glimpse of something behind Mrs. Hale, and everything else flies out of his head.

There’s a table on the far wall, about normal size for one of Deaton’s exam tables, but it’s tucked out of the way, like it’s been forgotten about. It’s also freaking shimmering, like some sort of mirage, only it doesn’t disappear as he gets closer. Instead, the shimmering somehow – he can’t say it any other way – solidifies, until he can see not only the table, but on top of it: a mess of candles, a big ungainly mirror reflecting the room, and a series of five jars.

Each one has a label with a drawing of a particular plant on it. Stiles has no idea what any of these plants are, except for one which has to be mountain ash. He’s about ninety percent confident about identifying it after using it that one time and having done so much research on it after the fact.

He thinks another one might be mistletoe, but he can’t be sure. Other than researching it to reveal the Darach’s true face, he wasn’t too interested in it. Wasn’t (and still isn’t) too interested in plants in general, but especially after his dad’s death, except as they pertained to the ritual.

(Even now, he still doesn’t know what that green powder was. It had some ridiculous Latin name that Lydia refused to translate, only told him it was safe to handle and for him not to worry about it.)

(Stiles was very reassured. Not.)

Needless to say, he knows fuck all what the other three plants are, only that they appear to be dried specimens within the jar (or ash in the case of the mountain ash). One jar has red stalks and pointy leaves, another has green stalks and small, oblong yellow berries, and the third contains a stack of light-colored, brittle looking twigs in it, like the kind you’d use for kindling.

“Stiles? What are you doing over here?”

He blinks, shakes his head. “Huh, wha? Mrs. Hale?”

Weird, he feels like he’s just woken up, or, no, like Dad distracted him from something he was concentrating intently on: it takes a few seconds for his brain to get in order, and then he’s blinking up at Mrs. Hale, who looks concerned.

“Are you all right?”

“Uh… yeah, I’m totally fine, dude. I was just looking at these jars—” He looks back down at the table. “Whoa! Where’d they go?”

“Where did what go?” Deaton asks, coming up on Stiles’s other side.

“The jars.” Stiles gestures at the now empty table, clear of anything except the lone fat red candle on the edge. “I swear I was just looking at some jars a few seconds ago.”

“Jars?” Deaton’s eyebrows wing up. “What kind of jars?”

“Like, mason jars. They had some weird plant specimens inside.”

Deaton’s expression shows nothing other than curiosity, but Stiles has the feeling – well, when doesn’t he? – that the good doc knows more than he’s letting on. “Pretty sure one of them was mountain ash,” he adds.

There goes Deaton’s expression. “You know mountain ash?”

“Yeah, it’s dark and ashy, you use it to trap supernatural creatures within?” Stiles says breezily.

“Or to keep them out,” Deaton is studying Stiles with that expression, the one that makes him feel like he’s a bug under a magnifying glass. “Stiles, has anyone given you any type of training, as in seeing past illusions, or…?”

“Uhh, D – someone! someone told me how to use the mountain ash,” Stiles offers.

Deaton frowns. “No, that wouldn’t have been enough. Also, you were able to handle mountain ash? As you are now?”

“No?” Stiles answer-asks. “I mean, like, he taught me before whatever happened to me happened, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Hm.” Deaton frowns harder. “Interesting.”

“Why do you ask, doc?”

“I ask because technically only other emissaries should be able to see these jars. Even then, with the way it’s set up, they should have seen mere impressions, shadows where the jars were, until they broke through the structure or I called their attention to them. You really haven’t gotten any training?”

“Not unless looking up plants on Wikipedia counts,” Stiles points out. “I’m gonna take a wild guess and go by the look on your face that it doesn’t.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Deaton confirms. “Interesting, I will have to do some research into how this can be possible.”

“Don’t forget about finding Stiles a safe room,” Mrs. Hale breaks in. “Let’s not get too far into that research that you forget.”

“Oh, yeah, totally not something I’d want to forget, being locked up like a prisoner in two days,” Stiles gripes. “That’s not hanging over my head like the Sword of Damocles at all. Which, by the way, is even creepier when you know that Damocles was a werewolf and the sword was an Argent’s.”

Mrs. Hale closes her mouth. Opens it again. “And here I thought you didn’t know anything about pack culture. Where did you learn that?”

Stiles blinks past Peter’s – Older Peter’s – smirk, shrugs. “Lots of places you can find things if you know what you’re looking for. Only trouble is knowing past the bullshit. Uh, baloney sandwich, I mean.”

Mrs. Hale shakes her head. “You, Stiles Vrilinski, are just full of surprises, aren’t you?” she remarks. “Anytime I think I have you figured out, you pull something else off and surprise me. Keeps me on my toes.”

“Yay?” Stiles cheers weakly, complete with not-so-enthusiastic jazz hands. Mrs. Hale chuckles, but Deaton looks concerned. Oh, boy, he doesn’t like that look. He’d better prepare himself for some not-so-passive interrogation later, based on that look.

Joy.

He’s very happy to follow Mrs. Hale in leaving Deaton to his day job, even if it means that he’s summarily accosted into accompanying Mrs. Hale on a shopping trip. Even the hell that is strolling down Main with a metric fuckton of shopping bags in his arms is better than Deaton starting in on him.

Worse, this time he doesn’t have the defense of knowing what it is he’s done to earn the Deaton Glower of Disapproval, so he can’t weasel out of whatever it is. Heck, he can’t even rely on Scott’s puppy dog eyes to get him off relatively scott-free (hah, Scott-free), which means he has only himself to rely on, and he’s working at a distinct disadvantage.

Yeah, shopping with Mrs. Hale is much better. Maybe, by the time he comes back, Deaton will have forgotten about the whole thing, or distracted by something else more pressing, and won’t bring it up. Hey, a guy can hope, right? Right?

Right.

(Even if he knows full well it won’t happen, hope is practically the last thing he has left to hold on to, besides hanging on for Kate’s death. Grab at everything you can, his mom used to tell him, back when Life was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt, because you never know when next it’ll pop up. Well, he’s grabbing, and he’s going to hold onto hope for as long as he can. When going through hell, keep going.)

The next day is not really any better.

At the moment, Stiles has been in the Beacon Hills Public Library for hours already, hunched over the library’s ancient computer, surrounded by books, and tearing his hair out over the total lack of information in them. Twenty books he’s ripped off the shelves, hundreds of sites on the library’s dial-up internet he’s scrolled through, and not one of them has anything on werewolves getting stuck in human form.

Instead, they’re all about getting stuck in wolf form, porn (again with the porn, jeesh), graphic fanfiction (which is even more graphic than some of the porn videos he’s watched), or selkies getting stuck in man form because someone stole their pelt. The last is interesting, but still not what Stiles is looking for, which is man not able to go into creature. [and] Everything else is just. Utter. Bullshit. Very frustrating, and Stiles is about to burst with the lack of anything useful or relevant.

Then someone leans on the edge of his table and makes his day so much worse.

“Well, I can’t say I’ve seen a young man your age surrounded by this many books since Caleb was writing his thesis,” says a drawling voice Stiles knows all too well. “And even then, he was considerably older than you are now.”

Stiles is instantly stock-straight in his chair and glaring daggers. “What do you want, Peter?” He doesn’t need to be told that his eyes are probably red right now, but right now he couldn’t give a flying rat’s ass.

Peter frowns at him. “What, no greeting? No ‘hello, how are you?’ And I thought Derek lacked manners.” And yet he has the fucking gall to seat himself across from Stiles and picking up one of Stiles’s books, the one about holistic aides for memory and longevity, without asking. Fucker.

“Don’t touch that,” Stiles snaps, snatching the book out of Peter’s hands. “Just tell me what you want and leave, okay?”

Peter sits back in his chair, folds his hands across his chest. “Why do you hate me, Stiles?”

Stiles stiffens, his hands clamping down on the book. “What, hate? I don’t hate you.”

Even he can tell the lie in that. He doesn’t need the skip of his heartbeat to tell him that. Or Peter’s look of disdain.

“Why do you want to know?” he asks instead, placing the book carefully with its fellows. It’s not like the book ever did anything to him.

“Because I’m curious,” Peter says simply. “You’ve never met me before, yet here you are, acting like I’m about to kill you.”

Stiles can’t contain the flinch at Peter’s poor, poor choice of words. “Dude, blunt much?”

Peter hums. “It’s better that I’m blunt. After all, hunters thrive on division of their prey. If we are to take them down, we must be able to rely on each other. And, despite what my sister thinks, coddling you is not the answer.”

“I’ll never trust you,” Stiles says before he can think about it. Shit. Now he’s given Peter an opening, and Peter never turns down poking at the chink in anybody’s armor. Especially when it’s handed to him on a fucking silver platter.

Sure enough, Peter puts his forearms on the table and leans forward, his eyes gleaming. “Why not?” he inquires, looking so earnest Stiles can’t stand it.

Because you’re psychotic, Stiles almost says. Surprisingly, his seldom-appearing brain-to-mouth filter kicks in then, saving him from giving any more pounds of his flesh away. Taking a deep breath, he bites down on the ugly words clawing its way out of him and turns away from Peter.

Instead he starts cleaning up the table. His concentration’s totally shot now, there’s no way he’s going to be able to concentrate on old legends about werewolves stuck in one form or another. They aren’t useful anyway.

Even in the past, Peter can’t seem to take the fucking hint and shut up. “You know, Stiles, the Hales have an impressive library. Whatever you are looking for…you may be able to find it there.”

Biting his cheek against the rage that rises up at Peter’s presumption, Stiles says nothing. He logs out of the computer and leaves the books in three towering piles for the librarian to put away. Knowing Peter, he probably has the name of every single book in each pile for later speculation, so there’s no point in trying to hide them.

Of course, of course Peter follows him when he heads for the door. Stiles glares at him to back the hell off and is more than moderately surprised when it works, Peter immediately taking a giant step back. He seems about as shocked as Stiles is when it happens, and Stiles would totally love to think about that for a second, run over all the implications of what just happened.

Except that he’s just spotted Derek walking by, and who should he be walking with but Kate Argent.

Aaaaaaand he’s got a desperately uncomfortable look on his face that reminds Stiles way too much of cornered prey screaming for help.

Fuck. And just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse.

“Peter, stay in here,” Stiles says shortly. Peter’s looking towards Derek and Kate, too, and Stiles can see the gears grinding as he pairs Stiles’s reaction with what he’s seeing. “Peter!”

“That’s Kate Argent, isn’t it.” Peter’s eyes have started glowing blue, and his claws are lengthening. Stiles flaps at him furiously to get him to stop, but it’s no good. Of course it’s no good, he thinks as Peter starts growling and heading for the door, he’s a werewolf, his pack’s in danger, flapping won’t do anything. So he does the first thing he can think of to do, and that is to move directly in front of Peter, blocking the way.

Stiles never pretended that he has a lot of self-preservation instincts.

“Get out of the way,” Peter says, his voice a rumble that Stiles is seriously surprised no one else in the library can hear. Or Derek for that matter, who’s supposed to have super hearing, stupid, stupid, stupid! Once they get out of this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad situation, Stiles is really going to have to sit Derek down and yell at him thoroughly for being so goddamned stupid. But first he’s got to get him away from Kate, and in order to do that, he needs to get Peter to stand down.

“No,” he says as calmly as he can, which is probably not very calmly, but hey, fake it ‘til you make it, right? Drawing himself up to his full height, an inch or so taller than Peter, he really, really hopes this works.

“Get. Out. Of. The way.” Peter hasn’t shifted any more than he already has, but that’s no comfort. If anybody happens across them, coming out from behind the stacks or hell, just opening the door, shit is gonna go down in bad, bad ways.

“Look at what you’re doing, Peter,” Stiles says, trying desperately to keep his tone even. There’s nothing he can do for his heartbeat, which even he can feel galloping away, but maybe he can use it. “You’re shifting in the middle of the library, with hunters after your pack, and one of them right next to her. Do you want Kate Argent to look up and see you? What happens to Derek then, huh? It’s not like you two don’t look alike,” he adds at a burst of inspiration.

Peter’s still growling, but his features are distinctly human, and his eyes aren’t flashing blue so much anymore. Nonetheless, the air around him vibrates with the need to rescue Derek; Stiles feels like his whole body is shuddering from Peter’s proximity.

“Look, I get it, you want to gut Kate and take Derek away,” Stiles continues, lowering his voice out of necessity. He doesn’t dare to look away from Peter to sneak a glance around the rest of the library, can only hope there’s nobody nearby.

“But you can’t do that as you are now. You’ve gotta keep the wolfliness down,” he barely contains his gulp when Peter’s eyes switch over to him, human intelligence emerging from their fading blue. “That’s it, dude, just wrap up that wolf and then we can go get Derek and strangle him for his stupidity. All right?”

“Don’t talk about my nephew like that,” Peter rumbles. Stiles is suffused by the urge to huff in exasperation – really, that’s what he gets out of that? Don’t talk about my nephew like that, really? – but if he breaks the staring contest, then he loses. If he loses, then the entire Hale pack loses, too.

Suddenly Peter flashes forward, snaps his teeth in Stiles’s face. Stiles flinches, startles backwards. Oh shit, is the first thought that comes to his mind. Fuck is the second one, a split-second later. He scrambles to get back into place, but Peter has already taken the mile from the inch and is bounding past Stiles out the door.

“Peter!” he shouts, pushing through the door after him. Peter is nearly a blur as he moves towards the end of the block, where Derek and Crazy Aunt Kate are preparing to cross the street. “Peter, stop!”

Two things happen then. One, Peter stops in the middle of the sidewalk, and two, both Derek and Kate’s heads snap around towards them, pausing in the act of taking a step off the curb. Shit. Sprinting towards Peter, Stiles arrives just as Derek gets through saying, “—you doing here?”

Unfortunately, Stiles is too out of breath from the sprint to say anything. It also means he can’t stop Peter from saying smoothly, “Looking for you. Did you forget I was supposed to pick you up from practice?”

“Uh,” Derek casts a nervous look at Kate, who’s looking on with a sly smile. “Yeah, um, I… was going to meet up with Stiles,” Stiles tries to give him a look like what the fuck?? but Derek glances at Kate again, then away, “‘cause he… you now… texted me, and wanted to… uh…”

“Talk to him about a project we have to do at school together,” Stiles jumps in, “about… mythology and how it’s influenced history and all that B.S. High school, am I right?”

He and Derek exchange eye rolls. High school, ugh.

“When Stiles here told me he didn’t know where you were, I got worried,” Peter goes on. Stiles tries to look like that’s totally what happened, but both Derek and Kate only glance at him. “But now I see the reason for your…absence.”

Derek’s cheeks flame brightly while Kate laughs delightedly. “Oh, no,” Kate says, tweaking one of Derek’s cheeks, “you shouldn’t blame Derek. I asked him for directions, and being the gentleman that he is, he offered to show me. Isn’t he adorable?”

“I – uh—” That’s all Derek gets out before Peter’s hand clamps down on his shoulder. Judging from the wince Derek gets, Peter’s grasp is bruising. Good.

“That’s Derek, always wanting to help,” Peter says pleasantly to Kate. “But now I’ve got to take him home. His parents are probably wondering where we are.”

“Oh, no,” Kate tuts playfully, shaking a finger at Derek. “We can’t have that, can we? Run back to your mom and dad, cutie. We can get to know each other better next time.” She winks.

Derek barely turns his face away before the look of panic crosses it. Stiles can’t blame him, there’s no way a “next time” would go well. Peter’s expression barely flickers, but his knuckles on Derek’s shoulder are white as he demurs with, “You never know, Beacon Hills is small enough, it may yet happen,” and throws in a small laugh to match Kate’s. (Stiles shudders. He can’t even imagine having to make small talk with a hunter, and he’s not even a werewolf. His. Life.)

“Well, we do need to get going,” Peter says, affecting a sincere enough tone of regret.

“Oh, sure, don’t let me keep you,” Kate says coyly. “Bye, cuties, and good luck on your project!” She waves long fingers at the both of them.

Urgh, yuck, yuck, yuck. Can’t she leave well enough alone? Stiles pulls Derek away and down the sidewalk, keeping an eye out over his shoulder while Peter smoothly extends his stride to join them. Kate wriggles her fingers again – yuck, seriously, what a pervert – and he ducks around to face front.

Once he feels like they’re far enough away (although no distance will feel safe until the wicked bitch is dead or out of Beacon Hills), he hisses:

“Dude, what the fuck?” Stiles hisses as soon as they’ve gotten far enough away.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t get away from her!” Derek throws up his arms. “She asked for directions and I answered her before I noticed who she was, and then I was stuck!”

“You couldn’t have said you didn’t know?”

“I panicked, okay!” Derek presses fingers to his forehead. “Next thing I know, she’s asking me to show her where the building was, and then you and Peter are there, and oh, my God, she could have killed me!”

Derek stops dead in the middle of the sidewalk, his face chalk-white.

“Keep moving!” Stiles glances over his shoulder again, but Kate’s not in sight anymore, not that that’s any indicator, jeez. Hunters are just as bad as werewolves about lurking in the shadows and springing out at you when least you expect it.

(Makes him wonder: which came first, the hunters loitering or the werewolves? Great, now he’s imagining a lurking arms race, with each measuring their survival but how much they can Batman their way through life with encounters with each other, and dude, his brain.)

They’re going to have to tell Mrs. Hale about this right away. Kate unerringly picking out Derek out of the rest of Beacon Hills to play with spells nothing but “capital T, rhymes with P, and stands for pool” trouble, and they’ve got enough trouble as it is without Kate adding her statutory rapist fingers into the pie. Not least of which is because that’s the way she gets to the Hale pack in the first place, through Derek, but Stiles can still remember the moment when he realized: oh, shit, this is why Older Derek is so messed up about his family. That was when he’d figured out how exactly Kate and Derek knew each other, and oh, my God. Worst, feeling, ever.

(That reminds him: he feels awful about that time he yelled at Older Derek in the hospital about mass-murdering girlfriends. Stiles will admit that he hasn’t got the finest control over his brain-to-mouth filter (who is he kidding, he has no control over his mouth whatsoever), but that? That was just plain insensitive, and he regrets that he never apologized to Older Derek for it, even as the dude had appeared to take it in stride. Of course, they were fighting for their lives at the time, so maybe Older Derek didn’t register it, or he forgot, but Stiles can’t. It’ll burn a hole in the pocket of his Pants of Shame for the rest of his life.)

Anyway, the point is: Derek’s in trouble, and they’re going to need to find some way to get him out of it stat. Stiles would almost say this is like when Scott and Allison were first starting out all over again, with Scott willfully oblivious to the danger literally across the dinner table from him. A few important differences: Derek knows who the real enemy is here, and is not in love with one of them.

Also, Derek is not Scott, bullheaded and ridiculous about male authority, and that gives Stiles hope that everything will end up differently.

As is to be expected, Mrs. Hale hits the roof.

Oh, not in like any obvious way. She doesn’t turn full-on Alpha red eyes or anything, in fact, she doesn’t even seem to really react at all. But it’s through plenty of traumatic experiences with Older Derek that Stiles sees it – sees the way her eyes widen, her shoulders stiffen, and her eyebrows arch, that she is freaked. out. Now she knows how Stiles’s been feeling for the past week, but worse, because nobody is taking the threat of Kate seriously, and he feels like he’s been screaming at a brick wall over and over for the people on the other side to hear while they’re playing music or something. Ugh.

Stiles’s vindication doesn’t last long.

"She did what?"

"Hey, hey, quiet down, you're gonna wake Juanito here," Caleb glares.

"Oops, sorry, dude." Stiles glances at the lump of tiny human all but burrowed into Caleb's neck. Juan (who's Inez's son and Caleb's stepson, but who calls Caleb "Papa" with such sweet and devilish enthusiasm it's clear he doesn't know the difference) doesn't seem like he twitched even a little bit, but Stiles keeps his voice to a whisper nonetheless. "But dude, seriously, Mrs. Hale literally lectured Derek for two hours?"

"Yup," Caleb confirms. "Worse, she let Derek explain himself first. Usually that makes the lecture worse, as then she gets a good idea of how to frame it so that you really feel bad."

"Speaking from personal experience, much?"

"Oh, yeah," Caleb winces. "Doesn't help that Derek's the most sensitive to the lectures of the pack. He's the goody-two-shoes of the pack," he explains for Stiles's benefit, "he almost never gets in trouble. So he isn't on the opposite end of Talia's disappointment often, as opposed to Laura or Peter, who get lectures every other day, it seems like."

Ergh, Peter getting a lecture like he's twelve years old or something, that's not a complete mind-fuck or anything. Stiles shakes his head vigorously as if he can get the image out that way (it doesn't work), decides to move the topic on instead. "what else did she do?"

"Now that's something else." Caleb leans in conspiratorially, prompting Stiles to do the same. “Not only did he get the two-hour lecture, which is reserved for special occasions, but now he has to come straight home from school once it’s over. No basketball practices, no hanging out with his friends, no getting rides from someone who’s not Pack, straight home. He’s allowed visits at the house from his friends, but only if they all do their homework and don’t goof off playing video games or watch TV. Or use the computer.”

“Dude, that’s ridonkulous,” Stiles protests. “That’s, like, the whole point of having friends over, so you can goof off and shit.”

Caleb tilts his head, hefts Juan's weight in his arms. "Which is why Derek is so upset, he's reduced to sulking in his room and watching as many episodes of The O.C. as possible before he won't be able to watch it anymore. It comes on right after he comes home from basketball practice," he adds, seeing Stiles's confusion, "but since he's not allowed to watch TV until he gets his homework done—"

"He might not get to see it?" Stiles guesses to Caleb's nod. "Dude, super harsh."

Caleb does that head tilt thing again, which Stiles realizes is a shrug as best as he can do with Juan in his arms.

"It is," Stiles insists. "At least when my dad grounded me, he only took away my Xbox and my phone. He'd leave me the use of my laptop." To do homework. With him in the room.

Caleb smirks. Oh, right. Werewolf, he probably heard Stiles's heart skip over the lie of omission or something stupid like that. Ugh. “Derek would agree with you. Even Laura is impressed: she said that she’s ‘had some bad punishments, but Derek’s takes the rabbit, fur, bones, and all.’”

“‘It takes the rabbit, fur, bones and all’?” Stiles repeats incredulously, grinning.

Caleb snorts. “Dude, please. Like you don’t have any weird phrases in your family.”

Stiles feels his grin freeze. “Nope, all our phrases were legit,” he gets out, hoping his heartbeat or his scent, whatever, doesn’t give him away. The tilt of Caleb’s head tells him he’s failed. Looking away from his curious gaze, Stiles notices that they’re almost to a playground.

“Wow, this brings back some memories,” Stiles remarks. The brightly-colored play sets look at odds with the tall chain-link fence surrounding it.

“Yeah, Juan loves this place,” Caleb says absently, still studying him. “We usually stop here on our way back from kindergarten.”

“Usually? You’re not going to today?”

Caleb winces. “Iñez would tear my balls off if I thought about doing that with the hunters around. It’s especially bad since Derek got caught with one. Normally she can keep her worry levels down, but there’s been no arguing with her since.”

Stiles goes to point out that Iñez’s worry is totally justified when his gaze snags on two of the kids on the slide. His eyes grow wide, his breath shortens, and his brain goes totally blank, void of even the usual what the fuck a situation like this would have gotten.

On the slide, ten-year-old Scott laughs as ten-year-old Stiles flails madly on his way down. Younger Stiles shoots out the end of the slide and rolls head over heels, landing in a heap on the woodchips. Shaking his ear-length hair wildly, Younger Stiles picks himself up, brushes the woodchips off his clothes, and then yells at Younger Scott to come down.

In front of the fence, seventeen-year-old Stiles is still gaping unattractively, but somehow without his conscious input he’s curled his fingers into the chain link fence and is clinging for dear life. He vaguely remembers this, daring Scott to do better on the landing and then devising a point system to judge each landing.

It feels so unreal to be watching this from the outside, though. Jesus, was he really this small? Was Scott really this small? God, life had seemed so much simpler then, the only thing Stiles had to worry about was whether Jackson was going to kick over his epic Bionicle action figure setup. Neither he nor Scott had any notion of werewolves, crazy hunters, kanima, Darachs, or Alpha packs. To them, the only things important were catching all the Pokémon, getting all the Yu-gi-Oh! trading cards, and wheedling their respective parent to let them go to summer camp.

Something catches within Stiles's chest then, making it hard for him to breathe.

“Stiles,” Caleb says from very far away. “Stiles.”

“Huh, what?” Stiles looks up at Caleb long enough to register the concern on his face. Then he looks back at the younger versions of him and his best friend, unable to tear himself away.

“Are…you okay?” Caleb comes up next to him, hovering just outside of his personal space.

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes as ten-year-old Scott dumps a bunch of woodchips down ten-year-old Stiles’s shirt. “Yeah, why?”

“It’s just, you’ve been staring at those two kids for a while, and if you don’t quit, someone’s gonna think you’re creepy and call the cops on you. Hell, I’m thinking you’re creepy right now, and I know you.”

“You think I’m creepy?” Stiles looks away at Caleb then, who, shit, looks honest-to-goodness worried. “You’re a wol – you like to sneak up on people and scare the living crap out of them and you’re calling me creepy? You need to get your brain checked.”

Caleb’s grin is reflexive, but gains strength when Stiles returns it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he teases. “I leave that to Laura and the rest of the kids.”

“Oh, please, like you don’t do the same thing,” Stiles jabs a finger in Caleb’s face. He watches as Caleb looks at the finger, then at him, Unimpressed Bitch Face in effect. Then a movement has him turning, yanking his finger back just before Juan can snap his teeth around it. “Holy crap! Did you see that, I almost lost my finger!”

Caleb smirks even as he bounces Juan on his hip. “You know what we say about biting, mijo,” he says totally-not-sternly-at-all. “What do we say when we bite?”

Juan, who’s still half-asleep, still manages a halfway-decent pout that, Stiles isn’t gonna lie, makes him want to ruffle the kid’s hair. If, you know, he really wanted to lose his finger. Caleb is unaffected; he levels Juan with a Look. Pouting some more, Juan eventually gets out, “S’rry,” and buries his head back into Caleb’s neck.

“Stiles?” Caleb asks.

“Oh, uh, apology accepted, little dude,” Stiles shrugs. “Still, I did almost lose my finger. And that’s not creepy?”

Caleb rolls his eyes. “Come on, we gotta get going or we’ll be late.”

“Ugh, really?” Stiles follows after Caleb in fits and starts, looking over his shoulder at ten-year-olds Stiles and Scott, who have torn back up to the top of the slide and are now arguing whose turn it is to go down.

“You really want Iñez in your face and yelling at you in Spanish?” Caleb raises an eyebrow.

“Uh, who would she be yelling at? She’s scared shitless of me,” Stiles points out.

Caleb’s head tilts back and forth in that you’re right, but I don’t want to admit it gesture; Stiles speeds up enough to see Caleb’s grimace, prompting him to grin. Still, he takes one more look at Stiles and Scott, who have abandoned the slide for the swings and appear to be competing to see who can swing higher.

Chest squeezing again, Stiles finally has to look away when he trips over something and nearly crashes into Caleb. He brushes off his apologies and keeps going, but when Stiles looks back again for his younger counterpart, the view of the swings is obstructed by the building next door.

The memory of them, of Stiles and Scott’s brotherhood at its onset, is still burned into his mind’s eye, though, and honestly Stiles never wants to let it go.

Of course, it’s when they’re almost back to the Hale house that it all goes to hell.

They’re in the woods – where every bad thing happens – and Juan is holding onto Caleb’s hand. Caleb is asking questions about Juan's day, like what they learned, what did they do, any more about Juanito's friend Shelby today? Juan is chattering a mile a minute back, his earlier lassitude nowhere to be found. Stiles finds himself in the unusual position of not being the fastest speaking person around or even the most excitable, energetic, hyperactive. Is this what normal people feel like? Because jeez, does he feel exhausted and it's only been a few minutes.

He's opening his mouth to make a joke along those lines, something about being envious that he never had any cool toys like Juan's BIONICLE sets to play with, when

CRACK

Instantly he’s on the ground, lying flat and with all his human senses alert. Caleb’s not far away and on high alert, but Juan, Juan Juan looks scared and like he's about to scream his head off. Now, Stiles doesn’t know how far sound carries in the woods, but Caleb has got to get him to stop before the hunters find them, if they haven’t already. He doesn’t know what the bullet’s trajectory is or if it was aimed at them, but there’s no time to think or ask questions.

"Caleb!” Stiles hisses, scrambling over to Juan, who is huge-eyed and pale as salt. He claps a hand over his mouth, muffling the wail almost as soon as it emerges. Juan jerks back, looks up at Stiles with huge eyes like he's just committed the ultimate act of betrayal. “Sorry! Sorry, but dude, I need you to be really, really quiet. Can you do that? At least until we get out of here?”

Juan's teary eyes wrench at Stiles's heart, but he nods, slow at first then faster. Heaving a sigh of relief, Stiles tries for a reassuring smile, wincing when Juan sniffles, sucks in a huge breath. He tenses, but Juan does nothing more. “Good, that’s great, now—”

The next thing he knows, he’s been bowled over by some sort of truck. “Get your hands off of him,” Caleb snarls, eyes amber yellow and breath hot on his face.

"Dude, what are you doing?!"

"Let. Go. Of. Him," Caleb repeats.

Stiles looks where he's got his hand around Juan's chest, releases him in a hurry. "Dude, I'm so sorry, I was just trying to—"

Caleb is on Juan, pushing him behind him as he continues to bare his teeth. "Don't you ever put your hands on my son ever again," he growls.

"I wasn't going to hurt him! I was just trying to get him to be quiet so he didn't give us away!"

"I don't care. You don't touch the young of another pack, no matter what your intent. Do you understand me?!"

Stiles rears back. What the fuck?! Here he is, trying to keep Juan from alerting the shooter to their presence, and Caleb's accusing him of, of what, he doesn't know?! But it's not good, whatever it is. Instinctively, Stiles's lips draw back, baring the teeth underneath them, and his own growl comes rumbling out of his chest.

They stay like that, the both of them at a stalemate. Behind Caleb, Juan whimpers. Stiles cuts his eyes toward him; at the same time, Caleb stirs, attempts to cover more of Juan.

That, and the look of miserable fear on Juan's face, is enough to snap Stiles out of it.

Forcing a hard breath, Stiles makes himself shake off the anger, to smooth down his own hackles, so to speak. Still, it's an effort to be calm as he grits out, "Look, now is not the time for pack pissing contests. That shot? Was probably the hunters, and they’re probably looking for us. We've gotta get back to the house, and quick.”

Caleb's still growling, but his glowing eyes have shifted from Stiles to the woods around them. Stiles can practically see Caleb's ears twisting this way and that, trying to figure out the location of the hunters, or whoever fired that shot.

"Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Let's try to think here.” Stiles tries to sound calm and not as if his anger is still swirling in him. (Stiles, hurt a kid? Like hell.) “Why don’t you shift back? Or better yet,” he adds, inspired, “I’ll distract the hunters for you. You take Juan back to the Hal – back to the house,” he corrects. “Then you tell Mrs. Hale that there might be hunters are in the Preserve, and I’ll figure out what they’re up to. Capische?”

"I should be taking care of them," Caleb says, his lisp clearing up as his teeth shrink. "I know these woods better than you do."

"And you'd trust me to take Juan?" Stiles rebuts, skeptic.

"No," Caleb puts out a hand to clutch Juan closer to his back.

"I didn't think so. Besides, I have no idea where the house is from here," not totally a lie, he could probably work it out if he were determined, "and you'd be faster."

Caleb nods his head sideways in reluctant agreement. Then his head twitches. “Better distract them quick,” he says, finally, finally coming out of his crouch. “I can hear them coming.”

"Them? More than one?"

Caleb nods.

Shit. “Which way are they coming from?” Stiles comes up from his own crouch, a sharp pain in his side reminding him Caleb used him for tackle practice. Ugh, he’s going to have bruises when this is done. Werewolves, Jesus.

Jerking his chin to Stiles’s left, Caleb gathers a tearful Juan up into his arms. “They’re not very far away now. There's a few of them making noise, but I'd bet those are playing bait while others wait to take a shot."

“Probably. Makes it easier to distract them,” Stiles says, grim. “Now go!”

Caleb doesn't need any more incentive. Breathing a sigh of relief as they disappear into the trees, Stiles starts running in the other direction, trying to make as much of a racket as possible. Depressingly, after the first minute, it doesn’t require much effort. Stiles's particular brand of luck and natural clumsiness means he finds every tree root possible to trip him up without trying, and the leaves aren't exactly making for easy footing, either. Nonetheless, he keeps going, making a lot of noise as he goes.

As he continues on, the woods gradually darken. Stiles only notices when he misjudges the distance to a specific tree particularly badly and careens into the ground instead. He scrambles back up as fast as he can, but there’s no one around. Where are the hunters? According to Caleb, they hadn’t been very far off. You’d think they’d have found him by now.

He looks up through the canopy. There are still remnants of light shining through, but the canopy is blocking most of it. Well, at least the dark will make it easier to hide from the hunters.

“Also make it harder for me to see,” he mutters when he trips again. “Well, since it’s what I’m going for, I guess it’s all right. But ugh, the bruises.”

Nonetheless, he wonders again where the hell the hunters are. That’s when it occurs to him that maybe whoever fired the shot weren’t hunters, per se, and he’s doing this for nothing. Or they're not werewolf hunters, anyway.

“But wild game hunters aren’t allowed in the Preserve,” he says to the nearest tree, which doesn’t respond. “Of course, there are always people who try to go around that. Even if they know better.” Stiles thinks briefly about the look on the hunters’ faces if the police found them with illegal guns, but then abandons that thought when naturally that train of thought leads to his dad confronting them, and no. Just. No. “Serve them right, though.”

He skirts along a ravine, barely noticing as it curves away from him. “Where are they?” he says instead, looking over his shoulder.

“Looking for us?”

“Jesus Christ!”

Chapter Text

“Jesus Christ!” Stiles only saves himself from falling over by grabbing into the nearest tree. “Where the hell did you come from?”

Kate Argent smirks, resettles her shotgun over her shoulder. “For a werewolf, you’re not very observant, are you?” she says, considering.

Shit.

Kate laughs. “Aw, did poor sweetie think he was being subtle?” She pouts and shakes her head mock-sadly. “I’m afraid not.”

When Kate steps forward, Stiles can’t stop himself from taking a step back. Sue him okay, he defies anyone not to do the same in the same situation. Kate’s smirk widens, and she actually coos, like he’s some kind of animal who’s done something adorable.

…Fuck. How did he not figure it out before? To her, werewolves are animals to put down, that’s what this whole thing is about. And shit, she thinks he’s one, so that makes him an animal. To put down. Fuck.

“Wow,” he says without thinking. “Can’t say I’ve ever been on this side of the equation before.”

If possible, Kate gets even more gleeful. “A new werewolf?” she purrs, her walk becoming – oh God, ew – predatory. “Even better.”

Oh, no, Stiles has had enough of feeling like prey. “No, no, you’re wrong, I’m not –” a werewolf, he means to say (except he is, he just accepted this, like, two days ago), but then a crossbow gets pushed into his face and dries the words up in his throat. Swallowing, he eyes the bolt already nocked and drawn. There’s no way that bolt isn’t covered in wolfsbane, he’d bet his favorite Batman shirt on it.

“I don’t think so,” Kate says coyly. Stiles looks past the crossbow past the hunter holding it to her, blinking. “We’re top-notch hunters, sweetie, and we know wolves when we see them. Especially,” her eyes drag down and up his body, causing him to shudder involuntarily, “new ones.”

“Ugh, that’s so uncomfortable,” Stiles complains. “You do realize you are, like, ten years older than me?” He tries to think of a way to get out of this mess. Instead, his traitorous brain insists on imagining the crossbow bolt launching forward and sinking into his flesh, the wolfsbane burrowing into him, blackening his veins as it stretches for his heart and kills him. God, he hopes Caleb finds Mrs. Hale soon.

“What can I say,” Kate laughs with a careless shrug, “I like my boys young.” She smiles lazily. “By the way, what’s your name, sweetie? We’ve seen each other a couple of times already, I can’t just call you ‘sweetie’ all the time, although I for sure wouldn’t mind.”

“Bet you say that to all the boys,” Stiles retorts automatically. The hysteria is really rising now, threatening to take over and take him down. “And really,” he adds, feeling reckless and unable to stop, “you must think I’m stupid if you think I’m going to fall for that.”

Kate chuckles. “Look at you, being all brave.” She reaches out a hand towards Stiles’s chest. “Will you be my very own knight in furry armor?”

Stiles yanks away from Kate’s reach at the same time the guy with the crossbow grabs Kate’s hand. Kate shoots a glare at the hunter sharp enough to shrivel Stiles’s balls, but the hunter only shakes his head. “They’re beasts, not human,” he says. “We shouldn’t consort with them as if they are.”

“Yeah, you don’t want to get werewolf cooties,” Stiles puts in. The hunter glares at him, but Stiles doesn’t care. Kate’s is more frightening.

In fact, Stiles swears for a moment that Kate’s face hardens, something dark and deeply disturbing flitting over it. But then she’s smiling coyly again, as if nothing had happened. Stiles knows better than to think he imagined it, but that was seriously scary shit. He wouldn’t blame his brain if it wanted to think that.

“All right,” Kate says to her fellow hunter, jerking her hand from his grip. “You’ve made your point.” Her grin is edged and more similar to a wolf’s baring of the teeth than Stiles is comfortable with; apparently the hunter agrees, for he takes a step back. The crossbow wavers from its position on Stiles for a moment, Stiles notices, then firms, but it’s enough for him.

“You know,” he says, shifting, “not to break up this little lover’s quarrel you guys have got going there,” flicking his fingers at the two of them, “but you might want to invest in a few leadership skills. Just because your guy doesn’t seem to respect you!” he says hurriedly at Kate and Crossbow Guy’s glares. “And well, we all know what happens to leaders whose followers don’t respect them…” All too well, he thinks, darkly humorous.

“Don’t you threaten us.” Crossbow Guy pushes forward aggressively, hefting the crossbow higher.

“Easy there, dude, take a chill pill! Nobody said anything about threatening you!” Stiles scrambles backwards around the tree, which gets him not only space away from the crossbow but also the added bonus of no longer having the tree at his back to get in the way of an escape attempt. Not that he thinks he can run fast enough to make a clean getaway, but it’s still one less obstacle to overcome.

Crossbow Guy growls, frustration evident in every inch of his body. Kate, however, has faded from irritation to amusement, and stills Crossbow Guy with a hand on his shoulder.

“He’s stalling,” she tells him, smirking when Stiles freezes. “Maybe he thinks if he keeps talking, he’ll give his pack time to rescue him?”

“Pack? What are you –” Stiles swallows when Crossbow Guy turns back, Kate’s smirk twisting his lips. Fuck, how does he get into these situations? Well, okay, he put himself up as bait for this one, but seriously.

“Shall we call the others?” Kate asks Crossbow Guy. Without waiting for an answer, she turns to the darkness around them. “Come on out, boys! The sweet little werewolf wants to play!”

One minute Stiles sees trees. The next, hunters pop out of the shadows like so many ninja. Most are bearing guns or shotguns, with one or three handling crossbows. They all range in a circle to surround Stiles and level their weapons on him. Not one among them looks sympathetic.

Fuck.

“Sorry, sweetie.” Kate curls her mouth up into a quasi-sympathetic line. “I’m afraid no one will be able to help you against these numbers.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Caleb was right, a few were playing bait for a lot more hiding in the woods. This does not look good.

“Not so confident now, are you, kid?” Crossbow Guy smirks. “Where’s your pack now?”

Again with the assumption about Stiles’s pack. “I don’t have a pack,” Stiles says, feeling the truth of it in his bones. Werewolf or not, he isn’t part of anything. He’s not part of the Hale pack, his pack back in the old timeline may as well be dead. For all intents and purposes, he’s here, stuck in the woods, encircled by hunters, all alone.

"Of course you do," Crossbow Guy says. "We saw you."

"What?" Shit, don't tell him they think Derek is part of his pack. Stiles would pray if he believed in God, instead of vaguely acknowledging that some people seem to and other people don't.

"Derek," Kate says. Fuck. "You're awfully concerned about him being around me, aren't you? Rather... possessive, I would say." Her smile is way too knowing. It should be illegal to have that much innuendo packed into a single upturn of lips.

"I – I," Stiles splutters, searching for a way out. His heartbeat, already racing, now feels like it's going to explode out of chest and run away screaming as fast as it can before it bleeds out and dies a filthy death in the Preserve. Eugh.

"And that other guy, the one who's supposed to be Derek's uncle," Crossbow Guy puts in. "Though I doubt that," he adds with a sour laugh.

"Are there any more members of your pack?" Kate asks. Though her smirk hasn't gone away, Stiles gets the impression that she really wants him to say yes. "Or are you scouting for your Alpha?"

Holy God, they think he's a beta. Apparently he doesn’t look like an Alpha. Too skinny, not enough muscles, he guesses, barking out a laugh. "‘Scouting’?" he parrots. "No, you have entirely the wrong idea. I'm not scouting for anybody."

"Hmm." Kate purses her lips. She looks disappointed. "And here I thought we wouldn't have to resort to more extreme measures."

"What? What the hell are you – hey!" Stiles shouts as two of the ninja hunters grab him by the arms. "Let me go!"

"I don't think so, sweetie." Kate steps forward long enough to chuck Stiles under the chin. "Not until you tell us what we want to know."

With a sickening feeling, Gerard's face swims into view. It didn't take much to take him down – he being a frail human at the time – and Gerard didn't even want anything, just for Stiles to be a message. From Scott's vague account of how he found Derek in the Hale basement before killing Peter the first time, Kate Argent prefers other methods of torture. And that's when she has a werewolf. Who knows what that would do to him, who despite being a werewolf, doesn't seem to have the werewolf healing to keep him alive?

Stiles can't help himself, he starts thrashing. But his hunter imprisoners are unmoved, their tightening grips the only sign that Stiles's struggling is having any effect. And of course his stupid brain thinks Ugh, yet more bruises instead of being useful and remembering some of hand-to-hand techniques from Tekken and getting him the hell out.

Kate watches all this with the indulgence of a lioness towards a kitten. "You're going to have to try harder than that to get by Brian and Josh.” She nods to Stiles’s jailers, who again don’t react other than in grunts. Ugh, why are all minor goons the strong and stoic type? For once, Stiles would love to run into a hunter who was excitable, or loved to listen to the sound of his own voice. He’d have a chance of tricking them.

“Why pretend?” Kate continues coyly. “We all know what you are. Let that werewolf strength out, test your mettle." 'Mettle' has never sounded so dirty in a person's mouth before Kate's; Stiles wonders if she and Peter went to the same Innuendo school and took the same “Infuse Every Word with Awful Pedophiliac Creepiness” class. And aced it.

Arooooooooooooo...! Stiles has never been more relieved at hearing a howl and more filled with dread at the same time in his life. On either side of him, Brian and Josh (who is whom, again?) jump; Kate whips around, her smirk gone as she spins this way and that, trying to determine the direction of the howl. The other unnamed hunters are doing the same, some pointing their weapons away from him, others trained enough to keep them where they are.

It's now or never.

Stiles gives a huge yank on his arms. Josh loses his grip, but Stiles has to kick at Brian's shin to get his other arm free. Once both arms are back in his possession, though, he's dashing towards the hunters behind him. One in particular is still looking away; he only glances down when Stiles is nearly upon him. There's time to see the hunter's shocked and terrified expression; then Stiles has barreled into and past him into the dubious safety of the trees.

"Let him go!" he hears Kate shouting. "He'll go back to his pack. Keep on his heels and we'll find the pack!"

That only works when the werewolf you're hunting can't hear you, Stiles wants to shout back. But why give them ideas? And anyway, he's too out of breath from sprinting to talk. He zigs and zags, hoping to make it harder for the hunters, while also hoping he’s not running directly at the Hale pack. Man, he should have kept up his tree-climbing days, back when before his mom died. That would have been really helpful right now, just zip up one of the trees and hide there until the hunters passed.

But no, he's gotta keep going. Where, he has no idea, and doesn't care as long as it gets him out of here and away.

Pretty soon it becomes clear that that's going to be an issue. The roar of multiple ATVs growls out behind him, chilling him to the bone.

He’s so screwed.

“They won’t kill you,” he says, or tries to say. The words come out more like gasps. Oh, hey, he does have breath to talk after all. “They want you to lead them to the pack.” Gasp, gasp, trip over a root, scramble to keep his footing, keep going. “Since that is a bad idea,” jump up onto a log! Go sprawling in the sodden leaves on the other side! Get up and keep going! “Obviously you have to make sure you don’t go to the pack.”

Oh God, he has to stop. Even Coach didn’t make him run this hard for this long. Not in straight distances, anyway. Suicides involved changing directions, after all. And he’d thought cross country had done some good for him.

Just then, his foot sinks and goes sliding. He shouts as he goes down hard, the ravine showing him no mercy as he tumbles down its side. Something slams into him and interrupts his progress; without looking Stiles knows who it is. The flash in his mind’s eye of yellow eyes, metal, and black fur tells him everything he needs to know.

“You can’t be here,” he winces out. When he tries to roll to his feet, his body protests with epic twinges. Whatever. He’s got shit to do. His body can deal. “The hunters, they’re hoping I’ll lead them to you. You’ve got to – urghhhh.” He bends over when his stomach gurgles with nausea. Cross country so did not prepare him for this. He should have taken track instead.

“We heard,” Laura says, her usual sour tone missing. “Mom and Peter are circling around behind them. They’re thinking they’re going to lure them into a place bounded on three sides, so that we can finally remind them of the Code.”

“Bad idea,” Stiles objects. “These guys don’t care about the Code. They eat the Code for breakfast. Go back and tell them to think of another plan!”

“We need to get out of here,” Laura ignores him. She’s staring with hot gold eyes back where Stiles came. “The hunters are nearly upon us.”

“Aghhh!” Stiles throws up his hands. “Why do I even bother?”

He’s surprised when Laura answers. “Because pack faces things together. You’re not pack,” Stiles, about to say that very thing, closes his mouth, “but you did ask for asylum with us. Sort of.” Laura glances at Stiles out of the corner of his eye. “And you are in trouble. So Mom feels like she has to help you. And wherever Mom goes, the pack goes, too. We’re a unit, we face things as one.”

“Oh.” It makes sense. God knows that when everyone Before worked together, things worked out a hell of a lot better than working by themselves. Stiles still can’t help but feel like he’s dooming the Hale pack, that because they’re coming to help him they’re going to meet their end at Kate Argent’s hands sooner rather than later.

Well, at least they know she’s a threat, right? So they’re better prepared to meet it than with no warning.

(Even in the space of his own head, that doesn’t sound convincing.)

Following Laura proves to be no less hair-raising than running away from the hunters. Stiles has to push himself harder than ever just to keep on her heels, and they make a lot of twists and turns that sometimes Laura has to grab Stiles into doing. But then they stop, and Stiles peers around to see the hunters’ ATVs roaring right by them.

“That’ll throw them off our tail,” Laura says with gleeful satisfaction. “Now let’s go find Mom.”

“Yeah, and then I can tell her exactly how terrible this plan is,” Stiles snarks. Nonetheless, he falls silent at Laura’s look (though not without making a face) and tries to walk as quietly as possible. The ATV engines are growing quiet, but Stiles can’t help but be hyperaware of everything. The woods at night are some of the creepiest places to be, and that’s without knowing they harbor creatures that go bump in the night.

Fortunately for Stiles’s straining nerves, it’s not long before they run into Mrs. Hale and – ugh – Peter.

“There you are!” Mrs. Hale exclaims.

“Are you crazy?” Stiles blurts. His voice arcs embarrassingly high, but at this point, he doesn’t care. “You think these people care about the Code? In fact, they’d sooner laugh in your face, and then they’d shoot you with bullets! Wolfsbane bullets! Confronting them is a Very Bad Idea!”

Mrs. Hale, despite being in Beta form (no sideburns for her, so not cool), looks calm. “They still answer to a higher authority,” she says through her fangs. “Even if they don’t respect the Code personally, the other Argents do. Kate will back off when faced with reprisal by her own.”

Stiles snorts rudely. “Yeah, that’s not going to work. The head of the family is just as crazypants as Kate is.”

“You know Victoria Argent personally?” Mrs. Hale’s lack of eyebrow rises. Whether in incredulity or skepticism, Stiles can’t tell.

“Uh, no, I was talking about Gerard Argent.” Stiles fidgets, hoping that his heartbeat isn’t giving away his fear and repulsion.

“As I understand it, for the Argents, the women are the leaders.” Now it’s curiosity that tilts Mrs. Hale’s head. Hey, Stiles is getting good at this “Interpreting Hale Facial Language” thing. He feels so accomplished.

Nonetheless, he utters a short, mirthless laugh. “Yeah, no, not really. Like, I’m sure Mrs. Argent gives the orders, but Crazy Grandpa Gerard is really good at taking things into his own hands.”

His own hands. Heh. He gives himself a gold star for the pun. Way to make light of being punched by a geriatric, Stiles.

“So you’re saying Gerard might be the one calling the shots here, not Kate or Victoria?” Mrs. Hale asks, not!eyebrows furrowing.

Huh, he hadn’t thought of that. “Maybe?” Stiles shrugs. “To be honest, I didn’t think much past getting here.”

“Understandable.” Mrs. Hale nods, is silent for a moment. Finally, she says, “All right. That, unfortunately, does make sense. We’ll have to change the plan.”

“So we’re going back to the – to your house, then?” Stiles asks without much hope.

“No, we’ll still corner them.” There goes that dream. “But we’ll go in and disarm them as much as we can first.”

“What good is that going to do?” Stiles trails after Mrs. Hale. He catches Peter’s eye accidentally, looks quickly away. He still doesn’t know how to deal with Alpha whammying him at the library (other than wanting to know how to do on purpose. He knows – he knows he’s going to need to one day). It was just – weird. Like, he shouldn’t have been able to do it, but he did? But the fact remains: he doesn’t trust Peter. If he looks at the asshole for too long, he’ll do something worse that he won’t quite regret, and now’s not the time for that. If it ever is.

“It gives us a better bargaining position when the other side doesn’t have weapons,” Peter says, his voice all dark amusement.

Stiles shoots Peter a sharp look, but the dude’s focused on the trail ahead (as far as he can tell). Still, Peter’s Peter; just because he’s saying one thing doesn’t mean he’s not saying a dozen other things, too. Stiles resolves to keep an eye on the dude’s position and what he’s doing as much as he can.

The trees they pass are pretty much nothing but huge black monoliths to Stiles now. The sun hasn’t fully set yet, but the little light it’s throwing off isn’t enough for Stiles to distinguish their features. Mrs. Hale is a big black shadow in front of him, and although she isn’t in Alpha shift, the way she’s silhouetted, Stiles can imagine only all too well how she might look. She’d be like Peter when he was Alpha, a misshapen mix of human and wolf, red eyes glowing eerily in the dark of the woods—

“So, Stiles.” Peter says next to him.

Shit! Stiles barely keeps from tripping, manages not to fall flat on his face or whirl on Peter. Point one for him. But damn, speak of the devil.

Oh, Peter’s watching him with an amused smirk. “What?” Stiles snaps. “What do you want?”

“Merely to hear your story,” Peter says smoothly.

“Story?” Stiles’s traitor mouth says before he can stop it.

Before him, Mrs. Hale’s shadow twitches.

“Yes, story. You haven’t really said much about yourself or where you came from, my sister’s efforts otherwise,” Peter’s tone turns dark for a moment, then slips back into its characteristic sardonism, “and you seem well-versed in the Code-breaking activities of this group.” Peter’s shrug is a sense of movement out of the corner of Stiles’s eye. “I’m simply curious how you can be so confident that they won’t follow the Code.”

Ugh. Stiles gives himself a moment of blinding hate for Peter, who would be the one to see through the holes in Stiles’s story. And to bring it up at the worst moment possible. Quick, think of something!

“Perhaps the same thing happened to your pack?” Peter suggests delicately, when Stiles takes too long to respond.

“Uh…not exactly,” Stiles manages. “I mean, they did break the Code, but…” think, think, think! “It happened to one of our neighboring packs!” he blurts, inspired. Sorry, he says mentally to Older Derek. Plus, it’s the truth, so his heartbeat won’t stutter. Hopefully he won’t choke. “Yeah, their house got burned down,” he continues to Peter’s raised eyebrows. “By them. The hunters, I mean. It was during the full moon, so most of the pack was locked in the basement. When Kate set fire to the place, they had no way of getting out.”

Remembering the photos in his dad’s case file on the Hale fire, Stiles has a delayed shudder. Bodies, too many for his peace of mind, charred and identified only by dental records. He remembers that moment he had a few days ago, where he recognized Iñez and Juan by their names in the file, not by their bodies. Being who he is, he follows the inevitable conclusion of that track to the other bodies: Mrs. Hale, Kurt, and Caleb, all lying still and unrecognizable, no personality left, no sign they were ever anything more than stretched, browned skin held together over stubborn bone.

“Surely some of them weren’t locked up,” Laura objects, bafflement creasing her face. “Why didn’t they get out?”

“They would have tried to get the others out, but the fire must have been too hot and spread too quickly for them.” Mrs. Hale says softly. Stiles can’t really see any bit of her now, so her voice comes out of the darkness in front of him, a ghost without a body. He shivers.

“Damn.” Laura sounds troubled. Unlike Mrs. Hale, Stiles can feel Laura next to him, her solid presence doing more to settle him, remind him that everyone’s alive, than anything else. “I…can’t imagine going through that.”

“Neither can they.” Stiles’s laugh is dark. “None of that pack in the fire survived, except for one. He went insane.” He studiously avoids looking at Peter. Not hard, since he was trying to ignore him anyway.

“But there were survivors,” Peter says shrewdly.

Stiles turns, surprised, is caught by the shine of Peter’s eyes on him. “Yeah,” he says after a moment, quietly. “There were.” He breaks Peter’s gaze. “But life wasn’t too good to them, either. They’re dead, too. All of them.” Or as good as.

Silence falls then. Stiles is both grateful for it and not; it gives him time to think, but not about how to twist the truth more. Instead his mind brings up Older Derek’s face as Kali speared him on a lead pipe through his heart. That memory is fuel for some of Stiles’s worst nightmares, although Scott and his dad’s deaths have eclipsed that lately.

When Peter breaks the silence, Stiles isn’t sure whether or not he’s relieved. Because with Peter, he’s going to ask—

“So after Kate Argent was done with your neighboring pack,” yup, he called it, “she came after yours?”

“We were trying to deal with the insane survivor,” Stiles says, trying to think his way through this. He’s tired all of a sudden, tired of traipsing through the woods, of being questioned, tired all over from his new collection of aches and bruises. “Kate came back and we were caught in the crossfire.”

“And now you’re the only one left, as far as you know,” Peter says.

“Yeah.” Stiles’s shoulders sag with the truth of that statement. The realization that Lydia and Isaac, Allison and Derek and Cora (who left them, they just left like none of them were hurting, like none of them needed them, for comfort and reassurance that everything actually happened, it did, it did) are pretty much as good as dead by now hits him all over, makes him want to curl up into a ball and never move. He has to wonder why him, why not Isaac, who’s actually a werewolf and doesn’t have so many problems; or Lydia, who’s so much smarter and would have figured out how to get the Argents dead by now.

Yeah, Lydia and Stiles had agreed it was he who had to go back, but… he doesn’t remember the exact reason why anymore.

Just as he’s getting the real pity party started, a sharp breath ahead of him lets him know something’s up. Stiles opens his mouth to ask what’s going on, but Laura’s hand on his arm makes him jump, freeze in place.

“They’re close,” Mrs. Hale says, her voice a mere whisper. “Peter, Laura, spread out. We’re going to surround them.” Stiles’s sense of Peter and Laura empties; one second they’re real and solid next to him, the next – thin air. Freaking werewolf ninja skills. “Stiles,” Mrs. Hale’s eyes flash red at him, “You run up to them and pretend like you were doubling back to shake them off your trail. Try to lead them in the direction we were going.”

It doesn’t even occur to him to protest; it’s only after he’s taken a few steps into the darkness that he realizes, “Oh, crap, she never said where she was going to be. Also, I have no idea where I’m going.”

He looks around behind him, but no one’s there anymore, not even a sense. Jesus. If Peter and Laura were the top of the class in werewolf ninja school, then Mrs. Hale is the freaking principal. Not even Deucalion could disappear that fast. Or that silently.

“Well,” he mutters, facing forward. “Guess there’s no help for it.”

Wincing as his legs protest, he starts to run again. Then he windmills as he slides down yet another miniature hill – how many does Beacon Hills have, for Christ’s sake? – and comes bursting out into a faintly silver-lit clearing.

Right in the midst of a murder of hunters.

“Shit!” Stiles tries to backpedal, but shotguns are already trained on him. The closest hunter begins to grin; Stiles wipes it off by bolting right by him.

CRACK! Stiles ducks but keeps moving. Where the bullet ends up, he doesn’t know, but it isn’t in him, and that’s all he cares about. More CRACK! s go off as he streaks in and out of the murder of hunters.

“Ow! Motherfucker!”

Stiles looks to see that one of the other hunters is clutching his leg, where a darker spot against dark jeans is spreading. Oh, did the bad dude get hit by friendly fire? “Ha!”

TWANG! A crossbow bolt sprouts in front of him, right where he would have been had he not swerved.

“Rude!” he shouts over his shoulder. “Shit!” Ducking a second bolt, he decides that maybe he should just focus on running, not on taunting the people who want to kill him just because they think he gets a little too furry for their tastes. Hah.

“Stiles! Over here!” That’s Laura’s voice! Where is – there! As soon as Stiles beelines in her direction, though, she disappears. Stiles almost stops short, except that he hears rrrrrrrrummmmm. Shit, they’re back on the ATVs! Yelping, he puts on more speed, imagining the place where he saw Laura as the finishing line of a very long cross-country race. To the death.

Of course, as soon as he gets there, a “Psst! Over here!” comes from his left. Stiles shears sideways, practically tearing himself in two to make it. Just in time; he hears the trrrt as something hits a tree nearby. “Shit, shit, shit,” Stiles keeps running, only barely able to see anything around him now, despite the moonlight filtering in here and there. Up a hill, down the hill, up, down, up, aaaaand down – straight into a rock wall.

Not just in front of him; rock walls on his left and his right, with the only exit behind him.

Rrrrrrruuuuuummmm!

“Fuck!”

He turns, presses his body to the bluff. Not a second later, several silhouettes appear at the top of the hill. Stiles watches, chest heaving, as they roll down, resolve into five ATVs, all of which move to encapsulate him in a semi-circle. Each ATV is topped by a grinning hunter or two, the forwardmost of which is Kate. Kate, who snaps back her hair with a wild laugh, and is the first to climb off.

“Well, well, look what we have here,” she says condescendingly, like they didn’t just see each other five minutes ago. “Baby werewolf, trapped, and with no sign of help on the way.”

“Guess you were telling the truth,” a beefy guy says with a sneer. “You’re an Omega. That means we’re within our rights to end you.”

“Sorry, kiddo,” Kate smirks. “You could have had a great life, grown up into something really special. Too bad a single bite changed all of that.”

“Why are you doing this?” Stiles asks, desperately trying to keep Kate talking as long as he can. “Wha – I never did anything to you!”

“Who says you did?” Kate cocks her head. “Oh, you think there has to be a reason behind everything, don’t you?” She clicks her tongue. “Not to burst your bubble, sweetie, but sometimes there aren’t any reasons for anything. Sometimes,” she smiles, stunning Stiles for a moment with how objectively, superficially pretty she is over all the evil, “it’s just because.”

“What is ‘just because’ for you?” Stiles challenges. Wait! On his left, movement! He wrenches his eyes away, in case it’s the Hales, looking up in time to see, hear Kate – click! - cock her shotgun.

“Me?” she says before he can say ‘Whoa there!’ Her smile turns lazy. “I do it because it’s fun.”

For a moment her answer doesn’t compute. Then Stiles starts spluttering. “Fun?” he squawks. “Murdering people is fun? People who never did anything other than exist?”

Beefy Guy, who has climbed off his ATV, says, “Oh, you do more than exist.” He looks at Stiles with hard eyes. “When you go out of control, you maul and kill people. It’s better to put you down before that happens, so innocent lives are saved before the fact.”

“But you’re supposed to have a Code!” Stiles flails, hoping to hell Mrs. Hale is hearing this. “‘We hunt those who hunt us’? Does that ring a bell? Anyone?”

Kate throws her head back in a laugh. “The Code is for people with sentiment, sweetie. They need to tell themselves that to feel better about themselves.”

Movement on the right. Flash of black fur, metal, yellow eyes. Yup, that’s Laura. If the first movement was Peter, then that’s two Hales in position. Now, they just need Mrs. Hale.

They probably won't have to wait long; the hunters are exactly where Mrs. Hale wanted them. Hell, she's probably lurking somewhere behind the hunters, waiting for the right moment for a dramatic entrance.

He checks the woods behind the hunters again. No sign of movement on either side, but he’s not really bothered by that. Champion lurkers, all of them, and until Mrs. Hale shows up, it’s probably not a good idea to show themselves anyway.

However, the pit of dread that had opened up in his stomach upon hearing of the plan is getting worse. Is it just him, or are the woods not… still enough? Now, Stiles doesn't believe in all that crap about the woods having its own mind, but he can't deny that when an Alpha, especially a powerful Alpha, is nearby, you'd feel it. The hairs on the back of your neck stick up, your skin jumps, and your imagination starts playing tricks on you, convincing you that every shadow is the Alpha ready to pounce.

Right now? Stiles feels nothing like that. That raises the hairs on the back of his neck.

"You won't escape."

Stiles looks down to see Kate and Beefy Guy smirking. Crap, they'd caught him looking. Hurriedly, Stiles tries to smooth his face into another expression, like terror or whatever, but he knows it's futile. It's too late, and besides, he was never the best liar.

"No one's going to rescue you, either," Beefy Guy cuts in. Huh, he looks really ugly when he smiles like that. Nobody should die with that face to look at in their last minutes.

Oh God, he's gonna die. Mrs. Hale isn’t going to show up and he's going to die, Beefy Guy's ugly mug will be the last thing he sees and Kate will go on to burn the Hale House down and it'll all be for nothing, oh God—

RUOOOOOOAAARRRRR! The roar shakes the trees, sets the hunters to scrambling for their weapons. Thank God, talk about horribly perfect timing. Stiles starts to sag against the bluff, but then Mrs. Hale roars again. This time, though, it sounds wrong somehow. It’s also fainter than it should be if Mrs. Hale were right behind the hunters.

Shit, he knew this was a terrible plan.

“Keep an eye on the Omega!” Kate snaps to one of her minions. The minion immediately spins to keep Stiles covered with his shotgun; Stiles jerks his hands up again. Kate turns back to the forest, her grim expression underscored by the blaze of the nearby ATV’s highlights. “We’ll take care of the Alpha.”

RUOOOOOOAAARRRRR! Ow! Stiles claps his hands over his ears; this roar sounded like it was, like, right next to him. Also? The trees, the ATV, and the hunters have started to tint red, and oh, no. No, no, no, no. Not now!

The headlights make it hard to see past them, but there, right through a gap in the canopy, is the full moon.

Fuck.

“Spread out! We don’t want the Alpha to trap us in the bluff!” Kate orders, suiting action to words.

The hunters are already on their way, Beefy Guy silhouetted briefly by the ATV lights as he darts across them. The cock of shotguns and nock of crossbows are loud, even through Stiles’s panic. No way Mrs. Hale missed it. So then why is it that she’s still coming on, the sense of a predator coming – black fur, red eyes, a raised eyebrow – growing stronger and stronger?

“Stiles!” The voice is faint but recognizable. Jesus Christ, but Stiles is going to kill Derek. “Stiles, where are you!”

Kate’s grin, what little Stiles can see of it, is exactly as terrifying as he’d feared. She raises her shotgun, primes it, and aims.

Everything after that happens in flashes, still images coming one after the other.

Derek bursts out of the trees.

Kate’s shotgun goes CRACK.

Mrs. Hale howls.

Derek goes “Oof!”

Red bursts across everything he sees. Stiles falls away, and only the wolf remains.

One moment, darkness.

The next, on his feet. Claws out. Teeth bared.

“Whoa!”

He whirls. Snarls. Intruder! Electric blue eyes, sharp cheekbones, black sideburns—

“Easy!” The other wolf drops to his haunches. Curls his arms around his legs. “Stiles, it’s me!”

Stiles?

He cocks his head.

Stiles.

Stiiiiiiles.

What is a Stiles?

“Stiles?”

The intruder is peeking up, hope in his posture and scent. He snarls to get the wolf to duck his head again, but it’s less hostile and more absent a gesture. He’s still preoccupied over that word, that “Stiles,” and over the wolf before him.

The wolf is… pack? Not pack? Yes, pack. But there’s something …niggling at him. An echo of a thing he can’t quite grasp. Like the edge of a steep fall, its endpoint hidden in shadow.

Before he knows it, he’s on his own haunches, teeth and claws gone, Packmate still as a rock. There was…an injury. Heart flooding his throat, he pats at the wolf all over – wolfsbane, there’d been wolfsbane! It takes many yelps of protest and hands on his wrists before he snaps out of his worry.

“Stiles,” Packmate meets his gaze. Those eyes slide to the side a second later, as is correct, but he is caught by the color of them, the way blue is green is brown.

“…Der-ek?”

Packmate looks at him again, but Stiles – yeah, that’s him, he’s a Stiles – is scrambling back, falling on his butt and crab-walking backwards. He has to get away, he’s going to hurt him, hurt Derek, like he hurt—

*Oh, God. He’s going to die. His heart is beating like thunder in his ears, battering fit like it’s going to break his ribs to get out of him. He can’t breathe, he can’t—

Wait. This is a panic attack. Oh. Okay. He’s gotta – he’s gotta breathe. What’s the pattern he and Dad made up? Right, right, it was once under a daisy, twice upon a floozy, three times a doozy, four times done! Once under a daisy, twice upon a floozy, three times a doozy, four times done! Once under a daisy, twice upon a floozy, three times a doozy, four times done.*

“Stiles?”

Derek. Derek is crouched in front of him. Stiles hurriedly sits upright; he doesn’t need Derek looming over him like that. As if reading his mind, Derek sinks down to cross his legs tailor-style. Whew, that’s better.

“You okay?” Derek asks cautiously.

“Hah!” Stiles doesn’t mean to bark, ha, bark, but it comes out without his permission anyway. As usual. “Does it look like I’m all right?”

“Well, no, but—”

Whatever Derek says after that, Stiles doesn’t hear it. Power descends upon him, weighty and smothering. Following it was the sense of black fur, regal bearing, red eyes - Mrs. Hale. A friendly, or as friendly as you could get without being a friend.

It’s just... Stiles is tired of being pushed around. Of being told to “do this, do that,” and not have his own opinion heard. He has experience at this, okay? Granted, not in, like, being a supernatural creature sort of way or anything, but, like, defeating the baddie of the week? Oh, yeah, he’s got that down.

Stiles imagines pressing back against Mrs. Hale’s presence, like some kind of weird mime trying to break out of an imagined cage. Something in the core of him, the spot where his abs meet his chest, warms, starts to get hot. Sweat breaks out on his forehead, but he keeps at it, and…

CLICK!

Suddenly, the sense of Mrs. Hale’s power vanishes. Stiles staggers, the spot in his chest going cold as he takes a nosedive. Derek lunges to catch him, is the only thing that saves Stiles from a faceful of carpet.

“Thanks, dude,” Stiles pats at Derek’s arms, absently. He’s more focused on Mrs. Hale, who is standing with Deaton at the landing to the stairs.

“Well, you’re looking significantly more in possession of your mind than last night,” Mrs. Hale notes dryly.

Stiles winces.

“Mom,” Derek says, reproach in his tone.

Mrs. Hale’s eyes flick to Derek, up and down. Visibly relaxing, she uncrosses her arms. “I’m sorry. I’m glad to see the both of you are all right.”

Stiles looks at Derek, really looks at him. He looks fine, as bunny rabbit cute as always with his ears and caterpillar eyebrows and sharp cheekbones, not to mention his rainbow eyes (heterochromatic, his brain supplies, hetero being a Greek root meaning “other”, chromatic for “color”). But, Stiles remembers, he was hurt, and in Derek’s shirt on his side…

“Dude,” Stiles pokes at the giant hole. “You are never going to be wearing this shirt again.”

Derek makes a face. “I know. It was one of my favorite shirts, too,” he says in a mournful tone.

Stiles goggles at him. “Dude, forget the shirt. You were shot!” As the words come out, he gets a flash of a vague memory: of Kate’s shotgun going CRACK, of a huge rage welling up in him, his brain going sharply hyperfocused with a crystal clear clarity.

“I know.” Derek's hand rests on his shoulder. "But I’m okay. You got the bullet out, and burned the wolfsbane out, too."

"I did?" Another flash: his hands reaching out, tearing at Derek's shirt to reveal blackening veins. The whole memory's overlaid by red, with a few colors leaking through, like the glow of Derek's electric blue eyes as he pants and gasps in pain. Also, the grey of his face as the pain becomes too much and he passes out. Stiles vaguely remembers thinking Good, but it’s in a voice so unlike his, he barely believes it—

“Derek, are you sure?” Mrs. Hale presses.

Derek glances at his mom with incredulity. “Am I sure? Of course I’m sure, I was there!”

Mrs. Hale and Deaton share looks. “That changes things. I thought he’d gone feral, but a feral isn’t capable of—”

“I wasn’t feral.”

Stiles can’t say why he says that. He was not, he knows he wasn’t, in control last night. But he knows, the same way he knew Matt was evil, the way he knew Gerard was off his rocker, that he wasn’t feral. He has no idea what he was, but it wasn’t that.

From the way that Mrs. Hale and Deaton are examining him, he gets the impression that they see that, too.

“Interesting,” Deaton says, speaking for the first time. “It would account for how he got the wolfsbane out of Derek, at least.”

“The way he tore through the hunters, though…” Mrs. Hale returns.

Eeeurgh. Yeah. Stiles winces again. He doesn’t remember exactly what he did, but he remembers that he did hurt people. A lot of people. “So, uh, should I turn myself in?”

“Excuse me?” Mrs. Hale looks at him like he’s grown a third head.

“Should I turn myself in? Did I k-kill anybody?” Stiles faces her head on, though it’s difficult to meet her gaze. Not because of any Alpha posturing bullshit or whatever, but because, well, the guilt is rearing its ugly head. His stomach roils, and he averts his gaze just long enough to look at Derek.

“Oh, Stiles.” Mrs. Hale’s voice is soft, soft like the look on her face when he looks up. “No, you didn’t kill anybody. You hurt quite a few of the hunters, but you didn’t kill any of them.”

His muscles turn into jelly. “Oh, thank God,” he breathes. “Like, it’s not great that I hurt them, although if anyone deserves it, it’s them, but still. That’s a load off my mind.”

“I can imagine,” Mrs. Hale says sympathetically.

Stiles’s shoulders unclench from around his ears. Mrs. Hale looking at him like that makes him feel better, almost as good as his dad being proud of him. (On second thought, scratch that. Nothing comes close to being as good as his dad proud of him. Nothing.) “So, does that mean I can, like, get out of here? I’m not in timeout anymore?”

He nods to the line of mountain ash boxing in the landing around the stairs. From here, he can barely feel it, the shivering in the air that is warning and safety both. Stiles’s memory of using it to trap the kanima wars up against the realization that now it’s keeping him in, irony much?

Mrs. Hale and Deaton exchange glances once again. “We were going to ask you how that got there,” Mrs. Hale says.

“Huh?” Stiles and Derek chorus. “Jinx,” Stiles points out automatically. Derek looks at him incredulously. “What?”

Derek just shakes his head, turns back to Mrs. Hale. “I thought that Dr. Deaton put the mountain ash down.”

“I assure you, I did not,” Deaton puts in.

Oh, no. No, no, no. He is not going to be a freak of nature again. Please, no. He begs Mrs. Hale and Deaton not to say it, but the Looks they give each other and him are not reassuring.

“Don’t,” he half-states, half-pleads.

Mrs. Hale gives him a long look. Then: “All right. We’ll shelve this for now. But we will talk about it later.”

“Absolutely,” Stiles jumps to agree. “We’ll totally talk about it, like, I will sit down and pay attention, well, as much as I can, you know, because of the ADHD and all, which reminds me, what are we going to do about the hunters? You’ve seen them now, see how much they don’t follow the Code, and why did they even come up with the Code if they were just going to murder everyone willy-nilly anyway? Like, I guess there come have been some good guys, Chris Argent isn’t so bad, but he’s got his own limits, you know? I guess I can’t blame him, what with A—”

“Stiles,” Mrs. Hale interrupts.

“Hm?”

“Why don’t we move this upstairs,” Mrs. Hale suggests. “Then we can discuss with everyone what happened last night.”

“Everyone?” Stiles echoes. “You mean, like, the whole pack?”

“The ones who are old enough,” Mrs. Hale amends. “Alan?”

Deaton looks at Stiles, who looks at Deaton. With what could have been a roll of his eyes covered by a blink, Deaton bends and swipes his hand over the mountain ash. Pop! goes the air, the shiver disappears, Mrs. Hale takes one giant stride. In a flash, she has Derek wrapped up in her arms, Derek burying his face into her shoulder. Stiles looks away, his stomach clenching with (guilt? pain? both?), walks over to Deaton who does him the kindness of not saying anything.

A moment later, Mrs. Hale says, “All right.” Her voice is choked. “Upstairs?”

“Upstairs,” Stiles agrees.

The moment Stiles clears the topmost step, two things happen.

First, he’s hit by a sensation of wrong. WrongwrongWRONG INTRUDERS in MY den get out Get Out GET OUT! The INTRUDERS are red eyes, raised eyebrow, black fur, hot gold eyes, face piercings, black fur and electric blue eyes, grey hair, suspicious glare, not to mention gold eyes, brown skin, a ready smile and can’t forget bright gold eyes, crafty expression, wiry sideburns.

Stiles turns red eyes on Mrs. Hale, Laura, Kurt (oh, of course, suspicious glare, that makes total sense), Caleb (who is conspicuously Juan-free), and - oh, God, Peter. Crafty expression, huh? Yeah, that works. As he recognizes each of the intruders in his den, the sense of WRONG calms down, until by Peter it’s a sullen buzz itching at the back of his neck. It spikes a bit when he realizes Peter is there, but he can’t blame it, it’s Peter. Peter doesn’t belong anywhere but in the ground, dezombiefied and destined never to darken anyone’s door again – much less Stiles’s.

Second, at about the same time, all of the intruders press forward for Derek. The red of Stiles’s eyes halts them, at least until he works through the initial response. When Stiles relaxes, though, all hats are off.

“Der!” Laura launches herself at Derek. Stiles barely manages to get out of the way before they’re rolling around on the ground, Derek going, “Get off! Get off, Laura! Oof, Laur-a!”

“Need help, dude?” Stiles asks before he can help himself. Then he rethinks it: how is he, a hundred and forty-eight pounds of pale flesh, delicate bones, and only part of a werewolf shift, going to go up against a fully-fledged born werewolf who toppled her brother to the ground? Yeahh, maybe not.

Derek gives him a speaking look.

Laura bounds up before Stiles can do anything, though, heads straight for Stiles. “Oh, my God, you were Ah. May. Zing. Last night. You tore through those hunters like they were nothing! Where did you learn how to do that?”

“Huh, what?” Stiles has no idea what’s going on here. He backs up as Laura advances on him, her smile shading into a smirk as he gives ground. Now there’s the Laura he knows, the one who smirks at his discomfort and doesn’t say things like,

“No, seriously, it was mondo cool! You have to teach me!”

Stiles’s jaw drops open. “Okay, who are you, who uses ‘mondo’ anymore, and what have you done with Laura Hale?” He’s thinking Gou’ald. Or maybe the Body Snatchers. Definitely a pod person, if nothing else.

“Laura uses ‘mondo’ ironically,” Derek answers, his rainbow eyes meeting Stiles’s. They share a moment of irony over Laura’s “irony,” before Stiles’s brain finally connects the dots.

“Oh, my God, you’re a hipster!” he screeches.

“I am not!” Laura fires back instantly. “Why does everyone keep saying that?!”

“Please, everyone knows that people who say they aren’t hipsters are totally hipsters,” Stiles quips. “And by the way, if everyone keeps saying you’re a hipster, chances are you really are one.”

“Do you see me wearing plaid?” Laura demands. “Or glasses with no lens in them?”

“I hear you complaining about ‘mainstream music’ all the time,” Derek pipes in with a cheeky grin.

“That’s because it’s all horrible!” Laura throws up her hands. “Especially the pop music! I mean, have you heard what they’re putting out lately?!”

Stiles points at Laura. “That! That right there is the ultimate mark of a hipster!”

“See, Laura, now you can’t protest anymore,” Derek nudges Laura with his elbow teasingly. “You’ve been caught out!”

Laura growls. At Derek’s next nudge, she slings her arm around Derek’s neck and proceeds to give him a noogie. Stiles snickers at Derek’s protests, makes no move to go and help him. See: a hundred forty-eight pounds of pale flesh, delicate bones, part of a werewolf shift.

“Stiles?”

Mrs. Hale’s eyes are on Stiles, not on her children, whom she has evidently elected to ignore. “Could I have a word with you?”

Uh-oh. This doesn’t sound good. “What’s up, Mrs. Hale?” as he follows her a bit away from Derek and Laura play-wrestling. Christ, they’re actual puppies. Stiles is going to hold this over their heads forever.

“Mom?” All of a sudden, Derek is leaning on Stiles, resting his forearm on Stiles’s shoulder. Behind him, Laura is blinking into empty space. “What do you need to talk to Stiles about?”

“Can’t a guy have a conversation in private?” Stiles gripes. He looks up at Derek. “Jeez, you’re tall,” he complains. “You’re like a hulking giant or something.”

Derek’s grin spreads into exactly that shit-eating wolfish expression Stiles remembers from Older Derek’s “I’m the Alpha now” phase. Oh, boy. Good to know it’s not just power trips that can bring that out. Ugh.

“Derek,” Mrs. Hale says with heavy patience. “This is a conversation for me and Stiles. Why don’t you take Laura and Caleb outside and do a perimeter of the block for me? Keep the roughhousing to a minimum, please.”

Derek hangs his head. “Yes, Mom.” He turns hopeful eyes on Stiles. “You’ll tell me later?”

Derek’s no Scott, but those are some pretty powerful puppy dog eyes. Stiles nods, is subject to the full force of Derek’s grin. “Great! Come on, Laura, the faster we get this thing done, the sooner we can come back and spy on Mom.”

“It doesn’t work if you announce to all and sundry, Derek!” Stiles calls after him. Derek only twitches two fingers in a wave, probably trying to be cool. Stiles snorts. In Derek’s current incarnation, there is nothing about him that could be considered “cool.”

Mrs. Hale touches Stiles’s shoulder and nods to the living room. Stiles throws another glance at Derek’s back, this framed by the door as he heads out, then follows.

In the living room, Peter and Deaton sit. Kurt nods at Mrs. Hale and heads out of the room, throwing a sharp look at Stiles as he passes. Rolling his eyes, Stiles tries to shake it off (no, no, no, let’s not get TSwift stuck in his head, that shit is freakishly earworm-y), choosing to take a seat opposite Peter instead.

They listen in silence as the door opens, closes again. Stiles starts to speak, but Mrs. Hale raises a hand. “They’re not off of Alan’s yard yet,” she says. “Wait until Kurt gets them sufficiently far away.”

As Mrs. Hale speaks, the itchiness of intruders in his territory buzzes forward again. Is this how Alphas know and keep track of people on their territory? Jeez, no wonder the Alpha pack always knew where Derek, Scott, or any of the other wolves were. The more you know, he guesses.

A few seconds pass. The itchiness begins to go away, but it’s Mrs. Hale’s relaxation that tips him off. "Okay, out with it. What's going on? What's the bad news? Am I dying? Did I kill people? You said I didn't kill anybody, you weren't lying to spare me, were you? Or Derek? You can tell me, I won't freak out. Or no, I'll totally freak out, but I won't, like, explode or anything."

"You are not dying," Mrs. Hale says with long-suffering patience. "Nor did you kill anyone, I promise."

"Then why the cloak and dagger sh – stuff?" Stiles flails at the door. "You heard Derek, he’s going to come back quick as he can. If you really don't want him to know what's going on, you'll have to say it quick."

"When you stop talking, we can," Mrs. Hale snarks.

Stiles zips his lips shut and throws away the key. Mrs. Hale snorts, unimpressed, which, rude. He can totally be quiet, he can!

"What my sister is trying to do, in her very diplomatic way, is to talk about something we all noted last night," Peter drawls. "Tell me, Stiles, you don't remember much about last night, do you?"

"Peter," Mrs. Hale scolds. "I was getting there."

"Sometimes it's best to rip the band aid off and deal with the hurt than to draw it out," Peter turns steely blue eyes on Mrs. Hale. Mrs. Hale looks back with her dark eyes; Peter holds it for a moment, before cracking and turning away, but the point is made.

As Peter is looking away, Stiles sees a flash of some ugly emotion over his face. It's gone as quick as lightning, but it was there. Weirdly (or not, this is Peter he's talking about), that flash serves to calm Stiles down. It's the first sign that Peter is anything like Older Peter. Stiles knows how to deal with Older Peter.

"What do you get out of it if I tell you?" Stiles challenges.

Peter looks honestly surprised. His eyebrows fly up, his eyes widen, and he stares for a split-second. Then his smirk comes back and he's back to that almost-familiar Peter with only marginally softer edges.

"You present a mystery," Peter says, now using his eyebrows to project unconcern. "I – we – are only trying to do what we can to unravel it before it hurts someone. Namely, someone in my pack."

Stiles flinches.

"Now who's drawing it out?" Mrs. Hale says pointedly. "You stay quiet. I'll talk to him, and you'll keep your commentary to a minimum."

Peter rolls his eyes, but only says, "Of course, sister dear."

Mrs. Hale doesn't believe him any more than Stiles does. Wisely, she moves to take advantage of his temporary compliance before he can ruin it. Again.

"Last night, you didn't shift. Or rather," Mrs. Hale continues over Stiles's "What?" of surprise, "you did, but it seemed to be more of a mental shift than a physical one."

"You mean, I turned into a wolf in my head, but not my body?" Stiles asks, skeptical.

"That's a good way of looking at it," Mrs. Hale nods sideways. "Normally it would be the other way around, the body changes, while the mind doesn't."

"Or it changes, but not to the point of losing control," Peter puts in. Hah, totally called it that he wouldn't stay silent for long.

"Alan, the next time Peter talks, would you take him to the next room and explain to him what 'staying quiet' means?" Mrs. Hale's voice is no different, but Stiles can sense the edge of Mrs. Hale's patience, nonetheless. Peter sucks in his lips and sits very still.

"Of course, Talia," Deaton agrees readily.

"Thank you. Now," Mrs. Hale turns back to Stiles, "normally the fact that you shifted in your head would be a good sign, as I'd say it would be progress towards eventually shifting the usual way. But, there are two problems with this."

"The wolfsbane and the mountain ash," Stiles guesses.

"Exactly,” Mrs. Hale says on a sigh. "The wolfsbane isn't so much a thing as you might think, we are able to handle it for very brief periods, as long as we don't ingest it. But the mountain ash...."

"Even with the shift suppressed?" Stiles half-asks.

"Not unless the shift were being drained away somehow, making you more human than wolf. Which I don't think is happening to you. Too many things don't fit."

Unbidden, Older Derek's voice and scowl appear in his mind's eye. "This? No fit. This don't fit."

As from far away, he hears his own voice say, "What does that mean then?"

"It means," Peter says delicately, "that either something else is going on with your Alpha spark than a suppressed shift, or you're not a werewolf at all. You're something else, and we have no idea what."

For one of the few times in his life, Stiles's mind stills. Or it goes so fast he can't tell it's moving. He can't tell which. All he knows is that he feels like he's standing in front of an ajar door with something on the other side – and he's really, one hundred percent sure he doesn't want to know what's on the other side.

If he's not a werewolf, what is he?

"There's more," Mrs. Hale adds into the lengthy silence.

"More?" Stiles does not squeak, he absolutely doesn't, except for the part where he totally does. "What else could there possibly be besides the fact that I might not be a wolf??"

Mrs. Hale hesitates. Stiles drops his head and starts laughing hysterically. His life, oh my God. Seriously, can it get any more fucked up?

He knows that was a stupid question as soon as he thinks it. Also? The answer is always, always yes, it can.

The fucked-upness comes in the form of Mrs. Hale saying, "The hunters know you’re an Alpha… whatever. They saw you lose control, yet not shift. Not only that but you hurt quite a few of them. They're going to hunt you even more assiduously now, for that, and because they'll want to figure you out."

"If they get you, they'll likely not kill you," Peter says, looking as serious as Stiles has ever seen him. "Instead, they'll keep you as their lab rat, until they find what makes you tick. And then they'll just torture you until you go insane, after which they'll put you down and say you were an Omega. Or you die, after which they'll say the same thing. And then? Then they'll go hunting for other wolves, for your betas, for they know very well where there's an Alpha, there's his betas."

"But I don't have any betas," Stiles objects. His heart trips in his chest so hard, he swears he can hear it, never mind actual werewolves. He looks up into Peter's face, how his eyes have flashed yellow, at the sneer twisting his face into an almost demonic caricature.

"Don't you?" Peter growls. "I think Derek would disagree with you." He leans forward into Stiles's space, close enough Stiles's hackles go up, his vision starts shading red. Peter seems unaffected, though Mrs. Hale puts a hand on his shoulder. "You know who the Argents will find when they go hunting? Us. They'll find us. And they'll do to us what they did to your pack.”

Stiles reels. Like, his world spins around on him like he's drunk on Jack Daniels all over again. Oh, God. In trying to help the Hales, trying to keep them alive, he's done worse. He might have brought on them exactly what he's been trying to avoid.

He, not Kate, may have just killed the Hales.

*His heart pounds in his throat. At his ribs. He gets a little light-headed, probably because he can't breathe. His chest locks on him, so his lungs can't expand the way he needs them to.

"Stiles, listen to me," Mrs. Hale's voice is commanding, breaks insistently through the panic. "You are safe. Everyone is safe. No one is dead, you are not at fault. You haven't killed any of us, or anyone else. Repeat after me: You are safe. You haven't killed anyone. Everyone is safe. You haven't killed anyone."

"E-everyo-one is safe," Stiles wobbles. "I-I haven't k-killed a-anyone."

"Good. Again. Everyone is safe. You haven't killed anyone."

Mrs. Hale's dark eyes bore into him, hold him fast against the waves of hysteria. He clings to it, sticks like a limpet to Mrs. Hale's conviction, lets it seep into him like a balm over the panic. His breath catches, stutters in his chest – once under the daisy, tw-twice upon a floozy, three times—*

"Everyone is safe," he says. "I haven't killed a-anyone."

"Good. That's good,” Mrs. Hale says soothingly. “Good job, Stiles. I'm very proud of you."

"Shouldn't," Stiles gasps. "Sh-should just kick me out. Then the hunters won't be after you." He warms to the idea. It's perfect, all he has to do is lay down a deliberate trail out of Beacon Hills, set up some sort of trap that'll kill Kate so she doesn't come back for the Hales, and boom, done. Why didn't he think of this before? And bonus, it'll keep him from ever bringing his killer – literally – luck on people again.

“No,” Mrs. Hale says very firmly. “Peter was wrong to tell you what he did. Yes, they will come looking for us, but we can handle them. I am not leaving a seventeen-year-old, not leaving you to deal with them by yourself.”

"But why?" Stiles cries. "Why are you so –" Determined. Stubborn. All of the words that mean the same thing.

Mrs. Hale says, very frankly, "Because otherwise, you are alone. Human or werewolf, no one should be alone."

That's it. That's all it takes. Two little sentences, and Stiles is once again a sobbing wreck. He turns from her, tries to hide his face, but he can't hide the uncontrollable hitching of his breath, or the way his body shudders as each sob wracks its way out. He keens as the weight of everything – the danger he has brought down on the Hales, seeing the younger versions of himself and Scott playing, Caleb's reaction to Stiles’s trying to protect Juan, Kate's smirk as she trapped him against the bluff, Derek going down, Peter's face sneering as he accuses Stiles of killing his family – sinks down on him, pulls him down into the cesspool with no way out, no light at the end of the tunnel.

Arms come around him, refuse to be shoved off. Mrs. Hale envelops him with her body; the only thing he can do is turn his face into her shoulder and let her hold on tight.

Chapter Text

Stiles is tired. Derek’s pacing isn’t helping any, either.

“Dude, can you sit down or something? You’re driving me crazy.”

“I just don’t understand it!” Derek bursts out. “How can Peter say any of those things? How can Mom just stand by and let Peter say those things? You’re the only reason we even knew Kate was here, never mind what she looked like or that she wasn’t working by herself! I mean, c’mon!”

Stiles sighs, slumps in on himself. “Chill out, Derek. Peter had a point, okay? I did cause more trouble for you than I’m worth. Like I always do,” he adds to himself.

“What do you mean? ‘Like you always do’?” Derek looks quizzical.

Shit. Fucking werewolf hearing. “Can’t a guy have a conversation with himself in private?” Stiles snaps. “Jeez!”

Derek steps back, hands held up. “Sorry, didn’t mean to crash the party,” he says.

Ugh, Stiles is such an asshole. “Nah, man, I’m just a hot mess right now. Don’t mind me.”

Derek looks at him cautiously, then appears to take Stiles’s words to heart: He flops down right next to Stiles and nudges their arms together. “I’m sure Peter didn’t mean what he said.”

“No, he meant it.” The look in Peter’s eyes, on his face, had said it all.

Derek droops. He says nothing for a second, then: “For what it’s worth, I don’t believe it. You’ve only ever tried your best to keep her away from me, us, and when I – we – were in trouble, you totally saved my butt. Did I ever thank you for that, by the way?”

Stiles has to smile. “No, but I appreciate the sentiment. And all the pacing around, defending my honor shit just now.” He flicks his fingers at where Derek’d been pacing.

Derek ducks his head. “It’s true,” he says weakly, like he thinks he’s being made fun of. This time Stiles is the one to knock their shoulders together, Derek smiling when he sees Stiles’s face. The two of them sit together like that for a long moment, shoulder-to-shoulder, before Stiles sighs.

“Thanks, dude, but you’d better go. I don’t want you to get in trouble with your family because you were hanging out with me.”

Derek’s ears pink as he scowls. “It’s not fair, keeping me grounded because I wanted to see if you were okay,” he grumbles.

“Dude, I was with your mom, Peter, and Laura. How would I not be okay?” Stiles rebuts, not for the first time. “And anyway, they’re probably just worried. I did sort of kidnap you and keep you overnight while you’d been shot with a wolfsbane bullet, you know. They’re probably just keeping an eye on you in case you keel over, and that they’d be there to help you if you do.”

“I’m not going to keel over,” Derek protests. “I feel just fine. Nothing bad happened!”

“Sure it did,” Stiles says. “Okay, fine, it didn’t end that way, but what if it had? What if you’d died and they didn’t know until the next day? That’s not the kind of thing you get over right away.”

Derek blinks. “I… hadn’t thought of it that way,” he admits. “That makes a lot of sense.”

Stiles makes a half-bow. “When I’m right, I’m right.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” He fidgets, stills. “That, uh, something you know from personal experience?”

Stiles looks up with wide eyes. Derek immediately backtracks, says, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. Just…”

“No, it’s all right.” Stiles looks away. “My mom, she scared us, me and my dad, a couple of times, we didn’t know where she was. She had dementia,” he adds for Derek’s benefit. “A kind of one that comes on really early in life.”

“Wow,” Derek breathes, “that sucks.”

“Yeah,” Stiles shrugs with a humorless smile. “So, y’know, I get where your mom is coming from.”

“Yeah, I guess you do.” Derek sounds abashed. Stiles looks over to see that yup, Derek’s got a guilty expression. Then Derek catches his eye.

“I’m sorry about your mom,” he offers. “Did she… die with the rest of your pack?”

Stiles starts, shakes his head. “No, she, uh, she died years before. When I was ten.” A couple months after the Hale Fire, in fact. Man, he has to get moving on those curative methods, if he wants to save her.

“Oh.” It’s all Derek says, but with that worried crease to his eyebrows, it’s all he has to say.

“S’all right, dude. It was years ago. I’m mostly over it.” Except for the part where she thought I would kill her, he adds mentally, as he always does whenever he tells people this.

“Still.” Derek shrugs one shoulder. Stiles quirks one side of his mouth in agreement. “Do you think…”

Stiles waits for Derek to continue, prompts: “Do I think what?” Huh. No matter how many times he’s seen Derek’s eyes, he’s always fascinated anew by all the different colors he can see in them. Blue, green, brown, silver, gold….

Those rainbow eyes drop from his; he blinks like he’s coming out of a daze. “Never mind,” Derek says. “I should go.”

“Wait, what? What were you going to say?” But Derek is moving, going back into the house where he’d dragged Stiles out shortly after discovering Stiles in Mrs. Hale’s arms. He’d demanded to know what happened to get Stiles so upset, and Stiles, still shocky from the hit Peter had scored, had spilled everything. And then Derek had overheard Mrs. Hale announcing his extended restrictions, which had set him off again. “Derek?”

Derek opens the door, briefly revealing black hair, face piercings, and wide eyes – Laura – before disappearing through and closing it after him. Great, no privacy even for that. Why does he always forget about werewolf hearing?

…On second thought, he should be grateful no one came out to break them up. The mood Derek was in, there might have been bloodshed, and Stiles putting himself in the middle, so some (most) of the blood would have been his. Yeah, he’s definitely grateful.

…Aaaaand now he feels like shit again. Derek at odds with his family over Stiles is not something he had ever thought of as a possibility, especially since Older Derek had obviously had so many holes in him due to his family’s deaths that he was essentially a shadow of himself. Were Older Derek here now, Stiles had no doubt he’d be agreeing with his family, not fighting with them like this.

He’d never wish anything like Older Derek’s past on Derek, but sometimes Stiles wishes Derek appreciated his family more. Sure, sure, being a teenager means wanting to break away and all, but the pain Older Derek carried compared to his relatively carefree younger version….

Yeah. Stiles really isn’t worth this.

His thoughts turn again to earlier. The way Peter’s eyes punched into him, yellow eyes boring into him with anger. How he’d practically spat on Stiles for how he had inadvertently, accidentally stolen Derek for his own, even though he had totally not meant to do it! Or even known he was doing it! And now Mrs. Hale, Laura, Peter, Caleb, and the rest are associated with Stiles through Derek for better or for worse.

Basically, the opposite of what Stiles wants. God, what is he even doing here? He always makes things worse, always. Why didn’t he just tell Mrs. Hale that Kate was in town and then skedaddle? They would have been perfectly fine with just that. Sure, he probably would have stuck around to make sure Kate was taken care of, but he hadn’t needed to do that while actually living, more or less, with them.

Hell, just dropping a note in their mailbox giving them clues might have been the best way to go about it. Or, not even approaching the Hales, but just waiting around for Kate and taking care of her himself, then putting down a trail away from the pack so that Gerard didn’t come after them for the death of his daughter. Any of that would have been preferable to this.

…There’s still time. Stiles could still put down a trail, get Crazy Aunt Kate and her cronies to follow him and not Mrs. Hale or Derek. He’ll need to make it so that they follow him out of state, get far enough away that when they catch him, Kate won’t immediately be able to go after Mrs. Hale. Who knows, he might even do some damage. Set up traps and stuff to slow her down, maim if not outright kill, deplete the numbers so that when Kate goes back to Beacon Hills, the Hales have not only more time to prepare but fewer people to deal with.

Wait, maybe Kate would wait for backup. Crap. Well, it still gives Mrs. Hale more time to prepare, which is always good.

Okay, he has a plan. Now he just needs to flesh it out, and as quickly as he can. The sooner he draws Kate and Company off, the better the Hales will be. Then Derek will still have his family, Peter won’t go insane from the fire, Scott won’t be turned into a werewolf, and his younger self would get to keep his dad. Stiles would’ve liked to give his younger self his mom, too, but his dad would have to do. You’re welcome, younger self.

Now, where are the maps in Deaton’s house, and his shovel?

Ten to fifteen minutes later finds Stiles in Deaton’s garage, shoving various detritus items out of the way as he searches… aha! “Knew I’d seen you the other day,” Stiles declares victoriously. “Come to papa.”

It’s not as easy as that, of course, but in short order, after much tugging and shifting more things out of the way, the object of Stiles’s efforts emerges. Blue, rusting, and dusty as all hell, the bicycle nevertheless looks like a piece of sweet, sweet salvation. He’ll have to put air in the tires – who knows how long the bike’s been sitting here unused, but he’s sure Deaton’s got an air pump somewhere. Dude’s prepared for practically everything, Stiles swears, “even Armaggeddon.”

“Stiles? What are you doing in there?”

Yelping, Stiles whirls, hand flying up to cover his heart. “Jesus, Derek! Haven’t you ever heard of not sneaking up on people?”

“Nope,” Derek says with a straight face. “‘Sides, you were making a lot of noise in here. Anyone ever tell you not to wake the dead?”

“Ha, ha,” Stiles says sarcastically, tries to lean casually against the bike. “You’re not the only one to make that joke. It’s never happened before, doubt it would now.”

Derek’s smirk has no right to be so smug, Stiles decides. If he didn’t look so cool with it, Stiles might have had the urge to knock off with a well-placed comment. Just a slight urge, though.

Then Derek’s eyes fall on the bicycle, and the smirk fades to be replaced by curiosity. “Where’d you find that? Is that Dr. Deaton’s?”

“Uh, presumably,” Stiles shrugs, trying like hell to stay casual. “It is in his garage, you know.”

“Why’re you digging it out? Trying Gonna try to keep up with us? Bikes don’t do well in the forest, sorry.” Derek smirks again.

“Mountain bikes can,” Stiles points out.

“This isn’t a mountain bike, is it?” Derek raises a challenging eyebrow. “So you’re not going to be able to take it with us into the Preserve.”

Stiles’s stupid mouth says, “I’m not going to be riding it in the Preserve.” Then his brain catches up, and oh, shit.

Derek’s skeptical look changes to concern. “You okay? Your heart just started beating really fast.”

“Totally fine!” Stiles says quickly. “Nothing to see here, totallyyy casual, nothing suspicious going on at all!”

He winces. Very convincing, Stiles. Derek’s unimpressed look clinches it.

“Stiles…”

God. He’s so tired of keeping secrets. From his dad, from Lydia when Jackson was the kanima, and the Darach right after. Now from the Hales, and Derek. Derek who looks at him with such worry, the naïve trusting idiot whom Stiles can see Kate taking advantage of all too well, the same one who trusted Scott at the worst time, and who let the Darach in, but was unsurprised when Stiles and Scott told him who Jennifer Blake really was.

Stiles has to have a naive person magnet on him or something. Only way to explain how he keeps falling in with people too good for him.

“I’m leaving, Derek.” To his own ears, he sounds exhausted. “I can’t… keep putting your pack in more danger. At least with Kate gone, temporarily, you’ll have some time to prepare for when she comes back.”

“I’m coming with you,” Derek says instantly. He turns, pauses when Stiles’s hand touches his shoulder.

“Derek…” Stiles hesitates.

It’s all he needs to say. “No,” Derek goes wide-eyed. “Stiles, no, we’re pack, pack doesn’t….”

“I never meant to take you from your family,” Stiles says. Misery wells up in him at Derek’s uncomprehending anguish- he can practically feel it himself, it’s so strong. “I don’t know how it happened, but if I could stop it, reverse it—”

“No!” Derek tries to cover his ears. Stiles knows from bitter experience with Scott it won’t work.

He continues on, merciless. “If I could stop this, I would. I’m not safe to be around. Nor am I a good person. I’m not dragging you down with me, okay? Derek….”

It’s like Stiles opened a door and a fleet of bats came out at him. Derek whirls, is up in Stiles’s face before he can blink. “You don’t get it, do you? All I ever am is a burden to my family. I’m the one that fucked up and killed my girlfriend – the hunters have a legitimate reason to kill me! Nobody’s ever said as much, but I know they think it all the time, especially when I shift or flash my eyes.”

Neon blue replaces rainbow; a blink, and it’s back to rainbow. “At least with you, I’ve never felt like you’d be better off without me, or that you would need to be careful not to say certain things – like Paige’s name – in case I, I don’t know, break down and attack them or something—”

“No, they don’t think that!” Stiles can’t believe what he’s hearing. Is Derek’s view that distorted? Apparently, it is. “They don’t bring it up because that’s a normal part of grief, okay? They know you’re in pain and don’t want to cause you any more! Not because they suddenly think you’re a killer.”

“But I am!” Derek cries. He flicks his claws out and stares at them. His eyes are haunted. “I’m the one who put my claws into her and killed her, who took her from her friends, her family…”

“She was already dying, it was a mercy killing!”

Derek isn’t listening. “Every day I look at these claws and wish I’d never been born a werewolf. Or that I’d never been born at all. Paige would still be alive, my family wouldn’t be under threat for harboring an actual murderer—”

Stiles punches him. Derek goes down like a load of bricks, on the floor with wide, betrayed eyes, staring up on him, neon blue bright in the semi-darkness of the garage.

“Don’t you ever talk like that again.” Anger burns hot, hot enough to boil steam out of his ears. He gets it now, why somebody always got angry if he tried to tell them it was his fault Mom was dead, that it would have been better if he hadn’t been born. God, it’s like Derek has read his mind, pulled the words right out of him and repeated them word-for-word.

The worst part? Derek so clearly has no idea what’s wrong with this picture.

“You are absolutely not a murderer. Get that out of your head right now. Also? Your family loves you. They’d do anything for you. Including protect you from hunters, because guess what, Derek? You’re their pack, their family, and pack always looks out for one another. If you left, especially without a word to any of them, you’d cause them so much pain, I don’t—”

He breathes in sharply. “I know teenagers are self-centered, but this takes the cake. Go home, Derek. Don’t ever think about leaving them again. If you do, I will haunt your ass so hard….”

He has to get out of here. He’s so angry he can barely see straight, and Derek’s pained eyes and flinches? Are not helping.

So he turns. Leaves. Just leaves Derek on the floor, pain leaking out of him like a sieve. He’ll feel bad about that later. Right now, he’s got lava for blood, and Derek’s not the outlet he wants for it.

That’s how he finds himself in the middle of Beacon Hills, his feet following a trail they know too well. He’s on Main before he knows it, but he’s so mad, he can’t even care. Instead, he stomps along, muttering to himself, “Stupid Derek. How fucking dare he? He’s not the one who shouldn’t have been born. I’m, like, the worst person for him to be around. And he wants to come with me? Fuck that.

“No, he needs to stay here, where his mom can keep him safe. Idiot. Dumbass. Numbskull. Dunderhead. I know way too many names to call someone stupid, thanks, Mr. Harris and Snape. Seriously? Doesn’t he get that I’m trying to keep anything bad happening to him? Or them? Now I’m the bad thing, and he can’t recognize that? Ughh…”

He shakes his head. The magma of his anger is slowly fading, leeching away to the grit of frustration. “Never thought I’d say this, but Derek? Is way too trusting. He’s too naive, thinks anyone who pays him even a bit of positive attention is the greatest thing since sliced bread. No wonder he was such an easy mark.” He grimaces. “Okay, that was bad. I sounded like some sort of rapey predator thing saying it, and I’m not. Whatever it is that I am, I’m not that.”

Click.

Shit. Double damn fucking shit. That’s the sound of a gun cocking.

“Thought that would get your attention,” Kate’s sickly-sweet voice says behind him. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck. “Hands up, no sudden moves. Turn around. Very slowly.”

Heart pounding in his ears, Stiles obeys. Half-laid plans race through his mind, tactics for dodging around Kate and whatever goons she has with her – two, it looks like, though Stiles wouldn’t bet on there not being more – and shit. Stiles tears his eyes from the electric baton in Kate’s hand up to her eyes, and yeah, he’s not getting out of this in one piece.

As if sensing Stiles’s surrender – heck, she probably does – Kate smirks. It’s not her usual brand of sick playfulness, either, but darker and uglier, and that sends the creeps up Stiles’s spine like nothing else has so far.

“Get him,” she orders brusquely.

“What, no banter?” Stiles quips, even as he curses himself ten ways to Sunday.

“Shut up,” one of the henchmen snaps. Stiles dodges his hands on reflex – zzzzzzap!

“That’s your only warning,” Kate says.

Stiles looks from the hole in the wall, still crawling with sparks, to Kate, and nods. “Right, yeah, only warning, got it.” He watches nervously as the henchman grabs for him again, but he only brings out – ow, fuck, that burns – rope that must be wolfsbane given how gingerly the dude’s handling it and oh, yeah, the gloves he’s also wearing. Great.

He opens his mouth to tell them, no, wolfsbane actually is not a good idea for him, he’s not going to heal from the poisoning like a werewolf could, given the antidote, but Kate’s glance shuts him up.

His arms are feeling numb already, and, well, he’s feeling kind of foggy, and… his stomach is twisting in on itself and there’s something roiling in his chest cavity that’s huge and getting worse. He tries to think of something else, anything else to focus on besides this horrible situation he’s landed himself in now, as much as he can with his ADHD anyway, but it’s hard to think past the fog and now he’s getting dizzy and his legs…won’t hold him up anymore, and oh God, he thinks he’s going to puke.

“He’s going down, boss,” he vaguely hears someone say.

“What, already?”

“He doesn’t look so good. Should an Alpha be succumbing so quickly?”

“We don’t have the time. Get him into the truck and we’ll figure it out when we get there.”

“You got it.”

They shove him into the whatever car they have for the occasion. The wolfsbane, unlike what he’d read on the Wikipedia, doesn’t seem to affect him like it should a human, and it definitely doesn’t affect him like a werewolf, either.

That is to say, he’s not quite out for the trip, but he’s definitely not in for it, either. Time stretches like taffy but also clusters dense as an anvil, so he has no idea how much of it is actually passing. He knows that the car walls keeping weaving in and out, coming closer for a few seconds, then rolling farther away again, and repeat. The scenery outside keeps shifting, what little he can discern with eyes that don’t want to focus, and he can’t tell what the people in the car with him are saying, because his ears aren’t working too well, either.

Like, he can hear them, but his brain can’t understand a lick of what they’re saying, and shit, he’s high. Or is he drunk? He can’t tell, he’s never used, not even at that one party to which he managed to score Scotty and himself an invite. It doesn’t feel like that time he and Scotty got drunk on Jack Daniels in the woods (or rather, Stiles got drunk, and Scotty looked on, because haha, werewolf metabolism, too bad, so sad), either, although the sensations all ran together after a while.

Wow, he’s a loser. So many adventures that he can’t talk about or the ones he can, he can’t remember enough to make it interesting. He’d start laughing, except he can’t quite feel where his throat is, or his mouth, and he needs both of those to make sounds. He thinks. Maybe he’s laughing right now and he doesn’t know it, because he can’t feel it. The thought makes him sad. He doesn’t want to be out of touch with his body. He likes his body. Not so much the part where his brain is fucked and fucks with him all the time, but the other parts, yeah.

Sure, he looks like a gangly baby deer right now, but eventually, not fast enough but eventually, he’ll grow up, and hopefully he’ll grow up into something that people will find smoking hot, or at least somewhat attractive, and want to get up all in his grill. He doesn’t even care who, he wants someone to appreciate him for who he is, ADHD and all, someone who won’t mind that he goes at 110 miles per hour with barely a finger on the wheel, and the wheel pretty much has a mind of its own. Just, not Jackson, okay? He refuses to date Jackson. Jackson is a dick, one that Stiles isn’t letting anywhere near his asshole.

Pfffft, that’s funny. Jackson’s a dick he isn’t letting anywhere near his asshole. PFFFFFT. Stiles should do standup comedy, he bets he’d make a killing. Ha, killing, that’s what’s going to happen to him if he doesn’t find some way of getting away. To do that, he needs his body back, but he doesn’t know how long the wul – wulfsbuh – the purple flower thing will affect him, or if he needs the ropes off. If it’s the latter, he’s fucked, because he won’t be able to get them off in his current disembodied state, and none of the hunters will remove them even if he were to ask nicely, which is, like, asking the impossible. For him to ask nicely, that is, but also probably them taking off the ropes. At least until they’re ready to kill him. Whoo.

Speak of the devil! The walls aren’t moving anymore, and neither is the scenery. People are climbing out, and yowch, he’s getting feeling back; it is damn cold when the car door opens. He’s dragged out of the car; they attempt to put him on his feet, but he could have told them it wouldn’t work, if they’d asked. They don’t, so they get to deal with his sprawling all over the sidewalk, giggles spilling out of him like music notes floating away in the air.

Ooh, hey, that was a good one, he can use that in a poem or something, written to the sound of Lydia’s voice in math class or something. Except, oh, wait, he doesn’t write poems to Lydia anymore, she doesn’t want them, not when she and Jackson are still a thing despite Jackson being shuffled off to London. And he made a promise to himself to move on, too. He will, he really will, but right now he doesn’t feel so good. His stomach feels weird, and his head, his throat. Just, urrrgh.

Yeah, no, he’s gonna… he’s gonna pass out now.

First the blinding, pounding headache.

Then Kate’s smirking face.

Kate. Fuck. Priorities much, brain? You think of the headache before you notice the psycho chick? Christ.

“Urgk,” he says, so eloquently.

Kate chuckles at him from a foot away, the shock baton hanging from her hand like it’s her purse. “There you are, sweetie,” she coos. “We were wondering if you were ever going to wake up.”

“Please tell me this is a dream,” Stiles mumbles, hoping against hope that this really is a dream. If it is, his psyche has a lot to answer for. “You never know, this could be a dream we’re sharing.” Urgh, psyche, what? No, no making it worse.

Kate’s laugh is throaty. “Sorry, but this is all real.” She shakes her head. “Shame, too. If it weren’t business here, you and I could have some fun.”

Stiles wants to puke. It’s an overwhelming feeling, one he swallows past with difficulty. Hangovers, work of the devil. And sadistic bitches. “Uh, thanks,” he says, “but no thanks. I prefer people my age, y’know, so there isn’t that pesky thing like statutory rape in the way.”

She looks amused. “Oh, sweetie. You think those things matter here? As far as we’re concerned, the police don’t have any jurisdiction here. After all, you’re not human, are you? We are the ones with authority over you and your kind, and if I wanted to, I could do anything I wanted with you, and make you beg for it.”

Her grin is wicked.

Stiles stares with gritty eyes, his desert-dry mouth open. Dear God. This woman isn’t just trigger-crazy, she’s an all-around psycho. She is insane. Aaaaand she’s just turned on the shock baton, the purple glow springing to life with a loud hum that makes his head throb worse.

Fuck his life.

“Ready to have some fun?” Kate looks down at him, that unholy grin still on her lips.

Seriously. Fuck. His. Life.

At first, they ask him questions.

Not about the Hales. Which, you’d think would be logical, right? It’s why they captured him in the first place. Right?

“No, no, no, we don’t need you for that. We have someone else for that,” Kate tells him, flapping her hand at him. Like he’s silly for assuming he knows anything about their motivations.

What? “S’m’ne ‘lse?” Stiles rasps. His voice is basically destroyed, but he wouldn’t be him if he didn’t keep trying. Even though his throat hurts a fuckton of a lot.

“Yup,” Kate confirms smugly. If she’d had gum, she would be blowing bubbles and popping them at him. “Said someone is giving us everything we could ever want on the Hale pack. Seems like they don’t like the current power structure that’s in place right now. They want our help to… change things around a little.”

Stiles has to breathe heavily for a moment before he has the breath to speak again. “Who?”

“Nuh-uh-uh, that’s nothing for you to worry about,” Kate shakes her head mock-reprovingly. “You have other things to worry about, such as how you’re going to answer our questions about you. The ones about your being an Alpha, for example?”

“T’ld you,” Stiles pants, “don’t know… anythin’.”

“Yeah, you’ve said that.” Kate walks around him, comes close to run a light finger down the spot under his armpit, above his ribs, where the one hit from the shock baton landed. (Only one hit, because that one hit was enough to knock Stiles unconscious for hours instead of writhing in pain, and that was apparently not acceptable.)

Stiles hisses, arcs involuntarily despite the way it makes other parts of him spark viciously in retribution. “We’ve decided… to reserve judgment on that.”

Stiles would blow out a frustrated breath if he had the, well, the breath to do it. Figures. It must be the face, he thinks. The “No One Takes Him Seriously” face. If he’d known it would cause him this much trouble, he would have argued more with his genes while in the womb or something.

Who would have thought he would land in this much shit, though? Normal teenagers don’t have to go through this. But noooo, Stiles had to get the short straw, where not only is he not a normal teenager, but he’s a not-normal teenager with torture involved.

While he’s bitching in his own head, Kate continues talking. “So, if you won’t answer us in words, we’ll just have to get results another way.”

“Whuh?”

“You’ll see,” Kate winks. “Look forward to it, hm?”

“Oh, yeh,” Stiles snarks. Even in pain all over, continually out of breath, and unable to move even when he’s not manacled to the wall, he’s sarcastic to the end. No one’s gonna make him not be, he’s resolved, especially not this lot. “”M totes excited.”

“That’s the spirit!” Kate cheers. “Now, sorry to cut this short, kiddo, but we have some Hales to hunt down. Don’t worry, though, you won’t be alone. Jonas and Brian will keep you company.”

Stiles looks over at “Jonas” – Crossbow Guy – and “Brian” – one of the dudes who’d held onto him in the woods that full moon – and feels another piece of his soul wither and die. Crossbow Guy isn’t so bad an interrogator, he’s disdainful and makes Stiles feel lower than dirt, but he doesn’t do much of anything else to Stiles that he can’t handle.

Brian, on the other hand, is absolutely one of those motherfuckers who enjoys beating up people who can’t hit back, and he doesn’t subscribe to the belief that Stiles is not a werewolf, the many, many black-and-blue bruises on Stiles to the contrary.

He closes his eyes and wishes, not the first time, that he could go back in time again. To get the bike out earlier, maybe by a couple of days, so he really could have left Beacon Hills when he’d wanted to. Or, failing that, that he hadn’t stormed off when he did, that he’d stuck close to Deaton’s house or gone in the opposite direction.

As his mom would say, if wishes were monkeys, he’d have a circus.

So, yeah, at first, they ask him questions. By the fourth time he’s dragged from his cell into the dungeon, though, they’ve given up on that. Now they just look for increasingly “creative” ways to get their “answers,” which, to Stiles, looks like they use him as an experiment in how much torture a non-werewolf non-human can handle before he passes out.

(Spoiler alert: Not a lot.)

“He’s not healing like an Alpha should, even one as new as he is.”

Stiles blinks dully as Crossbow Guy’s words float into his ears. Someone is pacing really loudly in the room next to his; judging by the clacking, it’s Kate. Ugh. Why do girls have to wear such loud high heels? Do they seriously think it’s attractive to puncture people’s eardrums with—

“Those cuts you made an hour ago still haven’t disappeared. I know you put wolfsbane in them, but it shouldn’t be this slow.”

Kate doesn’t answer, only clacks, clacks, clacks across the floor for the nth time. Stiles grimaces; he was doing fine ignoring those cuts until Kate’s hunter buddy and partner-in-torture brought them up. With each breath he takes, the three across his chest and the one across his belly catch and throb, and repeat for the exhale. The ones on his arms and calves don’t hurt as much, if by dint of being a continuous dull burn rather than a pounding ache. Much preferable to the throbbing.

After a moment of nothing but clacking, Kate’s hunter buddy continues. “I hate to say it, Argent, but we fucked up. Whatever the kid is, he’s not a werewolf.”

“I know that,” Kate snaps, “but what else could he be? You were fooled by his behavior as much as I was.”

Heh. He’s stumping hunters. If Stiles weren’t so fucked up, he’d be framing this moment for all eternity. As it is, he just wants to laugh. They don’t think he’s a wolf. After all they have put him through, the interrogation and the beatings and the cutting, they finally don’t think he’s a wolf. That has to be the greatest and most horrible punch line ever in this awful identity crisis he’s undergoing.

His chest and belly cuts hurt, sharply. It takes a second for Stiles to realize he is laughing, gasps more than sound, but laughing. He can’t stop either, not when the door swings open and Kate strides – clacks – through, her expression a thunderous cloud.

If anything, he gasps harder.

Kate grabs him by the chin and yanks his head up until he’s staring at the ceiling. The gasps stop with the suddenness; the words whispered into his ear chase any thought of laughter out of his head.

“You think this is funny?” she snarls. “Wait until we find out what you are and how you managed to get so cozy with the Hales. Then we’ll really give you to something to laugh about.”

She’s wearing perfume, he notices, and her hair smells like something vaguely related to green apples. It’s such an inane thing to notice while he’s being threatened, but it’s there; the perfume, the not-at-all-green-apple shampoo, the lean of Kate into him, violating so many of his personal space boundaries, the painful grip of fingers on his chin, the stretch of his throat (he wants desperately to jerk his chin down, he feels so exposed, but Kate is too strong), the crinkle of the popcorn ceiling.

(Seriously, a popcorn ceiling? He’s in a room, shackled wrist and ankle, being tortured, and the ceiling is a popcorn ceiling? His life.)

Kate lets go. Stiles’s head drops with nothing to support it; despite himself, he winces when his chin impacts his chest. The pain is so minor, it’s laughable, but, well, any pain is pain too much right now.

Kate’s boots clack away out of his minuscule range of vision. The door swings open – whoosh – and shuts – whoosh, slam!

“Let’s go,” she says to Crossbow Guy. For a moment, things are still, silent; then it’s like the radio has been turned way up, except the radio is Stiles’s hearing. SKREEECH – the sound of a chair being pushed back – rustle – that’s the sound of things being gathered up and pushed into bags.

Hell, he even picks up the tones of a cell phone keypad being pressed, the dial tone as it rings, the very faint “Hello?” on the other end.

“Argent,” comes Kate’s brusque voice. “Listen, I’m pulling in that favor you owe me. Check the bestiary for anything that looks and behaves like an Alpha, or a werewolf, but doesn’t heal like one. I’ve got one that isn’t even though we didn’t do anything heavy to him. Any thoughts?”

Kate moves away while she’s speaking, so Stiles doesn’t hear what the other end says. It doesn’t matter; his brain has plenty to get stuck on: “We didn’t do anything heavy to him.” Not heavy? They didn’t do anything heavy? What do they think they’ve done to him?! He feels used up, raw, and flayed open; his side spasms from the electrocution it still remembers. And this is “nothing heavy”?

Abused and hurting as he is now, he’s not ashamed to admit that he cracks. Something in him flies apart, crumbles like a toothpick house whose supports have snapped. He sobs, a broken sound. If this is “nothing heavy,” what do they do to real werewolves? Ack, no, never mind, he really doesn’t want to know. It’s bad enough what they’re doing to him now, never mind what they, Kate, would be doing if he really were an Alpha werewolf.

Imagination is not so easily deterred, however, especially his, and his nightmares that night drift from horror to horror until they settle on one of two things guaranteed to shred his tattered heart to pieces.

T-23 Days

The cadence of Scott’s voice is low and soothing as he talks to Allison. He’s far enough away that Stiles doesn’t hear the words, only the silences when Scott listens, the sound when he speaks again.

That’s why he notices immediately when Scott draws in a sharp breath. He looks over, sees Scott looking at something, follows his gaze—

"Deucalion?" he and Scott say at the same time. Scott glances at him briefly, but then he turns back to Deucalion. The Demon Wolf looks back and forth between the two of them, his eyes wide as if he can’t believe they’re there. Which, fair, he’s only had his eyesight for a week, Deuc can’t possibly be used to it yet.

"What are you doing here?" Scott accuses, his eyes slowly flashing red. "I thought you were gone."

"And so I was, Scott," Deucalion says, in that stupid fake accent of his. "But when I heard of Stiles's father's passing, I thought to come back to pay my respects."

The resolve Stiles had of not getting angry in front of his mom and dad's grave evaporates. "Are you kidding me?" He marches up to Deucalion, stabs him in the chest with a finger. "It's your fault he's dead in the first place!"

"Stiles!" Scott pulls Stiles away from Deucalion, puts him at his back. Stiles hates how easy it is for Scott to do that now, how unfair werewolf strength has made their relationship.

"No, no, Stiles has every right to be angry with me," Deucalion says calmly. "And I'm afraid I'm going to give him even more reason after tonight."

"What are you—" Scott gasps in surprise. Looks down.

Stiles follows Scott's gaze. He blinks. What – what is he seeing? What, what is that? What is going on?

Deucalion steps back – and hey, when did he get so close to Scott, anyway? – and pulls his arm into himself, causing Scott to gasp again. Oh. That’s… That’s blood on Deucalion's wrist. His hand, too, and his claws.

"Scott?" Stiles's voice is high-pitched. "S-Scott?"

Scott turns his head, as if to answer, but pitches forward instead. Stiles shoots forward, grasping desperately at Scott to keep him from falling. Scott's heavy, though, much heavier than Stiles is expecting, so he ends up not so much holding Scott up as falling forward with him.

Then Isaac is there, somehow, holding up Scott and Stiles's combined weight like it’s nothing, despite looking like a stiff breeze would send him tumbling.

Freaking werewolf strength. So unfair.

Scott coughs; blood spurts out of his mouth. "No, no, no, that is a very bad idea, Scotty, ol' friend, ol' buddy, ol' pal," Stiles panics. “Stop coughing!”

Scott doesn’t. Stop coughing. With each cough, the blood keeps coming, and Stiles’s stupid brain decides to point out if this wasn’t real life, this would make an excellent horror movie death. Instead of being useful and suggesting solutions, like – like —

Like something Isaac can do. Whirling, Stiles hisses: “Do something!”

Isaac lifts his eyes from where he was staring blankly at the blood covering Scott's chin in ever thicker streams. "Do what?"

"I don't know!" Stiles throws up his free arm, his breath coming faster and shallower. "I'm not the werewolf here! Can't you do the pain suckitude thing or whatever?"

Isaac's face clears, gets determined. Turning back to Scott, he puts a hand in the center of Scott's chest (where Stiles is determinedly not looking, thanks) and concentrates. One second, then another becomes hours before Scott suddenly breathes deeply, cleanly – and opens his eyes.

His eyes that flash red, then gold, then not at all.

Stiles's stomach drops, curdles. Oh shit. No. No, no, nonono. NO!

Scott manages one sweet, bloody, smile the one that reminds Stiles of the kid he had met that day in middle school, with the long, shaggy hair and eyes too big for his face. Then his eyes roll back in their sockets, his head sags forward onto his neck, and he slumps.

"Scott? SCOTT? SCOTTY, WAKE UP. SCOTT!" Stiles shakes Scott, helpless fury washing through him. “Don’t you do this to me, bro, this is not cool!”

But it’s no use. Scott remains limp, his head bobbing back and forth with each shake. His eyes don’t open, and blood continues to bubble out of his mouth, slowly, now that Scott isn’t coughing. Stiles goes to shake some more, but then Isaac howls, a desperate, ragged sound. It jolts him back to himself, makes him see what he wouldn’t let himself see before.

Scott’s dead.

Isaac howls again. This howl is worse than the first, grief and pain mixed together. Stiles...

Stiles doesn't howl. He doesn't cry, either. Instead, he's filled with a huge well of something, something dark, powerful. Too dark. Too powerful. It overwhelms him, hot, hothothot. Worse, it gets hotter, builds up and up, gradually putting pressure on him, his insides, his throat, his sinuses. God, he’s burning up, he’s molten lava, he is on fire, he’s gotta – he’s gotta let it out, let it free somehow. He opens his mouth...

...and roars, as the world shades red.

“Get up.”

Stiles pries open dry, aching eyes. Crossbow Guy stands in the open doorway of the cell, looking down at him with his customary look of disdain.

“Get. Up,” he repeats.

Why? Stiles doesn’t ask. There’s no point. In getting up or in asking. Crossbow Guy won’t give him answer for the latter, and for the former, he’ll be gotten up whether he wants to or not.

When Stiles doesn’t move, Crossbow Guy makes a noise of disgust. “Get him up,” he says over his shoulder.

“Uh, what?” someone – a dude – Stiles can’t see squeaks. “You want me to – why not use the stinger?”

“Won’t do any good,” Crossbow Guy says shortly. “He’ll just lie there after. Get. Him. Up.”

A Dude’s gulp is loud. “O-okay. Uh….”

Crossbow Guy snorts. “Fucking coward,” he says none-too-quietly. He bends, hauls Stiles up by the bicep and shoves him. Stiles falls right into the arms of the dude behind Crossbow Guy – he gets a glimpse of spiky brown hair and wide, washed-out blue eyes – then he’s face-first right into the guy’s jacket.

“Yai!” Dude freakin’ drops him! Right on his ass, the one place that probably doesn’t, didn’t hurt as much as everything else. Stiles glares dully at Dude, who’s gone pale and is backing away like he’s expecting a bomb to go off.

“Christ.” Sighing heavily, Crossbow Guy grabs at Stiles again, muttering, “Gotta do every damn thing myself around here.”

He doesn’t bother to hand Stiles off to Dude again, just sets off and makes Stiles stumble after him. Ordinarily, Stiles would complain about the treatment, but between the last beating and the lassitude (hey, a SAT word, great) from the nightmare that’s hanging heavily over him, he just doesn’t have the energy or the will to care.

“Chain him,” Crossbow Guy commands, pointing at the slats where hang the manacles which’ve made best friends with Stiles’s wrists lately. “Do it tight. Last thing we need is him escaping when he sees what we’ve got in store for him today.”

Jesus. Despite himself, Stiles’s heart starts picking up. He knows he can’t actually escape, especially as Crossbow Guy leads him over to the slats and pins him in place. He also knows that whatever’s coming, he’s in no shape or condition to stop it even not locked up. Yet he can’t help but test Crossbow Guy’s grasp on him, to resist even a little bit.

The worst part is, Crossbow Guy doesn’t even pay Stiles any attention. He keeps his eye on Dude, who abruptly looks familiar, inching his way over while keeping his washed-blue denim eyes on Stiles the whole time.

It clicks just as Dude reaches out for Stiles’s own. This is Nail Biter, the dude who’s watched every one of Stiles’s “interrogations” from the corner of the room while chewing on his nails! Fucker. Stiles hates him. He stood by and did nothing to stop the proceedings, even when Kate teased him about looking ill more than a few times.

Involuntarily, Stiles sneers. Immediately, Nail Biter jumps back, eyes wide and breath stuttering. He scrambles away as fast as he can, ignoring Crossbow Guy’s snap of “Jacob! Get back here!” and Stiles’s blink of surprise. What…?

Then it hits him. The smell. Fear, Stiles learns, smells like fresh sweat, stale body odor, and something else sour he can’t identify. It smells awful, but part of him likes it, thinks it’s appealing – makes him feel powerful.

(He can’t tell whether it’s him who feels this way or this is new.

Who’s he kidding – it’s totally him.)

By the way Nail Biter’s pale countenance loses even more color, Nail Biter can see Stiles’s enjoyment.

(Even Stiles can feel the nastiness of the smile spreading across his own face.)

“Argent!” Crossbow Guy roars.

Just like that, the spell is broken. Stiles jumps; Nail Biter tears his eyes from him to Crossbow Guy- same difference. No more powerful feeling, scaring the crap out of someone a couple years his senior, but who has clearly demonstrated weakness.

“You will get your ass back over here and lock him up right now, or I’ll make Victoria Argent look like a cuddly bear in comparison to what I’ll do to you.”

Nail Biter is off the floor and back at Stiles’s manacles so fast, Stiles swear he sees afterimages. But really, Victoria Argent, cuddly? No. No way. No one could make Allison’s mom look like anything other than an even more psycho bitch than Kate – sans the pedophiliac tendencies. Which, honestly, made her even scarier.

But there Nail Biter is, biting down on his lip so hard it’s pale, locking Stiles’s wrist into the manacle. Holy God, what does Crossbow Guy have on him? Inquiring minds need to know.

Gold eyes. Perpetual smile. Mid-brown skin.

“Caleb,” Stiles breathes.

Why is he sensing Caleb here? Is he nearby? No, no, no, he can’t be, he’s—

“Stiles?”

The world stops moving.

Like that fucking radio’s been turned up again, Stiles hears everything. His own heartbeat. Nail Biter’s, jackrabbit fast. Crossbow Guy’s, at rest. Fainter heartbeats of one, two, three, four more people, getting louder. The accompanying footsteps of three pairs of feet, including Kate’s distinctive clack, clack, clack of her fucking low-heeled boots. Shushing of clothes rasping against dissimilar materials, Caleb snarling, the whrr of the shock baton swinging through air, zzzaAPP—

“Augh!”

At Caleb’s exclamation of pain, Stiles yells.

It comes out as a roar.

Stars explode in his vision, hot pain edged by faint red quickly blotted out by blackness.

He comes to for the second time in less than an hour.

The back of his head is a vicious bite of pain. Throb, throb, throb. Urgh, it hurts, it hurts so much. But… No. Wait. Caleb! Where is Caleb—

“You’re awake.” Kate’s dulcet tones strike straight into Stiles’s ears. His lip curls as he lifts his head to find her.

“Where’s Caleb?” he demands.

“You mean that pretty werewolf with the great smile? Right here.” Kate steps aside.

“Caleb,” Stiles gasps.

Like Stiles, Caleb is locked into manacles, his shirt stripped so his torso is bared. Unlike Stiles, Caleb is barely standing, not so much in the manacles as hanging off of them, his head dropped forward, his knees buckled.

At Stiles’s voice, however, Caleb stirs. “S-Stiles,” he slurs. He attempts to raise his head, but only manages to get it high enough for his wavering eyes to catch groggy hold of Stiles. When he does, though, the smile breaking across his face is like sunlight.

“Stiles,” he says again. “G-glad to s-see you. B…een looking for you. We….” He trails off. His eyes cross, and he wavers, slumps suddenly, like his strings have been cut.

“Caleb?” Stiles tries. “Caleb!”

But Caleb’s head stays down. He’s out. More worrying is how Stiles’s sense of Caleb dims, to the point that if Stiles were to look away, he might would have trouble knowing Caleb is even there. “What did you do to him?”

“What the hell…?”

“Like it?” Kate steps in again. “I admit, when my source suggested changing the wolfsbane sedative, I wasn’t sure. Sure, it’d worked oddly on you, but you aren’t a werewolf, so it should work on actual ones, right? But we did it, and look! One real werewolf, sedated and helpless, for your viewing pleasure.

“Oh, yeah, while you’ve been asleep from all our interrogations,” Kate grins playfully at Stiles’s gape, “we’ve been keeping tabs on the other pack. They seemed so distressed about you, we figured we’d use that and trap them, bring them in to see you. Isn’t that nice of us?”

All of Stiles’s wildly vacillating emotions crystallize into ice-cold anger. “You bitch.” The words come out low and heartfelt, underlined by the grumble growl rumbling in his chest. Kate laughs delightedly; the rumble gets worse, intensifies to an engine vibrating in his chest, his throat. Of their own volition, Stiles’s lips peel back, bare teeth. He feels wild, out of control, helpless to actually do anything.

He feels like a cornered animal.

For one moment, just this one moment, he wishes he were actually a wolf, so he could tear through the manacles and get his hands around her throat. Not to tear it out, but to choke, to bear down on top of her and squeeze against Kate’s increasingly weak fighting until the last of her breath abandons her and she falls quiet.

It would serve her right.

Kate’s eyes widen, as does her grin. Around them, Stiles has the impression of movement. He takes a quick glance, sees every hunter either has their hand on their holster, or has drawn their gun. Nail Biter’s gun is shaking, fear wafting off of him like particularly rancid cologne.

Not Kate. Kate stands there, as relaxed as you please. She has neither gun nor shock baton nor any other weapon out, only her grin and crossed arms between her and his murderous intent. Fuck, she’s not just grinning, she’s happy. Actually happy that he’s growling at her, red eyes flashing, homicidal.

His focus narrows down to her, and just her. Enemy, part of his brain, the part not focused on tracking Kate’s every move, whispers. Target, another part of him agrees. Die, every part of him chorus.

Kate turns her head, coy. “So that’s what a girl’s gotta do to make you shift,” she drawls. “Well, you’re gonna love the next one we’ve got for you, then. Bring her in, boys!”

Against his better judgment, against every part of him screaming not to lose sight of the target, Stiles eyes the door. One cue, it swings open. He can’t see who it is at first, the hunter has to fit through the door. Then comes the woman they’re transporting, her black hair covering her face.

Dimly, Stiles can feel her, as a wisp of power – she’s been hit with the same wolfsbane sedative Caleb has. He’s making plans to include her in on his rescue along with Caleb, as well as hoping it’s not Iñez, when a third hunter – Jesus, just how many hunters does Kate have? – steps up. Grabs the woman by the hair. Jerks her head back.

It’s not Iñez.

It’s so much worse.

He watches, numb with horror, as they let Mrs. Hale’s head drop forward again. Kate’s voice buzzes, but he doesn’t hear her.

They’ve got Mrs. Hale.

They’ve got Mrs. Hale.

He’s been waiting. This whole time, he realizes slowly, dimly, as from behind a hazy screen and far away, he’s been waiting for her, her and the rest of the Hales.

She was supposed to be the cavalry, roaring her way in, hunters lying unconscious in drifts and bobs behind her. Her red eyes would gleam as she reached for him and clawed him out of his manacles, metal parting for her like paper. He would fall out of the manacles right into her arms, and she’d hug him, let him cling to her for a moment, then sweep him away with her out of the base. The rest of the pack would be glad to see him, smiling and happy, and they’d go home, set up a real, definitive plan now that they knew where the hunters were holed up, and wipe them out.

She was not supposed to be the victim. She has no part in this picture, this hell, alongside with him.

If – if Mrs. Hale – if they were able to capture her, then – then there’s no getting out of here. If even Mrs. Hale is susceptible to the wolfsbane sedative, then there’s no way the rest of the pack has a chance. It’ll only be a matter of time before Kate and Co. bring in the others; when that happens, that’s it. That’s the end of the Hale pack, and Stiles, too.

He should have left earlier. Left before Derek—

Oh, God. Derek.

The thought of Derek, here, in Kate’s hands, seeing him beaten and electrocuted to within an inch of his life, seeing his lost and confused expression as he silently asks Stiles why – it’s the last straw.

Without fanfare, without a sound to mark it, Stiles shatters.

He doesn’t remember the next day. Or the day after that. He knows enough to be grateful he doesn’t; he doesn’t know what they do to him, or Mrs. Hale, or Caleb. He doesn’t know what questions they ask him (do they ask him anything? He can’t remember). He doesn’t look himself or Mrs. Hale, or Caleb, over after they leave, mostly because he can’t – too weak – and because he’d rather think about the looks on Scott’s, his dad’s, and his mom’s faces when they see him.

If they see him. There’s a distinct possibility that given his life so far, Stiles will end up in Hell. Or, at best, Purgatory.

(He tells those thoughts to go away, they’re crushing his post-torture comfort fantasies. Typically, the thoughts ignore him.)

He’s dreaming of his mom’s arms around him when his body finally gets the memo his mind’s been trying to send for days.

Chapter Text

Sound comes first.

“Why do we have to be the ones to put the Alpha in the deep freezer? We should be preparing for the hunt of the other monsters, not being treated like—”

Hunters! The wolf wrenches out of the grip on him, crouches.

“Shit!”

Two hunters. Big, brawny. He does not know one. The other, the wolf hates for hurting him and liking it. Both are kitted out: guns, those jumping things that spark (tasers, he dimly remembers), the small bows with springs, the beatdown sticks, utility belts, the sashes with pockets over their chests.

The wolf takes off.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” Footsteps, running, after him. Sound of clothing rustling, an electric hum starting up: Bzzt!

The wolf must move faster.

The hallway is narrow. Tight. Sharp corners. The wolf skids around one, darts into the nearest open door. Flash of kitchen, stainless steel. Past one kitchen counter, around the second. He stops, crouches. Strains his senses for the hunters’ approach.

Footsteps, running. “In here.” Now slow. High probability weapons out. Taser smarter, no ricochet. Gun or spring-laden bow better for long range, fleeing target. One of both for each?

“Bastard’s hiding. Can’t have gotten far.”

Two pairs of footsteps, separating. Circling around the counters. The wolf curls his fists. They want to try to trap him. Make him go where he risks being hit if he tries to escape over the counters. The wolf is not fast enough to try that. He must find another way.

One pair of footsteps squeaks, reminding him: the hunters are coming closer. The wolf’s reflection catches his eye in the metal cabinet, distracts him. Cabinet doors, stainless steel. Too long to get into them and close them. The hunters will see. But, as he looks below the cabinets, he can do something else.

The wolf holds his breath. Slides. Lets the breath out.

Being so skinny is good for something.

From his place underneath the cabinet, he watches as the hunter’s feet move down the aisles. Each foot crosses carefully over the other, uncrosses, crosses again. He thinks briefly about lashing out, felling the hunter. But the other one would notice or hear, and no guarantee the first wouldn’t react quickly.

The wolf keeps his paws to himself.

Instead, he watches, strung taut, as the hunters clear the second row of counters, move on to the third. He doesn’t think to risk a sigh of relief, however, for they might hear him, and then his temporary advantage would be lost.

The hunters move to the fourth row.

Carefully, very carefully, the wolf backs away, sliding out the other side to behind the first counter. Now he has only the one counter between him and the open door. The kitchen is large, will keep the hunters occupied looking for him. If the wolf can get out without detection, he will buy himself some time. Only some; the hunters will eventually find he isn’t there, come back after him. Maybe call for backup.

Strange that they haven’t already.

He could take them down. Incapacitate them. Then run. Eliminate the pursuing element. Backup has to travel to this point. Depending on which way they arrive, the wolf might have to backtrack. Or hide, if they come from both directions. Better to assume the latter. Could gain information from listening to them chatter amongst themselves, if he hides.

The wolf nods. Carefully peers above the counter behind him. The hunters are farther into the kitchen, have paired up again. One opens a door, jumps back; the other flashes his gun up.

If the wolf had been behind that door, he would have been dead.

The hunter with the gun makes a quiet disgusted noise. “Not there.”

The other hunter: “What’s left? The freezer, the…”

“The freezer, the pantry, prep station, dish washing, serving areas. Freezer’s out, we would have seen him open it. Terrible hiding place, anyway, too cold. The pantry, though….”

“Let’s go.”

The wolf flattens to slide under the first counter. Now there is nothing between him and escape from this room. Still, he is nervous; he doesn’t know if there are more hunters behind the door. He still hasn’t heard either of the hunters call for backup, despite seeing the talking contraptions on their shoulders earlier, but that does not mean that no other hunters are around.

He doesn’t hear footsteps, or anyone breathing. With a last quick glance at the hunters, who are setting up at another door, he decides. Keeping low, he slinks out from under the counter. Towards the door. At the door.

No hunters. Not in this direction down the hallway, nor the other.

At any moment, he expects the bullet in his back. The burn of wolfsbane. The shout to signal he’s been discovered. Around the corner, crawl to drag his legs out of the light spilling out from the kitchen…. Done.

Nothing. No bullet. No burn. No shout.

The wolf wastes no time. He’s up and hurrying back to the narrow corner, peeking to see if anyone’s there. No one. There’s another door not far – he scuttles over to it, sticks his head in. No one there either, though it looks like an office, heavily used. He decides not to linger.

He is about to turn, keep going down the hall, when: Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. Freezes. Enemy! Run! He darts into the office, looks around wildly. There! The tiny closet! Hide! He dives into place. Pulls the door carefully. Holds his breath.

Crrackle. “Argent, are you ready yet?”

“Yeah, just a second. Just waiting for a call.”

Enemy’s voice grates on the wolf’s ears. So human-sounding, to belong to such a twisted abomination. His fingers itch to claw and tear, to dig in and rend apart.

No. Not the time. Not here, when he is without pack and in such a tight corner. Literally.

He forces himself to stay still and not fidget. Well, not fidget much.

Clack. Clack. Thnk! Thnk!

The sound of Enemy’s boots changes as she moves from linoleum to carpet. Thnk! Thnk! The light under the door goes out, then reappears. Thnk! Thnk! Creakk. The wolf’s fingers curl into his palms. If the closet door opens….

Riiiiing! “Argent.”

The wolf releases his breath in a soundless gasp. Enemy’s voice is near, sounds like its owner is in front of his door. He thinks, for a moment, of bursting from the closet and attacking her. With the element of surprise, he would have a moment’s advantage, enough time to strike.

No. Enemy’s reflexes are fast, as he saw for himself during the full moon, and she is strong. He has no guarantee of making it to her before she can get a weapon up – and if the other two hunters were any indication, she would also be loaded for werewolf.

He is better off staying here, in this locker-like closet, and waiting until Enemy is gone, no matter how much the hackles on the back of his neck rise, how strong the urge to take down a threat to the pack becomes.

“Yeah. Everything’s – well, almost everything is good on our end. We had a mishap with the boy Alpha. He’s dead.”

The wolf blinks, despite himself. He’s what? Whoever is on the opposite end says something, but the wolf can’t hear what it is, as their voice is curiously muffled. The wolf strains his ears, but still can’t pick anything up. He can hear that the voice is there, but he can’t put the syllables together to form any kind of meaning. Auditory interference, deliberately applied?

“Yeah, turns out our treatment of him was a little too much for his delicate sensibilities. Don’t worry, though, I had Brian and Josh put the body in the deep freezer for you. I know you’ll want to get a chance to look at it for yourself whenever you can get away.”

That kitchen. The hunters had been carrying him towards the kitchen – and they’d mentioned the deep freezer. The wolf manages by dint of sheer will to keep his snarl silent, but his fingers have migrated from his palms to his legs, all the better to dig into. In lieu of popping his claws and sticking them into the wood of the door – he’s not at the popping claws stage yet, still – it will have to do.

To put him in the deep freezer? Like the one from Old-Packmate’s pack, the too-tall one with the surly expression? The wolf snarls silently again, digs deeper into his own legs. No. He will not let that happen. One werewolf in a freezer is more than enough.

Enemy’s converser says something.

“I know. I was looking forward to finding out more myself. Oh, well, what can you do.” She sighs dramatically.

The wolf’s gums itch. He envisions his canines extending, snapping shut around the meat of Enemy’s throat. Imagines the blood filling his mouth, the taste of iron, as her pulse flutters, frantic, under his teeth. The spray of the blood as he tears his prize from the rest of her body. Then he would spit the windpipe out at her feet, watch with vicious satisfaction as she collapsed, dead.

Death by wolf is the only death appropriate for this monster.

“Oh, the wolfsbane sedative worked beautifully. Those two didn’t even see us coming – they were down before we even got to them. That ingredients change you suggested was genius, they stayed down until we got all the way back to base.”

The wolf stills. Anger flash-cools from incandescent to crystal clear ice. This. Whoever Kate is talking to is the source of the sedative used on him, the Hale beta, and the Hale Alpha. Or, if not the source, involved in its creation. The wolf is – not sorry, regretful – that he can’t hear who is on the other end of the call, can’t hear who this new, additional ENEMY is. If he could, he would memorize that voice, its cadence and diction, use that to track its own down, and deal with them.

After he kills Kate-enemy.

“So far, no one seems to be trying to storm us, and we haven’t caught any Peeping Toms around, either. Seems like that part of it is working, too. Should make them easier to pick out as they wander around like lost little sheep, howling pathetically for their lost Alpha.”

Lip curling – Kate-enemy has terrible taste in puns – the wolf strains his senses, his awareness again. The other end is still muffled – definitely auditory interference – but the wolf gets a hint of something, a darkness that’s twisted in and about itself. A roiling mass kept carefully hidden, but which yowls to be let free, to be unleashed.

He commits this impression to memory. It’s not much to go off of, but he’s made his decision. The wolf will not back down.

Click-clack-click-clack. A keyboard: Kate-enemy is typing. “I’m sending you the file with the data we’ve gathered, but you know my group is more the hunting type, not the scientific research type. Any chance you’d be able to get away and do some more thorough research for us soon?”

More of the garbled voice.

“Great, that’s wonderful. What days do you think you’ll be able to come down?” Click-clack-click-clack. CLACK. “When is that?” Click-clack. “Next week? Great, that works for me. Annnd, sent. Enjoy your present, and I’ll see you next week.”

Snap. “Don’t worry, sweetie, we’ll figure you out. You may be dead, but we’ll have the last laugh. Just you watch.”

Creak. Crackle. “Argent to Finnsteader. Done with my phone call, am on my way.”

Crackle. “Belay that. Turns out we’ve got a problem. Brian and Josh reported in that the Alpha wasn’t as dead as we thought he was. He’s escaped.”

“Where?”

“Near the kitchen where they were supposed to put him in the freezer.”

“I’m right around the corner from there, I can be there in a minute.”

“Brian and Josh are still there. Val, Jenn, Jacob, and I are inbound.”

“Roger. See you in a few.”

“What about the men already in the woods? We should have been going out to them by now.”

It’s a good thing the closet is so small. The wolf can’t move enough to make his jerk of surprise make noise. Kate-enemy had said the rest of the Hales would be easier to pick off with the Hale Alpha gone, but he hadn’t thought they were working on that now.

“Text them and tell them the hunt’s been delayed. If it’s been an hour and we still haven’t found the Alpha, then call them back.”

“Understood.”

“Argent out.” Thnk. Thnk. Thnk. Thnk. Thnk. Thnk. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack.

As Kate-enemy’s footsteps sound, they get duller, more faded, until the wolf doesn’t hear anything at all. He stays still, in case Kate-enemy comes back. Either she’s forgotten something or she’s heading back in the direction of the office. Or someone else happens by. The hunter on the radio said he and two other hunters were coming in, too – they might come by this way. Better to stay still a little longer. Let time go by to ensure no one is around.

After a minute in which he hears nothing and more of nothing, the wolf lets out a breath. Slowly, so slowly, he turns the knob on his side of the door. Pushes it slightly ajar. Waits.

Nothing.

He pushes the door out again, waits. Pushes, and waits. Peers around when the gap is large enough. No Kate-enemy. The chair is in a different place, the computer screen is turning off, but otherwise, as the wolf saw it when he first came in. Edges out of the closet. He twists the knob of the closet door so it doesn’t click when the door shuts. Untwists it when he’s done. No click.

On his slow way to the office door, the wolf keeps his ears, his awareness, on alert. No telling where the hunters here will go in their search for him, or even if they’re setting up ambushes for him. He will have to be careful, act like the hunters are around every corner, whether he senses them there or not.

Quick movements across gaps, into blind spots of any security camera. Ambush, knock out any hunters if he can; fast getaway if he can’t. Stick to shadows as much as he can (not a problem in this poorly-lit underground labyrinth), spend as little time in the light as possible.

Most importantly, he has to keep moving. Packmate is in danger from more hunters the wolf didn’t know about. If Packmate is in the woods and the hunters spot him, or any of Packmate’s pack, then it won’t matter if Kate-enemy and the rest are with them. They will take Packmate, and they will bring him here.

Unacceptable.

He pokes his head out into the hallway. No hunters, in either direction. No sound of breathing or any footsteps, clothes rustling, guns cocking, or the sense of a person or persons nearby. Just himself, in the dim yellow light of the caged lightbulb.

Good. Time to move.

The wolf slinks into the hallway and begins what he aims to be his escape.

The wolf only stops running when he’s a street over and several houses down. He listens intently, but there’s no sounds of the hunters chasing him. None that he can hear with his limited human hearing. When he stretches his awareness, he gets a general sense of malevolent righteousness from the direction he escaped. It’s all one sense, no individual breakaways budding off or heading towards him. No hunters on his tail.

If he stays, that will change. He opts to keep moving instead. While he was slithering out of the compound, he caught a sense of the woods nearby. He will orient himself there and attempt to lose his pursuers, head off any Hales in the area.

Lifting his face to the wind, the wolf zeroes in on the part of himself that represents Pack. Images come to mind: goofy smile, floppy hair; a tired smile and all-encompassing bear hug; toss of red hair and a primal scream; surly expression and a tall frame; green-grey-brown eyes and snarky disposition. There. Packmate.

Packmate is a fair distance from the compound, and it doesn’t feel like he’s moving, so he is not likely to be in the hands of the hunters in the woods. Good. The wolf will make sure Packmate stays that way.

A fresh burst of chatter startles; the wolf sets to moving, faster at first, then slower. Slower, so he doesn’t look out of place. A jogger, rather than someone running for his life. An impression rather spoiled by the tattered, bloody legs of his jeans and shirt he’s still wearing, but that will not matter so much once he gets into the woods and off the beaten path.

For now, the wolf lopes, flashing a look down the hunter compound’s street as he jogs by the end of that block. No bodies are out of the compound yet, but again, the wolf has no doubt that will change. Sending the street a narrow-eyed look, he promises silently: Soon.

Soon the wolf will bring them down. Kate Argent. Crossbow Guy. “Brian.” Nail Biter. Kate’s mysterious co-conspirator. Everyone and anyone who threatens the stability of his Packmate’s pack.

He will not stop until all the threats are gone.

Soon, he repeats with a flash of red eyes. Soon.

He’s running.

Has been running. For…. How long has he been running?

A while. Whatever. It doesn’t matter. He has to keep running.

Why? his brain asks. Why does he have to keep running?

As soon as the question penetrates, he stutters to a stop. The urge to run dissipates, and he’s left to look, blinking, around at his environment.

It’s white.

Very, very white.

Wait, he says, I’ve been here before. ...Right?

His voice echoes like he’s in a contained vacuum or something. It reminds him…. Reminds… him… of….

The bath! The ice cold of the bath he had plunged into, climbed out of, back when he, Scott, and Allison had.... Is he back there, has he somehow gone farther back? Forward? Whatever? Back to his own timeline?

Looking around, his eyes confirm what his brain tells him: no ice bath this time, just white floor. That’s a no on this being a dream, then, the same dream he keeps having when he isn’t seeing his dad’s eyes staring, accusingly, up at him from a dirty, pale corpse. He’s also missing the dazed confusion he shared with Scott and Allison, and honestly, that’s a plus. Not that he’s any less confused, but.

He starts to twist the other way, but he’s stopped by a tug on his chest. Looking down, he finds a thick, black string-like thing in his chest that looks like – a tree root? – and which extends into the distance like a thick rope pulled taut.

The hell…? He follows the root with his eyes, squints to see in the distance. He doesn’t see much of anything at first, but then—

His eyes widen. His heart lurches. His breath catches in a loud gasp, shoots from him like a sucker punch. No way….

He runs. The black root embedded in his chest slackens, then goes taut again, tugging at him until he’s stumbling along more than running. He can’t be bothered to mind, he’s too busy drinking in the sight before him.

Same as the time not so long ago, yet like another lifetime, the tree is a cracked, gnarly stump, dry brown and healthy green twined together in symbolic metaphor too overt to ignore. (Thanks, English class.) This time, however, two people are sitting on it, their faces turned towards him like homing beacons.

Finally, Lydia huffs when he comes within earshot distance. Her eyes flash but her mouth curves.

Bro, you made it! Scott’s grin lights him up, makes everything else but Lydia seem that much more drab by comparison.

Stiles slides to a stop in front of them, the tree’s tug on him gone. Scott, he pants. Lydia. What are you—

Waiting for you. Lydia makes it sound like they’ve been sitting and waiting for him forever to show up. Why else would we be here?

But – then you’re dead, Stiles looks between her and Scott.

Not yet I’m not, Lydia says with a toss of her hair.

I know, Scott says at the same time, his eyes pulling into that sad puppy expression. Dude, I’m so sorry.

What? Stiles splutters. No, dude, I’m sorry. I couldn’t—

If we’re done with the misguided guilt trips, Lydia interrupts, her tone bored. We have actual things to do that are far more important.

Like what? Stiles asks.
¬
Right, right, Scott says at the same time, sheepish.

Bro? Stiles turns to him.

Scott smiles at him. S’all right, bro, it’s totally fine. Just gotta fix something.

He nods to the root in Stiles’s chest. Now that Stiles looks at it, really looks at it, it’s, like, seriously disturbing. The root is buried staunchly in his breastbone; if he didn’t know any better, he would say it was growing into him. He checks over his shoulder – nope, nothing on the other side that he can see, no root tip breaking through. Dude, what?

Hold still, dude. Scott steps up to him. He places one hand on Stiles’s shoulder, the other, clawed, hand on the root. Ready?

No, Stiles’s mouth says automatically. But Scott’s already pulling, and holy mother of God, that is disturbing. It’s not painful, but it looks like it should be, and also way too long – lengths and lengths of the root pull out of him, Lydia taking up the slack behind Scott so he doesn’t have to move away. Finally, as Stiles is wondering just how much freakin’ tree root is in him, holy God, Scott gives an extra yank and the root, tip and all, yanks free.

Huh. He felt that.

There’s no hole from the seriously giant tree root just jerked out of him, but Scott’s still frowning. With the hand – now unclawed – he just used to get the root out, he reaches back into Stiles’s chest – Stiles yelps, grabs Scott’s wrist – appears to grasp something (Stiles still doesn’t feel anything, this is freaky as hell) and twists.

Click! Warmth floods into him, spreads out from his chest and shooting out to the rest of his limbs and to his head, like drinking burning hot coffee on a cold day. He feels… He feels….

Later, when pressed, Stiles can only describe the next few minutes as time gone amok and wibbly-wobbly. It seems to fade in and out, slowly and all at once. He thinks he throws up, but there’s no taste of vomit in his mouth; he could swear his hands were holding something at some point, but he also swears he’s on fire all over despite the fact that he’s shivering like he’s made of ice instead of blood and flesh, capillaries and tendons, bone and marrow.

In biology, they’d have you learn you were all made up of gazillions and jillions of tiny cells that band together into a pack to make up more complicated structures like tissues, organs, systems, and organisms. A naïve mindset, devoid of the Other. Here, in this place where two contradictions exist at once and time means nothing, Stiles learns that it’s all magic.

He’s made up of connections, telluric currents washing in and out, into each other and away, tangled up in each other in Gordian clusters at specific nexuses inside him. Inside every cluster is something that whispers, a dark tune that speaks of electricity surging and ebbing at his will, of blood flowing over his tongue and sliding sweet ambrosia down his throat, of the whoosh of a soul past him as it slides from his prey and settles upon him, adding its spark to his and aligning its song to his in a darkly honeyed, thrumming harmony.

As if enthralled, and perhaps he is, he reaches out. The something whispers louder, rises to meet him like the best of family, mother, father, friend, brother, lover. They touch; the electricity doesn’t surge so much as it seeps into him, or he seeps into it – it doesn’t matter. The clusters in their nexuses shift, spin, tumble, come to rest in new places, settle snugly like bleached bones in desert sand.

He sees, with new eyes, the ghosts of the old places of the clusters, how they were not quite right, like a circuit with a short. They connected, they wanted to connect so badly, but could only, in the right circumstances, the right fluctuation just here, just there, experience the completion for which they were so wholly made.

He sees, and he knows. The loneliness that has persisted all his life, unalleviated even by the presence of a father and a brother, and once a mother, will haunt him no longer. Here, now, with the tune, the electricity, in him and around him like a favorite blanket, inside the holes left in him like tide water in eddies, he knows.

He knows, and he howls.

AROOOOO…!

As the howl recedes into the white, white room, he feels like he comes out of some sort of haze. Then he snaps to, and everything is sharp, sharpsharpsharp, like upgrading from a CRT TV to a HD TV. He can take in details from the walls, make inferences about those details. He feels like his brain is working faster than ever before, but more focused, less jumping around. Not to say that he isn’t jumping around, as he switches to hearing (the howl’s still echoing, faintly, and dude, he understands what he just said) to tasting (the air of this room is super strange, is this the way all air tastes, musty and… sulfur-y?) to feeling – whoa.

So. Much. Information. He’s not just feeling the way his clothes sit against him, he’s actually able to, like, read the air currents? The way they swirl and eddy around things, even ones that aren’t there anymore but just passed through. It’s like those flashes he’d have of Mrs. Hale, Laura, Derek, which told him they were there, but seriously souped up. Like, it’s not just air currents, but emotions? The fact that someone is there? He can’t tell who it is, but it’s a warm feeling, brings a smile to his face. Then it occurs to him – he only feels one person, not two.

Heart jumping, he turns on Lydia and Scott. Whoa!

Floating above both of their heads are translucent… auras? visions? that hint at what they are. For Lydia, a wispy image of a woman in white, her mouth opened in a soundless wail. For Scott, a wolf’s head, enlarged, with red eyes.

That’s not freaky at all, Stiles stares.

Scott’s grinning, taking his hand out of Stiles’s breastbone (thank God). Dude, it worked!

Stiles looks at Scott, softens. Yeah, dude, it worked. He may not be able feel Scott, but he can see him, can see how the sincerity radiates from Scott’s pores. God, he’s missed his brother from another mother. So. Much.

Of course it worked, Lydia sniffs. I had a part in it.

Oh, like you weren’t panicking like the rest of us when you could still sense him, Scott teases.

Lydia favors him with a look of leonine disdain. At least I came up with something, Mr. True Alpha.

Still grinning, Scott holds up his hands, surrendering.

You could still feel me? How? Through the nemeton’s root in me? Stiles, reaching out to touch Lydia on the arm, pulls back. On second thought, he doesn’t actually want to know if Lydia is intangible. Or Scott.

With a roll of her eyes, Lydia swats Stiles on the shoulder. Whoaa, he definitely feels that. …Sweet. Of course through the nemeton root, don’t be purposefully dense.

Well, excuuuuuuse me, princess, for not being in on this from the beginning, Stiles snarks. Clarifying questions are a thing, Lydia.

Lydia ignores him. (Typical.) Though now that it’s gone, you won’t be able to sense us as easily. On the flip side of that, not having it should make everything easier.

Everything…?

Tapping into your Alpha spark, Lydia shoots back, her eyebrow raise audibly calling him idiot.

Yeah! Scott bounces. It’s gonna be so great, dude, I can’t wait to watch—

Scott.

Scott settles down, sheepish, under Lydia’s gimlet eye.

Oh, come on, let the dude celebrate, Stiles says, grinning.

We don’t have the time. Lydia’s gimlet eye slides into intense when she turns it on him. Remember what I told you when we did the ritual? I said that power by will follows different rules than power by might. Remember that?

Stiles has to think for a moment. Vaguely, he admits. He knows what Lydia’s talking about, but in the dim way of memory overshadowed by other things: the cast of the green light on Lydia’s face, how he had felt his dad inside him, reaching out to support him from beyond the grave. Lydia—

Think, Stiles, Lydia interrupts. How do most Alphas come to power?

They kill another Alpha, Stiles squints at her. Or they inherit it.

But those are not the only ways, are they? Lydia examines her nails. Scott didn’t kill an Alpha, He did it not by might, but by…

By will. Stiles stares, as comprehension breaks over him like a crashing wave or a beam of sunlight. Scott became an Alpha by will.

So when Deucalion killed me, Scott puts in, he didn’t inherit my power. You did.

That wasn’t a mistake, Lydia says. There’s a reason it was you who inherited it and not, say, Isaac.

Wha? Stiles is pure confusion.

Think about it, Lydia insists. And now it’s time for you to go.

What, no! Stiles protests. I’m not ready!

Too bad. Lydia is unsympathetic. Evil doesn’t care.

All of a sudden, Stiles remembers – and he wishes he didn’t – what he’s left behind. Oh. Yeah. Dread takes up its familiar place in the bottom of his stomach, heavy and constricting.

Don’t worry, bro, Scott says. You can do this. He puts his hand on Stiles’s shoulder – it feels like a sharp buzz of static rather than a touch – and leans in. I believe in you.

Lydia’s hand slips onto Stiles’s other shoulder. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t have to. Between the two of them, Stiles feels connected, linked in, as if he’s fallen into the place where he was supposed to be this whole while to these two disparate feels of energy. Scott is that sharp buzz threatening to travel through Stiles’s whole body if not removed at once; Lydia is the cool brush of a cobweb over his face, the searing flash of a brilliant mind tucking away its unimpressed analysis.

They linger for a moment, two. Then both Lydia and Scott give him a push. Scott’s push is stronger than Lydia’s, sends one side of him staggering while the other whirls to face the two. He intends to stop, ask what the hell was the push for, but he finds that he… can’t. His feet, once they start moving, don’t, can’t stop.

Against his will, they carry him farther into the white space outside their little circle, away from the nemeton and Lydia, Scott sitting on its face. Away from the figure of his dad, hands on his utility belt, watching him go with a proud smile.

Dad!

Stiles tries, tries so hard to stop, turn around and go back, but whatever has control of his feet (it’s definitely not him), isn’t letting up. He’s forced to settle for staring, desperate, over his shoulder at Lydia’s prim and proper figure, Scott’s smile he could see and feel from a mile away, the light in his dad’s eyes which Stiles hasn’t seen in a long, long time.

He keeps staring long after the white, white room starts dissolving around him and he begins to fall.

“No!” Stiles comes awake reaching for his pack, his family.

Instead of them, he gets the buzz of STRANGERS. NON-PACK. drumming up his spine; querying, worried looks from people decidedly not family; and Derek (Packmate) saying, “Stiles? Are you okay? Are you back?”

For a moment, he just looks at Derek, uncomprehending. Derek’s worry lines deepen, his brow furrowing. Then Stiles blinks, and it’s like everything switches into focus, like binocular lens put to the proper settings.

Flash: Face piercings and neon-red highlights. A melon-swollen belly and scared black eyes. Sullen expression and red-brown hair. Green-grey-brown eyes and caterpillar eyebrows. Cautious black eyes and his stepfather’s brilliant smile. Laura. Iñez. Cora. Derek. Juan.

Flash: Feel-smell-sense of being underground, the damp must basements always got no matter how well-proofed they are – and they’re on top of a small wellspring of energy. A telluric current like the ones Allison’s dad was researching back during the sacrifices, but smaller. No wonder the Hales were so respected, they’d been squatting on this thing for generations….

Flash: Even in the cool relative dark of the basement, everything is sharper. The air has a sharper feel-sense-smell, colors are more vivid, the shadows deeper, the red of Cora’s hair brighter, the heterochrome of Derek’s eyes more crystalline. Stiles is more aware of everything all at once, and rather than feel overwhelmed, he feels more alive, more alert, more… more. Just more.

Flash: The smell-sense of two other not-pack here very recently – grizzly grey eyebrows and suspicion, devil-may-care smirk and icy blue eyes. The fainter but still ingrained sense of two more not-quite-pack: red eyes and regal eyebrow, close-cropped hair and the same brilliant smile as Juan’s. Kurt, Peter. Mrs. Hale and Caleb.

Flash: the smell-feel-sense of someone else coming. Cat hair. Mountain ash. Cryptic advice. Veterinarian. Druid. Emissary.

Deaton.

“Where are Peter and Kurt?” he blurts. “And why’s Doc Deaton here?” And then the last piece falls into place, and his eyes widen. “No, wait, we don’t have time. We have to go, now! I know where the Argent compound is, we need to get to your mom and Caleb!”

He’s out of the corner and running to the door, voices babbling in his wake. The door practically flies open at his touch; Deaton startles at the sight of him, but whatever, time, there's no time.

Much more important is the run-down van just off to the side of the house, in the little miniature parking lot the Hales have to make room for all their cars.

"Hey, where are you going?" several voices yell in his wake. Stiles ignores them, his pulse hammering in his ears. He's just crossing the yard when a sense of tension snaps so hard, he halts in surprise.

"What the hell was that?" he asks no one.

Unfortunately, his stutter-stop allows Laura to catch up. She yanks him around to face her, fangs on display and eyes molten yellow.

“What do you mean, ‘We have to rescue my mom and Caleb’?” Laura lisps.

Stiles's hackles don't rise so much as they jerk straight up. His chest warms and roils – without having to think about it, Stiles lets some of the warmth surge upward. Up his esophagus, his nasal passage, behind his eyes. Laura – and everything around her - gets overlaid with a tinge of red.

"Let go of me," he growls. Legitimately growls, like he's heard Older Derek do way too many times.

Rather than laugh at him, Laura pales. She hurriedly lets go, but then seems to steel herself against anything else.

"Where is my mom?" At least she's speaking normally, her fangs having retreated at Stiles's power play. Her eyes are still molten, though, and that offends Stiles on so many levels.

"We don't have the time for this," he snaps. "Every second we stand here is another second your mom and Caleb," he says pointedly, "are in the hands of Kate Argent and her ilk. Do you want to be responsible for causing the both of them more pain than necessary? If you do, then you're even more of a bitch than I thought."

The insult seems to galvanize Laura even more. She steps into his space, glaring into his face as if she can intimidate him. To quote Clueless, As if.

"You aren't the boss of me," Laura sneers. "I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me where my family is." She stares at him for a second, then gasps. “Oh, my God, you don’t know where they are, do you? Oh, my fucking God, this is just perfect.”

"Of course I know where they are!" Stiles retorts. The warmth in his chest gets hotter.

“Then why don’t you tell me where they are!” Laura snarls.

“I don’t have an exact address, okay!” Stiles snaps. “In case you didn’t know, I was out of my mind at the time!”

“Then how do you even propose to get there? Magic?” Laura crosses her arms, sarcastic smile on her lips.

“No, I thought I’d just follow my feelings. You know, X marks the spot?” Stiles says coldly.

Laura looks at him incredulously. Starts laughing. “You cannot be serious,” she gasps.

Stiles’s fists clench. He can feel the warmth surging in his chest, itching to get out and do something in response to his anger. If he’s not careful, he can imagine it’d be all too easy to lose control, the warmth overwhelming him and taking over control, blocking everything out except the object of his rage.

It could drive him to do a lot of damage. If he’s not careful. If he doesn’t find a good outlet for it.

Thinking back, he tries to remember how Mrs. Hale got him to back down, way back when they first met. Her Alpha presence had felt like an anvil pressing down on his shoulders, or one of those heavy stone presses that they used to kill people with. Collecting a bit more of the warmth in his chest, he flings it out.

The angry red of Laura's cheeks drains away. She stumbles, the gold of her eyes finally winking out. Said eyes are fixed on Stiles like she's seen a ghost. Stiles stares back, intent, reaching out (metaphorically) with his handful of spark.

Laura gets even paler, barely blinks once before she's looking away. The tension goes out of Stiles immediately, but he keeps his spark on Laura for a second longer, to prove his point.

“Stiles. Stiles!”

The last is said into his ear. Startled, he loses his grip on his Spark, feels it bleed away back into his chest. Annoyed, he turns on Deaton. “Dude! What gives?”

Deaton meets his gaze calmly. “Look around you.”

Stiles gapes. “Seriously? That’s all you’ve got to say? I was making a point!”

"Stiles..." comes the weak whisper.

Packmate. Stiles swings around, finds Derek not far away. Derek is not quite as pale as Laura, but he's got the same wide-eyed, half-afraid look. Instantly, Stiles feels like he's been splashed with a bucketful of ice water to the face. Hurriedly, he reels all of his spark back in, stuffs it down into his chest where it belongs. Derek's lines of pain ease; his breath whistles out of him; his shoulders sag.

Shit.

"You okay?" he asks, takes a step towards Derek. Derek looks up sharply; Stiles is arrested in his movement by the wild look on Derek's face. The look fades almost immediately, when Derek registers Stiles, but the damage is done.

Stiles takes two steps back, even as Derek reaches out to him. "I'm okay, Stiles," Derek says, his hand hanging in midair, "really."

Stiles stops, but looks at Laura. Laura, too, seems to have recovered, judging by the glare she sends his way. Yet the glare isn't as heated as it normally is, and she looks away after a second too long.

Fair.

He looks back at Deaton, who, Stiles is simultaneously happy and irritated to see, looks unaffected. Deaton flicks his eyes to the Hale House entrance, where Stiles finds Iñez, Juan, and Cora.

Any remaining sense of self-satisfaction promptly vanishes. Cora seems shaken, eyes a little (a lot) bigger than normal, and she is standing stock still. Juan looks confused, his forehead furrowing and eyebrows turning up at the corners as he tugs at Iñez’s sleeve.

No wonder, for Iñez is clutching her arms to herself, her eyes squeezed shut, huge trembles wracking her body. Stiles doesn't need his new-fangled powers to see that Iñez is deathly afraid – because of him.

Laura seems to realize the state Iñez is in the same time as Stiles does. She scrambles up and over to Iñez, making “hey, hey” noises well before she gets near. Iñez still flinches when Laura puts a hand on her shoulder, but Laura pays no mind to it, just turns her back towards the house.

"Just go in and lie down, huh?” she says softly. “Or hey, how about you cook something? Mom and Caleb will probably need food when we get back. Okay? Does that sound okay?”

Mutely, the tumble of black hair over Iñez’s face nods.

“Great. That’s great. Um, if you spot or hear any trouble before we come back, go down to the tunnels, all right? Then to the nemeton if you feel they’re getting too close or something. Got it?"

Iñez’s face turns enough for Stiles to see the tears slipping out of her eyes. The ice water smacks him in the face again; he feels about two inches tall. God, what kind of asshole is he to make someone so afraid they’re crying? God, he sucks. So much. So. So much.

Derek's hand on Stiles's shoulder breaks him away from watching Laura lead Iñez into the house, the kids following. "Come on," Derek says quietly. “Let’s go over here, okay?”

Stiles nods, numb, and lets Derek direct them to sit on the porch.

(He's always fantasized about scaring people, namely Jackson, or Peter, or, most recently, Gerard. The thing is, and Tara had told him this once, that unless you know how to turn it off, scariness gets not only to the baddies, but also the good guys and the innocent bystanders too.

“Being scary is not all it’s cracked up to be,” she’d said in response to him grouching once about no one being scared of him during lacrosse practice. At his snort: “Trust me. When you’re scary, then people don’t always let you help them, even if you’re the only one who can.”

She had fixed him with serious brown eyes. “It matters when and how you’re scary, but also who you scare. If you scare ordinary people, people who have done nothing wrong, then they think you’re the bad guys, and things can happen as a result that you never intended.”

Tara had clearly been talking about the police, but as he watches Laura shepherd Iñez into the house, Stiles gets what she had meant so much better now.)

“Hey, Stiles?”

Stiles looks over at Derek. Guilt burns in his stomach anew when he takes in how subdued Derek is. However, Derek meets his eyes readily enough, offering up a weak smile.

“Sorry about Laura,” he starts, to Stiles’s surprise. Uh. Not where Stiles thought this was going. “She wasn’t always like this.”

“What, you mean she wasn’t always this fun?” Stiles retorts, despite himself. He’s glad when Derek grins, his eyes crinkling up at the corners.

“No, in fact she used to actually be fun,” Derek grins, smug, at Stiles’s side-eye. “She used to play pranks with Peter and me, or tease Cora when no one else was available to be her victim.”

Stiles snorts at Derek’s choice of words. “This was before or after Cora started taking karate lessons?”

“Oh, she didn’t let that stop her,” Derek starts to laugh himself. “She said that she wasn’t going to let ‘a few karate chops’ scare her off from her ‘big sister duties.’”

“And of course, Cora didn’t take that lying down,” Stiles not-asks.

“Nope,” Derek confirms. “The wrestling matches got more epic, not less.”

Stiles bursts into laughter. It goes on for a little longer than it should, but hey, if he’s using laughter to release some tension, who can blame him? “Oh, man, that is hilarious,” he shakes his head. “But seriously, she played pranks?”

“Yeah,” Derek nods. “On everyone she could get away with. Mom, Kurt, even Caleb would get pulled in whenever he and Iñez visited. Then Laura would usually blame me for the aftermath, or Peter. Peter did the same thing to her, though, so it was all in good fun.”

“And I suppose you did nothing of the sort,” Stiles raises an eyebrow. “You were purity and goodness, and didn’t blame anyone for things they didn’t do at all.”

Derek’s grin says everything.

“Atta boy,” Stiles says, slinging an arm around Derek. Derek leans into the embrace, grin softening as he relaxes. A fleeting look of relief twitches his lips.

Oh. Okay. Stiles’s world realigns a bit as he realizes that Derek was just waiting for him to give the signal that things were all right, instead of the other way around. Jeez, social interactions are so hard, do they ever get any easier?

(The answer is probably no, they don’t.)

Stiles curls his arm around Derek a little tighter. Derek shifts closer in response, snuggling so his shoulder isn’t directly in Stiles’s armpit, but neither is Derek’s head on his shoulder. For some reason, Derek’s body burns a little hotter as they change position, and his heart beats a little faster where Stiles’s hand rests over his chest. Stiles would ask what that is all about, but Derek speaks up first.

“When you stormed off, after our argument,” he says softly, “I thought that you weren’t coming back. I thought that I’d lost you as a friend, even if you wouldn’t be my Alpha. When our pack bond flickered out, I just—”

What? Wait. Waaaaait. Right, he vaguely remembers yelling at Derek in Deaton’s garage. Considering Kate nabbed him and what happened next shortly after that, he doesn’t blame himself for not remembering. Torture tends to do that to a dude’s memories. “Wait, what? The pack bond was flickering?”

He barely manages to avoid turning “pack bond” itself into a question – duh, of course he and Derek have a pack bond. It’s the whole reason all this trouble happened in the first place, indirectly. He even has a fleeting image of using the pack bond to find Derek when he was newly escaped, not-quite-feral (again), and desperate to prevent the whole Hale pack’s capture by hunters.

“Yeah,” Derek sighs, goes limp as a rag doll. “At first, I thought it was you trying to break off the bond, and I tried to hang on as hard as I could. But then, for a moment, it was like you disappeared completely, and then you were there again, but it was like you were behind a wall or something. I couldn’t quite reach you, or feel if you were okay, but you were on the other side. I thought that you were still trying to cut me off, but….”

Stiles’s brain whirs. This was just after he stormed off? That would have been around the time of his capture, then, but has no idea what could have caused their pack bond to flicker. It definitely wasn’t anything on his part, he was busy viewing the world through a loopsy daisy kaleidoscope at that point.

He gets up and starts pacing. “Trust me, Derek, I wasn’t doing anything to our pack bond,” he says truthfully. “I still don’t really know how it works, let alone how my Alpha powers work.”

Although he has a better idea now, thanks to his time in the white room.

Hey, there’s a thought. He had died to get to that room again, hadn’t he? Then their pack bond should have died out, even for just a split second, or however long it took Stiles to come back from the tree stump (and Lydia, and Scott and his dad) this time.

It would make sense if their pack bond had flickered then, but the timing is off. Weird.

Goddamn, what is taking Laura so long? The longer they wait, the harder this is going to be. He’d go by himself, but well, he’d die, as he’s had demonstrated for him too well. Like it or not, he needs other people to solve this problem. Not just Laura and Derek, but everyone he can scrounge up. Laura, Derek, Peter, Kurt….

Speaking of the latter two, where are they? They were gone when he woke up, and they still haven’t come back yet. He opens his mouth to ask Derek, but Derek again beats him to the punch.

“Thank goodness,” he says, blowing out a short breath. “I figured, when you didn’t do anything else, but it’s been bothering me this whole time. It’s how I knew that you hadn’t just gone off like you said you would, because you didn’t feel like you were moving away, not like how it feels when Laura’s away at college.”

“Whoa, you can feel distance through the bond that well?” Stiles is fascinated. The only thing he knows about pack bonds is what he’s speculated from Scott’s first experience with Older Peter and his attempts to get Scott to Murder Everyone He Knows™. “How does that work? Does it feel strained, like a muscle strain? Or like you’ve lost something and you can’t figure out what it is? That’s the worst, that happens to me all the time.”

Derek tilts his head. “No, it feels more like a tug,” he says slowly. “Like something’s pulling at me, and I need to pull it back into place, but I don’t know what to pull back at until I realize it’s Laura who’s out of joint.

“She’s been out of joint for a long time, to be honest, ever since Mom started giving her ‘Alpha lessons.’ That’s when she started dying her hair and getting the piercings and being a bitch,” he adds for Stiles’s benefit. “Not even Peter could talk sense into her after a while, and he was the closest anyone could get to calming her down or making her smile. Besides me or Cora, that is, but that didn’t last long either.”

There’s his chance. “Where is Peter, anyway?” He makes a show of looking around. Say what you will about the guy, but he’s the best one to have in a pinch, given that he doesn’t double cross them for his own agenda. Whatever that agenda is.

(It also bothers him that Peter is missing now. Convenient that he’s gone just as Stiles comes back? His "Stiles sense" is not exactly happy about the amazing coincidence, if you get his drift.

Matter of fact, Peter hasn’t been really all that present for the time that Stiles has been here. Older Peter, at least, was always up in everyone’s business, whether they wanted him to be or not - usually not. Until it suited him to fade into the background, then he would disappear, just like that. He would wait until you’d forgotten him and then strike, usually right at the worst moment, too.

Sure, Peter – this Peter – doesn’t seem anywhere as insane as Older Peter was, but then again, Older Peter had been a hella good actor. A raging douchebag as an Alpha, but then again, he had never bothered putting on a facade for Stiles's sake. But was Older Peter good enough for Stiles to think he wasn't putting on a facade? Older Peter had seemed to calm down a lot after his resurrection a la Zombie Jesus, but there had still been a distinct brand of crazy there.

Just saying.)

“He went to the grocery store. Kurt went with him so that Peter wouldn’t be alone,” Derek reports. “We were running out of food, since Mom wasn’t around to do the shopping, and we kind of needed to do it, because of our high metabolisms.” He hunches his shoulders, like he thinks he’s going to get laughed at.

Stiles, however, is stuck on something else completely. “Peter. Grocery shopping,” he says faintly. Sue him, but he just can’t imagine Peter doing something as ordinary as grocery shopping. Slashing someone’s throat out? Yes. Lurking around uncomfortably and smirking at everyone? Absolutely. Smarting off a one-liner just to be obnoxious? Check and check.

Grocery shopping? Aaaaaagh, no. Send help quick, his brain is melting. Margaret Hamilton style.

Derek’s smirking at him, no doubt knowing exactly what Stiles is blue-screening about, when hyup, up go Stiles’s hackles and his sense of STRANGER! NON-PACK WOLF! buzzes again. Both he and Derek look up as the door to the Hale House opens – finally! – and Laura emerges.

“Okay,” she says briskly, “here’s the plan. We’re going to take my car,” she gestures to the run-down van Stiles was going for earlier, “and try to at least get at least a general idea of where Mom and Caleb are being held.”

The pointed glance at Stiles is not as glare-y as he might have expected, but it is full of irony. “I’ve already called Peter and Kurt and told them to meet us at the bank and then follow us from there.”

Oh. Well. Stiles doesn’t have to worry about how to get them on board now. Easy peasy, and he didn’t have to use any of his, er, creative persuasion skills, either. Hip hip hooray.

“Iñez will take the Hummer,” Laura points out the H2 HUMMER two cars down from hers.

(Caleb’s car, Stiles realizes, and feels a well of anxiety. What if they don’t get Caleb back? What’ll happen to Iñez and Juan? He feels guilty for not thinking about them before. Will they stay with the Hales, or go somewhere else? Who will take them on, take care of them?)

Laura is still talking. “She’ll take Cora and Juan to Cora’s babysitter’s, so none of them are here if hunters start sniffing around here again. Dr. Deaton, did you want to come with us?”

Stiles looks over at Deaton in surprise. Once again, dude managed to camouflage himself so Stiles forgot he’s there. Neat trick. One that Stiles will never be able to master. He’s too flaily for that.

“No, I think not,” Deaton answers. “I came over because I wanted to check on Stiles,” Stiles blinks at that, “and I think I have a few things to go through now that I’ve seen him up and about. Certainly my patients are waiting for me, I must get back to them.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Deaton’s not coming with them? “Dude, you have to come with us,” Stiles says. “We’re gonna need everyone we can to go up against Kate and her cronies.”

“I’m not a fighter, Stiles,” Deaton says. “My role is to step back and be an impartial party.”

“Please,” Stiles snorts. “As if you were ever impartial when it’s Mrs. Hale. Besides, we don’t need all fighters. Someone’s going to have to take Mrs. Hale and Caleb out of there. We can’t count on them being in any good condition when we find them.”

Deaton hesitates. Hah, that got him. Stiles presses his advantage, taking a step closer. “You’re the best suited to fix them up, Doc. I might look like I’m up and moving around and all right and everything, but. I got off lightly. They didn’t.”

He lets Deaton see how not all right he really is. For a second, he lets the tumult he’s been holding at bay come forward, lets himself really feel it. He does this for as long as it takes Deaton’s eyes to widen, then slams the lid back onto the DO NOT OPEN – VOLATILE feelings box, just in time.

“…You make a good point,” Deaton says slowly. “It’s good that I brought some things with me, in anticipation of looking after your needs.”

Stiles cracks a pained grin. “Trust me, Doc, you’ll be using them on me before long.” He turns to Laura. “You ready to go?”

“Sure,” Laura starts. Then hesitates. “…Seriously, Stiles, I am seriously begging here. Where are my mom and Caleb?”

Gaaargh. Stiles is just about to lose it, start yelling that they need to move, now, when he gets a good look at Laura. Looking at her, at the way the stress pulls down her mouth and makes her looks years older, he can suddenly see it, Derek’s words of how Laura got bitchy after Mrs. Hale started giving her Alpha lessons. She was handed a huge burden, one she probably feels she can’t handle. It’s there in the slump of her shoulders, the way she looks tired and overwhelmed.

All of a sudden, Laura seems stupidly young. Christ, she’s all of what, nineteen, twenty? And the Hales are expecting her to be able to handle these kinds of situations in the absence of Mrs. Hale? AND they’d be comparing the two of them, too, criticizing Laura for not doing things the way Mrs. Hale does, or for making mistakes. Not only that, but she’s expected to lead the Hale pack, the most respected pack for miles.

God, no wonder she went crazy rebellious.

“Stiles? Hello?”

Oh, right, he was supposed to be answering a question. Stiles opens his mouth to answer, but then something else occurs to him: “Can’t you feel where they are? ”

“Jesus! You think I’d be asking you if I did?” Laura’s eyes go yellow again as she snarls. Stiles stiffens, but then all the fight goes out of Laura, and she deflates.

“Sorry, I’m….” She shakes her head. Opens her eyes. Search his, then sighs. “The truth of the matter is… we lost the pack bond to Mom and Caleb when they disappeared. I can tell it’s still there, but… they’re like they’ve been suppressed or drained or something. No matter what I do, I can’t get them to work!”

Oh, God. Something about that niggles at him. Derek said the same thing earlier, but this is deeper, like it’s something that’s right there in front of his face that he should be putting together. God, what is it?

“Stiles, are you okay? You don’t look so good….”

Stiles looks up out of his reverie to find Laura and Derek both staring at him. He rewinds a little, then explodes onto his feet again.

“You said we’re driving your car?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, starts heading over to it anyway. He can feel Derek following him, then two other people.

“Yes, but what about you? Are you going to be able to—?” Laura asks, rather than demands.

Stiles pauses in the middle of clambering into the van. “Laura. I have been tortured, shocked, knifed, taunted, and beaten to within an inch of my life. I’m honestly surprised I’m alive, actually. But nothing, nothing of what I’ve experienced comes close to what your mom and Caleb have had done to them. When I say we need to go, I mean, we need to go. Now are we going to go and get them ASAP, even if we don’t know exactly where we’re going, or are we going to stand around here and argue some more?”

Laura and Derek’s stricken faces looking Stiles up and down give their answers loud and clear.

Stiles nods, grim. “That’s what I thought. So let’s get in the car and drive.”

This time, Laura offers no protests or questions of how they’re going to find the place. While Stiles and Derek get settled in, she hurries around to the driver’s side, throws the car into reverse. Peels out of the miniature parking lot with a roar of the engine and gets them the hell out of there.

Stiles can’t shake the sudden feeling, though, that they’re too late.

Chapter Text

Stiles sprints down the lane between two warehouse buildings, panting heavily. His side is already screaming at him, screw cross-country prep for lacrosse season, that wasn't even like a hundred meter dash or anything, what the fuck, Finstock? What the fuck were all those suicides he had to do, and he still has stitches in his side? Jesus Christ.

But no, dude, check your brain, that is so not the important thing here. What is important is – oh, God, his sides hurt, fuck – what is important is that this? This situation right here? This is terrible, awful, no good, very bad, horrible, all the words in the thesaurus for bad. It's shit, is what it is, and it is totally not going according to plan.

Not that there was a plan, aside from find out where Mrs. Hale and Caleb were being held and get them back. First part of the plan is working, but the second part?

Hahahaha. Yeah, right.

Thud. Stiles whirls, his heart racing, towards the sound. The maze of warehouse buildings, as well as their varied narrow alleyways and wide-open thoroughfares, blocks any easy vision of whatever made that sound. Given that the sun's starting to set, visibility becomes even worse, creating shadows from which anyone could jump out of, and, yeah. He's gotta move.

He darts to the end of the lane, anyway, even knowing that sound carries in this area from all the metal siding, and therefore the thud could have come from anywhere, his aisle, the entrance to the lane, hell, even around the corner. The one he's coming up on. Where he could come face-to-face with a gun barrel. Or a crossbow bolt. Or, shit, an electric baton, sizzling and purple, literal heat waves coming off the surface—

No. Don't think about it. It hasn't happened yet. "Don't borrow trouble before it's even been born, Stiles," as his dad was used to saying, in various tones of tired or exasperated, depending on the occasion. Even fondly sometimes.

Maybe it won't even happen at all! Until then, "Just keep moving, Stiles, keep moving," he tells himself. "Don't get pinned down and hopefully they won't tag you."

Hopefully. Deep down, he knows full well he's lying to himself. The hunters are just playing with them. Sooner or later, they'll get bored and start chasing them in earnest, track them down and shoot them all. Then watch as the wolfsbane poisons them, delighting in the additional terror of dying and being unable to do anything about it, no healing, no friendly people nearby, nothing.

It's enough to make a guy call the insane institution on them for psychosis. Eichen House could keep them under control, right? It wouldn't even be that hard, just report they think werewolves are real, and bingo. Locked up.

Note to self for later. If there's a later.

"How the fuck did we even get into this situation?" Stiles pants. Yeah, yeah, he should really keep quiet, but the sound of his own voice is comforting, reminds him that he's still alive or whatever. It's a good question, though, and part of his brain spins off on answering it, remembering….

Argent Headquarters is huge.

Even a block away where they're parked, they can see it. It's basically a mansion, with a five-foot wall surrounding it and a massive wrought-iron gate stringing across the driveway. What little they can see of the the lawn stretches out bright green and artificial; the long driveway splits the lawn in two halves as it winds up to the house and circles back.

In the circle that driveway makes, there's a stereotypical statue of an woman with a very clingy toga holding a jar of water atop her head, but that's the only decoration on the lawn itself. On the mansion, there are more statues, but the lawn is otherwise bare, only grass allowed to flourish here.

It's also quiet as a tomb.

At least, until Laura starts talking.

"This is where you were held?" she hisses. "How the hell did you escape?"

"Barely," Stils quips absently. His brain is bouncing between vague, blurred images of fear and caution, analyzing the front yard, and check their surroundings. "It's too quiet."

"Yeah," Laura agrees, surprising him. "I was expecting this place to be crazy chaos, not a ghost town."

Stiles looks again through the wrought-iron gate at the long driveway. "There were a ton of SUVs when they kidnapped me. Way less than are here."

"Is there a back to this place?" Derek wonders. "Maybe their cars are there."

Stiles points excitedly at Derek. "That's it!" he proclaims. "There's a side door. That's how I got out."

"That makes way more sense," Laura states. "I was thinking there was no way you got across this much open space without getting spotted."

"Nope," Stiles pops the p. "Now come on, we don't have the time to waste—" as he reaches for his door handle.

"Peter. What's wrong."

Kurt's gruff question brings them all to a halt. As one, they turn to look.

Peter is white under his tan, even green, as he looks, unblinking, at the Argent headquarters. He doesn't appear to have heard what Kurt said, nor noticed five pairs of eyes on him.

"Peter?" Derek goes up to him, lays a hand on his arm.

Peter starts violently, looks at Derek uncomprehendingly.

"Are you all right?" Derek asks, more timidly than before.

Almost instantly, Peter's eyes go back to the mansion. "Ah," he says eloquently.

"Spit it out," Kurt says impatiently. "And let's move while he's talking. Loitering like this is suspicious."

"Your face is suspicious," Stiles mutters, but readily moves. Time is ticking, after all.

Luckily, the mansion is on the end of the block, so circumventing it is not much of an issue. Just a lot of ground to cover. Rich people.

"Peter? You were saying?" Derek prompts.

"What? Oh, um, yes," Peter says. He's still white, but moving seems to be doing him some good. "Uh, no, nephew. I am not doing so well."

"You imagining yourself in there?" Stiles quips. "Don't, dude, not worth it."

Peter turns greener. "Ah, no. I was imagining Talia. Not that I needed much help."

At Peter's significant look, Stiles looks down. "Oh, right." Strange how adrenaline masks pain. In his tattered, bruised, beaten up state, Stiles is totally the poster boy for Torture Dungeon Bonanza, Thursdays at 5PM. "Dude, trust me, this isn't even the worst of it. They had to go easy on me."

He isn't bitter about that at all, what are you talking about.

"This is 'easy'?" Derek blurts. "You look like you got run over by an Alpha. Twice."

Stiles smiles without a lot of mirth. "I wasn't healing fast enough."

Now Derek is green.

Peter puts his hand on Derek's shoulder in commiseration, while Laura shoots him a dirty look. At least, it starts out dirty. Then Laura's expression draws in, and she leans in way too close.

Stiles growls. Not on purpose, but it gets Laura out of his personal space. "What's the big idea?"

"You actually look like you've healed a little bit since we left the house," she points out, briefly meeting his eyes before looking at the rest of him again. "See?"

Stiles looks at his forearm to find that, huh, that knife cut isn't as bright red anymore. "Finally," he says, reminding himself in that moment of no one so much as Lydia. "Though that knife, I don't think, was wolfsbane-laced. It should have healed completely."

"Would they have told you if it was?" Laura asks skeptically.

"Well, I don't remember my arm feeling paralyzed after she cut it," Stiles says reasonably. "That was this arm." He lifts his other arm in demonstration.

Great! Laura's turning green, too. Greenness for everybody! "If you all have to puke, don't do it on me," Stiles commands. "I've done plenty of that already, I don't need to get it on myself again."

"Oh, God." Laura has to turn away. Sadistically, Stile enjoys that. Schadenfraude, about the only joy he gets these days. The little things, right?

"If you're done," Peter not-really-questions, "we're here. Is this the door you came out of?"

Sure enough, they're at another wrought-iron gate, this one smaller than the front one but no less imposing, despite the lack of lawn to really set the scene.

"Yeeep," Stiles pops the p. "That's where I came out. Although the gate was open then." He does a perfunctory scan of the area. "No SUVs here, either."

"But a whole lot of engine oil and sweaty humans," Laura wrinkles her nose. "In fact..."

"I smell it, too," Kurt says. "Your mother and Caleb were back here."

"Really? Did they leave a trail, or does it disappear into thin air?" Stiles asks.

"Trail's from the house, apparently," Peter says, taking over from Kurt, who just glowers at Stiles. "Other than that, it mixes with the engine oil and burnt rubber."

"So they were loaded into the SUVs and taken somewhere," Stiles surmises. "Goddamnit."

"Can you do your freaky 'follow your instincts' thing from here?" Laura asks.

Stiles is already shaking his head. "It's too polluted," he says. "This is the center of the wrongness – anything is too faint to sense right now."

In fact, he's wishing he were back in the car. His stomach is twisting on itself with the sheer level of taint – not just in the ground, but the very air and taste. It's a nasty film on his tongue, and he keeps swallowing convulsively to try and get rid of it. Not that he wants the nastiness in him, either, but still. To no avail.

"Well, we got here from that side of Beacon Hills Pointe," Laura says. "Maybe if we branched out on this side, you could pick it up again?"

"Or we could follow the smell of leaking oil," Peter says. "One of the cars was not sealed properly. Come over here."

Stiles follows Laura and Derek over. "Oh, wow, you're not kidding," Laura exclaims, pinching her nose. "It's strong enough to follow anywhere."

"Even in traffic?" Stiles is skeptical.

"We're in the residential area, it should easier to pick out than an intersection," Peter says. "We also train to use our noses to pick out particular stenches. Terribly cliché, but it works."

Before Kate's hospitality, Stiles once would have made a bloodhound joke. But he must have grown as a person or something under Kate's torture, for some reason, for he doesn't. Instead: "Well, hey, if it works, let's use it."

He ignores all the double takes the entire pack gives him and says to Laura, "You and Kurt bring the cars around. I'm going to see what else I can get from around here."

He doesn't have much hope, but at least they're on to something.

Surprisingly, Laura is right. The farther they get from the Argent mansion on the opposite side of Beacon Hills Pointe, the more the taint narrows down to a manageable trail again. Stiles doesn't actually tell Laura that, he's not stupid enough to inflate her head, but it doesn't seem like he needs to point it out anyway, because the leaky oil trail leads in the same way.

His bad feeling continues to grow as they weave in and out of the suburbs, gradually leaving the rich houses of Beacon Hills Pointe behind and turning into the dilapidated and abandoned outskirts of Beacon Hills.

"Oh, this isn't going to go well," he says as they reach the street that definitively divides residential from warehouse district. "Seriously, the abandoned warehouse district? Why is it that every bad guy heads here? Is there a section in the Villain Handbook about it or something?"

"Sure seems that way in Batman," Derek agrees. "Practically every encounter with The Joker is in a warehouse."

Stiles twists in his seat to stare at Derek with wide eyes. "Dude, I love you so much right now," he breathes. "You didn't tell me you were a fan of The Dark Knight."

"Focus on the task at hand, Stiles," Laura interrupts. "There's no time for Big and Broody when lives are at stake here."

"Right, right," Stiles shakes himself. "Hold that thought." He makes I'm watching you fingers at Derek.

Derek just shakes his head at him, but Stiles can totally see that amused look. Not really what he was going for, but he'll take it anyway.

The small moment of humor disappears as soon as it came when he lays eyes on their surroundings.

In particular, one rickety building with a huge four-lined spiral on the front of it.

"What is that?" he looks at the wolves. "What happened in there?"

Please don't tell me that building is what I think it is, he says silently, desperately.

Peter looks pained, and like something else is on his mind. Laura is quirking an eyebrow at Peter. Kurt looks, well, he always looks grim.

But Derek….

Derek looks gutted.

Shit.

"Hello? Anyone going to answer?" Stiles waves an arm. "No one? Bueller?"

"That's... the distillery," Derek manages. His eyes are haunted. "It's…"

Kurt takes over, thank God. "A skirmish happened there. Between wolves and hunters. An Alpha carved that spiral as a reminder. And a promise."

"A promise of death, yadda, yadda, I get it," Stiles says. He's back to looking at Derek, who seems to have gone into his own head. "Hey, Derek. Dude, now is not the time to get all broody. We're trying to find your mom and Caleb, remember?"

He nudges his shoulder against Derek's. Derek looks at him automatically, but doesn't see him see him until he bumps shoulders again.

"What?" Derek says, his eyes clearing. His brows furrow.

“Focus," Stiles tells him. "I know, funny, the ADHD kid telling you to focus, ha ha, but seriously, not the time. Leave the brooding over your manpain until after, okay, sourwolf?"

"Sourwolf?" Now Derek's brows come down for another reason: confusion, rather than misery.

Shit. Right, not Older Derek. For a moment, Stiles misses the guy so much it hurts. As much as that dude was an uncommunicative pain in the ass, when the chips were down, no one better to have at his back.

"Sorry," to Derek's eyebrows. "Nickname." He gives himself a kick. "Right, okay. Who else thinks we're going to have to go in there?"

“Did you have to say it?" Peter grouches. Dude's giving his best, but he's pale and his mouth is tight.

"Someone has to," Stiles shoots back. "Might as well be the comic relief." He points to himself.

"You think you're that funny?" Laura snorts.

"That hurts, Laura. Right here." He pats his chest.

Suddenly, all of the wolves jerk like they've been electrocuted. Stiles looks around hurriedly, but doesn't see anybody or any other reason for them to all react like that.

"Guys? You okay? What's going on?"

Laura's the one to speak up: "I can… I can feel her! Mom! Mom, where are you!"

"Oh, my God, I can, too," Derek says, awed. Then he grunts, "Oof," like he's been socked in the gut. "So much pain, she's in so much—"

Oh, fuck.

"No," he tries to say firmly. He's not sure how successful he is. "No, don't pay attention to it, it's not real. It's a trap, they're just trying to lure you in so you go rushing off willy-nilly. Don't do it, Derek—"

"Are you in or not?" Laura butts in. She's not looking at Stiles.

"Derek," Stiles practically pleads, reaching out a hand to his arm. "Seriously, don't."

"Stay out of this," Laura snaps, still not looking at Stiles. "Derek?"

Derek looks back and forth between Laura and Stiles, his eyes wide.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Stiles throws his hands up. "Come on, how can you not see this is a trap? It's so fucking obvious!"

"It doesn't matter," Laura says impatiently. "Mom's here, she's what we came for, we have to find her and get her out of here. Along with Caleb, although I can't feel him as much," she adds.

"Which doesn't ping you as a fucking red flag?!" Stiles is seriously, seriously considering braining Laura and Derek or something, just to fucking get through their fucking heads that this isn't a fucking joke.

He's not trying to fuck them over, he's really not, he's helping, they're just so fucking blinded by their need for their Mom that they're not fucking thinking straight, and they won't listen to anyone other than themselves! Jesus fucking Christ!

"Quiet," Kurt orders.

Stiles shuts his mouth. Kurt is listening to something intently. Stiles strains his ears, but doesn't hear much of anything. Not surprising, but the other wolves get expressions like they're not liking what they are hearing.

"Voices," Derek says, sotto voice, for Stiles's benefit. "Can't make out what they're saying, but they're coming from the distillery."

Stiles forces out a hard breath, not able to resist the urge to say "Shit, fuck, shit, damn, fuck, shit" under his breath as they tiptoe towards their destination. Derek and Laura both cast him a look, but don't say anything as they go. Kurt, on the other hand, attempts to quell him with a stern look.

Please. The only thing that works on Stiles's cursing is his dad's Look of Exasperated Disappointment™, and his dad isn't here now. (Won't ever be here. He shoves away the image-memory of his dad's eyes with way too much ease.) No, no, not the time to think about it. Focus!

Where was he? Oh, right, Exasperated Disappointment. Kurt doesn't have the power his dad did, he can just suck it.

Before they reach the door, Kurt looks to Peter and jerks his head to the corner of the warehouse. Without a word, Peter splits off to that corner and peers around it. He shakes his head at Kurt and positions himself facing the door. Derek is already doing the same thing on the other end.

Stiles is quietly impressed with the level of teamwork and practiced precision happening, but he’s unwilling to say so where a) hunters can hear them, and b) Kurt can hear. Or Laura. Or Peter. Any of them except Derek, essentially.

Deaton stays at Stiles's back as Kurt, Laura, and he keep heading towards the door. Stiles still doesn't hear anything, but at this point he's not surprised – whoever is speaking inside must really be making an effort to keep their words quiet. It's unnerving, actually, and the bad feeling in his stomach is just getting worse with each step he takes.

The feeling only gets worse when they swing open the door and see... nothing. No hunters spring out, guns brandished, shouting, "Aha, got you!" like some cheesy comic book villain or something. The sound of voices is now clear to Stiles's ear, as well, but it's still strangely muted, a susurration rather than actual words.

They step farther into the room and are immediately attracted to a giant display of television monitors on their left. It looks like a security guard's station or control room, and there are some very familiar faces on the screens.

"Oh, God, Mom." Laura sounds wrecked.

Derek doesn't look much better, the heartbreak practically painted all over his face.

The biggest one, the one surrounded by other ones, shows three hunters, their backs to the camera, surrounding Mrs. Hale. She’s chained up to an upright bedboard, just like Stiles was. She also looks awful.

Apparently unconscious, she is slumped in her chains, Her skin is, like, actually grey, with black veins spidering over every available inch Stiles can see. Her black hair falls over her face so it can't be seen, and for a brief moments Stiles wishes he could. Then he's glad he can't. For the worst part, the absolute worst part, is the large fist-sized black spot on the right side of her chest. From that spot, all the black veins spiral, and it’s way too close to her heart.

"You stink of guilt. Why."

Stiles looks over at Kurt, who's looking at Peter. Peter is staring at Mrs. Hale, dead (hah) white and unresponsive. "Peter?"

Nope. Nothing. Not even Derek goes up and touches him on the arm. Stiles, who doesn't care about Peter one way or the other, turns his attention back to the monitors. He notices now that there isn't just Mrs. Hale's monitor, but also a few on the side.

One contains a view of Caleb, apparently separated from Mrs. Hale. He looks better than Mrs. Hale does, if anything can be said to be "better," in that his skin isn't grey and he doesn't have a giant black spot in the middle of his chest, either. He's unconscious, too, and Stiles doesn't want to know how much wolfsbane sedative they've shot him up with to make him like that, even now.

On the other side of the monitor with Mrs. Hale, there's... an empty room?

Thmp.

Shit. Stiles freezes. Is it...?

Thmp.

“Scatter!" Kurt hisses.

Stiles doesn't protest, just darts towards the back where there's another entrance. The distillery is good for that, it has multiple entrances, which makes it the more baffling that an ambush was able to be sprung here, but at the moment, Stiles can't complain – it's affording him his own method of escape, and that's all he cares about right now.

He darts out the door and around the corner, down the path and around another corner. All the while, he's straining to listen for more footsteps, both behind and afore him, stretching out with his extra sense of malevolence to try to pick up anything before he runs into it, and running like he's worth nothing but all the speed he can conjure.

Which, as they've proven before, isn't much, and that's why he warms the lacrosse bench, but hey, he did score the winning goal once! At least he's not tripping over himself so much, probably because there aren't any tree roots to trip over or anything, but he probably could find some loose stones or concrete steps to tumble over if there were any, so he has to keep an eye out for them, anyway.

He finally fetches up against a random building to catch his breath. Jesus, but he's winded and out of shape. What he wouldn't give to be an actual werewolf, who seem to be in shape overnight as soon as they turn, practically. So unfair.

"Attention, attention: This is a PSA. In the distillery, you will have found the security videos for the captured members of the Hale pack. Each security camera points to a different room. If you can find all the members of your pack before we capture you, we will let you go for another day. But if we capture you, well, we will do what hunters do best. Have fun! This has been a PSA."

Jesus Christ. Stiles badly wants to kill Kate just for that alone, never mind what else she's perpetrated. Making fun of them like this? Just for her own sick enjoyment? She needed to have died yesterday.

But it does give him some idea of how this is supposed to play out. He tries to think back to some of the letters he'd seen in the cameras. What was it... 9C? That had been in the camera with Caleb. If he can get over there without being seen by the hunters and free him, maybe he can get him clear and not have to worry about him for the rest of it.

First, to find out where he is now. Circling slowly, keeping all of his senses alert, he just barely dodges back when someone's shadow looms up in front of him.

And that's how this whole clusterfuck happened.

Crunch, crnch, crnch.

Shit. Stiles dives behind the corner, flattening himself to the building. Knowing his luck, the hunter saw him duck around and is coming his way now. Try to keep going, or ambush the dude? Ambush with what?

He looks around frantically; ooh, an alleyway! With a bunch of crates stacked up high!

Darting towards them, he gets around the other end of the crates and crouches. God, if he gets out of this in even remotely one piece, he's going to do so much community service as thanks for the karma, he'll be smelling like homeless guys and soup kitchen for weeks.

Crunch. Crnch. Crnch.

Stiles isn't actually that far from the corner. If he leans around the stack of crates a little bit, he can actually see the dude's shadow, growing larger as he gets closer. (Or she, Stiles is a firm believer in equality. As long as this she-hunter isn't Kate.)

Shit! Crossbow! He ducks back behind the crates. God, his heart is hammering like a fucking drum against his ribs. He holds his hand over his mouth, hoping it'll quiet how loud his breathing is – but who knows. It's at least semi-dark in this niche alleyway; he hopes it actually hides him enough he can, like, get around this hunter, whoever it is.

Crnch. Crnch. Crnch.

And then the fucking asshole stops moving. No more crunching. Only measured breathing – dude's a mouthbreather – and the longest goddamn minute of Stiles's life. Even longer than the time he waited to see if the kanima was going to finish him off near his Jeep like Tony the mechanic, or if Matt fucking Daehler was going to shoot him in the sheriff's office.

(Not as long as the moment he realized his dad wasn't coming out of the nemeton. Or realizing Scott was dead, and Deucalion had killed him.)

Measured breath.

Squawk.

Stiles jumps so hard, he's sure, absolutely sure, he's dead. He's given himself away, oh, God, he's not going to soup kitchen his way through life for weeks after all.

"Go for Faulkner," a taut voice says. Stiles only vaguely recognizes it. Dude must not have been one of the ones that hung out in the torture room too often.

"How's your sector looking? See anyone or nab anything yet?"

"Might have seen one," Faulkner responds. "Damn things are so fast, though, could be anywhere now."

"Keep an eye out. Including behind you," the squawk box commands. "Especially keep alert for high positions. Not many of them here, but they're sneaky. Never know what they'll come up with. Over."

"You got that damn right," Faulkner snorts loudly. "I'll keep my eyes peeled. In the meantime, good hunting. Over and out.,"

"Good hunting. Out."

Stiles's leg is jiggling so hard, he's marginally surprised he's not caused an earthquake. Still his brain ticks over the new information: high places, check. Good for jumping down on people and knocking them down and out. Have to be fast though, and Stiles is a lot of things, but fast is not one of them. At least, he isn't yet, and he's not really willing to find out while in the middle of the most godawful game of cat-and-mouse ever? Hah, make that hunter-and-wolf, Jesus.

More measured breathing. Fuck, has the guy actually discovered Stiles's hiding place and is just waiting for him to come out? Jesus, this is so fucked up. Stiles doesn't even dare to think about reaching or looking around the crate to see what's up – because his impulse control problems will inevitably fuck it up for him.

Instead, he starts looking around as much as he can from where he is, instead of around the crate. The alleyway, as Stiles's luck would dictate, is a fucking dead end. But the dead end itself is at least a little farther down, and only extends halfway up between the walls of either warehouse.

It's cliche as fuck, especially as warehouses are supposed to be, like, places of moving shit around, so the more open space, the better, right? But apparently even warehouses need places to dump their unwanted shit, including crates and pallets and cigarette butts strewn all over the ground, yearghh.

Crnch. Crnch. Crnch.

Shit. Stiles freezes, he damn well freezes like Jackson caught him full of fucking kanima venom again. Shit, shit, shit, the hunter's coming closer, he could be coming clser, Stiles needs something, anything to defend with, fuck, he's dead, he's fucking dead, he's gonna have to face his dad and Scott without changing anything, oh God--

Crnch. Crnch. Crnch.

"Oh, Jesus." It's going away, not coming closer. "Fuck." his legs give out on him and he falls down hard on his butt on the cigarette-covered asphalt, Jesus Christ. (Not that he can blame his legs. Holy God.)

His heart is practically beating its way out of his chest, but not from panic this time. No, this time it's from an unutterable level of relief he's had cause to become very familiar with over the past year and a half.

"Right, okay." He shakes his head vigorously, slaps himself around a little. "Not done yet, dude. Still gotta... gotta find the Hales."

Wobbling upwards, his knees in no way happy to support him, Stiles peeks around the edge of the crate. From his restricted vantage point of corners, no one is there. Doesn't mean there isn't someone there – the dude from earlier – just lurking to lure him out. Unfortunately, Stiles is going to have to deal with that.

Edging slowly around the pile of pallets, Stiles keeps one eye out for more shadows; the other he keeps peeled for some sort of blunt instrument or glass or something he can use as a weapon to whack these guys over the head with, Jesus Christ.

He's back out in the open, wincing at the crunch, crunch, crunch of his own steps, strung taut like a fucking wire, when he sees it. Instantly, his brain flashes back to his dad's face, but his body is already heading towards it. It's no prized aluminum bat, but a rusted metal pipe will do the job just fine.

He hopes.

Armed and relatively more dangerous now, Stiles sets off. He has no idea what he's doing, aside from somehow find the Hales locked up, free them and get the hell out of Dodge. And take out a few old friends along the way, maybe. Brian and Josh, those fuckers for starters, the rest as he comes across them.

Strangely, as he goes, he falls into some sort of meditative trance or something? Like, he's aware of his surroundings and whatnot, but it's also like he's... on another level? The buildings, with their ugly paneled siding, stretch up and loom over him, and it's like he's a ghost, moving eerily through the maze of them, like he's not altogether there. Stiles would think it was his imagination, too many nights of Call of Duty and Metal Gear Solid.

Except. Except it’s like he almost has a map filling itself out in his brain. There’s, like, air currents here that brush over him, and he knows things from them. Twice, he stops and stretches himself against the wall, just because his brain is yelling at him to. Each time? The crunch of footsteps sounds, and he practically feels the pairs of hunters pass him by.

All without peeking his head around the corner.

Frea-ky.

It’s nothing he’s ever heard about from Scott, or the betas. But maybe it’s something they couldn’t describe, not this sort of preternatural awareness that keeps them half a step ahead of the hunters. Stiles wouldn’t be surprised to find out if this was the actual secret to being a werewolf, or at least the survival as one.

Stiles would spend more brain power on the phenomenon,

but an air current whooshes his way

motor oil and acrid wolfsbane drift over his nose

he slinks over

looks

There! Single hunter at the junction, his back to Stiles, turning to head away from him.

enemy

he doesn't think

just leaps

swings

“Aaagh!"

Thud.

He looks down for a moment, reliving the flash of the pipe across the hunter's shoulders – oh, shit, that was Stiles, he did that! And shit, he’s gotta hide it. The body. He’s gotta hide the body. He takes up the dude by the ankles, drags him down the junction to... yess, another dead end alleyway. No pallets here, but a big fucking bulldozer he can hide the unconscious dude behind.

(If only his dad could see his delinquent son now.)

Somehow he's back and collecting not only his pipe again but also the rifle the hunter dropped. He himself drops it almost immediately, as malevolence plumes out at him from both ends, barrel and loading. Shit, wolfsbane. Well, he's not using that. Still, he can't just leave it lying around, either, no telling who would come across it and wreak havoc.

Including himself.

The air shifts again. Golden eyes, bright smile, sympathetic commiseration.

Caleb.

But so weak, Stiles can barely feel him.

Reality distances again. Or becomes extra sharp. (That's the thing about anxiety, it fucks shit up and makes second-guessing the solidity of the fucking wall right in front of you a fun exercise.)

Only this isn't anxiety, it's... his brain parsing what's important in his surroundings faster than his conscious thought can keep up; it's almost like it's taken control, and Stiles is just along for the fucked-up Maximum Ride.

(Is this what it means to be feral? But Scott didn't remember anything, and neither did Stiles the last time, except for very tiny bits and pieces. So what is this? Some kind of weird possession stint? The spirit of Scott inhabiting his body and joyriding it where it needs to go? God, that's fucked up, Scott. Get the hell out of his body!)

Weaving in and out of so many buildings, God, he ends up at a smaller warehouse, this with the number 9C emblazoned across its face, along with old and faded signs: B NS N & S N SH ES. Automatically, his mental harddrive conjures up “Benson & Sons Shoes,” the second-largest shoemaker in Beacon Hills before the Navy hospital closed down and all the economy moved to more lucrative real estate. God, he hates how his brain does that, focuses on completely the wrong shit when, hello! Hunters.

He pushes aside the voice babbling about how Alec Benson disappeared as a little boy of nine, like, twenty years ago, and his old man Benson was never the same since – goddamnit. Hunters. Plural. Two of them. Maybe more. And Caleb's weak spark signal within.

Total trap of course.

Swoosh.

Stiles is running again, swinging his pipe. Blue eyes, cautious hope, caterpillar eyebrows is a fucking idiot, but he's a fucking idiot with a Veterinarian. Druid. Emissary. close on his heels.

One glance is all Stiles needs. In perfect synchronicity, the two of them jump out and onto the hunter pair, one for each. Derek's is out before he can blink; Stiles's gets off a yell, is able to raise his crossbow – oops, there goes that crossbow. And that dude.

Stiles glances over at Derek again, sees his wide-eyed glance and the sheer exhilaration underneath, and offers his own toothy grin.

The strength of the wolf is the pack. No freaking shit.

Without prompting, Derek stands aside for Stiles to precede him into the factory. Deaton brings up the rear, although he stands forward to help Derek and Stiles move the hunters' unconscious bodies from in front of the factory door. Stiles gives his hunter an extra kick just for good measure.

Inside the shoe factory, it is crowded. Jesus, is this a shoe factory or sweatshop? Plus it's all broken down from years of neglect and people have dumped their unwanted crap here for years.

Stiles coughs as dust flies up his nose and tries to choke him. It's also dark as fuck in here, with various beams of daylight breaking through rotted portions of the factory. Occasionally they'll even see where a large portion of dust has been stirred up recently; Stiles points out one such for Derek and Deaton.

"Think we could use it to follow their tracks?" he asks.

Derek is uncertain. "Maybe?" he hazards a guess. "I'm not really used to hunting for hunters. We're supposed to hide from them, not to go and find them."

"Haven't heard you voicing a lot of that opinion over the last week," Stiles points out. “Doc, what do you think?"

"The footprints seem to go in both directions," Deaton says promptly, as if he was waiting for Stiles to ask. "So we don't know which way we will need to follow to get to Caleb."

"Shi – shoot, you're right," Stiles sighs. "Oh, well, guess we'll just press on."

"We should hurry," Derek urges. "Caleb… his spark isn't doing too well."

He glances at Stiles, who can only nod. It isn't doing well; in fact, it's flickering like the power during a bad storm. He has no idea what could be causing that. Is Caleb dying and coming back to life repeatedly, like some DC villain? He has no clue.

The factory-sweatshop combination seems to be split into two parts: the long, big room where the laborers cobbled together the shoes (hah, cobbled, cobblers, shoes, get it? ...Shut up, Stiles knows he's funny, okay?), and then the back offices, where Benson and Sons presumably ran the place.

Illuminated by a hunk of daylight, Caleb is stretched out like the Vitruvian Werewolf, right in the intersection between the two.

"Wait," Stiles puts out an arm to stall Derek's rush forward. "Ow, dude, what do you do, lift horses or something?" He glares as he rubs his smarting arm.

"No, trees," Derek snarks. "No, but seriously, Stiles, look at him! We have to get him down."

"Have we encountered any hunters since we came in here? You watch, we’ll get ambushed by them any minute now. Probably as soon as we try to reach him.”

Derek makes a face, but doesn’t disagree with Stiles, which is the important part.

Now that Derek isn’t going to fuck them all up by rushing forward, Stiles takes a closer look at Caleb.

After hours spent in the hospital and the vet clinic, Stiles is intimately familiar with the signs of sedation and trying to wake up from it. As he watches Caleb nod forward, jerk up again, nod, jerk, nod, jerk, he tracks the flicker of Caleb's spark. With each jerk, the spark flickers on again, with each nod it flickers off.

Tick, tick, tick, clack. Stiles can feel his brain putting the pieces together. He can't believe he didn't fucking put it together before, “Jesus, it was staring me right in the face this whole time!”

"What was?" Derek asks.

But Stiles is already moving, air currents rushing around. He shoves Derek behind him—

KLATCH

He's getting really tired of being on the business end of a crossbow.

Worst part? On the other end is—

"Nail Biter."

He doesn't recognize his own voice: it comes out in a deep growl unlike anything that's come out of him before. Hate floods into him, as he stares down at the most pathetic waste of flesh ever, almost as bad as Gerard. Hell, in some cases, worse.

Jacob Argent stares back at him with wide eyes. The crossbow rattles slightly; Stiles realizes that Jacob's hands are shaking enough for the bolt to rattle in its place. The shaking spreads to the rest of Jacob's body, until he's shaking like a leaf from head to toe.

Jesus, he's pathetic.

Dude's an Argent, he shouldn't be shaking at the sight of a teenage Alpha, especially not a teenage Alpha he stood by and let be tortured because he didn't have the balls to do it himself.

Stiles's teeth draw back from his teeth in the bare mimicry of a smile. "How you doing, Nail Biter? Or wait, your name's Jacob, right? Jacob Argent? Big name for a dude who couldn't stomach torturing me. Or letting me go so I wouldn't have to be tortured at all. But no, I get it, peer pressure and all that. Can't make yourself look weak."

Stiles leans in, keeping himself away from the crossbow bolt knocking about in its nock. "Newsflash, dude: They already know you're weak."

In a flash, Stiles's fist goes flying. He's never had anything in the way of self-defense or gun lessons or anything like that, but for this, with all of his rage behind it, he doesn't need them. FWACK. Nail Biter goes down like a lead balloon, the crossbow and bolt parting ways with his hands as they all three thud to the floor tmp. tmp. tmp.

“Stiles!" Derek gasps.

Stiles stands over Jacob, breathing hard.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!" Jacob wails. "I just – you're people, I can't do it, I can't hunt you like everyone else in my family does!"

"Oh, good for you," Stiles sneers. "You want a gold star? A hug from your Mommy for not being a complete psycho? Then do something about it! Don't just stand by twiddling your thumbs up your ass, actually try to stop the torture! Or better yet, get out of the way. Go tell your sob story to someone who cares."

Stiles pulls back again, lets fly. Jacob grunts as Stiles's fist lands an awkward punch at the top of his abdomen. He's got his arms covering his head, but otherwise, he's not moving to try to protect himself. Paradoxically, that just serves to make Stiles angrier.

"Why," punch, "aren't," punch, "you," punch, "stronger?" punch. Hands claw at his arms, trying to get him away, but he shrugs them off. He draws his fist back again—

CLICK.

Stiles freezes. Derek does the same.

"Get up off of him," a familiar voice says. "Now."

Stiles lifts his hands and gets off, with some effort, of Nail Biter. He sees Derek out of the corner of his eye with his own hands high in the air. When he turns around, it's to the sight of a Latina woman; she reminds him a little of a taller Betty Suarez, sans braces.

Waaait, he remembers her. She was one of the hunters who would peek in on his torture-interrogation sessions occasionally, but then turn around and head right back out. He doesn't really have any feelings about her one way or the other. What was her name? Vai, Vaz, V- something or other.

"Back away from him." Oh, right, she has a gun in her hand, pointing right at him. Right, he should probably pay attention to that.

CRACKLE.

Oh, fuck. It's the PA system again.

"Guess what, everybody? We have one of you! Big guy, older, kind of surly? He definitely put up a bit of a fight, but was just not a match for three of my guys with stun batons. Too bad, and to think he was covering for the escape of another of his pack, too. How sweet.”

God, Kate is such a bitch. When she's dead, he is going to take such pleasure in not having to hear her voice ever again, holy Jesus.

"What he doesn't know is that the pack member he covered for? Cute, with long hair, lovely eyes, and cleft chin? Well, he's the one who let his Alpha get captured in the first place. That's right, you heard me. While we were tagging you in the woods and got Talia Hale," her sneer is audible even distorted over the PA, "he had a moment where he could have jumped us and freed her.

“But you know what he did? He turned his back and ran away instead. Just like he did to Big and Surly here. Seems to be a thing with him, oh dear. Maybe you should rethink your choice of pack members, hmm?"

Derek.

That's the only thought in Stiles's head. He turns, slowly, to find Derek pale, like he's seen a ghost, his rainbow eyes wide, and dude, is he even breathing right now?

"Derek," Stiles says softly. "Dude, blink or something, anything to let me know you're with me right now. You're scaring me here."

Nothing.

This close, Stiles can see that Derek is breathing, but only barely. He looks like he's been told it's the end of the world, which, duh, of course it is, for him. Not so much to Stiles. He's always thought Peter was a suspicious little shit – there had to be something wrong with the dude for him to recover from a fire by murdering his niece, instead of, you know, asking.

But then he remembers how Peter looked, staring at Mrs. Hale through the video monitor back in the distillery. How Kurt had said Peter stank of guilt.

A lot like Derek now, actually, but he doesn't radiate guilt so much as pure misery.

"Hey, hey, hey! I still have you at gunpoint here!" the hunter barks.

Shit.

"Move," the hunter (he thinks her name might be Vada, but he can't really be sure, what with the whole fuzziness of memory because he was tortured thing) orders. She jerks her gun for both Stiles and Derek to move.

Stiles hesitates, looks over his shoulder at Caleb. Caleb is still jerking, trying to get out of the sedation, his eyes wide and he looks back. Stiles tries to communicate with his face that he'll come back as soon as he can, but he doesn't seem to be versed in Stiles Expressions-ese, as he keeps fighting.

"Calaveras to HQ," the hunter says behind him. "I've got two more. The bait with the Beta worked."

Goddamnit, he knew that this was a trap. He tries to catch Derek's eye again, but Derek is still in shock and doesn't even seem to really know that he's moving, much less where he's going. Shit, shit, shit, shit, this situation is going from bad to worse, and quickly.

”HQ to Calaveras," the radio screeches. “Good work. Keep them there and wait for extraction."

"Understood. Calaveras out." The hunter – Calaveras – turns off the radio. "Don't try any funny business. Between the two of us, we've got more than enough to take you down."

Stiles starts. "Two?" he looks around to see that Nail Biter, the idiot, is picking himself off the floor. "Oh, that dude. Yeah, I wouldn't count on him."

Calaveras snorts. "I wouldn't either, but nepotism is alive and well. Now. Into the corner. No funny business."

Okay, okay, okay. This isn't so bad. He can do some stalling for time while he tries to figure out what to do in this situation. Somehow he has to get past Calaveras with the gun, knock her out, and then get past the backup to get Caleb and Derek both out of there. It'd be easier if Derek weren't in shock – is he still in shock? Oh, he is totally still in shock – but he's not int he time or place to be able to, well, shock him out of it.

Stiles turns away from the building concern over Derek's still glassy expression and makes himself take a deep breath. Okay, he'll set that aside to work on later. Right now. Hunter with gun. Second hunter (really? is Nail Biter really a hunter?) who's picking up his crossbow. And—

Veterinarian. Druid. Emissary.

—a very sneaky Deaton who is behind Stiles and in Caleb's area. Dude, how had Deaton managed to sneak up and out of Stiles's senses, much less dodge the hunters? No, no, no questioning that right now. Gift horse, mouth, not doing that. He's gotta stall.

Fortunately, Stiles is the master of stalling.

"So, Calaveras. That's a... cool last name. Way better than Argent in points of coolness."

Oh, holy God. He'd bury his head in his hands if he didn't need to keep them up.

Even Derek is looking at him like he's lost his head, or grown a second one. Yeah, he really doesn't need a lecture on how stupid this was, okay?

"I see your funny business and raise you a gun," Calaveras says. All traces of humor have disappeared from her face.

"Right, right," Stiles backpedals hastily. Verbally, that is, not physically. He doesn't think it's a good idea to move, especially since he's pinned in the corner and waiting for backup. "I just, uh, am wondering how Nail Biter over there even got to be an Argent. Seems kind of pathetic, isn't he? Definitely the weakest link."

"Shut your mouth," Calaveras orders.

"Shutting up," Stiles says. "Or, I would be, if it weren't categorically impossible for me to keep my mouth shut. ADHD, you know? Even if I shut my mouth, at some point I'm going to open it again and insert foot, so what's the point, am I right? Impulse control is, like, the bane of my existence, you have no idea."

"Val said to shut up," Nail Biter says. (Val! That’s her name, Val!)

Stiles looks over. Oh, shit, that is not a pretty face. And he's not talking about the puffiness of Nail Biter’s eyes or the spectacular black and blue bruises already beginning to rise on his face. Stiles lets himself have a moment of pride for being able to do that much injury – without a pipe! - before he takes in Nail Biter's angry, embarrassed, defeated expression.

Well, shit. Stiles is very familiar with that expression. It's the same one he himself has worn many times after Jackson's bullying and more memorably, Gerard's gentle treatment in the basement.

He didn't have a mirror for this stay at Chez Argent, Kate presiding as majordomo, nor did he really want one. He bets his expression wouldn't have been the same, anyway. (He's glad he doesn't know what he looked like.)

Back to the point. Apparently, Nail Biter has been on the edge for a long time, and he just got pushed over it. By none other than yours truly. Fuck.

***

Despite seeing it coming, Stiles is still frozen when Nail Biter casts aside his crossbow and draws a gun instead. Cocks it.

"Whoa, whoa, dude, whoa!" Stiles flails his arms about. "There's no need for that!"

"I AM NOT THE WEAKEST LINK!" Nail Biter screams. "I'M NOT!"

"No, dude, you're totally not. I totally didn't mean it, I was upset, okay? Encountering you was a total surprise, I should have held my temper, you're right, you're so right, I messed up, I shouldn't have said that--"

"SHUT UP!"

"Shutting up, shutting up." Stiles mimes zipping his lips and throwing the key over his shoulder.

Nail Biter's pulse is jumping, and sweat is beading on his upper lip. His eyes are crazed, totally fucked up, which is why Stiles puts more effort into shutting up. He's learned his lesson from Gerard Crazypants Argent, thanks, he doesn't want to get beaten up again. Nor can he afford to.

Nail Biter, against all odds, seems to be calming down, now that Stiles isn't riling him up. "I'm not the weakest link," he repeats. His eyes are fixed on Stiles's. "I'm not."

"Totally aren't, dude," Stiles says. Fuck. "Shutting up."

If this were any other type of situation, the confusion on Nail Biter's face would be comical. If Stiles were to venture a guess, he'd say that Nail Biter has never run into a situation where his holding the gun has actually given him the upper hand. But even crazies get their fifteen minutes of fame in the spotlight, though that's not really what the crazies should aim for. It's the aftermath that's fucked up and what they really should be thinking about.

Flash: Electric blue eyes, sharpening jawline, shock worry anger outrage HOW DARE HE

Case in point.

"Go!" Stiles yells.

He throws himself to the side, in as graceful a somersault as he can manage. Derek launches, a blur.

BANG!

A flash of light.

"Oof!"

Ting of a bullet impacting.

Growl.

"Ugh!"

All of this before Stiles lifts his head. "Derek!"

***

Derek looks up, neon blue-eyed, from Nail Biter. He'd smashed Nail Biter's head into the floor; now he abandons Nail Biter and scurries over to the Stiles. Or tries.

BANG.

Derek yelps and falls to the floor.

"Derek!" Stiles scrambles upwards. Looks around. Spots Val.

Val, who has moved the barrel of her gun from Derek to Stiles.

"Shit." Stiles gets his hands back up in the air.

Val says nothing for a few moments, her eyes narrowed, searching. Then she nods. "That's right, stay there. I did warn you, no funny business."

"Yep, you totally did, no funny business, except Nail Biter started it first, it totally wasn't our fault—"

"If I have to tell you to shut up one more time...."

"Shutting up." Stiles stuffs one of his hands into his mouth, bites on a finger. The pain isn't really centering, more distracting, which he needs right now.

Val gives him an epic skeptical look for that, but doesn't say anything more. Just looks over at Derek, who has lost his blue-eyed ferocity and is currently whimpering in pain, and at Nail Biter, who isn't moving.

"Neither of you move. Especially not you," she says to Stiles. Stiles holds up the hand he isn't biting a little higher, in silent agreement. Val again is skeptical, but moves over to Nail Biter, carefully skirting around Derek's side and his back. Derek is apparently too preoccupied with his pain to notice, but Stiles tenses, keeping an eye on Derek's back for him.

Carefully, as if she does this all the time, Val maintains the steadiness on her gun while she bends to check Nail Biter's pulse. In the split second that she's searching for the right place to put her fingers, Stiles switches over to check Derek over.

Derek's face is white, and he's got his hand clamped over his thigh. Stiles doesn't need to guess why, but he extends the spark in his chest over towards Derek anyway. Yup: malevolence is wafting from Derek's thigh like smoke and taint. Wolfsbane. Shit.

Val straightens; Stiles's attention snaps back to her. Her expression isn't pleased, but as she steps away from Nail Biter, she doesn't seem spitting mad, either. Stiles takes that as confirmation that Nail Biter isn't dead (more's the pity, he thinks, then feels bad, then feels bad about feeling bad). Okay, okay, so the situation isn't totally unsalvageable.

What can he do, though? How does he get himself and Derek out of this? Val had called in for backup, meaning that more hunters were going to arrive on the scene soonish. He had to get Derek, at least, out of here before they arrived. But how to take down Val? She isn’t on the brink like Nail Biter, and they don’t have anybody to sneak up behind her and knock her out.

Stiles could try for a full-frontal assault, but let's face it, he's ungraceful on a good day. And he's nowhere near as fast as a werewolf. Derek was probably out for the count, considering the wolfsbane bullet in his leg, and if Deaton is smart, he's booked it out of the factory with Caleb already.

(He really hopes Deaton is as smart as he's always making himself out to be with his cryptic comments and mystical voodoo and Druid sayings about balance and whatever.)

Once again, it's on Stiles to get them out of this situation... and he's drawing a blank.

Derek gives a "Gah" and a hiss of pain as he moves the wrong way. Val's eyes flicker to Derek, same as Stiles's, but maintains her grip.

(Now why couldn't Val have been the one to lounge around and be witness to Stiles's humiliation? She's made of sturdy stuff, isn’t such a pathetic mirror of Stiles himself. Why couldn't she have been the one in the corner watching Stiles be tortured? He would have vastly preferred her to be witness than Nail Biter's bullshit.

Wait, why is he even complaining? Nail Biter, Val, Crossbow Guy, Kate, they shouldn't have been torturing him at all, why would he want anybody to be witness in the first place?

Still, Val's cool competence, especially spotlit next to Nail Biter's, makes Stiles wish, and dude, this is his brain's way of distracting himself from the panic. Nice try, brain, at least you tried? Maybe? Silver star for you.)

Okay, okay, he's gotta focus here. As much as he ever can, that is. What's here in the front part of the shoe factory he can use? Heavy machinery, that's going to help, he can't lift that and Derek's not necessarily going to be fast enough to throw it in time. The cobbling tools? Maybe, but again, speed, and dexterity, hand-eye coordination, aim? he doesn't know them; more properly Derek's skill set again.

But Derek is already injured, and pale, and wan. Sweat has started to bead on his forehead, and shit, that's not good. Even though the bullet's in the leg, it's still wolfsbane, which means that Derek will have more of a suffering period ahead of him before the poison reaches his heart.

Also gives Stiles more time to cure his poisoning, but right now, time to do anything is in short supply, with Val's backup coming....

Fuck it, he's just going to have to do it.

He looks around again. Tries to make it as ADHD normal as possible - his leg jiggling totally helps sell the picture.

Val just looks at him with distant amusement, as if his being all over the place is nothing but entertainment. Stiles would be offended, except a) he's not really trying to jiggle his leg on purpose, and b) getting shot himself would make for a sucky addition to this werewolfy rescue escapade.

So, while he's glad he's not getting shot, it also kind of throws him off a little, as Val's reaction is not really the one he is expecting. Or more importantly, the one he needs, either, more importantly. He needs her riled up enough to move around, so he can get something into play.

Anyway, right, he was trying to figure out what that something is. He goes back to the heavy machinery, looking a bit more closely. A couple are on tables, too heavy to lift, and others are bolted to the floor. But there's one, some sort of a hanging metal contraption, that could maybe be of use....

"Hey. Hey, lady. Can I go and check on Derek? Please? No funny business, I know, I just want to check on him. Please? Come on, I won’t even be able to do anything, no wolfsbane to cure him, all right? Seriously, I just need a couple of seconds, then I’ll come right back here. See?"

Stiles holds up his hands, showing he’s got nothing in them. He’s about to get up and inch his way over to Derek, when Val snorts and shakes her head at him.

“Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Stiles freezes.

“That’s right, I didn’t think so. Stay right where you are. I can see the ideas going through your head, it’s all in your eyes.”

Shit. Okay, okay. He can recover from this.

(He hates it when the villains are smart. Why does he always have to deal with the smart villains?)

But no, he really is worried about Derek. Dude’s looking worse by the second.

Stiles is going to have to act fast. The fastest he’s ever acted in his life. God, what he wouldn’t do for werewolf speed right now. Theoretically, he should have it now, after the whole thing in The White Room, but he just doesn’t feel any different.

He wishes he had more time to figure out what he does and doesn’t have. But no, he can’t think of that right now – he doesn’t have the time to cry over spilled milk. The only way through is to go right in and hope to come out smelling like roses on the other side.

“May the Force be with me,” he mutters to himself. Then he screws his eyes shut, tries to remember how he spread that thimbleful of mountain ash from a long time ago, and believes.

He believes he’ll make it over to the piece of heavy machinery in time, without catching a bullet from Val’s gun. He believes he will have the strength to push the thing. He believes the machine will go where he wants it to go, will do what he wants it to do.

BANG! THUD! CLANG! Thud.

“Sti – Stiles!”

Stiles’s eyes fly open.

He’s not on the floor anymore. Isn’t anywhere near his original position. Neither is the machine – it’s on the far side of the factory, still rolling to a stop along its zipline hanging in the air.

Val, in the machine’s wake, is down on the floor, blood leaking, gushing really, from a head wound.

“Holy crap!” Stiles bursts out. “Did that really just happen?”

“Hey…! Little… help?”

“Shit.”

Derek somehow looks worse than the last time, five seconds or thirty seconds or however long that took. Are the hunters using a particularly potent strain of wolfsbane or something?

“How am I supposed to know? There, her gun’s over there.”

Stiles looks at Derek in concern as he scrabbles for Val’s gun where it fell. Dude is wheezing now, and bruises are already appearing under his eyes. Not Good. Mondo not good, as Laura would “ironically” say.

Luckily, Val’s gun still has some bullets left. Unluckily? She doesn’t have a lighter.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit.” Stiles goes through every pocket, even the ones on the chest (apologizing profusely) of Val’s leather jacket. Nothing. Same deal with her jeans, and, man, ladies’ pockets are tiny, how do they put anything in those? Wait, no, not the point – lighter. Lighter is the point.

“Check the other hunter,” Derek suggests.

“Yes! You’re a genius!” Stiles runs over to Nail Biter. Nail Biter is still out, thankfully, enough he doesn’t stir while Stiles frisks him, with less care and one hundred percent fewer apologies. “Derek, you are a fucking genius,” as he snatches up a Zippo lighter with a stylized “A” emblazoned on it. “Remind me to kiss you later.”

Derek chokes. Stiles gives him an abstracted look, “Dude, are you choking? Do you need the Heimlich?”

“No! No, I don’t – just focus on the wolfsbane,” Derek squeaks. He feels distinctly embarrassed now, which Stiles would stop to interrogate him about, if Derek didn’t groan and hunch over his leg in the next moment.

Right. Shit. Stiles grabs the bullets from Nail Biter’s gun, too – ignoring the malevolence burning his fingers, same as Val’s – and rushes back over.

“This is going to hurt, dude, but you can’t howl. You can’t, okay? You’ve gotta draw on all your powers of Broody Stoicism you’ve got,” Stiles rambles as he makes short work of the bullet.

The wolfsbane that pours out is nasty, but not different from the last time he saw it in a bullet. And huh, this will be the second time he’s saved Derek from wolfsbane poisoning. Well, a different, younger Derek, but still, two for two on wolfsbane. He’d like that to stop being a trend, though. Not the saving each other’s asses thing!

(Speaking of which, Derek totally saved his ass with Nail Biter earlier. New tally, younger Derek: one, Stiles: two and counting. The thing where he rescued Derek from Kate on their first meeting totally counts.)

But the saving Derek from wolfsbane thing, that can die a fiery death – totally inappropriate pun, ouch, intended – thanks.

He turns to Derek, who’s clumsily pawing at the hole in his jeans. “Hold it on one side, I’ll rip it on the other.”

The sharp breath that escapes Stiles is… pretty much the only reaction he can muster. To put it lightly, Derek’s leg is fucked: Blood is seeping out of the bullet hole and soaking Derek’s jeans, making it harder to tear. When Stiles wipes the blood away, the flesh underneath is torn and ragged, completely unlike the neat bullet holes they show on television. Stiles thinks he can see tendons, and oh, God, he’s going to be sick.

That’s not the worst part. The worst part? Black has already radiated out into the veins from the wound, ugly and frothing. Said veins are also raised, standing out horribly from the skin as the wolfsbane pumps through, and fuck, this is so fucked.

It was nowhere near this bad the last time, Stiles swears. (Or maybe it was. It’s possible; honestly, Stiles has blocked most of Scott’s early werewolflihood out as a blur.)

He tries to get the lighter lit so he can burn the wolfsbane, but—

“Shit,” he curses as his hands shake. “Fuck!” as he drops the wolfsbane bullet all over the floor. “Goddamnit, now is not the time, Stiles, get your shit together!”

“Stop.” Out of nowhere, Derek grabs Stiles’s hand. “Stop, you have to stop.”

“What, no, we have to burn this out of you right now,” Stiles splutters.

“No, we don’t have time. I hear them, they’re coming.”

For a split-second, Stiles and Derek’s eyes meet. In an eerie reminder of Before, Derek’s eyes are filled with that familiar desperation and resigned understanding that Older Derek had practically been made up of.

The sight jars him, and before he knows it, Stiles is going, “No. No no no, whatever you’re thinking, no. We are not doing it. You are not dispensable, Derek.”

“It’ll take too long to cure me,” Derek points out, still unbearably sad. “Right now, you still have the chance to get away.”

“How are you so— Uuuugh!” Stiles just has to tear at his hair, there’s no other action he can take to express his sheer and utter rage at Derek’s martyrdom. Is this when he learned it? Or has Derek always been like this?

“Dude. Listen to me. You. Are. Not. Dispensable. There’s no way I’m going to leave you behind to get captured by hunters, okay? Especially when you’re bleeding out from wolfsbane poisoning.”

Derek’s mask cracks, showing real fear underneath. “Then what do you want to do? Quick, they’re coming!”

“Okay, okay,” Stiles shakes himself all over. “Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to take the guns from these two,” he indicates Nail Biter and Val, both still out cold, “and get to the back of the building. We’ll find someplace to hole up and get you cured, and then, well, then, we’ll go from there. Play it by ear.”

Derek doesn’t look very optimistic, but Stiles doesn’t let that get to him. Instead, he grabs Derek by the arm and yanks him to his feet.

“Aghhh,” Derek groans.

“Sorry, dude, I’m sorry,” Stiles winces. “But seriously, keep it down.”

Derek doesn’t so much nod as he lolls his head against Stiles’s shoulder. Grimacing at how awful Derek looks, pale, sweaty, and just overall in bad shape, Stiles starts hurrying.

Carrying a hundred twenty pounds of werewolf is not a small thing, but honestly? After carrying Older Derek around so much, this is easy peasy. That’s not to say that it’s a total peach, but Stiles thinks that he makes pretty good progress across the shoe factory. They reach the intersection where Caleb was, for lack of a better phrase, strung up. He’s gone now, but Stiles gets a

Flash: Veterinarian. Druid. Emissary. Gold eyes, wide smile, friendliness.

of both headed off in one direction off to the side, so Stiles doesn’t worry too much about that. Instead, he turns and hobbles in the other direction, towards the office that Caleb’s bedbox setup sits in front of.

“Here,” Stiles whispers. “We’ll put you in here. I don’t know if you’ve ever cured wolfsbane poisoning before—”

“I know what to do,” Derek says, pale. “Mom taught us how. On Peter.”

He attempts what Stiles thinks is supposed to be a smile. It’s more like a ghastly macabre imitation of a death mask, much as Stiles would prefer not to think about that right now, but the unfortunate comparison is there, nevertheless. Stiles has serious doubts about Derek’s ability to do anything, but the dude’s right – Stiles can hear footsteps outside, puttering around the backside of the shoe factory.

They’re out of time.

If Stiles is going to be able to do anything, it’s going to have to be now.

Once again, his and Derek’s eyes meet. This time, there’s no refuting the helplessness he sees; he feels it himself. But Stiles has never met a situation where he’s given up trying to use it to his advantage, and this? Is not one of them.

Goddamnit, he’s going to make sure it isn’t.

Derek already knows Stiles way too well. "No, Stiles, you can't—" He's shaking his head wildly.

"I have to. You’re hurt, and the hunters are closing in. Curing wolfsbane isn’t just get up and walk it off, it takes a second. You’ll scream. With them so close, they’ll find you in a flat minute. I can’t let that happen to you.”

Derek is radiating misery and worry again, but Stiles affects a brave face for him. “Just think of this as – as hiding in the nemeton until the hunters blow over,” he says. “Only not as long. Then you find Laura and Peter—”

Derek stiffens.

“I know. But you gotta stay on task, dude. Deal with your feels about Peter later." It hurts to basically order Derek to shunt aside his pain (oh, the irony), but their survival is at stake here, he has to do it. Both the ordering and the shunting.

"So that's what you're gonna do. You're gonna wait a couple minutes, then finish up here. I probably won’t draw all of them off, they know there’s two of us. Escape whoever’s left, find the others, and team up with them. Okay? You absolutely cannot fuck this up. You have to find them."

“But Stiles—”

“Don't make me order you, dude. Because I will.”

"I thought you weren’t leaving me behind to get captured by hunters."

Fuck. Sucker punch, hello, right in the feels. Stiles stares, but Derek is defiant. He doesn’t back down, though he does start to fidget as Stiles keeps staring.

Fuck it. Stiles brings out the warmth from his core, casts it in Derek's direction. Derek pales immediately, but, damn his stubbornness, tries to fight it. What is it with Stiles and his magnet for Stubborn Idiots? He bears down again; Derek cracks with a whimper.

"Stay here. Hide. Wait for the coast to be clear," Stiles presses ruthlessly. "Find Laura. Get Kurt free if possible. Find your mom. And then," he breathes, "find me."

Derek's eyes widen.

"Don't let me stay with the hunters," Stiles half-commands, half-begs. "Just don't.”

"Stiles—"

Stiles pushes up and turns away, resolute. He hears Derek hiss in pain behind him, but spares only a glance over his shoulder. Bad move: Derek’s heterochromatic eyes are wide and heartbroken, watching him go like…. Like he thinks he’ll never see Stiles again.

Unfortunately, there’s a fair chance he won’t.

Gritting his teeth, Stiles keeps walking. Makes himself focus on what’s ahead.

It’s not like he plans on making his inevitable recapture easy. Not only has he got to make enough time for Derek to escape, but also for him to catch up with Laura and Peter and whoever else is left. In order to do that, Stiles is going to have to pull every trick he has in his getting-into-trouble book.

Everything he’s ever learned from causing mayhem as the son of the Sheriff of Beacon County is about to come in handy in unexpected ways – and honestly, he can’t think of nicer people for Hurricane Stiles to happen to.

It’s not going to be a walk in the park, but Stiles is on a mission, and by God, he’s going to see it through.

No matter what it takes.

Chapter Text

Stiles wakes up in a slow, fuzzy haze. It takes him... way too long to figure out that he’s awake, first, and then to think about why being awake is something that matters. He’s awake, therefore he needs to... do something.

But what?

He floats there for another second, minute, two. God, he hurts. His arms hurt, his shoulders hurt, the area where his arms meet his torso hurts... his back, his neck, hell, even his legs hurt. There’s a pounding headache threatening to form, his throat is dry as the fucking Sahara, and on top of everything else, nausea roils his stomach.

It’s real fun in Stiles land right now.

Seriously, can he just go back to sleep? Whatever it is he’s come down with, sleep can only help his recovery, right? Right?

...Nope. His brain is grinding awake now. Goddamnit all. Fucking ADHD, why can’t it just let him sleep?

But no, his brain is screaming at him. He has to be awake, there’s something he needs to... needs to....

“Awake, are you?”

Stiles groans. Can he ever get a break from this bitch? Even just five minutes? Five minutes, that’s all he’s asking for. Five minutes without having to listen to Kate Argent’s voice. Is that too much?

“What, nothing to say? That’s a shocker.” Kate sounds... off. Not amused. Even annoyed.

Stiles’s mouth answers for him, even as his brain takes that moment to analyze. "Yeah, well, I wasn’t aware I was keeping you waiting. So sorry.”

“There’s that mouth.” Oh, yeah, Kate definitely doesn’t sound amused. What’s with her? Stiles realizes that he hasn’t even opened his eyes this whole time. Jesus, that’s not worrying.

Gritting his teeth, Stiles drags his eyelids open. And immediately regrets it.

“Ow. Ow, ow, ow,” he says dully. Burning, his eyes are burning. “Someone shut off the lights.”

“Negative,” Kate says shortly. “We’re not here to pander to your needs.”

He drags his eyelids open again. The lights burrrrn, ow, owwwww, ow, ow, ow, but… he has to see. What’s got up Kate’s ass and lit it on fire? Anything that’s making her like this has to be good, maybe he can use it.

“What’s crawled up your ass?” Yup, brain-to-mouth filter: still missing. Right now, Stiles can’t really care, as Kate’s face swims into view. Aaaaand he was wrong. Kate isn’t annoyed – she is downright pissed. Killer glare, nostrils flaring, hard set of her jaw – yup, pissed.

“You shut up,” Kate snarls. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused me? I should shoot you right here and now, put you out of my misery.”

“What’s stopping you?” Holy. God. Mouth, what are you doing? Now would be a great time to shut up. Not because Kate told him to, but because he wants to live. Long enough to see his goals through. You know, the goal of seeing Kate dead and all? That goal? It’s never going to happen if—

POW.

Pain bursts across Stiles’s jaw and cheekbone like a shot of white lightning. He slams into the side of something hard and unforgiving, his head knocking painfully off of that on impact. Oh, theeeeere’s the pounding headache.

“Jesus fuck,” Stiles breathes.

“That’s my line.” Kate grabs him by the head (not the hair, thankfully, hair’s too short for that) and wrenches it around to face her. Her eyes blaze as they bore into his.

“I should have dealt with you from the beginning when we got you,” she snarls. “I should have known when things didn’t add up that you were going to be trouble. Actually, I should have known when you knew who I was. Remember when you and your cute little packmate showed up? If I had gotten you then….”

Stiles manages a smirk. “Yeah, that would have gone better for you,” he says. “Didn’t have Derek as a packmate back then. Too bad. You snooze, you lose.”

POW.

“Urgh.” Stiles rocks back in his manacles as Kate sucker punches him in the gut. She grabs his head again against his natural inclination to double up. “You are pissing me off. Open your mouth again and I’ll have Brian here introduce you to the finer touch of the baton. Just like old times, huh?”

Stiles winces as she yanks his head sideways, to his left. Sure enough, there’s Brian, his face set in ugly contortions. In his hand, he cradles an electric baton; Stiles hears the rmmmm it emits.

Kate jerks his head back. “So if you don’t want to be electrocuted to hell and back, you will keep your mouth shut. I only need you alive for a few more minutes, but they can be uncomfortable for you, or they can be hell on earth.”

Jesus. Swallowing dryly, Stiles nods. Brian swings the electric baton threateningly at him, rmm, rmm as it slides through the air. Stiles flinches away, blinking wildly.

“Watch what you do with that,” Kate barks. “I don’t want to get hit because you weren’t looking where you were swinging it.”

Brian looks at where he had almost hit Kate with his baton and subsides. He still has the gall to shoot a smirk at Stiles over Kate’s shoulder, though.

Meanwhile, Stiles is having flashbacks to when the baton was used on him previously, at Chez Argent. The burn of the baton on his skin. Zzzzap! White hot flash zinging through his arm, up to his brain. The soreness after, and the weakness. The ache.

They had lowered the voltage on the baton after the first time they used it, Stiles remembers. Because their batons were souped up for werewolf, but it had been too much for him, knocked him right out. So he’d woken up disoriented, his heart racing, and his thoughts muddled, but nothing compared to the burning, lingering ache in his shoulder where the baton had hit.

“See, I knew you could be quiet,” Kate is saying. Stiles focuses on her. “Just so we understand each other, you put one toe out of line, and I will not hesitate to bring everything I have down on you. Starting with Brian,” she gestures. Brian puffs out his chest. “Do you understand? Just nod your head, I don’t want to hear your voice anymore.”

Stiles’s head fares fit to fall off with how vigorously he nods.

Kate glares at him for another second or two. Then she turns to Brian, who nods, then stomps off. As she leaves, Stiles’s line of sight, which Kate dominated, is now clear to see…

“Oh, my God,” he breathes.

…on an upright bedbox arrangement similar to Stiles’s, chained, sagging, and unconscious—

Zzzap!

Stiles barely avoids the baton as it comes down. Brian is grinning at him; his nasty smile makes his already ugly face even worse. But Stiles can’t spare much thought on that, he’s too busy drinking in the sight before him.

Mrs. Hale looks, in a word, dead. Her tanned skin is grey, the veins on her face, her hands, her arms are black. Her black hair has lost its shine, and even her dress is worse off, torn and tattered. Her eyes are closed and still behind her eyelids, also covered in grey-black veins, and if he didn’t see her chest rising in short, stuttered breaths, Stiles would swear she was a dead body.

Speaking of her chest… the giant black mass is still there. In fact, it’s gotten even bigger. All the black veins on Mrs. Hale trace back to this mass, and Stiles thinks it’s even beating, like some sort of obscene second heart in the right side of Mrs. Hale’s chest.

“Like it?” Oh, Kate’s back. She saunters over to Mrs. Hale, leaning on the post next to her. “Have to say, I had a lot of fun figuring how to make her stay down. Strong Alpha like her, the sedative didn’t work for long. Just meant I got to have more fun with her, that’s all.”

“You—” Stiles catches Brian lifting the baton and snaps his mouth shut. Kate smirks, but not the usual mocking grin Stiles is used to. This smirk is harder, darker. Grim satisfaction, Stiles realizes.

“Don’t worry, your precious Talia Hale is still alive. Just like you, we still need her that way. No faster way to bring in all the pack than to keep their Alpha captive. It’s been interesting, though, with the wolfsbane sedative. Those idiots you’ve been hanging out with can’t seem to find her while she’s under. It’ll be interesting to play around with that for other packs. You know, after we take down the mighty Hale pack. Heh. ‘Mighty.’ Didn’t seem that way to me.”

Stiles glares daggers. Once again, that sensation washes over him of wanting Kate dead. Imagining her neck under his hands, torn to pieces by his claws. The smirk wiped off her face. Eyes wide in shock as she dies.

(He even has some firsthand knowledge of how she looks, too, on Older Peter’s claws when he ripped her throat out.)

“Oooh, that is some murder in your eyes there,” Kate whistles. “Where was that when I had you strung up and dancing with electricity?” She shakes her head. “You know, I should have figured. You don’t care at all about yourself, do you? But when it comes to others, you’ll go balls to the wall. Like for Alpha Hale here.”

She grabs Mrs. Hale’s hair and yanks her head up. Mrs. Hale doesn’t even flinch, she is out cold. “Well, let me tell you something about your Talia here. Back about a year or so ago, you know what she did? She tried to kill my father. Along with that bastard Deucalion.”

…What? The hell? Stiles’s brain spins in place for a second. Then things align, the picture becoming clear for the first time. “Are you fucking kidding me? All of this was about Deucalion?”

Rmmm! Stiles flinches again. But Kate, unexpectedly, goes, “No, no, let him talk this time. Can’t have a good conversation if one side can’t talk, right?”

“Fuck you,” Stiles immediately goes. Now Stiles wants to be quiet out of pure spite.

“Now, now, is that any way to talk to your hostess? Hit him. Leg, lowest setting.”

Wham. Stiles hisses as the baton slams into his thigh, right where the leg of his pants is torn. The skin underneath burns and aches, his leg spasming uncontrollably.

“Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, this bitch. Did you know that these animals called my father up for a peace talk? A peace talk. As if. No, it was clearly a trap. We saw him go into Alan Deaton’s clinic with this bitch,” Kate yanks on Mrs. Hale’s hair again, “for hours, after which he reached out to my father for his supposed ‘peace talk.’”

Stiles splutters. “How paranoid do you have to be to think like that? Seriously, can I recommend you get some professional help or something, because wow, dude, that is some tortured thinking. How does being in a vet’s clinic for hours with Mrs. Hale equate to plotting to trap your father? Do enlighten me, because I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you say it, and then I’ll poke holes in your ‘logic’. Just, how??”

Kate’s face contorts. Jerking her chin to Brian, she grits, “Give him another warning.”

Bzzzt! Stiles jerks as the baton comes down on his arm. It stings a hell of a lot, but it’s much less than the painhotwhite he remembers passing out from. He glares at Brian, wishing he could rub his arm, while Brian glares back. “This is the lowest voltage, wolf,” Brian sneers. “Any more lip and you get the good stuff.”

Stiles curls his so-called “lip” but switches back over to Kate, instead. Some “conversation.” His foot starts jiggling almost immediately, and oh, man, he had forgotten how how it is to keep his words in. They feel like a wave of water filling him up to the brim, pressing against his teeth and jaw. Let us out, let us out, the words beg, let us out. He has to dig his nails into his palms to help, but he does it. He says nothing.

“Anyway,” Kate says again, glaring, “after my father successfully escaped the ambush, you know what Deucalion did? He started slaughtering his own pack, and telling other Alphas to do the same. You want to talk to me about tortured? What would you call that? And it all started with her.”

Kate spits. The loogie lands on Mrs. Hale’s hair, glistening and disgusting. Stiles looks at that, then back to Kate, seething.

“You need to use your brain,” he spits. “No, no, no, hear me out, hear me out!” as Brian jabs out with the baton. Zzzzaaaap! “Aaaaagh…!” This one… gaaagh… hurts.

Rmmm…! The baton whines as the voltage on it increases. Brian’s smile turns nasty.

Stiles gulps. He had been going to say that if they were using their brains, they would realize that if Deucalion had actually been planning on ambushing them, then obviously he would have built his little Alpha Pack army before the ambush, not after. But, in his haste, Stiles forgot that logic is wasted on nutjobs like these people. Half of them, if not more, don’t even have the brains to comprehend logic, anyway, even if it came up to them and hit them with a clue-by-four.

“No, I don’t think so. You’ve done enough talking,” Kate says.

Stiles stares sullenly as Kate drops Mrs. Hale’s head. Said head lolls abruptly forward onto its chin, its crutch against gravity now missing. The spit that still sits in Mrs. Hale’s hair starts sliding down. The seething boils higher.

Kate’s hand roughly drags at Stiles’s chin, forcing him to look into her brown eyes. They’re flinty and full of anger, which Stiles relishes. He matches her anger with his own, meets her gaze for gaze. Kate ruins it by jostling his chin, her finger squeezing his chin to the point of pain.

“As soon as your little pack and hers follows you here, you’re the first to go, after her,” Kate says lowly. “That’s a promise.”

The well of words surges against his teeth and jaws again, but Stiles swallows them. Manages a grim smirk: Not before you do. That’s his promise, after all, not only to the Hales of this time, but to the Hales of the past, his own pack, and most of all to Scott. Scott, and the memory of his goofy smile, before he was Bitten, and after, the blood oozing down his teeth as he lies in Stiles’s arms, takes his last breath.

Even if he has to turn himself into a vengeful ghost and possess somebody, he will Kill Kate.

Something of his resolve must show through, for Kate actually hesitates. Her eyes widen, and her mouth opens: she looks unsettled. Good. Stiles pushes at that, reaches into himself where the warmth of his spark lives and draws it forth. Slowly, the world overlays with red. Kate’s face hardens again, and she pulls back, shoving at Stiles’s chin so his head bounces back against the bedbox.

“Gag him,” Kate says to Brian. “I don’t want to hear another peep out of him.”

Hah. Stiles allows himself a smirk. He got to her. Without even saying anything, even! The smoldering glow of his satisfaction wilts a little bit when Brian turns to him, an unholy look of glee in his eyes, but never fully goes away. Even when Stiles is forced to watch Brian as he takes his shoe off, takes his sock off—

“Uuugh, what do you have in those shoes, ass?” Stiles says, unthinking.

The sock smells horrific. The stench of Brian’s feet invades his nostrils, and he feels like he’s about to vomit. Of course, of course, Brian takes great glee in Stiles’s reaction, waving the sock way too close to Stiles’s nose.

Stiles can’t help the disgusted noises, nor opening his mouth for air, which is when Brian shoves it unceremoniously in Stiles’s mouth. God, even the taste is disgusting, stale sweat and God knows what else Brian’s got on his nasty feet. Gagging some more, Stiles flails (or tries to) when Brian jams more of the sock in his mouth.

The sock forces Stiles’s jaws wide to the point of discomfort, but Brian doesn’t stop until the whole sock is in. If he had the wherewithal, Stiles would have tried to bite, but see: his jaw forced wide enough his teeth don’t even meet.

Swallowing is difficult, but Stiles can manage it – not that he thinks Brian really cares. At least he can still breathe through his nose, though that’s not a great prospect when Brian’s ass-feet smell still lingers. He flashes a red-eyed glare at Brian, who smirks and steps back.

“There, that’s better,” Brian says, tone cruel. “Just as you belong, tied up and gagged.”

“'O 'ugk 'euhs'el,” Stiles suggests.

Brian just cups his hand around his ear. “What’s that you say? I couldn’t hear you, you’ve got something in your mouth.”

His guffaw is deep and dumb-sounding, and Stiles would give so much to be able to punch him across the face right now. So much. All he can do, however, is glare daggers as Brian stuffs his bare foot back into his shoe and steps back. Not away from Stiles, but more between Stiles and Mrs. Hale, standing guard over them both as he switches from torturer to vigilant sentinel.

Without Brian so near to to focus on, the reality of his situation sets in. Gagged. He’s gagged. There is an actual thing in his mouth gagging him. Nearly choking him, but he can still swallow. That’s bad enough, having this thing in his mouth that’s just there, reminding him someone has shut him up, by force.

Jesus, if he were to count on his hands the people who want and have wanted to gag him on a given day, he would run out of fingers before he could start. Even his own dad probably is on that list, but the reality of actually being gagged and unable to talk is…

Oh, God, he can’t talk. If, say, Derek were to come through the door right now, Stiles can’t shout at him to stay away. If Mrs. Hale wakes up, Stiles can’t answer her questions. If something happens to himself, he can’t shout for help. He can’t do anything. He can’t do anything. He can’t do anything. He can’t—

“Hello, everyone!” Kate’s voice carols over the PSA. “Let’s take a headcount, shall we? We’ve captured not only the crusty one, but also the boy Alpha, who’s back in our hands, safe and sound. But what’s this? Awww, look at these cute little werewolf cubs! One is a girl, about ten? The other has this adorable smile, and he’s only five years old. He’s going to grow up to be quite the heartbreaker, I tell you!”

Cora and Juan. They have—

Stiles snarls. Red slithers over his vision, vibrant to match the roaring heat in Stiles’s chest. These. Sick. Motherfuckers! They actually got the kids!? A vision flashes of Cora and Juan chained up, electric batons taken to them. Their shouts of pain and their faces….

Raaaaaawwwwrrrr! A distant roar, faintly heard, but with a sense of electric blue eyes, craggy eyebrows, reeking suspicion: Kurt. Yessss, Kurt’s also here. They’ll team up and take these motherfuckers down—

Zzzap!

Abruptly, Stiles is yanked out of his own body. Electricity surges through him, juddering and excruciating. The red of his vision clears, slithering away as quickly as it had come. “Agggh,” he cries. God, the sock in his mouth probably saved him from getting his tongue bitten off. Jesus fuck, that hurts.

“Down, boy,” Brian says, jeering. His eyes gleam with mad glee. From his position sagging forward on the bedbox, Stiles stares up at Brian. It’s the exact same position, exact same look during Stiles’s Torture Dungeon Special. Right down to the same fucking steel-toed boots, though this time Brian is missing one sock.

His sock. He’s missing a sock. Said sock is in Stiles’s mouth, gagging him.

His chest starts to heat again. A well of feeling starts to rise up – oh, there’s the indignation. He would have preferred to feel that instead of panic, but better late than never. Red seeps in over his vision, not as vibrant or as out of control. Stiles doesn’t do anything with it, just lets them settle, roiling, as he stares at Brian and fixes him in his mind.

Enemy.

Brian sneers. “Nothing else to say? Just gonna stare at me with those creepy-ass eyes?”

Stiles says nothing. His focus stays on Brian.

“…What the hell are you looking at?” Brian snaps. His glee fades to a frown. “God, you freaks are unnatural. Stop staring at me like that!”

He brings the electric baton up high – rmmm —

SQUAWK. “Faulkner to HQ! Faulkner to HQ! Beta on the loose, repeat, beta on the loose!”

Brian exchanges a glance with Kate. “Faulkner, this is HQ,” Kate’s voice floats over. “Which beta? Over.”

“The crusty one! He heard the PSA – graaagh, take this, you bastard—”

Click.

“Faulkner! Faulkner!” Kate tries.

The radio just keeps clicking, giving no answer.

Brian glances again at Kate. “I’ll go.”

“No, you’re needed here. I’ll take care of this myself.” Kate comes out from behind the security monitors over to a table Stiles didn’t see before.

From the bristling array of weapons sitting on the table, Kate holsters a gun, no doubt loaded with wolfsbane bullets; a small crossbow much like Allison’s Before; a couple knives; another baton; and even some freaking grenades which she tucks into her pants, easy as you please.

The red of Stiles’s vision deepens. The heat in his chest turns up again.

“At least take some guys with you. Hunter, maybe,” Brian states.

Kate barely spares Brian a glance. “Yeah, Hunter’s a good choice. Cas, too. I want them both.”

As Kate speaks, two people appear. One is a young man, who looks like some old-fashioned Ivy League law student in a cardigan and tie. He totes a pair of daggers, a meticulously combed side part, and gives off seriously creepy vibes. The other is an older Black woman, and she has a rifle as well as a taser hanging from her hip.

“Let’s go.” Kate hefts the shotgun from the table and turns to go. She pauses and turns to Brian. “Don’t let anyone in here who shouldn’t be. These animals are smart and will do anything they can to rescue their Alpha. Including causing a diversion.”

“I know, Kate. Just go and get Faulkner,” Brian says.

Kate flashes him a glare. “What was that? Did you just give me orders?”

Brian flushes. “No. That wasn’t my intention. Sorry.”

Kate nods sharply. “That’s what I thought. We’ll talk about this later. For now, just do what I’ve told you.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Spinning on her heel, Kate strides off with the Ivy Leaguer and older woman on her heels. His focus on Kate, Stiles notices only peripherally that the Black woman looks sympathetically in Brian’s direction before following.

The moment Kate ducks underneath the partially-lifted big door, Stiles switches back to Brian. Brian has a complicated look; when he sees Stiles staring at him again, he shuts down and turns away. But Stiles knows what he sees: Fear. Bitterness. And under it all, resentment.

(Resentment. Huh. Guess Kate’s control over her henchmen isn’t as absolute as he thought. Maybe there’s a way he can play with that later, bounce Brian up against Kate somehow. He’ll have to think about it.)

In Kate’s absence, Brian goes over to the security monitors. That leaves Stiles and Mrs. Hale by themselves and gives Stiles way too much room to think.

As if in agreement, Kate’s words flash through his mind: “As soon as your little pack and hers follows you here, you’re the first to go, after her.” Stiles didn’t catch it at the time, but it’s nagging at him now. Just what does Kate need Mrs. Hale and Stiles alive for?

And another thing, those hunters who followed Kate Bad Touch to go deal with Faulkner – where did they come from? To him they practically appeared out of thin air. But if Kate left with them...

There must be more hunters. Kate wouldn’t leave Brian alone guarding two high-value targets like this. Brian doesn’t look worried – Stiles sneaks a glance over – only increasingly frustrated as he starts pacing back and forth between the big door and the security monitors. So, yeah, more hunters, probably loaded down with wolfsbane sedative—

Wait. The wolfsbane sedative! When it was wearing off on Caleb, his spark could be sensed. Fuck, she’s keeping Mrs. Hale alive because she’s going to use the fluttering of Mrs. Hale’s spark to draw the others in! And with the hunters scattered around the distillery—

Shit. It’s an ambush. Just like her father did, Kate has staged the distillery as a killbox. Only this time, she’s gunning to bring the Hales in, in place of Deucalion!

Wait, that doesn’t make sense. If Kate is replicating Gerard’s skirmish with Deucalion, why would she do that with another pack? Sure, Mrs. Hale was involved back then, but even with Kate’s delusion, only peripherally. Why would Kate do this instead of setting fire to the Hale house like she did Before? Why would she replicate the stage, if not exactly the premise, and then not lure in Deucalion? Why the Hales instead?

Unless this whole thing is a setup. One to use the stage to attract Old Duke’s attention and lure him back here, back to Beacon Hills where the original ambush happened, and finish the job. The Hales could just be a convenient target, as the pack that’s actually in Beacon Hills. Although, considering Crazy Aunt Kate’s animosity towards Mrs. Hale, it’s more personal than that. But the others? Kurt, Laura, Peter? Derek, Cora, Caleb, Juan, and Iñez? Probably just collateral damage.

Jesus fuck. Wow. Just wow.

Stiles starts laughing, hugh, hugh, hugh, around the sock. Just when he thinks he knows how twisted some Argents can get, something else comes up to prove just how wrong he is.

“Stop that infernal racket,” Brian threatens from all the way over at the security monitors. “Don’t make me come over there and zap you again.”

Stiles quiets down, but notices something move out of the corner of his eye. Is that… Mrs. Hale?

Flash: red eyes, white-speckled black fur, pensive expression.

“Mr’th Ha’e! Mr’th Ha’, wa’ up!” Stiles tries to say through the sock. It comes out garbled and incoherent, because fucking who can fucking talk around a sock?! Nonetheless, Stiles swears he sees Mrs. Hale’s head twitch.

AROOOOOOOOO…!

The howl rips through Stiles as if he were made of paper. Yellow eyes, red-tipped hair, hostile insecurity. Yellow eyes, crafty look, cleft chin. Neon blue eyes, impatient caterpillar eyebrows, depression. Then electric blue eyes, grizzly face, desperation joins in, followed even fainter by yellow eyes, young scowl, sullen reluctance and golden eyes, exuberant smile, fear. Laura, Peter, Derek; Kurt, Cora, and Juan.

Even as he thinks, fuck, they weren’t lying about having Cora and Juan, Stiles’s own head smacks back into the bedbox as his own “AROOOOO!” bursts out of his mouth. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches as Brian starts towards him. But Stiles can’t stop howling. Not when help is here, and it’s not just on him to get him and Mrs. Hale out anymore.

Not when Mrs. Hale’s head is twitching again, her eyebrows furrowing slightly as the howl goes on and on. Then she jerks, full-body, and her spark flares back into existence, and stays.

“That’s it, keep howling,” Brian says.

Stiles closes his mouth long enough to see that Brian’s back. However, rather than a baton in his hands, Brian has a taser, and he’s looking around alertly.

Goddamnit. It’s an ambush, just as Stiles thought.

...ROOOOOO…

The howl keeps going on and on, changing and modulating in tone, but unceasing, endless. Stiles clamps his jaws shut around his answering howl. Like hell is he going to make it easier on these fuckers to draw the Hales in.

Brian turns and glares. He says, menacingly, “Howl, boy. Or your precious Talia won’t—”

...ROOOOO…

This symphony of howls sounds super close. Mrs. Hale seems to agree, judging by the strength of her jerking. Hoping against hope it’ll actually help, Stiles opens his mouth and gives full throat once again.

“Aroooo….!” It’s a bad idea, absolutely terrible. But as his voice rises to intertwine with the others’ anew, even through the gag muffling most of his efforts, a separate part of Stiles’s brain notes that he sounds like a wolf. Not just a weak puppy version like Scott was when he first started out, but like a real wolf, power spreading away from him and all.

Like this, his voice joining in with the rest, he feels… he feels like he’s part of a pack, the pack, for the first time since he arrived. It’s such an exhilarating feeling, he feels – no, he is stronger, less achy and jittery from the multiple zaps of Brian’s baton. He feels almost rejuvenated, like he got a fresh shot of manna from a magic potion in World of Warcraft.

“Ho’y shi’,” Stiles breathes. Is this the strength of the pack? But, like, in a different way than taking down prey together. (Heh, the pack that howls together stays together.)

Mrs. Hale is now visibly struggling against the sedative. Her head comes up more often, and her chains clack as she flails against them. Most importantly, her spark is strengthening, becoming more solid in his awareness.

Stiles now has a sense of her as more than a flash, now as a living, breathing being. Oh, God, she’s so numb, caught up in the strings of the sedative, still. Or rather, a spiderweb that previously has had her wrapped up tight, but is coming apart under her claws, now that the howls of her pack are coming through.

“Co’ on,” Stiles urges, keeping a wary eye on Brian. “Co’ on, co’ on… be’or ‘ey ge’ ‘ere….”

Honestly, he has no idea what Mrs. Hale is going to be able to do. Tell the pack not to come in? Somehow get out of the chains and beat some hunters up? Not likely, considering the state she’s in; Stiles dismisses that thought immediately. If Stiles, who has not been dosed with wolfsbane sedative, can’t get out of these chains—

...ROOOOOOO…!

Mrs. Hale’s eyes snap open. Black gives way to neon red as her Alpha spark flares. In Stiles’s sense, she explodes from red eyes, white-speckled black fur, pensive expression to red eyes, white-faced wolf, RAGE.

Before Stiles’s eyes, Mrs. Hale transforms.

Black hair becomes black fur. Olive skin turns red, then sprouts more black fur. Mrs. Hale’s hands turn into paws, fingers closing together and fingernails lengthening into claws. Her feet do the same, while her torso and legs shrink.

WHOOMP. Mrs. Hale slips out of the manacles and lands on all four paws. She should look hilarious, a frosted-faced black wolf in a green floral dress – she doesn’t. She really, really doesn’t. As she bares her teeth and locks onto Brian—

BANG.

“‘Uck!” Stiles ducks down as much as he can in his shackles. Where did the bullet come from? As soon as he thinks that, whoosh. What the – these air currents are coming from the ceiling! Fuck, there’s a hunter up in the rafters!

“’NI’ER!” Stiles yells as loudly as he can through the gag. Craning his neck, he searches wildly. Who the fuck knew the distillery had rafters? “Co’ on, co’ onnn,” Stiles mutters. Dammit, the hunter is good. Stiles can’t spot him at all.

Flash: Electric blue eyes, sharp jawline, determination.

“Er’ek! Ge’ ou’!” Stiles screams.

Gold eyes, metal and red-tips, hostile insecurity joins Derek quickly.

“No! ‘S ah tra’!” Stiles tries.

Neither Derek nor Laura pause. Goddamnit. These fucking assholes. Switching gears, Stiles reaches down into his chest. From the warmth there, he gathers up a handful and flings it out in the general direction of Laura and Derek. TRAP, he sends very strongly with his spark, DONT COME.

Both hostile insecurity and sharp jawline jerk in his sense. While they’re hesitating, Stiles seizes the chance: he throws out another net of warmth to warn CEILING. HUNTER.; then he has to break off with a gasp. He’s sweating, his chest is on fire, and a big black blur is leaping at him.

CRASHHHH!!

Stiles yelps as he is toppled, bedbox and all, to the floor. The bedbox drives painfully into his back on impact, his breath escaping him in a hiss of pain. Fuck. That’s going to bruise like a bitch. Then he yelps again as the bedbox rattles under him, and the ceiling flashes by over him too quick to see. He feels sick. “Oh Go’, wha’ ha’en’in?”

Boof. His trajectory is stopped abruptly. Derek leans over him, eyes flaring electric blue, as his claws tear at the bedbox. Crrrack. Stiles moans in epic relief as his arms come away and he can lower them. Fuck, they hurt, ow, ow, ow, fuck, oh God, he can take the sock out, he can take the sock out. He tears at his mouth and chin in his hurry to get the fucking misbegotten thing out of his mouth, now now now—

Splinter! Stiles groans again as his feet come away free. “Oh, God, I am never going to develop a kink for being chained up ever,” he moans. “This was not Safe, Sane, and Consensual by any stretch of the imagination.”

Derek appears in his vision again. “We don’t have time for this,” he says, his brows furrowed and his eyes burning bright blue. “We have to help Mom.”

Stiles looks around. Somehow, in his reverie, he had missed the hunters swarming all over the place. In their center is Mrs. Hale in wolf form, leaping and cavorting to avoid bullets and arrows, ducking to avoid batons and tasers, and snapping forwards at opportune times.

For some reason, Stiles expects her to look ridiculous, just like with the dress, but in actual facts, Mrs. Hale is beautiful. Every move she makes is sleek and graceful, muscles rippling under her fur, red eyes a stunning addition rather than monstrous.

“Come on!” Derek urges. Right, right, Stiles needs to be getting up and helping, not staring like a dumbstruck idiot. Wincing painfully as he gets up, Stiles looks at the carnage Derek had wrought on the bedbox. Instead of dealing with the shackles and encountering the wolfsbane on there, Derek had gone for the surrounding posts, slashing those open to free Stiles.

“Good thinking, dude,” Stiles mutters, turning away without regret. The manacles and shackles are going to get in the way more than they can help, but he already has ideas about what he can do. If he can get close to the hunters without them noticing – fat chance that, but still—

Rawwwr!

Laura streaks by in a flash of werewolf speed, her fangs bared and her claws out. She pounces on a hunter that was hiding in the shadows of the distillery vats and aiming at Mrs. Hale. The hunter turns and gets off a shot – BANG – but Laura doesn’t so much as slow down before she rips right into him.

“Whoo! Go Laura!” Stiles cheers.

“Come on.” Derek jerks Stiles to his feet. “Let’s follow her!”

“Wait, Derek, there’s a dude in the rafters. We gotta take care of him.”

“Leave him to me.”

Stiles whirls, swings his arms. Peter steps hastily out of reach, eyeing the flying chains still attached to Stiles’s wrists via the manacles.

“Interesting weapons,” he says, droll.

“Dude, don’t even!” Stiles splutters. “You almost gave me a goddamn heart attack! How the hell did you – I didn’t even sense you!”

“Oh, good, it worked.” Peter looks smug. “That’s going to come in handy.”

“Come on, come on, come on,” Derek breaks in. “Let’s go!”

Stiles and Peter exchange a speaking glance. “You sure?” Stiles checks.

“I’ll be fine. Kurt will be along any moment now.”

Peter dashes off before Stiles can express his opinion of that news. With a sigh, Stiles follows after Derek, who has pretty much already caught up to Laura and is facing off against a second hunter.

“Hey, Derek, watch out – haaagh!”

Unlike Peter, the hunter doesn’t see Stiles coming. The chains collide with his head – THWACK – and send him down like a lead balloon. Thud.

Stiles looks up and around, ready to take on another hunter, but it seems that three new werewolves (or two and a half) are enough to give the hunters pause. At least they’ve cleared a space at Mrs. Hale’s side, with the hunters on the other.

“You,” Brian sneers. His eyes are fixed on Stiles, although when Mrs. Hale chuffs, he darts a look at her.

“Me,” Stiles gives a fuck you wave with his fingers. “You wanna try that baton again, now I’m not chained up?”

Brian growls, sounding not unlike a werewolf. Stiles finds that both ironic and hilarious. Who’re the monsters here again? Actually, looking at him, Brian doesn’t look too good. He looks like he’s been run over by a monster truck.

Come to think of it, Mrs. Hale had gotten to him earlier, hadn’t she. Stiles glances between the two of them and smirks at the latter.

That seems to set Brian off. “Shoot them!” he roars.

TWANG. BANG. ZAPPP!

Whoosh. Without consciously thinking about it, Stiles ducks and weaves, until suddenly he’s in a hunter’s face.

Wide-eyed, the hunter only just gets his arm up, but it’s not like Stiles is prepared, either, so his flailing of the chains is less effective than might be hoped. Stiles scrambles back, only just missing the hunter’s return swipe with an enormous fucking machete – dear God, what the hell – and finds himself side by side with Derek.

“What was that?” Derek barks. “Why did you do that?”

“Dude, you think I did that on purpose?” Stiles pants.

The hunter, firmer in his position now, comes low at Stiles. Once again, Stiles’s body seems to react faster than he can keep up – it jumps over the machete. Just barely, he has the presence of mind to swing the chains again. No hit – the hunter also ducks. However, he does back off to a safer distance. Stiles will take that.

TWANG! Stiles’s arm shoots out. He thinks he means to catch the crossbow bolt, but the chains get in the way and knock it off course instead.

“Raaggggh!”

Shit, Machete Dude’s back. This time he’s coming in high, his face twisted, eyes bugging out – and THUD.

Machete Dude’s knocked down. Not by Stiles’s chains. No, that would be thanks to the body landing on him. From up top.

“What the hell?” Both Stiles and Machete Dude look up. Peter looks back, perched on the rafters like some wolfy Batman, smirking.

“Why, you—” Machete Dude starts to throw the body off. On automatic, Stiles steps forward. His foot rises. His foot comes down.

THUCK! Machete Dude’s head bounces against the concrete floor. Stiles swings. Chains fly. THWACK. Machete Dude pitches sideways.

Rmmmwhoosh.

“Stiles!”

Stiles pitches himself forward. Crackle! Electricity sparks off everywhere where the baton hits concrete and not flesh. Stiles already knows who he’ll see when he turns over.

“Of course you’d come after me,” he grouches. “What, got the same taste for jailbait Kate does?”

Brian sneers. “You’re going down, boy. Fuck what Kate wants. You’ve been a—”

Rawwwwr!

Brian disappears with a shout under black fur and a pair of red eyes. Stiles stares dumbly for a second. Wait, that’s Mrs. Hale!

“What are you – no!”

Mrs. Hale leaps back, deftly dodging the swing of Brian’s baton. Stiles goes to step forward to do something, he doesn’t even know what, but she gets in front of him.

“Mrs. Hale?”

Stiles is a gangly teenager still growing. He has some muscle from playing lacrosse and running for his life from and with wolves. To that end, he likes to think he’s got something going for him in the body mass department, even if he looks scrawny.

Mrs. Hale is not only a werewolf, already much stronger and faster than he, but in wolf form, she is dense, wiry with muscle and mass. So, when she nudges Stiles backwards and stands in front of him in between him and Brian – hoo boy. He’s lucky to keep his feet.

“Mrs. Hale!” he complains.

She doesn’t even glance at him. All her attention is on Brian, her ears pinned to her skull, growling, shoulders close to the ground.

“Oh, my God, are you protecting me?” Stiles squawks.

Mrs. Hale doesn’t answer that, either by words or deed. Not that Stiles needs her to, it’s pretty obvious what she’s doing.

“God, this is embarrassing.” He’s not a fragile flower to be protected! He can take care of himself, he took down a few hunters himself!

Brian moves, catching Stiles’s eyes. Despite himself, he takes a step back.

The dark look on Brian’s face…. That is murderous intent. As sure as Stiles’s first name is a Polish monstrosity no one can pronounce, Brian is looking at him like he wants Stiles to be six feet under and Brian will be the one to put him there.

The sounds of the other people fighting fade from Stiles’s awareness. He’s only aware of Brian glaring at him and Mrs. Hale, but especially him, with the promise of death in his eyes. Huh, he thinks distantly. No wonder Kate was unsettled when Stiles glared at her before. That is some serious fucking hatred there.

Don’t get Stiles wrong. He’s been glared at before. Threatened. Beaten up. Slammed into lockers. Slammed into steering wheels. Was clocked by a car part from his own Jeep. Whatever. Honestly? None of it was ever personal. Stiles had never done anything himself to warrant anyone wanting him dead. Fought back, yeah. Mouthed off, absolutely. Committed a few crimes and had a restraining order put on him, sure. Even lit a dude on fire and indirectly contributed to his death.

Yet, not even Peter, Older Peter, looked at him like Brian is now.

That’s when it happens.

Rattle, rattle rattle.

Stiles looks over instinctively. He registers: the big distillery door opening. He registers: blonde hair, grim expression, shotgun. He registers: the shotgun rising.

For a long, slow moment, he feels like he’s unbalanced, teetering on the edge. What edge? He doesn’t know. All he knows is the heels of his feet are slipping into thin air, while he is windmilling his arms forward, trying to stay upright. He stares into the barrels of Kate’s shotgun and thinks: I’m going to die.

Then: a blur of black fur.

“NO!” Stiles screams.

BANG.

Mrs. Hale is blown out of her midair leap – straight into Stiles’s arms.

Red eyes. Black hair and fur. Regal power blinks out.

Stiles falls backwards onto, into, beneath the earth.

He dreams.

He dreams that he’s encased in the earth. Worms wriggle in and through the soil around him; air whooshes down the trails they leave. He shouldn’t feel them, the worms or the air, but he is, he does.

He also feels the bodies.

The bodies can’t move, yet they cry out for him. They can’t see, but they turn in his direction. They can’t feel, yet they know – they know – injustice was committed. To them, and to others.

For all that they don’t tell tales, the dead never do like injustice.

It’s an eerie dream, yet familiar, of being encased, dirt on all sides packing him in tight, tight, tight, like a sardine tin. He should be scrabbling, pushing against the earth, trying to get out. It’s what… that dude did, what was his name?

(Whatever his name was, remembering brings him feelings of dread, being reluctantly impressed, and bone-deep discomfort. Whoever unnamed dude was, he kind of wishes he were here now. He could use some pointers.)

Yet no matter how much he tries, he’s pinned in place. Not by the earth, or anything physical. Or even the bodies.

No, not by these, but by something far more powerful.

Water drips into his eyes. Splash. He blinks, sluggish, dirt dislodging from his eyelashes into his eyes, but he can’t move to wipe it away. Red eyes blink back at him in the magnified reflection of the next water drop hanging, threatening to fall.

The bodies press in on him. Their presence is expectant, but comforting. Familiar, but not. Though he gets a sense of waiting from them, they don’t make demands. Like him, they know the heaviness of grief, the toll it exacts. For some, only space and comfortable company are solutions.

For him, the dead are willing to be comfortable company.

Splash. He blinks again. With… awareness… comes the knowledge he can’t ignore anymore: he’s been interred. Entombed. Buried… alive? Alive. That doesn’t seem right. He hasn’t felt alive since… since.

His thoughts drift. If he’s not alive, then he must be dead. Just like the bodies keeping him company. That means he can rest. He doesn’t have to do anything anymore. He can just lie here and….

Another drop of water threatens. Red shines at him from its surface. Hm. Mixed feelings stir within him at the sight. On the one hand, red eyes mean enemy, powerful, frightening. At risk of losing life. (He’s already lost his.) On the other, they can also be beautiful. Like Scott’s. And Mrs. Hale’s.

……

Oh. Right.

He wants to scream, suddenly, to open his mouth and let rip, to know he can, but he doesn’t, can’t. The earth pins him down, crushing, along with the weight of his own grief; he’s immobilized as the water drips, the red eyes blink, and the dirt gets into his eyes, his nose, his mouth. The dead start to thrash, their comfortable company turning harsh. Their expectation starts to scrabble at his skin. Split it open. Burrow in, eat at muscle, sinew, bone.

The dead can’t talk, but they can scream. Failure! Murderer! Useless! Bastard! Unworthy! They hammer at him, over and over, tearing at and into him, determined to get their pound of flesh. One way or another.

Don’t…

He writhes under their anger. You promised! You promised! they shriek. Why did you promise, if you were only going to fail? You promised! You promised!

Don’t forget…

Failure! Murderer! Useless! Bastard! Unworthy! Failure! Murderer! Useless! Bastard! Unworthy! Failure! Murderer! Useless! Bastard! Unworthy!

The dead work quickly; they’re almost to his heart now. Once they reach there, he really will be dead. Dead like he was supposed to be, instead of his mom. Or Scott. Or his dad. Or Mrs. Hale. He will disappear, and no one will mourn him. No one will care or notice that he’s gone – he will just be another body fed upon by maggots, inched through by worms, buried beneath the earth.

A flash of electric blue, heterochromatic hazel eyes scorches across his vision. Derek. (Would Derek miss him? He only knew him for… less than a week. But in that time, he had become Derek’s Alpha, or at least his pack. Right? They were pack. Although he did snap their bond….)

Well. Even if Derek missed him, he has his family to fall back on. He will be fine. Maybe not right away, but eventually.

Soon, he will be nothing more than a footnote. The weird kid who tried to warn the Hales, only to end up killing them instead.

Bone snaps. Sinew rips. Muscle tears. The dead are right above his heart now. They’ll break through in no time. Sighing (he still has lungs?), he closes his eyes (he still has eyes?) and stills. Let them have him. It’s the least he can do.

DON’T FORGET US!

His eyes fly open. Lydia!

BOOM. The dead fly away from him, blasted by Lydia’s scream. As if under a spotlight, he sees their faces.

Erica, her tumble of curls fallen across her face.

Boyd, a set of claw holes in his chest.

Jackson, smile on his face as he dies in human form, kanima no longer.

An older version of Laura – one with whom he’s very familiar – missing the bottom half of her body.

Tara, her eyes unseeing.

Heather, cold and gray.

Older Peter, burned all over, his throat punctured with claw wounds.

Allison, drowned and blue from the ice bath.

His dad, bruises and dirt all over his face.

Scott, smiling as blood spurts from his lips, gushes from his shoulder.

Even as he looks, more bodies appear, fading in like some sort of ghostly vision.

Isaac, his blue eyes wide, his throat blown open.

Mr. Argent, his head twisted around on his neck.

Mrs. McCall, terror squishing her eyes closed and wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

Allison again, pincushioned by several crossbow bolts.

Jackson, blood dripping onto his sideburns from the knife wounds in his face.

Older Peter – again – black veins everywhere, the stink of wolfsbane reaching his nose.

Cora, snarling, eyes gleaming red even as a sword sprouts from her guts.

Older Derek, a pale vomit spilling from this lips, the color of mistletoe.

Lydia, her body turned away from him, her hair floating in the pool of water she’s face-down in.

His pack, all of his pack, together in death as it never quite was in life.

As if Lydia’s appearance is a signal, all the bodies start moving. One by one, they sit up and turn to him; their eyes shine as they look at him. He hunches in on himself, his stomach tightening, the soil packing in tighter – but they only smile at him. Point upwards.

Upwards shows him nothing but more dirt. He can still feel the worms slithering through it, water trickling after them in the tunnels they leave in their wake. When he looks back down, the dead – his pack – have gotten close once more. This time, rather than scratch at him, they reach their hands out to him, a clear invitation.

He wants to reach, but the earth, the grief, they are too heavy. He tries anyway, the welcome his pack offers too enticing to turn down. At first, nothing happens. His arm does not twitch, his shoulder does not rotate, his fingers do not clutch. He looks at them, grieving, but they are not deterred. They just stand there, smiling, their arms outstretched.

He tries again. And again. Once more. There! The soil just gave way! He tries harder. Slowly, so slowly, his fingers move. His arm twitches. His shoulder rotates. He reaches out to his pack, and his pack reaches for him.

Contact. Whose hands he is touching, he can’t seem to make out. It doesn’t matter – warmth rushes into him, hot hot hot at first, then soothing as it spreads through him. He expects the feel of their hands to be cold, clammy, weird, but it doesn’t. It feels like it doesn’t feel, oddly, like his sense of touch is numbed but can still grasp.

The hands pull him up as he thinks about this, drag him through the soil, the worms, the tunnels and the trickle of water drip. drip. dripping. Red eyes still blink at him, but he can ignore them now, ignore them in favor of his pack. His dead pack, which is now turning him over, pushing at his back, his butt, the backs of his legs.

He’s warming up now, the heaviness of his grief receding in the face of the warmth his pack gives him. The earth parts before him in the face of their pushing, but not without resistance. Dirt once again gets stuck in his eyelashes, gets up his nose, falls into his mouth. Water, too, follows the same path, soil-y, chemical, and metallic.

Yet he doesn’t sputter. Nor does he flail. How can he? The dead – his pack – are lifting him from below, supporting him in the most literal way possible. How can he do anything else but reach up, and up, and up, as they clearly want him to?

So he does. He reaches. With everything he has, everything he is, he reaches—

—and a hand, scorching hot, alive, and feeling, catches his wrist from above.

Wha...t? But he thought….

If he was moving through the earth before, he flies now. Between his pack pushing and the hand pulling, he has no choice. He feels stretched, drawn like taffy between two inexorable points, the hand pulling a little faster than his pack can push. But push his pack does, so the only thing he can do is tuck his other arm in across his chest, make it easier to push-pull him through the soil.

It seems like he blinks. Takes half a breath which drags on and on. Then his hand breaks through – air! sweet air! on his skin – and he’s scrabbling now, clawing at the dirt with clumsy fingers. Kicking his feet off of the hands still pushing at them, he tries to swim upwards. He has to get out, get air, he has to—

His other hand breaks through. Then his head. Air. He can breathe.

But his pack still pushes. The hand still pulls. Half a breath, a blink, more, and he pops out of the earth, reborn from the tumult of soil disturbed. He catches sight of gray stone listing sideways, turns to watch with wide eyes as a grave marker sinks into the earth in his place. What…?

When it fully disappears, the top curve completely covered by the soil, Lydia appears.

She looks much the same as he remembers her – fire red hair, a cuttingly fashionable dress, high heels, lips pursed in superior distaste. Yet there’s a spark to her eyes, green phosphorus drifting around her as she looks at him – and he is reminded of her power, banshee drifting between them, wordless, yet with worlds of communication.

Don’t. Forget. Us.

He nods. He won’t forget. Ever again.

Lydia smiles, satisfied in her queenly way. Then she looks at his wrist, stares pointedly over his shoulder.

He turns. Flails. Trips and lands on his ass. Stares upwards.

It’s him. Himself, he means, he’s looking at himself. But… off. His sideburns are too long. Forehead is normal, but his nose is furrowed at the bridge. Still has eyebrows, thank God, and his ears are pointed. Fangs are there, but not as long or sharp as he remembers.

Pain at his wrist – aagh – brings him back to the clawed hand there. Reminded, he takes the opportunity to study those – the claws aren’t as long and sharp as they should be, either.

He looks back up. Looks at all the pieces. Is… that it? Where’s the rest of it? Did he… fail at the shift, too? Goddamnit, he knew the spark should have gone to Isaac. An actual werewolf would have—

The wolf catches his gaze. Holds it. Neon red eyes, of course, but cold. Unfeeling. Analytical, staring into and through him, discovering all his weak spots. And above all, ruthlessly practical. Willing and able to exploit those discovered weak spots, if the ends required them.

Oh.

Yeah, he knows those eyes. Those eyes, he knows without having to think about it, are the darker parts of himself. The ones he keeps locked away, buried under the mask of harmless, loud-mouthed, spastic nothing to see here, move on “Stiles.”

He dips into them sometimes, when he needs them – see ruthless practicality – but otherwise he prefers not to think about them. It’s enough to know his moral compass is skewed, right? Right? It should be enough, anyway.

Claws dig again into his wrist. The pain – aagh – jolts him back to attention. Oh, right. His ADHD brain was playing merry havoc again. He looks, but the wolf doesn’t look impatient. Only expectant.

What? he’s tempted to ask. He wants to, but at the same time, he doesn’t. Dread wars with curiosity, that kind of sinking feeling like he has to know, but knows whatever it is, it’s going to be horrible and possibly nightmare-inducing. As if he doesn’t have enough of that in his life.

The wolf doesn’t need him to ask. He just opens his mouth, and Scott’s voice rolls out: I don’t know, bro, I just… let it come.

He stares.

The wolf stares back. Expectantly. Says nothing else.

I just… let it come.

Oh.

Oh.

It’s that simple? That easy?

The wolf releases him, shifts back a step. Crosses his arms. Stares. Expectantly.

He has to blink for a second, look away. Everything he’s gone through, every bit of pain he’s experienced since he’s time-traveled, literal and otherwise, could all have been… just… avoided, if he had just known. But how could he have? It’s not like he was a wolf before he got Scott’s spark. Hell, he didn’t even know what Scott was talking about, let alone known how to ask anyone else, like Mrs. Hale.

Mrs. Hale.

He lifts his head. Mrs. Hale. In a flailing scramble of dirt and worms he can still feel, he gets to his feet. Strides over. Seizes the wolf’s shirt (plaid, in blue flannel and red stripes, nice). Mrs. Hale? Is she—?

The wolf looks back, silent, raises his eyebrows pointedly.

Goddamnit. He releases the wolf. Closes his eyes. The only way he’s going to be able to find out is to do it. He takes a breath, lets it out. Lets himself remember: Scott. Lydia. Erica. Boyd. Isaac. Mrs. McCall. Allison. Mr. Argent. Tara. Heather. Cora. Older Laura. Older Peter. Derek, both forms of him: older, brooding Byronic hero, and younger, lost and seeking help the only way he knew how.

An echo wells up within him: a surge of grief, a sear of fierce love. His dad. The last remainder of him in the nemeton, which had carried him through time, now returned to see him through this.

He opens his eyes. Meets the wolf’s red gaze. Nods.

The wolf smiles. Not a mirthful one. Or even a hungry, predatory one, as he is expecting. No, the wolf smiles the kind of smile – a little tired, a little empty, maybe sad, mostly not – that means the receiver of said smile is already dead, they just don’t know it yet.

The same smiles tugs at his own lips. Yeah. That pretty much sums up how he feels right now.

Still smiling that smile, the wolf wastes no more time. He lunges.

He just lets it come.

Cli-clunk.

The circuit closes. The motherboard lights up. And the spark flares into flame.

Stiles-wolf opens his eyes. Zeroes in.

Roars: RAAAAAAAAWRRRRR!!!

All action, all movement in the distillery ceases. Heads turn towards him, hunter and wolf alike, but he’s focused on only one thing.

Kate Argent.

Enemy.