Archive of Our Own

He can’t open his eyes. He frowns. He should be able to open his eyes; why can’t he open his eyes!?

He takes a deep breath and reaches up to his face. Lips, unobstructed; nose, unobstructed; cheeks, unobstructed; eyes... unobstructed? He blinks, feels with his fingers. His eyes are open. His eyes open, he just can’t see.

His breathing gets away from him for a second, so he closes his unseeing eyes and takes another deep breath, trying to stave off the panic. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Another deep breath, and another. He tries again. He still sees nothing. This isn’t working.

He reaches out and feels hard and cold under his hands; diamond plate. He’s laying down on it. A floor of some kind? Who has a metal floor? He rolls himself over, being careful not to move too much so as not to fall off of anything. This angle isn’t any better to see through the pitch engulfing him.

His jeans help with the textured metal trying to rip off his kneecaps, but he can still feel it, like, a lot. He crawls forward and reaches out his hand, there’s nothing there. He tries a crawl-step to the side and comes to a wall. He follows it up until he’s standing, he can reach what might be the ceiling if he stands on his toes. They don’t like that, so he keeps his heels on the floor.

A quick and careful walk around the place reveals a long, narrow room. There’s nothing in it but him, as far as he can tell. The walls are smooth, probably plastic or metal, with regularly spaced bits of steel riveted in place.

He doesn’t know where he is, he doesn’t know what time it is. The last thing he remembers, he was asking for directions at a diner in butt-fuck nowhere, Washington. He doesn’t even remember the name of the town. The only thing he knows for sure, Stiles Stilinski has been kidnapped.

Stiles isn’t sure how long he sits in the centre of the wall, hugging his knees.

A loud bang comes from one of the small walls, and he nearly pisses himself when he hears it. A second later, it opens. The light that floods in is painful and he brings an arm up to block out the light. There’s a step, a heavy creak, the light goes down but doesn’t go out completely, then there are more steps.

The footsteps come right toward him so he blinks quickly, trying to force his eyes to adjust more quickly so he can see who’s coming. All he can see is a dark blur until The Man comes around him, so that Stiles is between him and the door, away from the light source, and crouches down in front of him.

The Man doesn’t move or say anything until stiles eyes adjust and he can hold The Man’s eyes. The Man offers him a bottle of water and Stiles takes it. The seal is unbroken, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been tampered with, but he’s already kidnapped and he’s so fucking thirsty.

The water is warm and it tastes like plastic and chemicals. It’s the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted.

“Do you want children?” The Man’s voice is even and almost quiet.

Obviously the answer is ‘yes’. He wouldn’t be abducting backpackers and asking them about their desire for children if he didn’t want someone who did. “Yes. I was an only child; I always wanted a big family.”

The Man nods his head minutely. He gets up and heads toward the door. Wait, no. “Can I use the bathroom?” He calls, a bit desperately.

The Man doesn’t stop when he says, “use the bottle.”

He’d never really thought about it, but sitting in a big box for hours on end is super. Fucking. Boring. Even without the ADHD, the total darkness isn’t very interesting.

He’s got nothing on him, at the moment. No meds, no PSP, not even his key chain with the little flashlight that he never uses. The only thing for him to do is think. And overthink. So he does.

He’s seen the guy’s face, so he’s not going to let him go. Not alive, anyway. He just needs to stay alive long enough to get help. When he doesn’t call home for a week or two, his Dad will call in the cavalry. He just needs to stay alive and relatively unharmed for the next two weeks. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

The Man asked him if he wants kids. Maybe he has a kid who needs to be taken care of. Stiles isn’t a Mother; he just turned 21, FFS. He never had younger siblings to take care of and he can’t really model himself after his own Mother. At least, not near the end.

He’s been looking after Scott since they met, though, and his Dad since his Mom died. The skills are transferable, right? He also had that hyperfixation on child development and psychology last summer. He can do this. He can. He’s gunna Mom the shit out of that kid. Or those kids. Until his Dad saves him. That is, if that’s what The Man wants.

Unfortunately, with all of that decided, there’s nothing else to think about.

Stiles wakes to a loud bang. He has just enough time to sit up and wipe the sleep from his eyes before the door is opening and The Man comes back in.

He does the same thing as last time, crouches beside Stiles with the light on his face, so Stiles can see him and hands him a bottle. Stiles takes it and drinks half of it in one go.

When he comes up for air, The Man asks him, “what do you think is a reasonable bed time?”

That’s... Not a very good question. Maybe he really does need the help. “For how old?”

The Man does the barely there nod thing and says, “8.”

“About 8, then. Give or take half an hour. It depends on the kid.” Another barely there nod and The Man grabs the old bottle, filled with a conspicuous yellow liquid, and gets up to leave. “Do you have my bag?” The Man stops. “I’m on medication. Can I... have it?”

The Man turns away, “I’ll bring it.”

“Thank you.”

He comes back with a new bottle of water and a single pill. Stiles takes it with another thank you and downs it with the rest of his water. The Man leaves him the empty bottle and the water.

Stiles is laying on his back with his hand in the air, trying to see his aura, when there’s a bang on the door. He closes his eyes in anticipation of the flood of light, but doesn’t otherwise move. The man crouches down beside him, hands him another pill and asks, “How much screen time do you think is appropriate?”

He sits up while he thinks about it. “Well. There are a bunch of peer reviewed studies that say screen time isn’t actually that harmful for kids. Obviously there are some undesirable side effects. If they watch TV all day, they aren’t out playing with kids their own age and that can hinder social development. Too much time spent indoors can lead to vitamin D deficiencies. And a relatively new study out of China suggests that not enough time outdoors can affect eye health.”

The Man just looks at him, so he continues. “I think it depends on what they’re doing. If they’re just watching TV? No, go outside. But if it’s things like homework or other learning, I don’t think that should be taken into account when calculating the amount of screen time they get. A couple hours A week? The tricky part is that you have to provide something for them to do that isn’t sitting in front of the TV all day.”

The Man does his little nod thing so Stiles stops to take his Aderall. “What would you provide for her to do?”

Stiles shrugs, “there’s always the park or the library. There are after school programs in every city on the planet. If she goes to a friend’s house, chances are pretty good that they’ll watch TV over there, but as long as it’s age appropriate and the messages being learned aren’t hateful or otherwise damaging, that isn’t really a problem.” The Man frowns at that, so he hurries to add, “sometimes life gets hectic and the only thing you can do is plop them down in front of a screen. There are a bunch of websites with educational games for specific age groups for people who don’t think that kids should be allowed to be entertained without learning something, even if adults do it all the time; everybody loves a double standard.”

“What websites?”

“Mmmm.” Stiles racks his brain, he knows this. “Oh, abcya.com, funbrain.com. Brainpop.com is OK, you have to pay for it, though. Abcya is my favourite. Lots of colours.”

The Man leaves again.

Stiles wakes up to another bang and he’s not as surprised as the last time this happened. He sits up and tries to stretch the stiffness out of his back. It doesn’t work very well.

The man has his arms full, this time. When he gets to Stiles he drops a pile of blankets. A plastic bucket gets dropped beside him, it makes a big, echoy clang as it hits the floor. The Man crouches down beside Stiles and holds out a plastic bag.

He can smell the food and he wants so badly to take the bag and shove the whole thing into his face, but he isn’t sure if he should be worried about being drugged or anything. He does take the bag, slowly, and The Man rolls his eyes as he does. It’s a BLT and a turkey club in a styrofoam takeaway container, and under that, another container filled with French fries. “Thank you.”

The Man nods. He takes Stiles’ pill bottle out of his pocket and shakes a pill out into his palm, then holds it out to Stiles. “There’s water in the bucket.” Stiles stomach churns and he twists around to look. Bottles of water. In the bucket. For ease of carrying. He offers another thank you as he takes his meds. “I’ll empty the bucket when I give you your next dose.” Stiles nods.

“What do you think of the Wiggles?”

“Uhh. I think they’re creepy AF. I’d rather watch Mr. Rogers.” Stiles smiles to himself, “or Mr. Dressup.” The Man frowns. “It’s, um, it’s like Mr. Rogers, but with more wardrobe changes? And, in Canada?” The Man raises an eyebrow at him. “My Mom grew up in Manitoba, she watched it when she was a kid.”

The Man’s eyes go far away for a second, then he gets up and starts to leave. “Is there something I can call you?” Stiles asks.

The Man doesn’t stop as he says, “Peter.”

Stiles hurries to put the bucket and food against the wall and pull all of the blankets over so he knows where they are in the darkness. His eyes find Peter’s as he closes the door on his way out.

As hungry and um... full... as he is, he sets up his bed, first. He finds the pillow easily enough and smiles at that. Noice. There’s also a sleeping bag and two thiccer blankets that he’s pretty sure are made of wool.

He unrolls the sleeping bag and flips it inside out, so the plasticy shell is on the inside, then lays it out against the wall. The two blankets go on top of that and the pillow goes at one end. He’ll use the sleeping bag and one of the blankets as a sort of mattress and cover up with the last.

All the water comes out of the bucket, he lines it all up where he was sitting and puts the bucket in the far corner, away from the door and from his new bed.

When he gets back to his food, he feels around for the BLT. It’s not that hard, bacon has a very distinctive texture.

As he eats, he decides to go through the water to see how much he has. One of the bottles is different than the others. It’s bigger around, but shorter than the others, it feels like a reusable bottle, but not. It doesn’t slosh when he shakes it, but there is an almost-rattle. Something inside that isn’t free, but isn’t as snug as it could be.

He runs his fingers along the outside and finds thick metal wire things up and down the sides. Side? It’s round, it has one side. The top and bottom have regular dips, like they’re meant to be twisted. He tries, but nothing happens. The wires flip out, when he tugs on them and they feel like handles. He grabs the top and bottom again and does some fiddling. He has to stop himself from hissing like a vampire at the sudden flood of light, when it opens and the brightest light since the sun floods the box. His eyes had adjusted to the blackness and he was looking right at the fucking thing. OK, so it’s a lantern.

He picks up the lantern by the wire handles and grabs half of his sandwich. A quick trip around the box doesn’t reveal much that he didn’t already know. The floor is darker than he’d expected, but that doesn’t affect him at all.

What a great way to spend two and a half minutes, he’ll be telling his grand kids about the time he turned on a light and saw a dark floor. They’ll be riveted.

He has to go, like, GO. His Aderall is supposed to be taken twice a day, 6 hours apart. Well, that’s what the bottle says. That’s probably what Peter will give him. Which means that he has 6 hours before the bucket will be emptied. He really has to go, but he also doesn’t want to sit in that stench for the next 5 hours, 45 minutes. He groans loudly and runs his hands through his hair.

Stiles is glad for the darkness, when Peter comes back; the smell is bad enough, he doesn’t need anyone seeing him blush, too. Peter goes straight for the bucket, takes it outside and leaves the door open when he goes.

He leaves the fucking door open. Stiles can’t see anything beyond the door; angles are stupid. He can hear Peter outside, around the side of the box.

With his heart thumping wildly enough that Stiles can practically hear it, he gets up. Peter is rinsing out the bucket, Stiles can hear the running water. Running water means plumbing, means municipal water systems, mean civilization. Unless it means a well. Here’s hoping it doesn’t mean a well.

He goes over to the door, he sees nature. Trees and grass and the beautiful, beautiful sky. That’s it. No houses, no shops, no cars, even. His heart sinks. There’s nothing here. He steps out of the box. Peter is to his right, so he goes left. There’s nothing there, either, just more nature. He makes his way around to the other end of what he now sees is a semi-trailer.

When he peeks around the back of the trailer, he can see a car. An empty, turned off car, which is probably how Peter gets here. They’re on a lot of some kind, really big, kinda roundish, surrounded by trees on three sides and trees and a mountain on the last.

He’s in the middle of nowhere with a possible serial killer who definitely kidnapped him and he has no way to escape. If Peter finds him missing, he can guess what might happen to him. He turns to run as quietly as he can, back to his box. He doesn’t get very far.

Peter is there, when he turns around. Stiles takes a step back, but Peter anticipates it and steps forward as he decks Stiles.

Pain explodes across his cheek and that would probably be it, if Stiles hadn’t been off balance at the time. His head whips around and he falls face first into the trailer and lands on his knees.

Peter picks him up by the arm and slams him against the trailer by his neck. Stiles claws at his arm, desperate for air as his head spins and his fries try to make their way back up. He tries to talk, to beg for forgiveness or make an excuse, but he can’t speak, can barely think.

Right as he’s sure he’s going to pass out, Peter switches his hold to the back of his neck and leads him back into the trailer. He throws Stiles into the corner where his bucket was and starts picking up the blankets.

“No, please,” his voice is weak and hoarse as he crawls his way over to where Peter is shoving the blankets and pillows into the sleeping bag. “I’m sorry, please,” he misses his first grab at the blanket in Peter’s hand, but he gets a hold of it the second time.

Peter puts his foot on Stiles’ chest and pushes him away as he finishes gathering the bed that Stiles never got to use. “You’re not sorry that you did it, only that you got caught.”

Stiles tries to get to his feet, but his head spins and he can’t catch his balance. “I’m sorry,” he stumbles onto his hands and knees and tries to stand again, “I won’t do it again. Please!”

Peter takes the bedding out and comes back in before Stiles can do much more than take a breath. He throws the now empty and hopefully cleaned bucket into the trailer and slams the door without another word.

With the desperation of a dying man, Stiles throws himself against the door and starts shouting, “I was going back! Please, I was going back!” A sob cuts off his next breath and he chokes on it as he listens to a car drive away. He doesn’t fight the tears or the sobs. He spends the next hour or so screaming out his frustrations and trying to force his way out.

Stiles doesn’t know how long it’s been. He’s missed a few doses, at least. The food is long gone and the water is quickly dwindling. The trailer smells like shit and piss and sweat. The lantern died what was probably a few days ago and he can barely bring himself to care. The lack of light is literally the least of his current worries.

He really thought that he was going to be able to get himself out of this. If not himself then his Dad. All he’d had to do was stay alive until his Dad, the fucking Sheriff, came looking. Not hard. Apparently, very fucking hard.

And the girl. She’ll be stuck with her psycho Dad and no way out. Even if he does make it, not likely, Peter is a really common name. Sure, he can search All of Washington State for everyone named Peter, but that’ll return thousands, if not tens of thousands of results. All he knows about this guy is that he has an 8 year old daughter, that’s not something that goes on a driver’s license.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. He’s not getting out of here. Peter isn’t coming back for him and he’s going to dehydrate to death long before anyone finds him. Peter will probably wait until he’s sure that Stiles is dead before he comes to get rid of the body. Then he’ll do it all over again with someone else. How many people have died in this trailer? How long did they last? Were they as stupid as he was? Who the fuck knows, it doesn’t matter anyway. Stiles goes back to sleep.

The bang on the door is more jarring than the first time Stiles heard it. He sits up from where he’s been laying down and presses himself into the corner.

Everything hurts, his body, his head. Everything adds to it, the light, the sound, even the thought that Peter is back in his trailer. It’s all wrong, he shouldn’t fucking be here.

He closes his eyes against the light and doesn’t bother to open them. He can hear Peter getting closer, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t try to engage.

There’s a dull thump beside him that makes him flinch, but he doesn’t care to find out what it is. Peter walks away. Stiles can hear the sloshing of the bucket as it’s taken outside. Peter opens the other door and Stiles takes the first clean breath he’s had in about a week, give or take.

The air that hits his skin is cool and fresh and he doesn’t try to stop the tears that soak into his sleeves. He’s not dying, he’s not dead. He really thought he was going to die in this trailer, in the dark, marinating in the scent of his own shit.

The tears fall harder and Stiles would sob if he had the energy.

Peter comes back in, Stiles doesn’t look at him. Peter gently moves Stiles’ arm out of the way and takes hold of his chin, lifting his head so he’s looking at Peter. “If our daughter fell and hurt herself, what would you do?”

So he’s still in the running, then. He has the sudden realization that the only reason he’s not dead is because Peter liked his previous answers. “That depends,” his voice is hoarse from disuse and he has to clear his throat. Peter lets his face go when Stiles doesn’t try to pull away. “If she’s not bothered, then I’d leave her to it. If she cries, then I’d hold her until she felt better. I’d tell her about all the times I’ve fallen, show her my scarred knees. Maybe try to make her laugh. I’d clean it and put a band aid on it. Kids like band aids.”

Peter gets up and heads for the exit, “get cleaned up.”

Stiles frowns and looks around. There’s a new bucket beside him, full of water. There’s also a small bag with a bar of soap and what looks like a cloth. On his other side is his duffle, the one with all of his things in it.

Peter leaves the doors open but doesn’t come back in. Stiles can’t see him outside, so he grabs some fresh clothes from his bag and does as he’s told.

He feels a million times better when he’s redressed. He doesn’t smell anymore, even if the trailer still does, and he’s pretty sure Peter washed all the clothes in his bag.

The logical next step would be to take the bucket of water outside and dump it, but with what happened last time, he doesn’t even want to go near the doors. “Peter,” he has to clear his throat again, “I’m done.”

Peter comes back as soon as he’s called. He takes the bucket and dumps it out the doors. He turns back to Stiles, “do you know what you did wrong?”

Wow. This guy. Stiles didn’t do anything wrong, Peter did. But Stiles doesn’t want to die, so he nods, “I left the trailer.”

“And?”

And? Stiles frowns as he thinks about it. He left the trailer, he walked around it, he was going back when Peter caught him. “I- I don’t-”

“You lied about it.”

“I-” Stiles bites back the ‘didn’t’. “I was going back.”

Peter leaves the trailer as he says, “you wouldn’t’ve gone back if you’d had somewhere else to go.” He comes back in with a very familiar bundle of blankets and hopefully pillow.

“Of course I wouldn’t have, you fucking kidnapped me!” He realizes what he’s saying halfway through his outburst, but by then it’s too late to stop it. He watches Peter where he’d stopped at Stiles outburst. His heart tries to beat out of his chest and he can’t seem to catch his breath.

Peter just raises an eyebrow at him, as he resumes his march over to the corner, “you won’t be using that kind of language in front of our daughter.” He drops the bundle in the place Stiles had had it set up. Stiles shakes his head. Peter leaves him again.

He’s relieved and fucking grateful and he hates it. Hates himself for it. He knows it’s the Stockholm syndrome setting in, but he doesn’t know how to stop it. He thinks of the facts: Peter kidnapped him, is keeping him in a semi-trailer, wants him to take care of his kid. Peter took everything from him and ‘rewards’ him when he’s good. Rewards him with things like light, food and water, somewhere to piss. Those aren’t rewards, Peter isn’t a good person, this is a shit situation and as soon as he’s able, he’ll be calling the po po to get him out of here.

Peter comes back in and goes for the lantern, switches out the batteries. He tests that the light works, then closes it and puts it back. He takes the garbage from Stiles’ last meal and comes back with more food. Then comes back with more bottles of water. Then comes back with Stiles’ toilet bucket.

When everything is back in it’s place, he addresses Stiles, “That was your only warning.” Stiles nods. Peter takes Stiles pills out of his pocket, shakes one out and gives it to Stiles. “I’ll be bringing more food and water later today.” Then he walks out, leaving Stiles in darkness again.

The first thing he does, after Peter leaves, is take stock of everything he now has. His duffle has everything but his phone, PSP, and laptop, which still leaves him clothes, as well as a few books and a deck of cards without the two of hearts. The sleeping bag is full of two blankets and a pillow. Peter left him a case of 12 1L bottles of water. The bag of food has two takeaway containers, but also some school lunch foods in the form of crackers, fruit cups and juice boxes.

The takeaway containers are full of sandwiches again, but this time there’s a salad to go with them. He starts with that. Small bites so he doesn’t make himself sick. He doesn’t know how long you have to go hungry for refeeding syndrome to be a problem, but he figures, better safe than sorry.

He takes a few bites of salad in between setting up what, for all intents and purposes, is now his room. He feels full a lot sooner than he thinks he should, which isn’t good, but the food isn’t going anywhere for at least the next six hours, so he decides to take it slow. When the rest of his food is put away and his bed is set up, he passes out.

He wakes up some time later. He doesn’t know how long he’s been sleeping, no phone means no clock, but he can still feel his Aderall working, so it can’t have been too long.

His stomach is trying valiantly to eat him whole, so he grabs the rest of his salad, a sandwich, and one of his books and decides to loose himself in the pages.

He’s so engrossed in his novel that the bang on the door makes him drop the bottle he’d been holding and he ends up soaked. “Shit,” he caps the bottle and stands up, pulling his shirt away from his front and fanning it a bit. Peter frowns at him, as he comes in. “You startled me,” he gathers his t-shirt and tries to wring it out but there’s not enough water in the fabric for that to be effective.

Peter comes in and stands near Stiles. It takes him a few seconds to realize that Peter is probably waiting for him. He stops, though he still holds the now very cold fabric away from his front, and looks up at Peter.

“Can you cook?”

“Uh, yes.” Peter continues to stare at him, so he elaborates, “my Mom died when I was 9, I’ve been doing most of the cooking for my Dad and me. If it were up to him, we’d’ve had burgers every night, so I learned to cook.”

Peter holds out a plastic bag. Full of yet more diner food. Stiles takes it. “Thank you.” Peter turns to leave. “Peter?” He turns back to Stiles. “Can I have a clock?” Peter doesn’t say anything for a second. He then comes back to Stiles, fiddling with the cuff of his shirt. Stiles is confused until Peter gets his shirt out of the way and he can see his watch. Peter takes it off and hands it to Stiles, who takes it, “thank you.” It’s a cheap, eighties looking thing, but it does what it needs to. Peter leaves.

There’s no bang this morning, just the door opening noises. Stiles frowns as he sits up, closing his book around his thumb so he doesn’t lose his page.

Peter opens the door and Stiles can see right away that something is wrong. He puts the book down completely and stands up, back against the wall as Peter stomps over to him. “What would you do if you were called to the school?” he practically shouts.

What? “Go?”

“For homework?” Peter is still shouting, but Stiles can’t really concentrate on what’s being said. The last time Peter was this animated, he ended up with a bruised cheek, a cut on his head and what may or may not have been a mild concussion.

Peter starts pacing, running his hands through his hair. He stops in front of the wall, mutters, “fucking moron,” turns on his heel and continues his pacing.

He can see that Peter is upset, people in Iceland can see that Peter is upset, but he can also see that Peter isn’t upset with him. “What happened?”

Peter stops in his tracks and turns to him. Looks him up and down, like he’s trying to gauge whether Stiles actually cares or not. He heaves a great sigh, turns, and says, “I got called to the school today. The teacher wanted them to write a horror story. She did. It was really good.” He shakes his head again. “Mrs. Delaney was there. The principal called her- her fucking foster fucking parent,” Peter spits. He takes up his pacing again, “but, apparently that wasn’t enough. He called me, too. She was pissed,” he seems happy about that bit.

He turns back to Stiles. “She wrote a horror story. She wrote what the teacher wanted, what he assigned. He said it was too scary. Now they think she’s going to bring a gun to school. She has to go to the school counsellor every week. Some of the other teachers were gossiping when we left, they said that Mr. Whats-his-face wasn’t concerned until he looked in her file and saw that she’s in foster care,” he spits out the last two words.

Things kind of click with that. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it. The courts declared you unfit on your own. You’re looking for a co-parent.”

Peter turns on him, grabs him by the collar of his plaid and pushes him back against the wall. Stiles drops his eyes but doesn’t resist or fight back. Peter just holds him there, but not really, it’s more like he holds his shirt there while Stiles just happens to be in it. He looks up at Peter who seems to be more in his head than in this trailer with Stiles.

He snaps out of it and focuses on Stiles, “she’s my daughter, I’m what’s best for her.” He pushes Stiles into the wall to accentuate his point.

“My Dad was a single parent. After my Mom died, I lived with him for,” he pauses to do the math, “twelve years.”

Peter lets go of Stiles and takes a step back, “only having a Father isn’t the worst thing in the world.” His voice is soft, like he can finally relax now that no one is attacking him.

Stiles nods, “I agree.”

Peter does his little nod thing then leaves. Stiles listens to his car getting farther and farther away. Five minutes later, he comes back and gives Stiles his dose of Aderall.

When he leaves, Stiles pipes up, “Peter? Will you tell me our daughter’s name?”

Peter’s eyebrows try to jump before he gets them back under control, “Malia. Malia Aubrey Hale.”

Stiles nods and picks up his book. It’s absolutely a dismissal, but he needs to push to see how much room he has to move. If he can get out of here quicker, so much the better.

Peter recloses the door and Stiles is alone again.

Well, this is an interesting turn of events. So, Stiles was kidnapped and is being kept in a semi-trailer because an entitled white dude thinks he knows best? He had assumed there would be a child involved, but he had thought that might be secondary. Maybe? Make sure the idiot you kidnap gets along well with your brood before you bring him home, put him in your Mother’s wedding dress, and keep him in a box under your bed?

Stiles shakes his head. This is confusing. People like Peter very rarely operate on the same logic as the majority of the population, and here he is trying to analyze it.

No one ever accused Stiles of being smart. Smart ass? Yes. Clever? Once or twice. Smart, full stop? Nope.

So the kid, Malia, is in foster care. Peter will probably want to get her home as quickly as possible, but letting Stiles out too early will cause him even more problems. He’ll have to make sure that the Stockholm syndrome has set in.

If Stiles were to become primary caregiver, it would be too easy to hurt Malia in retaliation. If Stiles were to become primary caregiver, he’d need access to things like doors, to take her to school, and phones, to receive calls from the school. If Peter could stay home all day and watch him, he could stay home all day and watch Malia and child services wouldn’t be involved in the first place.

He has to make Peter think that he’s been Stockholm’d while, at the same time, not actually being Stockholm’d. He’ll have to do Stockholmy things, but keep his situation in the front of his mind. He’s a captive, he lives in a trailer, he shits in a bucket. He’s being quizzed on his child rearing skillz because, apparently, that’s easier than hiring a babysitter or marrying someone who wants a green card? Psychos gunna psycho.

Peter comes back later than he normally would. The Aderall has been out of his system for a few hours and he’s been unable to sit still or get back into his books. He’d tried building a card castle, but you have to be very steady for that, and Stiles isn’t steady, even with his meds.

Almost too late, he remembers to smile. Embrace the Stockholm, be the Stockholm, he should visit Stockholm. Apparently it’s absolutely beautiful in the spring, even if it is cold. It’s cold, right? It would probably be cold, being so far north. Maybe that’s just one of those things American children are told so they’ll be grateful for the things they have, like all those starving children in Africa. There are starving children in Africa, but there are also starving children in America. American kids are told that all Africans cover themselves in warpaint and live in mud huts, but Africa is a huge continent, with lots of different countries in it, and Africa is no different than the US. Sure, there are pockets of populations who live more traditionally, just like there are in America, but a lot of the populations of the various African countries live in cities, with apartment blocks and supermarkets and McDonaldseses. But, Sara McLachlan doesn’t sing about them.

Peter is staring at him. “Sorry, what?”

Peter frowns, “I said, ‘how young is too young to have boys over?’”

Stiles frowns back at Peter, “that’s a little heteronormative of you, isn’t it? Maybe she doesn’t like boys, maybe she doesn’t like anyone, maybe she has friends who happen to be boys and you’re making it weird and skewing her world view by sexualizing it when all she wants to do is work on her homework with her friend and then watch Tangled. Everyone is different with different intentions, and you forcing your cis-het ideals on them only makes things more difficult for literally everybody, even you.”

Peter takes a second to parse all of that, then asks, “the birds and the bees?”

Stiles rolls his eyes, he knows that most parents sit there kids down to talk about what makes girls girls and what makes boys boys and ne’er the twain shall meet except on their wedding night and only when they want babies. Stiles didn’t get that, his Mom was sick by the time that conversation normally would’ve happened and his Dad... He was a good Dad, ok? He just didn’t think of certain things sometimes. Like cooking or cleaning or ‘when a man and a woman love each other very much...’ Some things, Stiles had to figure out for himself, and Google isn’t as awkward as his Dad would’ve been anyway.

“Children start to notice the differences between the sexes at, like, four or something, really young. That’s when the conversations should start. Not ‘stick it in the hole’, but the technical ‘these are the parts of your body, this is what they do, and these are the differences’. Then come the talks about gender and identity, after that come the talks about orientation and very small words to describe things like straight, gay, bi, ace. Kids aren’t as stupid or close minded as adults are, and they can understand what they’re being told as long as they aren’t bombarded with information and the words being used are ones they understand.” Stiles takes a breath and tries to remember the original question. Right, boys. “Have you had any of those conversations? Does she know what gay means? Trans?”

Peter looks... abashed? Taken aback? Guilty? Maybe he looks cowed; Stiles doesn’t know, he looks something. “I- I don’t-”

Stiles rolls his eyes, “can I have my meds, now?”

“It’s in the bag.” At Stiles confused face, he points down. At a bag. Oh.

“Thanks.” Stiles finds the pill wrapped up in a napkin and downs it dry. “You’re not protecting her innocence, or whatever, by not telling her these things. You’re withholding information that she could use to better understand herself and the world around her. You’re doing her a disservice.” He pauses to let that sink in.

“I had to find out all of that stuff online. Without,” Stiles waves his hand around, “parental, uh, blocks, or filters, or whatever they’re called. My point is, when I heard the word ‘trans’, I googled it. The results were mostly pornographic. And while, yes, trans people have sex, that’s not all it is, but to google it, you’d think it was. I would’ve skipped a lot of misconceptions and prejudices if someone had sat me down and told me what trans really means.”

“So you think I should tell her about sex and sexuality?”

Stiles shrugs, “she’s in foster care. I think that if someone really wanted to keep her away from you, anything you said on the matter could be twisted to sound like abuse. I would go to an LGBT book store and ask for kids’ books. Meet with her, in front of other people, then explain that you want to make sure she has a full understanding of the world around her and you don’t want her to grow up full of hate, or something like that, then give her the books. Tell her you’re not comfortable describing a community you’re not a part of, so you got books.”

Peter nods.

“Just, make sure you get her something appropriate for her age. Don’t condescend to her by getting books for toddlers, or something.”

“You sound like you swallowed a developmental psychology textbook.”

Stiles nods, “I did. A few of them. Last summer, all summer. I had to take a psychology course for my criminology degree and I liked it. So when I went home for summer break, I bought all the psych books the local used book store had.”

Peter’s eyebrows go up, “you have a criminology degree?”

Stiles tries to smile, but it doesn’t work quite right. “No. After the psych thing, I realized that I didn’t like criminology as much as I thought I would, so I decided to take a year, but I didn’t really explore my options at home, so,” he twirls his finger around in a circle to encompass his surroundings, “I decided to travel a bit before going back.”

Peter nods and walks away. Maybe Stiles should just use as many words as possible, whenever Peter comes. Confuse him into letting him go? Of course, Peter’s proven himself to be violent, he’d probably just lash out if Stiles actually confused him. He’s already bled once, since he’s been here, he doesn’t want to do it again.

C’mon, Peter. Stiles paces up and down the trailer. What the fuck does he want? Stiles has answered his questions, he’s called Malia their daughter, He’s offered advice, pedantic as it was. He even just let it happen when Peter laid hands on him last time. There’s nothing else he can think to do.

And that poor girl. In the middle of a fight between her psychotic Father and a foster Mother, who, for all he knows, could be using her as a paycheck.

What he needs to do, is get himself in the same room as Malia so his own Dad can save them both. Not that it’ll be much better for her. Child services isn’t going to let her cross state lines and anyone else who’s willing to take her in, if her current fosterer isn’t up to standard, has the potential to be even worse than the lady she’s with now. She might even be a good Mother, Stiles has no way of knowing. Even if Peter tells him, he’s kind of biased. Like, a lot.

It’s not her fault that her Dad is crazy. Maybe he can somehow relay that to her? Stiles yanks on his hair. “FUCK!” He kicks the wall and hisses through the pain that shoots up his foot. This sucks!

He falls back against the wall and slides down to his bottom, his shirt rucking uncomfortably around his arm pits. He can feel a lump forming in his throat and that just makes him more angry. He’s already fucking cried, he spent two days crying when Peter left him. He’s fucking done fucking crying!

He yanks on his shirt, tries to pull it back into position, but it gets caught on something. He pulls but it doesn’t loose. Adjusting his grip, he pulls as hard as he can as he lets out a wordless yell. The tearing noise fills the trailer and now he’s ruined his favourite shirt, too.

Stiles screams, shrill and painful in his throat and his ears. He rips the shirt off of himself, using the new hole as a starting point. He tears and tears and doesn’t stop until his shirt is in pieces all over the floor.

That was his favourite shirt. He could’ve left it, let the hole be and it would’ve been fine. He had to throw a tantrum and make it even worse.

He’s angry and he keeps screaming. He screams for himself, for his dead Mother and alcoholic Father. He screams for the little girl he’s never met. He screams for human trafficking and slavery and capitalism and all the evil in the world.

It’s not enough, the screaming isn’t enough. He punches the wall, feels burning, then numbness and that’s not enough, either. He punches the wall again. It hurts a lot more that time, so he uses his other hand, then his feet, then his whole body. He throws himself against the walls again, and again.

He screams and rages, the lantern falls into his bedding and he looses a lot of the light. He throws himself around, feels himself hurt, then go numb. It’s still not enough, he wants more. More release, more pain, more anything. He backs up as far as he can, then he runs. He feels an explosion of pain. Then he doesn’t feel anything.

The light is too bright when he wakes up. He lifts his hand to cover his eyes, but it’s so heavy that he ends up punching himself in the face. Ow. He tries to turn over but his shoulder makes it’s opposition to that Very clear. He shifts his hips in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure that’s making his butt cheek numb. His ankle doesn’t like that.

“Morning.” Stiles startles and turns his head toward the voice. His neck yells at him for it and he grimaces. Peter comes into the room, where Stile can see him. “You had quite the night,” he raises a very judgmental eyebrow at Stiles.

He looks around, but doesn’t see a clock. He sees a window, though. And a dresser, a closet. A bed. He’s in a bed. He looks back to Peter, “what time is it?”

Peter comes over to him, checks the bandage on his hand, “a little past noon. You slept all of yesterday.”

Stiles frowns at that, “what happened?”

“I found you on the ground. Your shirt was in pieces, everything was everywhere and you looked like you just stepped out of a boxing ring. What do you remember?” He sits on the side of the bed and reaches out. Stiles thinks he’s going to ruffle his hair until he touches the bandages around Stiles’ head. Now that he knows they’re there, he can feel them itching.

Stiles frowns as he tries to think back, then closes his eyes, when that doesn’t help. “I was mad. My shirt ripped, on the wall. It made me mad.” He opens his eyes to see Peter watching him.

“You threw a tantrum and knocked yourself out.” It’s not a question, bit it’d be nice if it were. The way he says it makes Stiles feel bad. Shame. He’s well acquainted with this feeling. He turns away, toward the window. There’s a tree outside. He watches the leaves blow in the breeze.

Peter moves a tuft of hair out of his eyes, “I’m going to go get lunch, do you think you can sit up?” Stiles nods, but doesn’t turn. Peter leaves.

He squeezes his eyes closed, takes deep breaths. He’s not going to cry again. He’s so sick of crying. Crying led him here. Sort of. As satisfying as it is to sometimes just hop into the shower, curl up into a ball and let loose, it’s not enough for this situation. There’s not enough of a release.

Stiles’ shoulder, ankle, hand, and head are damaged. He decides to go slowly, so he doesn’t hurt himself further; he doubts that Peter called a doctor for him. Up onto his elbows, he can feel it in both arms. A little push, which he can feel in his side, and he slides up toward the head board. His left leg is fine, but the right one hurts at various points. He has to turn onto his side to scoot up then push himself up sideways until he’s sitting. Yeah, he definitely broke at least one bone in his hand.

The room he’s in is as stereotypically girly as it can get. The only thing that would make it girlier, is if the Spice Girls were playing.

Everything except the bed frame, which is white, is either pink or very light purple. The comforter, the curtains, the rug, the dresser. Most of the decor, including the curtains, have sparkles of some kind. He can even see sparkly pencils in a sparkly cup on the hot pink desk on the other side of the room. Very sparkle, much shine.

Peter comes in with a tray and Stiles moves his hands out of the way so it can be placed across his lap. It’s chicken noodle soup with a buttered bun and a glass of grape juice. “Thank you.” Peter nods at him as he sits at the foot of the bed.

Peter lets him get a mouth full of soup before he asks, “why did you hurt yourself?”

Stiles slows his chewing to give himself time to think. He could say it was an accident. It probably didn’t look like an accident. Plus, he already told Peter that he was angry. He could say there was a bug? A really big bug and the only way to kill it was to throw himself at it head first. Right. Totally believable. There’s not really much else he can say, so he decides to be honest.

“Have you ever been kidnapped? Held in a trailer without windows or plumbing? Have you ever been confined to a box and had to wait for others to decide when you get to eat?” He takes a sip of his juice and he can feel it in his cheeks. “I have. It’s not a nice feeling.”

Peter watches him. Does this guy ever emote? Maybe that’s why they took his kid away, they were worried about her being raised by a fucking robot whose only emotions are ‘neutral’ and ‘rage’.

“You think anyone wants to live like that?”

A noise comes from Peter’s pocket and he pulls out a phone, “so you were trying to kill yourself?” He tap, tap, taps, then puts his phone away.

Stiles shakes his head, “I was trying to feel better. Vent my frustrations.” The soup is good, Campbell's though it is.

Peter gets up. “Finish your soup; your doctor will be here soon,” he saunters over to the window and leans on it, looking out.

“You called Dr. Hargrove?” Peter’s eyebrows question his intelligence at the same time he does. He shakes his head, just a bit, though. Ow. “No, of course not. Doctor?”

He turns back to the window, “went to high school with him. He owes me for not kicking his ass when I caught him cheating on his ex-wife.”

Peter is bringing another person here. A wild card. An asshole to be sure, but what kind of asshole? He’s obviously the kind of asshole who cheats on his SO because he has no respect for her, but is he also the kind of asshole who will look the other way when a kidnap victim cries for help?

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him,” Peter makes his way back over to the bed, looming over Stiles in the process, “that we’re friends. I told him that you got your ass handed to you at a bar and that you don’t have insurance. I told him that you’re important enough to me to call in that favour. Don’t make me waste it.”

He’s trying really, really hard not to be intimidated, but it’s not easy when he’s bedridden, covered in bandages and sitting under a bowl of chicken noodle soup. Stiles nods, not looking directly at Peter.

The doctor gets there an hour later. He’s snooping through Malia’s room, when Peter brings him in. “Stiles, this is Mark.” Stiles turns and offers a wave and wonders how this guy got not one, but two women to sleep with him. Maybe he’s rich? He’s short and stout and sweaty and his little round glasses refuse to stay up. He appears to compensate for this by tilting his head back, reminding Stiles of a Jurassic Park velociraptor.

Stiles makes his way over to the bed so he can sit down. Mark smiles at him, “I heard you got into a bar fight.”

Yeah, no. He knows exactly two things about this guy, one of which is his name, and he’s already positive that he doesn’t like him. “It was on my bucket list.” Mark’s face falls at his refusal to participate in the joke and Stiles can see Peter trying not to smile.

Dr. Mark starts at his head, unwinding the gauze that Stiles hasn’t seen yet. There’s not a lot of blood. Maybe Peter changed it while he was out. “This looks good, wont need stitches,” to Stiles, “how’s your head?”

Stiles winces when Dr. Mark pokes the tender bit, “feels like gremlins are trying to dig their way out.”

“Hmm. Normal. Take some aspirin.” He moves onto Stiles hand. “Did they use baseball bats?” He’s obviously trying to make yet another joke. Stiles isn’t about that.

“No,” he deadpans, “she was just built like a wall of steel.”

Dr. Mark smirks, “’she’?” Stiles offers his best death glare. Dr. Mark clears his throat and proceeds to attempt to break off each of Stiles’ fingers by bending them slightly at the knuckles. “looks like a broken phalanx and two broken metacarpals. I can’t be sure without an x-ray, but without insurance-” he does that thing people do with their faces when they don’t want to actually say ‘too bad, so sad’.

He checks Stiles over, bit by bit. What it amounts to is that Stiles is a fucking mess. He managed to beat the shit out of himself. All by his big boy self. His Mother would be so proud. He’ll have to be sure to get some pictures so his Dad can be so proud, too.

Stiles goes back to sleep, when Dr. Mark leaves.

The next time he wakes up, there’s a small child hovering over him. He startles back and twinges his everything. “Are you OK?” she whisper yells.

He takes a second to breathe through it. She looks hecka worried, so he smiles, “I’m OK.” That seems to make her feel better. “You must be Malia Aubrey Hale.”

Her mouth drops open, “you know who I am?” She’s still being quiet, so he follows suit.

“Of course, your Dad talks about you all the time. He told me how much you like to draw.” He hadn’t, Stiles had gone through her things and found her cache of art supplies and some of her pictures, but he’s not going to tell her that.

Her face lights up, “he did?” she bounces on her feet, leaning over him a bit more. For a second he thinks she’s going to face plant on him, but she bounces again and suddenly she’s upright. “Do you want to see my pictures?” Stiles can only nod before she’s off.

He sits up, it’s easier this time, as he waits for her to come back with her pictures.

She’s back in a flash with a Princess kitten adorned rolling suitcase. She puts the case on the bed and then climbs up after it. Stiles has to shift a bit so they can sit next to each other, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

“Daddy tells me stories and I draw them,” she unzips the suitcase, throws a bunch of clothes onto the floor and brings out a stack of papers, “but sometimes I just draw stuff that I like, too.” She lifts up his arm, his left one, thankfully, and snuggles in close, elbowing him in the ribs in the process. It really. Fucking. Hurts. Breathe through the pain, breathe through the pain.

When she finally settles, she directs his attention to the picture on top of the stack. It’s a lady with a crown, laying on a green hill, there are two figures standing over her, one bigger than the other. “This is Queen Miranda, she was supposed to take care of the Princess, but she was so mean that the King didn’t want her to even talk to the Princess. So she had to go to sleep.” Stiles nods along.

She flips to the next one, a four legged creature with an orange circle in its face, “this is Buttons, he’s Mrs. Delaney’s dog. He likes to play with his frisbee.”

Over the next five or so minutes, he sees pictures of Peter, Mrs. Delaney and a few more sleeping queens and Princes, because Daddy says that if a King marries a man, he doesn’t get to be King, too, cause that would be confusing, so the King’s husband is the Prince.

He starts to see a pattern. All of those ‘queens’ and ‘princes’ who were put to bed for things that a Father might not like in a co-parent. He very easily could’ve been the next addition to her pile of evidence. His stomach drops at the thought of how many people Peter has killed, at how easily he could’ve been number whatever-the-fuck.

As she goes through her pictures, they become a bigger and bigger mess around them. He spots one with a smiling lady and pulls it out from the bottom of the pile. There are three figures, all of them smiling much bigger smiles than anyone in an any of the other pictures. “Who’s this?”

She’s got a picture in each hand and she doesn’t seem interested in the one he found. “Oh, that’s Mommy, Daddy, and me. She got hit by a car. He’s in jail now. Then the judge said I couldn’t live with Daddy anymore, so now I live with Mrs. Delaney, but I still get to come here for holidays and one weekend a month.” She says it all so matter of factly that Stiles wonders if she really understands her situation, really understands what happened when her Mother got hit by a car. The ‘he’ is probably the guy who was driving. Unless she left out something important.

“I thought I told you not to bother him,” Peter says from the doorway. Stiles jumps at hearing his voice again. Malia does, too, but her jump is followed by a happy exclamation.

She climbs off of the bed and gives her Dad a hug. She probably doesn’t get to see him very often. “I did, but he was awake, then he said he wanted to see my pictures, so I showed him.”

Peter nods along as she talks, a small smile on his lips. “Well, I guess that’s OK, then. It’s time for lunch. Go wash up.”

“OK, Daddy.” She offers a wave, “bye.” He waves back even though she’s already out the door.

“Sorry if she bothered you,” Peter comes into the room and begins picking up all of the clothes that Malia threw out of her case.

Stiles shakes his head, “how else was I going to meet Buttons?” he holds up one of the half dozen or so pictures of the giant pupper.

Peter does that tiny nod that means Stiles just passed a test and says, “are you feeling up for lunch at the table?”

Wow, he gets to meet the kid and eat at a table? Big day. He shifts around, puts pressure on various parts of his body. “I think I can manage.”

Peter drops his burden into the plastic basket beside the desk then picks up the whole thing as he turns to leave. “The bathroom is on the left,” he juts his chin down the hall, “the kitchen is back this way,” he tilts his head in the other direction, “don’t take too long.”

It takes him a second to get his feet under him properly. His head swims a bit, but only when he moves quickly, and his entire right side throbs, but he makes it to the bathroom without any mishaps, so he considers it a win.

The bathroom is empty, when he gets there, so he locks the door and goes right for the toilet. As far as he can tell, it’s been about a week and a half since he last used a toilet and he has to close his eyes and take deep breaths to keep the tears at bay. The relief he feels when there’s no sharp, hard edge digging into his butt cheeks is indescribable.

He cracks the window and takes a second to assess the damage in the giant, somehow HD mirror they have. He looks old, he looks haggard, he looks like a character from Ren and Stimpy. Yes, Peter said to be quick, but surely he wouldn’t grudge Stiles a clean face? Of course he would. Stiles removes the bandages from his head and washes his face anyway.

When he makes his way down the hall to the kitchen, where there’s a little table already set, Peter and Malia are talking. Peter gives him an annoyed look as he says, “we’ve been waiting for you.”

Stiles takes the empty seat. “Sorry, I thought I should wash up, too,” he smiles at Malia and she beams at him, which seems to appease Peter.

“Go ahead,” Peter says to Malia.

She reaches for a platter of grilled cheeses as she says, “you gotta wash your hands cause there’s bacteria and viruses everywhere and they can make you sick.”

Stiles nods along with this sage wisdom and pours her some apple juice from the jug on the table, before pouring some for himself. “Do you know a lot about bacteria and viruses?”

She shrugs as she plops a sandwich onto her plate and reaches for the salt, “not really. I don’t like science.” She hands him the salt, “can you help me with this?”

He sprinkles some salt onto her bowl of tomato soup, “there’s a lot of science out there, just because you don’t like some parts of it, doesn’t mean you can’t like other parts, like space, or dinosaurs, or medicine.”

She gapes at him, “dinosaurs are science?”

“uh-oh, you’re about to learn a lot about dinosaurs.” Stiles is confused until he turns to Peter and sees that he’s talking to him, not Malia. He turns back to Malia, who is still smiling. “So I guess we’re watching Jurassic Park after lunch?”

She bounces in her chair, “yes, yes, yes!”

“Malia,” Peter chastises.

“Sorry,” she settles in her seat, “yes, I want to watch Jurassic Park after lunch, please.”

Peter smiles at her in a way that obviously means ‘yes, dear’. Stiles takes a second to wonder at how Malia has any fingers left with how tightly she has Peter wrapped around them. Ha. Jokes about losing limbs. Are fingers limbs? He’s had the internet since he can remember and he’s never thought to ask that question. Now he doesn’t have access to teh interwebz and he’ll never find out the answer.

“Do you like Jurassic Park?” Stiles nods. “My favourite part was when the T-Rex was there and that guy was on the toilet and the T-Rex ate him!” She jumps off of her chair, throwing her hands up as she goes.

“My favourite part was when they went to the restaurant and the raptors chased them around the kitchen.” Her enthusiasm is contagious and Stiles really does like dinosaurs.

“My favourite part was when everybody sat down and finished their lunches,” Peter gives them both a stern look. Stiles shares a smile with Malia as they go back to their food.

“You know a lot about dinosaurs.” Peter says as he comes back from putting Malia to bed.

Stiles shrugs, “I like to learn about stuff.”

“’Learn about stuff’,” Peter mutters as he opens the door to a linen closet and pulls out a bundle of blankets. “C’mon.” He doesn’t wait for Stiles, just heads back to the kitchen.

There’s a basement, accessed through the kitchen. There’s not a lot down here, an old TV, a ratty couch, a pile of boxes, a workbench with a bunch of tools and what looks to Stiles like car parts. Is this the ‘Man cave’ of legend? It’s as magical as Stiles has been lead to believe, although, there are fewer playboy calendars on the walls than he’d expected. That is to say, there are none.

Peter makes to hand Stiles the bundle, then apparently remembers that Stiles only has one functioning hand and puts them on the TV, instead. The cushions come off the couch and it pulls out into a bed. Peter lays out the blankets as Stiles tries not to cry at the bed he’s pretty sure he’s going to be using tonight.

“Your pillow is still back at the trailer, so you’ll have to make do.” Stiles nods, a little overwhelmed at the prospect of an actual bed. That is, until Peter stalks over to him, he backs into the wall, Peter looks menacing. Stiles flinches when he brings up his hand, but all he does is point in Stiles’ face, “this is your warning, there will be no second chance, if you fuck this up, it’ll be the last thing you ever do. Do you understand me?” Stiles nods frantically. Peter grabs a handful of Stiles’ shirt, “do you understand?”

“Yes. Yes, I understand.” Stiles continues to nod until Peter lets go of him and takes a step back.

When Peter continues, it’s much calmer, “go and get ready for bed. There are clothes for you in the bathroom. Don’t shower, though, you’re not supposed to get your bandages wet.” Stiles waits for a beat, just in case there’s something to add, then makes his way to the stairs.

In the bathroom, the window has been shut, there’s a change of clothes from his bag sitting on the counter and, on top of that, a toothbrush, still in the packaging.

He does his business, cleans himself as well as he can and goes back to the kitchen. Peter is cleaning up from dinner. “I- um. I wasn’t sure where to put my clothes,” he lifts the bundle in his hands, just in case Peter missed it.

“Put it on the table, I’ll throw it in with the next load.”

“Thank you,” Stiles does as he’s told. When Peter doesn’t say anything else, he goes back downstairs, fixes up his bed to the best of his ability, using one of the couch cushions as a pillow, then goes to bed.

Malia is sitting on the end of the bed, when he wakes up. She’s managed to find cartoons. She doesn’t realize that he’s awake until he laughs at one of the jokes. When she turns to him, it’s with a smile, “morning. Daddy said not to wake you up, but I wanted to watch cartoons.”

He sits back and she scoots to join him. “I like cartoons, too. Is your Dad up?”

She shakes her head, “he has to stay up late for work, so he sleeps in.”

They watch until the end of the episode, laughing at all the appropriate parts and Malia sings along, quietly, with the theme song at the end.

His bladder is about to burst, he’s getting up. “Do you want some breakfast?”

“Yes,” she gets up to follow, “can you make pancakes?” She grabs his hand as they head for the stairs.

He squeezes her hand, then uses it to nudge her toward the TV, “go turn off the thing.” He waits for her to do it, then holds his hand out. The sad panda look is replaced by a huge grin, as she retakes his hand.

They have to separate so they can stairs and then he can bathroom and then they can search the kitchen for pancake fixin’s. Normally, Stiles would search the internet for a recipe, but luckily, with Malia’s help, he’s able to find a few cook books, one of which has a basic pancake recipe.

Stiles makes silver dollar pancakes, because kids love small things. And Stiles, stiles loves small things, too. He finds some food colouring and decides to add some. Malia is thrilled with her plate of mini rainbow circles and Stiles slices a banana long ways for her, so she can make faces with her food.

They move to the living room after breakfast to continue their cartoon marathon, which has helped Stiles figure out where he is. Using the very scientific method of watching commercials, he’s determined that he’s probably in Boise. At ten o’clock, Stiles starts to get antsy. “Do you know what time your Dad usually sleeps til?”

She shrugs, “sometimes he watches Big City Greens with me.”

Stiles hasn’t heard of that one. “When does that come on?”

She turns to him, “it’s on next,” she says like this should be common knowledge for the over 12 crowd. To be fair, though, he knows the schedule over on Nickelodeon.

He leaves her to her entertainment and cleans up the mess they, mostly he, made in the kitchen. There’s not much he can do in the way of details, he can put the food away, rinse out the dishes they used and fill the sink with soap, water, and dishes. So that’s what he does. The actual scrubbing will have to wait for Peter. He’s going to love that.

He’s missed the first few minutes of Big City Greens, when he’s done, but he manages to work out what’s going on. He can see Malia watching him out of the corner of her eye. He mutes the TV during the commercial and says, “is there something you’d like to say?” Malia shrugs but doesn’t say anything. “Is there something you’d like to ask?” Malia shrugs, then nods.

It takes her a second to get the words, so Stiles gives her the time she needs. “What’s your name?”

Stiles tries not to smile, he doesn’t want her to think that he’s laughing at her. “Your Dad didn’t tell you?”

She shrugs again; he’s pretty sure she’s embarrassed. “He said he didn’t know how to say it.”

He smiles, “that’s because it’s Polish and it has more consonants in it than the entire English alphabet. My friends call me Stiles, I’d like it if you could call me Stiles, too.”

She beams at him and wraps herself around his shoulders, “does that mean we’re friends?”

“Ow, ow, honey. Ow.” He pats her back a few times to try to get her to let him go.

She throws herself to the other end of the couch, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you!” She’s near tears, now. Moods are stupid. Stiles hates emotions.

“I know you didn’t, it was an accident,” he holds out his hand to try to coax her back, but she hesitates. “Yes, it means we’re friends, now. If you want to be?” He wiggles his fingers to try to increase the effectiveness of the coaxing.

She slides back over, very slowly, and he resists the urge to roll his eyes. Eventually she makes it back over and they sit together. Stiles unmutes the TV and they watch the rest of the episode.

Peter and Malia spend as much of the day together as possible, with Stiles only interjecting to offer healthy snacks or advice on homework.

At seven o’clock, Peter tells them that it’s time to leave. They have to take Malia back to Mrs. Delaney’s house. He has a second of wondering if Peter is going to lock him in the basement before Peter calls him over.

The ride over is tense, with Stiles wondering at every stop sign and red light, if it would be safer to jump out of a moving vehicle than to stay with Peter. He’s decided to try his luck with road rash, after Malia is safely with Mrs. Delaney, when they pull up to a blue suburban house, in the middle of a row of blue suburban houses.

Peter turns, “why don’t you go ahead, I’ll be right there.”

She hesitates until both Peter and Stiles smile at her, “ok, bye Stiles,” she scoots out of the car, Princess kitten suitcase rolling along behind her as she goes.

Peter puts his hand on Stiles shoulder. A friendly gesture from the outside, but Stiles isn’t on the outside. He freezes. “I’m going to go say goodbye to my daughter. You’re going to stay here. You’re not going to leave,” he opens his jacket and Stiles can just see the butt of the gun hidden away. “If you try, I’ll shoot you down, then I’ll shoot Mrs. Delaney,” he smiles, looking out the window, probably at Malia, “then I’ll shoot the dog.” He raises his eyebrows, creepy smile still in place, and nods. Stiles nods back.

The drive back is quiet, with Stiles lost in his head. He’d liked Malia, not enough to want to be her Dad, or anything, but he would babysit from time to time.

He wonders what comes next. He was good with Malia, she liked him. He kept her happy while Peter was sleeping and left them to their thing when he was awake. He was around enough to be there, but not enough to get in the way or get between them. Surely that earned him some good will?

He’s not yet confident enough to say that Malia’s like of him has earned him any reprieves, but he’s still injured. Maybe he can play it up and escape while Peter isn’t looking?

“Get out.” He hadn’t realized that they’d stopped, but when he looks around, his heart sinks. They’re at the trailer. Peter gets out of the car, fiddling with his keys as he heads to the Tiny Box Of Doom.

He does get out. He doesn’t want to, but he does it anyway. He waits by the car, not wanting to go back into the bad place. Peter turns to him, when he gets the door open, “are you going to make me drag you in here?”

Stiles goes over, slowly, making sure to stay out of Peter’s reach. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Get in the trailer, Stiles.” It’s strange to hear his name coming from Peter; Malia must have told him, or else he’d heard it when they’d dropped her off.

He hesitates. “I was good with Malia, I didn’t try to leave, I-”

Peter comes forward, grabs his shirt between his shoulder blades, and walks him into the trailer, “you didn’t try to leave because she was there. I know you wanted to, I know you’ve been planning a way out since you got here.” He pushes Stiles into the trailer and stops in the doorway. “I’m going back to the car, stay here.” He leaves.

Stiles hears footsteps, thumpy car noises, then footsteps again. Then, Peter is back with a cardboard box. He puts it down against the wall, opens the flaps and pulls out a piece of paper. “Malia drew this for you,” he hands it to Stiles.

It’s a picture of Malia and him, riding a T-Rex. It’s the most amazing picture Stiles has ever seen. He’s smiling like a loon and he doesn’t even care. “Will you tell her that I said ‘thank you’?”

Peter nods, “yeah,” and then he’s gone.

The trailer gets cold at night, as expected in Idaho in mid October. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck. Stiles asks for more blankets, and Peter comes back with a garbage bag full of them.

He makes his way through the box of books that Peter left. Most of them are fiction in a variety of genres. He tries to read the romances, but can’t get past the cheesy dialogue. He tries to read the mysteries, but guesses the outcomes by the first quarter. He tries to read the horrors, but runs into the same problems he’d had with the romances and the mysteries, both.

He reads the fantasy, but it’s the only one in the box.

Stiles asks for more non-fiction, text books and how-tos, and Peter comes back with another box full of them.

Diner food is good. Sandwiches? Great. French fries? The bomb. Salads? Good way to spice up a limited menu. But therein lies the problem, if you’re ‘spicing up’ your meal plan with salad, something is wrong. He asks for different foods, when Peter comes back, he brings spaghetti with meatballs and garlic bread.

By the second week post medical break, he’s bored of reading all day. He asks for a notebook and pen, when Peter comes back, he brings a pack of lined paper and a pencil case with a few pens, some pencils, a few pencil crayons, white out, and an eraser.

He’s having a hard time. Sleeping on the floor, sitting on the floor. He feels like Quasimodo. He’s stiff and sore and he has to roll himself over onto his front so he can push himself out of his bed in the mornings. He asks for a chair, when Peter comes back, he brings a canvas lawn chair.

The chair helps with the pain; he’s never felt so old in his life. Sitting on the floor never used to be a problem. It is a problem when he’s half broken and doesn’t have any other options. Unfortunately, sitting in a chair isn’t conducive to relaxation when you have to get up to get something stored on the floor every ten minutes. He asks for a table, when Peter comes back, he brings a card table.

Time drags, and drags, and drags, and drags... The next time Peter comes, he’s in a good mood. Almost chipper. “Good day?” Stiles asks as Peter puts his food onto the table, a bigger bag than usual.

Peter nods as he goes for the bucket, “I’m seeing Malia today.”

He comes back, a few minutes later with the now clean bucket. “Every second Saturday of the month we meet for lunch, every fourth Friday, she spends the night.” Peter stops in front of Stiles. “We’re going to IHOP, then we’re going to see Moana. There’s extra food there, and your next dose.”

“Oh, man,” Stiles says as he takes one of the pills, “I wanna see that.”

Peter smiles his soft only-for-malia smile, “maybe next time.” He seems to realize where he is and straightens, clearing his throat. “Do you need anything else?”

“More diverse entertainment opportunities? Can I have my PSP?” Peter’s eyebrows say really? and Stiles shrugs, “doesn’t hurt to ask.” He wouldn’t be able to do anything with it anyway. There are probably no wi-fi signals out here, which would make it useless for calling for help. Well, for him, at least. Maybe Danny could’ve done something with it, but electronics aren’t really Stiles’ strong suit.

“I’ll be back later,” and with that, Peter leaves him.

The days run together. Stiles gets used to doing nothing. Peter had come back from his visit with Malia with some movie popcorn and pictures that she had drawn for him. The pictures went up with the T-Rex one, and the popcorn was eaten immediately. Nothing particularly noteworthy has happened since.

He’d decided that journaling might be fun. He gave it a go. After a few days with the same four sentence entry (Dear Diary, day something-or-other of my captivity. I’m fucking bored. Please send internet. Thanks. <3 Stiles), he’d started trying to inject some humour. It gradually became a dystopian sci-fi drama with an underlining theme of the pointlessness of human existence. Honestly, if he could get the people who did Hamilton on board, it could be big. Although, for that to happen, he’d have to rewrite the whole thing with his right hand when it finishes healing so it’s actually legible. He’s getting better at writing left-handed, though.

Stiles has been counting the days, so he knows that Peter’s weekend with Malia is coming up. When Peter comes in on what Stiles was pretty sure is a Wednesday and tells him to gather his things, he’s a little confused. Turns out, he’s lost a few days and it’s actually Friday.

He puts all of his clothes and the book he’s been reading into his bag, then follows Peter out to the car. “How’s your hand?”

He’s kind of surprised that Peter asked, though not really. He’ll need both hands to take care of Malia. There could also be some Lima Syndrome going on. Maybe? Hopefully. “Still a bit stiff. I can write a few words at a time.” He holds his hand up to the windshield so he can see it better in the light, “my finger is crooked.” His fingers had been mostly straight before, but now, his ring finger veers off toward his pinky causing what feels like a huge gap between his middle and ring fingers. “I have resting Vulcan Salute hand...”

Peter snorts, “maybe it’ll be a reminder to take a breath and calm the fuck down, next time.”

Stiles drops his hand. Probably not Lima Syndrome.

He tells Peter about the Vulcan Salute on the way to the house. Peter doesn’t respond, but he doesn’t tell Stiles to shut up, either, so he keeps going. There’s not much he can say about the salute on its own, so he talks about its inspiration and then what Nimoy did after Star Trek.

Peter takes his bag, when they get to the house. Stiles showers and shaves and sits down while he pees because using an actual toilet is kind of novel, at this point. Peter gives his some sleep pants and a t-shirt to wear while his clothes are in the wash.

“You’re making dinner, tonight,” he tells Stiles. “We usually have soup and sandwiches or pasta. Can you make something fun with this?” he gestures to the fridge.

Stiles goes through the fridge, then the cupboards, then the cookbooks Malia showed him. “I can make most of a taco casserole? You don’t have tortilla chips, or all the spices and something a bit sharper than mozzarella would be better for a beef filling.” He turns to Peter with eyebrows raised.

Peter nods. “Make a list. We’ll get something for tomorrow, too.”

The trip to the store was uneventful, he’d gotten what he needs for taco casserole as well as things for tomorrow’s breakfast (“how do you not have eggs, Peter? Kids love French toast, you have to have eggs!”). He does some chopping and some precooking; he’ll wait for Malia to get here to put it all together and pop it in the oven; it’ll only take a few minutes.

He decides to prep tomorrow’s lunch, as well, empanadas, cause why the fuck not? It’s a bastardizing Latin American cuisine kind of weekend, apparently. Maybe he’ll Americanize it with ketchup. He shudders at the thought. That’s not gunna happen.

His clothes are all clean and dry by the time the filling for the empanadas is ready. Now it’ll wait in the fridge until tomorrow and he has nothing else to do...

He changes into his own clothes and grabs his book. Then he takes a deep breath, raises his chin and struts into the living room like he owns the place. Peter is on a laptop on one end of the couch. Stiles plops himself down on the other side and starts reading. Well, he tries to; he can’t get into it.

When he’s in his trailer, he’s the only one there, the only one around, the only one who can hear him talking to himself. Apparently he’s gotten used to reading out loud. Funny voices make everything more interesting.

His thoughts are suddenly cut off by the realization that he didn’t even think about trying to leave while they were at the grocery store. Peter probably had his gun on him, but he didn’t bother to threaten Stiles with it. There were lots of people around, lots of tall shelves and he’d wandered off a few times. He very easily could’ve gone to the next isle ahead of Peter, told one of the employees to call the police and been done with the whole thing. He was just so exited about the taco casserole. He mentally kicks himself. There’s nothing to be done, now, best not to think about it.

“What happens when my Aderall runs out?” He’d told Dr. Hargrove about his on-foot road trip and the good doctor had written him a 90 day prescription so he could fill it less often then the usual 30 days. He should have about two weeks left on the bottle he has now.

“Mark said he could get some.” Right, him. So not only is he a cheater, he’s a dealer, too. Stand up guy. Fathers, ready your dowries, he’s single.

They pick Malia up from school. She calls out and glomps onto him as soon as he’s out of the car. She doesn’t let go of him as she looks up at him to say, “you didn’t come to lunch.”

“Of course not. Lunch is a family affair, just you and your Dad.” He pats her back as he smiles down at her. “We’ll have dinner today, though.”

She offers a chipper, “OK,” as she follows her Dad, where he’s putting her suitcase into the trunk, and gives him a hug, too.

Peter picks her up with a grunt and blows a raspberry into her cheek, “Stiles made dinner,” he says conspiratorially, “I have it on good authority, that it’s going to be awesome.” He puts her down so he can get into the driver’s seat.

“Yeah, it is,” He says as he gets into the back seat, so Malia can sit up front. She hesitates for a second before jumping in next to her Dad.

The ride home is filled with the stories of everything Malia has done since the last time they met. At first, Stiles thinks that Peter is going to be upset about Malia focusing more on him, but when he turns to Peter, it’s to see a smile on his face. Unexpected, but better than the alternative.

She goes straight to her room, when they get back, Peter calling out for her to empty out her suitcase, then get washed up for supper.

Stiles assembles the layers of the casserole, pops it in the oven and decides to set the table while Malia is still doing her thing. Peter comes in while he’s laying out dishes of toppings and a jug of juice. “I thought you were lying.” Stiles looks up at him. “You didn’t think about my questions; you had an answer for everything that I asked, too fast for you to have thought about each question. I thought you were just saying what you thought I wanted to hear.”

He was. “I don’t understand,” is this another test?

Peter comes in and sits in his seat, “you’re really good with her. I thought that I would see what you’ve got, and if you didn’t live up to expectations,” he shrugs, “I’d move on.”

What can he say to that? OK? Cool? Neat-o? He decides to check the food instead. The cheese is melty so he takes it out and adds it to the spread on the table.

Dinner is a huge hit and Malia makes him promise that they can have it next time she sleeps over. It’s a month down the line, so he sees no problem in agreeing. Hopefully he won’t be here for that.

After dinner, they play a few board games and Stiles listens to Malia recount everything that she remembers from Moana. It’s quite a bit, as it turns out. She even sings the songs for him. Apparently Mrs. Delaney has YouTube, who’d’a thunk it?

The evening sees them playing a few board games, then a few card games, before Malia goes to bed.

When she finally goes to bed, there’s nothing left to do but talk. “I was telling you what I thought you’d want to hear,” He doesn’t look at Peter. Peter looks up from his laptop. “It just happens that I like to read about psychology and stay up to date with scientific studies.” He looks over at Peter, “I thought you were going to kill me when you asked about boys.”

Peter smirks, “I was going to, that’s why I left so fast. You kept talking and I thought I should take the time to think about what you were saying before I did something stupid to the first person who seemed to know what they were talking about. I don’t agree with everything you said, but I did get her the books.”

Stiles frowns. He doesn’t want to make Peter angry, but they’re speaking openly, so he decides to ask, “you still want me here, even though we disagree?”

Peter closes his laptop and turns a bit to face him, “if I didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be. Parents have disagreements. That’s why there are usually two of them, so children grow up hearing differing view points and learn to think critically about the things they’re told.”

“There are usually two of them so the Father can have all of the rights and social benefits of having a child without any of the responsibilities. That’s why the stay-at-home is almost always the Mother,” Stiles looks away from him, “or the twink.” He waits a beat, but when Peter doesn’t respond, he gets up and goes downstairs to the pull-out. He falls asleep before he hears Peter go to bed.

He’s woken up the same way as last time. The noise from the TV pulls him out of sleep and he sees Malia sitting on the end of his bed. He doesn’t stay in bed to watch with Malia, instead, he sits up and pokes Malia in the ribs, making her giggle. “You want breakfast?” he asks as he gets out of the bed.

“Yes, can we have rainbow pancakes again?” she turns completely away from the TV to face him.

Stiles takes a second to indulge in a yawn-stretch combo, complete with belly scratch. “Your poop wasn’t colourful enough last time?”

She covers her mouth with both hands to stop the laugh that Stiles can see on her face and shakes her head hard enough for her hair to end up a mess. He smiles at her antics, “c’mon, then. Upstairs. I think the commercial is almost over.” He goes for the stairs without waiting.

He pokes his head into the living room when he’s done with as much of his morning routine as he can do, “I had planned to make French toast this morning.”

Malia shrugs, “that sounds good,” she says in the way of disappointed children everywhere. Good sport.

The thing about being the chef, is that what you want to eat is what gets made. There’s not much that he can do to change the colour, but he does grab the package of chocolate chips that he found in the cupboard yesterday, and sprinkles some on each of their plates, when he calls Malia to eat. She’s not so disappointed anymore.

Stiles sends her off to her cartoons so he can clean up the kitchen, it’s easier, now that his hand is mostly healed. He’s looking out the kitchen window, watching a bird hop around the yard and thinking about making another entry in his journal, well, ‘journal’, when Peter comes in. He doesn’t notice until his name is called.

“Stiles.” He jumps and turns. “Malia needs a winter coat and boots, we’re going to get them today, do you want to come?” he says in a tone that suggests this isn’t the first time he’s asked.

No, thanks, I’d rather go back and sit in a steel container. He nods, “I’ll go get dressed,” he heads to the basement.

“If you want to shower, you have time.”

Actually, a shower sounds really fucking nice.

The mall is about as generic as they come. They park away from the door and most of the other cars on the lot. When Malia gets out of the car, Peter holds Stiles back so he can speak into his ear, “we’ve made progress, right?”

“Yes.” Stiles has an inkling of where this might possibly be going, maybe perhaps.

“So I don’t need to tell you about what I brought with me?”

Is that an M1911A1 in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? “No.”

“And I don’t need to tell you what it can do, or to whom?”

Put holes in random people with varying degrees of accuracy from various distances depending on user skill. “No.”

“Good,” Peter lets go of his arm, “let’s go shopping.”

The threats are unnecessary. Peter’s insanity isn’t on Malia and he wouldn’t put it on her. He wasn’t planning on running in front of her; she doesn’t need to see that. Let her be a kid for at least a little longer.

The winter wear part of the excursion lasts for all of twenty minutes. They try Macy’s first, Stiles hasn’t been to one of these in years, so he follows behind the Hales, who make a beeline, for the winter section.

Peter goes for the warmer looking puff style coats, but Malia is having none of it. As soon as she sees the pink velvet, she refuses to look at any of the other coats. Stiles doesn’t see the problem, the thing is lined and interlined and weighs about 700 pounds. It’s probably the warmest thing in this store, but Peter is adamant about the puff jackets. That is, until Stiles finds the biggest one, probably suitable for a 12ish year old frame, and puts it on. He can zip it up, but the arms only cover about half of his forearms and the bottom stops at his bellybutton.

Malia laughs and puts hers on, too, then switches it out for a smaller one. “It’s pretty heavy,” he says to her as he bounces on his toes, “do you think you can stay upright with it on?”

She bounces with him, jumps a few times and declares, “I can handle it.”

He nods as he makes a show of inspecting it, “I like the fuzzy lining, thought the white’s gunna get dirty really quickly.”

“Yeah, but it’s on the inside, so it doesn’t matter.”

“That’s true,” he concedes, then turns to Peter, “what do you think?” He catches a glimpse of Malia and himself standing there in the same coat, watching for Peter’s reaction and has to hold his laugh.

Peter does his snicker-laugh as he comes over to Malia and checks the fit for himself, “I think it’ll work. You really don’t want-”

“No, Daddy. I want this one.” She gives him puppy eyes and he gives her incredulous eyebrows. “Please?”

He steps back from her, “alright. Take it off so we can buy it,” he holds out his hand and she complies with a smile.

Stiles goes over to the full length mirror, “what do you think?” he asks, “should I get one too?” He does a few poses, even checking to see how it looks from behind. When he turns back, Malia is laughing so hard, she has tears in her eyes and Peter has a smile on his face, too. Needless to say, the coat goes back onto the rack.

Boots are a different matter. They look over a few shelves, but Malia finds what she wants in a pair of brown discount-Doc-Martins. Peter doesn’t look pleased, but that seems to be his default state of being, so Stiles doesn’t think much of it.

She digs through the shelves to try to find her size, while Peter keeps looking. He picks up boot after boot, pink, sparkles, stars, fake fur, and offers them to her. They’re cute, but she likes these ones.

Stiles is telling her how the laces/zipper combo work, when Peter pulls him to the end of the aisle. “She looks like a hooligan,” he says quietly as he hands a new boot to him.

He looks over at Malia and her boots with a frown, then looks at the boot in his hand, “I don’t understand,” he replies, just as quietly, handing the boot back.

Peter picks up another boot and gives that one to Stiles, “the boots she picked, they make her look like a ruffian.”

Stiles snorts, still quietly, “first, ‘ruffian’? This isn’t 1959, and second, no she doesn’t,” they both look over at her, walking closer to, and away from the mirror, back and forth and back and forth.

“She looks like she’s going to rob someone-”

“No, Peter,” Stiles snaps, “you look like you’re gunna rob someone.” He turns back to see Malia jumping in front of the mirror. “She looks like an 8-year-old, who’s discovering her style.” He turns back to Peter, “it’s a creative process and it gives her a sense of control over herself, which is something she really needs right now.” He can see in Peter’s face, that one more nudge should do it.

“The school is very strict, she’ll get sent home if she dresses like that.” He’s dropped all pretense of shoe shopping and is just watching Malia jump and stretch and admire her new shoes.

So it’s not actually about the boots. “Peter,” he says, softer than he means to. “Everyone knows that she’s in foster care. Everyone knows that she sees the school councillor. A puffy coat and sparkly boots aren’t going to change that.”

Peter visibly deflates, “I just want them to leave her alone.”

“Take it from someone who was bullied: they wont. The best you can do is try to work with the school, talk to her about it, and maybe put her into a different school when you regain custody.”

Peter nods at that, then makes his way back over, stopping off along the way to pull a pair of boots down from the top shelf, too fast for Stiles to see what he has. “I think these ones are better,” he offers.

Malia’s face drops for a second until she turns to see what Peter’s holding and she lights up, “really?”

“Yeah, really,” Peter kneels down in front of her to help her switch boots and Stiles comes over to see what he brought as Malia explains how the laces/zipper combo works. Peter grabbed the same pair of boots that Malia did, but in grey instead of brown.

She jumps up, when they manage to get them on, and she almost yells, “look, Stiles, what do you think?” as she runs over to the mirror.

“I think we need to see it all together,” he says as he hands over her new coat. She puts it on, does it up and twirls around, huge smile on her face. “I think those are the ones.” He looks over to Peter for confirmation, but he’s watching Malia, smile on his own face.

They spend the next few hours walking around the mall. They stop off at a novelty jewellery store and Malia gets some new headbands, a 6 pack of earrings, and a pair of yellow sunglasses that Stiles is pretty sure aren’t actually meant to block sunlight.

They go to the bookstore and she gets a book of dog facts and an overpriced colouring book. Stiles ends up getting a few novels, with Peter’s permission and money. They get into a rather heated discussion about who would win in a fight, Applejack or Rainbow Dash. Malia is sure that RD’s speed can get her out of anything, but Stiles is adamant that they’d have to actually fight, and if they stay on the ground, Applejack would be the victor. They agree to disagree.

Supper is a rather sombre affair, everyone at the table acutely aware that Malia has to go back to Mrs. Delaney’s in a few hours. They end up at a burger joint and Stiles swears, no matter what happens, that this won’t be the last time he eats here.

Peter ‘lets’ Stiles come with them to drop off Malia when she asks. In actuality, Stiles would’ve gone anyway; there’s no way Peter would leave Stiles alone, even after today. Malia is pleased, but the drive is still heavy and quiet.

On the way back, Peter drops the bomb: “I’ve taken a job, I’ll be gone all next week.”

“What do I do while you’re gone?”

“I’ll bring what you need for the week, when I come back tomorrow.”

Peter pulls up to the trailer and Stiles’ stomach sinks. “Please tell me you’re not going to go to the diner and leave me with a week’s worth of sandwiches.”

“Of course not,” Peter says as he gets out of the car, “I’m going to go to the army surplus store and get you a week’s worth of MREs.”

Stiles stomach turns as he chases Peter out of the car. “You don’t have to do that, you could go to the diner and get me a week’s worth of sandwiches.”

Peter stops and studies Stiles, “you know MREs have improved since World War 2, right? They aren’t green blocks of sadness anymore. Some people take them camping so they don’t have to suffer through roasted hot dogs for every meal.”

“They’re not?”

Peter rolls his eyes as he pulls out his phone, does some tapping then turns the phone so Stiles can see what he’s pulled up. It does look good, though, the picture on the bag never actually looks like the food inside. Stiles reaches his hand out to scroll, but Peter pulls the phone back. “I wanted to read the description.” Peter pulls up the description and lets Stiles read it. “That- that does sound good,” even he can hear how surprised he is. “Is there a picture of the back of the bag?” Peter does some more fiddling and Stiles reads that, too. Self heating, ‘Safe for use in confined spaces’. At least it won’t kill him.

“Satisfied?” Peter asks sarcastically.

“Yes,” Stiles responds cheerfully as he walks away, over to his trailer. He can’t see it, but he knows Peter is rolling his eyes at him.

When Stiles wakes up, it’s to Peter’s ‘ready or not, here I come’ bang. He sits up slowly as Peter opens the door, “what time is it?”

“Nearly six. I have to be on the road in an hour. Come help me with this.” Peter opens the doors wide and Stiles can see the hand truck stacked high with boxes and cases of water. He hands over the topmost box, a cardboard box with OMEALS printed on all sides. Stiles puts it off to the side, then goes back for the next, and the next, and the next.

He has a bit of trouble with the water, so that goes by the door. There are four cases of 12 1L bottles, more than enough for the week, even without counting the water he still has from last time.

“Come with me,” Peter says as he walks away. Stiles follows him out to the car. Peter hands him a duffle and a full garbage bag. “Go.”

He drops the bags in the middle of the floor, then stands by the door to see what Peter is doing. He’s got the hand truck loaded up again and is carting a huge, white bag and a fairly large, sturdy looking bucket. “Here,” he hands the bucket to Stiles and grabs the bag himself.

He manages to hoist the bag into the trailer, then picks it up with apparent ease. “I won’t be able to empty your bucket. This’ll help.” He takes the bag to the poop corner and drops it. He picks up the bucket and takes it outside. He doesn’t stay to clean it out, just comes right back in, taking the new bucket from Stiles on his way back to the corner. “There’s a scoop in the bag,” he gestures to the duffle across the trailer. “One scoop in the bucket before you use it, one more after, enough to cover. If you need to empty the bucket, use the garbage bag, those are blankets, by the way, it’s supposed to be cold this week.”

He comes back to stand in front of Stiles. “There’s soap, a hat and mitts, some warmer clothes, your meds, and extra batteries in the duffle. Blankets in the garbage bag, don’t rip it open, or you wont be able to empty your bucket.” He looks around for a second, “oh,” he leaves Stiles and goes back to the car. He comes back with a rolled up yoga mat and a book.

“Uh, thanks,” Stiles says as he takes the book, ‘2100 Asanas, the complete yoga poses’.

“You need exercise.”

“Thanks,” Stiles deadpans.

Peter rolls his eyes, “everyone needs exercise. You don’t get out.”

And whose fault is that? “Thanks,” he says, less sarcastically this time.

Peter looks at his bare wrist, then takes out his phone so he can check the time that way. “I have to go, do you need anything else?”

Stiles looks around, “um, I don’t think so? Do you have any pens in the car?”

“Pens.” Peter goes to check.

The butterflies that have been flying around since last night try to Alien their way out of his chest as it settles in, Peter is going to leave him here for a week. 7 days. Half a fortnight. A quarter of a month. A 52th of a year. What if something happens. He can’t think of anything that could happen, but what if something does? Accidents and emergencies happen all the time, there’s an entire section of the hospital dedicated specifically to that sort of thing. What if the MREs have gone off and he gets food poisoning and dies of dissentery?

What if something happens to Peter and he doesn’t come back? He has no way to call for help, that’s been the point of all of this. What if Peter does something else illegal and gets arrested. He’s not going to want anyone to find out what else he’s been doing. Stiles will eat all the food, and starve, or he’ll drink all the water and dehydrate, or maybe he’ll just freeze to death.

Peter comes back to find him hyperventilating on the floor. “Stiles.” He hears his name, but can’t figure out how to respond. “Stiles,” Peter says again. There’s a warm hand on his shoulder and he can’t fucking breathe. “It’s OK, you’re OK.” His chest starts to burn and his eyes water, his fingers are cold and tingling. “Stiles,” Peter says, more sternly this time. He pulls him up by his arms and stiles lets out a sob as he falls into Peter’s chest.

Warm arms come up and wrap around his shoulders as the tears start coming in earnest. “Deep breaths, exhale. Stiles, exhale.” He does as he’s told, breathing into Peter’s shirt. His cologne smells cheap and fruity, probably from Malia. Peter rocks him back and forth. It takes a while for his breathing and tears to slow, but Peter holds him through it.

When Stiles has been calm for a bit, Peter speaks, “do you want to talk about it?” Stiles shakes his head. Peter gets up, “do you need anything else?” Stiles shakes his head. “Are you OK?” Stiles nods. “I should be back on Saturday. Might be a day earlier or later; won’t be more that 8 days.” Stiles nods again. Peter leaves again. The closing door has never seemed so final.

The week drags on. The wood pellets, which the bag says are supposed to be fire fuel for use in barbecues, help with most of the smell, but not all. Stiles has taken to wrapping the bucket with the garbage bag when not in use, it’s big enough that he’s pretty sure he wont need to empty it before Peter gets back. He will come back. He will.

The food is surprisingly good. It’s nothing particularly special, it just tastes like microwave meals, but it’s hot and he gets to pick the one he wants, so that’s a plus. Peter had included some veggies, a loaf of bread and some peanut butter, so he has green things to eat when he needs a break from lentils with beef and preservatives.

He has more fun with the yoga than he thought he would. It had always seemed so hippy dippy to him, but after trying a few of the poses, he discovers that, as long as you have a sense of humour, it’s not half bad. He takes unreasonable joy in eating a package of chicken and rice, when he’s done.

By day three, the panic attacks have all but stopped. The yoga gives him something to do, something to take up a little bit of brainpower. Just enough that he can still think things through, but not so much that he gets overwhelmed with the possibilities and catastrophizing.

When he wants a full distraction, he reads or writes.

On day five, there’s a noise. A car kind of noise. Stiles comes out of virabhadrasana, when he hears it. At first, he thinks there’s a car driving by, the road isn’t that far off, but the noise, the car, just keeps getting closer. He makes his way over to the door, there’s no crack between the doors to see out of, but it makes him feel like he can hear better if he presses his ear to the seam where they meet; maybe he can, who knows.

The car stops and Stiles heart tries to follow suit. Peter shouldn’t be here for another few days. He’s a trucker, it’s not like he can just make his destination closer, if he wants to come home early.

He hears the car door, some scuffling, another door, then footsteps. It shouldn’t be Peter, but it probably is, right?

The trailer is in the middle of nowhere. Peter never said how it got here. Never even said if it was his. For all Stiles knows, this is the owner coming to make sure their property isn’t a speakeasy or an opium den.

The footsteps get closer and Stiles tries to count the days to figure out if he missed one or two and it’s actually been seven days instead of five. What’s he going to do if it’s not Peter? Is this person going to call the police, or will they consider him easy pickings? If the police are called, he’ll tell them what happened and then what? Peter will get arrested, but what about Malia? She’ll be stuck with Mrs. Delaney. Maybe she’ll get adopted, but probably not. Most adopters want babies, not eight-year-olds with baggage. There’s no way anyone would let her come home with him, he’s from a different state, also he’s a 21-year-old college un-graduate with no prospects who still lives with his Dad.

Stiles’ thoughts are cut off by a bang. He frowns. It is Peter, but he’s early? Maybe. He stands there, in the centre of the trailer, apparently he’d moved during his mini-freakout.

Peter opens the door and freezes, “what?”

“What?” Stiles asks.

Peter’s eyebrows go up, “you look like your about to have a panic attack.” He makes his way into the trailer, opening the doors wide as he comes in.

“I- uh. Are you early?”

Peter grabs the bucket, garbage bag and all, and takes it outside as he answers, “yes, I drove through the night. A few nights.” Stiles hears the bag, then the hose, then Peter comes back with the bucket, now empty. “You seemed upset about being left alone, so I pulled a few all nighters.”

“The last time you left me here, I almost died.”

Peter shrugs as he puts Stiles’ bucket in the poop corner, “you haven’t tried to run off since.”

Stiles doesn’t respond. Anything he says will either make Peter mad or will be brushed off.

“How’s your food level?” Peter asks, going over to the boxes near the door. He rummages for a minute, “don’t like oatmeal?”

“I like oatmeal,” Stiles says, “I don’t like maple.”

Peter nods and puts the packs of maple brown sugar oatmeal into the box Stiles has been using as a garbage bin. He picks up the box, “come with me.” Stiles follows him out to the car where Peter puts the box into the back seat, then gives him another 12 pack of water. He takes it back to the trailer without instruction.

Peter comes with him, stands just inside and looks around as Stiles puts the water down with the rest. “Do you need anything else?”

“A cool breeze would be nice. Why don’t you leave the doors open, when you go?”

“Funny,” Peter deadpans. He looks around again, like maybe Stiles has a ‘things I want/need’ list taped up somewhere. “Alright,” he says, “I’ll be back tomorrow. Do you want anything in particular from the diner?”

“Chicken Caesar salad,” he says quickly enough that Peter huffs a not-quite-laugh.

And then he’s gone. The doors are locked and Stiles is alone again. He’s gone days without speaking to people, before, but he could always pick up his phone and check out reddit. Talking to people on the internet is still talking to people, no matter what Dr. Hargrove thinks. The loneliness has never been this crushing before.

He goes back to his asanas.

The following week goes by as quickly as the previous week had. Though, this week he’s had someone to talk to, even if it is Peter and only for 10 minutes a day, at best.

The novelty of this whole kidnapping thing is wearing off and now he’s just bored. He’s in a rut and he hates it.

The bang doesn’t startle him anymore, now that he has a watch, he knows when to expect it. Peter comes in, gives Stiles his Aderall and a breakfast burrito, then takes his bucket for cleaning.

Normally, that’s it, so Stiles is surprised when Peter says, “come on. We’re going back to the house. Bring your clothes and blankets,” he hands Stiles a contractor sized garbage bag.

Stiles frowns as he shoves the last bite of burrito into his face and puts his pen into the textbook to keep his place. It’s a bit of an ordeal to get up, but Peter waits for him without comment.

They make it into Peter’s neighbourhood before he’s finally told what’s going on, “we’re having lunch with Malia. Mrs. Delaney and Mr. Rodriguez, the social worker, will be there.” Peter pulls into the driveway and parks the car. They don’t get out. “Malia told Mrs. Delaney enough about you that Mrs. Delaney told Mr. Rodriguez. He’s decided to join us,” Peter turns to him, “and he wants you there, too.”

“Is this an assessment?”

“For you. They want to make sure that Malia is safe with you. They’ve been quick to reassure me that this wont impact my case unless you’re unfit. Having you here wont help us. Not right now, at least,” he gets out of the car and Stiles follows.

Peter takes his bags and gives him some sleep pants and a t-shirt to wear while he washes Stiles’ things. Stiles gets a shower and a shave while Peter washes his clothes and coaches him through some of the things they’ll be discussing.

He doesn’t make threats, he makes suggestions, hints, innuendos. Stiles gets the point. They’re going to Planet Kid, it will be crowded with lots of children and parents and under payed staff. He doesn’t say it outright, but Peter will be bringing his gun and it’ll be full of bullets. Just like every other time they’ve gone out.

They get to the restaurant at one. Almost as soon as they walk through the door, Malia comes flying out of a crowd of younglings and flings herself at Peter. Stiles takes the opportunity to scope out the joint. He finds Mrs. Delaney without issue, he recognizes her yellow polka dot dress and close cut afro from the pictures Malia drew of her. The severe looking man in the Mr. Rogers sweater must be Mr. Rodriguez.

Stiles gets the wind knocked out of him when he, suddenly has a gut full of child. He chuckles as he hugs Malia back, “I missed you, too, kid.”

She pulls back, “I’m not a kid.”

“What?” he crouches down to her level and gives her the big, innocent eyes, “you aren’t?”

“I’m older than everyone else at Mrs. Delaney’s,” she crosses her arms over her chest and stands up tall. She deflates a bit, when she adds, “well, except for Josh, he’s 13. but he doesn’t play with us, so he doesn’t count.”

Stiles nods as she talks, then leans in, “can I tell you something?” She nods. “People are gunna call you ‘kid’ until you’re at least 25. Some of them are going to do it because they still see you as a kid, some of them are going to do it to annoy you, and some of them are going to do it to try to make you seem younger than you are so they can make decisions for you. The best way to get under their skin is to not let it bother you.”

Now it’s her turn to nod along. She seems a bit miffed, they can talk about it more, if she wants to. Not here, though.

“Should we get a table?” Peter says. Stiles looks up to see all the grups watching them. He stands up and Malia tries to grab his hand, he switches her over to the one that isn’t broken and they follow the others to their table, Peter trailing a bit behind.

They come to a booth. Malia gets in first, then Peter nudges Stiles in after, effectively trapping him. He hooks his ankle with Stiles’ under the table. He’s confused until he realizes that it’s a threat.

The questions are invasive, thorough, and thoroughly invasive. He understands, he really does, but how is he supposed to answer questions like ‘where do you live?’ (I’m currently subletting from a guy in the city. It’s a tiny apartment, practically a box) or ‘do you have family?’ (My Father lives in California. I haven’t been speaking to him as often as I’d like) or ‘what do you think makes you qualified to be a foster parent?’ (Uhh...)

Mr. Rodriguez tries to give his opinions on Stiles while everyone is sitting there, pretending he isn’t there. Let’s not, K? He turns to Malia, “have you been here, before?”

Everyone stops when he speaks, like they’ve forgotten she’s even there. She nods, “Mommy and Daddy brought me here for my birthday.” He feels Peter’s leg tense around his.

He smiles, “why don’t you show me around, then?”

She looks around at all of the adults staring at her, then she shifts in her seat, “OK.”

Peter gets up to let them out and Stiles follows as she wanders toward the play area, he has to sign in to get into the play area, but when he does, she takes him over to a giant tube and proceeds to climb in.

Anyone with eyes can see that she’s not happy, but she still goes through the motions; winding her way through tubes, going down slides, crossing rope bridges. Stiles gets worried, when she goes into a tube and doesn’t come out the other side. He spends a whole two minutes staring at the other end of the tube, but she never exits. He walks around the equipment and sees a secret exit around the back, Malia is sitting with her back to the wall, a few feet away.

She waves him over, when she sees him, and presses a finger to her lip. Intriguing. He drops down beside her, but before he can say anything, she whispers, “listen.” He does. He hears the grups talking.

“You can’t just bring in random strangers, off the street; that’s not how this works,” Mr. Rodriguez is saying. “Relying on babysitters to raise your child for you isn’t good parenting.”

“Stiles isn’t a babysitter. We’re going to get married.” Peter sounds mad, like, ‘take away Stiles’ blankets’ mad. His heart starts to race, but really, what else should he expect. He hopes that Peter will be content for him to be his daughter’s Father and won’t expect any spousal benefits.

They’re getting looks from the Mothers playing with their own kids, so Stiles pulls his deck of cards out of his pocket. He shuffles, then deals them eight cards each, “crazy eights,” he whispers. Malia nods and puts down her first card.

“He seems lovely, Mr. Hale, but there’s a process to these things.” Mrs. Delaney’s voice is soft and placating, Stiles hackles raise, even if it isn’t directed at him. “We’re not saying he’s unfit, but-”

“No. Just that I’m unfit,” Peter cuts in. “We don’t all get a cheque from the government based on how many kids we’ve taken, Mrs. Delaney; some of us have to work for a living.” His voice is sweet and smooth and it hits Stiles right in the nerves. Malia’s face is pinched as she concentrates on her hand.

The conversation gets worse and worse. He can’t listen to them pick him apart like this. He isn’t even supposed to be here. He should be in New York, snapping pictures of celebrities doing their grocery shopping, but no, he lives in a trailer outside Boise. He wasn’t even going to stop off at Boise, now he lives here.

Malia wins the hand and Stiles puts the cards away. They’re both upset and he doesn’t want them to hear anymore.

He goes over to the table and puts his hands on Peter’s shoulders, then hugs him from behind. Peter takes his hand and leans into it. The conversation stops and they all watch him. “We were thinking, they sell milkshakes here...” Peter shakes his head before taking out his wallet and handing Stiles a twenty. “Thanks, honey,” he kisses Peter’s temple and offers Malia his hand on the way to the other side of the building, where they won’t be able to hear anymore.

He walks Malia through ordering and doesn’t say anything when she orders a giant cookie, too. The milkshakes are thin and taste like plastic, but she seems to enjoy hers. She keeps sending sad and forlorn looks to the grups across the dining area, but Stiles refuses to look.

“How you doing?” She shrugs and plays with her straw. Stiles slides the rest of his milkshake across the table to her. She takes it with a smile, but it’s a really fucking sad smile. She’s going to be hyper and super depressed for the rest of the day.

“Thank you for the picture.” She brightens at that. “I put it on my wall.”

“You liked it?”

“Dude, we were riding a T-Rex, there’s nothing cooler than that. I named it Fluffy.”

Malia laughs, “you can’t call it Fluffy, dinosaurs aren’t fluffy!”

“The one’s that had feathers were fluffy-”

“Can I join you?” Peter is standing at the table, now, Mrs. Delaney and Mr. Rodriguez nowhere in sight. Until Stiles turns his head to look at the table they were sitting at before. There they are. Watching. Creepy.

Peter sits down beside Malia. “What’s gunna happen?” she sounds worried again.

Peter seems at a loss for words, so Stiles sums it up, “you’re going home with Mrs. Delaney and we’re going to keep trying.” He can feel Peter staring at him, but he just takes Malia’s hand and gives her a smile. He nudges Peter’s foot under the table.

“We’ll work it out, sweetheart,” He tucks her hair behind her ear and smiles down at her. She tries to smile back, but doesn’t get very far before the tears start. Peter pulls her into a hug. He looks over to Stiles and makes a ‘do something’ gesture toward Malia. Stiles shakes his head, he doesn’t want her to cry either, but she doesn’t need another grup coming into her life telling her what to do and how to feel. Sometimes, you just have to cry it out.

Peter purses his lips in a way that means ‘we’ll talk about this later’.

The rest of the day is fairly subdued. Mr. Rodriguez leaves after the initial assessment and Mrs. Delaney stays out of their way. Malia goes through the motions of playing with all the things and trying to include them (Daddy, look how high I am! Stiles, race me!), but her heart’s not in it.

They get a pizza for supper and Stiles can see them both counting down the minutes until they have to part ways for another two weeks.

He’s in the middle of a joke when Malia’s lip starts wobbling. He thinks he’s said something wrong until he hears Mrs. Delaney speak, “C’mon, now. It’s time to go.” She starts crying again. She hugs her Dad, then follows Mrs. Delaney away. On her way out, she turns back, hugs Stiles, then leaves with her foster Mother.

They stay there for long minutes. Someone comes and takes away the platter and plates, but still they don’t leave. “You said we’ll keep trying,” Peter says to the table.

“Wont we?” Stiles asks.

Peter finally looks at him, “will we?”

Stiles get up and takes a second to stretch out his back. “Maybe we should talk about this somewhere else.” He doesn’t wait for a response, just heads for the exit.

They pull up in front of the trailer. Stiles opens the door, but Peter grabs his wrist before he can leave. “You didn’t comfort her.”

Shit. “No I didn’t. You already were, I would’ve just gotten in the way.” Peter’s grip tightens on his wrist. He winces, “for months she’s had grups coming into her life, telling her what to do, where to live. Telling her that her Father isn’t good enough. It was bound to come out eventually. That kind of thing can’t be bottled up forever, the sooner she lets it out, the better she’ll feel, and the better equipped she’ll be to handle other emotions down the line.”

Peter lets go of his wrist, the release of pressure almost as painful as the pressure itself. “You didn’t comfort her.” Peter latches onto the steering wheel instead of Stiles.

“You did. You did what she needed.”

He turns back, “what’s a ‘grup’?”

Did he say that out loud? “A grown up. Grup.” Peter just looks at him. “Not a trekkie?” Peter rolls his eyes and gets out of the car.

A week passes. Stiles does his best to keep himself entertained, but it’s not exactly easy. He can get bored with the entire world at his fingertips; there’s only so much yoga someone can do.

He’s rereading the first fantasy novel when the warning bang comes. Weird. Peter hasn’t come off schedule since he’s been here, maybe, at least since he’s had a watch.

The door swings open and Peter comes in, looking harried. Stiles stumbles to his feet, he makes it just as Peter gets a fistful of his shirt and pushes him against the wall, “if you say anything, I’ll go to Mrs. Delaney’s house and kill everybody in it. Including the dog.” Stiles nods, he really wants to ask what the fuck is going on, but murder.

Peter pulls him out and to the side of the trailer. “Clean yourself up,” he pushes Stiles toward the hose. What a sweetheart. Still, it’s been a week since his last shower, he’ll fucking take it.

Peter leaves him there and futzes around in his car for a bit. “Hurry up!” he calls over after only a few minutes. Stiles rolls his eyes and soaks himself from head to toe. The water might as well have ice cubes in it. Would he still becalled a eunuch if he loses his balls because they ran away?

He scrubs himself down with the soap provided and hoses off again.

When he’s got his boxers on, a fresh pair, Peter comes over... and he’s wearing a suit. A really nice suit. He thrusts a black garment bag at Stiles, then grabs his elbow and pulls him back into the trailer. “Put it on.” He grabs the bucket and takes it back outside. It’s a suit. With really tiny pants.

Stiles does his best to be quick, but the pants are really small. “I’m dressed,” he calls out.

“Then get out here.” He scrambles to comply, jogging a bit to speed things up. Peter comes around, puts the bucket just inside the door and locks up. “In the car,” Peter puts his hand on the small of Stiles’ back and guides him toward it.

“What’s going on?” Stiles has to keep jogging to keep up with Peter’s pushing.

Peter goes around to the driver’s side and gets in. Stiles gets in, too, not convinced that ‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on’ will work in this scenario.

Stiles grunts as a huge stack of papers is dropped into his lap, “sign those, use your legal name. The blue stickies are for a full signature, the orange are for initials,” Peter doesn’t look at him as he pulls out onto the road like he’s trying to outrun a volcano.

He looks down at the papers, a few bundles, lots of paper. He flips through the first few pages; they’re adoption papers. He’s about to adopt Malia. “I don’t have a pen.”

Peter looks over at him, then around the car while trying to simultaneously keep his eyes on the road. “Try the glove compartment.”

Stiles finds a pen and starts signing. His stomach flutters the whole time. He’s becoming a Father. He’s making the conscious decision to have a child. He’d always thought that if he ever had kids, it would be because of broken condoms or forgotten pills.

It takes him the whole 20 minute drive to get through the stack. His hand is burning and he has tears in his eyes by the time he’s done, but Peter isn’t exactly the kind of person you can say ‘no’ to.

There’s a single, smaller, bundle of paper at the very bottom, for a marriage. More paperwork than he thought there would be, less paperwork than for adopting a kid. Which makes sense.

They pull up to what’s probably The Courthouse. Peter takes the stack of papers from Stiles and does a double take, “what’s wrong?”

“My hand still hurts when I use it too much,” he lifts his hand. The one wrapped up in bandages and still holding the pen.

“Right,” he says, “sorry.” He glances down at his wrist but shakes his head when he finds no watch. It’s on Stiles’ wrist. “We have an appointment.” He leaves the car and Stiles follows.

He has to jog to keep up with Peter. “Is this for the adoption, or,” he hesitates, because how could he not, “the wedding?”

“Both.”

They have to go through security. Peter empties out his pockets. Keys, wallet, loose change, half a pack of gum. No firearms. He looks Peter up and down, like there’s somewhere he can hide a gun that the metal detectors wont find it. When his eyes make their way back up to Peter’s face, he’s quirked an eyebrow. Challenging rather than suggestive. Stiles decides now is the time to empty his own pockets, not that there’s anything in them.

Peter takes him by the hand when they’re let in, and takes him over to the elevator. He’s not sure whether this is super uncomfortable or regular uncomfortable. They’re not the only ones in the elevator, so he can’t drop Peter’s hand and hide in the corner.

“What do you mean ‘both’?” Stiles asks out of the corner of his mouth.

Peter squeezes his hand, not in the painful or threatening way, the way that loving couples do when they’re being cute. “I mean both. I have a guy.”

The elevator is full of people and this isn’t the place. “Did he sleep with his secretary, too?” He has to squish against Peter to let a pair of lawyers disembark.

“No, she didn’t.” He smirks, “She was the secretary.”

Stiles rolls his eyes, “do you know anyone with any integrity at all?”

“I know you,” he pulls Stiles along as he gets off of the elevator.

A corridor and a turn and they end up in front of a door with a plaque that says ‘Janet Tsu, Justice of the Peace”. Peter knocks on the door and a very scary lady opens it.

“You’re late.” She goes back into the office, leaving them there.

Peter purses his lips at Stiles, “I know, I’m sorry.”

She sits at her giant desk and picks up her phone, “It doesn’t matter, do you have the paperwork? Margret, can you come in here, please?” she sticks out her hand, then hangs up the phone.

Peter hands her the papers, she puts them on her desk, then sticks out her hand again. Peter gives her a pair of cheques, she looks them over then sticks them in a folder off to the side. She ignores them, as she flips through the paperwork, signing and stamping as she goes.

A very frazzled looking young lady comes in, “Ms. Tsu.”

Janet Tsu, Justice of the Peace, starts to nod as she gets to the bottom of the stack. “Alright, this is all in order.” She takes more paper out of the cheque folder and goes over to her giant window, “let’s do this fast, I have a meeting in ten minutes.” Peter drags him over to her. “Do you, Peter Hale, take, uh,” she looks down at the paper in her hand.

“Stiles.”

She looks up at him, looks down at the paper, then back up at him. “Do you, Peter Hale, take Stiles Stilinski to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do.”

She nods, “Stiles, same question.”

“Uh, yes. I mean, I do.”

She nods again, “good. Sign here. Margaret?” She hands them the Paper, the marriage certificate, already filled out and Stiles signs, then Peter signs, then Margret signs and hands it back to Ms. Tsu. “Thank you, Margret, enjoy the rest of your lunch.” Margret leaves as quickly as she’d arrived.

Ms. Tsu signs the certificate, does some stamping then photocopies it. The original goes into the cheque folder, the photocopy goes to Peter. “Congratulations, Margret will mail you the documents for Malia. We’re even, get the fuck out of my office,” she shoos them out with her hands and goes back to her beloved paperwork.

Peter, looking like a boulder has just come off of his shoulders, loosens his tie and heads back toward the exit. Stiles, yet again, follows.

Lunch is food truck sandwiches, fancy PB, Nutella and banana for Stiles, fancy pastrami on rye for Peter. “How does it feel to be a Father?” Peter asks, apropos of nothing.

Stiles shrugs and takes another bite, “dunno yet,” he says around his mouthful. “She only knows me as the dude in her Dad’s basement.”

Peter rolls his whole head along with his eyes and goes back to his meal.

At the risk of pissing off Peter, he asks, “does this mean I can stay at the house?”

He doesn’t break eye contact as Peter watches him. “Do you think you can?” Read: Are you brainwashed enough to stay?

“Yes.”

Peter takes a second. “We can try it.” He takes a sip of his 7up, ew, then continues, “I had hoped to have the basement cleaned out.” Stiles frowns his confusion. “Unless you’d rather stay in my room?”

Stiles nods his understanding then shakes his head in answer, “no, thanks. I’ll take the basement.”

“I’m going to tell them that we’re married, when I go get Malia, on Friday. They’ll do what they can to drag their asses, so we have some time. I want to set up a rec room in the basement; a play room. We’ll keep the fold out and you can sleep down there,” Peter picks up the vinegar and starts coating his fries.

Stiles grabs the bottle out of his hand. On the table, it had looked like the fancy stuff with herbs in it. No. Up close, he can see that the little spots of flavour are actually dead fruit flies. He holds it close to Peter’s face, disgust rolling through his entire body.

Peter takes the bottle and looks at it properly, “oh, poor things,” he shakes more vinegar onto his fries, then shoves one into his mouth.

Stiles turns away with a fake gag as Peter smirks. “What needs to be done?” he asks the lamppost beside their table.

“Mostly aesthetic stuff. Get rid of the junk, a fresh coat of paint, maybe get a better TV.”

Stiles grabs a few fries and dips them into his ketchup, “you’re gunna sell the junk, though, right?” Om, nom, nom, nom.

“Nobody wants to buy my junk.”

“Are you kidding? Everyone wants to buy your junk. Have you never heard of Craigslist?” Peter gives him a pained look, but doesn’t answer. Stiles shrugs, “Yeah, Craigslist is gross. Just put the stuff up, I’ll deal with the crazies.”

Peter gives him that look that says ‘you just passed a test that I didn’t tell you about, gratz’.

Peter frames the marriage certificate. He spends about twenty minutes complaining about not having wedding photos, so Stiles suggest they put on their suits, then go to the park and take a few pictures.

At the park, Peter finds a woman reading on a bench. He gives her a twenty to take a few pictures of them.

Stiles doesn’t see the point of spending an hour to get ready for a 15 minute photo shoot, until Peter takes the photos to Walmart, gets them blown up and puts them in nice frames. It does sell the illusion that Stiles is here because he wants to be.

Most of the stuff in the basement goes. It goes on Craigslist, at Stiles’ insistence. Peter ends up getting enough money from all of his old junk, that he can upgrade the old box TV to a flatscreen, LCD, organic, free-range, gluten-free, whatever, whatever TV.

A fresh coat of paint, a new area rug and all the toys and games that previously lived throughout the house turn a basement into a rec room. Everything that is in Malia’s room, stays where it is, but now that the stuff that didn’t have a spot in her room, has spots on shelves and in chests downstairs, the rest of the house looks a lot better kept.

By the time the week is up, the house is a lot cleaner, the basement is finished, there are wedding pictures on the wall, a picture of a T-Rex ride on the fridge, and the toys are all put away. All in all, it looks like actual adults live here.

At quarter to four on Friday, Stiles goes into the kitchen and sticks his head in the freezer. “Honey!” he calls. No response. “Honey!” he calls a bit louder.

After a pause, “yes?” comes from the doorway.

“Oh, hi. Do we have any ground beef? I told Malia we’d have taco casserole again,” he turns back to the freezer and continues to rearrange its contents.

“If you can’t find any, then I guess not.”

“Poop. I guess ground turkey will have to do.” He takes the tube out of the fridge and puts it into the sink, turning the tap on cold.

“What are you doing? We have to go get Malia at four.”

Stiles nods, as he putters around the kitchen, “I know, that’s why I’m making dinner,” he holds up a handful of tomatoes, which are promptly deposited on the counter.

“Stiles,” Peter starts in the tone used by grups-who-know-better-than-you the world over, “I’m not leaving you-”

Stiles slams down the cutting board in his hand and turns to face Peter. “You brought me here to take care of Malia, so let me take care of her.” He runs his hands over his face. Fuck it, lets do this, “Do you know how many times I could’ve run off by now? How many times I could’ve called for help? How many times I could’ve killed you in your sleep?”

Peter’s face gets darker and darker the longer Stiles rants. “But I didn’t. I’m not here for you. I’m not even here because of you. I’m here for her,” he gestures toward Malia’s room. “I didn’t stay because I’m scared of you, or because I didn’t want to die. I stayed because there’s a little girl living in a three bedroom house with eight other people, strangers, when there’s a house here, with family who loves her,” he throws his hand out in a gesture at Peter, who frowns, though looks less angry for it.

“I was raised by a single Dad and you may not be the best Father on your own, but that doesn’t mean she should have to suffer for your shortcomings. You did what you could for her, and you’re doing what you can for her, even if that means finding someone to help. So do what you can, go pick up our daughter, and let me do what I can.”

He turns back to his cutting board, picks up the knife and the closest vegetable and gets to dicing. His whole body is a line of tension and he has to focus on what he’s doing so he can’t over think how to breathe and start hyperventilating. He may not be afraid of Peter, per se, but pain still hurts and he’s still half broken.

After the longest three seconds of his life, Peter’s footsteps take him back into the living room. A few minutes after that, and Peter’s out the door.

Three Months Later:

Mr. Rodriguez’s last bi-weekly check in goes off without a hitch. Peter had chosen his last job based on when he would be home; there was no way he was going to let Mr. Rodriguez declare them ‘good enough’, without being there to be smug at him.

That’s not to say that they’re out of the woods just yet.

“Mr. Stilinski,” Mr. Rodriguez signs the paper on the table in front of him, then hands it to Stiles, “Mr. Hale, I’ll see you in July.” He turns to Malia, sitting between her Dads, “it was nice to see you again,” he offers her a small smile. She doesn’t return it. For Malia, this man means ‘danger’, this is the man who took her away from her Dad and put her in a house full of people who were mean to her.

Stiles puts an arm around her shoulder and pulls her into a side hug as Peter takes her hand, “I think we can all say that we’re glad you wont be visiting again until summer.” Mr. Rodriguez nods. “I’ll walk you out,” everybody stands.

“C’mon, Princess, let’s go finish that painting,” Peter says behind them. They’ve been redecorating Malia’s room, everything that was pink before, is now, or will be, pink dinosaurs. It turns out that kids love DIY, who knew.

Stiles speaks, when they get to the door, “I hope you don’t hold it against her. You took her away from her Father.”

Mr. Rodriguez waves him off, “I do understand. She’s actually very polite about it, I usually get swearing and name calling,” he smirks.

“I’m sure it doesn’t help that some of those kids get put into worse situations than the ones they were in.” Whoops. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Oh, well.

Mr. Rodriguez looks grim, “no it doesn’t.” He forces a smile, “well, now she’s in good hands. It’s a good thing he found you; she could’ve ended up adopted or in the system until she turned 18.”

Stiles nods slowly, “Thank you, Mr. Rodriguez, well see you in July.” He takes the hint and steps out of the doorway so Stiles can close the door.

It’s painting time.

Peter takes another job a few days after Mr. Rodriguez left. Shorter jobs mean less money, means he has to leave more often or they don’t get to eat. This one is longer than he usually takes at two weeks away from home.

Malia is sad for him to be gone that long, Peter is, too. Stiles is ambivalent about it. On the one hand, no Peter; on the other, no Peter. He’ll have to make decisions on his own. Not that that’s a hardship, but if he messes up, he’s not sure if Peter will get violent. He’s not sure if Peter will take the loss, come home early, and lock him in the basement without food as punishment.

Peter is still not a nice man.

Stiles takes Malia to school every morning, he brings her back every afternoon. They drive because winter. One of the perks of growing up in California, no fucking snow. Well, not a lot, anyway.

Malia teaches him how to build a snowman after they watch Frozen one day and he mentions that he’s never made one before. She’s shocked and appalled and outraged until he tells her that they usually just skip winter and have longer summers; after that, she declares that they’ll be moving to California post haste.

They finish Frozen, have some lunch, go outside and build ‘sentinel snowmen’ on either side of the front door, come back inside, drink some hot chocolate and watch some cartoons, then Malia is off to bed.

Malia isn’t an idiot, kids usually aren’t. Just because you have to use words that they understand, doesn’t mean they’re stupid. How many grups can pick up a scientific journal and read an article about a medical breakthrough without any trouble? Just because someone doesn’t have the vocabulary, doesn’t mean they can’t understand.

He could explain it to her. He was kidnapped and wants to go home. He has custody of her and with her Dad going to jail, she could come with him to California. She’ll have grandparents and an uncle.

She might not understand, though. Morally. He’s her Dad, he was only doing what he needed to to keep her safe and happy. Now they can do anything. Her Dad can work, Stiles can go back to school and get his own job. She wouldn’t have to leave her home and her friends. The Prince has to take care of the Princess with the King. That’s how it works.

He could just leave her. Take her to school one day and keep driving. He could be back in California before Peter got home. Not before the end of the school day, though. She’s be back in foster care and Peter would be out for his blood.

He wouldn’t do that, though. She doesn’t need more stress, more foster care, more people who only care until they leave the room.

Something no one tells you about being a parent, that ‘check in the middle of the nigh to see if they’re still breathing’ thing, isn’t voluntary. If you take care of a child, you check on that child before you go to bed. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Malia is breathing, when he checks on her. She’s cuddled up to her stegosaurus plushie, the one they spent two days altering to give it pink spines. The thing is hideous now, but she loves it.

He creeps back down the hall, to the kitchen. The next ten minutes are spent staring at the house phone, deliberating over his options. Does he stay? Does he take Malia back to California? Does he go back alone? Does he call the police, or just run and hope that Peter never finds him, despite the fact that he’s seen Stiles ID and medication bottle and knows where he lives, where he’d go.

He scrubs at his face and mutters, “fuck.” He takes a steadying breath, nods at the phone, when his decision is made, and dials.

“Stilinski,” his Dad says.

Stiles breath hitches, “Dad.”

There’s a pause. “Stiles?” his Dad’s voice wavers on his name.

“Yeah, Dad. Hey,” his own voice wavers and he can’t keep the smile out of his voice.

“Stiles, where are you, are you OK?” He can hear a flurry of movement in the background, papers, fabric, footsteps.

“Dad,” he lets out a laugh as his eyes fill with tears, “I’m in Boise.”