Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Call

“This is Chris Argent. I was hoping you might be able to help me out with something.”

Bobby paused mopping up the spilled coffee and devoted more attention to the phone call. He’d never met the other hunter, but he knew of Chris Argent. Son of Gerard Argent and brother of Kate Argent—two of the best, or worst depending on who you talked to, hunters in the states. Bobby had never met Kate personally either but she had definitely been a hunter to avoid; he wouldn’t lie and say the news of her death had saddened him. He had met Gerard on several occasions and quite honestly he wished he hadn’t. Man was a total nutcase. “Argent, haven’t heard from one of you in quite awhile,” he said keeping his tone bland. “What can I do for you?”

“I’ve been told you might be able to help me find someone that’s been lost for a few months.”

“That would really depend on who it is you’re looking for,” Bobby commented returning to cleaning up the coffee.

“A boy. Caucasian, dark hair, seventeen years old, about five-ten.”

Bobby froze abandoning his mess once more. Well, that description matched someone he knew of almost perfectly. It could be purely coincidence that Stiles appeared out of thin air a little over a month ago, but then Bobby never believed much in coincidences. “You lost a person?”

“He’s missing, yes.”

“So,” Bobby said stalling a little to gather his thoughts, “what is he?”

“Excuse me?”

“Come on, Argent, if you’ve lost a boy and are this intent on finding him I have to assume he’s a supernatural of some kind,” Bobby said as his mind raced through the possibilities. There was every chance Stiles wasn’t the missing boy, but Bobby wasn’t about to give Argent anything without more information first.

“He’s human. Not supernatural, just missing,” Argent said after a moment.

“Ah,” Bobby said. “So how you’d loose him?”

“He ran away.”

“From the Argent’s? Must be a talented boy to have gotten away.”

Argent heaved an exasperated sigh. “Mr. Singer, he wasn’t running from me, he ran away from home. I just want to find him.”

Bobby sighed leaning a hand against the table. If he played this right he could get Argent to give him more information, but if he went too far Argent would suspect Bobby knew something. “Why’d the kid run?”

“I don’t know,” Argent said shortly.

Bobby couldn’t tell if the other hunter was lying or not, the tone was too blunt and cold. But if Stiles was the boy in question and if the Argents had anything to do with why he ran, then Bobby could come up with several reasons for the why. And only some of them included abductions and Haldol. “This missing boy of yours come with a name or am I supposed to just look for any brunet teenager roaming the states unsupervised?”

“He goes by Stiles,” Argent said and Bobby’s heart sank.

“You, uh, you got a last name for me?” Bobby asked.

“Stilinski.”

Bobby blinked. “His name is Stiles Stilinski?”

“Stiles is a nickname,” Argent said. “I don’t know his real name, but from what I understand he doesn't usually go by it.”

“All right then,” Bobby said scribbling the name down. “I’ll put some feelers out and make a few calls, but I don’t know if it’ll turn up anything. What makes you think a kid who ran away from home will be on hunters’ radar anyway?”

Argent was quiet a long moment then, “Stiles got mixed up in some things he shouldn’t have. I have a feeling he’s looking for answers. Other hunters are as good as any place to start looking.”

“Guess that makes sense,” Bobby replied. “What did he get mixed up in?”

Again Argent was silent, obviously thinking of how much he wanted to share. “He got involved in a hunt. Things got a little out of hand and…” he trailed off. “Look, Singer, I can’t explain it all to you. I’m just trying to find Stiles.”

Bobby sighed. “Well, I’ll give you a call if I hear anything.”

“Thank you.”

“Sure. No problem,” Bobby lied tapping his pen against the name written on his paper as he hung up the phone.

It was possible Argent was just looking for Stiles for a perfectly innocent reason, a sense of duty to someone caught up in his hunt. Possible Stiles had just gotten mixed up with a hunt that went wrong, got spooked and ran before Argent could explain things. But there were holes in Argent’s explanation, gaping holes stretched wide by Stiles’ own admission of other encounters with hunters. It was entirely possible the hunters Stiles had encountered, the ones that had him so mistrustful of Bobby and John and Dean, were the Argents. The Argents were supposed to go by a code, something that made them one of the more respectable hunting families, but Bobby knew of a few who were more than willing to breach or ignore their code if it suited their purposes, especially if one of their own were harmed.

Bobby pushed his chair away from the table crossing into his study and trying to remember exactly where he’d put that binder. After several minutes of searching he located it propping up the one leg of the table in the corner of the room. He pulled it out blowing dust off the front.

It hadn’t been updated in about seven or eight years, but if Bobby was right it would have all the information he needed. He flipped it open skimming the names on the pages as he flicked through them and spent a moment being gratefully he’d actually organized the thing. He slowed down as he reached the end of the A-section scanning the names more carefully. About a third of the way down the page was “Argent.”

Bobby knew the family had gone back generations, but he’d only listed the hunters active in America. The first generation had been the children of Marcus and his wife Carol; Charles, deceased in 1964; Alexander, deceased in 1977; and Gerard, currently alive by all accounts. Gerard and his wife Joan, deceased in 1989, had three children as well; Kate, no children and now deceased; Leonardo, wife and one son all deceased in 1996; and Christopher.

Listed under Chris’ name were his wife Victoria and his only daughter—Allison.

Bobby blew out a breath and flipped the binder shut blinking at the puff of dust that floated up. He kneaded at his eyes wearily anticipatory headache pains already making themselves known. Of all the hunters Stiles had to get mixed up with he picked the Argents. Well, fuck. Bobby supposed it could have been worse; he could have found the Campbells.

“Get him up.”

Dean jerked, blinking at John like he couldn’t comprehend what John had just said. “What?” he asked glancing over at Stiles who was lying with his back to them on his cot.

“Get him up,” John repeated making an effort to gentle his tone a little. “Take him on a run. Hell, take him for walk. Just get him up and moving around.”

Dean sighed closing the paper he’d been reading. “I don’t know if he’s really up to PT right now,” he said pitching his voice low. John doubted it was necessary; Stiles was likely tuning the world out right now and not listening to anything.

“Not PT,” John corrected. “Just get him moving. Wallowing in bed is not going to help.”

Dean frowned tapping his fingers on the table. “So your solution to this weird depressive funk he’s fallen into is to make him exercise?”

John pinched the bridge of his nose. It wasn’t a solution. There was no solution to, as Dean had put it, the depressive funk Stiles had fallen into. John couldn’t exactly fault the kid; the loss of the little girl and the conversation by the Impala seemed to have exhausted Stiles into a state of apathy and lethargy. John had probably seen the kid sleep more in the past two days than he had since they met. It was actually kind of concerning in light of what Stiles had shared about what had gone down to get him hunting. Far as John could figure was some kind of witchcraft that had resulted in at least a few deaths that Stiles felt responsible for. So, no, Stiles’ slide into this depressive episode was not unwarranted, but it was troubling. John remembered what this phase felt like having encountered it himself after Mary; perhaps it was a good thing Stiles was handling it by shutting down rather than trying to drown himself in alcohol. And on the other hand, maybe alcohol would be easier to work with.

“Just get him up,” John said gruffly.

“Okay,” his eldest answered sighing again before grabbing Stiles’ coat and dropping it on the kid. “Time to get up, buddy. Let’s take a walk.” He paused, standing over the cot silently while Stiles continued to lie with no response. “Come on, Stiles. Get up, it’s sunny outside, just this side of chilly, we’ll go for a walk, and I’ll even buy you coffee and curly fries from that diner down the street.”

Dean huffed at Stiles’ continued silence pulling on his own coat before nudging the leg of Stiles’ cot with his booted foot. “Don’t make me beg, man. This motel room is driving me nuts, and I need someone to come with me otherwise I’ll be bored as hell. I’m not gonna leave you alone so you might as well just get up. You can ask Sam if you ever meet him, I’m persistent as fuck.”

Dean stood over Stiles for several long moments, the kid assiduously ignoring him, before physically grabbing Stiles’ feet to pull them off the cot. That got a reaction. Stiles yanked his feet from Dean’s hands as averse to being touched as he had been since they had left Caleb’s cabin. After being so open Stiles seemed to have retracted further back into his shell than he’d been at the start shying away from any and all contact.

“Okay. If you get up now I promise I won’t manhandle you out of this room,” Dean said holding his hands up in surrender.

Stiles glared but snatched his coat from the floor pulling it on with shaking hands. John had noticed the trembling start up after the rawhead hunt. He’d noted it a few time intermittently since Philadelphia, usually whenever Stiles seemed overly stressed, but it’d been constant since leaving Silver City along with wearing more layers than usual. Stiles shoved his feet in his sneakers crouching to tie them fumbling a moment with the laces before apparently giving up and just pushing them down inside by his ankle.

“Ready?” Dean asked. Stiles didn’t reply, just his pulling his hood out over his jacket collar and tugging his sleeves down over his hands. Dean seemed to take that as a yes, heading out of the motel room and holding the door for Stiles.

John watched them leave, Stiles trailing a step behind Dean across the parking lot. He tugged his phone out of his pocket bringing up his contacts and scrolling down until he found the one labeled “Stiles’ dad.” He knew it was a breach of trust, fragile as that trust was, to call Stiles’ father. Hell, the shit that went down following the job in North Dakota was enough to make sure he hesitated to use the number he’d taken from Stiles’ phone back when they first met. But he needed answers. The kid was ten different kinds of damaged and if there was any chance Stiles was running around the country while his dad worried about him then John had a responsibility as a fellow parent to give the man a call.

“You got me kind of really worried about you,” Dean said tossing it out in the open casually as he dunked a fry in catsup and eyed Stiles’ shaking fork. To be honest Stiles looked kind of wrecked; Dean had only a vague idea what Stiles and his dad had talked about out by the Impala but that conversation had been a kind of tipping point for Stiles. He’d spiraled into some sort of extreme melancholy in the past two days. Not that a depressive episode could be said to come on in such a short amount of time, but Dean figured Stiles seemed rather prone to depression in the first place so his current behavior was probably cause for concern.

Stiles glanced up at him picking halfheartedly at his sad looking lettuce. “I have it on good authority that it’s a waste of your time to do that,” he said, raspy voice surprising Dean.

“He speaks!” Dean crowed grinning widely, and Stiles just gave him an empty glare. “Okay, but seriously, dude, that's practically the first thing you’ve said since we left Caleb’s cabin two days ago. And for a guy who usually has trouble shutting up that’s weird. Not to mention concerning.”

“Well, I’m sorry if I’ve been bumming you out lately, Dean,” Stiles said pulling the cuffs of his red hoodie down further over his hands, “I know that must be a real inconvenience for you.”

Dean blinked swirling another fry in his catsup before popping it in his mouth. “Wow. You seem a little bitter.”

“A girl is dead. I think I’m entitled to a some bitterness,” Stiles muttered stabbing at his salad vehemently.

“Sure,” Dean conceded. “So be bitter. Be angry. Whale on something or shoot a bunch of shit. You wanted to learn firearms, right? I’ll teach you now.  Just don’t shut down and spend all your time staring moodily out the car window or curled up on an uncomfortable cot in a smelly motel room.”

Stiles scowled. “You’re an ass.”

“So I’ve been informed by multiple people,” Dean said. “What do you say?”

Stiles dropped his gaze staring at his plate or more accurately his fork, which was still shaking noticeably, floppy lettuce wiggling on the end. He clenched his hand stabbing his fork into his plate with a shrill screech. “Dunno if that’s a good idea right now,” he mumbled.

“What’s up with that?” Dean asked nodding towards Stiles’ plate.

“It’s a salad,” Stiles snarked. “I hear it’s healthy for you.”

“No shit. Also not what I was talking about. How long have your hands been shaking like that?”

“Since two days ago.” And it was kind of reassuring to know Stiles’ sarcastic self was still alive in there.

Dean sighed. “I mean before that. They shook at Bobby’s too and you actually don’t seem that worried about it. In fact, you seem like you think it’s normal.”

Stiles closed his eyes, dropping his fork and pulling his sleeves down to hide his hands. “It happened after my mom died for a while, and it’s been happening on and off since…since November.”

“Since your friend died,” Dean gathered. “Any particular reason why now? They don’t always shake so what sets it off?”

“It’s, it’s an anxiety thing,” Stiles said scrubbing his hands over his face.

Dean nodded. “I figured. Any reason you’re feeling, uh, anxious?”

Stiles laughed, quickly muffling the sound with his sleeve covered hands. Dean offered him a small smile. “It would be easier to answer what doesn’t make me anxious,” Stiles said pressing a palm to his forehead. “God, I feel like I’m going crazy. Again.”

“Again?” Dean asked drawing his brows together in confusion.

“I mean how stupid can I get?” Stiles said covering his face with his hands, elbows resting on either side of his plate. “Why did I think that I could actually do this? How did I convince myself that I was actually getting better?”

“Stiles.”

“I thought I was doing okay. I really did. But it turns out I was just balancing on this, this precipice. One thing went wrong and, boom, I’m back at the bottom of the hole with my hands shaking and my chest feeling like it’s trying to collapse and everything is just closing in and…” He broke off sucking in a shallow, hitched breath and seeming to struggle at drawing in air.

“Stiles? What? Is it your ribs?” Dean asked leaning forward worriedly. Stiles shook his head rapidly and Dean frowned. “Are you having a panic attack?

“No,” Stiles gasped, dragging shaking hands through his hair. “It’s just…”

“Hey,” Dean said. “Just, uh, calm down and take slow breaths, okay?”

Stiles pushed his chair back. “I need some air,” he said breathlessly stumbling to his feet. “I’ll, I’ll be right back.”

“Wait, Stiles,” Dean said standing to follow then hanging back at the last minute. Stiles pushed the door of the diner open, bell chiming as he did so. Dean tracked his path across the parking lot to the curb something settling inside him when Stiles sank down to lean against a lamppost.

“Is your friend all right, dear?” the waitress asked laying a gentle hand on Dean’s shoulder.

Dean gave the older lady a reassuring smile. “Yeah, he’s fine. Just needed some air.”

“Okay,” the waitress said. “Can I get anything else for you?”

“Uh, can I get three coffees and six original donuts to go, please?”

The waitress smiled. “Sure thing, sweetheart,” she said topping off his cup before heading back into the kitchen.

Dean sighed sitting back down and taking a sip of his fresh coffee as he watched Stiles knock his head back against the post then pull out his phone, poking at it for a second before holding it to his ear. Dean wondered whom Stiles was calling before deciding it was probably Deaton. He just hoped whomever this Deaton was he’d be able to help.

“Stiles?”

“How’s my dad?” Stiles pushed out, taking shallow controlled breaths and leaning his head back against the cool metal of the lamppost.

Deaton seemed thrown for a second, letting the silence drag on for several long moments before beginning to calmly give Stiles a run down on how things were back home starting with Stiles’ dad before talking about Scott, Melissa, Lydia, Kira, and even Derek.

As Deaton talked the steel band that had wrapped itself around Stiles’ ribs eased a little and the oppressive weight that had been smothering him lifted enough for him to breathe again. He could still feel the tremors vibrating under his skin, an unsettling and constant quivering. He let his eyes fall closed loosening his clenched hand around his phone and listening to the rapid beating of his heart as he let Deaton’s words wash over him.

“Stiles? Stiles?”

“Hm?” Stiles said blinking as he realized he’d drifted. “Sorry. I’m here.”

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “I’m fine.”

“Stiles,” Deaton said using that all knowing tone that Stiles actually sort of hated.

“Something happened on the last hunt. Everything’s been…weird again.”

“What happened?”

Stiles sighed. “I don’t know. I, it was a rawhead. It got this little girl and she…she died.” Deaton said nothing, and Stiles took a deep breath before saying, “I tried to heal her.”

“Oh, Stiles,” Deaton said.  “Did you—”

“Yeah,” Stiles whispered. “It was like, like falling into nothing, into a void. Cold and dark. And everything’s all messed up now. It’s like I can’t come down. I thought I was centered but now it’s like I’m just spiraling.”

“When was this?”

Stiles shrugged. “Two days ago.”

“You’ll settle, Stiles,” Deaton said reassuringly. “It’ll take a little time but your equilibrium will return. Experiencing a loss of connection like that can throw off your balance, but it will come back.”

“It’s just, it’s like after the Nog—uh, the…my hands won’t stop shaking,” Stiles said taking an unsteady breath. “And I can’t get warm. And it’s like everything is just pressing in on me.”

“Sounds like that might be a combination of you being off-centered and hypervigilance.”

Stiles laughed bitterly. “Hypervigilance. No kidding.”

“I assure you, Stiles, your spark will settle in a few days. And once it calms down you’ll find it easier to settle yourself.”

“So I’m not going crazy again?”

“No, Stiles, you’re not.”

Stiles sighed staring up at the pale blue sky trying to keep the imaginary pressure off his chest. It sounded nice and soothing to hear that from Deaton. Stiles just wished he could figure out how to actually believe him.

John stared at the words “Stiles’ Dad” displayed above the number already dialed in. Pressing the call button John held the phone to his ear wondering if he maybe should have prepared a little what he was going to say. There was every chance Stiles’ dad was completely unaware of the existence of the supernatural and was simply under the impression Stiles had run away. If that was the case the conversation John would be having soon might be exceedingly awkward for all parties involved.

The phone rang on the other end. Then again. And again. John sighed counting six rings and deliberating between leaving the man a message about his son or not; telling a man his son was running around the country with two not-so-law-abiding citizens wasn’t something to really leave in a voicemail. Right as he was deciding he should leave some sort of message the call clicked over and a mechanical voice informed him the number was no longer in service. Frowning, John hung up and redialed. Six rings and a woman informing him the number was out of service.

With a huff of annoyance he dialed Bobby. It only rang twice before the other hunter answered.

“Bobby, it’s John.”

“John,” The older hunter said sounding oddly subdued. “I was actually just about to call you.”

John frowned scratching at his beard. “Why?”

“We might have a little problem,” Bobby said and John waited silently for him to elaborate. “The Argents are looking for Stiles.”

Chapter Text

The Call

“What do you mean the Argents are looking for Stiles?” John asked mind whirring to provide everything he knew about the Argents, which wasn’t much. He’d never met any of them personally, only had a vague idea of the family structure. All he really knew was they had been a fairly old and successful hunting family, and a good portion of them had bit the dust within the last few years. Last he heard the remaining Argents had relocated back to France.

“I mean Chris Argent called me up looking for a missing boy matching Stiles’ description.”

“Maybe it’s not Stiles,” John said.

“Argent identified him by name,” Bobby said dryly. “Exactly how many people do you think there are that go by Stiles?”

John sighed. “Why then? What do the Argents want with a random boy?”

“Well that’s the thing, Stiles ain’t random to the Argents. Chris had daughter. Her name was Allison.”

“Allison,” John repeated puzzled for a moment before the pieces clicked. “As in Ali, the daughter of the mystery hunter. So you think Stiles knows Chris?”

Bobby sighed. “I dug up a few things on Allison. The official story is she was killed by a carjacker. There were four witnesses, but they were all minors so the files are sealed. I haven’t got names on them yet, but it’s a pretty good bet that one of them was Stiles.”

“What happed to Allison?”

“Ah, she was run through with an unidentified object. Statement says one of the witnesses saw something metallic, they thought it was a knife.”

John snorted. “Well that’s helpfully specific.”

“No kidding,” Bobby replied. “All the statements read like rehearsed stories, obviously fabricated. Just enough information to string together a coherent story, not enough information to actually mean anything.”

“So what do you think really happened?”

“Argent says Stiles got mixed up in a hunt. I think the daughter and the others got involved, she ended up dead, and for some reason Stiles is being held accountable by himself and Argent. Don't think he actually killed her, if he had stabbed her Argent could have handed it over to the authorities.”

“What makes you think a hunter would have willing handed a boy who killed his daughter over to the authorities?” John asked. “Much more likely he’d have handled it himself.”

“Which brings me to another confusing part. Why wait so long? Allison was killed in November. Why wait months before tracking Stiles down?”

“Maybe he’s been looking all along and just got to asking you.”

Bobby sighed heavily. “If he was, he was being very subtle about it, which doesn’t exactly bode well when you think about why he would want to find Stiles. Plus, last I heard the man was supposed to be in France.”

“You think Stiles knows Argent is looking for him?”

“Well, Stiles has told us practically nothing about his past, he doesn’t keep in touch with anyone, he scared of all of us, and says he wants to learn to hunt but seems far more focused on learning how to defend himself. That sounds a hell of a lot like he’s running from someone, so I’d say yes.”

John scrubbed a hand over his face peering out the window as he caught sight of the boys heading back. Dean was talking animatedly, waving his hands as they walked. Stiles strode beside him, clutching a drink tray with three coffees and still looking subdued. Bobby was right. There were many reasons for Stiles to be so skittish and secretive, but running from a hunter with a dead daughter was probably the best explanation. Why Stiles thought running to more hunters was a good idea was beyond John because Stiles was not stupid, which meant there had to be some sort of end goal they weren’t aware of.

“What did you tell Argent?”

Bobby snorted. “Nothing. Whatever went down with the Argents, Stiles probably isn’t at fault. Least not entirely, and certainly not enough to warrant whatever the Argent’s want him for. The kid’s a mess, John. We can’t just hand him over.”

“Of course not,” John said then cleared his throat. “I called his father.”

“Stiles gave you his father’s number?” Bobby asked, confusion clear in his voice.

“No.”

“Ah,” Bobby said. “You aren’t supposed to have it.”

“It doesn't work anyway. It’s out of service,” John growled.

“You know, John, if the number’s out of service and it’s the only one Stiles had there’s a real possibility that his father is dead, right?” Bobby said. “We don’t know the whole story and an out of service number for his daddy starts painting a pretty clear picture.”

“I know,” John said with a sigh. The boys were close enough that John could hear Dean’s voice, going on about a vengeful spirit hunt. “I need you to look into who had the number last.”

“Give me the number, and I’ll do what I can.”

John just finished reciting the number and hanging up when Dean pushed the motel door open.

“I’ll call you when I find something,” Bobby said. “You and the boys headed back soon?”

“Yeah,” John said clearing his throat. “Should be in tomorrow.”

“Bobby?” Dean asked as John hung up the phone. John gave him a sharp nod accepting a cup of coffee from Stiles and frowning as the kid immediately headed back to his cot.

John set his coffee on the nightstand pulling the weapons bag up from the floor and digging through it with a contemplative eye. After a moment of consideration he pulled out the Browning and corresponding box of ammo and held them out to Dean. “Take him out and have him shoot,” John said motioning to Stiles.

Dean raised his brows. “Yeah?” he asked and John nodded. “Okay. Hey Stiles, ready to finally learn how to shoot?”

Stiles blinked, hesitating and biting his bottom lip. “I dunno, man,” he said burrowing his hands in his pockets and John narrowed his eyes at his reluctance. “I just, um…”

“It’ll be fine,” Dean said taking the Browning and ammo from John and giving Stiles a reassuring grin. “In fact, it might be just what you need.”

“So in learning to shoot there’s three important things for beginners. Lightweight, light trigger pull, and low recoil. This is a Browning Buck Mark, hits all three of those,” Dean said holding the handgun out to Stiles.

Stiles accepted the pistol with ginger hands, noting unhappily that they were still shaking. The gun was heavy in his hands and cold to the touch. Almost innocuous feeling, sitting compactly and still in Stiles’ hand, all but harmless until used by someone who wanted to hurt.  

“Now, primary concerns are proper grip, stance, and sighting. But the most important thing,” Dean said adjusting Stiles’ grip, nudging at his feet, and guiding Stiles’ arm up, a solid and steady presence behind Stiles, “is being centered.”

Stiles swallowed flexing his hands around the butt of the gun. “Centered?”

“It’s about control,” Dean said running his hands over Stiles’ arms and making small adjustments to Stiles’ stance. “Control over the weapon and control over yourself. Control over your grip, your stance, your breathing, all of it. If you’re not centered and focused you won’t shoot well.”

“I’m not feeling very centered right now,” Stiles muttered.

“This is called the thumb over thumb grip,” Dean said either not hearing or ignoring Stiles’ comment. “It’s the easiest for beginners to learn, but you don’t want to muscle it. This stance is the simplest too. Face the target, keep your feet aligned with your shoulders, your arms up and fully extended. Imagine you’re making a triangle with your shoulders and arms, and the gun is the point. The sight and target should align naturally. You see?”

Stiles blinked, trying to steady his grip and bring the sight and the cans on a log serving as their targets into focus. He nodded jerkily fighting the urge to move out of the stance Dean had arranged him in. 

“Good. Now the hard part for beginners. You want to focus on the front sight while keeping the sight on the target,” Dean said. “It goes against instinct which will tell you to focus on the target, but you want to focus on the front sight. So the front sight will be in sharp focus with the rear sight and the target blurring a little, okay?”

Stiles nodded again, focusing in on the front sight and noting how everything else faded away a bit. He realigned the front sight to the biggest can trying to keep the gun steady.

“All right then. Last two things. One, remember it’ll be loud. Given how prone you are to startling just be aware of that. Two, the recoil. This gun has a low recoil but be prepared for a kickback. Handling recoil is mostly mental, but you want felt recoil to go straight back from your wrist into your forearm.” Dean said giving Stiles’ shoulder a reassuring pat and stepping back. “Just keep a firm grip, take even breaths, sight, and squeeze the trigger when you’re ready.”

Stiles forced out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, shifting his weight before thinking better of it and freezing so he wouldn’t unwittingly mess up his stance. He sighted, sucked in a shallow breath, and squeezed the trigger.

Dean was right; it was loud, just like Stiles knew it would be. It was somehow both less startling and more startling now that he was in control of when the sound happened, an odd mix of exhilaration and anxiety born of a natural fight or flight response. The recoil was harder than he expected and a small part of him wanted to snatch his hands away at the push up from the gun into his hands, arms, and shoulders. But he instinctively strengthened his hold instead, tightening the curl of his fingers around the Browning. He let out a startled whoosh of air, blinking and just standing a moment focused more on the tingling in his fingers and wrists before remembering that he’d actually been shooting at something.

The large and rusty can of chocolate pudding he’d been aiming at though, was still sitting mockingly on the log.

“Okay,” Dean said after a moment. “That was, um—”

“Horrible,” Stiles finished.

“No,” Dean said quickly. “Lots of people miss their first shot even at this close a distance to the targets."

Stiles twisted a little to look at him. “Did you?”

Dean rolled his eyes moving to usher Stiles back into proper stance. “Of course not," he said. "But that’s because I’m awesome. Try again.”

Stiles took a deep breath resuming his stance and sighting again at the can. He squeezed off several shots before releasing the air from his lungs and frowning at the can still innocently perched on the log. He wiped a hand over his brow, closing his eyes and counting to ten to try and settle the coiling mess of emotions sitting in his chest. After a moment he brought the gun back up, squinting at the target and biting his lip as his hands shook.

“Remember, Stiles,” Dean said moving up behind Stiles. He smoothed his hands down Stiles’ arms prodding to adjust his posture, before coming to rest over his hands around the Browning to help steady the gun. “It’s about control. It’s about being in control of yourself. That means you need to breathe as you shoot, not just before and after.”

“I am breathing,” Stiles huffed stiffening a little at the close proximity before forcing himself to relax.

“No, you’re not,” Dean chastised settling himself more firmly around Stiles. “You’re holding your breath. Rookie mistake. Breathe in,” he coached.

Stiles complied taking in an exaggerated breath that mimicked Dean’s own deep breath.

“Breathe out. Sight. In again. On the exhale, squeeze the trigger.”

Stiles squeezed the trigger laughing as the top of the log a few inches to the left of the pudding can erupted into a small explosion of splinters. “Well,” he said with a sigh. “I’m getting closer.”

“That you are,” Dean said dropping his hands and stepping away.

Stiles scowled as the gun shook again without Dean to help steady it and flexed his hands around the weapon, making a conscious effort to still the tremors. He tried to focus on Dean’s presence next to him and the steadiness of the Earth beneath his feet, reaching out as he would to center himself before drawing on his spark, imagining a quiet and still lake in his mind’s eye rather than the tumultuous storm it currently felt like was raging inside him.

His next shot went wide again, impacting somewhere around the exposed roots of the log.

“Try again," Dean said unfazed, then right as Stiles pulled the trigger, "Can I ask you a question?”

“You do realize you ask me that a really inopportune moments, right?” Stiles said shaking his head before shooting and missing once more. “And you only ask me that whenever you know I won’t want to answer the question you want to ask.”

Dean waited a beat after Stiles fired another shot to speak, seemingly taking his lack of saying no as permission to continue. “After my mother died I didn’t talk for a while. The one doctor dad took me to see called it selective mutism. Said it was a common anxiety response to a traumatic event. Sometimes when things get overwhelming I still do the same thing. Not to that extreme, I’ll still talk, but I’ll get quiet. It’s like everything can be pressing in, but as long as I’m quiet I can handle it. I just wanted to know if it was the same for you.”

Stiles glanced at Dean, taking in his set profile as he studied Stiles' shoddy marksmanship. On the surface he couldn’t picture Dean going quiet in response to stress or anxiety; couldn’t actually imagine the hunter that strutted around wearing a suit of confidence and cheerfulness ever feeling overwhelmed enough that he retreated into his own head for solitude and comfort. But Stiles was intimately familiar with exuding a persona that didn’t match internal feelings, and he was equally familiar with using sarcasm and other defense mechanisms as shields from the harsh realities of his life. So while someone else may look at Dean and only see an overly confident and carefree young man, Stiles could easily imagine what hid behind the walls most people never acknowledged as existing.

“I did the opposite,” Stiles admitted. “After my mom died, I mean. I talked all the time about everything. Drove my dad and everyone else that had to listen to me absolutely nuts. I couldn’t handle what I was feeling and how my dad was coping and the house just seemed empty and I was lonely, so I talked. And as long as I was talking I wasn’t thinking or crying or missing her. As long as I was talking the world would just recede a little and stop. I never said anything that really mattered, least not according to my therapist, but I was always talking.”

“So what changed between then and now?”

“I guess somewhere along the way I just stopped talking,” Stiles said dropping his arms with a sigh and frowning at the still intact row of cans. “I mean a person can only talk so long when no one is listening before they give up. After all the shit that went down and after Ali, I just stopped. I ran out of things to talk about, I ran out of the energy to do it. Rather than drown out the world I started letting it just sort of wash over me. Can we not talk about this right now? It's killing my already non-existent zen."

“Can I ask one more question?” Dean said. "Then I promise I'll stop." 

“This feels an awful lot like that prying thing you said you wouldn’t do anymore.”

Dean sighed. “Yes, I’m a nosy bastard who isn’t keeping his word very well. Sue me.”

Stiles snorted. “Wouldn’t be worth it.”

“Look, you don’t have to give specifics. I just…that scar on your stomach,” Dean said clearly unsure how to approach the subject. Stiles wished he'd just drop it because the scar on his stomach was tied to almost the very last thing he ever wanted to discuss with anyone ever again. “Did the other hunters do that to you?”

Stiles snapped his gaze to the hunter regarding him closely for a moment before shaking his head. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t hunters.”

“How did you even survive?” Dean asked. “I mean, that scar looked like someone tried to straight up disembowel you.”

“The miracle of modern medicine,” Stiles said blandly. "And I answered your one more question."

“So,” Dean said after a beat of silence, “who did it? If it wasn’t hunters, who tried to seppuku you to death?”

Stiles paused, shooting Dean a shrewd look before saying, “Seppuku isn’t how they died. At first they’d stab themselves in the throat, and later they had a second who would behead them.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “That doesn't answer my question of who tried to kill you with a Japanese sacrifice ritual. It wasn’t some Japanese monster was it?”

Stiles’ squeezed the trigger in surprise, jumping when it went off and unprepared for the recoil. “What?” he said quickly readjusting his grip on the Browning and trying to ignore the sharp jolts of pain the shot had caused and Dean’s look of growing suspicion. “No. Of course not.”

“Then who was it?”

“It was me, okay,” Stiles snapped, heart beating erratically and feeling a bit like a cornered animal, throwing out the first explanation that came to mind and it wasn't exactly false.

Dean blinked, and Stiles felt the smallest hint of regret at the expression of shock on Dean's face. “You?” the hunter managed to push out, looking like he was still struggling to wrap his head around the concept.

“Yes,” Stiles said steadfastly pushing away all memories of the actual event. It may not have actually been him, but the pain he’d felt had been all too real. “Me. I did it to myself.”

“Why?” Dean asked, voice sort of strangled.

Stiles closed his eyes counting to ten before replying calmly. Implying that he’d been suicidal, no matter how true or not it had been at any point in time, probably wasn't the best way to steer the subject away from Japanese based mythical monsters. “I’m not going to tell you, but there was actually a reason.”

“Please tell me that reason was not ‘I wanted to die’,” Dean said. He flicked his gaze to the gun in Stiles’ hand obviously reconsidering his position on letting Stiles handle a deadly weapon.

Stiles scowled at him. “No, it wasn’t. You can relax, I’m not suicidal.” He left off the qualifier of anymore, because it wasn’t any of Dean’s concern and he actually wasn’t lying this time.

“You just admitted to trying to off yourself, but you don't think that qualifies you as suicidal.”

“I said I was the one who gave me that scar,” Stiles retorted. “I didn’t say the end goal was for me to die.”

Dean huffed scrubbing his hands over his face. “Why are you always so damn confusing?”

“Because I live to torture you.”

“Jesus,” Dean breathed running a hand over his head and pulling at the short strands of his hair. “Why can’t you just be straight with me for once? About this at least?”

“Because I’m like really, really gay,” Stiles said. Falling back on old habits of deflection was not hard, no matter how much his current coping strategies deviated from his old ones. That was kind of reassuring in a weird twisted way.

Dean furrowed his brows shaking his head a little. “What? No, that’s not what I meant. You know that’s not what I meant. Stop trying to derail the subject.”

Stiles snorted. “Okay, maybe it’s because I’m a compulsive liar.”

“Or maybe it’s because you’re afraid of what will happen when you actually trust someone,” Dean argued a firm edge to his tone.

Stiles glanced at him from the corner of his eye. “Or maybe it’s that,” he agreed to Dean’s surprise. The hunter blinked, jaw dropping a little before he recovered.

“So you admit it?”

“I admit that I have trust issues and am entirely mistrustful of just about everyone. That I’m crazy paranoid and borderline psychotic at times,” Stiles said. “None of that is new information. And I admit that being a crazy paranoiac with extreme trust issues lends to a certain amount of anxiety in telling anyone anything.”

“What exactly are you afraid of?”

Stiles huffed. “Look Dean, how I got to this point a long and complicated story. I can’t tell you about the scar without telling you about everything else, and I can’t do that. And when I say I can’t, I don’t mean that I won’t or that there’s something wrong with you. I mean that I can’t sit down and talk about all of that again because it was hard enough to go through it. So, no, I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to explain what happened, I don’t want to even think about it. Especially right now. Right now I just want to shoot that goddamn can off that log,” he said gesturing in the direction of the makeshift targets.

Dean licked his lips and his hands together regarding Stiles intently for a long moment. “Well, you’re a terrible shot so it might take some time,” he said at length. “But when you’re ready to shoot that can I’ll, ah, I’ll be here and willing to, uh, watch.”

“I might be a terrible shot, but you’re terrible at metaphors,” Stiles observed dryly.

“Just shoot the damn can,” Dean said.

Stiles raised a single eyebrow. “The real one or the metaphorical one?”

Dean sighed and shook his head. “Let’s just start with the real one and see where we go from there.”

***

Bobby called back as Dean was going over how to clean a firearm with Stiles, the two of them sat at the table with an array of handguns spread before them. Dean was teaching Stiles how to dissemble, clean, and reassemble the firearms. John grabbed his coat from his bed pulling it on as he left the motel room and answered his phone speaking as soon as the call connected. 

“What’d you find, Bobby?”

“You ain’t gonna like it,” Bobby replied.

“Just tell me.”

Bobby blew out a long breath. “I found Stiles’ dad. Checked out the number you gave me and it was registered to a John Stilinski which matches the surname Argent gave me for Stiles.”

“Stilinski?” John asked silently repeating the name in his head. Stilinski. Stiles Stilinski. “His name is Stiles Stilinski?”

“Think it might be Polish. Also Stiles isn’t his real name, though if I had to choose between his legal name and Stiles, I’d pick Stiles too,” Bobby said before falling silent.

“Is that all you got?” John demanded after a moment of nothing but rustling paper.

“No,” Bobby groused. “Patience, Winchester. Stilinski was the Sheriff of Beacon Hills which is the same town Allison died in.”

“The sheriff?” John said in surprise glancing back in to Stiles methodically dissembling the Browning. “Well that certainly explains a lot.”

“Don’t it?” Bobby said with a snort.

“What else? Why is the number out of service?”

“The town, Beacon Hills, has seen a lot of supernatural action over the past two years. Started with animal attacks that were attributed to a mountain lion, more animal attacks attributed to a variety of wild animals, a serial killer, several attacks on the police station, freak animal behaviors, missing kids, and attacks by sword wielding men in what are reported to be Samurai suits of armor. And guess who was at the center of basically everything?” Bobby said.

“Stiles,” John said grimly.

“Yep. Him and a few other kids. A Scott McCall and Lydia Martin kept popping up along with Allison Argent. And a man named Derek Hale.”

“So the Argents caught wind of the animal attacks, assumed it was werewolves and moved in to handle it?” John said.

“Exactly. And by all accounts the Argents did take care of it. Moved into town just after the first animal killings. I’m not sure it was werewolves though, at least not exclusively. Whatever was in Beacon Hills, it killed Kate, Victoria, and Gerard Argent. Allison’s death was likely linked as well. After that Chris was been off the grid until he called me”

“What about Stilinski?”

“Stilinksi,” Bobby started, “was married to Claudia and had one son, Stiles. Claudia died about nine years ago from some sort of degenerative disorder far as I can figure. Stilinski was deputy first then sheriff. He was suspended after Stiles and another boy stole a police transport van and kidnapped another student, and—”

“Stole a police transport van?” John interrupted. “And kidnapping? Who was the other boy?”

Bobby hummed through the phone. “Yeah, good luck not asking him about that. My curiosity is piqued. Don’t have the other name. They were both minors so their records are sealed. Probably one of the other involved kids though, I’d wager it was McCall. Apparently the boy they kidnapped was the son of a lawyer. He’s not in the states anymore, whole family moved to London not long after the abduction.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Ah, about a year and a half.”

John sighed, “So how old does that make him now?”

“Well, he ain’t twenty, that’s for damn sure. Argent said he was seventeen.”

John sighed again. Heavier. “Figures. All right, go on.”

Bobby shuffled some papers before resuming his tale. “Where was I? Oh right, the restraining order. After Stilinski’s suspension there was an attack on the police station that, according to reports, included Stilinski and his son as hostages as well as a Melissa McCall, her son, and Hale. Long story short, the situation was resolved, Stilinski was a hero, and he was reinstated shortly after that.”

 “Okay,” John said kneading his temples. “What else?”

“It was pretty quiet for a while. The Argents left and things seemed settled. That’s when the ritual like sacrifice deaths went down with Stiles practically right in the thick of things. He personally knew one of victims from the sounds of it and another was a teacher at the local high school. Stilinski was put under investigation by the FBI because of all the unexplained cases, which there are a lot, John. Most of those ritual deaths were never solved and the place has missing persons out the wazoo. Things suddenly went quiet for a bit again, then several other deaths started cropping up as well as Japanese masked men.”

“And?” John prodded when Bobby stopped.

“And Stiles was admitted to a mental hospital for a few days. He was released and there were major attacks on the police station and the hospital. A lot of people were killed.”

“What are you implying, Bobby?”

“I’m implying that there is a lot of connection between Stiles and the deaths in Beacon Hills. More than enough that if I were investigating the town I’d be tracking him down.”

John pinched the bridge of his nose. “What happened to Stilinski? Why’s the number out of service?”

“Well,” Bobby said over the sound of rustling papers. “After the attacks on the station and hospital everything kind of flat-lined again. And a little later the sheriff tripped and fell down the stairs of his house.”

John blinked. “What?”

“That’s what the report says. According to his son, who was the only other person present, Stilinski tripped and fell down the stairs.”

“And died?” John asked in disbelief because the whole idea was absurd.

“No,” Bobby said, “he’s in a coma. For no apparent medical reason, but it’s been ruled as a result of blunt force trauma from the fall.”

 “Any next of kin?” John said gruffly.

Bobby shuffled a few more pages, the sound of crinkling paper echoing through the phone for several moments before he replied. “Just an uncle in Maine. Aron Stilinski. I haven’t been able to reach him. He has power of attorney for the Sheriff but doesn’t seem too invested. Has never visited Beacon Hills and doesn’t seem too concerned with his missing nephew according to anyone I’ve spoken with.”

“Stiles being that missing nephew I assume?”

“Yep. He’s been missing for a little over six months.”

“He’s only been with us for three,” John noted.

Bobby laughed humorlessly. “Yeah. From the rough timeline I could come up with there’s about four months unaccounted for. But Stiles did say he was in Maine for a bit. Might be Aron’s not concerned about Stiles because as far as the uncle is concerned Stiles ain’t really missing.”

“I suppose,” John agreed watching Stiles reassemble the Browning at an adequate speed, struggling only a little with his shaking hands.

“I gotta be honest, Winchester, I don’t really know what to do with this information,” Bobby said with a sigh. “It raises almost as many questions as it answers but I have a feeling that if we confront Stiles on any of it he’s just gonna run again.”

John snorted “After putting up this much of a fight to stay?”

“If he thinks we might at all side with Argent on any of this, then yeah, he’s gonna run."

“Then we take him to someone who will have a reasonable excuse to confront him without the involvement of hunters,” John decided.

Bobby was quiet a moment before saying, “You really think she’ll help him?”

John sighed kneading his temples. “I think if I put the two of them in a room together she’ll have to help. And Stiles won’t be able to hide anything from her. I’m pretty sure that’s why he didn’t want to meet her in the first place.”

“So to be clear,” Bobby said. “Your plan is to drag a kid who already barely trusts you to see a woman he doesn't want to see and just hope it all works out in our favor?”

“Stiles opened up a little about what happened, he trusted me enough to do that, he’ll trust me enough to at least talk to her.”

“Okay,” Bobby said still clearly uncomfortable with the idea. “What about Dean?”

“He can stay with you. Keep occupied until Stiles and I are back. Shouldn’t take more than a couple days.”

“He ain’t gonna like that,” Bobby commented.

John scowled. “He doesn’t have to like it. He just has to do it. I think Stiles will be more comfortable with less people, and to be honest, Bobby, I don’t think Dean wants to go back, and I’m not about to ask him to.”

“Hey, he’s more than welcome to stay. Could use his help with this case Rufus has me looking into anyway.”

“We’ll be back by dark,” John said then hung up the phone. He watched Stiles and Dean for a few seconds more before pushing the door open to the motel room and clearing his throat. “Pack it up, boys,” he said ignoring the twin looks of confusion he got as he started tossing the few things he’d had out back in his duffle.

Dean furrowed his brow and Stiles’ shoulders slumped as he obligingly began to collect the guns spread out before him “Now?” Dean asked. “I thought we were staying until tomorrow.”

“Change of plans,” John said. “Bobby has something he wants me to check out.”

Dean blinked. “Just you?”

“Stiles will come with me,” he answered watching carefully as the boy froze a moment before continuing to pack the weapons. “It’s nothing big and Bobby could use your help on research for a few days.”

Dean scowled but accepted it all the same and John felt a familiar rush of appreciation at his willingness to just listen. “Fine. Where will you and Stiles be going?”

John yanked the zipper of his duffle closed swinging it up on his shoulder and taking a drink of almost cold coffee before answering. “Missouri.”

Chapter Text

The Call

“Why do I get the feeling that the word ‘Missouri’ means something different to you than the name of a state?” Stiles asked casually, elbow propped against the door and head cocked to eye John speculatively.

John hummed and checked his mirrors as he made a right at the stoplight. “What makes you say that?”

“You mean besides a gut feeling?” Stiles said before gesturing out the window. “The fact that we’re still in Kansas, but you took that exit back there.”

“We could just be stopping,” John said as he accelerated down the still familiar road even though it had been years since he’d come to this part of Kansas.

“You’ve driven over ten hours before without stopping,” Stiles remarked. “And we’ve only been driving for four and a half. Also, we’re headed to Lawrence.”

“What do you know about Lawrence?” John said glancing at the kid.

Stiles shrugged shifting to lean against the door. “I know it’s where you and Dean are from and it’s where your wife died.”

John sighed flexing his hands around the steering wheel. Mary was a subject he never wanted to discuss with Stiles. “Missouri isn’t a place,” he conceded. “She’s a person.”

“Okay. So, does she need help with a hunt or something?”

“Not exactly,” John answered shortly already on edge a little just from being in the area. Stiles prodding only served to annoy him further, and if the kid figured out whom they were going to see before they actually got there John wouldn’t put it past him to jump out of the moving car. “You mind canning the questions until we get there?”

Stiles splayed his hands in surrender shifting again in his seat as he mimed zipping his lips closed which meant John was guaranteed fifteen minutes to maybe half an hour of silence before Stiles started talking again. Of course that was assuming he was back to his usual levels of talkativeness before the rawhead hunt. He had seemed more settled after Dean took him shooting, but John had noted intermittent hand tremors and lapses of time where Stiles seemed to zone out for minutes at a time.

Glancing once more at the boy in his passenger seat, John frowned as Stiles slouched down further and began nibbling at his thumb as he stared out the window. It was something John had noticed Stiles do often when he was exceptionally nervous which brought Bobby’s words from earlier back to his mind.

Your plan is to drag a kid who already barely trusts you to see a woman he doesn't want to see?

The knowledge that the Argents were looking for Stiles and that the kid was more than likely aware of the fact shed new light on why he’d been so adamant about staying with Dean and John rather than finding other hunters. From what Stiles had said John figured he’d done a fair amount of reconnaissance on both Bobby and John before deciding to approach either one of them. And while he may have extended a sliver of trust John’s way back in South Dakota, the idea of meeting a new person was clearly setting him on edge.

“Hey, you don’t need to be nervous about meeting Missouri,” John said and Stiles quickly yanked his thumb from his mouth and pulled the sleeves of his hoodie down over his hands. John cleared his throat a bit uncomfortably trying to find words that would reassure. “She’s a nice woman,” he settled on. “I wouldn’t take you to see her if I didn’t know it was safe.”

Stiles gave him an unreadable look at the last part, eyes narrowed like he was trying to puzzle out exactly what John meant by that, and he didn’t reply. He twisted his hands together in his lap before beginning to tap his fingers against his leg. Not two minutes later his thumb had found it’s way back to his mouth, Stiles biting at it absently as he stared out the window once more. John sighed but didn’t comment, focusing instead on the long familiar route back into Lawrence.

It was another twenty minutes before they rolled up in front of Missouri’s house. Stiles looked out the window with renewed interest as John shifted the car into park leaning forward to peer at the house with Stiles. Missouri’s place was a quaint little thing, a white house two-story house with blue shutters and a tiny front porch. A placard hanging on the railing simply read “Missouri Moseley.”

“What kind of name is Missouri Moseley?” Stiles asked after a moment.

John arched an eyebrow. “And what kind of name is yours?”

“It’s a nickname,” Stiles replied absently before glancing at John with a sharp look. “Point taken,” he muttered pushing his door open.

John followed suit, rounding the Impala and following Stiles up Missouri’s walkway. Stiles paused at the door, stepping off to the side as John reached in front of him to ring the doorbell.

“We’re here which mean’s I’m allowed to ask questions,” Stiles said as a chime sounded faintly from inside. “So how do you know Missouri?”

“I met her after my wife died,” John said tucking his hands in his pockets as he rolled his shoulders to loosen them from the drive. “She showed me the truth of things.”

“She told you about the nasties in the dark then?”

“Sure did,” John said.

Stiles nodded to himself. “So she is a hunter?”

“Not exactly,” John answered as he heard footsteps approaching the door.

Missouri hadn’t changed much in the fifteen or so years since John had seen her last, a little plumper and a few more wrinkles at the corners of her eyes but with the same sharp and knowing clarity in her gaze that stared right into his soul.

“John Winchester,” Missouri said not sounding the least bit surprised. She narrowed her eyes at him, disapproval clear in every feature, before turning to Stiles and raising a questioning eyebrow.

“Uh, hi, I’m Stiles. I’m, um, hunting with John for a bit,” he said plainly hesitating before holding his hand out in greeting.

Missouri’s gaze softened, John would say she almost looked sad as she reached out to shake Stiles’ hand. The reaction was almost instantaneously. Missouri made a small noise of sorrow, tightening her hold on Stiles’ hand even as Stiles tried to pull away looking at John in alarm before focusing back on Missouri.

“Oh, honey.” Missouri paused obviously gathering her composure. “I’m so sorry about your friends. And your father, dear, that’s terrible,” she said shaking her head. If John hadn’t already had some clues that something terrible had happened to Stiles her expression would have made it abundantly clear.

Stiles yanked his hand away shooting John a look of betrayal as the pieces clicked together admittedly faster than John had expected them to. “She’s the psychic, isn’t she?” Stiles hissed a trace of hurt lancing through his words. “The psychic in Kansas. You brought me to see the psychic?”

“Stiles, just calm down,” John started.

“I told you I didn’t want to meet the damn psychic!” Stiles shouted stepping further away. “I told you I didn’t want anyone digging through my head!” He took a harsh breath backing into the banister and almost looking like he’d vault right over it to get away. It was a much stronger reaction than John had anticipated. “Just because you think I’m psychic and you’re a nosy piece of shit doesn’t give you the right to take me to see a goddamn psychic.”

“Boy, you best be watching your language,” Missouri said drawing Stiles’ attention back to her. “I don’t take kindly to that sort of talk.”

His features hardened, shutting down into the coldest and most closed off expression John had seen from him yet. “You best stay the fuck out of my head,” he practically growled one hand outstretched as if to shield him.

“John,” Missouri said drawing herself up to her full height and donning an air of authority that dared to be trifled with. Stiles flicked his gaze between the two of them, like he couldn’t quite decide who was more threatening to him at the moment. “Perhaps it would be best if you gave me and your young friend some privacy for a little while,” Missouri continued and Stiles looked terrified at that suggestion for a brief moment before quickly stifling everything down again. “Come back in an hour or so?”

“Are you sure?” John asked uncertain whether he was more reluctant to leave Stiles with Missouri or Missouri with Stiles. He was fairly confident in Missouri’s ability to handle herself, but he was also more than aware of what people were capable of when they felt cornered.

“Of course,” she replied tone brooking no arguments. “Stiles and I have a lot to talk about, and he’d feel better if you weren’t here.”

John sighed, wiping a hand over his mouth. “All right, I’ll be back in a few hours,” he said giving Missouri one last hard look before backing down the stairs and heading down the walkway. “And, Stiles,” he called pausing for a moment to turn back to the boy still pressed against the far banister on the porch, “for the record I brought you here because I think she can help you.”

Stiles simply stared at him, eyes dark and judgmental like he couldn’t believe John was just leaving him there even if he wasn’t happy John brought him in the first place. John gave a sharp nod then turned to walk to the Impala. He got in without looking back, sitting in the car for only a moment before pulling away from the curb. Missouri would be able to help Stiles; if she’d been able to help John after Mary then she’d be able to help Stiles.

Stiles watched John drive away with a mixture of trepidation and gratification. On one hand he wasn’t sure he’d voluntarily get in the car with the man at the moment, but on the other hand being left with Missouri Moseley was equally unappealing. Stiles settled on freezing in place and just staring at the psychic standing by her open door with crossed arms.

Missouri was not what Stiles would have expected for a psychic, not that he had a lot of experience with such things. But Missouri was surprising nonetheless, a short, no-nonsense looking woman with an expectant look that could rival Melissa McCall on a good day for calling Stiles on his shit. Though Stiles supposed the cardigan sweater, headband, and large beaded necklace did sort of read as psychic.

“Well, are you gonna come in or just stand on my porch all day?”

Stiles hesitated, splinters pricking at his skin where his hands were clenched around the banister as he glanced down the road where John had disappeared. Standing on the porch all day actually seemed like a viable option.

“I ain’t gonna hurt you, Stiles,” Missouri said in a gentler tone. “I trust someone of your caliber could tell if I was.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes at her. “My caliber?”

“Don’t play with me, boy. You know what I’m talkin’ about. Now come on, it’s like I told John, we have a lot to discuss,” she said before disappearing inside her house.

Stiles hung back, sagging against the banister and closing his eyes. He sucked in a deep breath, focusing on relaxing enough to send out a few probing tendrils of his spark. Missouri was a coalescing myriad of energies, flowing together with an almost peaceful hum. It reminded him strongly of how Sinéad had felt, but more restrained and less intertwined into the fabric of the Earth. Missouri wasn’t wrong though, Stiles didn’t feel a threatening presence at all. In fact his spark was thrumming away contently, resonating off Missouri’s power like a sounding board.

He pulled everything back, bundling it up in the tightly constrained ball of energy he usually kept safely low in his chest just behind his sternum like a second heartbeat, letting the rest of the world fade back to simple perception of the five senses.

Missouri poked her head out the door raising an eyebrow at him. “Satisfied?” she asked not waiting for him to reply before once again disappearing inside and leaving the door open for Stiles to follow.

Stiles trailed after her cautiously. The foyer was cozy, simple curtains framing the window and a short leather couch by the stairs with coffee table set in front of it and a small pile of magazines stacked on the end. He swallowed moving further into the house, pushing aside a bead curtain to enter what he assumed was her office. Did psychics call them offices? Regardless Missouri was sitting in a plush chair and gestured for him to take a seat opposite of her.

“Tea?” she asked leaning forward to pour herself a cup.

Stiles shook his head sinking slowly down onto the sofa. It was almost too soft, the cushions seeming to all but engulf him and Stiles struggled to reposition himself more comfortably while Missouri sipped silently at her tea.

Giving up Stiles let himself sink back into the cushions and tucked his hands into his pockets in an attempt to project an air of nonchalance. Missouri would probably be able to see right through it, but by now Stiles was used to pretending others couldn’t see through his façades and just continuing on with the charade in obvious denial. Goddamn werewolves with their ears and noses, and goddamn druids with their intuition. Stiles kind of missed being able to fool people with a wide smile and a barrage of words about male circumcision.

“I am sorry about Allison and your father,” Missouri said again and Stiles immediately scowled.

“I told you to stay out of my head,” he said.

Missouri smiled lightly and set her tea to the side. “I’m not in your head, Stiles. I imagine that it would be quite difficult for me to get in your head at this point. You know, I’ve only met a few souls in my lifetime capable of blocking me out like that,” she said thoughtfully, “and even fewer capable of doing it as fast as you did.”

Stiles furrowed his brow and shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Missouri’s face crinkled in confusion for a moment before smoothing over in admiration. “Interesting. You’re only the second I’ve met who was unaware of doing so. The last girl was a banshee, but I think I’m correct in saying you are not,” she said, tone lilting towards teasing at the end.

“No,” Stiles said with a short laugh. “I’m not…I’m not a banshee. Are you saying that I’m blocking you from reading me right now?”

“You have been since you figured out what I was on the porch,” Missouri said. “So are you going to tell me or shall I guess? I admit it might be fun to guess for once, though you not being aware of your ability to shield your mind does narrow it down quite a bit.”

“It does?”

Missouri nodded. “It does indeed.”

Stiles sighed, the band around his chest loosing a bit at the knowledge that Missouri wasn’t able to actively read his mind at the moment though it did raise quite a few questions. “How am I blocking you?”

“I hear thoughts, sense feelings. Things on the surface, sometimes even things underneath.” Missouri said. “That’s how I knew about Allison and your father. You weren’t thinking of them, but they’re always on your mind, aren’t they?”

Stiles swallowed, dropping his gaze from Missouri and staring hard at the carpet. Allison and his dad were almost always on his mind. No, they were always on his mind, them and the pack. Always a subconscious reminder that pushed him forward while simultaneously threatening to drag him down.

“You’re slipping, dear,” Missouri said softly.

Stiles looked at her questioningly, catching her meaning as the psychic tapped at her temple. He resolutely dragged his focus back to the present, burying thoughts of Allison, his dad, and everything else down for the time being.

“Most people naturally project their thoughts, some more than others,” Missouri said picking up her tea again and taking another sip. “Almost anyone can learn to stop projecting which makes them harder to read, but not everyone can do what you are. Some can learn to actively block others from reading them. They put up a curtain of sorts that effectively blocks my ability to see, but if I push I can usually get through. And then there are those like you.”

“Like me?” Stiles repeated.

“Yes, people like you put up a shield. Much harder for me to break through and for some it’s impossible. That ability generally takes some sort of innate power,” Missouri explained. “Druids, banshees, other psychics, witches, even alpha werewolves can be taught to master it.”

“So I’m shielding my thoughts from you?”

Missouri hummed. “And you’re doing it quite well for a spark your age.”

Stiles blinked at her blasé identification, a stifling feeling settling over him for a moment before fading away. “You know what I am,” he said not phrasing it like a question.

Missouri set her teacup aside once more reaching over to pat Stiles knee like she could sense the conflicting emotions boiling inside him and maybe she could. “Why don’t you come with me into the kitchen?” she said pushing herself to her feet. “You look like you could use a good meal.”

Dean groaned letting his head drop forward to the table with a dull thud. He’d been combing through a massive book for any information on subterranean creatures with a penchant for eating people. So far he’d come up with a twelve-inch basilisk that was apparently birthed from a mutant chicken egg.

He flipped the book closed waving his hand and wrinkling his nose at the dust that flew up. Stifling down a sneeze he pushed himself up from the table, replacing the book on the shelf before heading to the kitchen to tell Bobby that the latest book had yielded exactly squat just like the first four Dean had looked through.

“That’s right,” Bobby was saying. “Tom Willis with the FBI. Yeah, I have a lead on a missing persons case from your department.” Bobby hummed and Dean leaned against the doorjamb not wanting to interrupt. “That’s the one. He didn't give a last name, but he matches the physical description and is going by Stiles.”

Dean straightened taking a renewed interest in the conversation.

“No, we weren’t able to hold him, but I wanted to see if I could get some more information. Do you have a contact number for his parents?” Bobby paused, pen hovering over a notepad. “I see. Well, how about next of kin? Ahuh, yeah, thank you. Between us, do you have any idea why the kid ran in the first place? Oh really? I see. All right. Thanks again for sending those files over, Deputy Parrish. You too. Bye.”

Bobby hung up the phone scrawling at his notepad silently for a moment before turning around and stopping short at the sight of Dean in the doorway. He sighed tapping the notebook against his hand. “I’m guessing you’re wonderin’ what that was about,” he said.

“I’m guessing it was about Stiles,” Dean said. “Bobby, why are you calling the cops on Stiles?”

“I ain’t calling the cops on him,” Bobby said scowling and brushing past Dean to leave the kitchen. “Follow me. A couple days ago I got a call from Chris Argent lookin’ for Stiles.”

“Argent?” Dean said trailing after him. “As in the Argents?”

“That’s the one,” Bobby said as he dropped the notepad on his desk with a loud slap and picked up a heavy binder flipping quickly through the pages.

“Why?”

Bobby found the page he was looking for turning the binder around and holding it out for Dean to take. Dean frowned skimming the list of names on the page stopping as he got to Chris Argent and the names beneath. “Allison Argent,” he read looking back up at Bobby in surprise. “You found the girl?”

Bobby nodded leaning back against the desk with crossed arms. “Pretty sure.”

“So what happened to her?”

“No idea,” Bobby said with a shrug. “Official report says carjacking. She was definitely stabbed with something but there’s no way of telling what.”

“You don’t think Stiles…” Dean started then trailed off as Bobby shook his head.

“Nah, I don’t,” the older man said. “I think he and the Argent girl got mixed up in whatever Chris was hunting. Hunt went wrong, Allison ended up dead, and Stiles is taking the fall for it.”

“I don’t get it,” Dean said rereading the names on the page again. “Stiles said Allison’s dad was one of the few hunters he actually trusted. Why would Chris be tracking him down like this?”

“All I know is I got a kid that by all accounts has just up and disappeared from his home who seems to be on the run from something and a hunter from a notoriously revenge driven family with a dead daughter looking for him,” Bobby said. “Any way I add those pieces up doesn’t look good.

Dean sighed pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why didn’t you tell my dad and I when we got here?” he asked. Then, “Wait, Dad already knows. That’s why he just took Stiles with him. He’s trying to get Stiles to talk, isn’t he?”

Bobby pursed his lips and shrugged. “More or less.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Did Dad tell you to not tell me?”

“Not explicitly,” Bobby said quirking his lips.

Dean huffed and snapped the binder closed before handing it back to Bobby. “All right then. Fill me in on everything you’ve found out so far.”

“Sparks are notoriously unaware of the extent of their abilities,” Missouri said pulling a bundle of romaine lettuce from her fridge, “especially when they are young.”

“How much do you know about sparks?” Stiles asked tentatively inching into the small kitchen.

Missouri scoffed. “Sit,” she said flicking her hand towards the table as she deposited the lettuce into a bowl. She dug into the fridge again emerging with several sticks of celery. “You can cut these while we talk.”

Stiles sank into the wooden chair accepting the celery, cutting board, and knife, fumbling a little before successfully arranging the celery and beginning to slice.

“Sparks in and of themselves are not rare,” Missouri continued beginning to wash up lettuce. “A lot of people have a spark inside them, but for most it goes unnoticed. You see sparks need to be triggered to grow into anything substantial, otherwise it’s just untapped and dormant potential. Do you have any idea how yours got triggered?”

Stiles slowed the knife smiling cynically to himself. He’d asked Deaton and Sinéad that very same question once he learned that his spark had to have been triggered by something. However, they hadn’t been able to narrow it down to a single point; the fact was Stiles had encountered so many things that could have potentially triggered it. They’d narrowed it down to two equally probable points—surrogate sacrifice or Nogitsune possession. “I have some idea,” he said at length.

“Care to share?”

“Not really. How did you know I was a spark?”

Missouri dried her hands on the hand towel setting the bowl of lettuce to the side and beginning to chop up some apples, cutting through them with an almost scary competency. “There are very few creatures capable of possessing the amount of psychic power you do without being aware of it. Banshees are one, sparks another. Psychics too, but we have a certain, hmm, resonance. Very easy to identify once you know what to look for.”

“What do you see when you look at me?” Stiles asked a little curious.

“On the surface?” Missouri said arching one plucked eyebrow. “Nothing. Your static aura is pretty much non-existent. Not sure I’d even notice it if I wasn’t lookin’ real close.”

Some small piece of Stiles relaxed at that, a reminder that what Sinéad had told him was true even for someone as perceptive as Missouri. At least for the most part Stiles could still move among druids, psychics, and other creatures without it being immediately obvious what he was.

“It wasn’t until you began to shield yourself that I saw it. Beautiful color, by the way,” Missouri said dumping the apples in with the lettuce and following that with some diced chicken from the fridge. She took the celery Stiles had just finished sliding it off the board into the salad as well.

Stiles set the knife off to the side interest piqued by the comment. “What color is it?” he asked. Sinéad and some of the others had remarked on what his spark felt like a number of times, but none of them had ever mentioned a color.

Missouri turned from the dressing she was preparing to offer him a sincere smile. “Gold mostly,” she said. “Now it’s likely to fluctuate some based on your mood, but gold is a good color.”

Stiles considered that as Missouri finished up the salad, mulling over the fact that his spark had a color that was apparently mostly gold. He supposed that made sense; there was a lot of acknowledgement on how people had auras that could be perceived and how those auras had certain colors lending to a person’s nature or emotional state. Gold was an interesting color; Stiles had vague ideas of what other colors meant, but gold was one he didn't know.

“Here you go,” Missouri said setting bowl of salad in front of him. “Do you want anything to drink?”

“Uh, water, please,” Stiles answered picking up the fork to poke at his food.

Missouri got him a drink before serving herself and settling in the chair opposite of him. Stiles took a tentative bite, pleasantly surprised at the mild taste of the dressing and deciding he could probably stomach it. They ate in silence for several minutes with nothing but the click of forks against ceramics before Missouri spoke again.

“So what brought you to John Winchester?”

Stiles swallowed a mouthful of salad. “Didn't you already see on the porch? Allison and my dad?”

“I did,” Missouri replied. “But I was referring to John specifically. Why did you seek him out?”

“I was looking for a specific kind of hunter,” Stiles said with a shrug. “John fit.”

“Nothing else?”

Stiles speared a piece of apple and pushed it around on the plate a moment. “I don’t really know,” he said. “John just felt…right I guess.”

“Have you told him about Allison and your father?” Missouri asked.

Stiles shook his head setting his fork down and pushing his half eaten salad away. “A bit. Not much and not explicitly. I mean, I’ve told him about it in general terms, but I can’t tell them too much without addressing the whole spark thing. And I can’t…there’s just so much I can’t tell them,” he said.

“You’re afraid of how they’ll react?”

“Well, yeah,” Stiles said. “Wouldn't you be?”

Missouri snorted. “John already knows what I am.”

“You being a psychic isn’t exactly the same thing as a spark who is part of a werewolf pack and was basically an accomplice in the death of many, many people,” Stiles commented taking a drink of water. “Somehow I don’t think John will be very receptive to that.”

Missouri arched an eyebrow in subtle surprise as she finished her salad. “If you let me see, I might be able to help.”

Stiles swallowed setting his glass of water to the side. “You really think you wanna see all this?” he asked waving his hand around his head.

“If you want me to,” Missouri said nodding, “then yes. Most people find that just sharing such a connection even for short amount of times can help ease the weight.”

“Okay,” Stiles said after a moment, taking a deep breath before he could second-guess himself. “Uh, what, what do I need to do?”

Missouri cleared the dishes off the table, depositing everything in the sink before settling back in her seat and placing her hands on the table palms up. “Just place your hands in mine and relax,” she said and after a moment of hesitation Stiles complied. “And, remember,” she added. “You’ll have to let me in.”

Stiles drew his hands away a little at that, heartbeat kicking up and palms going clammy at the implications. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he said weakly.

Missouri slowly reached out to grasp his hands again. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she said and Stiles barely resisted the urge to snatch his hands away and glare at her because it was so much more than simply being afraid of letting someone in again. “With a connection like this you will be in charge of maintaining it or severing it if you so choose. And I suspect you’ll have little trouble throwing me out if you decide you no longer want to continue.”

“I’ll be in control?” Stiles checked.

Missouri inclined her head. “Naturally. It is your mind after all.”

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t seem to mean much,” Stiles muttered ignoring the inquisitive look Missouri gave him and taking a deep breath.

“I give you my word, Stiles, that you’ll be in absolute control. I won’t go looking for anything, and you can show me whatever you like.”

Stiles regarded her closely, judging her level of sincerity before nodding. “Okay,” he said adjusting his grip on her hands to be more comfortable. “Okay. I’ll let you in.”

Chapter Text

The Call

Missouri had seen a lot of painful things in her years as a psychic. The ability to read minds was far from fun and games. After all people hardly tended to dwell on the good things in life. No, it was human nature to focus on the bad, and it was only when they single-mindedly focused on the bad that they sought help. And in these days psychics such as herself were last resort stops for most people so Missouri was used to seeing people at their lowest and most damaged.

John Winchester hadn’t been the first or the last hunter to show up on her doorstep and each of them carried their own painful stories. There were also the supernaturals, people like her and others looking for explanations to the strange things happening in their lives. Then there were the lost souls; people searching for answers and solutions for the problem called life. Even her day-today customers concerned about unfaithful spouses, disobedient children, and sick loved ones came with their own sort of pain and sorrow.

Somehow in the moment Stiles was all of them at once. A hunter looking for the truth, a spark seeking answers, a lost soul searching for a path, and a boy scared for his father.

Stiles was hesitant to let her in, open yet still cautious and resistant when she reached out. But Missouri was patient, simply allowed Stiles to get used to her presence and waited. After a moment Stiles let her in fully, deconstructing all the walls he’d built to keep her out. It was almost overwhelming, the sudden flood of images surging into her minds eyes faster than she could comprehend; she only caught flashes of a bearded young man in a leather coat, sunlight streaming through tree branches in a cemetery, and an older man fighting with Stiles over a box of donuts before Stiles seemed to realize how chaotic the connection was. Everything slowed a bit and Missouri could sense Stiles struggling to organize his thoughts images from his early childhood beginning to surface.

She got an idea of Stiles’ family when he was younger, an only child to a father on the police force, the man who’d been keeping hold of that box of donuts, and a woman with a beautiful smile. A series of memories flashed in her mind’s eyes jumping around the years erratically; one of Stiles learning to ride a bike, another of his mother rocking him to sleep, then his first day of school. Eventually they gained a semblance of order, settling into a rough timeline of Stiles growing up. Then came memories of the hospital, Stiles’ mother screaming in the kitchen, a flash of the roof of the hospital, his father passed out on the couch, and Stiles huddled in the upstairs closet.

Stiles pulled away, the connection fraying almost to the point of breaking before strengthening again. Now Stiles was older, driving his mother’s jeep for the first time alone with the windows rolled down, sunlight streaming through the leaves of the trees, and music blaring from the speakers. There were several quick flashes of memories—Stiles trying out for lacrosse, flowers at a headstone, sitting shotgun in his father’s police cruiser--then they were in the jeep again and there was another boy with him, all floppy brown hair and wide grins. Scott, Stiles provided, and the name elicited such a resonating hum of peacefulness from him Missouri couldn’t help but smile and tighten her grip on Stiles’ hands asking for more.

Stiles was being careful with what he let her see now whether he knew it or not. Missouri suspected he wasn’t entirely aware; it was likely instinctive that Stiles was withholding most of the deepest parts of himself. Rather than a cohesive account it was like watching someone flip though channels on an old television set, Stiles’ thoughts again flicking in and out of focus almost too fast for her to follow at times and in a non-sequential order.

She got through more years—flashes of birthdays, Christmases, anniversaries, good times and bad times, weekend slumber parties, paper writing all-nighters, arguments with his father, midnight snack make-ups, a beautiful girl with hair like blazing sunshine and the greenest eyes, lacrosse practice and picnics by a lake, movie marathons and video game tournaments, a nighttime excursion into the woods—then things started flashing by faster, his sense of focus lessening so there was a steady stream of incoherent images. Missouri tried to calm him, steadying her own breaths and pushing out a wave of reassurance, but Stiles kept moving through everything at a breakneck pace.

A body in the woods, a man with fangs crouched over Lydia on a lacrosse field, a gun pressed in his face while a man murmured in his ear, throwing a Molotov cocktail at a werewolf, Scott snarling at him in a locker room, and a dark haired girl with a breathtaking smile laughing while Stiles tried to catch his breath. The young man in the leather jacket ordering them off his property, a body of half a girl, watching a man get crushed by his jeep, and the terrifying feeling of not being able to move. Struggling to hold the same young man above the water in the school’s pool, Scott slamming him against the wall of his bedroom, the first moment Stiles used his spark to form a line of mountain ash, the hunters kidnapping him after the championship game.

There was hints of more werewolves—a blonde girl with all the confidence in the world, a stoic young man built like a tree, a tall curly haired boy—all of them blurring in and out of focus so fast she couldn’t get more than the simplest of readings on them. There was a blind man and a woman with clawed feet, a terrifying beast that towered over him, and Stiles struggling to hold it together in the back of an ambulance. He kissed a girl in her basement, laughed as her hands fumbled at his buckle, and cried when he saw her body in the hospital. He sat awake through the nights trying to put the pieces together, shoved everything deep down when Derek died because he couldn’t take the time to deal with it properly, and stepped into a puddle gasoline with a hammering heart and will to do anything to keep Scott with him.

Stiles skipped ahead again only letting her see bits and pieces. His father was missing, Lydia kissed him in the locker room, then there was nothing but freezing water, ice in her veins and the sense of darkness that followed almost knocked the breath from her lungs.

Everything was chaotic after that; terrifying images of Stiles and a dark creature. Stiles rigging the police station to explode, twisting the blade in Scott’s stomach with glee, feeding off the pain and suffering the werewolf had taken, screaming in terror and jerking awake to an empty room, Scott hugging him tight in the hospital. Snow falling around him as he held a sword to his stomach, Lydia’s scream echoing endlessly in his ears, the stifling press of people and Allison lying in a coffin at the front of the room. A rush of nightmares, panic attacks, a breakdown in the stairwell, his father was crying out in surprise—then Stiles was ripping himself away from her and severing all connection.

Stiles gasped tearing his hands out from Missouri’s and flinging himself to the floor to put some distance between them. He gagged feeling almost like he’d just suffered through one of his more severe panic attacks. It was one of the worst feelings, that shakiness that settled deep in his bones, the dry heaving, pounding headache, and sense of disconnection from everything.

“Here, eat this,” Missouri said pressing something into his hand.

Stiles blindly put in in his mouth, surpassing another dry heaving episode at the sudden burst of sweetness on his tongue. “Chocolate?” he sputtered forcing himself to swallow and praying he wouldn’t actually vomit.

Missouri shrugged staring at him with an odd sort of intensity that kind of unnerved him. “Usually does the trick.”

Stiles leaned back against the fridge letting his eyes slide closed trying to block out the unease in the room and get his heart rate back under control. “Suppose it does kind of feel like dementor sucked on my soul,” he murmured.

“That was a rough reading,” Missouri allowed. For the first time she sounded uncertain in her words. Stiles couldn’t really fault her there; getting a hefty amount of his life, even as edited as he’d managed to make it, in one continuous dose had been hard on him too and he’d already lived through it once.

He opened one eye to peer at her critically wondering what it was the woman was thinking. “Oh really?” he said just to fill the empty space. Missouri was still staring at him in a way that made his skin crawl; all pensive and knowing like he was stripped clear to his stained and ruined soul. “Felt like smooth sailing to me. So, Dr. Phil, tell me what you think,” he continued dragging himself up from the floor to flop back in his chair. Getting this talk over as fast as possible was probably the best course of action.

Missouri laced her fingers together leaning forward and saying, “I think you should go home.”

Stiles blinked then laughed. “What? No, that's ridiculous. I can’t go back. Not now. I’m just, I have to stay. What makes you think, there’s no way I...” he trailed off only able to get out one coherent question. “Why?”

“Because, honey, what you’re doin’ right now?” Missouri said gently. “It ain’t ever gonna make up for what happened.”

Stiles swallowed, shutting his mouth with an audible click and dropping his gaze to his hands as he picked at his cuticles unable to quell the hot rush of shame that coursed through him at her words. He didn’t really consider this year as redemption for what he’d done; knew that nothing he could ever do would atone for his actions with the Nogitsune, but to hear another person agree with him out loud stung on some fundamental level that he couldn’t quite articulate even to himself. Like even if he knew the truth deep down part of him still wanted to hear a comforting lie from someone else.

“Do you know why?”

Stiles nodded, squeezing his eyes shut and biting back the threatening tears. He knew why he’d never be able to make up for the pain he’d caused. It was the darkness around his heart, the darkness tethered to his soul. It touched everything Stiles did, infected the world and the best Stiles could hope for was to contain it.

Missouri reached out to nudge his chin up, startling Stiles into looking at her. She smiled at him softly. “No, Stiles, that's not why. The darkness I can see in your mind, that darkness in your soul, what you feel in here,” she said laying a hand over her heart. “That don’t make you a bad person. You can’t make up for what happened because they aren’t your sins to atone for.”

“Some of them are,” Stiles said roughly. Some of them, most of them, all of them; what was the difference?

“Well,” Missouri said, “even if you look at it like that then I’d say you’ve already done enough. Go home, Stiles. I promise that what you’ll find there isn’t what you fear.”

“How do you know?” Stiles said wiping hurriedly at his eyes before it was too noticeable that he was crying. “I haven’t been home in months. I haven’t talked to any of them. They probably hate me for leaving.”

“And what makes you think that? Stiles, from what I saw I firmly believe they would be very happy if you went home.”

Stiles laughed mirthlessly, giving up on hiding his tears and just digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. Even though he’d kept a lot of his memories from Missouri digging through the ones he’d had and sharing some of them seemed to have broken down all the carefully constructed walls he had constructed in the past years and recent months. Things he’d long thought buried and forgotten were startling clear and things he’d been working hard to forget were rearing their ugly heads.

“Because,” he said shakily doing his best to stay focused on the conversation and not drift off with the horrors clamoring for attention in his mind, “I left my phone behind but there are other ways to get in touch with a person, and my friends were pretty worried at first, but, you know, eventually they got angry.”

“And you think they’ll stay angry even once you're back?” Missouri asked.

“I don’t know,” Stiles rasped, pressing a hand against his chest where his heart was pounding hard and heavy, like it was trying to beat free from his ribs. “Maybe. They’d have every right to. I did basically abandon them after All—after everything that’d happened.”

Missouri nodded, pursing her lips silently for a moment so the only sounds in the room were Stiles’ shallow breaths and the low hum of the refrigerator. “Do you regret leaving?” she said finally.

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut shaking his head. “No, of course not. I mean, yes. I don’t know.” He leaned his elbow on the table and pressed a palm against his head feeling lightheaded. His skin was tight, the air charged, every sensation heightened tenfold so it was all encompassing, like his body was stretching apart and ready to shatter into a million pieces. The sound of blood rushing in his ears was deafening to the point where he almost didn’t hear Missouri repeating his name. “I thought you said this was going to help,” he gasped tears again pricking at the corner of his eyes as he clung to the table and tried to take an even breath.

“Stiles. Stiles, look at me. Just focus on my voice,” she said soothingly. “It’s okay. You’re all right.”

Stiles laughed again and shook his head the hard edges of the wood on the underneath of the table biting into the tips of his fingers. “No, it’s not. It’s so fucking far from being all right. You’re a fucking psychic, you’re supposed to be giving me helpful advice but all you can say is ‘go home’ and I can’t go home.”

“Why not? Why can’t you go home?”

He sucked in a shuddering breath. “I gave myself a year,” he said tapping his fingers on the table and counting as he went. “One year. And it’s not done. I'm not done. I have to finish what I’ve started.”

John rang Missouri’s doorbell again exactly two hours and fifteen minutes after he’d left. It took the psychic a few minutes to answer the door and once she did John had to do a double take. The woman looked absolutely haggard compared to earlier, her shoulders slumped and face weary. Stiles trailed behind her, huddled deep in his hoodie and eyes red-rimmed from crying. He scrubbed his sleeve over his face, obviously trying to mask as much evidence of his breakdown as he could though it was a lost cause, and barely even looked at John as he moved past Missouri to exit the house. He paused on the porch shifting his weight to either foot anxiously as if unsure of what he should be doing.

“Go ahead and wait in the car, Stiles. I need to talk to Missouri for a moment,” John said hanging back by the door as Stiles eyed him speculatively then headed down to the car after nodding a goodbye to Missouri.

“I’m not gonna tell you what we talked about,” Missouri said without preamble crossing her arms and leaning against the doorjamb. “If he decides to tell you, that’s his business, but I won’t.”

John paused the words dying at the tip of his tongue. “I wasn’t going to ask,” he said finally.

Missouri raised a challenging brow looking a bit more like herself. “You were thinking about it.”

“Thinking about it isn’t the same as doing it,” John said digging his hands into his coat pockets and shifting his weight uncomfortably much like Stiles had been doing earlier. “I just wanted to ask you if he was…will he be okay?”

Missouri sighed rubbing at her arms and giving John a haunted look. “John, I’ll be honest with you. That boy is, well, he’s more damaged than a glass candlestick dropped off the Empire State building. I told him to go home.”

John blinked in surprise. That would have been the last thing he expected her to say. “What? Why?”

Missouri frowned at him looking like she was thinking he wasn’t the sharpest pitchfork in the shed. “Because that boy has people that care about him there, people who will support him,” she said as if it were that obvious. “He needs them now more than he needs you prying into his life, judgin’ him for things he shouldn’t be judged for, and draggin’ him to see psychics he doesn’t want to see.”

John sighed scratching at his beard and scuffing his boot against the wood of the porch. “Based on the fact that he’s in my car I’m assuming he didn’t agree with you.”

Missouri huffed. “No, he did not,” she said and John was utterly unsurprised by that fact.

“So what did he say when you told him?”

She laughed faintly looking to Stiles sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala. “He said he wasn’t finished. I tried to convince him it wasn’t the wisest idea, but he’s set on staying with you so I suggest you do your best to help him.”

John frowned following her gaze to the kid in his car not paying John and Missouri any attention as he fiddled with his phone. “How the hell am I supposed to help him?”

“You want my advice, John? Keep doing what you’ve been doing minus all the distrustfulness.” Missouri said. “Stiles is looking for something and he obviously thinks he’s found it with you and Dean. So stop being your usual unapproachable self and start actin’ like he might actually be something other than a burden to you.”

“You say that like it’s easy,” John said wryly.

Missouri arched an eyebrow at him. “It is,” she said. “Just don’t be something else he has to survive. Be something that helps him survive everything else.”

As Stiles walked away part of him wondered if Missouri would actually tell John everything she’d seen. God knew the hunter was bound to ask and maybe Stiles should be concerned about that but all he felt was sort of apathetically resigned to the possibility. He was glad to be away from Missouri’s knowing looks even if it meant he was back to sitting in the Impala and feeling like he was awaiting judgment with a noose around his neck. It wasn’t exactly a new sensation so it was comfortably familiar.

He could watch the two talk and gauge their expressions and body language, they were still standing on Missouri’s porch in plain view, but he honestly didn’t have the energy to give a shit. So he pulled his phone out instead and logged into his email against his better judgment. The last thing he needed to be doing right now was torturing himself over emails from the pack, but with the memory of leaving fresh in his mind it was almost physically impossible to even comprehend stopping himself.

There were two new emails from Lydia, six from Scott, and even one from Kira interspaced between an obnoxious amount of junk that had somehow managed to evade being properly sorted over the last month since he’d logged in last. Stiles spent a minute selecting everything he didn’t care about and dropping it in the trash before staring at the remaining nine emails hesitantly.

He opened Kira’s first assuming correctly that it would be the least lengthy and least personal. It was only sentence long saying Scott missed him and asking him to please come home. Seemed to be a running theme of the day.

Lydia’s first email was longer, a paragraph long rant about how Stiles shouldn’t have left. It had been delivered at two-thirty in the morning, and Stiles wondered vaguely if it had been an insomnia induced venting. Her next email sent some thirty minutes later that same night simply read, wherever you are, I hope you’re okay. Kind of ironic all things considered.

Scott’s emails were always the hardest to read. Stiles never knew what to expect, except in the rare cases that Scott actually used the subject line, which generally ranged from I miss you to hey asshole in all caps to how could you leave in either pitiful all lowercase or accusing and demanding capitals. Only one email this time held such a clue— helpfully reading you fucker—the rest bearing the generic no subject placeholder.

After a moment of staring Stiles exited out of his email and pocketed his phone without reading a single one of Scott’s emails distantly aware of the fact that the car seemed hotter and smaller than it had been a second ago and that his hands were again shaking hard enough to be instantly noticeable. Stiles shoved his hands in his pockets, slouching in his seat as he focused on breathing, and jumped when John yanked the driver’s side door open and slid into his seat. Stiles hadn’t even noticed Missouri and him had finished talking.

John didn’t say anything or even look at Stiles at all, just put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb driving in utter silence. Stiles waited all of ten minutes to break it the first thing that came to mind.

“Dean doesn’t know about Missouri, does he? That’s why he’s not here.”

John finally glanced at him but ultimately ignored Stiles’ question in favor of asking one of his own. “Did you find Missouri helpful?”

Stiles snorted. “Yeah, a detailed reminiscing of the shitstorm masquerading as my life and a trip down memory lane was exactly what I needed at the moment,” he said scathingly though the words lacked their usual bite buried somewhere under the persistent shakiness in his voice. “But, hey, as long as you got what you wanted, right?”

John glanced at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Please, don’t act like you dragging me to see her was entirely for my benefit. You wanted to know if I had any plans of stabbing you or Dean to death. But now that Missouri has set your mind at ease on me not being some kind of demonic sleeper agent you can pretend that dragging me to the porch of a psychic before scampering off to God knows where while I agreed to a full body mind-fucking was all for my benefit,” Stiles snapped rubbing at his chest in an attempt to dispel some of the building tightness.

John sighed kneading at his eyes for a moment. “Look, I understand you’re a little bitter about this—”

“A little?” Stiles interrupted. “I’m a lot bitter.”

“But Missouri was a lot of help to me when I was coming to terms with things in the beginning, and I thought she’d be able to help you too,” John said.

“Well maybe you needed a little help piecing everything together but I got to the Nasty Things Go Bump In The Night realization just fine on my own and really didn’t need to relive the top ten or fifteen moments that got me to there!” Stiles said squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his hand around the door handle as the air seemed to vanish making the interior of the car spin.

“I thought getting you to be completely open about those top ten moments for a change might be helpful,” John argued.

“Stop the car,” Stiles bit out tightly. John gave him a sharp look but didn’t slow down. “Stop the car!” he repeated a note of panic leaking in.

John pulled over at that, hitting the breaks hard and bringing the car to a jolting stop. Stiles pushed his door open before the car was even at a full stop stumbling out and falling to the ground. His knees cracked against the pavement uncomfortably but he welcomed the flare of pain as he dug his hands into the dirt and stones by the road and squeezed. Desperately he tried to quiet his mind, organize everything back where it belonged and focus on something that would slow his breathing and racing heart but it was a losing battle.

Boots swam across his vision, John’s boots crunching on the rocks as the man came around the car approaching him slowly. “Stiles?”

“Don’t,” Stiles choked out scrambling away and falling back against the Impala. “Don’t touch me.”

“Okay, okay,” John said drifting back again with his hands held out in surrender. “I won’t. But you need to calm down.”

Stiles huffed out an empty laugh. “No shit,” he gasped knocking his head back into the metal behind him as he clenched his hands and resisted the urge to rake his nails up and down his forearm. There were healthier ways to stop a panic attack than drawing blood. He just needed to focus.

He forced his hands to unclench, counting each finger as it rose first going from one to ten then back down to one again. His breathing slowed with each repetition and after a moment he realized John was counting with him, a soothing low rumble matching him word for word. After four repetitions he felt calm enough to stop, sagging back against the tire he was leaning against as the exhaustion spread over him and wiping a shaking hand across his forehead.

John furrowed his brow from where he was crouched a few feet away from Stiles an odd look crossing his face.

“Sorry,” Stiles said managing to dredge up a weak smile. “Just a panic attack. I’m fine.”

John snorted at that obviously not buying it, and okay, it was a weak assertion anyway. “Your hands,” he said.

Stiles blinked wondering if he’d missed part of that statement somehow and must have looked suitably puzzled because John sighed and gestured at Stiles’ hands.

“Look at your hands.”

Stiles frowned but obliged only now becoming aware of a faint stinging sensation in his palms. He turned his hands over surprised to see smears of dirt and blood where some of the sharper rocks had dug into his flesh. Grimacing Stiles picked out a larger piece and swallowed at the red bead of blood that immediately welled up in its place.

John stood, rooting around in the Impala’s trunk as Stiles continued to pick at his hands before returning to his earlier position albeit a good deal closer. He set the first aid kit on the ground snapping it open and pulling out a pair of tweezers. “May I?” he asked nodding towards Stiles hands.

Stiles said nothing; simply rested his arms on his knees as he extended his hands out towards John in silent acquiesce.

“Missouri says she told you to go home,” John said regarding Stiles’ hands closely a moment then beginning to pick some of the bigger pieces of rock with the tweezers.

Stiles snorted directing his gaze away from his hands and John’s face, settling on a misshapen lump of a tree over John’s left shoulder that kind of looked like the face of a grumpy old man. “Of course she did,” he said. “I’m sure you two had a good chat all about it.”

“Not really. All she said was she told you to go home and you said you weren’t finished,” John said digging a particularly sharp piece out from the skin between Stiles’ thumb and index finger.

Stiles sucked in a sharp breath resisting the urge to yank his hand away. “She seemed pretty set on my going home.”

“And you seem pretty set on not going,” John observed. He set the tweezers back in the box wiping at Stiles’ palms gently to remove the smaller bits.

Stiles leaned his head back against the Impala with a sigh. “I can’t go back.”

“Can’t?” John said rooting around in the first aid kit once more. “Or won’t?”

The hubcap dug into Stiles’ shoulder, pressing coldly against his skin as he shrugged. “What’s the difference at this point?”

John hummed thoughtfully as he soaked a cotton ball in antiseptic. “Dean isn’t here because he doesn't want to come back to Lawrence,” he said wiping the antiseptic over the small cuts.

It took Stiles a moment as he winced at the slight stinging to figure out what John was referring to. “So Dean knows Missouri?” he asked wondering why John was revisiting his earlier question now.

John shook his head. “No,” he admitted inspecting Stiles’ right hand apparently deciding none of the cuts were deep enough to warrant more ministration. He tucked the used cotton ball in a bag before wetting a new one. “But that’s not why I didn’t ask him or tell him where we were going.”

Stiles huffed a short laugh. “I mean, technically you did.”

“Technically,” John echoed smiling wanly as he finished wiping down Stiles’ left hand. That cotton ball joined the first then John packed up the kit and shut it with a click. “But my point is Dean isn’t here for the same reason you aren’t going home. You’re right. Can’t. Won’t. It doesn’t matter. It’s difficult to go back to a place where something terrible happened and from the sounds of it a lot of fucked up shit happened to you and your friends. A lot of fucked up shit happened to you. You’re a survivor.”

Stiles swallowed heavily raising his gaze to meet John’s eyes.

“And trust me when, as a former marine and a hunter, I say I know what a survivor looks like.”

“You used to be a marine?” Stiles asked shifting against the car as John stood to replace the first aid kit in the trunk. “You ever fight in any wars?”

John grunted. “Vietnam.”

“My dad used to be in the army,” Stiles said leaning his head back to stare at John by the trunk.

“Really?” John said.

Stiles nodded. “Yeah. He was in the Gulf War. In Kuwait. The two of you actually have a lot in common,” he said with a small chuckle. “Both survive a war only to lose their wife and get tied up in supernatural shit.”

“What happened to your mother?”

“She died of degenerative brain disease when I was a kid,” Stiles answered softly.

“And your father?” John asked with an odd underlying tone to his words that Stiles couldn’t quite place. “What happened to him?”

Stiles sighed picking at a thread on the cuff of his sweatshirt. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

When he looked back up John was staring at Stiles with a questioning intensity like he knew more than he was letting on and had broiling pot of questions stirring beneath his stoic exterior. Stiles met his gaze steadily; a silent challenge for the man to ask more questions and give away his hand. After a moment John shook his head and pulled open the passenger door. “Come on, kid, we still got a long drive ahead of us.”

Chapter Text

The Call

“Where’s his dad in all this? If he’s a sheriff and his son is missing then he’s got to be worried as hell and pulling in every favor he’s got,” Dean said rocking back in the rickety wooden chair and mulling over the abbreviated family history Bobby had just given on Stiles. A lot of it had followed the snippets of insight Stiles had given him and Dean honestly wasn’t all that surprised to hear the kid came from a law enforcement family. It did, however, raise the question of why a sheriff had yet to find his missing son. He let the chair fall forward with a clatter as an unsavory possibility occurred to him. “Christ, don’t tell me he’s dead or something.”

Bobby huffed and shook his head digging through a stack of files on the desk. “No, he ain’t dead.”

“So where’s he at then?” Dean said eyeing the older hunter quizzically.

“Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital,” Bobby answered holding out a file to Dean. “In the coma ward.”

Dean blinked at him processing that information as he took the file noting the name on the papers as John Stilinski. “He’s in a coma? How long?”

“Going on five months now. He was admitted on December second,” Bobby said gesturing toward the file as Dean began leafing through the papers. There wasn’t a lot of information, most of it no doubt being protected by law, but there was a general overview of the sheriff’s condition from his admittance to now.

“That’s a long time to be in a coma, isn’t it?” Dean asked noting the lack of a definitive diagnosis. “What the hell happened to him?”

Bobby sighed scratching at his beard. “No clue. And the doctors are just as stumped. Stiles says he fell down the stairs so it’s been ruled as trauma to the brain. Accident report,” he clarified when Dean gave him a questioning look. “Stiles was the only other person in the house at the time.”

“A simple fall down the stairs landed the sheriff in a coma for five months?” Dean said. “That doesn’t seem right.”

“Brains can be fickle things, Dean. But it’s likely there was something more sinister was behind it than a flight of stairs.”

“When was Allison killed again?” Dean asked skimming over the sheriff’s accident report. It was frustratingly vague and Stiles hadn’t given much information beyond saying he’d been awakened by his dad falling down the stairs around one o’clock in the morning. “In November, right?”

Bobby nodded picking up another file. “November thirteenth. And the funeral was a few days after that.”

“And three weeks later Stiles’ dad ends up in a coma? You think it was related?”

Bobby shrugged. “Not sure. I think if it was related to what killed Allison then Chris would have stuck around to take care of it.”

“Yeah,” Dean said setting the sheriff’s file aside, “but what’s the chances of two evil things taking out two people in Stiles’ life within the course of a few weeks?”

Bobby stood chuckling grimly as he pulled a stack of files off the bookcase behind him. “Given the history of Beacon Hills, I’m inclined to say high,” he replied beginning to drop file after file on the desk. “We’ve got animal deaths dating back to over fifteen years ago, more animal deaths several years later, that arson case Stiles mentioned, even more animal deaths starting up again about two years ago, and that’s when things really went to hell. Missing persons, grave robbings, missing cadavers, serial killers, ritualistic like sacrifices, weird animal behaviors, dead people coming back to life, samurai sword wielding men, bombings. You name it, I bet it happened at some point.”

“Goddamn,” Dean breathed taking in the stack of folders. He swallowed raising his eyes back to Bobby. “So you were able to find that arson case then?”

“I was. Once I had the town it wasn’t that hard,” Bobby said digging through the pile and holding up a file triumphantly. “And you’re gonna love this. Victims were the Hale family, a highly respected and well off family of Beacon Hills. Big givers to charity, Talia Hale in particular was pretty involved. They funded several community projects including the local public high school. I think the boy Stiles mentioned was Derek Hale,” Bobby continued pulling a picture out of the file and handing it to Dean.

Dean frowned at the man in the image. It was obviously supposed to be a mug shot but a large lens flare obscured the face. All Dean could make out was olive skin and broad shoulders under a t-shirt. “Lens flare,” he said glancing at the older hunter. “He’s a werewolf.”

Bobby inclined his head in agreement. “Yep. Again like Stiles said. For the entire time the family resided in Beacon Hills there were no deaths or missing persons that would point to a werewolf pack, but there were more subtle indicators. According to the police reports Derek, his sister, and an uncle were the only survivors of the fire. And until two years ago the case was unsolved.”

“They solved a cold case?”

Bobby hummed in affirmation. “And guess who the arsonist was.”

Dean arched a questioning eyebrow even as he tried to put the pieces together himself. “Who?”

“Kate Argent.”

“Argent?” Dean repeated disbelievingly. He shook his head, kneading at his eyes with his fingers for a long moment. “That, that, God, this whole thing is starting to give me a headache. So the fire and Stiles are related, just not in any way we thought?”

“Seems so,” Bobby said closing the folder and dropping it on top of the stack.

Dean eyed Bobby sharply an uncomfortable possibility forming. “Where’s Kate now? Is she lookin’ for Stiles too?”

“No, actually she’s dead.”

“Dead?” Dean repeated, an unbidden wave of relief sweeping through him. The last thing they needed was a hunter willing to murder children out for Stiles’ blood. “Dead how?”

“Officially? Unknown,” Bobby said. “Unofficially, something nasty in that town got her and I’m betting it was a werewolf.”

Dean flipped up Derek’s picture again, held securely between two fingers. “One of the survivors?”

“No way to know for sure, but there’s a strong possibility it was Derek or the uncle,” Bobby replied shrugging. “They both have motive and neither one of them are on good terms with the law.”

“What about the sister?”

Bobby shook his head. “About six years after the fire is when the animal deaths started up again for the third time. Laura Hale was the first. They found her body torn in half in the woods. Her death seems to have been a sort of catalyst for all the recent weird stuff.”

“Hunters?” Dean suggested with a wince. “A hemicorporectomy is a little barbaric but some of the older hunters still swear by it, right?”

Bobby snorted. “They do indeed though it was a little, uh, excessive. The police ruled it an animal attack, but it could have been a hunter.”

“Stiles’ dad would have been the sheriff then,” Dean said. Bobby nodded obviously having reached the same conclusion. “You think the sheriff turned over the wrong rocks in his investigation? That’s how Stiles got involved?”

“I think it’s likely,” Bobby agreed. “Especially with Stiles’ predilection for trouble.”

“So Stiles gets involved with his father’s case which dredges up a hunter who murdered a family and potentially returned to finish the job. Shit goes down. Kate and Allison end up dead, the sheriff ends up in the hospital, and Stiles skips town with Chris Argent on his tail,” Dean summarized tapping his fingers along Derek’s picture before setting it on the desk. “Judging by your call to Deputy Parrish, I’m guessing hunters aren’t the only people looking for Stiles?”

“Nope,” Bobby said. “There’s an open missing persons case for Stiles. Initially they suspected a kidnapping and issued an AMBER Alert, but they never found anything. So now they’re considering him an at-risk missing person.”

“Well, I’m not surprised they never found anything. Stiles is the kind of person who knows how to vanish. I mean he must know the system pretty well and he found…” Dean trailed off as a part of Bobby’s statement registered. “Wait, they issued an AMBER Alert? I thought those were only used for—”

“Children,” Bobby finished. “Yeah. Stiles is seventeen so he’s still considered a minor. And given the circumstances there was concern about his mental state.”

Dean blinked struggling a moment to wrap his head around the fact that Stiles was actually younger than Sam before saying, “Mental state?”

“With his father in the hospital and the recent death of his friend they suspect depression played a large rule in his running away,” Bobby said. “Coupled with his past history there was concern about suicide.”

Dean furrowed his brows something sour and heavy settling in his gut at the idea. He was rather sure more than depression had prompted Stiles to run, but from what he’d seen of Stiles he was also sure that some sort of depression had played a large role. And before his conversation about the scar on Stiles’ stomach he never would have considered the possibility of suicide though, but he could still hear Stiles’ words from that day about how he’d done it to himself. And regardless of what Stiles said his end goal had been it indicated a level of self-recklessness that chilled Dean. “What’s in Stiles’ past history?”

“Deputy Parrish didn’t specify,” Bobby said rubbing at his forehead, “but I’m guessing it has something to do with Stiles’ stay at the mental health facility. HIPPA laws won’t let me know why, but he was there for a few days not long before Allison died under voluntary admittance.”

Dean worried at his bottom lip. “Stiles…you don’t think he’s schizophrenic, do you?”

Bobby narrowed his eyes. “He doesn’t exhibit any of the symptoms,” he said guardedly. “Why? Have you noticed something?”

“No, no” Dean said. “It’s just…remember the Haldol Stiles mentioned? You said it was an antipsychotic.”

“Yeah, but Stiles could have been given it for any number of reasons,” Bobby said catching on to Dean’s line of thought. “Hell, some places use it just to calm patients down if they get too wound up.”

“Well, that would make sense then. Stiles said it was a forced dosing,” Dean said trying not to imagine Stiles freaking out enough that orderlies would have to drug him into sedation. It was unnervingly easy; Stiles was stretched thin as it was and by his own admission he was doing better now than he had been before. Dean didn’t want to think about Stiles, who was clearly uncomfortable with the idea of ever being under someone else’s control or at anyone’s mercy, being drugged against his will in a place that was supposed to take care of him.

Bobby grunted in agreement pushing himself up from his seat as the phone rang. Dean tuned him out as he answered instead flipping through the pages of the Hale file again and reading over the summary report of the damage and the deaths. It painted an disturbingly descriptive picture with far more detail than the short version Stiles had given him a few weeks ago but it all boiled down to the same thing—a hunter who murdered humans and the first domino in a long line of dominos leading to Stiles.

He glanced at the older hunter as Bobby hung up with a grim look on his face. “That was your daddy,” Bobby said setting the phone back in the cradle. “He and Stiles are on their way back.”    

“What are we going to do about the Argents?” Dean asked fidgeting with the file. “And are we gonna tell Stiles? That we know about all of this? We can’t keep this from him forever.”

“I can handle the Argents for now,” Bobby said. “But eventually we’re gonna have to tell Stiles everything.”

Stiles left his bedroom slowly, inching across the threshold into the hallway. The house was eerily quiet around him save for the softly lilting lullaby echoing up from downstairs. Stiles crept over to the top landing, pressing a hand against the wall to steady himself as he peered down the stairs squinting to try and make out shapes in the shadows. The voice faded away, silence enveloping the house for a moment before the singing started again.

He descended the stairs one step at a time heart pounding in his chest and palms sweating. He barely spared the familiar pictures hanging on the wall a glance, just absently noting them as he went by, until he got to the last one. It was supposed to be hanging on the right wall; the nail was still in the wall marking it’s place, but the picture was on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

The glass beneath the frame crunched slightly as Stiles picked it up, turning it over gently and brushing shards of glass from the face of the pictures. His parent’s face smiled up at him, the last family photo they’d taken before his mother got really sick. Stiles was grinning between them, happily unaware of how everything he took for granted would be gone in a few short months.

Stiles set the picture aside, leaning it against the wall as he moved deeper into the house following the haunting echo of the lullaby. It seemed to be coming from the first floor bathroom and as Stiles opened the door to his father’s study the voice halted in singing before continuing on. The bathroom door was open just wide enough for a small stream of golden light to stretch across the worn carpet of the study.

Inching forward Stiles pressed his fingers to the door and eased it open with the lightest of pressures. The light burned his eyes and Stiles blinked away the spots it produced trying to bring into focus the figure by the tub. The woman was sitting on the edge of the tub, trailing a pale hand in the water as she hummed the tune then took up singing again oblivious to Stiles’ presence. Her dark hair fell down her back in gentle waves and she was clothed only in a simple white nightgown, her feet were bare against the tile floor.

“Mom?” Stiles whispered moving forward instinctively and reaching his hand out as the lullaby faded away into silence once again. His fingers just brushed against her nightgown, the fabric cool to the touch and smooth beneath his fingertips, and there was a palpable pause, the moment seeming to stretch out endlessly as the woman lifted her head.

It wasn’t his mother and Stiles was frozen in place as he took in the gaunt face and red-rimmed eyes glaring up at him as a strong hand wrapped around his wrist and squeezed hard enough that he felt bones grind together.

“Allison,” he gasped and the moment the word was past his lips she was shoving him back with an almost inhuman screech. The mirror shattered behind him and he chocked as Allison clenched her free hand around his throat crushing his windpipe and biting into the skin with her nails.

Stiles tried to push her off, pulled at her hand and shoved at her chest, but she was immobile and his efforts just seemed to make her angrier. Spots danced across his vision and he gripped her arms reflexively as his vision tunneled into darkness. The last thing he registered was a feeling of weightlessness and then the shock of water closing in over his head.

A horn blared and Stiles jerked awake knocking his head painfully against the door as he tried to center himself. It took a moment of panic before he remembered he was in the Impala headed back to Bobby’s with John. Somehow he’d the rhythmic motion of the car and sound of the windshield wipers had lulled him to sleep.

Successfully righted in his seat Stiles quickly tapped his fingers against his legs, counting as he went and relaxing a little as he reached ten both times. He sighed, kneading at his eyes and squinting as a particularly bright pair of headlights from an oncoming car glared off the rain slicked road.

“Nightmare?” John asked quietly after the car had passed and the interior of the Impala was once again cloaked in shadow.

Stiles sighed again not bothering to answer that with an affirmation. The question alone indicated John had noticed. “How long was I asleep?”

“Not long,” John said still keeping his tone low. The radio had been turned down, Stiles noticed, leaving the car mostly silent save for the sounds of the tires and wipers. “About half an hour.”

Stiles nodded, scrubbing at his face hard in an effort to dispel all vestiges of sleep and cleared his throat. “Sorry. If I, uh,” he left off unsure how to tactfully word his tendency to occasionally freak out when he was sleeping. Luckily John seemed to grasp what he was trying to say without him needing to find the words.

“You didn’t really,” John said glancing briefly at Stiles almost assessing. “Just seemed a little restless.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “I don’t sleep well.”

All John said in reply was, “I know.” After several minutes of silence broken only by the steady sound of the wipers across the glass and the tires against pavement John glanced at Stiles with a long suffering sigh. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Stiles murmured.

“You know I used to have nightmares after I got back from Vietnam,” John started keeping his eyes trained on the road before them. “I had this reoccurring one about a buddy of mine who didn’t make it back. We’d gotten pinned down, were trying to make it back to the others. We were supposed to watch each other’s backs. Every night I’d be back there with him trying to survive. And every night he’d die. Only instead of staying dead he’d confront me about it.” John paused, gaze leaving the road for only a second to pin Stiles with a hard look. “He died protecting me, and then a twisted version of him haunted my dreams for months once I was back stateside.”

Stiles swallowed, taking a moment to process the information before asking, “How did you know?”

John quirked an eyebrow, barely visible in the shadowed interior of the car. “You said Allison before you woke up.”

“She was strangling me,” Stiles said faintly, picking at the cuffs of his coat. It felt wrong to talk about it out loud, as if he was tarnishing her memory somehow by accusing her of such a thing. He swallowed again, roughly this time and raised a hand to his neck. It felt a little tender, like her hands had actually been digging into his throat, likely a somatoformic response to the nightmare. “She was strangling me while singing You Are My Sunshine.”

“You Are My Sunshine?” John repeated. “Like the lullaby?”

“My mother used to sing it to me,” Stiles said quietly, “when I was sick or after I had a nightmare. I’d almost forgotten.”

John hummed thoughtfully. “Have you always had nightmares?”

Stiles shrugged making a conscious effort to stop prodding at his throat and tucking his hands under his legs to keep them still. “I guess. I mean they’ve gotten worse of the years, but I’ve always sort of been prone to them.”

John just hummed again. "You're phone rang while you were asleep by the way," he said and Stiles frowned wondering how he'd slept through his phone ringing and vibrating in his pocket. The brightness of his phone made him wince and it took a moment before he could actually make out anything on the screen. There was no missed call notification and Stiles glanced at John questioningly. "Not that one," the hunter said jerking his head toward the backseat, "the one in your duffle." 

Stiles narrowed his eyes then twisted around to dig into his bag, heart pounding a little harder as he realized he hadn't checked it in a few weeks. It was buried at the bottom of the bag and the low battery light was blinking when he pulled it out. He slid back into he seat fully heart jumping to his throat as he saw two missed calls. John watched him minutely as he brought up the recent call list and let out a sigh of relief at the unknown number, the same one for both calls, and not the familiar number of the hospital or his father's doctor.

"Something important?" John asked.

"No, no. Just a wrong number," Stiles said dropping the car back into shadows as he darkened the screen and shoved the phone in his coat pocket. He'd have to listen to the voicemails later when there wasn't anyone in hearing distance. Stiles sighed keeping his hand wrapped around the phone and trying not to obsess over what the voicemails could possibly say and considering everything from telemarketers to dire news about his dad. 

“We’ve still got another hour before we get back to Bobby’s. You can try to grab some more shut eye if you want,” John offered flicking on his turn signal to pass a semi truck. Stiles hesitated twitching in his seat. “I’ll wake you,” the hunter continued, “if you need me to.”

“Thanks,” Stiles replied taking it as an out from the conversation and settling down against the door once more even though he had no intention of falling asleep again. Allison’s voice was still drifting through in his mind, a continuous repetition melding with memories he had of his mother singing to him that drowned out the sound of the radio and the pounding rain against the car. He watched the blurred forms of the land outside slip by bathed in the comforting blanket of night, and mouthed the words along with the voices in his head.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are grey

You never know, dear, how much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away

Chapter Text

The Call

The morning air was damp with dew and chilled, a blanket of fog hanging heavy over the junkyard covering everything in a hazy mist lit by the rising sun. The weather was warming up steadily but mornings were still cold enough to warrant a thicker coat or maybe it was just Stiles that still felt the need to wear his sweatshirt underneath his coat. Nevertheless he was savoring the tranquility of the morning, it being early enough that he was the only one awake and most of the world was curled up somewhere warm and content. He’d dozed a little more on the ride back to Bobby’s, but hadn’t been able to fully fall asleep once he and John had arrived last night. Dean had fallen asleep somewhere around three and rather than finding the sounds of another person vaguely comforting like he usually did, each of Dean’s breaths had raked over Stiles’ raw nerves until he had to physically remove himself from the room or scream in frustration. Hence his position now, sitting on the damp step steadily seeping coldness into his jeans as he stared at the missed call icon on his phone and debated on whether or not he should listen to the voicemails.

Tapping on the notifications he selected the voicemail, dialed in his password, then held it up to his ear to listen as it broke the silence of the morning. He waited impatiently as it played through the usual message before getting to the new voicemail.

“Mr. Stilinski,” a familiar voice started though Stiles couldn’t quite place it. “This is Pete Lovell from the Beacon Hills Police Department. We’ve come across some new information regarding your missing nephew, Stiles, and I was hoping to speak to you about it. If you could give me a call back at your earliest convenience, it’d be much appreciated. Thank you.”

Stiles frowned as the next message played, a remix of the first one from the same man. He erased the messages from the inbox still trying to place the voice as he tucked the phone back in his pocket. He didn’t remember a Pete Lovell from the station, the name not ringing even the smallest of bells, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. The department would have had to hire at least a dozen new employees after the whole mess in November and even though Pete Lovell sounded too old to be a probie he could have been a transfer from another station.

“Can’t sleep?”

Stiles jumped, sliding off the step and landing hard on the ground. “Oh my god,” he groaned, ribs smarting as he closed his eyes and decided he didn’t care if he was laying in mud.

“Sorry,” Bobby said. “Didn't mean to startled you.”

Stiles just grunted, detecting a hint of amusement in Bobby’s tone. “Glad someone appreciates my clumsiness.”

“Oh it’s much appreciated,” Bobby said good-naturedly.

Stiles opened his mouth ready to retort when the pieces clicked together and he ended up staring at Bobby in a mild sort of shock. Stones dug into his hands as he slowly pushed himself up trying and failing to determine any reason Bobby would have that number to call. Nobody except for the hospital, the social worker, his father’s doctor, and the actual police were supposed to have that number. Bobby certainly wasn’t supposed to have it.

“Stiles?” Bobby asked brows furrowing in concern.

“Uh,” Stiles said scrambling to his feet and dusting himself off as much as possible. Bobby obviously thought that number actually belonged to Aron Stilinski, no reason to dispute or address that as incorrect. “To answer your question, no, I couldn’t sleep.”

Bobby looked a little thrown at Stiles’ backtracking but caught on easily. “Did you sleep at all?”

“A little on the way back, but no, not really,” Stiles admitted. “What are you doing up so early?”

“It’s eight o’clock, Stiles,” Bobby said bluntly expression warring between exasperation and thinly veiled contemplation.

Stiles blinked glancing in surprise at the sun that was, yeah, a lot higher than he remembered it being even moments ago. Fuck if that wasn’t just as disconcerting as always. How long had he even been out here? “Oh,” he said rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck. “Must have lost track of time.”

“That happen a lot?” Bobby asked and there was an underlying tone of interrogation like the hunter was probing for information on a case rather than just inquiring that set Stiles on edge.

Stiles dropped his gaze to the ground, which was definitely going to convince Bobby he was being honest, and brushed quickly past the hunter as he reentered the house and muttering, “Just lost in thought, no big deal.”

He heard Bobby sigh behind him, catching the screen door before it could close completely and following Stiles into the kitchen. Stiles poured himself a glass of water, watching warily as Bobby seemed to let their conversation on the porch go and focus instead on making breakfast.

“Make yourself useful,” Bobby said cracking eggs into a frying pan that hissed and popped as Stiles tried to slip out of the room, “and make us some toast, will ya?”

“Uh, sure,” Stiles said aborting his attempt to leave and setting his glass down on the table. He grabbed a plate, piling eight slices of bread on it before putting the bread away and dropping the top two slices into the toaster. He pressed the lever drumming his fingers impatiently as he waited. After a few moments he smelled the faint scent of burning as the bread toasted. He jumped slightly as the toast popped up startled even though he’d been staring at the toaster the whole time.

Muttering admonishments to himself—because he really needed to just chill out with the jumpiness before the hunters began asking questions again—he plucked the toast out wincing as it burned his fingers slightly and tossed it onto a plate. He put two more slices of bread in the toaster and began slathering butter on the toast.

He was just finishing up buttering the last two slices when Dean stumbled into the kitchen still looking half asleep. Dean yawned patting Stiles distractedly on the shoulder and mumbling, “Sleep okay?” as he pulled the orange juice from the fridge and took a swig straight from the bottle.

“Dean, be a proper guest and get a glass or else I’ll let Bobby whack you with that spatula,” John warned entering the room a good deal more awake than his son and saving Stiles from having to answer Dean. Dean just blinked at his dad before slowly reaching around Stiles to pull a glass down from the cupboard.

Orange juice sloshed into the cup, eggs sizzled in the skillet, plates clinked gently as John set the table, the smell of burnt breadcrumbs from the toaster was thick in the air, and Stiles was struck by the sudden, overwhelming domesticity of it all. He swallowed heavily setting the knife down on the plate with a clatter and leaving the room without a word, Dean staring blankly after him glass half raised to his mouth.

Stiles shoved open the screen door stumbling out onto the porch. He clutched at the railing taking deep breaths of chilled air as he struggled to figure out exactly why the idea of breakfast freaked him out all the sudden.

The screen door eased open behind him and Stiles squeezed his eyes shut trying to take a steadying breath. “You okay?” John asked.

“Yeah,” Stiles found himself saying. It wasn’t a complete lie; there wasn’t anything wrong per se. It was just breakfast, just a normal and nice breakfast on a Sunday morning. He pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes and counted down from ten. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

John pushed the door closed behind him drawing in the fresh air and releasing it with a noisy exhale as he came to stand next to Stiles. He crossed his arms, staring out over the junkyard quietly. “You sure?”

“No,” Stiles said. “Not really.”

John sighed again, a soft breath of air as he shifted to lean against the banister regarding Stiles with a look that approached regretful. “What’s wrong?”

Stiles raked his hands through his hair, tugging at the strands a little. “I don’t know,” he said still trying to put together the hazy memories trying to surface. “It’s breakfast. On a Sunday.”

John blinked then frowned, understandably not following Stiles’ train of thought on why that was significant.

Closing his eyes as the memory gained more focus Stiles explained slowly. “My mother would make breakfast every Sunday,” he said and he could picture her so clearly now in her daisy print bathrobe and mismatched socks dancing across the kitchen floor as she kissed his dad good morning and sent him to work on setting the table. Stiles was in charge of the silverware, setting a fork beside each plate with the determination of a man on a mission that came with being given a job at six years old. “My dad would set the table, I was in charge of the silverware. My mom would have mint tea, my dad coffee, and I’d have milk or orange juice. Fuck,” Stiles muttered scrubbing his sleeve over his face, “I didn’t know I still remembered that.”

Stiles remembered one Sunday in particular when his mom had been too sick to make breakfast. Not sick sick; not with the dementia that ravaged their lives later, just sick with a cold. Dad and Stiles had made her breakfast in bed first—Stiles proudly helping to carry it to her and declaring he’d made the toast—before making their own. Stiles remembered requesting scrambled eggs that morning and telling Dad he was doing it wrong when Dad first cooked an omelet then cut it up into what seemed like hundreds of little squares with the spatula before dumping it on Stiles’ plate. Stiles had stared at it for minutes, commenting how it looked nothing like Mom’s before digging in anyway. His mom had laughed for a solid three minutes when Stiles told her how Dad had made scrambled eggs. Nearly twelve years later and Stiles could picture that morning perfectly like it had happened yesterday.

John was still staring at him with a slightly narrow-eyed look like he didn’t quite trust Stiles’ explanation. It was irritating even if it was understandable; leaving the room over a decade old memory was absurd, but when one considered he’d only just remembered said memory it made quite a bit more sense and John could go fuck himself if he didn’t think so. Not that Stiles was going to say that out loud. He didn’t want to chance a forced meeting with someone else John thought would be good for him.

“Come on,” John said eventually. “Dean’s gonna eat all our food if we don’t get back in there.”

“Uh, actually, I’m not that hungry anymore,” Stiles said. The idea of sitting at Bobby’s kitchen table surrounded by the hunters while he tried to stomach the ash masquerading as his food lately filled him with a crushing sense of dread.

John shook his head. “It’s not a suggestion,” he said pulling the door open and gesturing for Stiles to enter ahead of him. “You need to eat more. Come on.”

Stiles held back, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head. “Look, John, thanks to my visit with Missouri curtsey of you every fucking memory in my brain is flying through in high definition at the slightest reminder right now,” he said. “So I just…I just need some time to get my head sorted. Again.”

John eased the door shut a bit without letting go of the handle and sighed as he considered Stiles critically. “That memory, the one about breakfast,” he said after a moment almost like an offering. “It’s a good memory.”

Stiles huffed and shrugged, rolling his shoulders to try and alleviate some of the building tension. He crossed his arms and leaned back, the banister sagging slightly under his weight. “Yeah,” he conceded. “That one is.” He left the second part of that statement unspoken; John knew well enough that not every memory in Stiles’ mind could qualify as good.

John didn’t reply to that, but he didn’t push for Stiles go inside either. Just gave Stiles an unreadable look that Stiles might label remorse if he thought John capable of such thing, and disappeared back inside the house.

Dean dried the last plate and slid it back into the cupboard before dropping the towel back on the rack. He pushed the cabinet closed peering out the window at Stiles who was still sitting on the porch as he had been for the last half hour. After a minute of deliberation Dean pulled the plate back out of the cupboard and set about making Stiles some toast. He slathered the toast in butter after it was done then added a coating of strawberry jam to give it a little more flavor and nutritional value. He pulled a bottle of water out from under the sink, tucking it under his arm as he carried the plate out of the kitchen.

“Stiles is pretty pissed at me,” Dad said, voice carrying from the other room even at its current low volume.

Dean paused, hanging back and listening against his better judgment. Bobby and Dad were talking in hushed tones at Bobby’s desk in the living room bent over the same binder that Bobby had shown Dean with the Argent’s linage detailed.

“I’m not surprised,” Bobby replied. “You took him there against his will, and regardless of what she said, I get the feeling Stiles isn’t seeing any benefits from it yet.”

“Not particularly,” Dad rumbled.

Bobby hummed. “Are you regretting your decision to take him?”

“No,” Dad said. “I stand by my decision.”

“Because now you know he’s not a danger to you or Dean?” Bobby asked sounding a little severe. Dean frowned looking towards Stiles again. Sure, he’d known Dad was a bit suspicious, Dean had been too, but he hadn’t realized Dad’s suspicious went far enough to drag Stiles unwillingly somewhere.

“For a lot of reasons,” Dad said harshly.

“Were they worth destroying the tiny bit of trust Stiles had in you?”

“I didn’t—” Dad started to protest but Bobby cut him off.

“You did,” Bobby said flatly. “He opened up to you, and you took him to the one person he didn’t want to see.”

“He’s angry,” Dad said pushing back from the table. “He has a right to be. But he’ll get over it.”

“Sure,” Bobby said with a shrug as he began rifling through some papers. “But kids like Stiles? They’re once bitten, twice shy. And you just bit him.”

“I’m not discussing this anymore,” Dad said gruffly in a tone Dean was overly familiar with. “We have bigger problems. What are we going to do about Argent?”

“I’ll tell you what I told Dean,” Bobby said. “I’ll handle Argent.”

“You told Dean?”

“Of course I told Dean,” the older hunter replied flicking his gaze towards where Dean was discretely watching. “He’s more of a confidant to Stiles at this point than you are.”

Dean silently cursed drawing back fully into the kitchen. He tossed the knife he’d used into the sink noisily before striding from the room, not glancing at his dad or Bobby as he left the house. Stiles didn't seem to hear him, still staring blankly across the yard as Dean came up behind him.

“Hey,” Dean said.

Stiles jerked, cracking his head off the banister post. “Oh my god,” he gasped rubbing at his forehead. “Dude make some noise.”

“I opened the screeching door,” Dean said pointing at the poor excuse for a screen door. “Thought that would be a good warning.”

Stiles sighed leaning back against the post he’d just rammed his head into. “I was concentrating.”

Dean glanced over the junkyard wondering what Stiles had found worth concentrating on and finding nothing. “On what? The dirt?”

“No,” Stiles said tiredly. “On ordering my thoughts.”

“Ordering your thoughts,” Dean repeated questioningly as he settled down beside Stiles.

Stiles hummed in assent letting his eyes fall shut as he nodded. “It’s like, hmm, mediation, I guess. A form of centering.”

“Isn’t mediation about clearing your mind and thinking about nothing?” Dean asked.

Stiles shrugged not opening his eyes. “Yeah, kind of, but not really. It’s not about thinking about nothing. It’s about finding a center, finding a focus.”

Dean licked his lips letting his gaze wander over the junkyard again before considering Stiles slumped against the post. “Did you find it?”

Stiles cracked one eye to look at him. “No. Not yet,” he said then jerked his chin towards the plate in Dean’s hand. “What’s that?”

“Oh,” Dean said dropping his gaze to the toast and bottle of water then holding them out to Stiles. “I brought you some food. Thought you might be hungry.”

“Oh,” Stiles echoed accepting the plate even though he kind of looked like he was about to puke. “Thanks.” He set the bottle of water by his knee balancing the plate on his lap as he tentatively bit into the toast and chewed slowly.

“So,” Dean said drawing the word out, “you never told me about your dad.”

Stiles just hummed at him noncommittally still chewing at his first bite of the toast.

“You told me about your mom, but you’ve barely mentioned your dad,” Dean continued.

Stiles looked at him and swallowed, squinting his eyes a bit as he tried to work out what Dean was getting at. “So?”

“Well I’ve told you about my mom,” Dean said gently tugging the conversation the direction he wanted it to go. “And you personally know my dad. To keep things even maybe you should, you know, tell me about your dad.”

Stiles sighed, sounding exceedingly weary but also suspicious. He dropped the partially eaten slice of toast back on the plate and set it aside rubbing his long fingers together to dislodge the crumbs. “Why are you and John so interested in my dad all the sudden?”

Dean sighed throwing away all sense of tact. “Because you were practically mute for three days and bawled into my dad’s coat for a good twenty minutes. And you don’t eat or sleep nearly enough. Look, Stiles, we’re just…I’m worried about you. And it kinda kills me to think your dad might not know where you are or what you’re doing. That he might be sitting in your room at your house in whatever town you’re from thinking that you’ve run away or been kidnapped or fucking died, okay? So just give me some solace here.”

“My dad doesn’t know what I’m doing or where I am,” Stiles said dropping his gaze back to his lap after a moment of staring at Dean blankly. “But I assure you that he doesn’t care about much of anything at the moment, least of all what I’m up to so you don’t have to feel guilty or whatever.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean asked confused.

Stiles glanced at him, subtle emotions flickering across his face. If Dean hadn’t been watching carefully he probably would have missed it, but he was watching and so he saw the exact moment Stiles decided to lie to him. A slight settling of Stiles’ jaw, a shuttering of the eyes, the hard press of his fingertips along the seam of his jeans, and the insincere rueful smile right before he said, “My dad’s dead.”

Dean blinked because of all the lies he’d been waiting for that one had been last on the list. “What?”

“He’s dead,” Stiles repeated clearing his throat roughly before continuing. “He got stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time and paid a price he shouldn’t have had to pay.”

“I don’t understand. Why…”

“Didn’t I tell you earlier?” Stiles guessed and Dean just nodded though that wasn’t what he was asking at all. “Because my dad is the last thing I want to talk about. And because like most of the fucking terrible shit that goes down in my life it was my fault. So just let it alone, okay?”

“Was it something supernatural?” Dean asked after a moment. Playing along with Stiles’ lie may not have been the smartest decision and definitely would come back to bite him in the ass later, but the alternative was coming clean about knowing everything right now.

Stiles glowered at him. “Exactly what part of last thing I want to talk about and let it alone went over your head? I know you’re not as much of an idiot as you like to pretend sometimes so maybe try rubbing two of those brain cells together and figure it out,” he snapped bitingly.

“All right, fine,” Dean said in surrender. “You don’t want to talk about it, I get it.”

“I don’t think you do,” Stiles said. “When I say I don’t want to talk about it I mean I will never talk about this with you or anyone else. I don't care how much you pry or beg or coerce or bribe. I will never want to talk about it.”

“Well, you know what people say about never saying never,” Dean said before trailing off at the look on Stiles’ face. “Okay, sorry, not the time for proverbs.”

Stiles scoffed reaching up to grab the banister and sliding off from the porch between the cross section to land lightly on the ground. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Hey, Stiles, wait up,” Dean said rising to follow. He vaulted over the railing, catching up to Stiles in a few strides, and snagging Stiles’ arm.

Stiles yanked his arm away like Dean’s touch burned him. “Fuck, Dean,” he hissed. “Could you read the mood for once and just back off?”

Dean raised his hands in surrender, schooling his face into a picture of supportiveness as Stiles, for lack of any better word, fled and quickly disappeared among the cars.

The door screeched behind him announcing the presence of another person. Dean wasn’t surprised to see Bobby leaning against the railing a bottle of beer clasped lightly in one hand. “What the hell was that about?” he asked.

Dean sighed scrubbing his hands down his face as he crossed back to the porch. “Stiles just lied to me.”

Bobby simply raised an eyebrow and took a long pull from his beer before glancing out over the sea of juke cars. “Really?” he said an underlying note of sarcasm in his words. “Are you sure? Doesn’t seem like something he’d do.”

“I asked about his dad and he lied,” Dean clarified. “He said his father was dead. Why would he lie about that? Are you absolutely sure the man you found is his father?”

“About as absolutely sure as I am about anything,” Bobby said.

“Which means…” Dean said raising his brows in question.

Bobby scowled taking another drink. “There’s a margin of error, but it’s very unlikely.”

“So why’d he lie?” Dean asked.

Bobby pursed his lips and shrugged lightly. “I think the better question is why doesn’t he want us to know his dad’s alive?”

Stiles couldn’t bring himself to go back to the house for several hours. In spite of the clawing empty feeling in his chest that he hesitated to find a name for he wasn't in the mood for much company. So he wandered about the property for a while, weaving in amongst the cars until he found a stack of cars that created a recessed alcove that was well hidden but still allowed him to look out over the field and see the sky. It was angled so that anyone walking by wouldn’t realize he was sitting there unless they knew to look directly so Stiles clamored in even though he was reasonably sure no one would come looking. John wouldn’t care, Bobby would respect his space, and he figured he’d made the point clear to Dean that he wanted to be left alone at the moment.

He stayed on the hood of the small car for hours from late morning to late afternoon. By then his stomach was grumbling slightly in protest of him eating less than a slice of toast all day and his mouth was starting to get more than a little parched. So he slid off the hood landing on the ground with a puff of dust in the dry soil and headed on back.

John was notably absent when Stiles returned, only Bobby and Dean sitting at the table in the kitchen and working their way through a simple dinner. Stiles tried to slip upstairs but Bobby could be an incorrigible convincer when he wanted to, and somehow Stiles found himself slumped in a chair picking half-heartedly at a plate of meatloaf and fried potatoes with a side of mushy peas.

“So where’d John run off to today?” he asked stabbing his fork forcefully into a slightly undercooked potato. Bobby and Dean shared a significant glance, Stiles wondered briefly if Bobby had filled Dean in on the whole Missouri thing before dismissing it.

“He’s checking out a potential hunt in Minnesota,” Dean answered finally.

Stiles paused, potato partway to his mouth. “Minnesota? Again?”

“Hey,” Dean said through a mouthful of potatoes. “Baddies don’t subscribe to double jeopardy.”

Stiles scoffed but didn’t reply, just shoved his fork in his mouth and forced himself to chew even as his stomach roiled unhappily. Dean tried a few times after that to draw Stiles into conversation, and Stiles could tell Bobby was in full support of the effort. As it was, however, Stiles didn’t feel much like participating in anything; it was taking all his willpower to simply eat anyway regardless of how hungry he’d felt earlier.

One of Bobby’s many phones rang just as he and Dean were almost finished with their plates and while Stiles had barely made his way through a fourth of his. Stiles listed to Bobby’s side of the conversation with only half attentiveness, most of his focus dominated by consuming the ash tasting food on his plate. A flicker of understanding flashed over Dean’s face partway through the call as he obviously made a connection Stiles missed. He watched Bobby for a moment but then turned to Stiles.

“Food okay?” he asked.

Stiles glanced at him and pressed one prong of his fork through a single pea. “It’s fine. Just not hungry.”

Dean raised and eyebrow looking from Stiles to his plate then back. “You’ve barely eaten anything all day.”

“I’m aware, Dean. I'm not a child,” Stiles muttered shoveling a small scoop of peas into his mouth and doing his best to ignore the sickening taste of the butter thick on his tongue.

“Stiles—”

“That was Terry,” Bobby said setting the phone back in the cradle and cutting Dean off before he could take the conversation further. The older hunter gripped the back of his chair, leaning on it as he looked between Dean and Stiles. “There’s been another death. He thinks he could use a bit more manpower if you boys are up for it?”

Dean pursed his lips seeming to consider it a moment. “Sure. Stiles and I have a few days before Dad’s due back so why not? I mean, if Stiles wants to,” he added glancing at Stiles inquiringly.

Stiles forced himself to swallow and wondered if it would be premature to shove his plate away yet. “What’s he hunting?” he said before quickly shoving another bite of potatoes into his mouth and hoping Bobby’s answer would distract him from the nausea.

“He’s not sure yet,” Bobby said. “It’s some sort of subterranean worm monster. Been picking off residents and livestock of a small town for the last month. Terry’s not been able to ID it or kill it. Dean and I have been working on it, but there’s not a lot to go on besides underground, big, possibly snake-like, and most likely hunting by sound or smell.”

“A graboid,” Stiles said almost choking on his potatoes. “Your dude is hunting a graboid?”

Bobby frowned. “A what?” he asked the same time Dean said, “Are you talking about Tremors?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “Well not literally, obviously. But it sounds like that’s what you’re talking about. Underground worm monster that likes to eat things and hunts by sound.”

“Except this isn’t Tremors so those methods and rules don’t apply,” Dean said sounding especially unhappy about it. “Which mean’s we probably won’t get to go fishing with dynamite.”

“Well, sure, but were the graboids based on anything or completely made up?” Stiles asked pointing his fork at Dean. “Maybe the monster we’re looking was the basis for those.”

Dean scoffed and Bobby just smiled into his drink. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Chapter Text

The Call

“So, what you mean to say is that my theory about graboids could actually be right?” Stiles asked, speaking up for the first time and squinting at the small print on the page he was reading.

Terry, the lovely gentleman they were hunting with that kind of resembled an angrily unhappy Gerard but with a deeply gruff voice that was no doubt the result of a lifetime of smoking, scoffed at him. “Of course not, kid. This ain’t a movie.”

Stiles raised an eyebrow setting the file he’d been reviewing next to him on the table. “That's not what I just heard. In the last five minutes all you’ve said, basically, is ‘I have zero idea what this is aside from livestock-eating, man-eating, underground worm,’” he said matching Terry’s condescending tone and ticking off each item as he mentioned them, “which means, of course, that my Tremors theory has just as much of a chance at being right as any other theory because you have no evidence to prove it wrong.”

Terry stared at him for a moment then shook his head in a clear dismissal turning instead to Bobby. “Does he always talk like that?”

“You get used to it,” Dean commented while Bobby just shrugged.

“He’s not wrong,” Bobby said readjusting his hat and sending Stiles a covert smile as Terry just grumbled.

The small show of support went a long ways in settling the unpleasant feeling that had been gnawing at Stiles’ stomach since he’d been introduced to Terry. The other hunter had seemed standoffish from the start, and Stiles wasn’t quite sure why exactly. It could be that Terry, being of an older generation of hunters, just didn’t like Stiles and his tendency toward sarcasm, general fidgetiness, and sitting on things that weren’t actually meant to be sat on. For some reason Stiles got the distinct feeling there was more to it than that, but it was hard sometimes to figure out when there was an actual basis to his instincts and when he was being flat out paranoid. With how on edge he’d been since his little jaunt down memory lane in Lawrence, Stiles was putting his money on flat out paranoid at the moment, but it did little to help ease the sense of unease.

“We have too many possibilities,” Bobby continued, “and no way of narrowing them down.”

“So clearly we need to do some hunting,” Stiles said waiting for a nod of confirmation from Bobby before sliding off the table. “Let’s go find ourselves a graboid.”

“We should split up,” Terry said eyebrows drawn like he was pissed Stiles had been the one to suggest they do some scouting. “Cover more ground.”

“I’ll go with Dean,” Stiles said quickly ignoring the triple looks of surprise that garnered.

Terry sighed heavily pushing back from the table. “Guess that leaves you and me, Bobby,” he said. “Like old times.”

“Works for me,” Bobby said.

“Okay, Dean, you and happy-go-lucky here can take north this road here,” Terry said dragging his finger along a road cutting through a wide expanse of fields on the map spread atop the table Stiles had just vacated. “Bobby and I will sweep the south.”

“Sounds good,” Dean said hanging back as the two older hunters filed from the room. He held an arm out halting Stiles when he tried to follow and appraising him keenly. “You okay?” Dean asked.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Aside from my ever raising level of intolerance for that question? I’m peachy.”

“You just seem…tense,” Dean said.

Stiles sighed raking his hands through his hair and trying to stuff any sense of nerves and anxiety back in a dark corner where they wouldn’t be acknowledged. “I don’t think Terry likes me much is all.”

“I don’t think Terry likes anyone,” Dean returned with a small grin before narrowing his eyes. “Wait, is that why you insisted on going with me?”

“Well I certainly didn’t want to traipse through fields with old, gray, and grumpy.”

“So why not Bobby?” Dean asked.

Stiles frowned, shifting his weight uncomfortably. Honestly the idea of spending a large amount of time with just Bobby was nearly as unappealing as Terry at the moment. Any time Stiles let himself contemplate Bobby too long he ended up wondering how Bobby had gotten ahold of the number for Aron Stilinski, which led to an in depth contemplation on the fact that Bobby obviously knew something. It was stressing him out, and the obvious mature solution was to avoid the hell out of Bobby until Stiles decided what to do about it.

“Bobby’s also old, gray, and intermittently grumpy, if you haven’t noticed,” he said and Dean laughed slinging a comfortable arm over his shoulders, ushering him from the room.

“You better not let Bobby hear you call him that.”

“Why don’t I get a rifle?” Stiles asked as Dean shouldered a rifle for himself and held a shotgun out to Stiles.

“Because you haven’t shot any of the rifles yet.”

“I haven’t actually shot any of your shotguns either,” Stiles pointed out as he hefted the gun, testing the weight, before setting it against his shoulder and sighting down the barrel.

“Yeah, well, the shotgun doesn’t really require that much aiming, not compared to a rifle, and we’ve already covered loading and firing with it even if you haven’t shot,” Dean said adjusting Stiles’ grip and stance minutely before nodding. “You’ll do fine with this. Just watch the recoil and make sure you keep it braced against your shoulder not your collarbone.”

Stiles exhaled softly taking mental note of how the gun felt in his grip and his stance before lowering the shotgun and slinging it comfortably over his shoulder.

“You comfortable handling it?” Dean asked and Stiles nodded.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said waving a dismissive hand. “I remember. Piece of cake.”

“Okay. We’re half a mile from the edge of the radius here so we’ll do a standard sweep,” Dean said adjusting his rifle and gesturing over the wide-open fields marked only by a sparse spattering of trees off in the distance as he spoke. “You go west, I’ll head east. Stay within half a mile of me.”

“Shouting distance. Got it,” Stiles said rolling his shoulder to get used to the weight of the gun and heading off in his designated direction.

“Watch yourself,” Dean called from behind him, and Stiles waved an acknowledging hand, not bothering to turn and look at the hunter.

The field grass was thick and hardy, clinging to his jeans as he walked like fingers grabbing at his ankles. A layer of dead, yellow grass, was wound among the base of the gently waving blades, larger clusters of it making the ground bumpy and uneven. Stiles headed directly west for about fifteen minutes glancing occasionally over his shoulder to judge distance before adjusting his course to run parallel to Dean’s. The hunter was just visible in the distance, moving steadily along his portion of the field.

“This is by far one of the stupidest things I’ve done,” Stiles muttered to himself as he entered the sparse grove of trees scanning the ground as he went. Most of the trees were old evergreens, most of their lower branches having fallen away leaving them bare. The grass grew here as well, tangling up around the trunks like it was their mission in life to strangle the trees. There was no signs of disturbed ground, not that Stiles was entirely sure he’d be able to tell with the camouflage of the grass masking the unevenness of the earth.

Stiles walked silently for several minutes more moving through the trees at a slower pace as he kept a keen eye out. The grove was quiet, almost unnaturally so, and it set Stiles on edge, senses going into overdrive as he picked out every little motion from the softly fluttering blades of grass to the low creaking of the trees.

He rounded a tree, stretching to step over a fallen log that had somehow gotten lodged so it hung a good foot above the ground. A thick covering of grass was draped over it covering the gap between the log and the ground. As his foot sat down on the other side a small animal burst forth brushing by his leg and darting off through the trees. Stiles jerked back with a startled huff of air, tripping as his foot got caught in the grass and falling hard to the ground. His still healing ribs flared as he caught himself with his hands, the jolt of pain stealing his breath away.

A sudden squawking pulled his attention upwards and he watched a flock of birds take off with narrowed eyes at the bright sunlight. According to every movie ever animals fleeing the area was never a good sign. Stiles pushed himself to his feet, readjusting the shotgun on his shoulder and moving forward once more. He nudged the log with his foot before stepping over it this time just in case any more rodents wanted to try and give him a heart attack.

He made it to the edge of the grove and immediately scanned the horizon line to the east; Dean was nowhere in sight. Stiles watched for a few moments, swallowing thickly against the unease budding inside him. Just as the unease started to develop into something darker Dean seemed to appear out of thin air walking steadily a little ahead of Stiles’ position. He didn’t seem distressed and it took Stiles a moment to figure it out.

“Ground’s not flat,” he said starting to walk again. “Makes sense.”

It was several long minutes later of nothing but field and grass before he found something more substantial. Or rather stumbled upon it. One moment he was walking along and the next the ground was falling out from beneath his feet. Stiles barely righted himself before falling again, quickly jumping back to solid ground and eyeing the collapsed ground with a critical gaze. He crouched poking at the surrounding ground curiously with the stock of his gun. To the right and left the ground was solid, but it collapsed easily was Stiles moved forward or back.

“Tunnels,” Stiles said. “Either it’s a big ass mole or I just found our graboid.” He twisted around, glancing behind him and in front to see if he could track it’s path but the natural unevenness to the grass and field made it impossible to tell.

Shrugging the shotgun fully off his shoulder Stiles wrapped the sling around his hand and grasped the barrel, using the butt of the gun to prod at the ground as he moved forward following the slightly winding path. One hit of the stock broke through the ground causing Stiles to stumble a bit at the sudden give. He crouched pulling the grass away and, after a moment of hesitation, reaching into the resulting hole. The dirt was mostly smoothed over broken by small divots as if something had pushed itself along.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Stiles sighed, brushing the dirt off his hand against his jeans and leaning on the shotgun. He stood raising a hand to his mouth to call for Dean when a quiet rumble caused him to pause.

He glanced over his shoulder, regarding the gently waving grass suspiciously. The ground rumbled again, grass arcing up noticeably before falling down again about twenty feet ahead of him. Stiles swallowed fighting the urge to run and holding absolutely still in the hopes that it would lose interest and leave. Though it was unlikely with the amount of pounding on the ground he’d done in the last hundred yards, which, now that he thought about it, hadn’t been the smartest plan.

The creature circled him once more before seeming to disappear. Stiles waited, holding his breath and clutching the shotgun. After a few minutes of tense silence he risked moving, taking a few cautious steps in Dean’s direction. The effect was instant, the ground arching up at an alarming rate and moving straight towards him. Stiles didn’t hesitate another second, just gave into the impulse to run.

The sound of a gunshot split the still air with the subtly of a crashing freight train. Dean jerked around, heart hammering instantly and running towards where he thought the sound had come from without conscious thought. He waited for another shot as he ran trying to decide whether or not the lack of one was a good sign or a bad one.

“Stiles!”

He strained his ears to hear a reply over the sounds of his rapid breaths and pounding footfalls. There was no direct reply, but he thought he could hear faint calls of distress.

“Stiles!” Dean yelled trying to track the sound of Stiles’ cries as he dashed through the knee-high grass. He crested a slight hill stumbling to a halt at the top and scanning the field below him as he took a moment to catch his breath. “Stiles!”

“Dean!”

Dean finally spotted him; Stiles was running towards him at a flat out sprint halfway across the field. Dean broke out in a dead run, feet pounding hard into the ground. He was part of the way to Stiles when the other boy just disappeared. One second he was there running towards Dean, and the next he was gone.

“Stiles!” Dean yelled adjusting his course to chase the rapidly flattening trail of grass headed opposite from him.

Dean launched himself forward falling heavily to the ground arms outstretched to grab Stiles. He shouted in frustration missing Stiles by a fraction of a second, fingers just brushing the fabric of Stiles’ coat. He struggled to his feet sprinting after Stiles. The stock of the rifle thudded into the back of his thigh as he ran and he readjusted the strap to sit more comfortably swearing under his breath.

“Dean!” Stiles yelled.

“Hold on!” Dean pushed himself harder, air rushing in and out of his lungs painfully. They broke out of the grass and Dean could see Stiles clearly now, being drug across the rocky dirt approaching the river by something latched around his leg. The ground just ahead of him and behind him was pushed up like a large animal had burrowed beneath the soil, a clear path of the creature they were hunting.

Stiles slid into the water, splashing as he tried to keep his head above the water and managing it for a few moments before he was in too deep. Dean dropped his rifle on the bank and jumped off the small ledge into the water. He landed only a few feet from Stiles and threw himself forward again to grab the other boy. This time he managed to wrap his hands around Stiles arms, hauling Stiles towards him and bringing his head above the water.

Dean groaned staggering deeper into the water as Stiles slipped a little in his grip once again falling beneath the surface. Whatever was pulling Stiles in the other direction was surprisingly strong; Stiles’ fingers dug into his arms hard enough to bruise and even now Dean was sliding deeper into the river. Dean readjusted his hold, pulling Stiles up so his head was above water again. Stiles spluttered, hacking up mouthfuls of water as he clutched at Dean’s coat.

“Ah, come on!” Dean yelled as Stiles was yanked beneath the water again. Dean himself was drug further in, boots sinking in the soft soil on the riverbed. He locked his arms under Stiles armpits and hauled him up having to give it three tries before Stiles was above the surface. He coughed for a moment then screamed, jerking in Dean’s arms. Dean swore colorfully trying once again the pull him free, hands slipping on wet clothes and losing traction with each passing second.

Dean huffed, straining to keep his hold on Stiles as he thought frantically on a way to free him. He had an idea. A stupid idea. Stiles wasn’t going to like it; hell Dean didn’t like it, but it might be the only thing that would work. Dean slipped again and Stiles bit off another yell, dropping his head against Dean’s chest as he breathed harshly.

“Okay,” Dean said glancing towards the rifle forgotten on the riverbank six feet behind him. “Okay. Stiles, take a deep breath.”

Stiles lifted his head enough to meet Dean’s gaze, wide-eyed and frantic, blinking rapidly as water dripped from his hair. “What?” he gasped clenching his fingers harder around Dean’s arm and eyes widening even more as Dean loosened his hold.

“Take a deep breath. Now,” Dean ordered. He gave Stiles just a moment to follow his direction, and then he let go ignoring the look of shock and absolute fear that washed over Stiles’ features.

Stiles was underwater in less than a second. Dean threw himself backwards, scrambling up the bank to snag the butt of the gun and splashing halfway back across the river, tracking Stiles carefully before drawing the rifle up, sighting, and waiting. “Come on, come on,” he muttered, heart hammering in his chest as he forced himself to just wait.

The instant the ground rippled on the opposite bank, loose soil breaking apart and showing a brief glimpse of something red, he fired twice in quick succession. The reports rang loudly in his ears followed by a high-pitched shriek as the creature surged away thankfully leaving Stiles thrashing in the water.

Dean shouldered the rifle surging towards the younger man. “Stiles!” he called almost falling twice in his haste. He stumbled to a halt next to a gagging Stiles water sloshing around his knees. Grabbing Stiles under the arms Dean helped him to his feet keeping a steadying hand around his waist as he stumbled. “Easy,” Dean coached as Stiles retched spitting up an alarming amount of water and nearly falling over. “Easy. I gotcha.”

Stiles coughed, bending in half with the force of it and wrapping his arms around his ribs. Dean dragged him out of the water, hauling Stiles, who was essentially dead weight at this point, up to the relative safety of the bank. He twisted around, Stiles practically clinging to him as he scanned the ground around them and sighed a little in relief as it remained undisturbed.

“You fucker,” Stiles wheezed but he didn’t let go, just twisted his fingers in Dean’s jacket and leaned on him heavily shaking and soaked.

“Hey, I warned you,” Dean said defensively still breathing hard. He fell back against the bank wincing as a particularly large rock dug into his spine and running a distracted hand through Stiles’ wet hair. “What did you think I was gonna do?”

“I dunno, maybe something that wasn’t letting me go to potentially drown and/or be eaten,” Stiles snapped hoarsely but it lacked its usual bite.

Dean rolled his eyes even though the effect would be lost on Stiles. “Wasn’t exactly time to explain my plan in detail.”

“Its karma, it is,” Stiles muttered sighing into Dean’s chest. “Fucking karma.”

“Karma?” Dean asked letting his eyes slide shut for a moment feeling like his breaths were just starting to come in at their usual pace again. “What for?”

“Second fucking time I almost drowned. No, third. No, actually that one time I did technically drown so this is the second,” Stiles continued like he hadn’t even heard Dean. “Derek would be laughing his ass off. On the inside of course, but he’d fucking laugh.”

“You drowned?” Dean blinked craning his neck to stare down at Stiles. “Wait, Derek?” he said just managing to stop himself from adding on the ‘Hale.’

Stiles tensed seeming to just realize Dean had been listening to his ramblings. “Nobody,” he said pulling away. He cleared his throat and shoved dripping bangs off his forehead so they were sticking up oddly in every direction. “So,” he began clearly changing the subject, “I guess we know what it is now.”

“We do?” Dean said furrowing his brows in confusion.

Stiles pulled his leg up, dropping it unceremoniously in Dean’s lap and tugging at his wet and mud smeared pant leg with a slight hiss. Dean grimaced at the sluggishly bleeding bite that was revealed. Stiles leaned forward inspecting the wound a long moment. “Yep,” he said tightly, “Mongolian death worm.”

“Mongolian death…aren’t those poisonous?” Dean asked a feeling of dread settling low in his stomach.

“Venomous,” Stiles corrected, letting out a slow breath between clenched teeth. “Yeah.”

“Shit,” Dean said. “How long? What do we need to do?”

“Uh, well, the lore said instantaneous death so I think it’s a little unreliable,” Stiles said prodding a little at the area around the bite and looking like he might pass out. “So maybe I’m fine?”

“Maybe’s not good enough,” Dean said pulling his belt from his jeans and drawing it tight around Stiles’ thigh before using his teeth to tear into the bottom of his t-shirt. Stiles stared at him as he worked, an unreadable expression flitting across his countenance. “What?” Dean snapped shirt still caught between his teeth.

Stiles just smiled and gave an oddly fond shake of his head. “You tore your favorite shirt for me.”

“Yeah,” Dean said ripping a sizeable strip off, wrapping it around Stiles’ calf efficiently and tucking the end in to keep it in place. “A thank you would be nice.”

“Oh trust me,” Stiles said as Dean tugged his pant leg down and hauled him to his feet keeping a secure arm about his waist, “I’m absolutely swooning on the inside. Plus, with half your shirt missing and your pants riding low, I can see your remarkable abs.”

“Stiles,” Dean huffed.

“Yeah?”

“Stop talking about my abs and focus on walking.”

Stiles chuckled a little breathlessly. “You love me talking about your remarkable abs.”

“I’d love it more if you’d shut up.”

Chapter Text

The Call

“For the last time,” Stiles said blinking in annoyance at the bright light being shone in his eye, “I feel fine.”

“You were bit by what we think is a highly venomous worm. Don’t fault us for being careful, ” Bobby said wryly flicking the light in Stiles’ other eye and pressing a rough hand to his forehead to check his temperature for the second time in ten minutes.

“Yeah, not that I’m not glad you aren’t, you know, dying,” Dean said from across the room, “but why isn’t he dying?”

Bobby glanced at him then back to Stiles raising his hands to prod at Stiles’ neck in spite of the glare Stiles shot him. “I don’t know. Any theories, Stiles?”

“The lore is wrong and the Mongolian death worm isn’t actually venomous?” Stiles suggested.

Terry snorted from his position at the table where he was pouring over a stack of papers. “There’s over a dozen sources that specify it being venomous. You know what that’s called?”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Independent verification,” he deadpanned ignoring Terry’s mild look of surprise. “And I know what that means. But the fact remains that I’m not dying so obviously they’re wrong.”

“Maybe it’s really slow acting?” Dean proposed.

Stiles scowled. “Did the meaning of the word instantaneous fly over your head?”

“Or it’s not a Mongolian death worm,” Terry countered.

“Of course it’s a Mongolian death worm,” Stiles said pushing Bobby’s hands away. “The bite pattern matches and the worm I saw was definitely red like blood. Unless you know of another subterranean worm that’s red like blood, has an identical teeth pattern, and prefers to come to the surface after it rains or around water in that stack of papers you got there?”

Terry was quiet, breathing out heavily through his nose before scowling and admitting to defeat. “No.”

“Great,” Stiles said sliding off the counter he’d been sitting on, wincing when he landed particularly hard and his ankle smarted. He batted Bobby’s hands away once more, limping a little as he made his way to the table before he got used to the slight sting at the motion and moved to compensate for it. “Then we’re back to angry red death worm, and the only remaining question is how do we kill it before it chows down on more townspeople?”

“I’m assuming you’ve already got an idea?” Terry asked and if the man scowled any harder Stiles was going to be concerned about his face getting stuck that way.

“Oh come on, Terry,” Stiles said leaning against the table next to Dean and flattening his palms to the cool surface for support as he glanced over the papers spread out on it. “I can’t do all the work.”

“So no ideas?” Bobby asked, ever the voice of reason.

Stiles pursed his lips and shrugged. “None that aren't from movie scripts, no.”

“Don’t think dynamite fishing the way to go on this one, dude,” Dean said, and if Stiles wasn’t mistaken he sounded a little dejected at that.

“Well, if we have no other ideas…” Stiles said letting the words trail off.

Dean squinted at the bright light of the sun bearing down on them. The sky was a brilliant blue above them, a cool breeze wafting over his face and chilling the sweat along his brow. He could hear Stiles’ heavy breaths somewhere to the right, shallow and rapid like Dean’s heart rate. He exhaled heavily, closing his mouth and pulling in a deep breath through his nose immediately gagging at the stench that flooded his senses.

“I can not believe,” Stiles started speaking up over Dean’s coughing, “that you actually tried,” he paused to suck in more air, “to basically go fishing,” another short break, “with fucking dynamite. I didn’t even know you had dynamite.”

“You said it yourself,” Dean answered equally out of breath and breathing carefully through only his mouth now. Having smelled it once he felt like the taste of it was thick on his tongue anyway, but it was markedly more tolerable. “If we had no other ideas.”

“Not quite sure that counted. But, hey, whatever works,” Stiles said groaning as he pushed himself up to a sitting position and coming into Dean’s peripheral vision as he did so. There were bits of flesh, innards, and other unmentionable things clinging to his hair, face, and coat, and Dean grimaced as he realized he was likely covered in the same.

“By the way,” Dean said shifting in preparation to get up but allowing himself a moments more rest, “when you want to be, you are really fast.” Even with the bite on his leg Stiles had nearly outrun Dean in their mad dash away from the death worm. Dean wouldn’t have expected it from their many runs but it seemed the threat of worm gobbling was an excellent incentive and PT exercise was actually paying off.

Stiles laughed, though it was more of a forced puff of air than anything, nearly falling over again and collapsing against Dean’s knee instead. Dean picked his head up off the ground just enough to squint at the younger man.

“Told you,” Stiles said pausing to take a couple deep breaths through his mouth and turning so that his forehead was pressed against Dean’s knee smearing some worm blood over Dean’s jeans as he did so. “I have extensive experience running away from things that want to eat me. Though all those were more of a sprint rather than a marathon so I welcome the mild variation.”

“One of these days you should tell me all about it,” Dean said falling back fully and closing his eyes against the sun. He didn’t mean anything by it, said it loosely and without pressure, but he felt Stiles pull away all the same.

“God, it fucking stinks,” Stiles said gagging slightly and covering his mouth and nose with a hand. “Why does it already smell like it’s been dead and rotting in the sun for five days?”

“Because I blew it up with dynamite,” Dean said smirking to himself, “and things smell bad when they’re dead.”

Stiles glanced at him with a half-hearted glare that would probably hold more heat if he wasn't clad in an oversized hoodie with the sleeve pressed over part of his face. “It usually takes more than five minutes for the stench to really be noticeable. In fact,” he continued squinting up towards the sun before looking back to the remains of the worm, “in this weather I’d say at least twelve to twenty-four hours before it should smell like this.”

“Which means what?”

“That this is one disgusting animal,” Stiles returned pushing himself to his feet and hobbling towards the most intact piece of worm that disappeared into the ground. Now that they were no longer running for their lives it seemed the bite was causing more pain than Stiles let show.

Dean sat up watching with no small amount of distaste as Stiles found a decent sized stick and started poking in and amongst the dead worm. “Dude, I thought you were squeamish?”

“I am,” Stiles said and true to form he paused a moment to gag into his sleeve before returning to his prodding. “But I’m also curious and want to know why it smells so—” He gagged again and spun around abruptly, face blanching as he dropped the stick and pressed his hands against his knees, breathing harshly through his mouth.

“Stiles?” Dean questioned pushing himself to his feet and moving towards Stiles while assessing the worm for whatever had elicited such a strong reaction. He couldn’t make out much beneath the gore covering the opening caused by the explosion.

Stiles glanced at him waving a distracted hand towards the worm and keeping his other pressed firmly over his mouth as he refocused his gaze across the field. “Pretty sure that’s part of a dead person,” he said voice strained and muffled behind his sleeve, “which explains the smell.”

Dean swallowed leaving Stiles where he was and retrieving the dropped stick to prod about on his own. The wood slipped in the slime coating the better part of the worm corpse but he pretty quickly found what Stiles had seen. Grimacing he worked the leg loose enough to get into the back pocket of the jeans and pull out the dead man’s wallet.

“Charles McGreggor,” he read swiping his thumb over the license to try and make out the picture. “Poor guy. Swallowed whole is not a way I’d like to go.” He looked back to Stiles, frowning at the look of pinched concentration he found. “What?”

“He’s not on the list,” Stiles said. “Terry compiled a complete list of possible victims. He’s not one of them.”

“So Terry missed one,” Dean said with a shrug. “Maybe no one reported him missing.”

“No, no. Terry considered him,” Stiles said. “I remember reading his file, family reported it almost right away. He’s from the next town over. Went missing last week. He wasn’t on the list because the same time he went missing in his town someone saw one of the deaths here.”

Dean blinked just absorbing the implications of that for a moment before groaning. “Oh crap. Please tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking.”

Stiles sighed dragging his sleeve roughly over his face. “There’s more than one worm.”

“Yeah, no, we got the one. I said we got one. We got one, but there’s a second. No, there’s another one. Yes, there’s a second worm, and we got one,” Dean said into his phone raising his voice intermittently. “Turns out fishing with dynamite actually does do the trick. No, I said fishing, you know what? Nevermind. We’ll regale you with the tale later.” He flashed Stiles a wide grin and a thumbs up at that.

Stiles forced a semblance of a smile in return, dropping it as soon as Dean turned away again, and returning to his scanning of all the lists they’d gotten from Terry when they first arrived. He’d identified several other crossovers in victims each that had been dismissed when they thought there was just one worm. Thankfully, though, as far as he could tell there wasn’t yet another one in hiding.

“Okay, good news,” Stiles said as Dean hung up muttering something about terrible cell service. “I’m sixty-three percent sure that there are only two worms.”

“Sixty-three percent?”

“I’ve gone on less before,” Stiles said flipping through the pages again. “But we should probably look into deaths in all the surrounding towns later to be sure.”

“Bobby and Terry are heading towards us now. They’ll be here in fifteen,” Dean said tucking his phone back into his pocket. “How’s your leg?”

Stiles glanced down raising his eyebrows dispassionately as he thought about it. The bite was actually throbbing with each beat of his heart, his entire leg sore from the impromptu marathon across the fields earlier, but overall felt a lot better than some things he’d endured in the past. Luckily his theory about the lore being wrong in regards to deadly venom appeared to be holding true. Dean raised an eyebrow so Stiles settled on simply saying, “It’s fine.”

Dean didn’t seem to completely buy Stiles’ answer, but he didn’t question it either. “Okay,” he said digging through the weapons bag in the truck bed, “we just need to sit tight until Terry and Bobby get here.”

Stiles grunted his understanding as he gathered all the papers back into a stack to place in the folder. He tossed the folder into the open window onto the passenger seat before leaning against the truck and scanning the field as he waited. Everything was still for several minutes then a flutter of motion caught his attention a little ways off to the west. Stiles squinted at it taking a moment to focus and rolling his eyes as the gentle rise and fall of the ground registered.

“Oh for the love of god,” he muttered then called to the hunter still rummaging through the weapons bag. “Dean! We got a problem.”

“What now?” Dean asked head popping up from the other side of the truck.

Stiles pointed towards the shifting ground watching as Dean made note of the approaching creature and scowled. “I think the worm’s gonna beat Bobby and Terry.”

Dean swore quietly tossing the weapons bag into the truck bed before grabbing the side and pulling himself in. “Come on,” he whispered holding a hand out for Stiles. “Here, here, get in.” He grasped Stiles forearm, hauling him into the bed of the truck and pressing a pistol into his hand. “Take this.”

“You think the truck’s safe?” Stiles asked tucking the handgun in his waistband and licking his lips worriedly as he tracked the shifting dirt; he wasn't looking forward to running again. He crouched next to Dean falling silent as the hunter pressed a finger to his lips.

They sat motionlessly in the truck-bed tracking the worm as it circled the vehicle slowly. It made three slow rounds before beginning to move away. Stiles breathed a sigh of relief until he realized where it was heading. In the distance he could just make out Bobby and Terry headed towards them in Terry’s small, beat up Plymouth. He swatted Dean’s arm jerking his chin towards the approaching hunters.

“Yeah, I see it,” Dean said pulling his phone out and hitting his speed dial for Bobby.

Stiles shifted looking around the truck-bed for any ideas. Terry and Bobby weren’t prepared and Stiles didn’t quite know what the worm would be able to do to Terry’s shitty Plymouth. His gaze landed on the weapons bag Dean had been digging through earlier a faint idea forming as he spotted a hand grenade nestled in amongst a collection of firearms and knives.

“Come on, come on, pick up Bobby,” Dean muttered.

Stiles glanced again between the weapons bag and the worm now gaining speed towards Terry’s piece of crap car. It wasn’t the smartest idea Stiles had ever gone with, but he’d just have to add it to his list of Stupid Things Stiles Has Done and run with it. Literally.

Dean seemed shocked at his sudden motion, falling back against the truck cab as Stiles bolted forward snagging the single grenade from the weapons bag before planting one foot solidly against the tailgate and launching himself a good six feet out into midair.

He hit the ground hard, collapsing for a moment as pain shot up his leg from the bite and rolling to soften the blow. Small stones bit into the palms of his hands and the grass seemed to tangle around his fingers even as he shoved himself to his feet.

“Stiles!” Dean yelled behind him. “What the fuck are you doing!”

“Don’t worry!” Stiles shouted already running as he craned his neck to look back over his shoulder at the hunter standing perplexed in the truck-bed. “I have an idea!”

Not a few seconds later he heard a rough grunt behind him followed by pounding footfalls that were quickly gaining on him. Twisting around once more he caught sight of Dean sprinting after him.

“Dean!” he yelled wind nearly stealing his breath as it pummeled him. “What the hell are you doing!”

“I thought you said you had an idea!” Dean hollered back.

Stiles stumbled over a sudden dip flailing a moment before regaining his balance. “I do! But I didn’t factor in you following me!”

“Well, you know this hunting thing is supposed to be a group effort!” Dean argued. “So you should probably start factoring me in!”

“I’ll do that!” Stiles shouted examining the area ahead of him to pick out the best point to stop. “Next time!”

He’d just picked out a suitable spot for his half-baked idea when Dean cried out and Stiles realized exactly why having the hunter follow him threw a monkey wrench into his terrible idea. Of course the worm would grab Dean first.

Skidding to a stop Stiles shoved the grenade in his pocket rushing back to grab Dean before the worm could drag him six feet under. Trying to haul upwards on a hundred-seventy pound hunter while an underground worm was intent on dragging said hunter elsewhere gave him a new appreciation for how Dean had kept his head above water as much as he did earlier.

Dean wrapped his arms around Stiles’ waist actually pulling Stiles to his knees for a moment. Stiles groaned somehow managing to struggle back to his feet and lever Dean most of the way up as well catching a glimpse of the worm’s red and gaping mouth as he did so. The worm was close enough to the surface that flashes of red were showing through the grass.

“I’m gonna let go,” Dean said suddenly.

“What!” Stiles cried instinctively clutching to Dean harder. “No!”

“Yes, I'm gonna let go,” the hunter replied, "and then you’re gonna shoot it.”

Stiles swallowed heavily a shock of anxiety arcing through him at even the thought. “No. I repeat no. It’s a terrible plan. Don’t you dare—”

“Too late,” Dean said letting go for the second time that day only this time it was Stiles in charge of getting the two of them out alive somehow.

Dean slid away curling in on himself and Stiles spent two seconds trying to cling to his coat before grabbing the handgun from his waistband, thumbing the safety off, sighting, and squeezing the trigger three times in quick succession before he could overthink it. He let out a punched gasp of relief when Dean immediately stumbled to his feet running back towards Stiles gesturing wildly.

“Get down!”

On some level the words registered but Stiles was frozen, the impact of having shot practically right at Dean finally sinking in. Dean slammed into him hard, one hand making sure the handgun was pointed safely away from them and the other cushioning Stiles’ head as Dean knocked them both to the ground hard enough to knock the air from Stiles’ lungs.

Stiles spent less than a second wondering if Dean had lost his goddamn mind before something detonated with a near deafening boom and the distinctive stench of exploded Mongolian death worm wafted over to them on the billowing breeze.

“What the…” Stiles started swallowing before he even finished his sentence and blinking at the bright blue sky that seemed incredibly at odds with the ringing in his ears and adrenaline still flooding through him.

Dean propped himself up, looking over his shoulder before grinning down at Stiles and holding up a hand to display the grenade pin looped over his index finger. He must have taken it from Stiles' pocket before letting go. “That was your plan, yes?”

Stiles swallowed again and forced himself to nod. “A variation of it,” he said reaching out with shaking hands to pat at Dean’s shoulders agitatedly searching for any blood that wasn't worm. “Oh, my god. Are you okay? I didn’t...did I…”

Dean laughed grabbing at Stiles hands to stop the frantic patting. “I’m fine. You did good. Didn’t even graze me.”

“Oh, my god,” Stiles said letting the relief wash over him with a distant sort of acknowledgment while most of his focus remained on the heart stopping certainty that everything was about to go terribly wrong. Everything seemed a bit distant at the moment, like he wasn’t really feeling it. He stopped searching Dean for bullet holes and started shoving at his chest instead. “Get off me. Please, get off. Let me up. Now.”

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Dean said scrambling off to the side and catching Stiles’ shoulder when he sat up too quickly and swayed as his head swam, vision whiting out for a moment and stomach churning ominously. “Easy,” the hunter coached. “It’s just the adrenaline.”

And, yeah, Stiles was intimately familiar with the feeling of coming down from an adrenaline surge by this point—the shaking hands, lightheadedness, and urge to cry or laugh hysterically was pretty much routine—but it’d been awhile since he’d had a crash this strong.

“Dean! Stiles!”

Cue the reinforcements who were fashionably late; Bobby and Terry were rushing across the field just in time to do absolutely fucking nothing. Stiles couldn’t stop the laugh that erupted unbidden as Dean gave the other hunters the all clear and physically hauled Stiles to his feet with hands under his armpits like a little kid. He made sure to keep his feet under him when Dean let go and somehow managed to stay standing even though he felt like the world was tipping over.

“You boys all right?” Bobby called once they were in at a more comfortable speaking distance.

“Just peachy,” Dean said with a wicked grin. “Stiles and I had it all handled. Right Stiles?”

Bobby slid his gaze from Dean to Stiles giving him a thorough once over that set Stiles’ nerves on edge. “Stiles?” he said, brows pinched in concern and Stiles suddenly realized everyone was staring at him, probably waiting for a response because Dean had asked him something.

“Fine,” he croaked. “We’re both good. Got the…worm. Worms." He paused turing his gaze from the older hunters to Dean who was smiling like it was Christmas morning and he'd hit the jackpot. "Dean, you let me..." he began throat closing up around the words until he almost felt like he was choking and couldn't get the last part of the sentence out.

Terry sniffed, looking decidedly annoyed at them and leaning down to fish something out of the grass. “This belong to one of you?” he asked holding up the handgun Stiles had dropped when Dean tackled him. He glanced between Dean and Stiles before holding it out to the latter expectantly.

Stiles just stared at it, and thankfully Dean intercepted. “Yep, that’s mine,” he said taking the gun from Terry and flicking the safety back on before tucking securely in his waistband. “Nice shooting, Stiles. Knew you could do it.”

For his part Stiles just nodded faintly, heartbeat jumping again at the reminder. Nice shooting. Dean let Stiles shoot at him. He let Stiles shoot at him. Someone Dean knew next to nothing about and had first-hand knowledge of how not great of a shot he was. 

He pulled in a deep breath, trying to stabilize his scattered senses. After his mother died one of the few psychologists his dad took him to had taught him about grounding as way to manage his anxiety. It was about drawing his focus back to the present moment, finding five things to ground himself in the here and now. Like he feeling of the cool air as it rushed in and out of his lungs, and the grass-covered ground softly yielding beneath his feet. The warm sunlight beating down on them and heating the back of his neck. The nauseating smell of the freshly dead worm several yards behind him. The dull throbbing in his wrist from the recoils of the shots he'd fired.

Stiles blinked as the world tunneled, the sound of the hunters' conversation fading away to muffled background noise. He braced his hands on his knees as the air in his lungs did its best to leave all at once and not be replaced. It caused a weird sort of painful spasm when he tried to convince his lungs to actually function; his chest feeling like it was attempting to cave in on itself for a long moment before finally expanding again.

“Whoa,” Dean said catching him around the shoulders and even his voice sounded oddly distant despite being right in Stiles’ ear. “Okay. Let’s get you back to the motel. You and I both need a shower. And then I propose pancakes. Pancakes make everything better.”

“All right, I'll bite, what’s up with you?” Dean asked as soon as he and Stiles were alone at the table in the diner where they were grabbing the promised pancakes before heading back to Bobby’s. He took a sip of his soda, clarifying when Stiles shot him a puzzled look. “You’re doing the quiet and moody thing again. Your leg hurt or somethin’? I can get you some—”

“My leg's fine.” The words were out of Stiles' mouth before he even really decided to say them. He flexed his fingers around his fork welcoming the dull bite as the sharp edge of the metal dug into his skin. 

Dean raised his eyebrows. “Okaaay. Add snappish to the list of your symptoms,” he said dunking another forkful of pancake into syrup then popping it in his mouth.

“Can you just shut up and leave me alone for once?” Stiles said shortly pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stave off the building headache.

Dean jabbed another forkful of syrup dripping pancake at him. “Only when you tell me what’s wrong.”

Stiles rolled his eyes slouching in his seat and stabbing his pancakes with more force than necessary. He fixed his gaze on the old lady walking her mop of a dog across the street and ignored Dean’s exasperated huff.

“I’m not going to stop asking this time,” Dean said pushing his plate off to the side and resting his arms on the table. “Look, I’m just confused. If this is about the last worm, man, you did good—”

“It’s not, it’s not about the worm,” Stiles admitted, which was stupid. He should have taken the easy way out. Sure, Dean, just shook up from that last worm. That's all.

“Then what—”

“It’s about you.”

Dean blinked, mouth hanging open unattractively. “What does that mean? It’s about me?”

“It means that my problem right now is with you,” Stiles snapped. His neck flushed under the collar of his sweatshirt, the pounding behind his eyes getting worse as his chest tightened.

“Okay,” Dean said after a moment. “Why?”

“Because I don’t get you!” Stiles exclaimed, desperate in a way he couldn't articulate. “What do you get out of this, huh? I know where I’m coming from. I understand Bobby. Hell, I even get where your dad is coming from. But you…I don’t get you.”

“Don’t get me?” Dean repeated looking vaguely insulted. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You let me shoot a gun five inches above your head,” Stiles said steadfastly ignoring how his voice caught on the last word. Something unreadable flickered over Dean's face but Stiles couldn't place it. “I could have hurt you. Could have killed you. You said you…you said..." He shook his head taking a shaky breath before continuing. "You keep asking if I’m okay. All the time. And I can’t figure it out. What do you get out of this, Dean?”

“Out of what?” the hunter asked, voice raising high at the end, like he was scandalized by the question. A few of the other patrons looked over, expressions varying from concerned to annoyed.

“Out of this,” Stiles said bringing his voice down to a harsh whisper and flinging his hands out. “All of this. Why do you care? What do you get?”

Dean didn’t answer right away, just regarded Stiles silently then shrugged. “How about the pleasure of your company?” the hunter proposed. “Did that occur to you?”

“The pleasure of my company,” Stiles repeated scoffing as he leaned back in his seat. “Oh fuck you.”

“Why is it so hard for you to believe that? I grew up with my brother. We were together almost all the time,” Dean said wearily running a hand through his hair and refusing to directly meet Stiles' gaze, oddly enough a sign of honesty for him. “So maybe I find just the company of my dad and occasionally Bobby a little less than appealing sometimes.”

Dean’s gaze flicked up to something behind Stiles alerting him to Bobby approaching them from behind. Stiles swallowed his next words down dropping his gaze to his half eaten plate of food as Bobby slid back into the booth looking obviously between the two younger men and raising a questioning eyebrow. Dean just sniffed crossing his arms and turning to look out the window. Stiles sat in uncomfortable silence then pushed his chair back from the table. 

“I’ll, uh, I’ll be right back,” he said ignoring the twin looks of surprise as he left the diner.

The bell jingled when he pushed the door open, and he immediately felt more settled alone outside. He sucked in a blessed breath of fresh air scanning the road and small scattering of buildings to get his bearings. They were in an area with low cell coverage, which meant that somewhere nearby there should be a payphone. He headed down the street on instinct keeping an eye out for the lone gas station he remembered from when they drove in. It wasn’t far, the whole town was pretty small, but it ended up being a bit further than he expected. He finally spotted the little payphone booth after about ten minutes of walking.

Jogging over he shut himself in the booth with trembling hands having to give it several tries before the quarter actually made it into the machine. Dialing the number was familiar, fingers moving almost completely on muscle memory. He listened to it ring with baited breath; there was a very slim chance someone would actually answer but it was more than likely that Stiles would get the answering machine. Which is exactly what he wanted.

The call clicked over, and Stiles leaned his head back against the glass, closing his eyes and letting his dad’s words wash over him, soothing in their familiarity.

“Hello, you've reached the Stilinski household. If you’re calling for John, please leave your name, number, and message. If you’re calling for Stiles, then you’re calling the wrong number so try his cell instead. And Stiles, if this is you, then you probably should have been home at least an hour ago and I’m waiting for you in the kitchen.”

Stiles swallowed roughly, squeezing his eyes against threatening tears and the empty gnawing feeling in his chest increasing tenfold at just the sound of his father’s voice. It’s easy cadence, the solid strength, the slight exasperated lilt towards the end; Stiles didn’t know it was possible to miss something this much.

He slipped the second quarter in without a thought, dialing quickly and letting it play through the message all over again. If anyone bothered to check the home phone they would no doubt be confused at the six calls from middle of nowhere Nebraska, but Stiles couldn’t bring himself to care or stop calling.

Halfway through the sixth call something rapped loudly on the phone booth. Stiles jumped, eyes flying open and staring in shock at Dean’s thinly veiled concerned face on the other side of the glass. He hung up the phone in the middle of his dad saying his name, scrubbing his sleeve over his face as he pushed the squeaky door open.

“You know,” Dean said casually leaning against the booth. “When people say they’ll be right back they usually don’t disappear for twenty minutes.”

“Sorry,” Stiles said clearing his throat to get rid of the slight rasp to his voice. “I just, uh, needed to make a call.”

Dean pursed his lips obviously picking his next words with care. “We could have given you a ride,” he offered pointing his thumb at Bobby’s truck idling in a parking spot over his shoulder. “Or you could have said, ‘hey, I’m gonna make a call at the gas station half a mile from the diner.’ Really either one of those options.”

Stiles tried to dredge up a semblance of a smile failing miserably before just giving up. “Sorry. I didn’t…I didn’t think I was,” he paused raising his fingers to knead at his temples and squeezed his eyes shut. “I just really needed to make a call.”

“Okay,” Dean said and Stiles actually looked at him in shock at the easy acceptance. He could read the question on Dean’s face, the curiosity as to who Stiles was calling, but Dean didn’t ask and that was the important part. “You ready to go?”

“Thank you,” he said softly following the hunter to the truck.

“What for?” Dean said frowning as he slid into the middle seat next to Bobby and allowed Stiles to take the seat by the window. "You didn't think we'd leave you here, did you?" 

Stiles pulled the door shut, his reply almost lost in the roar of the engine as Bobby pulled out onto the road. “Thank you for not asking.”

Chapter Text

The Call

Stiles pulled in a careful breath, scarcely daring to breathe incase he disrupted the dream. The bed beneath him was soft, far nicer than any motel cot or stranger’s bed he’d slept on in the past months. It was Scott’s bed actually; the only other bed aside from his own or his father’s that Stiles had ever felt completely comfortable in. Scott lay next to him, both of them turned on their sides facing one another. Stiles remembered when they used to do this as kids, curled up together under a blanket whispering secrets to each other long after they were supposed to be asleep.

“Please don't hate me,” Stiles whispered.

Scott smiled, all dimples and kind eyes. “How could I ever hate you?”

“Because I left,” Stiles said softly. “Without you. We promised each other we’d never do that.”

“Did it hurt?” Scott asked and Stiles furrowed his brows.

“Did what hurt?” He wasn’t thinking. He should be on guard, waiting for this to turn from a dream to a nightmare, but it was so nice to see Scott again even just in his imagination.

Scott reached out brushing his fingers over Stiles’ forehead, a sharp pain arching through his brain so bright it blinded him. “Did it hurt when they killed you?”

Stiles sat up blankets flying off the bed and heart hammering in his chest, scream building in his throat and just choked down as Dean pushed open the door to the room seeming surprised to see Stiles awake.

He brushed his fingers over his forehead half expecting his hand to come away wet and sticky. It did come away wet, but with cold sweat instead of blood.

“Sorry,” Dean said easing fully into the bedroom as he scrubbed a towel through his wet hair. “Did I wake you?”

Stiles blinked trying to force the aftereffects of the nightmare away. “Uh, no. No, you didn’t.”

“When’d you finally go to bed?” Dean asked tossing the towel across the footboard of his bed.

Stiles frowned patting the bed around him to locate his phone that had somehow managed to get shoved up under his pillow. It took a moment for his eyes to focus on the bright screen and another for him to figure out how long ago he’d come upstairs. “Um, about fifty-three minutes ago.”

Dean paused digging through his duffle bag and gave Stiles a shocked look that thinly concealed the concern beneath. “Dude. Grab some more shuteye. We can start later today.”

“No, I'm good,” Stiles said scrubbing his hands over his face. “Really. Just give me a few minutes.” Or more than a few perhaps because he could probably use a shower himself.

“Are you kidding me?” Dean said looking especially ridiculous arguing with Stiles as he held a pair of boxer shorts. “No. Go the fuck back to sleep, man. Get at least four hours.”

Stiles snorted snagging fresh clothes along with his toothbrush from his bag and tossing over his shoulder as he left the room, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“You know, that’s not very comforting!” Dean shouted after him.

Stiles didn't bother replying just shut himself in the bathroom and immediately twisted on the hot water to give it time to heat up. He’d figured out pretty early on that Bobby’s water took forever to get warm even if someone else just used the hot water, and since the Nogitsune Stiles had become very fond of his hot showers. Often it was the only time he truly felt warm anymore.

He stripped down, shivering a little as he tested the water that was just starting to get hot. Brushing his teeth gave the water a little more time to heat up and by the time he was finished the mirror was beginning to steam. Stiles wiped his hand over the mirror taking a moment to stare at his reflection.

As usual the person staring back at him seemed like a partial stranger; someone he felt like he should know but still couldn’t quite place. He certainly didn’t look like the gangly teenager who had stumbled into the woods for the thrill of finding a dead body anymore.

He’d grown out his hair, lost the remaining vestiges of baby fat that had rounded out his face, and gained quite a bit in muscle mass compared to sixteen year old him in spite of everything. He’d gained more than a few scars too, permanent marks that well and truly attested to his status as a fragile human compared to his fast-healing pack members. The tattoos were permanent marks he didn’t regret. Sinéad had been disapproving but Stiles had made meticulous choices in the designs, each individual symbol down to the line having a purpose or meaning. An extensive amount of time spent with a needle jabbing into his skin had been a small price to pay for the peace of mind of knowing he was as warded as he could make himself.

His eyes were the biggest difference though. Dull is a word that would describe them. Or maybe empty. Haunted. If he were to put a picture of himself now against a picture of pre-werewolf him, he wasn’t sure they’d even look like the same people anymore.

Stiles blinked, shaking all thoughts of the boy he used to be from his mind and ducking into the shower. The water was wonderfully scalding, beating down over his shoulders and managing to chase the bone deep chill away. Stiles could shower in under five minutes flat, but he generally stood under the water for at least another five or ten just soaking in the warmth and letting it push out the dull aches that seemed to take up constant residence in his limbs and head. After that he forced himself to abandon the warmth of the shower for the comparatively lesser warmth of his jeans, shirt, and hoodie.

Dean and Bobby were in the kitchen when he finally made it downstairs. Bobby offered him a good morning, gesturing to the eggs and hash browns on the stove while Dean still looked a little miffed at Stiles’ refusal to go back to bed, chewing passive aggressively at a bite of toast as he scowled in Stiles general direction.

Stiles pulled a plate from the cupboard helping himself to a small portion of eggs and a piece of toast before sitting down across from Dean.

“Dude,” Dean said around a mouthful of breakfast. “What's with the hoodie? It’s sixty-five degrees out.”

Stiles didn’t deign to answer, simply pulled his hood up and forced a smile he stuffed a bite of eggs into his mouth. That more than his hoodie seemed to piss Dean off.

“Good lord, are you seriously pulling the sulky teenager routine?”

Stiles flicked eggs at the hunter smirking when Dean scrunched up his nose and had to brush egg out of his hair.

“You two mind being civil at the table?” Bobby growled but there was an underlying layer amusement to the tone so Stiles just shrugged. Dean scowled but refrained from flinging any of his food back at Stiles. “Good. So what are you two doing today?”

“Cleaning and maintenance of the weapons,” Dean said finishing off his breakfast. “Which mean’s I’ll see you outside as soon as you're done since you decided not to sleep.”

Stiles raised his half eaten piece of toast in a sloppy salute as Dean set his plate in the sink and left the kitchen. He bit off another piece, chewing woodenly and assessing the amount of food left on his plate.

“You okay, kid?” Bobby asked in the enveloping silence.

Stiles blinked dragging his gaze away from his eggs and plastering on a smile that felt fake even to himself. “Sure, I’m fine.”

Most people would be surprised by the knowledge that Dean actually enjoyed cleaning the guns. Dad had always stressed the importance of caring adequately for their tools, and Dean had taken to the task like a fish to water. It was mind-numbingly monotonous in a way that wasn’t boring but somehow soothing instead. It kept his hands busy and let his mind go blank for a while as he focused in on the simple task of shining the firearms to perfection.

Dean sniffed, squinting at the sunlight glaring off the Browning in Stiles’ hands as he worked to disassemble it for cleaning. They’d been working in silence for about half an hour, methodically moving through the firearms in companionable silence. Stiles had picked up quickly how to disassemble and reassemble the guns after Dean had showed him only a few times. He was working at a pace similar to Dean’s, and he was doing remarkably well for someone operating on a limited amount of sleep.

Watching Stiles confidently work with the guns now, long fingers deftly working in and around the pieces like he’d been doing it for nearly as long as Dean had, it belied the timid hesitance and self-doubt that took up residence anytime Dean asked him to actually shoot something.

“You know, I think I’ve figured it out,” he began focusing on the stock he was cleaning and trying to broach the subject subtly.

Stiles just grunted at him. “Figured what out?”

“Why you don’t trust yourself,” Dean said noting the way Stiles froze and glanced at him from under his eyelashes before returning to assembling the Browning. “You do know that’s the reason you’re only mediocre at best when it comes to CQC or firearms, right? You don’t trust yourself to make the right call or to even be able to do it until you literally don’t have a choice.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Stiles stated doing his best to avoid looking at Dean.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Come on, there’s a reason that I kick your ass without any effort every sparring session in spite of the fact that you’re more than capable of holding your own now and there’s a reason the only time you’ve ever landed a good solid hit on me was after I goaded you into it,” he said. “It’s the same reason that the only time you hit a target more than twice in a row is when you had to fire five inches from my head.”

“You’re right,” Stiles said glancing up to give him an insincere smile. “It’s because I thrive under pressure. Good work, Watson.”

Dean shook his head. “Nah. You don’t thrive under pressure. Pressure tears you apart inside until you’re a shaking mess,” he said and Stiles glared at him, jaw clenching like he was fighting the urge to attack Dean from across the table. “No, what you thrive on is protecting people you care about.”

Stiles swallowed, huffing as he dropped his gaze to the Browning for a moment then fixed Dean with a severe look. “What makes you think I care about you?” he asked.

“A lot of things,” Dean said honestly watching as Stiles’ eyes filled with something indecipherable and he looked away again focusing on a point far past Dean’s shoulder or maybe looking at something that wasn’t really in sight. “I think you were trying to protect Allison just as much as she was trying to protect you, and I think you blame yourself for her death."

"You're wrong," Stiles said and Dean just shook his head.

"You jumped out of a truck-bed on a bum ankle with a grenade and a half-baked idea on how to kill a subterranean death worm, and you weren’t even scared," he said and the same panicked look from that day was back in Stiles' eyes. "What scared you was that I trusted you enough save my life.”

“Where’s Stiles?” Bobby asked as soon as Dean walked into the house, weapons bag slung over his shoulder not looking up from the book he was carefully reading.

Dean shrugged dropping the bag to the kitchen table and pulling a bottle of beer from the fridge. He nudged the door shut with his foot using his ring to pull the cap of the beer and taking a deep swallow. “Dunno. Wanted to be alone for a while or something.”

Bobby glanced up sharply at that. “Wanted to be alone?”

“Yeah,” Dean replied frowning. Part of him had wanted to follow after Stiles, but another part had told him to start respecting when Stiles asked for space though leaving Stiles alone right now didn’t sit exactly well with him. There was something going on with Stiles, something deeper than Dean or Bobby was aware of at the moment. “He said he needed to think.”

The older hunter sighed setting his pen down and leaning back from the table. “Boy, sometimes I think all the knocks to your head you’ve taken have rattled your brain good.”

“Excuse me?” Dean said.

“You and I saw the same kid after you blew up that worm, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And he was pretty shaken up,” Bobby stated. “And what did you see when we found him in the phone booth?”

Dean shrugged again. “A dude making a phone call?”

“He wasn’t talking to anyone, and he hung up as soon as he saw you without saying goodbye.”

“Which means…”

“That whoever he walked all the way to a payphone to call never picked up,” Bobby said. “So do Stiles a favor and go make sure he knows he’s not alone.”

Dean sighed setting his beer aside and scrubbing his hands through his hair. Bobby raised an eyebrow nodding his head towards the door; Dean knew how to take a hint. “All right, I’m going, I’m going.”

Finding Stiles would be easier said than done because if there was one thing Stiles knew how to do well it was hide. It hadn’t taken Dean long to figure that one out. Even the few times Dean did manage to track the other boy down after he’d slipped off without Dean or Dad noticing, he got the distinct impression Stiles wasn’t really trying to hide. There were other times, though, that he’d disappear for hours only to show back up as if he’d never left. And, with as large as Bobby’s property was, Dean could look all day and still not find Stiles if he was intent on not being found. The junkyard alone offered countless crawlspaces in which to hide, and Dean should know having utilized many himself in his younger years.

Grumbling to himself under his breath Dean started walking aimlessly through the cars, ears pricked for any sound that wasn’t nature or the crunch of gravel and dirt beneath his boots. He scanned the vehicles as he passed eyes tracking to the ground to catch any hint of a trail Stiles may have left. He reached the edge of the junkyard without seeing any sign that anything had come this way. Frowning Dean turned back preparing to take a different route through on the off chance that he’d manage to just stumble upon Stiles. He gave the field and distant a cursory onceover and had just started to walk back towards the house when a thought struck him. 

Dean turned back and set out across the field at an easy jog slowing to a walk once he hit the tree line and continued along the marked path through the trees he’d shown Stiles weeks earlier. He wasn’t at all surprised to find Stiles at the end of it, sat upon what Sam had once called his Think Rock, with his knees pulled up to his chest and head buried in his arms.

Stiles didn’t respond to his approach, and Dean doubted he was even aware until he said, “How’d you find me?”

Dean let out a slow breath coming to stand next to the rock Stiles perched on and looking out over the calm little pond. “Well, you said you needed to think.”

Stiles shifted at that but once again said nothing. Dean cleared his throat unsure what he was supposed to do or say now. He rocked his weight from one foot to the other, buried his hands in his pockets, and listened to the sounds of the forest around them.

“You know I wasn’t lying,” he said finally. “I do trust you. And I do enjoy your company. And I’m, I’m sorry if I upset you with what I said earlier.”

“I just, I want to be alone right now, so can you please leave?” Stiles asked turning his head to the side to look at Dean, voice wrecked and pitiful.

Dean stared at him for a moment taking in the trembling hands, red-rimmed eyes, the way he’d somehow managed to compact his nearly six-foot tall frame into a small ball of something pathetic looking.

“How about this,” he said finally sinking down on the rock next to Stiles close enough that Stiles could reach out if he wanted too but not close enough that Stiles would feel smothered. “I’m going to stay. I’m going to sit here next to you, but I’m not going to touch you or say anything after this. I’m just going to sit here. And when you’re ready we’ll walk back to the house together, okay?”

Stiles didn’t reply, and Dean didn’t really expect him too. He didn’t tell Dean to get lost though, and that was what mattered. So Dean settled himself on the rock, tried to find a position comfortable enough to hold for a lot lime, and waited.

The sun had dropped beneath the trees, casting the world into stark shadows, and the temperature had been steadily approaching the cold side of chilly when Stiles finally shifted and uncurled from the position he’d held for the last few hours. His muscles were stiff; they always were after bouts like these where he escaped the pressure and demands of the world for a while by hiding in his head, though Stiles suspected the cold bite to the air had more to do with it this time than inaction.

Dean sighed shifting to stretch his own legs beside him. Stiles was a little impressed that he’d been able to sit quietly for that long and wondered absently if he’d treated it like a stakeout. “You ready to go back?” Dean asked pitching his voice low so that it didn’t sound overly loud in the quiet clearing.

Stiles contemplated that, scanning the quiet woods around him and imagining the confining walls that awaited him back at the house. “Not really,” he admitted wearily. “But it’s dark and I’m getting cold.”

Dean cocked his head looking thoughtful for a moment before grinning. He stood up, dusting dirt off the seat of his jeans before holding out a hand for Stiles and saying, “I have an idea.”

Stiles accepted the hand up eyeing Dean warily. “Should I be worried?”

“No,” Dean said mock-affronted. “Of course not. Why would you even ask?”

“Well your ideas have about a sixty-three percent return rate for injuries,” Stiles argued even as he obligingly followed Dean along the path back to the house, “so excuse me for being worried.”

Dean just scoffed leading Stiles out of the woods. As they crossed an open field Dean suddenly veered off the path reaching back to drag Stiles along with him. Stiles protested, asking repeatedly where they were going to no avail; Dean simply grabbed his hand and hauled him onward.

Bobby’s house was a small pinpoint of golden light in the distance. Instead of heading towards it they were now walking parallel. Dean continued to ignore Stiles’ questions moving across the field in an arbitrary manner seemingly more interested in looking up at the sky than where they were actually going. Stiles kept his gaze focused on his feet since he seemed to be tripping over a sneaky lump of dirt or grass every few steps; Dean’s grip on his hand was the only thing that kept him from faceplanting into the ground several times.

“Okay, here’s good,” Dean said stopping abruptly and catching Stiles when he ran into the hunter.

“Good?” Stiles said regaining his footing and peering around in confusion. They were standing in the middle of a field with absolutely nothing around as far as he could tell. He couldn’t really make out Dean’s expression in the dark but he had a feeling the hunter was grinning.

“Yep, here’s good,” Dean repeated and he was definitely smiling. He tugged Stiles closer then pointed at the sky. “Look up.”

Stiles sighed but obeyed all the same, leaning his head back and just taking in the sky. It was a cold and clear night so there were no clouds in sight to obscure the partial moon or the stars. They seemed endless, the dark expanse stretching out as far as Stiles could see, and in the silence of the night staring up at them was overwhelmingly peaceful.

“You brought me to see the stars?” Stiles asked softly. He meant his tone to be teasing, but it didn't come out that way.

“Wait here,” Dean said not answering Stiles’ question.

Stiles frowned as Dean started jogging away without any explanation leaving Stiles standing like an idiot in the middle of an empty field. “What?” he called after the hunter. “Wait, why am I waiting here? Dean!”

“Just wait!” Dean hollered back already a hard to pick out shape in the distance. “And don’t move!”

Stiles huffed crossing his arms and bouncing a little in place to try and warm up the chill that was beginning to seep into his bones. He should really have chosen a heavier coat if he was going to be out after dark, but he hadn’t considered that when he left earlier. He looked up at the stars again letting the sparkling lights quiet the restless and anxious feelings inside him. Beacon Hills wasn’t what Stiles would call a big city, it was downright small by some standards, but the amount of stars one could usually see there paled into comparison to the amount scattered across the sky here.

Just as he was starting to get antsy about standing alone in a dark field like a complete and trusting dumbass he heard the crunch of footsteps signifying Dean’s approach. Stiles furrowed his brow as Dean came into focus at a walking pace and with a large bundle of something in his arms.

“What the hell are you doing?” Stiles asked as Dean dropped everything on the ground and began sifting through it.

“Here,” Dean said holding a coat out. Stiles accepted it gratefully pulling it on as Dean started stamping grass down in a rough square. The coat was a bit big, the sleeves falling over his hands and the bottom hanging down over his thighs. It was warm though, so Stiles zipped it up without complaint and burrowed his hands in the pockets as Dean apparently finished stomping the grass to his satisfaction.

“Seriously, dude,” Stiles said, “what are you doing?”

The other bundles turned out to be blankets. Dean spread the first one out carefully then placed something that kind of sounded like a tarp on top of it before setting the last blanket, which was carefully rolled up, at the bottom by his feet and falling back with a sigh as he tucked his arms under his head. After a moment he craned his neck back squinting up at Stiles still standing in confusion above him.

“Are you gonna join me or what?” he asked.

“We’re stargazing,” Stiles concluded and Dean nodded. “Dude, no, we’re gonna freeze.”

“It’s not that cold. It’s fifty-five degrees; you’re the one that’s cold. And plus,” Dean said patting the blankets beneath him so that they crinkled slightly, “heat reflecting blanket. Works like a dream. Trust me, you’ll be plenty warm down here with me.”

Stiles rolled his eyes but sank down onto the blanket beside Dean. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” he said settling down next to the hunter. On the ground like this the sky looked even bigger, stretching from one end of his field of vision to another.

“Got another surprise for you,” Dean said reaching down to the blanket by his feet and drawing out a half full bottle of Jack with a flourish. “I always say if you can’t ignore a problem until it goes away then you drown it in whiskey.”

“Stargazing and alcohol,” Stiles said accepting the bottle and taking a drink before passing it back. “You, mister, are trying to get in my pants, aren’t you? Admit it.”

Dean laughed but shook his head holding the bottle loosely by the neck and swirling it before taking a pull. “Of course not. I’m a gentleman.”

Stiles snorted stealing the bottle again for another drink. “Sure you are.”

They drank in silence for several long minutes, trading the bottle back and forth between them and just staring up at the stars far above them. It was comforting, a silent sort of support without any pressure. It was that, and perhaps a bit of the alcohol, that nudged Stiles into finally talking.

“You know, you’ve asked me a lot of things,” Stiles said, “but there’s one thing you haven’t asked me.”

Dean hummed, long and languid. “What’s that?”

Stiles turned his head to stare at Dean’s profile. “You haven’t asked me about my tattoos,” he said grinning a little as Dean licked his lips in surprise. “I know you saw them that night, but you never asked.”

“Seemed personal,” Dean said clearing his throat a bit.

Stiles scoffed. “And the scar wasn’t?”

“It’s different,” Dean said shifting to meet Stiles’ gaze. “The scar, that’s an injury, that’s a cause. The tattoos, they’re a response. You chose them for a reason. I recognized some of the symbols. They’re protective, wards against evil. And I think why you chose to get those tattoos speaks a lot to what you went through and how you handled it. So they’re personal in a way scars aren’t.”

Stiles swallowed heavily, knitting his brows together and whispering, “Do you want to know?”

Dean sucked in a deep breath, exhaling noisily and glancing back to the stars, a clear indication that he knew what Stiles was asking. Knew Stiles wasn’t just talking about the tattoos. He didn’t reply right away, mulled the question over, before meeting Stiles’ gaze again and saying, “I do.”

“I can’t tell you about my dad,” Stiles said heart stuttering painfully in his chest. His lungs constricted at even the mere idea of talking about what really happened. “I just…I can’t.”

“Stiles, it’s okay,” Dean assured him. “Really. You don’t…you don’t have to talk. About any of it. I want to know, but that’s not why we’re here. It’s not why I’m here.”

“I want to,” Stiles said trying to convince himself as much as Dean and closing his eyes to calm himself down. Missouri's words from what felt like forever ago were echoing in his mind, telling him to let her in, to let someone in.“I want…I don’t really know what I want, but maybe it’ll help to share. A little.”

“Well,” Dean said sighing theatrically and turning on his side to stare at Stiles, his nose mere centimeters from Stiles’ face, “I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”

Stiles stared him, squinting his eyes in blatant skepticism. “No you haven’t.”

“Okay, you’re right. Usually I’m told the opposite,” Dean admitted propping his head in his hand and schooling his features into an expression of attentiveness. “But I’ll listen to you.”

“Can I ask you a question?” Stiles said.

“Sure,” Dean said without missing a beat and smirking a little. “But that will require me to talk instead of listen.”

“What does your necklace mean?”

Dean blinked clearly not having expected that question over everything. “My necklace?” he repeated one hand absently going to the cord around his throat.

“You always wear it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you take it off,” Stiles said softly flicking his gaze down to the pendant then back up to Dean’s face. “You, ah, you play with it sometimes when you’re deep in thought or reading something that you think is really boring. And whenever you talk about Sam you kind of, I don’t know, you pat it. Like you’re reminding yourself it’s still there.”

“You’re kind of freakishly observant, you know that?” Dean said blowing out a long exhale as he settled back down with an arm behind his head, staring up at the stars with a fond smile stretched across his lips. “It was a Christmas present from Sammy when we were kids. Was supposed to go to my dad, but, ah, Sammy gave it to me instead.”

Stiles processed that for a moment then asked, “Why?”

Dean sighed heavily pursing his lips before answering. “Dad didn’t make it back for Christmas that year. Sammy had just found out about the truth of everything and he was, I dunno, he was angry I guess. So he gave it to me instead.”

“So it doesn’t mean anything?”

“It means a lot to me,” Dean said before smiling at Stiles’ eye roll, “but, no, not really. Bobby told Sam it was special, but he’s never said why exactly, just that it’s protective.”

Stiles nodded and turned his gaze back to the stars. It would be easier to talk to them. “You know I’m an only child,” he began twisting the bottle in his hands and sliding his fingers over the cool glass. Dean hummed in affirmation. “Since you’re so interested in keeping things even and I know a little about Sam I guess I should tell you about my brother.”

“Dude, you just said you were an only child,” Dean said puzzled.

Stiles nodded, smiling fondly, and took another drink. “I am. Technically. Scott’s my best friend. He’s been my best friend for years. He’s a bit of a dork, but I love him anyway. Growing up we were…inseparable. My brother from another mother,” he said chuckling lightly. “I met him while my mom was in the hospital. I’d never had that many friends at school, and after my mom got sick I lost the few that I did so after it was just me and Scott against the world.”

“How come?”

“How come what?” Stiles asked.

Dean shrugged, a little awkwardly given his current position, blanket crinkling at the motion. “Why’d you lose your friends?”

“Oh. Well, you know,” Stiles said blowing out a breath and handing the bottle off to Dean when he held a hand out for it, “I was a shitty child. Hyperactive, a little nuts, reckless, forgetful. I got pretty angry when my mom was sick, and I acted out a lot. Then there were the nightmares and the panic attacks and the anxiety. I was not a fun person to be around. But Scotty, he saw me then, at my worst, and when I came out on the other side he was still there. And he’s never left. For the longest time he was all I had aside from my dad.”

“Is Scott…” Dean trailed off and Stiles furrowed his brows in question. “Is he still, uh, alive?”

“Oh,” Stiles said expression clearing with understanding. “Yeah. Scotty’s fine. He’s a tough guy, you know? He’s, he’s handled a lot of shit recently. We all have, but Scott’s, Scott’s always been the strong one, you know? I mean, we’ve both held each other up through a lot of shit over the years, but at the end of the day Scott’s the one who will stay standing and I’m the one who will run.”

“Have you talked to Scott lately?” Dean asked in the following silence. Stiles glanced at him sharply and stole the whiskey back to take a gulp.

“No,” he said hoarsely scrunching his face up as the alcohol burned down his throat and settled heavy in his stomach. “I haven’t talked to Scott in months. Can’t even bring myself to read most of his emails.”

Dean frowned looking like he wanted to take the bottle away, but instead just asked, “Why not?”

“Same reason I never told him I was leaving,” Stiles admitted swirling the whiskey before taking another drink. “I’m afraid that if I talk to Scott he’ll convince me to go home. I think…I think he’s the only one that could right now. If he asked me to go home I think I would,” he said glancing again at Dean. “And then I would probably hate myself and him because I can’t be home right now. I owe Scott a lot, I owe Scott everything, but I can’t be there now.”

Dean didn’t say anything and Stiles took several sips in silence before adding with a hint of sardonic deprecation, “Though after everything I wouldn’t be surprised if Scott never wanted to talk to me again so maybe he wouldn’t convince me to go back. Maybe he’d tell me to stay lost.”

“After everything?” Dean prompted.

“Our lives kinda went to hell lately and when you boil it all down it’s my fault,” Stiles said. “I’m the one that thought it would be fun to get involved. I’m the one that fell short of where I should have. I’m the one that got Allison killed and pretty effectively tore our pa—our friend group apart.”

Dean stole the bottle away, not taking a drink but just holding it. “Scott knew Allison too?”

Stiles snorted falling back to gaze up at the stars. “Intimately,” he said wryly before softening his tone to continue. “Scott and Allison were…they were Scott and Allison. They adored each other and they were the star-crossed lovers of my town destined to be together in spite of everything. Of course it didn’t work out and they’d been split up for a while before she died, but you never, you never love the same way twice, you know? And they stilled loved each other in the end.”

Dean was quiet, the stars were silent far above, and Stiles blew out a slow and careful breath. “He doesn’t blame me,” he said to the stars. It was a painful admission, one that tore at his throat and threatened to suck all the air from his lungs. “He doesn’t, but he should.”

“I don’t think so,” Dean said softly. “You’ve been dealt a shit hand in life. That doesn’t make it your fault.”

Stiles cleared his throat and wiped a hand over his eyes, deciding that was enough honesty for one night and racking his brain for a way to steer the conversation back to safer grounds away the figurative minefield he’d just laid out. “Yeah, well, you know what they say.”

“No,” Dean said tone indicating he was clearly playing along for Stiles’ sake. “What do they say?”

“Life is pain,” Stiles quoted holding a hand up to point seriously at the stars far above them before turning to stare at Dean. “And anyone who says differently—”

“Is selling something,” Dean finished. “And you misquoted that. You didn’t call me ‘highness.’”

“Oh,” Stiles said blithely, “my bad, Buttercup.”

It was silent for a moment; the only sound chirping crickets as he and Dean just stared at each other. Then they both burst out laughing, laughing to the point where they were rolling on the ground and gasping like a pair of children, a sudden shining bubble of light in an otherwise dark and empty field.

Laughing was weird, it felt weird, like something foreign was expanding in his chest and flowing free and light. The weight of everything he’d just said eased off, and the sound of Dean’s laughter, loud and uninhibited, made Stiles breathless and filled him with an almost overwhelming sense of warmth.

Everything was all right for a moment, his life and problems a world away, somewhere far beyond the edges of this field, and all that mattered was him and Dean bathed in the light of the stars. Stiles didn’t think it through, never considered he shouldn’t, just leaned in close and pressed his lips to Dean’s.

The hunter’s lips were cold and chapped, rougher than Stiles expected really not that he’d had any expectations, except that he kind of did from Oklahoma. He shifted closer bringing his hand up to Dean’s cheek and pressing his fingertips along Dean’s jaw, gliding over scratchy stubble and up into Dean’s hair, soft along the nape of his neck and stiffer where he’d used hair gel that morning. He tugged Dean’s head back moving to deepen the kiss more, hungry for the sense of connection and the touch of another person, but Dean pushed him away watching with wide eyes.

“Shit. I’m sorry,” Stiles breathed staring at Dean as he tried to follow his logic for just doing that. His heart was thundering in his chest, for once not out of fear or anxiety, and Stiles reluctantly pulled his hand back immediately missing how grounded he had felt for a moment. “Sorry. I was just, I’m just…” he trailed off and swallowed heavily before saying, “lonely.”

Dean frowned at him, still looking rather startled. “Lonely,” he repeated and it kind of felt like a punch to the gut the way he said it, like it was an excuse or petty reason.

Stiles fell away from Dean, putting distance back between them and staring up at the stars that had been comforting but now just seemed cold and distant. “Sorry,” he repeated again the word tasting sour in his mouth. He squinted at the twinkling lights far above him trying to sort out why he felt like crying all the sudden. The crushing weight was back on his chest, pressing in on him from all directions so he could scarcely draw in any air. He covered his face with his hands, holding his breath so Dean wouldn’t know how close he was to crying just because he was lonely. The word lonely didn’t seem to really cover the clawing empty feeling around his heart, but Stiles didn’t know a better one.

Stiles missed Scott. He missed Lydia and Allison. Hell, he even missed Derek. He missed Isaac and Melissa. He missed his house, the station, and late nights in the cruiser. He missed his dad something awful, so much that even just thinking about him caused something searing and sharp to twist in his stomach. He missed his home and what it used to be, missed who he used to be. He tried not to think about it often, pushed the loneliness and suffocating sense of isolation away out of his mind, and for the most part he was successful. But out here in the crisp air, under the stars, with Dean pressed warm next him, something inside him broke. Stiles had been lonely a lot in his life, but it had never felt quite like this. Never this crushing, never this agonizing, never this absolute because he’d always had someone. But now he was alone, states away from anyone who knew the real him, and so fucking lonely.

“Hey,” Dean said pulling Stiles’ hands from his face, propped up on one elbow and peering down at Stiles kindly, words warm and whispered like a secret. “Hey, Stiles, you’re not alone anymore, okay? You’re not.”

He leaned down to press his lips to Stiles’ again, slowly deepening the kiss as he cupped Stiles’ jaw and slid a hand into his hair. Stiles clutched at him, threading his fingers through the short hairs at the nape of Dean’s neck as he shifted closer. There was a small voice in the back of his head telling him this was a bad idea—exactly zero relationships between hunters and anyone he knew ended in anything other than tears or betrayal—but he ignored it. Stiles didn’t want to break this connection, didn’t want to push away the first feeling of something really good, something untainted by the usual darkness that swirled through him, that he’d felt in a long time.

He wanted to feel warm. He wanted to feel alive. He wanted to feel anything other than cold and empty and lost. He wanted to feel seen.

Chapter Text

The Call

There was a light breeze drifting over his face, just a hint of chill to the air. Stiles’ nose was cold but overall he was warm, hands tangled in the blankets that were bunched under him, while whatever he was resting on rose and fell gently beneath him. Stiles blinked, confusion flooding through him initially as he took in the swaying blades of grass and pale blue sky on the horizon. After a moment he realized that the warm thing he was lying on was breathing and after yet another moment he realized the warm, breathing thing was Dean.

Stiles untangled his fingers from Dean’s coat and sat up abruptly trying to muddle through his memories of last night. They were a bit fuzzy, but Stiles was pretty sure he’d kissed Dean and then nearly broke down crying about how lonely he was only for Dean to kiss him back. At which point Stiles had caved to his desire for human contact that he’d been avoiding for the better part of the last five months before actually breaking down into a pathetic crying fit about how damn lonely he was.

“Fuck,” Stiles whispered shoving his hands through his hair. Dean groaned, shifting in his sleep, and Stiles froze thinking he just wasn’t ready to deal with this yet. Luckily Dean settled down again without waking up.

Stiles slid off the blankets with care wincing at the slight crackling of the heating blanket as he moved. He paused after he was off, crouched in the grass and watching Dean closely in case Stiles’ movements had disturbed him. Dean continued to sleep peacefully, and Stiles back carefully away one slow step at a time until he was far enough away that Dean would definitely not hear him.

He stumbled over a well-concealed divot in the ground just managing to not faceplant in the grass and grimacing as his ankle smarted. Regaining his footing he adjusted his course with a more definitive destination in mind. He picked out the highest point, a stack of cars four high, and clambered up to the top with minimal difficulty.

Up here he had a good vantage point for the rest of the junkyard, Bobby’s house, and out over the surrounding fields. It was quiet, still early morning, and Stiles assumed Dean had told Bobby something about the two of them staying in the field because the hunter wasn’t out and about looking for them. He settled down on the roof of the top car, feeling as if he was swallowed whole by the blue of the sky above him. He couldn’t decide if it felt like he was secure in the peacefulness or drowning in the emptiness. At any rate it let him avoid reality below him at the moment even if he'd have to deal with it eventually.

He'd had a good, if slightly rocky, arrangement going with the Winchesters. Of course he would go and screw everything up. His only consolation was the fact that, while he may have destroyed every carefully cultivated thing since he found Dean and John in Philadelphia, he hadn't spill his guts and lay out every dirty secret to the hunter.

Stiles groaned, closing his eyes and pressing the palms of his hands against them in an effort to reduce the building headache he could already feel coming. Maybe he’d get really, really lucky and somehow Dean wouldn’t remember anything.

Him being lucky. Ha. That’d be a first.

Dean groaned throwing an arm over his face to block out the bright light before rolling over to bury his head under the pillow. The non-existent pillow because for some reason there was nothing under his head. Dean blinked pushing himself up a bit and staring at the blades of grass a few feet in front of his face in confusion before the pieces clicked together.

He scrambled up to a sitting position furrowing his brows as he realized he was alone on the blankets and in the field by the looks of it. Stiles had evidently woken before him and slipped off. Whether that was because he generally preferred to be alone at times or because Dean had made the colossal mistake of making out with the kid last night he wasn’t sure.

Dean wasn’t in the habit of making out with people he considered friends. In fact, he generally made a habit of avoiding it; although that rule wasn’t hard to keep when the few people he considered friends also happened to fall under categories such as Older Than My Taste or Family. The truth of the matter was that most people tended to fall into Civilian or Conquest, though in many cases they fell under both, and Dean could honestly say Stiles seemed to fall in an entirely new category that was as of yet unexplored. Because Stiles was a friend but Dean had spent the better part of last night stomping all over the line that separated platonic from more-than-platonic.

And Dean had no idea how to deal with that. Not really.

Dean liked Stiles. A lot. In many ways from Let Me Buy You A Drink to Let’s Go Gank A Wendigo, and last night had been enjoyable in, again, many different ways. There was something warm and satisfied in Dean’s chest knowing Stiles had confided in Dean even just a little. It was strange to think that what Stiles told him last night about his friend Scott held more weight than what Stiles had shared about his mother, but it did. And when one considered the admission of loneliness, well, it was the most solid demonstration of trust he’d gotten so far. And Dean had never been one to turn down a chance of mutual carnal pleasure, but with Stiles seeming like he was two seconds from shaking apart under Dean’s hands, and definitely not in a good way, the paramount feeling Dean had experienced was concern and a yearning desire to do whatever Stiles needed him to do to feel grounded.

He pushed himself to his feet raising a hand to shade his eyes from the sun as he scanned the field. As expected it was empty, no sign of Stiles in the general vicinity. Resigning himself to the fact that he wouldn’t be seeing Stiles for several hours Dean gathered the blankets and now mostly empty bottle before beginning the trek back to the house. He’d give Stiles some time to do his own thing before trying to track him down or call.

Dean resolved to not spend any energy worrying about Stiles until later, instead thinking about things he should probably try to accomplish today after getting something greasy to eat and maybe a pot of coffee in him. He was part way through weighing the pros and cons of actually trying to fix that old ford in Bobby’s garage and just breaching the edge of the junkyard when a quiet voice above him said, “Dean.”

There were few things in the world that managed to actually startle him, but hearing his name being called from about twenty feet above his head completely out of the blue was one thing that did. Dean jerked back, nearly dropping everything in the process, and rolled his eyes to mask the relief at the sight of Stiles’ face peeking out over the edge of a dilapidated Plymouth.

“What the hell are you doing up there?” Dean demanded.

Stiles shrugged, arching his eyebrows briefly. “Just thinking.”

“Do you maybe wanna come down here?” Dean said wishing he could make out more of Stiles’ expression, but it was hard to discern Stiles’ features with the bright sky behind him casting him in stark shadow. “We can think together.”

Stiles didn’t answer, just pulled back so he was once again out of sight. Dean sighed taking that as a refusal. He had only taken a few more steps when the cars creaked behind him, and he turned around in time to see Stiles slide off the Plymouth, catch himself on the door, and drop gently to the ground with a faint wince.

“Can I ask you a question?” Stiles said and it was such a turnaround from the usual that Dean actually took a moment to answer.

“Yeah, sure,” he said finally spreading his arms wide. “Go for it. I’m an open book.”

“Why do you trust me?”

There was a beat of silence as Dean dropped his arms back to his sides and they just stared at each other.“You don't ask easy questions, do you?” he said blowing out a slow breath as he contemplated the question. Stiles seemed to realize the question was more rhetorical than not, simply waiting quietly while Dean thought.

“You know, my dad is a suspicious bastard on the best of days,” Dean said finally. “I am too. We don’t trust easily. But I have good instincts about people, and I know a good person when I see one. I don’t know everything and I know that there are a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to you, but you’re a solid hunter. You have my back, and I’ve got yours, so I trust you.”

“Well,” Stiles said after a moment, ducking his head as he licked his lips and smiled briefly but genuinely, “clearly you’re a terrible judge of character.”

Dean chuckled and shook his head with a small grin. “No,” he said wishing Stiles didn’t sound like he believed his own words so much and aiming to surpass that conviction in his tone so that maybe Stiles would believe him instead, “I’m not.”

“I thought you said you were gonna stargaze not sleep in the field,” Bobby said once they’d finished breakfast and Stiles had slipped off upstairs somewhere, probably to take a shower before he and Dean started their day. Dean had stayed behind, helping clear the table and starting the dishes while Bobby had topped off his coffee and observed Dean quietly for a few moments before making his comment.

Dean stilled for a second, glancing at Bobby from the corner of his eye as if to gauge the older man's intent then scoffed, arching an eyebrow. “Since when were you my father?” he asked.

Bobby scowled, not appreciating that statement for a variety different reasons, several he consciously chose not to contemplate. “I’m just making an observation. No need to get defensive.”

Dean glanced at Bobby again in that same deliberating manner. “We didn’t really mean to fall asleep,” he said which wasn’t really an answer.

“Sure,” Bobby agreed taking another swallow of coffee and muttering under his breath just to see Dean's reaction, “Stargazing, my ass.”

Dean cursed as a plate slipped through his fingers and landed with a splash in the soapy water sending suds all over the front of Dean’s t-shirt along with a healthy dose of hot water. “Why do you care what we were doing anyway?” he demanded trying to push as much of the water puddled on the counter back into the sink. 

Bobby eyed him speculatively then handed over a towel. “He just seems different this morning. Figured your stargazing had something to do with it.”

“Different?” Dean repeated in a tone that suggested he had noticed but hoped Bobby hadn’t. He halted his futile efforts to dry his shirt and set the towel aside. “Different how?”

“Subdued yet happier somehow,” Bobby said leaning his hip against the counter and continuing to pin Dean with a shrewd look. He wouldn’t say the boy had looked better; he was still quiet, still seemed like he was being crushed under the weight of the world and falling apart under the pressure. But there had been a shift, a shift in dynamics perhaps, that Bobby had noted prior to the Mongolian worm hunt but seemed far more present now than before.

“We talked,” Dean said going back to the dishes with the interest of someone trying to avoid a conversation. “And we may have divested you of some of your alcohol stash.”

Bobby shook his head, he shouldn’t be surprised, and cast his gaze skyward silently asking why he continued to put up with all of this before saying, “Is that all?”

“Yes,” Dean replied fingers clenching around slick glass as the skeptical look Bobby gave him caused a slight flush to rise on the back of his neck. It was a sure sign that the boy was hiding something, a tell he was good at concealing unless it came to Bobby or John. “What else do you think happened?”

“Did you tell him about Argent? Or that we know?” Bobby asked.

Dean sighed, letting the cup he was holding slide back into the sink. “No,” he said and Bobby was relieved to hear raw honesty in the word, “of course not. But, Bobby, we have to tell him that we know. The longer we keep this from him the more he’s gonna feel betrayed when he finds out.”

“I understand that,” Bobby said, withholding that information from Stiles wasn’t on his list of things he wanted to do either, “but I don’t think now is a good time—”

“When is the damn time?” Dean interrupted.

“Look, Dean, your dad is not on a hunt, all right?” Bobby said holding a hand out to keep Dean quiet. John would probably blow a gasket when he found out Bobby once again filled Dean in where John hadn’t bothered too, but Dean needed to know. Bobby couldn’t be responsible for keeping both boys in the dark, especially when Dean was liable to make his own decision on the matter if he wasn't brought in on John's plan. “We’ll tell Stiles soon, but for now we wait.”

Dean frowned, brows knitting together as he no doubt started putting the pieces together on his own even as he asked, “What do you mean Dad’s not on a hunt?”

“He’s trying to track down Argent. We picked up a trail in Boston, and it won’t be long before Argent follows Stiles’ trail to us. John’s tryin’ to get to Argent before Argent gets to Stiles,” Bobby explained.

“Dad’s going after Argent,” Dean said before exhaling and dragging one hand down over his mouth. He scoffed. “And he wants us to keep our mouths shut until he gets back.”

Bobby inclined his head. “I don’t disagree with him. Once we know Argent isn’t a threat anymore, then we tell Stiles.”

“You don’t think Stiles deserves to know now?” Dean asked something like accusation darkening his tone. It was a tone he’d never use with his father and, rather than be annoyed, Bobby was relieved Dean felt comfortable enough to use it with him.

“I absolutely think Stiles deserves to know,” he said continuing on with a sigh when Dean furrowed his brows in confusion again. “But I also think that, if we tell Stiles, there’s a chance he’ll run again. And I’d rather have him safe here with us than on his own, wouldn’t you?”

And the expression on Dean's face when he looked at Bobby answered the question clearly even if he said nothing at all.

“Hey,” Dean said softly pleased when Stiles didn’t startle, just simply tilted his head back to offer Dean a faint impression of a smile.

“Hey yourself,” he said as Dean joined him.

“You didn’t jump that time,” the hunter noted and Stiles huffed out a short laugh knocking his shoulder into Dean’s.

“I was listening for the door this time," he said.

“Not looking for inner focus?”

“Nah,” Stiles said glancing at him briefly from under his lashes before darting his gaze away. “Figure that’s a good as gone for a while. Gonna take me a little bit to get it back.”

“How are you feeling?” Dean asked after a moment following the disclosure.

“Bit sore,” Stiles answered. “But okay. Should be right back up to speed soon. Maybe we can do some actual sparring tomorrow. I want to try out what you showed me today.”

Dean pursed his lips shrugging slightly. “Glad to hear and we definitely will. That’s not what I meant though.”

Stiles glanced at him again. “We still on the honesty train?” he asked.

“I don't think we ever got off,” Dean said pointing at the sky. “I mean, look, there’s still stars.”

Stiles rolled his eyes. “It’s cloudy tonight,” he said and for a moment Dean thought that would be it. That Stiles would close himself off again, refuse to offer Dean any insight. But instead he took a deep breath, resolutely kept his gaze to the stars and said, “I feel shitty. I just…I miss everyone and everything a lot. So damn much that it feels like it’s tryin’ to crush my chest so I can hardly even breathe and everything is just being devoured.”

“You’re homesick,” Dean said in the following silence and if it sounded a bit like a question then it was probably because Dean wasn’t sure he knew how that felt. He’d heard people talk about feeling homesick and when he was younger people had always asked him if he was homesick when he moved somewhere new, but Dean had never felt the way most people described it. His home had always been Sammy and Dad; if he was with them then he was home. He supposed, though, that the hollow pit in his stomach and ache in his heart he’d nursed for weeks after Sam left was something similar.

Stiles slowly drew his long legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and resting his cheek against his knee. “Yeah, I guess,” he murmured. “You know, I’ve never been this far from home. Never been gone so long. I’ve never even left my house without my damn pillow as some sort of security blanket,” he paused, laughing a bit hysterically. “I’ve still never left my house without my pillow. Scott used to tease the hell out of me for it, and my dad’s convinced I can’t sleep without it. And, you know, he’s not wrong, ‘specially now.”

Dean blinked at the admission; mind zeroing in first on the use of present tense in regards to Stiles’ dad before getting hung up on the fact that Stiles had a pillow. It was almost surreal that a person could have a pillow that was exclusively theirs. Dean himself had a miniscule amount of things that he could consider only his, most of his belongings either being shared or secondhand. That fact of their lifestyle had been a point of contention with Sam but had never really bothered Dean. He’d never understood fully, never grasped that it might be a concept of security or comfort over stubbornness. “That’s why you have that pillow,” he said and it finally made sense why Stiles religiously replaced every pillow including the one at Bobby’s with his own, “that’s your pillow.”

Stiles smiled wanly. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

Dean nodded slowly, worrying at his bottom lip for several minutes while they sat in the quiet of the night before saying, “Can I ask you a question?”

Stiles scoffed shaking his head. “Man, I wish you’d stop asking me that question.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s not a no.”

Dean let the silence sit for a moment, let it settle down around them. “When’s the last time you talked to someone you trusted? Like really trusted. And, no, I don’t count.”

The glint in Stiles’ eyes as he glanced toward the hunter told Dean he’d headed off the flippant response Stiles would have given. As it was Stiles blew out a soft breath thinking it over before answering truthfully. “I don’t know. November, I guess.”

“That’s a long time to be on your own,” Dean said counting back the months in his head. Right around half a year.

Stiles shrugged, pulling his knees closer to his chest. “I guess.”

“It is,” Dean insisted. “I couldn’t…look, I know what it feels like to be on high alert. Dad and Bobby, they’re safe people for me. When I’m with them I know someone has my back, I’m confident that whatever goes down, someone will help me get out of it, and I know that ten times out of ten they do things with my best interest in mind. I’ve been on hunts with people I didn’t trust, with people my dad didn’t trust, and it’s hell keeping on high alert.”

“Hypervigilance,” Stiles said sounding as if he was repeating something he’d heard once. “The persistent feeling of being under threat.”

Dean nodded. “When’s the last time you felt safe?”

“Like really safe?” Stiles asked as if he found the question particularly ironic. “I don’t remember. Maybe when I walked in those woods with Scott that night. Maybe that was the end. Or the beginning.”

“What happened in the woods?” The question was out of Dean’s mouth before he really though about it, and he instinctively knew he’d stepped over some invisible line even before the sharp look Stiles sent him attested to his distaste at being asked. “Nevermind, you don’t have to answer that,” Dean said backtracking quickly and stumbling his way through his next words. “I didn’t…I mean I’m curious, I am. And I said I wanted to know, but I want to know when you want to tell me. And I want you to know that whenever you want to talk, about anything, or not talk if that’s something you want, uh, I’ll be here.”

Stiles looked at him with something heavy in his gaze, a measuring look that assessed Dean on some innate level. “Dean, I appreciate that, I really do. But it’s, it’s not…” he trailed off, face pinching in an expression of frustration.

“It’s not enough. It’s not the same,” Dean finished.

Stiles nodded, seeming relieved that Dean understood, and, really, how could a hunter not? They all came with the tragic backstory and individualized off-limit topics that should never be pushed.

“It’s just, there’s just too much history you don’t know,” Stiles said. “And I can’t, I can’t tell you everything.”

“You’re right. But for the record,” Dean said quietly picking at the seam in his jeans, “I understand. Maybe I don’t get everything, and maybe I never will so I can’t offer you that. But I do understand one part at least.”

“What part?”

Dean inhaled deeply, shoring up his walls that he’d let down for reasons he couldn't quite explain and squinting into the sunlight to avoid looking at the boy beside him. “I understand what it’s like to feel alone,” he said. “Even when you’re surrounded by people.”

Stiles stared at him, eyes going shiny as he looked away and bit his lip. He swiped his fingers over his eyes, laughing shortly as he buried his face in his hands.

“What’s so funny?” Dean asked and Stiles shook his head.

“Nothing,” he said, sniffing loudly. “I just wish I could go like two days without crying for once. It’s totally uncool.”

Dean smiled faintly at that, deliberating just for a moment before reaching out to drop an arm over Stiles’ shoulders. Stiles fell into him without complaint, sighing into the contact as he leaned against Dean’s chest. “You will,” he said rubbing his hand over Stiles’ shoulder. “Eventually. You know, maybe in a few years. Oh, we could get you one of those incidents counting calendars. The ones that are like ‘it’s been zero days since I last cried’ so we can keep track of—”

He was cut off with an audible and forced exhale as Stiles smacked him hard in the chest.

“Shut up, asshole,” Stiles griped but he didn’t pull away, and Dean could tell without needing to look that he was smiling.

“I should get used to finding you up and about at all hours,” Bobby said dryly unsurprised to see Stiles sitting at the kitchen table when the hunter came down for a drink. What was surprising, however, was that Stiles was sitting at the table in the dark doing nothing. Usually the boy was occupied with some activity, likely to help keep himself awake.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Stiles said as Bobby got himself a glass of water leaning against the counter to sip at it while considering the boy.

Stiles had been a bit standoffish with him lately, ever since John had brought him back from seeing Missouri. Bobby figured he must have assumed, and correctly so, that Bobby knew where John intended to take him from the start. And if he thought of it like that then John wasn’t the only one who had taken advantage of Stiles’ trust.

“You know,” Bobby started, “as a general rule hunters tend to have unhealthy coping methods. I’m man enough to admit to using the old shot or two of whiskey before bed to help with the whole sleeping thing myself.”

“In my experience that has mixed results,” Stiles replied with an underlying note of bitterness, and Bobby had to wonder if those mixed results were with himself or someone else.

“I wasn’t suggesting you start down the road to functional alcoholism,” Bobby said. “I was just suggesting there might be things to help you sleep.”

“Somehow I don’t think benzodiazepines or trazodone will be particularly helpful in my case.”

“Prescription sedatives are not what I’d suggest starting with,” Bobby commented draining the last of the water from his glass and joining Stiles at the table.

Stiles rolled his eyes. “Really? And what would you suggest?”

“Look, far be it from me to press you to open up about anything, but you seem to be having a harder time now than before,” Bobby said.

Stiles smiled wanly. “No thanks to you and John-boy.”

“You have every right to be bitter about what John did,” Bobby said without missing a beat and something like confirmation flickered across Stiles' face.

“So you did know,” Stiles said and Bobby inclined his head. Stiles sighed fiddling with the phone on the table before him. “How much do you know?”

“Know?” the older hunter repeated because the stress Stiles had laid on the word indicated an importance beyond knowing about Missouri.

Stiles tapped at his phone for a moment then held it up, bright screen facing Bobby and glaring in the dim light of the kitchen. After a moment Bobby’s voice sounded from the tinny speakers. He recognized the voicemail, of course he did, but what he didn’t understand was how Stiles had it.

“Mr. Stilinski, This is Pete Lovell from the Beacon Hills Police Department. We’ve come across some new information regarding your missing nephew, Stiles—”

Stiles cut off the voicemail arching a questioning eyebrow. “Must be a hell of a commute to the BHSD from here."

“You don’t have an uncle, do you?” Bobby asked at length after the pieces had fallen into place.

“As far as the government is concerned I do,” Stiles said flatly.

“Why make up an uncle?”

“Do you know a better way to keep in touch without actually keeping in touch?” Stiles asked arching one challenging eyebrow. “And you didn’t answer my question. You see, at first I thought maybe you had it all figured out, but then I realized you couldn’t have. Because if you did, then you would have known that Aaron Stilinski is nothing more than a faux paper trail. How’d you get this number?”

“You know, you have a lot of people worried about you,” Bobby said instead of answering outright. In a round about way it was the truth too; Bobby didn’t need to mention he’d have never made it to Beacon Hills without a last name to go on.

Stiles didn’t rise to the bait of mentioning friends and family. “You saw my face on a milk carton, is that it? Poor missing Stiles, where has he gone? No note, car’s gone, he could have died. Is that what you’re thinking?”

“I think that’s what a lot of people are thinking, yes.”

Stiles tapped his fingers on the table slowly then stood up, tucking the phone back into his pocket. “I’m an adult, Bobby. And I left on my own free will. They can’t make me go back,” he said moving to stride from the room.

“You weren’t,” Bobby said causing Stiles to halt just as he passed by as if waiting for Bobby to clarify. “You weren’t an adult when you left.”

“In every way that counted,” Stiles said. “Age is just a number. We might have been a bunch of teenagers, but we weren’t kids anymore.”

Chapter Text

The Call

“Uh, I think…I think I need to apologize,” Dean began scratching at the back of his neck as Stiles quirked an eyebrow at him while they circled each other slowly ready to begin another round of sparring. Stiles was doing well considering his present injuries, and had proven incredibly adept at disarming opponents.

“Why?”

“Uh, well, because of the other night,” Dean said tone tapering off so it sounded like a question at the end. Stiles seemed confused, halting his movements and simply squinting at Dean like his explanation didn’t make any sense. “I mean, I know you kissed me first, but I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you like that. You were, ah, pretty drunk.”

Stiles sighed, dropping completely out of his at ready pose as he ran his fingers through his hair almost like he was trying to smooth it out but only succeeded in disheveling it further. “Don’t worry about it. Really. Like you said, I kissed you first, and I really wasn’t that drunk,” he said crossing over to the table to snatch up a bottle of water.

“Its not just that,” Dean said licking his lips and shifting his weight uncomfortably. For some reason it was harder to address when Stiles wasn’t looking at him. He closed his eyes deciding to just put at least part of it out there whether Dad or Bobby would approve. “It’s uh, look, I know you lied about your age.”

Stiles looked at him sharply, water bottle poised on his lips and frozen in surprise. “What? No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. Oh come on, I know you’re not twenty,” Dean said at Stiles’ affronted expression. “I know you’re seventeen. You’re, you’re basically statutory jailbait. And I made out with you in a field. Not that it’s a really big deal, but I just feel like because I didn’t tell you that I knew and I mean technically—”

“I’m eighteen,” Stiles said unimpressed screwing the cap back on the water bottle with short, abrupt gestures.

Dean scowled. “You can’t retcon this by just changing your mind—”

Stiles pinched his eyebrows together mouthing Dean’s word choice before rolling his eyes. “Dean, I’m eighteen,” he repeated interrupting the hunter once again. “I turned eighteen at the beginning of April.”

Dean paused, mouth hanging open mid-rant before revising his statement and saying lamely, “You didn’t tell me you had a birthday.”

Stiles shrugged glancing at the ground and digging the toe of his shoe into the dirt. “It wasn't important.”

It was actually, but Dean wasn’t going to push that right now. “So when was it?” he asked.

“In April,” Stiles said slowly raising a single eyebrow and resuming his at ready position beckoning Dean forward with his hand.

“No, dude, the date specifically,” Dean said settling his hands on his hips and ignoring Stiles’ attempt to avoid the conversation. “Another moment of honesty here, when’s your birthday?”

“April eighth nineteen ninety-four,” Stiles said with a sigh as he dropped his hands. “It was a Friday, I was born at two fifty-six in the morning three weeks before my due date, and my mom called me peanut for four months because my head was shaped weird. Happy?”

Dean was silent a beat gathering his thoughts as they moved through several forms then, “Full disclosure, I've seen you drenched so I know your head is still kinda shaped weird.”

“Oh for the love of God,” Stiles cried dropping his head into his hands as he groaned, but when he looked back at Dean he was smiling slightly. “You’re unbelievable. You know that?”

Dean nodded returning a grin of his own. “I have been informed on numerous occasions.”

“And, for the record, even if I was seventeen the age of consent in South Dakota is sixteen so it wouldn’t be illegal for you and I to hook up,” Stiles said looking contemplative as he tilted his head back to observe the sky, squinting in the bright light of the sun. “I think it’d be a corruption of a minor charge if anything.”

“In California the age of consent is eighteen,” Dean commented absently.

Stiles blinked, redirecting his gaze to regard Dean with a calculating look. “What’s California got to do with anything?”

“Nothing,” Dean said quickly and internally running off a litany of swears. Usually he was pretty good at keeping track of things other people shouldn’t know; Lord knew he had more than enough practice with Sam and Dad growing up. There was something about Stiles, though, that threw him off kilter. Maybe it was the odd shift in his gut every time he lied to Stiles, the lead weight that settled in and told him Stiles had been hurt enough in his life without Dean lying to him. Or maybe it was the way Stiles always seemed to know more than he let on, always seemed to be able to read Dean and tell when he was lying even if he wasn’t sure what Dean was lying about.

Whatever the reason keeping the fact that he knew about Stiles and his dad and Beacon Hills was becoming more difficult as time went on even if Dean understood why he needed to keep his mouth shut. They needed to tell Stiles what they knew but dumping it on him now would probably result in Stiles running as far as possible as quickly as he could. “I was just…pointing out some states still have age of consent at eighteen,” Dean added.

Stiles pursed his lips, eyes narrowed like he suspected far more than he was admitting, and considered that for a long moment before saying, “Ten do. Eight have it at seventeen. And the remaining thirty-two have it at sixteen.”

Dean let out a small sigh of relief, shaking his head a bit. “Why do you know that off the top of your head?” he asked. “Or, better yet, why am I not surprised that you know that off the top of your head?”

“I know a lot of random things off the top of my head. I could give you a complete history of male circumcision if you’d like.”

“Nope,” Dean said shaking his head more empathetically. “Do not need to hear that. I’m good.”

“It’s actually quite interesting,” Stiles said. “How about the mating habits of the loxodonta africana?”

“The what now?”

Stiles smirked at him waggling his eyebrows in a way that should not be physically possible. “The sex life of an African elephant.”

“I think I’ll pass,” Dean replied wrinkling his nose a little.

“Your loss then,” Stiles said shrugging a the conversation lapsed to a halt. He paused, staring out across the field before raising a hand to rub uncomfortably at the back of his neck. “Uh,” he started a faint flush coloring his neck. “You know, I wondering if, I mean, are you, do you like, um, I was just wondering—”

In spite of his amusement at Stiles’ sudden stuttering Dean finally said, “Dude, just spit it out.”

Stiles took a deep breath, visibly gathering himself. “I just wanted to ask if you were attracted to, I mean, do you, do you…” he trailed off giving his head a slight shake before finishing in a rush, “doyoufindmeattractive?”

Dean blinked, thrown enough by the question that he was sure it showed on his face. Because one would generally assume the occurrence in the field answer that question well enough. “Um.”

Stiles flushed, scrubbing his hands through his hair as he shook his head. “No, that’s not…I didn’t mean, I just.” He covered his mouth, closing his eyes to center himself before asking carefully, “Did you kiss me just because you felt sorry for me? Because I know I'm a little pathetic right now, but I really don't want pity kisses or something.”

“Honestly?” Dean said and Stiles’ expression fell a little at that. “Kind of. There were a lot of reasons including me feeling bad and finding you, uh, attractive. But mostly you just, you seemed to need it. And I, uh, I know what that feels like to, um, to want to feel close to someone.”

Stiles bit his lip, a heavy look in his eyes before he glanced away and cleared his throat obviously as uncomfortable as Dean was at the moment. “So you really think I’m attractive?” he asked finally quirking an amused eyebrow, but there was an underlying lilt to his words like he doubted Dean.

Dean shrugged keeping his tone light as he answered. “Sure. You’ve got that whole wide-eyed, gangly-limbed Bambi thing going on. Lots of guys dig that.”

Stiles stared at him a few seconds with an odd look on his face then smiled faintly. “I think you’re the only person to ever answer me.”

“What?”

“I’ve asked a lot of people if they thought I was attractive,” Stiles said. “An embarrassing amount actually. You’re the only one who’s ever answered me. Granted most people probably thought I was joking so they didn’t intentionally blow me off but still. Scott never answered me, and I asked this one kid at my school who is gay so he should know, right? Totally ignored me. I fell out of my seat for that one.”

Dean laughed, surprised both at the sudden and freely offered bit of knowledge and the almost fondly reminiscing tone at the end. “That’s terrible.”

“Eh, it was high school,” Stiles said. “Isn’t everything terrible there?”

“You know that’s right,” Dean answered glancing towards the house as the telltale screech announced Bobby was pushing open the door.

The older hunter stepped out wiping his hands on a towel as he called across the yard. “Come on inside, boys! Need a hand with a few thing before we get started on dinner!”

Dean waved to let Bobby know he’d heard before turning back to Stiles who was watching Bobby reenter the house with a pensively calculating look. “Guess we’re done for the day,” he said narrowing his eyes slightly. “Is there something going on with you and Bobby?”

Stiles sniffed indifferently grabbing the bottles of water off the table. “No, course not. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Dean said. “You just seem, I dunno, leery lately.”

Stiles sighed and Dean noted he didn’t actually respond to that. Just patted Dean on the shoulder as he brushed by and said, “Come on, we should go see what he needs.”

“Bobby, what the hell is all of this?” Dean asked scrunching his nose up as he took in the stacks of file boxes lined up in the hallway.

Bobby scoffed shifting a few of the boxes around. “Well, while you two were playing in the dirt I went through and organized a bunch of stuff from my files. I’d appreciate some help taking this stuff down to the basement.”

“No problem,” Dean said grabbing the box nearest to him and disappearing down the stairs mumbling something about hoarders and packrats.

Bobby rolled his eyes, paused a moment then nodded towards Stiles. “If you don’t mind there’s one last stack of folders on my desk that need put in that box there.”

“Sure,” Stiles said snagging the indicated box and setting it on the desk before beginning to slide the stack of manila folders in a few at a time. He glanced at the tabs as he did so not at all surprised to see a variety of creature names and lore references. Thumbing through a few of them while Dean and Bobby made several trips downstairs he found a collection of articles and hand written notes. Near the middle of the stack one of the folders caught his attention. It was older, yellowed more with age and full of newspaper clippings. What really caught his attention though was the words on the tab—Haunting? Glen Capri. Heart beating a little faster in his chest, Stiles flicked the folder open thumbing through the newspaper clippings with a growing sense of dread and stopping at a black and white photograph of the motel that was etched firmly in his memory. 

“Problem, Stiles?” Bobby asked behind him, and Stiles jumped clutching the folder to his chest as he spun around.

“No,” he said forcing a facsimile of smile and setting the file in the box to head of Bobby's concern an suspicion. “Almost done.”

Bobby narrowed his eyes a bit but just nodded before moving to fetch another box. Stiles took the moment he was turned away to yank the Glen Capri folder from the box and shove it under the couch cushion moving back to placing the rest of the folders in the box just as Bobby was facing him again. Bobby hefted two boxes up with a grunt mumbling under his breath as the phone began to ring.

“Stiles, you mind grabbing that?” the older hunter asked jerking his head toward the ringing phone, waiting for Stiles' affirmative nod before leaving the room once more.

Stiles picked up the phone answering it absently as he tucked it between his head and shoulder and returned to packing the box. “Hello?”

“Mr. Singer?”

“Uh, no, but I can get him for you,” Stiles said sliding the last folder in and frowning as he tried to place the familiar voice. He tucked the box against his hip, grunting a little at the unexpected weight, and headed for the stairs. “Who is this?”

“Chris Argent. I called a few days ago. Listen—”

Dropping the box of folders with an heavy thud and hanging up on Chris halfway through his sentence was probably the least subtle way to handle it, but Stiles panicked. His heart thundered in his chest as he stared at the phone like it was some sort of alien creature in his hand, Chris’ words echoing in his mind.

I called a few days ago.

Fuck.

Bobby frowned at the loud bang from upstairs that sounded like something solid hitting the floor, sharing a puzzled look at Dean as he handed over the last box he’d been carrying and headed back up the stairs. “Stiles?” he called. “Who was it?”

Stiles was standing in the center of the hallway staring at the phone in his hand like it’d grown two heads, the box of files spilled at his feet. Bobby’s frown deepened, narrowing his eyes as Stiles remained silent, a frantic look on his face like he was trying to work out a plausible lie.

“Uh, it was, uh,” he stuttered out glancing between Bobby and the phone. “It was just, he, uh…”

And there was only one person—one he—that could have reduced Stiles to a stumbling mess that looked frankly frightened. “Balls,” Bobby said pulling his cap off to run a hand through his hair before tugging it back on again. “It was Argent, wasn’t it?” The deer in headlights expression on Stiles’ face confirmed it without doubt. “Damnit. I said I’d call him, not for him to call me.”

“He called you,” Stiles repeated faintly. “And you were gonna call him back.”

“No,” Bobby said. “No. I wasn’t, not like that.”

Stiles squinted at him, a look Bobby had come to associate with him putting the pieces together, but he didn’t seem to be really listening to Bobby. “That’s how you figured it out,” he said taking a step back when Bobby moved forward. “How much do you know?”

“Argent gave me your name when he called,” Bobby said. “It wasn’t hard to figure it out from there.”

The boy bit his lip gaze darting from Bobby to the door behind him. “How much?” he demanded again.

“Stiles, I will gladly explain everything, I will. But first I need you to tell me exactly what Argent said to you on the phone.”

“Not until you tell me how much you know!”

Bobby looked up as gravel crunched in the driveway and Rumsfield started barking. He held a hand out, motioning for Stiles to stay where he was as Bobby moved to the window pulling the curtain back just enough to peek through. A black SUV had pulled up, rolling to a gentle stop as Bobby watched, and he may have never met Chris Argent but there was no mistaking the man that climbed out of the driver’s seat as anyone other than an Argent. “Balls,” he muttered heart dropping to his stomach as he turned to usher a still on-guard Stiles all the way back into the kitchen. “Stay inside and out of sight, you hear me?”

“What? Bobby, what’s going on? Who's here?” Stiles asked clearly making note of the strain in Bobby’s voice. His gaze was still hard as it swept over Bobby and stared past the hunter’s shoulder towards the front door, distrustful but willing to listen.

Bobby just shook his head grabbing an unsuspecting Dean who’d just climbed back upstairs by the arm to pull him to the kitchen as well. “Dean, you stay with him. Keep him in the kitchen,” he ordered before retrieving two beers from the fridge. Dean looked puzzled but nodded sharply, one hand going to Stiles’ elbow as he moved to discretely peer out the kitchen window.

Bobby motioned for Dean and Stiles to be quiet once more before going to meet Argent on the porch already thinking through how to get rid of the man. Maybe he could convince the other hunter to not step foot in his house; it was a pleasant enough day to conduct business outside. The screen door slammed behind him as he exited taking several steps away but not leaving his porch as Argent shut his car door with a thud. It was only after coming out here to his porch and catching a glimpse of a pistol grip beneath Argent's jacket that Bobby wished he'd stopped to grab a gun of his own. 

“Mr. Singer,” Argent said shielding his eyes against the sun and crossing the yard to the porch. “Sorry to just drop in unannounced, but as I tried to tell whoever answered your phone I was in the neighborhood.”

“No problem,” Bobby said easily offering the bottle with holy water. “Drink?”

Argent raised an eyebrow like he knew what Bobby was really doing, but accepted the beer anyway taking a generous swallow before holding it loosely between his fingers by his side.

“So what brought you to Sioux Falls?” Bobby asked.

“Oh, I’m just following up on a lead,” Argent said. There was a hard edge to his voice that had Bobby developing back up plans even as they spoke. “Spoke with Terry the other day. You know Terry, don’t you? You just helped him out with that Mongolian death worm thing.”

Bobby forced a semblance of a smile. “I did. Hell of a hunt.”

“He said you were working with two younger hunters,” Argent commented still maintaining an even, aloof tone. “They here?”

“We did,” Bobby said. “Sons of a friend of mine. And no, they’re not here.”

“Really?” Argent sounded unconvinced. “Both of them?”

Bobby hummed in affirmation taking a few steps back towards the door. “John Winchester’s sons. Sam and Dean, since you’re so curious.”

“See Terry mentioned Dean,” Argent said taking another drink and leaning against the banister. “Dean I’m not concerned with. But I happen to know Sam is currently in Palo Alto at Stanford.”

“Your information must be outdated then,” Bobby returned. “As I’ve told you before I don’t know anything. I’m sorry I can’t help you. I’ll ask you kindly now to get the hell off my property.”

“I’m sorry I can’t do that. See Terry also said the other boy you worked with, the one you’ve apparently been working with for some time, looked a lot like this one,” Argent said as he pulled a photograph out of his shirt pocket and held it up for Bobby to see. In it a younger and happier looking Stiles had his arm slung around another boy, both of them wearing maroon lacrosse jerseys and smiling widely at the camera. “And I don’t know a whole lot of people running around and going by the name of Stiles, do you? So I’ll ask you directly one more time. The other boy you worked with, where is he?”

“Get off my property,” Bobby said dropping all pretenses, voice going hard a flint and back straightening as he shifted to stand directly in front of his door. “Or this will be the last place anyone sees you.”

Argent shook his head with a quiet scoff setting his beer aside and something twisted low in Bobby’s gut as the man’s hand moved under his jacket in a flash. It wasn’t a surprise to find himself suddenly looking down the barrel of a Desert Eagle.

“Tell me everything you know about Stiles,” Argent said cocking the hammer back. “Now.”

“Well, you’re just gonna have to shoot me,” Bobby said praying Dean was smart enough to be getting Stiles hidden or somewhere safe, “because there ain’t no way in hell I’m gonna let you hurt that boy.”

Something indecipherable flickered across Argent’s features, a flash of confusion like he had no idea why Bobby would say such a thing. Bobby was half way through calculating his chances of getting out of this at least partially unscathed when the screen door scraped open behind him.

He held his breath hoping to God it was Dean walking out of the door, as stupid as that would make him, but by the look on Argent’s face it wasn’t. Oddly, as the door scraped back across the porch to fall shut, Argent didn’t look like a hunter who’d just found his target or even like a hunter trying to play the part of a relieved man who’d found a lost boy. Instead Argent looked like any number of people who had someone they thought they’d never see again suddenly returned safe and unharmed.

Stiles drew to a stop next to Bobby, Dean a few steps behind him looking irate and holding his Taurus trained on Argent. Stiles seemed unconcerned at all the firearms simply raising one hand to awkwardly card his fingers through his hair as he cleared his throat. “Hey. Long time, no see,” he said hoarsely. “I, uh, I actually thought you were in France? Maybe, uh, maybe we could quit with the Mexican standoff thing we’ve got going on here?”

Argent just shook his head, closing his eyes briefly before holstering his handgun and striding forward to pull Stiles into a crushing hug. Dean tensed, taking an aborted step forward but Stiles didn’t resist, didn’t pull away from the contact at all actually, just wrapped his arms around Argent’s shoulders and clung to the man. Bobby blinked wondering if he’d somehow fallen in the Twilight Zone, and Dean was wearing a similar expression as he gestured vaguely in their direction.

“Are they…are they hugging?” he asked bewildered.

“Unless Argent’s plan is to suffocate him to death, I think that is what they’re doing,” Bobby said narrowing his eyes slightly and if he was still half convinced he might need to save Stiles’ ass at any moment Argent’s next words dispelled any lingering concern.

“Fuck, Stiles,” Argent whispered fiercely into Stiles’ hair. “Do you have any idea how worried everyone is?”

Stiles laughed and even though it sounded like he was close to crying there was an underlying layer of honest joy Bobby had yet to have heard from the kid. “The emails give me some idea, yes.”

“What the hell have you been doing?” Argent asked pulling back but not letting go of Stiles fully. He grasped Stiles shoulders shaking the boy lightly. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“Do you really want me to answer that?”

Argent drug Stiles back in, the boy falling against him easily. “Eventually,” he said. “We have a lot to talk about.”

“So,” Stiles said tapping his fingers on the table some part of his brain still struggling to reconcile a part of his life from Beacon Hills sitting here in front of him at Bobby’s salvage yard, “how are things in good ole Beacon Hills?”

Chris smiled faintly. “Well, as you pointed out I’ve been in France for some time.”

“I’m actually kind of surprised Scott didn’t call you in sooner.”

“Oh, he did,” Chris said with a short chuckle. “Right after you disappeared. But they determined you’d left and not been kidnapped before I made it back stateside.”

Stiles hummed. “And you’re here now because?”

“Because Scott called me again,” Chris said. “Asked for my help.”

“How’d you find me?”

“You called Danny a few months ago and you still check your emails sometimes. I’m pretty sure you’re the one that called your house six times from a Nebraska payphone a few days ago. And Scott says you don’t have an uncle in Maine.”

“And it still took you this long to find me?” Stiles asked. “I’m mildly impressed with myself.”

“It’s not hard to hide when you use burner phones and pay for everything with cash,” Chris said dryly. “Speaking of which, if you don’t mind my asking, exactly how have you been paying for all of this?”

Stiles grinned. “Maybe I had a secret stash of cash or maybe a lot of friends have helped me out,” he said. “Or maybe I’m really good at poker and have sticky fingers.”

“So you've turned into a hustler and a pickpocket?” Chris observed.

Stiles shrugged gesturing vaguely. “Hey, when in Rome,” he said sighing as he sank back in his seat and glanced up at Chris. “I didn’t have a lot of options.”

“Why’d you leave, Stiles?” the hunter asked and wasn’t that the question of the day. Question of the month, the year. The ultimate question, only forty-two was no longer the answer.

Stiles licked his lips taking a long moment to reply. “Why’d you leave?” he countered because somehow that was easier than putting his reasons into words.

Chris seemed to absorb that, expression unrevealing of his reaction to the words. “Your father isn’t dead, Stiles,” he said gently.

Stiles drug his finger along a crack in the table. “I know.”

“Scott and Lydia,” Chris said, “they really miss you.”

“I know.” Stiles looked up, meeting Chris’ steady gaze.

He could tell the moment it clicked for Chris, the older man’s brows drawing together over world-weary eyes as he sighed. “I doesn’t matter what I say. You’re not going to come back with me, are you?”

Stiles didn’t shake his head, just held Chris’ gaze and let out a slow breath. “No,” he said.

“I thought as much.” There was a beat of silence then, “Are you ever going back?”

Stiles swallowed. “Eventually.”

“What am I supposed to tell the others?”

“Well I would prefer nothing,” Stiles said and Chris huffed.

“Stiles, you know that isn’t fair,” the hunter said with a touch of reprimand.

Stiles inclined his head and dropped his gaze to the table picking at the weathered wood beneath his fingers. “I know,” he said again. “Tell them…tell them I’m okay.”

“Are you though?” Chris asked and Stiles winced as a sliver of wood pierced his skin. He brushed the splinter off glancing up at the hunter.

“I wouldn’t have left if I was.”

Dean frowned leaning against the window frame gaze trained on Stiles and the hunter talking at the picnic table outside. Stiles was hunched forward, arms crossed on the table before him and fingers alternately drumming a rapid beat against the weathered wood and picking absently at the flaking paint. Argent was across from him, loose in his seat as he talked, Stiles bowing his head slightly at whatever the man was saying. It was a heavy conversation, whatever they were talking about, but then Dean supposed any conversation with someone that had been missing for several months would be.

“Quit your spying and get your ass over here,” Bobby said behind him.

Dean let the curtain fall back into place giving Bobby a disgruntled glare as the older hunter tossed him a potato peeler and gestured to the potatoes in the sink. “It doesn’t strike you as odd?” he asked snatching up a potato and peeling it with quick efficient strokes. “Like at all?”

“Odd? Yes,” Bobby said. “But that doesn’t mean I'm going to snoop on them out of the window.”

“How’d he even find us?” Dean asked.

Bobby sighed as he worked on tenderizing some steaks. “He talked to Terry. Led him right to us.”

“Well, how’d he know to talk to Terry?”

“If I had to guess,” Bobby replied, “I’d say it probably has to do with that phone call Stiles made.”

Dean frowned. “You think he called Argent?”

“No. But I think Argent was monitoring whoever he called,” Bobby said setting the steaks in a pan on the stove where they immediately began to sizzle.

Dean finished up peeling the last potato setting it to the side with the others and gathering all the peels onto a plate. “Maybe it was Scott. He could have tipped Argent off to getting a call, they track to payphone to Nebraska, ask around and find Terry, who leads them right to us.”

Bobby just grunted in agreement.

“We’re gonna tell him now, right?” Dean asked peering out the window as Chris handed Stiles something shiny and small. “We’re gonna tell Stiles everything we know?”

“Yeah,” Bobby said following his gaze, “we’re gonna tell him everything.”

“You know the younger hunter’s been watching us this whole time, right?” Chris commented inclining his head towards the house.

Stiles glanced toward the window catching sight of the gently swaying curtain as Dean moved away from his post whether because he noticed Stiles looking or because Bobby told him off for spying. “Dean,” he said. “He can be a little, um, inquisitive.”

“Sounds a lot like you.”

Stiles smiled and gave a small shrug. “I guess. We have,” he paused wondering how to phrase it—an understanding? a connection? a bond?—before settling on, “a lot in common.”

Chris hummed thoughtfully glancing from Stiles to the house then back. “You get along well with them? You trust them?”

“For the most part, I guess,” Stiles said. “John drug me to see a psychic. That wasn't fun. And I’m pretty sure all three of them kept the fact that you were looking for me a secret so…”

“And how honest have you been with them?” Chris said.

“Oh, I was completely transparent,” Stiles said. “You know me.”

“I do know you,” Chris said, “which means you told them absolutely nothing.”

“I told them my name was Stiles, which, in retrospect, was not the smartest,” he mused. “I should have gone with an alias. Like Stuart. Or Miguel.”

Chris chuckled shaking his head and revealing in the brief levity of the moment before his features settled into something more serious again. “I, ah, found this in your room,” he said pulling something small and shiny from his pocket and holding it out for Stiles to take. He dropped it in Stiles’ hand, and Stiles couldn’t help the small smile as he ran his thumb over the familiar pendant. Chris arched an eyebrow in mock sternness. “You know this isn’t what I had in mind when I gave that to you.”

Stiles laughed lightly and, although it was genuine, there was an underlying layer of sorrow. “I know.”

“If you were planning on running around with hunters, why didn’t you take it with you?” Chris asked.

“I didn’t want anyone to recognize it. I didn’t want to lose it,” Stiles said turning the pendant to watch the light reflect off its surfaces bringing the wolf and Argent family crest into stark relief. The excuses were many, but there was one that trumped the rest. “And I guess part of me thought I didn’t deserve to have it.”

“I wouldn’t have given it to you if I thought you didn’t deserve it,” Chris said without missing a beat and with total certainty. As usual the tone caused something dark and heavy to clench in Stiles chest.

“I know,” he said focusing on the pendant so he didn’t have to see Chris’ face as he spoke. “I guess it just didn’t really matter to me then what you thought.”

Chris sighed reaching out to take the necklace from Stiles’ hands. For a moment Stiles thought the man was going to take it back, that he’d decided Stiles really didn’t deserve it, that he was offended by Stiles’ honesty. Instead Chris pulled apart the chain and gently dropped it over Stiles’ head, brushing his thumb over the pendant one last time before tucking it in beneath Stiles’ shirt so it fell heavy and cold by his heart.

“Wear it. For Allison,” Chris said giving Stiles’ chest one more pat before drawing away. “And maybe one day when you look in a mirror you’ll realize you do deserve it.”

Stiles bit his lip pressing his thumb to the pendant beneath his shirt and feeling it dig into his skin. “Tell me it’ll get better,” he said. “Lie to me if you have to, just tell me it gets better.”

Chris offered him a sad smile before shaking his head. “It doesn’t get better. I wish I could tell you it does, I really do. But I’m not gonna lie to you, Stiles, it doesn’t get better. You do though,” he continued meeting Stiles’ gaze and this time the utter conviction in his tone was reassuring. “You get better.”