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Something was killing people on the south side of town.
Stiles had been back to school for a month after his little GSW, actually enjoying the quiet time and focusing on his school work and social life.
Deuc and his pack decided that they’d stay in the area so long as Argents called it home, just to make sure Chris stays in line with their own code, so the twins were enrolled in BHHS and hung out with the Hale Pack high school contingent, which now included Danny. It hadn’t taken long for Danny to approach Stiles and ask him exactly what kind of supernatural shenanigans he’d gotten Jackson involved in.
Turned out that Danny came from a long line of witches, which would have been really nice to know in The Before, but was equally useful now. Stiles quickly introduced him to Peter, who basically inducted him into the pack as soon as Danny expressed even the slightest interest. Apparently Mahealani witches were fairly well known in certain supernatural circles.
Again, that would have been really nice to know before.
So Stiles had been focusing on school work, bonding with his new high school packmates, and continuing his training with Peter and the alphas, thinking that things would finally be quiet in Beacon Hills. Because he was an idiot, apparently. He really should have known better.
Dad came home from work two days ago with evidence photos from outside the Walgreens on the south side of town asking Peter how he’d like to handle them. The pictures showed something like a large, abnormally shaped bear morphing into a bipedal humanoid. They looked a lot like pictures Stiles had once seen in a certain case file his dad had worked on at home in The Before. Pictures of crazypants Peter.
He raised an eyebrow at his partner and then nodded at the pictures. Peter immediately declared that it wasn’t him and that he had no further need to kill anyone unless Stiles changed his mind on Chris Argent.
That meant they had ANOTHER alpha in the area, and that alpha was killing people. Dad and his department had all been working on the assumption that a wild animal had wandered into the area, which fucking Deaton had verbally supported, even though Stiles had TOLD Dad that wild animal attacks were rarely perpetrated by wild animals in Beacon Hills. He’d told Dad that multiple times, but did the man listen to him? Of course not.
Then the photos came in, and Stiles was very magnanimous and did NOT say “I told you so,” but they apparently had a rogue alpha problem because nobody had checked in with either Peter or Deuc and announced their presence.
It took everything within Stiles to not put Scott on immediate lockdown in the penthouse, letting him out only to go back and forth to school under adult werewolf supervision. He did NOT do that, either. He was very proud of himself, even if Peter thought he was being ridiculous when he broached the idea. He did use his position as mate to the alpha to ban Scottie from the south side of town unless he was with competent adult supervision, however, using the whole “keeping his best friend safe” argument when Scott whined about that making no sense.
Stiles had a lot more experience with Photoshop now than he did this early in the timeline the first time around, so he got Dad to get the original digital video, loaded the photos onto his MacBook, and got to work trying to clean them up. There was only so much he could do with the grainy stills, especially since it was a standard security camera that produced grayscale footage, but he still managed to get an approximate height, weight, and build. They were on the lookout for a male, approximately 5’7” and 190 lbs, leaner, athletic build in his human form. It wasn’t much, but it was more than they had before.
The man’s hair was cut short and lighter colored, reminding Stiles of Deuc’s cut and style, and his eyes were a dark color.
The alpha seemed to be attacking people indiscriminately—men, women, children, adults. It didn’t seem to matter to him. So far, he’d killed three adults and an eight year old.
He sent the cleaned up stills over to his dad to run facial recognition through all the standard government databases. He also sent the stills to Danny, who TOTALLY didn’t hack into any secret government databases to run further facial recognition searches. Stiles would swear to that in any court of law if he ever had to—Danny had made him swear to do so in exchange for his help.
The searches didn’t turn up any names, which was unfortunate but par for the course when it came to Stiles’s life. So much for the easy way of doing things.
He was about to pick up the phone and reach out to his buddy Marv, one of his FBI contacts from The Before—he may have done a bit of cyberstalking a couple weeks ago and hacked his way into “meeting” Marv again in an online game of Uno—when Peter knocked on the door frame to his office and asked him what the fuck he was still doing awake. Apparently it was 2:30 AM and he had school in 5 hours.
“I’m doing my job” was apparently not an acceptable answer to his alpha’s question.
“Stiles, your dad is working on this rogue alpha situation from a legal standpoint. Deuc and I have people looking out for him based upon the work you already did. Come to bed, sweetheart. Everything’s covered.”
He couldn’t exactly call Marv at 2:30 in the morning—not yet, anyway. He yawned and stretched, then stood up and joined Peter on the walk to their bedroom.
“You win this round, Alpha, but tomorrow after school I’m going to call an FBI contact I recently made and have him run the still against their alpha database. I’m going to find this guy, Peter, and then we’re going to end him. He’s killing kids, and that’s just unacceptable. Not only that, but I am NOT running the risk of Scott getting bitten this time around. We will not be dealing with a True Alpha situation on my watch.”
Peter snorted. “Derek is absolutely thrilled about being assigned transport duty when Scott has to work. He’s already started complaining to me about it, and it’s only been two days. Are you sure you’re not overreacting just a little bit?”
Stiles glared at his alpha and mate. “You weren’t THERE, Pete. You don’t understand all the trauma and danger that was my best friend the True Alpha. Then I consult the books you got me and find out that True Alphas aren’t a real thing! That means that somebody put us all through all that trauma and danger—”
“Fucking Alan.”
Stiles nodded. “Probably. The point is that Scott getting bitten was bad for everyone’s health. I am not overreacting. I’m doing my job and keeping our pack safe.”
Stiles stripped out of his shirts and pants as soon as Peter had the bedroom door closed, allowing his pants to puddle where he dropped them and adding his shirts to the pile. He hadn’t realized before just how tired he was.
“Besides,” Stiles continued as he crawled into bed, “the last thing we need is yet another alpha in this town. There’s already plenty of you running around.”
“Perhaps,” Peter responded from the bathroom, “but he’s the only one running around and causing trouble. I’m going to count that as a win for the Hale Pack.”
Stiles blinked and the alarm on his phone was suddenly blaring the nuclear warning sound. Peter shoved at him and mumbled at him to turn it the fuck off and get his ass to school.
Stiles considered the merits of calling into school dead—then he wouldn’t have to go back ever, right?—before rolling over and silencing his phone. He’d become too accustomed to getting more than four hours of sleep this past quiet month. He was getting spoiled.
He stretched and headed into the bathroom for his morning ablutions, hoping that Derek was already up and on breakfast duty. The man made incredible omelets.
By the time he made it to the kitchen, he had just enough time to slurp down the coffee Derek had sitting out for him and to ruffle Malia’s hair as he slid past her at the kitchen island. He stared longingly at the omelet she was leisurely eating, because she had all the time in the world—Peter had talked to Henry Tate about the supernatural shenanigans of the entire situation and gotten guardianship of her, and he was having her homeschooled rather than simply throwing her into a public high school when she was reading and doing math at a fifth-grade level.
Stiles was pleased for her, but pissed that she got to enjoy and omelet that morning and he didn’t.
She slapped at him for ruffling her hair, then asked “is Jackson coming over after school” instead of saying hello.
“How would I know if Jackson is coming over after school? When did I become his keeper?”
“Well, aren’t you, like, our mom now?”
Derek snorted so hard he spit the coffee he’d just sipped at all over the stove. Stiles scrunched his nose and glared at his back.
“No, Malia, I’m not like your mom now. Does it look like I have tits? No. No, I do not. If anything, I’m more like your stepdad, except that I’m not. I’m your…Stiles. I’m just Stiles. A friend. A buddy. A packmate. A—”
“Our alpha mate,” Derek interjected. “Face it, Uncle Stiles, you’re pretty much everyone’s mom now.”
Stiles could hear the grin in Derek’s voice, and he did not appreciate it. He was nobody’s mother! He was the goddamn Left Hand. He was supposed to be an intimidating mofo! Pack mom was not intimidating.
Stiles grabbed a triangle of buttered toast off Malia’s plate, taking a large bite of it before responding and making sure to spit crumbs all over the counter that Derek would have to clean up.
“That’s it. Derek is no longer my favorite after Peter. Congratulations, Malia, you’ve moved to the top of the list for favorite betas.”
Malia offered a little cheer. Stiles stuck his tongue out at Derek and headed off to school, but not before reminding Derek to pick Scott up after lacrosse practice and deliver him safely to the vet clinic for work.
He hated that the clinic was on the south side of town. Made him nervous.
——————
Stiles spent the entire lunch period teaming up with Ethan and Aidan in trying to dissuade Scott from asking Charlie to make him a vamp.
Scottie had apparently developed a bit of a mancrush on Benny when he was in town and had been playing Farmville with the vamp and texting back and forth about…Stiles didn’t know exactly what they’d been talking about. He sort of tuned Scott out when he’d started going on about how cool Benny was, treating the situation like another Allison-situation. He’d only tuned back in when Scott had started going on about how cool it would be to be a vampire, and just think of how helpful he could be to the pack then.
This was another disaster in the making, and he was going to have to go in right away and cut this entire line of thinking off at the root.
“Buddy, don’t you like being in the pack? We love having you!”
Scott shot him a confused, slightly hurt look. His eyes had almost gone full puppy dog.
“What do you mean? I could still be in the pack if I’m a vampire! Allison and Lydia are both in the pack, and they’re human and a banshee.”
While it was technically true that Scott would totally be allowed to be in the pack if he was turned, he was not going to be turned. Oh, no he wasn’t. Not on Stiles’s watch. And Stiles was always going to be on Scott-watch.
“Scottie, do we have a vampire in the pack currently? How many vampires do you think I know? I know many vampires. None of them have been invited to join the pack, dude. You know why? Because at the end of the day, they’re toxic to weres.”
Also, because all the vamps he knew were already happily nested up and he hadn’t felt the need to extend an invite to any of them, but Scott didn’t need to know that part. It was better for everyone that way.
“Besides, you and I would never be able to share a drink or snack again. Could you imagine what a pain in the ass that would be?”
Beside him, Aidan nodded because it turned out that Aidan could be a good bro when he wasn’t actively trying to kill you.
“Also, who would you train with? Like Stiles said, vampires are toxic to werewolves. It would actually be dangerous to interact with you too closely, and we really like interacting with you, Scott.”
Danny interjected with “don’t vampires live forever or something” because Danny was a Good Egg. Points for Danny.
Stiles nodded. “Weres don’t live forever. Humans don’t live forever. You’d outlive me and your mom—”
Scott frowned at him, and Stiles knew he’d have to go in for the kill.
“You’d outlive Allison. Do you really want to outlive Allison, Scottie?”
He was really glad he’d gotten over his guilt about Allison’s death in the other timeline and talked to Peter about bringing her into the know, because Allison was awesome when she was sans baggage and firmly on their side.
She shot one of those sunshine smiles at Scott and hammered the final nail into the vampire coffin.
“I was really looking forward to growing old with you, Scott. Don’t you want that, too?”
Scott sighed, and Stiles kept his glee on the inside. That was the vampire situation taken care of, thank the gods.
“But, my asthma—”
“Every one of us has an emergency inhaler should you need it, and you know Peter paid for that home setup for breathing treatments when things get bad. We’ve got you covered, man. That’s what pack’s about—supporting you in everything and valuing you just as you are. You’re one of the best humans I know, dude, and I’m including Allison AND Dad in that list, so you’re way up there. There’s no reason to change anything.”
Allison nodded, then kissed Scott on the cheek. “We love you just the way you are, Scott.”
Stiles was surrounded by good bros these days.
——————
In AP English, Lydia asked him if she and Jackson could come by the penthouse after school and spend some time with Peter. When he asked her why she was asking him and not Peter, she stated that asking him was the same as asking Peter, since they were both pack parents. Like it was just a fact or something.
He was nobody’s parent. He was entirely too young for this shit. Rather than arguing with her, however, because arguing with Lydia Martin was like repeatedly banging your head against a brick wall, he just nodded and said that Malia would like to see her brother.
Lydia looked delighted, which Stiles was slightly worried about. Why was she delighted? Was she delighted because Jackson had a sibling who wanted to spend time with him? Because that would be alright, but if she was delighted because she thought Stiles was embracing the whole pack mom idea, that was not cool. Again, he was nobody’s parent, goddamn it.
——————
Since apparently everyone thought that Stiles was just as in charge of the pack as their alpha was, he made the executive decision to approach Erica, Isaac, and Boyd in study hall and tell them they should all stop by his apartment after school because there was something important he wanted to talk to them about.
They all looked at him like he was crazy.
Okay, given that they’d only spoken fairly casually over the past month about school stuff, that might have been a bit out of left field. He could admit that, but it shouldn’t have been THAT strange for him to invite them over! He’d made a point to talk to all three of them over the last month or so, joking with them about classes and sports and the fact that Beacon Hills was boring. He’d even almost asked them if they wanted to grab pizza or go bowling a couple of times…
Fine, the random request was probably a little crazy from an outsider’s point of view, but he wasn’t going to chance losing the three of them to some random insane alpha who didn’t belong in Beacon Hills. Erica LIVED on the south side, for heaven’s sake.
“Seriously, though, I like you guys and we should hang today after school at mine. Something incredibly cool happened recently, and I desperately want to tell you all about it. Also, we’ve got all kinds of snacks because my friend Derek stress bakes and Scott has been stressing him out recently. Jackson and Lydia are coming over for other reasons, too, and they’ll have to be nice in front of adults—technically, Derek is an adult, and I’m pretty sure Derek’s uncle will be there, too—”
He’d better be. Stiles would have to text him after this conversation just to be sure.
“So just imagine the kind of snark and sarcasm you could get off without Jackson getting all caveman on you. It’ll be fun! You in? I can take anyone who needs a ride and then drop you at home later. Derek’s uncle Peter can call any parents who need to be called, too.”
They all nodded at him, though they still looked a little dubious. He just beamed at them and told them he’d meet them at the Jeep after school, and that it would totally be worth Isaac skipping lacrosse practice because there were multiple kinds of cookies at home.
He was going to come out of today with three new packmates, damn it. This rogue alpha could suck his ass.
——————
He arrived home with Erica, Isaac, and Boyd in tow to find Derek on the couch quietly growling at a ball of yarn in one hand and one knitting needle in the other.
“I’m pretty sure you need two of those, Big Guy. Also, whatcha doin’?”
Derek chucked the knitting needle just over Stiles’s shoulder. It lodged itself in the wall behind him.
“This stupid therapist Peter’s forcing me to listen to and interact with said that crocheting would be an ‘excellent way to relieve tension.’ He is so full of shit.”
Stiles sighed and went to dislodge the knitting needle from the wall.
“I thought all the baking you’ve been doing was a tension reliever.”
Derek growled. “There are brookies on the kitchen counter. Help yourself.”
Stiles grinned. “That’s what I like to hear. Also, this is a knitting needle, my friend. You can’t crochet with one knitting needle. Tell the therapist that you’re gonna stick with baking.”
Derek glared at him and shot back a “sure thing, mom” and then gestured at the puppies next to Stiles. “Who’re your friends?”
Stiles manfully did NOT fling the knitting needle at Derek’s head. Instead, he introduced the puppies to a Derek who baked and attempted textile arts on the recommendation of a therapist.
He also completely ignored the waves of lust that started rolling off Erica. That was entirely not his business, and he would definitely not use the fact that Derek was a prominent member of the pack to help persuade her in just a little while. That would be as unethical as making Derek strip down to get someone to do just a little bit of hacking for them, and Stiles would never do that. No, sir.
Peter came wandering into the living room about that time, meaning he’d been listening to the whole conversation and knew that Stiles had brought the puppies for “the talk.” God, Stiles loved this man.
Stiles greeted him with a kiss on the cheek. Erica asked out loud if everyone in Stiles’s life was just insanely attractive, and Stiles had to admit that yeah, they were.
“That includes you, Erica. You’re an absolutely gorgeous woman.”
She blushed and smelled pleased.
Peter nodded and offered one of his smaller, real smiles. “I’m not trying to be creepy or anything, but Stiles is right.”
Erica actually giggled in response. Stiles wanted to hug her. He turned back to Peter and said, “I found them on the way home, Pete. Can we keep them?”
Peter chuckled. “Are you sure now is the right time for this, Sweetheart? We’ve got a bit going on at the moment.”
Stiles just nodded. “There’s never going to be a ‘better time,’ is there? Something’s always going to be going on. Better to do it now and make sure there’s time for people to think about things.”
“What’s going on, Stiles? The right time for what?”
That was Isaac asking questions. Isaac was normally the quietest of the three in this timeline, and he was asking actual questions he wanted actual answers to! Stiles refrained from pumping his fist in the air.
He turned and smiled at them. “The right time to let you in on an absolutely life-changing secret and offer you the choice of a lifetime, Isaac. Nothing big, really.”
He winked at Erica, who giggled again.
Peter looked over and Derek, who shrugged back at him. Then he kissed Stiles on the side of the forehead and told them all to follow him to his office.
Peter’s office was done up in shades of red and black, because of course it was. His partner was more dramatic than the drag queens on Drag Race.
The walls were almost fire-engine red with one crimson colored “highlight” wall, and black shag carpets covered the dark wood floors. Even Peter’s office desk was a lacquered black thing, ornately carved with depictions of what looked to Stiles like demons and djinn.
Peter gestured to the black leather couch and arm chairs in one corner of his office and told them all to get comfortable.
Jackson called out a hello from the front door, and Stiles tried very hard not to melt at the smile that plastered itself across Peter’s face just from the sound of Jackson’s voice. He loved that Peter could actually have emotions this time around. He loved giving Peter the chance to have ALL the emotions this time around. He loved PETER this time around. He was getting mushy in his old age.
He listened Malia bound down the hall to greet her brother. She deserved a loving, supportive family, and gods knew Henry Tate hadn’t been loving or supportive after they’d found her before.
Jackson was both loving and supportive with her, though. He talked about all the books she’d been reading with her, even though they were books like the Magic Tree House series and Land of Stories—though Stiles could talk for days about the first book in that series. He could talk about the entire series, except the only book out currently was the first book. But Jackson, though. He went out and read or reread the books just to talk about them with Malia. He helped her with her math assignments—she’d never been good with math; numbers just weren’t her thing—with the kind of patience that Stiles had just never had, too, and he play fought with her even though he was still entirely human.
Both he and Lydia had officially joined the pack, but he was still weighing the pros and the cons of taking the Bite, especially in light of this rogue alpha and the chaos he was wreaking for Dad’s department at work with all the killing and the death.
Peter called a hello loud enough the humans could hear it at the front door, then turned back to the puppies in front of him.
“Did Stiles tell you why he wanted you to come talk to me?”
Boyd spoke up between bites of Derek’s brookie. “He said there would be home-baked goods.”
Erica play slapped his bicep and added, “And he said he’d gotten some life-changing news and wanted us to hear it, too.”
Isaac nodded and set his now-empty plate on the side table. “But mostly he promised cookies.”
It was nice to know these three had their priorities in line.
Peter chuckled. “Cookies, we have. Derek is a hell of a cook and baker, and he enjoys spoiling us.”
Derek blushed and rubbed the back of his head, muttering sheepishly about baking being better than crocheting. Stiles absolutely adored Derek.
“The other reason Stiles asked you here today is that he thinks very highly of all of you. He’s actually talked about you quite a bit with me, singing your praises.”
Erica blushed and smiled at him, and Boyd reached over and clapped a hand to Stiles’s bicep, smelling pleased and grateful, and maybe a bit like wood smoke? That was probably not quite right, but Stiles had been trying and trying, working with Derek on better descriptors than abstract concepts and emotions, and he was picking up wood smoke.
He looked at Derek and simply asked “wood smoke?” Derek sniffed the air and nodded, though he looked conflicted and wobbled one hand from side to side.
Stiles did pump his fist in the air in response this time. Identifying specific scents was hard, man.
Peter told him what a good job he was doing and then turned to the puppies. “Stiles is currently working toward identifying scents using his enhanced sense of smell. He has an enhanced sense of smell because some of the myths, legends, and fairy tales you’ve heard of are actually true. Stiles has recently become a werewolf.” He turned to Stiles, flashing his eyes. Stiles felt the command in the action and shifted to his beta form, his eyes flashing back as his fangs dropped and his claws came out.
Erica gasped, Isaac pressed himself back against the leather couch, and the plate from Boyd’s hands slipped and hit the floor, bouncing heavily against the shag carpet before spinning to a stop.
Stiles held up a clawed hand, retracting his fangs and smiling over at them. “It’s okay, guys. You’re safe here. You know me; I won’t hurt you. I’m still Stiles, that guy from your classes that you joke around with. I’m just also this…I did tell you it was life-changing, right?” He chuckled, but it sounded nervous even to him.
Boyd was the first to recover. “So, you’re saying that werewolves are real. You’re a werewolf.”
Stiles nodded. “I’m a werewolf.” He gestured at Derek, who flashed his beta blue eyes. “Derek’s a werewolf.” He gestured at Peter, who flashed his alpha red eyes. “Peter’s a werewolf, though he’s what we call an alpha werewolf, sort of the leader of our merry little group.”
Isaac swallowed heavily. “Is-is Jackson a werewolf?! Because I don’t think it’s very cool to turn him into a werewolf; he’s a bully all on his own.”
Stiles huffed, but it was Jackson who responded from the position he’d taken up leaning against the office door frame.
“Jackson is not a werewolf. I am as human as you are, Lahey.” He scratched at the back of his head briefly before actually looking a bit contrite. “And you’re right. I was cruel to you—to all three of you—for no good reason. It was NOT very cool of me. I’m trying to work on that, though. I’m being nicer to McCall, at any rate, which is not easy for me. I’ll try to do better by you, too.”
Isaac smelled uncertain—maybe a bit like whiskey?—but nodded his head at Jackson before turning back to Peter.
“Stiles said you were going to offer us the choice of a lifetime. Can you turn us into werewolves?”
Stiles beamed at the room in general. His puppies, and they were HIS puppies this time around, were so smart.
Peter nodded. “I can, with your fully informed consent and the consent of most of your parents since you’re minors. Isaac, without going into too much detail in front of everyone here, we can work around your father if you want us to after you’ve learned everything you need to know to make a proper decision.”
Isaac ducked his head, staring at his nails and not saying anything in response. Stiles wanted to jump up and hug him—
Shit. Maybe he was becoming the pack mom. He was SO going to yell at Peter about this later on. He didn’t want to be anybody’s parent!
“Please know, all three of you, that there is a place in this pack whether you want to be bitten into shifting or not. We actually value pack humans, and already have Jackson, Scott, and Allison Argent in our ranks, so you would not be alone in choosing to stay human.”
Erica looked up, trepidation and hope rolling off her. “Would becoming a werewolf cure physical issues? Like, say, epilepsy?”
Stiles did get up and hug her after that. He sat fully in her lap and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly and burying his face into her hair.
From behind him, Peter answered, “It can, so long as the Bite takes. A human body CAN reject whatever the Bite triggers, though that rarely happens. Nobody really knows why one body will reject the Bite and another will accept it.”
Boyd asked what happened when a body rejects the Bite, and if any werewolf could make other werewolves.
Stiles sat back, patting Erica’s hair but not moving from her lap. “Only an alpha werewolf can turn others. You’ll recognize them by their red eyes—” Peter flashed his eyes again, keeping them red as Stiles continued. “And I’m not gonna sugarcoat it: For someone who’s strictly human, like you and me, the only two choices when bitten deeply enough by an alpha who intends to turn them are becoming a werewolf or dying from Bite rejection. I’ve never seen the latter, but it sounds a bit like a heart attack, except that the wound will bleed black goo instead of red blood.”
Peter nodded. “Bite rejections are normally listed on a coroner’s report as heart attacks, yes. Again, they’re rare, and Stiles seems VERY certain that the three of you would come through the change fine should you choose to accept the Bite, which I will gladly offer all three of you with your and your parents’ consent. I want you to spend some time here with the pack—the people you see here and others that have grouped up with us for safety in numbers and chosen family—and get to know everyone first, though. Ask them about being ’wolves or, in the case of a few in our pack, other supernatural creatures. Talk to the humans in the pack, find out what their experiences have been.”
Erica patted Stiles’s knee. “I don’t need time. If it can fix me, I’m in. I can guarantee you that my parents will be on board, too. All you need to say is that it’s a cure.”
Peter shook his head. “Take the time. Talk to others. It probably WILL cure your epilepsy, but it will open your life to other dangers. You’ll need to keep this secret from people you either care about or may grow to care about. You’ll have more problems controlling your emotions and controlling your shift when you’re emotional. The moon will call to you and force a shift if you aren’t well prepared and trained. Even if you are well prepared and trained, the phases of the moon will directly impact your moods and your interactions with others.”
Derek spoke up. “There are others, too, who don’t like us and don’t think we should exist. They’re simply called hunters, because they will hunt our kind and kill us, sometimes without any reason to. They’re armed with weapons that can hurt us and they’re not even remotely afraid to use those weapons against us.”
It was Stiles’s turn. “Also, let’s not forget that with great power comes great responsibility. You’ll be stronger and faster. You’ll heal quickly, and you’ll be in the know about the greater supernatural world. This means you’ll have a responsibility to protect those who don’t know about it. You’ll have a responsibility to handle the things that go bump in the night, and you’ll have to do it from the shadows and keep it all a big secret. At this very moment, we have a situation we’re dealing with that directly affects innocent people and puts us all at risk, not just from people finding out about us, but physically, because this threat is strong and fast and mostly unknown to us.”
Peter huffed. “Yes, do try to avoid the south side of town for now if you can.”
Erica paled. “I-I live on the south side of town.”
Stiles was about to suggest he’d watch out for her when Peter beat him to the punch: “Then I’ll assign a guard to you and your house. Pack protects pack, always. As of this moment and until you tell me otherwise, I plan to operate under the assumption that you are part of my pack.”
Erica mumbled, “I don’t want to be any trouble.”
Peter moved Stiles off Erica’s lap and then crouched down so he was at eye level with her. “Understand me when I tell you that this is not any trouble. We already have a guard on Scott McCall and his mother. It is my absolute honor to keep my pack safe as their alpha. That safety and protection will naturally extend to all of you.”
Boyd wrinkled his nose. “You’re offering us all this because Stiles said we were cool? That’s the whole reason?”
Peter chuckled. “You’ll come to notice that Stiles and I are…close. He’s my Left Hand, the pack protector and shadow operator, which means he does his research before he comes to me with anything. More than that, he is my chosen mate and romantic partner. My wolf recognizes him as our equal, regardless of his age, so yes, all it takes is Stiles telling me you’re ‘cool’ for me to offer you the safety and protection of my pack.”
Erica blinked rapidly in Stiles’s direction. “Stiles! He’s…” Her voice dropped to a low hiss. “He looks old enough to be your father! Your dad’s the sheriff! What if he found out?”
It was Stiles’s turn to chuckle. “He knows already, Erica. He’s another human in our pack. He knows we’re ’wolves, and he knows that Peter and I are romantically linked. There are extenuating circumstances at play that I’m probably never going to be free to talk about, but know that we’re not as unequally matched as it looks from the outside. We’re not exactly broadcasting our relationship outside the pack—”
“Because it’s gross,” Jackson offered from the door frame.
“Because of how it looks to outsiders,” Stiles continued, choosing to ignore Jackson’s quip. Jackson could front all he wanted. He was fine with Stiles and Peter being Stiles&Peter. Stiles had a nose just like every other ’wolf. He knew the truth.
“The point is,” Peter interjected, “everyone in the pack is fine with the two of us being together because we work well together and we respect each other. We aren’t here to discuss Stiles’s choice in romantic partners, anyway. We’re here to discuss you three joining the pack because Stiles thinks very highly of you.”
Erica looked at Stiles and cooed. “I think very highly of you, too, Stiles. You’re, like, fucking Batman or something, using your skills and apparent wealth to save people like little old me.”
Stiles grinned broadly. He didn’t think she’d go straight to him being Batman without the proper provocation. “Does that make you Catwoman? Because you’d make a great Catwoman, Erica Reyes.”
She giggled at him again. “Why the fuck not. I’ll be Catwoman to your Batman if Peter doesn’t have a problem with it.”
Peter huffed. “If you’re suggesting sex, Peter very much has a problem with it. If you’re talking about being superheroes together, Peter does not have a problem with it in the slightest. Peter even encourages it if it means practicing Stiles’s dirty fighting.”
Stiles gawked at him. Superheroes did NOT fight dirty. That was the whole point of superheroes! Any partner of his should know this. That was—
Not the point. That was not the point. Focus, Stiles.
“I’m improving” was what he went with out loud. It was even true. He could take Ennis three out of five times when they sparred these days. He could control his supernatural healing to appear more human. He could throw dirt with the best of them, and he’d taken to carrying homemade smoke bombs with him like he was some sort of goddamn ninja or something.
He’d tailed Derek and Scottie to the vet clinic the other day without either of them even knowing it.
He rocked this whole fighting dirty/shadow work thing.
Speaking of which, he had to call Marv.
“Alright, you three talk to people and learn more about werewolves and packs. Jackson wants to talk to you about being a human among ’wolves—he just momentarily forgot that’s something he wants to do. I have to make a phone call before business hours end.”
Peter raised an inquisitive eyebrow at him, and he waved his alpha off. They could talk about it when Stiles had something to talk about.
He walked to his office and closed the door before calling the number that apparently hadn’t changed in seven years.
Marv picked up the call just after Stiles had sat down at his massive woodland desk.
“FBI blue collar division, Marv speaking.”
Damn, it was good to hear that gruff voice again.
“Marv! It’s Stiles, from Uno. You gave me your number and said to call if I ever needed anything?”
“Stiles!” Marv laughed on the other end of the line. “Draw four, man. Draw four. What’s up?”
He had no idea how to actually spin that he knew “blue collar division” was code for “supernatural division,” so he just dove in and hoped for the best—it’d worked for him before, and it would work for him in the future.
“So, I was kind of hoping you might help me with a little facial recognition issue I’m having, as in I have someone who needs identifying and my dad can’t find him in any databases he has access to.”
Marv sniffed. “Your dad’s the county sheriff, yeah?”
Stiles nodded, then remembered that Marv couldn’t actually see him.
“Yeah, he is. He ran the face through all the databases he could get to—it’s a legitimate law enforcement issue, by the way. I’m not asking you to like track down an ex boyfriend or anything. This guy kills kids, Marv. Kids.”
Marv had three little ones—they’d be very little at this point, they were teenagers when Stiles met him in The Before—so Stiles hoped he’d jump all over that shit and simply access the databases without any further prodding. They could work into the whole “we’re both supernatural” thing at a later date.
“Shit, kid, that’s terrible. I’ve got kids, myself. Fuck. Thing is, though, I don’t really have access to any databases your dad wouldn’t. Those databases are at alphabet agencies that are very much above my paygrade.”
That was such a lie. Stiles didn’t need to be a ’wolf to pick up on that lie…Maybe he could use that to introduce the whole “I know about supernatural shenanigans” topic.
“Marv, come on, man. I don’t even need to hear your heartbeat to pick up on that lie. Help me out, here.”
Marv laughed, but it was nervous. “What the hell you on about, Stiles?”
“I heard it, Marv. That little blip in your heart when you tried to sell me that shit about not having access to databases. Over the phone. I heard it. You do the math, dude.”
Marv swore, but Stiles was pretty sure it was mostly directed at himself so he let it go and simply waited for Marv to rejoin the conversation.
“What is it you think you know, here, Stiles?”
Stiles scoffed. “We’ve had enough conversations while we were making other people draw two that I think you know what I’m getting at. I’m good with the research, Marv, really good at drawing lines and connecting dots. I know there’s not really a blue collar division. I know what you really do, the people you really work with.”
Stiles didn’t reveal that he knew Marv was a tiger shifter; there would have been no way for him to legitimately discover that. He’d only found it out the first time because Marv had been his FBI Supes mentor when he was still in training and they’d been pinned down. Marv hadn’t had a choice but to shift.
“Fine, you know what I really do. Doesn’t mean I can run a facial rec search for you, Little Wolf.”
“Come on, man, it’ll take all of five minutes. I can even tell you the specific database I need you to run. You need something official? I’ll have my dad send something to you in the next ten minutes. Seriously, just tell me what you need and I’ll make sure you have it. One picture, compared to your alpha werewolf database. That’s it. That’s all I need, I promise. One picture, one name. You’ve got the most comprehensive list in the entire country, possibly the entire world. Not even the Wider Council has a list that comes close, and you know it. The guy is killing KIDS.”
Shit, did that sound like begging? He wasn’t above begging if it meant getting a name for this guy and allowing Scott his freedom, but he didn’t want his first time tapping Marv in to be by begging.
It probably sounded like begging.
Fuck.
Marv sighed long and loud, and Stiles knew he’d won. Even if he had sounded like he was begging.
“Man, I’ll trade you every one of my good cards in the next hand we play. No questions asked. Help me out, here. I can take it from the name. I’ll even get the Council’s blessing before I act. It’ll all be real legal, you have my word.”
“Ugh, fine, but only because you actually seem to know your shit. I want an official request from your dad on my desk first thing tomorrow morning, though, and you’d better run it past at least the ’Wolf Council, Stiles. I’m serious.”
“Man, I have Hans on speed dial. Consider it done.”
“Fine. E-mail me the picture, and it’d better be clear enough the computer can work with it. And you owe me at least three draw twos and a draw four wild card.”
“I will give you ALL the draw twos I get, man, my word to god’s ear. Thank you.”
They ended the call and Stiles took five minutes to e-mail the picture to Marv. He knew it wouldn’t take long for Marv to get back to him—the database was comprehensive, but it was only one database.
He pocketed his phone and wandered back out to the living room, where he found the puppies hanging out with Lydia, Jackson, and Malia. They’d sectioned off into girls on one side, talking about fashion and…politics? Knowing Lydia, it was probably politics. The guys were on the other side of the furniture set, talking fashion and sports. At least his chosen friends didn’t conform to gender norms.
Erica noticed him first, which meant they were going to need to work on Malia’s awareness. He added it to the mental list that he knew he didn’t need to keep this time around, but couldn’t help updating regularly.
“Batman! Lydia’s a banshee! How cool is that?”
He nodded and smirked at her. “It’s very cool. Maybe you could shout it a little louder next time, though—I’m pretty sure there are some people in LA who didn’t hear you.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “Peter told us the penthouse was soundproof, asshole. We’re allowed to speak freely here. Also, apparently you need to hang out with us more at school.” She crossed the fingers of her hands together and covered her heart with them. “Whatever will dear Scott think of you having other friends?”
He thought longingly of Derek’s singular knitting needle.
“Scottie is just fine with us widening our circle, Catwoman. He’s pack, too, you know. He gets it, and you’ll be joining our table for lunch, obviously. You should know that Allison’s family are the craziest pack of hunters I’ve ever seen or heard of, but she’s cool—she’s pack too. Peter and another alpha we work with very closely actually ended her grandfather and her mother fairly recently, so we don’t really talk family with her.”
Jackson’s nose twitched, and Stiles just knew he was going to want to smack Jackson in a few minutes.
“No, Stilinski, you and Scott don’t talk family with her, which is completely unnecessary, by the way. I talk about my folks and Peter all the time, and she hasn’t killed me yet or anything. You just worry too much, mom.”
Stiles chucked an empty soda can at Jackson’s head and was very satisfied when it bounced off his forehead.
Jackson was apparently also very satisfied.
“Damn, Stilinski, you need to come back to the team and do that on the field. I could use someone like you on the team.”
Boyd perked up—well, as much as Boyd ever perked up. “You’d let werewolves play on the team? I’d be interested.”
Jackson nodded to him. “You I’d let play on the team as is. You’re built for lacrosse, Boyd. Come try out. I’ll tell Coach you’re on the team.”
I’ll tell Coach you’re on the team.. Stiles rolled his eyes. “You’re so full of shit, Jackson. Seriously. Go clean your fucking room or something.”
Jackson flinch-glared at him, which did absolutely nothing for Stiles. Stiles turned toward Boyd.
“You should absolutely try for the team, though, Boyd. Scottie, Isaac, Jackson, and Danny are all there, and I dropped my spot on the team at the start of the semester and Jackson hasn’t mentioned anyone new on the team, so there should still be an opening.”
Jackson nodded. “Stilinski’s spot on the bench hasn’t been filled yet, mostly because we’d like to fill it with someone who can actually play. Come try out. I’ll seriously tell Coach to let you on the team in his place. Honestly, he’ll probably take one look at you and nut himself in ecstasy…There’s something very wrong with Coach, really.”
Stiles shivered involuntarily. Coach nutting was something that no amount of brain bleach was going to fix, now. He was going to find a way to kick Jackson’s ass during their next pack training session. He had to get his licks in now, because werewolf Jackson would probably wipe the floor with his ’wolf ass.
Peter would insist that Stiles deserved it if he was trying to fight fair, even against his own packmates. His Peter was a great man, but he really wasn’t a good man most of the time.
Pack training…Now THERE was an idea.
“Okay,” he declared, “everyone up. We’re heading outside. Grab your crosses on the way out. We’re gonna toss a few balls around in the name of pack bonding.”
Malia actually squealed at the idea of playing a physically violent game as pack bonding. He adored her. It was nice that now he could adore her without her misinterpreting his emotions and actions. That was another nice thing about openly being with Peter—people in the know tended to accept that he wasn’t flirting with them. It made everything much easier on him.
He was on his way to the elevator behind the rest of the teenagers when his phone rang with Marv’s ring tone. He’d learned a long time ago that if he had dedicated ring tones for each person in his network he’d always know who was calling when. Certain people could go to voicemail in times of crisis; certain people always needed to be answered, even with bullets flying around him or supernaturals charging him.
“Yo, Marv! That was quick. I told you, didn’t I? Five minutes.”
“You sure this guy is a killer, Stiles? His file suggests the exact opposite about him.”
That was interesting. It wasn’t the good kind of interesting, but interesting, it was.
“I’m sure this guy is a killer, Marv. We’ve got him on tape, remember? The county coroner has the bodies on his slab. One of them was eight years old. Give me what you can.”
He heard the deep inhale on the other end of the line. Marv was smoking again. He only ever smoked when something stressed him.
“Guy’s name is Richard Akins. Runs a medium-sized pack out of Seattle. Successful, established. Father of two, himself. Shouldn’t be anywhere near you down there in Beacon County. He’s been too stable for the past two decades that he’s been an alpha for him to go on some half-cocked, totally obvious killing spree in your county…At least by himself.”
Shit. Someone was fucking with alphas and forcing them to act against their normal behavior. This absolutely screamed witches. Most of them were not cool like Bethanny was.
He closed his eyes and took one solid breath in.
“You thinking witches, Marv? Because that sounds like witches to me.”
“I’m thinking you better be careful over there, Stiles. Call me if you want us to get involved—we have slightly different criteria than the regular Feeb and could probably get involved pretty easily.”
“I’d just have my dad officially invite your department in, Marv. Getting you involved wouldn’t be an issue. I’m pretty sure we can handle things on our end, but I’ll keep you apprised of the situation. Thanks for the info, and thanks for the offer of backup. You’re a good guy, Marvin.”
He ended the call and turned around, heading back into the penthouse and the office of his alpha. It was time to talk about that phone call.
——————
“You’re sure he hasn’t just lost his mind?”
Stiles shook his head. “My guy at the FBI said there was no reason for him to be down here, let alone down here and killing people. He’s got a stable, solid pack up in Seattle, Pete. By all accounts, he’s been an excellent alpha for 20 years or so. I don’t think he’s in control of his actions, and I kind of feel like killing a guy who’s being controlled is bad form. What do we do, Alpha Mine?”
Peter pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, then sat back down in his office chair.
“The first thing we do is track this alpha here in Beacon Hills. He’s keeping to the south side pretty consistently in his attacks, so we start there now that we’ve got a name to track. We tell your dad what your contact shared with you, and we get all the legal paperwork over to the FBI to cover the database search. Christ. This is going to end up getting messy, Love. You’ve got a witch friend, right? Brittany?”
Stiles came around the desk and sat himself in Peter’s lap, cuddling into his partner and offering the only support he could really offer at the moment.
“Bethanny, but I, uh, haven’t actually met her or made contact with her online. We connected over fanfic years from now, but she’s not posting in any of today’s common spots yet. She’s over in Nevada. I may have to take a road trip, play tourist, and stop by her mom’s over spring break or something to get an introduction—I’m still working on the details, but you up for a trip to Vegas over spring break? We can leave Derek in charge. Now that he’s in therapy, he’d probably do a decent enough job over one week.”
Peter kissed the side of his head. “We can talk about that a bit closer to break, Baby, but yes, I would be all in for a trip to Vegas, just me and you. In the meantime, I’ll reach out to the witch who helped with this apartment and see what it would take to control an alpha ’wolf.”
Stiles snorted. “I can answer that question: Surprisingly little. We actually dealt with a witch who delighted in controlling ’wolves Before. She had some herbs she’d blow in their face with a little rhyming chant. That was it, and she had both you AND Scottie under her thrall. Breaking that shit was tough—we had to call in Derek to distract her and take the brunt of your attacks while Lydia and I went in to disable and disorient her. When I went back to finish the job later, she was already stockpiling her herbs and getting ready to try again. She was one tenacious bitch, right to her bitter end.”
Peter nodded and smiled, staring at some point on the wall across from them. “Witches usually are. Not ones to give up the spark of life, them. I hope you took her head?”
“I took her head and left an iron steak through her heart for good measure when I buried her. That wasn’t my first rodeo.”
Peter turned him around until Stiles straddled him and they were face to face. “You’re one hell of a Left Hand, baby, and I’m so glad that you’re mine. We’ll find the witch controlling this alpha and deal with them, then maybe we can treat with this Alpha Akins and get something useful for the pack out of all this.”
Stiles ran his index finger down one side of Peter’s face. Peter nuzzled against his finger before nipping at it.
“You really think he’ll be in a good enough mental place to treat with another pack? If he’s being mind controlled to kill random people, he’s gonna be pretty fucked up when he wakes up, trust me.”
“We’ll deal with that part of it once we take care of the mind control portion of this shitty movie plotline we’re apparently living.”
Stiles snorted. “You noticed that too, huh? Man, our lives.”
Peter smiled softly at him and simply answered, “Our lives.” Then he leaned in and proceeded to kiss Stiles breathless.
Things were just getting interesting in the pants-region when he heard Malia yell, “Mom and Dad are making out again!”
Peter chuckled, and Stiles glared at him.
From the vicinity of the living room, Jackson yelled back, “How are we ever going to get a little brother or sister if you keep interrupting them?”
——————
Richard Akins’s credit card was used to check someone into the Beacon Hills Motor Lodge, also on the south side of town. It was easy to hack and track it.
Stiles staked the place out Tuesday after school, confirming that a guy of Akins’s height and build was staying in the room charged to his card. He didn’t appear insane as he entered and exited the room; he walked with good posture and he seemed alert enough to his surroundings. He never noticed Stiles, but that was to be expected—Stiles had gotten pretty good at the stake out thing over the years. There’s a reason Peter thought he’d be an excellent Left Hand.
He stayed low in the dark rental sedan he made Peter get for him and watched the guy—Akins, he decided—get into a pickup truck. The man was sentient enough to drive relatively safely.
This whole thing was weird. It was too easy now that he had a name, and it was weird. Peter had spent a lot of his rogue time in a sort of fugue state, the wolf more in charge than the human, and even after that, he’d been driven by revenge, which gave a pattern to his madness. There was no rhyme or reason to Akins’s attacks that Stiles could discern.
The ’wolves who’d been under the witch’s thrall had been little more than slavering beasts, hardly in their right minds and definitely not sentient enough to check into a hotel room or drive a car. This could very well be a more advanced form of mind control—the witch he’d come up against a few years from now had been pretty young. It was clear she was still learning from someone.
He trailed Akins to the southside Walgreens. The alpha seemed to spend quite a bit of time outside this store, which was concerning. Was he after sickly people? If he was in his right mind and looking to build a pack, Stiles could almost see it. Sick people were more likely to take the Bite from a stranger with the promise of good health again, after all. However, Akins wasn’t Biting them over; he was slaughtering them. Yes, the bodies all had bite marks, but they were also viciously clawed and slashed. The eight year old’s arm was barely still attached at the elbow, the slashes ran so deep.
Stiles parked at the far end of the parking lot and settled in, calling Peter to update him on why Stiles wasn’t home after school and what Akins was up to. Peter told him to be careful and to stay in the shadows, and Stiles reminded him that he wasn’t an idiot. He was just getting ready to initiate a bit of phone sex when he watched a woman and a younger child exit the store.
It was like a switch had flipped in Akins. He went suddenly from calm and in control of his faculties to the slavering beast that Stiles had expected. He’d set upon the woman before Stiles could drop the phone and exit the car. Peter was yelling something into the phone, but he ran toward the fracas instead of worrying about what his partner was saying.
Akins slashed the woman across the throat and abdomen before Stiles could get there, even with his advanced speed and reflexes. Stiles could do nothing but watch as the alpha’s teeth clamped down on one shoulder and he proceeded to fling her around like some kind of chew toy.
He reached the fray just as Akins had switched targets and locked his bite onto the little girl’s arm.
Stiles jumped onto the alpha’s back and koala-ed around Akins as best he could, extending his claws and slashing at the portions of arms and chest he could reach.
He needed to get Akins off the kid.
Akins roared, releasing the little girl. He reached back and grabbed at Stiles, flinging him off to the side. Stiles hit the pavement ass first, jumping to his feet and making a run for the girl.
He reached her before Akins focused back in on her fully, scooping her into his arms and racing to the sedan. He’d gotten her into the backseat when he caught movement in his periphery. Someone else had just rounded the corner, heading to the store entrance. Akins was still at the store entrance, looking wild and rabid and mid alpha shift.
Stiles slammed the back door, enclosing the sobbing, bleeding little girl in the car. He raced back to the entrance, fully beta shifting as he ran.
Scott was the person heading to the store entrance. His brother had fucking ear buds in and was laughing at something on his phone, head down as he walked. Completely unaware of his surroundings. Completely disregarding Stiles’s earlier instructions.
He was going to kill his brother from another mother—provided he could beat Akins to the punch.
Akins roared again and ran at Scott, who only looked up in time to fall backward onto his ass and the palms of his hands.
Stiles leaped into the air, allowing his momentum to carry him forward in the closest thing to flight land mammals could manage.
Stiles collided with Akins just as the alpha clawed at Scott’s chest, bowling them both over and away from Scottie. They rolled together, stopping with Stiles actually on top for once.
He didn’t pull a single punch. He used both hands, not expending the energy to swing his arms. He pummeled against Akins’s face, landing blows to cheekbones and jawlines.
“Fucking run, Scott! Navy blue sedan, back of parking lot. Little girl in the back. GO!!!!”
He didn’t take his eyes off Akins, trusting Scott to do as he was told.
Akins growled and flipped Stiles off himself, swinging up to his feet and moving to chase Scott.
Stiles flung himself forward and wrapped both arms around Akins’s legs, holding tightly in an effort to trip the alpha up.
Akins reached down with one hand and slashed across Stiles’s back. His body reacted to the sudden pain, tensing all over and causing him to lose control of his grip. Akins stepped one leg out of his hold.
Stiles doubled down and pushed through the pain, wrapping both hands around the ankle still within reach and pulling with everything he still had.
He prayed that Scott had reached the car.
Akins hit the ground on his palms and knees, yipping and slobbering like a rabid animal. Stiles sprang to his feet before sweeping a leg out low, catching Akins in the very meaty thighs and knocking the alpha’s knees out from under him.
Akins hit the pavement again, chin first. In the span of three heartbeats, a dark sedan pulled up to them and the driver’s door flung open.
Scott was behind the wheel. Stiles dove over Scott and into the car.
Scott took off without even bothering to close the door, streaking them out of the parking lot and careening them around corners with no thought to any traffic that could be around them.
He drove like a bat out of hell, which was damn impressive for tiny little asthmatic Scottie.
“What the fuck, Stiles? What. The. Fuck?! What was that thing?!”
The little girl was still wailing in the backseat. They’d left that dead woman right there in the Walgreens parking lot. That had probably been the little girl’s mother.
Stiles took a breath in for a four-count, then held it for two and let it out over four. He repeated this breath a couple times before he could speak. He kept his eyes shut tightly, reining himself back in and consciously slowing his racing heart.
“Call your mom, Scott. Tell her to be at the penthouse when we get there.”
“Stiles, that thin—”
The little girl hadn’t stopped sobbing. He couldn’t get his claws to retract. He had deep gashes across his back that were still bleeding freely. Scott should NOT have been alone, on his way to Walgreens, and in his own little world. Scott’s chest was bleeding
“CALL YOUR FUCKING MOM, SCOTT,” he roared.
Scott called his mom.
The little girl uttered a single meep and promptly fell silent in the back seat. Stiles glanced back and took in the fear in her eyes and her pale skin.
“Oh, hey, sweetheart, it’s okay. No, no, it’s okay. You’re safe. I’m not like that other guy. I won’t hurt you, honey. I’m Stiles, and the guy driving like a maniac is Scott. We’re safe, I promise. We won’t hurt you.”
She very much looked like she didn’t believe him, which was probably pretty fair since he’d just angry roared in a tiny enclosed space. He caught a dark blur in his peripheral vision and looked up and past the girl.
Akins was fully alpha shifted and actively chasing them. What was worse, he was gaining speed.
“Go faster, Scott, or we’re all alpha kibble.”
Scott’s mom shrieked a “what” through the phone, and Stiles grabbed the phone and directed Scott to focus on driving quickly. He kept his eyes on the approaching alpha behind them.
“Mel, we’re gonna need you at the penthouse when we get there. Scottie and I are slashed up and bleeding, and we’ve got a little girl with us who was bitten pretty badly. I can’t see much from here in the front seat, but I think she’s accepting the bite. It’s still a really deep bite, and she’s bleeding a lot.”
“Can you get into the backseat, honey? Get a look at the wound for me? Will it need stitches?”
He twisted a bit more to climb into the back, but his back spasmed.
“No, Mel, I don’t think I can at the moment. My back’s pretty screwed up.”
“Shouldn’t you be healed by now?”
Scott flew around a corner, pulling the car up on two wheels before it straightened back out and crashed onto all four again. Stiles could feel the damage to the wheels in the way the car flew down the road.
Peter was never going to rent him another car again.
“The wounds came from an alpha, Mel. It’s going to take me longer to heal than usual. Just, please. Be at the penthouse in ten—”
Scott hit the accelerator, and Stiles watched the speedometer clock them at 85 mph. “Eight minutes. Be ready for some stitching.”
He ended the call and glanced back out the rear window. Akins was gone.
Stiles sank back down into the front seat, a puppet with its strings cut. His head hit the back rest and he allowed himself a deep sigh of relief.
“He’s fucking gone, Scottie, thank fuck. What in the hell did you think you were doing, anyway?! What were you doing all alone on the south side with ear buds in and no situational awareness? I thought we trained you better than that, asshole!”
“Mrs. Ianopoulis’s poodle came in for an emergency procedure, Stiles! Doc needed me to run to the store to pick up a people med that he needed to treat her. I had to go, or else we could have lost Mittens.”
Was Scott…Was Scott actually whining at him at that particular moment? Seriously?
“And how’d that work out, Scott? Do you have the medicine? No, you do not. Because you were warned not to wander about by yourself because people were being fucking MURDERED not far from the clinic you worked at. Peter has Derek dropping you off and picking you up from work, for fuck’s sake. Fuck Mittens, Scott. You need to be smart. You need to be safe.”
“I would have been fine if—”
“But you weren’t! You weren’t fine, Scott. The gashes across your chest that are still bleeding tell a completely different story, one wherein you were actively in danger and could have been KILLED if not for a series of lucky coincidences! You’re my best friend, man, my brother. How do you think I’d take your death? What about your mom? What about Allison? Huh?”
He took another breath in slowly, holding it and breathing out.
The breathing coming from the back seat sounded as ragged as his.
He thrust a hand into the back and felt around blindly for some part of the little girl to gently grasp onto as he tried his best to croon soothingly at her.
“It’s going to be okay, honey. It’s all going to be alright. We’re almost back to my hou-apartment. Once we’re there, we’ll get you all cleaned up and you’ll be as good as new.”
Next to him, Scott cringed.
“I’m sorry, Stiles. I just needed to help save Mittens.”
Stiles nodded his head, not bothering to move his hand from where it had landed on the little girl’s knee or even open his eyes. The adrenaline was wearing off quickly, and with it, his motivation to yell at people.
“I know, buddy. I know.”
——————
The little girl’s name was Diana, and the dead woman they’d just left behind was her mommy. She didn’t have a daddy, and her grammy had apparently “gone to heaven” a couple months ago. The kid didn’t have anyone to come get her.
On the upside, once Melissa cleaned up the bite on the girl’s arms they could clearly see that her body was accepting the change. On the downside, they now had an orphaned six-year-old girl who was going to turn fuzzy and ragey once a month on their hands. Stiles didn’t have the first clue what to do with little kids, but he knew that this one couldn’t just go into the system.
He called his dad immediately upon arriving at the penthouse and told him there was a body outside that fucking Walgreens again and that someone was going to have to thoroughly scrub some security footage, because him and Scott were both gonna be on it. His dad had just grunted that he’d send some of their people out to handle the scene when Peter walked into the apartment and declared that the security footage had already been handled.
He was bloody and smelled strange—not like Akins, but also not like himself.
Stiles threw aside his phone and set upon him as soon as he saw all the blood, wrapping his partner up in his arms and clinging to him as tiny tremors wracked through his body.
Peter kissed his temple and hugged him back, his hand hitting some parts of the gashes. Stiles winced involuntarily, but clung even tighter to his alpha.
Peter immediately removed his hands from Stiles’s back, one hand moving to scruff at his neck and the other resting on his hip.
“It’s okay, Baby. We’re alright. Most of this isn’t my blood.”
Most of it wasn’t, meaning some of it was. The tremors increased slightly. “How’d you even get hurt, Pete? I stayed focused until Akins was gone. I didn’t see you at all. What do you mean, the security footage has been taken care of?”
Peter, huffed. “I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve been alive, Stiles. I know how to sneak. I managed to tackle Akins as he was chasing your car down, and then I won the ensuing fight.”
He spoke Peter Hale fluently. Winning the ensuing fight meant that Akins was very, very dead.
“Is that why you smell weird? You smell like you, but also very much not.”
Peter kissed his temple again. “I took in his spark when I killed him. The scent will even back out soon, don’t worry. Has Mel had a chance to tend to your back yet?”
Stiles shook his head, leaning it back further into the scruff around his neck and grounding himself in his alpha.
“I had her tend to the humans first, though it looks like we’re going to have a six-year-old beta to deal with before too long, here.”
Peter nuzzled his cheek against Stiles’s.
“Then it’s a good thing we have so many bedrooms here. Can you take your shirts off by yourself, or do you need me to help you with them?”
That was a stupid question. Of course he could take his own shirts off, but whenever it came to it, if he could get his partner to strip him down, he was always going to do that. It mingled their scents absolutely deliciously, and he needed to drown in his alpha right now, to be touching him and smelling him and just having him in his line of sight.
Peter had been hurt.
“Help me, please?”
Peter nodded, seeming to understand what Stiles was really asking. “Let’s head to our bathroom, then, but we don’t have time for any sexy business, baby. I have a six year old who’s going to need the comfort of an alpha very, very soon.”
Stiles pouted. He couldn’t help it, though! He was tired and physically drained, and his back was still fucking bleeding. He needed the comfort of his alpha, too.
He blinked with the realization that he was seriously pouting because a little kid was going to need his mate’s time and attention. He was actually about to be jealous of a six year old.
It had been a long, long day.
In their bathroom, Peter stripped his shirts off him with a gentleness and ease that came with many, many nights’ experience doing the exact same thing. He peppered kisses along Stiles’s jaw and collarbone before sitting him straddled on the toilet and using hydrogen peroxide to clean the wounds, even though Stiles’s body would just burn out any infection that tried to set in.
Peter sealed the still-open gashes up with medical grade super glue, and while it wasn’t as clean a job as Mel would have done, it certainly got the job done.
While the glue was drying, Stiles watched Peter run a bath that he’d added three different kinds of salts, four oils, and twice the legal amount of bubbles to. That bath would have been heaven if Peter had planned to join him in it, which he knew his partner would not be doing.
The six year old SHOULD be the priority, he reminded himself. She was a priority for him, after all, and she was too young to just accept “werewolves” and roll with it.
Peter situated him in the bath, kissing his forehead and telling him to relax, that he’d be back later, and then he left.
Stiles relaxed and let the oils and salts work on his aches and pains while valiantly trying to stay awake.
He did not succeed.
When he exited the bathroom after toweling himself off and checking on his back in the mirror some time later, he found a fresh, clean little girl with ash blonde hair and chubby cheeks cuddled up against Peter’s chest in their bed, fast asleep.
Peter had both his arms wrapped loosely around her. One hand fingercombed through her long curls. He looked up at Stiles, his eyes sparkling and a smile on his lips, and made the shh lip movement.
Stiles smiled back and nodded at him, joining them both on the bed as gently as he could and rubbing softly on her back.
She cooed quietly, but stayed asleep.
“She followed you home,” Peter stated, “can we keep her?”
Stiles sighed and brought the hand that had been rubbing her back up to rub at his own forehead.
“She’s six, Pete. What the hell are we going to do with a six year old?”
Peter’s gaze turned pleading, and Stiles instantly knew that he had already lost this fight.
“What anyone else would do with a six year old, Love. We raise her. We love her like she’s our own, because in a way she already is—she’s already accepted me as her alpha, Stiles. I can feel the pack bond in my chest, just as bright and shiny as all the other pack bonds in residence within me. She’s going to need love and stability, and I can’t think of a single person more loving than you are.”
Stiles rubbed his forehead just a bit harder. Those were dirty, dirty fighting words. He felt himself capitulating and wrinkled his nose in response.
“Stop, babe. Seriously. You already won this round when you honestly asked if we could keep her. I’m well aware that we can’t send a baby beta into the foster care system, and I grabbed her from Akins, which means I’m already invested in her future successes in life. I just…I’m 23, Peter, and physically I’m only 16. I’m way too young to be a dad! I don’t know the first thing about kids, no matter how much fun I have with the pack babies. I know how to be the cool uncle or whatever, but she’s going to need actual parents doing actual parental shit with her. It’s just-it’s a lot.”
Peter nodded, his smile widening as Stiles watched the girl—Diana—snuggle more firmly against his chest.
“She can be ours, love. She can be ours and we can raise her, but we’re going to need to talk about everything that happened this afternoon. There were a lot of coincidences today, and coincidences make my skin itch.”
Peter leaned over and kissed his cheek. “We will, baby. We’ll go over all of it tomorrow. For now, everyone is fine and where they need to be and safe. The alpha is gone, Scott will heal and stay human, and we have a daughter to raise. Let’s just take tonight off and very quietly relish all the good in our lives.”
Relish all the good in their lives? Sometimes it was like he didn’t even recognize the Peter he was currently so hopelessly in love with.
Still, today had ended well, and tomorrow would be a new day.