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The thing is, once Stiles gets a minute to re-dose and re-consider (okay, so, not, exactly, what the doctor would have ordered but in the rush of shoppingLydiaohmygodIlovehersosomuch and ScottontheroofhavetogethimtoAllison and LydiaMartinisfuckingdancingwithMEfuckyeahIAMAWESOMESHESMELLSSOGOOD and then, really, the shock of the winter air over her bare arms, seeping in through her pantyhose like blood, freezing her knees and thighs, goosebumps rising on her chest, fear and adrenaline and Peter HALE whatthefuckgoddamnTHEWORLD and Lydia, on the ground, Stiles’s heart about ten thousand feet lower, and Stiles really just needed an extra pill, okay? It wasn’t like she was a freaking druggie who horded cocaine. (Adderall, in her case.) And Stiles understands.
It kind of makes her sick, really.
She, Stiles Stilinski, understands where Peter Hale is coming from.
If the cancer that had killed her mom been a person, Stiles would have killed it dead, okay? Ripped it to bits with her teeth and eyes gleaming red, like Peter’s, like an Alpha werewolf in full swing, mindless after six years in a bed, abandoned by the last of the family that had gotten her/him there in the first place, okay?
(As it is, Stiles gets yearly checks, awkwardly trying not to fidget in the stirrups as her gyno scrapesscrapesscrapes and why, in the name of god, are there pictures of puppies on the ceiling, Stiles doesn’t know. Stiles also makes the time to pry herself away from her computer to throw on her ‘stripers apron and run to the local hospital children’s cancer wing. She reads and laughs and makes funny faces at the little pale things, shrunken in their brightly colored sheets, with their big, tired eyes and bald egg-heads. Stiles is a master at painting nails, now, and especially gifted with making poka-dots. She is the shit.)
But, she’s also getting off topic, even in her own head, as she shakes in the hospital corridor under her father’s jacket, her bare arms streaked with blood and lies buzzing around her teeth and chapped lips as she stares unseeingly into Lydia’s room.
God, Lydia is going to be a fucking awesome werewolf, god, pleasepleaseplease--
Now that the fresh fear is wearing off because Peter Hale hurt Lydia, and the rage is coming in, Stiles can start to feel her meds kick into gear.
It’s always a strange experience, watching the world slow down from its mad rush between her ears, a bit of vertigo hitting her as her mental computer begins pausing to let a page load before moving on.
What the hell is Stiles supposed to do?
Peter is going to kill the Argents, Derek has probably been found by now, Scott is likely brainwashedalphazapped to go with them, and--okay. First plan draft: Stiles goes after them, hopes to God she can help.
Except, no, wait, that won’t work.
Okay, plan two: Stiles stays at the hospital like her dad told her too, gets checked out, and stays out of the supernatural creature smack down.
Snort. Yeah, no.
Plan three: Stiles helps Derek and Scott kill Peter Hale.
Stiles feels herself throw up in her mouth a bit at the thought, unconsciously curling down the wall to hunch over her knees, bloody and grass stained, hose torn ragged, feet bare and bruised. (She had kicked off the heels Lydia had helped her pick out in Macy’s on the field so that she could run. She hadn’t had a chance to grab them before Peter had hauled her off to her Jeep.) She tried to breathe. In and out.
Hadn’t the man been through enough? Hadn’t hurting Lydia been enough? Hadn’t he killed enough to deserve to die?
But who were they to decide that?
At the parking garage, Peter had told Stiles that he wasn’t the villain--that he killed to avenge his family.
Was that a good enough reason?
Stiles didn’t even have to think.
Yes. Yes, if it had been her, she would have done the exact same thing.
(Okay, so, maybe she wouldn’t have bit Scott, really, but, still. And maybe she would have tried harder not to kill her niece. And nurse. God, he really was a murderer, wasn’t he?)
Stiles swallowed around her dry mouth, the floor like ice under her feet, coat dragging the ground around her heels as she pressed her hands over her eyes, not caring that they were dirty and bruised, her cheek a dull ache and fingertip bruises pulling around her shoulders.
At the smell of blood, she jerked her hands away, folding them around her legs.
So, yeah, she had to go.
If only to try and save Allison.
(Stiles pointedly ignored the fact that if she had to stare at Lydia, pale, sick Lydia, so tiny in the hospital bed, she was going to go insane. For real.)
*
Then there’s Jackson, and the part of The Plan that requires Stiles to hotwire a car goes out the window, which, really, is fine. Stiles feels enough like a delinquent already as she goes to leave the hospital.
Then there’s Papa Argent, with his fine, scary-as-hell self, and Jackson’s startling lack of ability to lie to an authority figure, and they’re in a room, and Stiles is against the wall, Chris Argent in her face, smelling of aconite and gun oil, older male and something uniquely Allison-y that must be the smell of their home.
Stiles swallows through the story of Mr. Argent killing his friend, which, really, just makes her sad and angry as hell, and god, didn’t being a girl usually get her out of these things? When had the sign been stuck to her forehead? What was it? All-men-of-the-older-and-hot-variety-come-manhandle-a-teenaged-girl night or something?
Stiles had to wonder as Mr. Argent crowded into her space, his eyes like blue ice and rage. And she can’t help it, she blabbers at him like she always does, and watches his eyes. Shocked. He really didn’t know? And then she drops the whammy on him. And she’s adept enough that she can see the hurt, the shock, then the quiet, cold-fire acceptance, so fast, so quick to believe her when she told him his sister was a fucking psychopath.
And jeeze, Stiles honestly doesn’t want to think about what that means about Kate Argent.
Really.
*
What Stiles refuses to think about was the fact that she actually visited Peter Hale once or twice, back when he was still a half-burned shell. Admittedly, it was before he got his newly minted, creepy as hell nurse, back when it had just been old Mrs. Barns who cared for all of the catatonic patients at the residential ward, Stiles had gone and given Peter flowers, opened his window as he stared at nothing, happy to chatter away as she neatened up his already clean room, hiding the anger at the fact that the only family he had had left had just deserted him in a nursing home to rot.
She wonders if he still has the drawing she had given him, pinned beside his bed so that he could have something to look at, a tall, winding tree with knotted branches that looked like wolves, rendered in sharpie, ink like blood across the page.
And no, it’s not funny now.
*
She also doesn’t think about his fingers around her wrist, so large that they wrapped around half-over again, his lips whispering against her pulse before she pulled away. How warm he had been, the electricity that buzzed up her spine when he looked at her, quiet and still like a predator, a wild wolf watching the humans and seeing, but maybe not really understanding the behavior he provoked.
The solemn offer.
“Think about what we could do together, Stiles. Think of what the Pack would become.”
And then, the Bite.
But no.
She wouldn’t take that from him.
*
God, Jackson’s Porsche drives like a dream, god-damming Peter Hale aside for what he did to the keys of her Jeep, as they speed along the old road to the Hale House.
Stiles is still freezing as she presses her foot harder on the accelerator. Jackson is silent in the seat beside her.
Honestly, she isn’t sure what she’s going to do when she gets there. Stiles will be the first to admit that she has a bit of a problem with making spur-of-the-moment decisions, and, with her heart racing in her chest, cold sweat gathering along the bends of her knees, elbows; the back of her neck from where her hair has fallen, lank and loose, glittery and smelling of hairspray, she’s willing to be the first to admit that this? This is so, so one of those times.
*
Dear God, the Alpha is scary as fuck.
*
They get there in time to see Allison crouching over her dad, her hands stained red with blood, pleading for him to wake up.
Without taking the time to think about it, Stiles threw herself from the still running car, only putting it in park out of habit before she was tripping over her feet, nights spent researching first-aid rushing through her brain, faster than the speed of light.
The ground is cold under her knees, gritty as it digs into raw skin, and Stiles pushes Allison out of the way.
“Where?” Stiles asks, trying to see in the dark, the Porsche’s headlights cutting beams through the night like twin knives. Allison just shakes her head, her hands shaking as she stares, wide-eyed as Stiles forces her hands under Chris Argent’s shirt, palming at his torso.
Blood pulses up under her fingers, right under Mr. Argent’s ribs, hot, and Stiles wonders if it would steam in the air before she forces her hands--
And there goes Scott, her mind absently notices as her friends tumbles down from the Hale House. He lands at the dirt feet from them, and looks shocked to see Stiles and Jackson there.
Oh, and there’s Jackson, holding out his jacket to Stiles, balled up, and Stiles wads it against the bite under her hands, kneeling on it.
She feels lightheaded, like she might throw up. She orders Allison to lift her father’s legs above his chest, for Jackson to give her his belt. Her fingers are numb, but still steady, wow, would you look at that, and her hand skates under Mr. Argent’s chin, blood painting over scruff and his Adam’s apple as Stiles searches for a pulse. His skin is warm.
It takes Stiles a second to find it, but it’s there, thready and fast, vibrating under her wet fingers.
Her nail polish is chipped.
An unearthly roar sounds from inside the Hale House.
Scott is on his feet, snarling.
Jackson is crouched beside them.
Allison is crying silent, fat tears onto the legs of her father’s pants.
Stiles’s chest is tight, her heart in her throat.
The Alpha.
*
Watching Peter Hale transform from beast to man is the scariest fucking thing ever, in Stiles’s opinion. It’s like shoving a clown back into a box, a twisting, writhing snake into a sack of skin and bones.
A flower blooming backwards.
Where did all the extra mass go? Stiles wondered, breathless, as Peter Hale shook his head once, his muzzle shifting back into a mouth and nose, pale skin free of pitch-black fur. He’s naked but Stiles doesn’t even notice that because his eyes are as red as hot coals as he looks over them slowly, a predator in human skin.
He smiles when he sees her kneeling there. His teeth are red with blood.
Stiles can’t swallow. She is really, horribly afraid.
“Hello, Stiles,” he says lightly, like they’re just having a friendly conversation while Mr. Argent bleeds out under Stiles’s hands. “Have you reconsidered my offer already?”
Stiles feels her jaw clench.
Scott growls, and Peter Hale doesn’t even look at him when he says, “Sit,” and Scott goes to the ground like an anvil has been dropped on his shoulders.
Stiles’s fists her hand in Mr. Argent’s jacket. Tries to think, seeing from the corner of her eye as Scott reaches a clawed hand to Allison, whimpering.
Kate Argent is nowhere to be seen.
“Did you kill her?” comes out of Stiles’s mouth before she can stop it. Peter Hale just looks amused. “Kate Argent. Did you kill her?”
From the way Allison flinches next to her and Peter just continues to smile, Stiles gets her answer. Her heart is loud in her ears, the silence pressing in, the only sound the still-running Porsche and the wind. The moon is a white weight in the sky.
Stiles feels tears press against her eyes as Peter takes a step closer. “Are you done? Haven’t you had enough?” Peter freezes, his head cocking to the side like--okay, Stiles is so not going here, and hey, she’s still talking. Wow. How completely unsurprising is that, and, is it just her, or does Peter Hale look more and more like he’s re-considering ripping her throat out with his quiet, still gaze, his hands lax at his sides.
“I mean, it’s not like the rest of the Argent’s have done anything, right?” Stiles tries to point out. Her voice is high with fear. “I told Mr. Argent about Kate, you know, back at the hospital. That’s why he’s here, to stop her, but, you did that already so, is it over? Please, it’s gotta be over, right?”
Peter’s gaze shifts from Stiles, off to the side, and Allison is as still as a deer in a pair of headlights. A lamb to the wolf before them.
Stiles babbles.
“And Allison’s just a kid, she’s younger than me even, she didn’t do anything, you don’t have to hurt her!” she cries as Peter stalks forward on silent feet.
He kneels before them, staring her straight in the eyes, and Stiles has just a powerful case of de’ja’vu right then, god, she can’t even--
“You didn’t answer my question, Stiles,” Peter Hale breathes, his clawed hand coming up to trace the line of her jaw.
Stiles can barely hear him over the sound of her own heartbeat and panic.
“What?” she croaks, “Really? You really wanna talk about that now?”
A flash of humor, bright and wicked crosses his eyes.
“No better time but the present, my dear,” he rolls the words around in his mouth, his lips pulling back to reveal inhuman fangs.
Stiles can’t breathe, god, is she having a panic attack? Now? Right here? Of all the timing…
“Would you not, not hurt Allison and her dad--”
Peter cuts her off, lightly tapping his finger against her cheek to shut her up. Stiles swallows.
“Oh, but I’ve hurt them already Stiles,” he points out helpfully, glancing down significantly to where she’s holding Jackson’s suit coat against Mr. Argent’s torso. “Chris Argent has the Bite. And, if she wants to live through the night, Allison will accept it as well.”
Stiles imagines that she can feel the blood start to slow under her hands as the world narrows down around her. Chris Argent is going to be a werewolf? A hunter, becoming the hunted. And Allison…
Stiles feels her teeth grind together, her eyes wide in her face, her lips burning, cracked.
“Jackson?” she has to ask, because she can feel him behind her, shaking, scared, and yeah, he’s an asshole, but he still doesn’t deserve to just die.
Peter smirks at that.
“Well,” he muses lightly, “maybe if one of my Pack asks me nicely…” he leaves off, and Stiles meets his eyes. They burn.
“Someone…like…me.” Stiles feels herself stumble over the words, her voice breaking and high and scared and ohmygodisthisreallyhappeningtoME?
Peter’s grin is as fast as lightening.
“Got it in one!”
Stiles doesn’t even have to think, at that, feeling Mr. Argent begin to stir under her knee, Allison and Scott and Jackson and Derek and Dead-Kate and if she can help, she has tohastohasto--
“Then…yes,” her mouth is numb, the words stumbling from her lips. Her entire world has focused on the sharp, bright teeth filling Peter Hale’s mouth, stretching his lips wide, his jaw lowering.
“Yes?” and his voice is more of a growl now, low and thrumming like a bass between the small space from her to him.
“Yes.”
Quicker than she can think to blink his hand has tightened on her face, jerking her forward, off balance, and his other arm is wrapping around her side, claws digging through her dad’s coat and her dress to sink into her thin hip and his teeth, god, his mouth is closed around the side of her neck, his chin pushing aside the coat collar to give his face more room.
His cheeks and nose are hot--unaffected by the cold--and his hair is oddly soft against the underside of her ear. Weird, she thinks.
This close, she can feel him breathing, his heart so close to her own, and it’s so, so shockingly intimate, closer than she’s ever been to a man, and why doesn’t it--
A shard of shooting, sharp pain goes through her neck, the teeth breaking skin and her mind struggling to kick back into gear. She’s not sure if she screams, she doesn’t think so, but her hand comes automatically to try and push him off of her, struggling against his hold, and he’s going, thank god, unclenching his jaws and pulling away.
He smiles, and his teeth are red with Stiles’s blood. She touches her neck, and it’s slick and hot and red and her blood is mixing in with dirt and Mr. Argent and hospital and Jackson’s leather seats and, and--
She thinks she’s gonna be sick.
*
The world is fuzzy and dark--both from it being night and the fact that Stiles is looking out from her hair. Her head feels like it’s been stuffed with cotton, or those annoying packing peanuts, and hey, she’s kinda hungry, maybe she could convince Scott to go pick them up something to eat, maybe bring her a doggy bag--
And she can’t help it, Stiles giggles at that, curled over her knees, sitting on the rotting steps of the Hale House. Her fingers dig into her calves, dry blood cracking off, flaking down around her toes. Her neck burns, along with her wrist where Peter had Bit her again after gnawing on Allison’s shoulder and Jackson’s forearm.
(Allison had agreed to the Bite. Big surprise when her father was rasping before her and her death looked at her with cold red eyes. Jackson had shook, scared, but hadn’t tried to run, smart, and Stiles wondered if he was regretting ever wanting it--this, she reminds herself, pressing her torn wrist to the coarseness of her stockings. She should probably just take them off, she knows, but something is better than nothing, right? And she’s cold--her dad’s jacket may swallow her, but it only comes down to the middle of her thighs, scarcely longer than her dress.)
She shivers, feels eyes on her, but can’t be bothered to look up.
Peter is back in a pair of pants, the dark fabric ridding low on his hips, and Derek is scowling at them all from the other side of the porch.
Mr. Argent still lays, awake but glassy eyed, pained and pale on his daughter’s lap on the forest floor. Allison brushes his hair with her fingers, and Scott crowds as close to her side as he can. Jackson sits next to Stiles, holding his arm with tight fingers.
“So, what now Boss? Count me out if it includes World Domination--I don’t think I could stand long enough to walk down the street, let alone topple nations, but, hey, if you want to, I’m sure Derek here will be happy to help. What’s family for, right?” Stiles could feel her lips forming the words, trying to drive back the silence that filled the forest, the clearing, the death littering the Hale House pressing down on her eyes. She didn’t bother looking up, and she couldn’t tell if she was actually speaking or not. Would it be better if she was, or wasn’t?
Stiles didn’t know.
“Actually, scratch that, show of hands, who wants to find a bed and just pass out? Me? Is it just me? Wow, okay--” Stiles sat up straighter, cracking her back, bruises pulling around her shoulders, scabs breaking on her neck.
Ouch. And--
Stiles sucked in a fast breath, clenching her eyes shut against the burning pain.
“Stiles.” Peter was looking at her, his eyes strangely soft. The look raised the hair of Stiles’s neck, and she scowled at him.
His lips just twitched wider. Then he jerked his head to the side.
“Scott, Jackson, Stiles--go home. I’ll call you.” He motioned them to Jackson’s Porsche.
“What?”
“That’s it?”
“I’m not leaving Allison!”
A clamor of voices.
Peter growled, low and deep and wow, Stiles thought, feeling herself shrink instinctively, wincing.
“Go. Now,” he ordered them.
Stiles was on her feet and walking to the Porsche without even realizing it, slinking past Peter.
He still ran a hand over her head as she passed. Familiar and heavy.
Stiles wrapped her arms tighter around her stomach, stumbling.
“Derek, escort them.”
Stiles climbed into the car.
*
“Stiles, why--” Scott breaks the silence in the car, halfway to her house, Peter’s compulsion fading around Stiles’s heart. Scott sounds pissed, and, really, that just makes Stiles want to--
“Shut the hell up, McCall,” Jackson says, cutting off her train of thought. His hands are fisted around the wheel, and Stiles turns to stare at him.
The car is abruptly quiet, the only sound the hum of the engine and four sets of lungs breathing. Jackson is speeding, and, absurdly, Stiles is incredibly grateful that her father is in the hospital with the majority of his deputies and, as such, can’t catch her in a speeding car. With three boys. After he told her to stay put.
Stiles really, really hurts.
Scott’s mouth is hanging open, and he shuts it with a click, his eyes turning gold in the light of the dashboard. But Stiles only sees that for a second before she’s snapping her attention back to Jackson, trying not to move her neck because ow.
“She saved our lives, okay? You know, me, and your girlfriend, the ones Peter Hale was going to kill? Really, McCall?” Jackson sounds pissed, too, actually. And tired. But his face is set in a stubborn scowl that makes him ridiculously attractive nonetheless.
(Come on, he may be an asshole, but that boy is built.)
And, wow, that shuts Scott up real quick; his face draining of color as he slumps back into his seat.
Derek rolls his eyes.
*
The next day, Stiles stirs in her bed.
There’s a cup of water next to her bed, a note from her dad reading, ‘Take a day off,’ and two aspirin.
Thank God.
Stiles gulps it down and flops back onto her bed, pulling the blankets up over her head.
Her mouth tastes like blood and dirt and Lydia’s expensive hairspray, and it is so, so gross that she couldn’t even be bothered to undress before flopping into bed the night before, but--
Stiles is up like a shot and in front of her mirror before she can think, pulling her hair away from her neck with her heart in her throat.
Oh, hot damn.
Her fingers trace the smooth expanse of skin where Peter Hale’s teeth had ripped into her the night before and feels sick.
Sick, and excited and shamed, all that once.
Shit
.
Stiles is a werewolf.
*
Stiles takes a long, long shower, until the water runs like ice down her back and she tears herself from under the spray, gasping.
Clean, she stands naked in front of the bathroom mirror, and slowly brushes her hair, letting her body dry in the air.
Water licks down her neck, her hair falling in a single straight wave down around her shoulders, all of Lydia’s careful curls and hairspray and glitter washed down the drain, leaving Stiles’s hair long and plain and dark around her pale face. She throws away her torn pantyhose, wadding them up with her dirty underwear and dress, shoving them into a trash bag that she plans to burn later. They are soaked with blood. Her dad can’t ever find them.
Stiles swallows, runs her hand over her neck.
Tries to breathe.
Pops an Adderall.
Shimmying into a pair of boy shorts and her dad’s old Academy shirt, letting it fall around her knees, she brushes her teeth twice, shaking a hand through her hair, and pulls on a hoodie. She throws her dad’s coat into the washer, tossing in two-times the soap and letting it soak along with her dirty sheets and blanket. Luckily, she knows how to get blood out of clothing. (Wikipedia is her bitch.)
She could have saved the dress.
She doesn’t bother, sitting on the counter with her eyes closed, eating a bowl of Applejacks and trying desperately not to think.
Her finger itch to text Scott, to try and look up Jackson’s phone number, but she doesn’t; carefully folding her hands around her bowl, her heels swinging. When she’s done she sets her dishes in the skin, jots out a quick note to her dad that yes, she actually did wake up, and slumps up the stairs.
She pauses in her dad’s doorway, looking in at the large, empty bed. Clean and there and God--
Stiles throws herself down in the middle, choking on tears, shivering her way back under the covers. She buries her nose in her dad’s pillow. She can’t help but imagine her mother, curling around her back, tucking Stiles into her embrace, her breath warm on Stiles’s neck.
Stiles swallows thickly, pushing away the memories.
She goes back to sleep.
*
The next few days are a combination of dread and squirmy/sloth-ness for Stiles.
She catches up on the housecleaning in record time, her dad’s jacket mercifully clean from her awesome laundry-foo, and visits Lydia in the hospital.
She’s not healing, not like Scott had. (Not like Stiles, or Jackson, or Allison, or Mr. Argent.)
And, God, doesn’t that just make Stiles’s stomach rest around the floor, her fingers clenched tightly into her palms, just incase she pops claws in the middle of the corridor.
Her dad is still looking for the man that hurt Lydia, and Stiles takes the time to make him supper and breakfast each and every day and take it over to the station and watch him eat.
It helps ease something inside of her.
Also--her Adderall is starting not to work.
Peter hasn’t called.
*
Stiles spend a lot of her time in her bedroom with the curtains drawn, working on changing her face and her fingers and her eyes.
What will bring this out? What will make it go away? How long can I hold it off when I feel like this? How quickly can I tuck it away?
These are things she needs to know. There will be no, pissed-off shifting in front of her dad, oh no.
(She’s not Scott, for God’s sake.)
It gets easier the more she practices, but it’s hard at first. Really hard.
Everything is so loud, so there, in her face, in her mouth and up her nose and reverberating around her stomach and it feels so much like when she was younger, before getting her medication, that she wants to curl up and die.
But she doesn’t.
Because she’s Stiles-freaking-Stilinski. This wolf-shit is not going to beat her.
She’s starting to feel something inside of her, too.
Something deep and dark and primal. Something that’s familiar in an old, bloody-bones and torn-flesh way that echoes out from her primordial memories.
(Her fingers itch to see what her genotype looks like under a microscope, now, if it would be any different. And she actually contemplates breaking into the school just to find out. Contemplates. Doesn’t.)
Stiles thinks it’s her wolf.
Thinks. And wonders.
*
Then she gets a text message.
It’s from an unknown number.
All it says is, Come.
And Stiles goes.
*
In the days since the night of the full moon, there have been some new additions to the Hale Property.
Firstly, it actually has a mailbox. So, Stiles is assuming that Peter bought back the land from the county. Cool. Fine. Whatever.
Secondly, there are three new doublewide-trailers, all connected to each other at the edge of the clearing where the House sits. They’re shinny and obviously newly bought. The land is churned up around them, like they had just been hauled it to sit. Waiting for people to come and occupy their hollow shells.
They’re striking, next to the decaying mound of wood that is the old Hale House.
Striking, and slightly disturbing to Stiles, who shuffles her feet in the grown-over driveway, nervous. They smell strange and kinda burn all along her gum line, tingling. New metal and plastic and fake. The Hale House smells much better. Like something she could stand to be in, under the rot and smoke and ash.
And isn’t it weird that Stiles just…doesn’t have it in her to be afraid? Like, she’s spent so long worrying and for it all to come to fruition just a few nights ago, and, really, she can’t find the energy to be afraid, not anymore. Peter Hale had had the chance to hurt her, hurt her bad, make her bleed, and he hadn’t. Time and again, he hadn’t.
(The Bite doesn’t count.)
And hadn’t he said that he wasn’t the bad guy?
God, Stiles just…didn’t know. But she was through being afraid of what was going to come. Through.
Scott shows up out of the woods, somewhere behind her, but she had heard him from what seemed like a mile away, so she doesn’t even turn to look. He stomped like an elephant.
Jackson is leaning against his Porsche, looking pale and afraid.
Stiles wonders that she never noticed how good fear smelled, but also that Jackson is such a wussy.
God, is he really part of her Pack now?
Still, Stiles can’t help it. It’s like an itch up her spine, and she has to, absolutely positively has to go to him and slide an arm around his waist, pull him into her side and rub her face along his shoulder.
She’s read about this, but hadn’t thought she would feel it so strongly. She’s scent marking Jackson, like she’s an actual wolf and how freaky is that?
Actually, it isn’t, not that much. Huh.
Jackson lets her, absently, like he doesn’t even realize what he’s doing, until Scott comes up beside them and does the same, rubbing his hand down Jackson’s arm and burrowing into Stiles’s other side.
Stiles rests her hand on the back of his neck and Jackson wrinkles his nose and steps away, an old jock-assholeness rising in his eyes.
Stiles pins him with a look and he deflates just as the door to one of the trailers opens.
It’s Peter, tall and grinning and not looking obnoxiously crazy in a pair of Levi’s and a button-up plaid. Which is nice.
The not-crazy part, she means. She carefully ignores the part that slavers under his attention, needy and wanting.
“Children!” Peter calls out, hopping down the steps. He comes to stand before them and without thinking Stiles looks at the ground, respectful and quiet, baring her throat.
It’s scary, and strange, and Stiles wonders if she really has to, if it’s one of those wolf-things she’s figuring out, when Jackson and Scott follow her lead.
It seems involuntary, and from what she’s read--
Peter just smiles and pulls them into a loose embrace, his nose touching each of their heads and then releasing them.
He greets Stiles first, which is weird, because she’s pretty sure--
“Do you like what I’ve done with the place?” Peter asks, drawing her from her thoughts like a shot of Adderall straight to the stomach.
It, actually, kinda hurts, before she’s answering him.
“Er, yeah, nice, dude. Really DIY sheik you’ve got going here. It stinks, but it’s nice,” she babbles.
Peter laughs.
“Well, it’s not particularly homey, yet, but we’ve got time,” he shrugs, motioning for them to follow him back inside.
They go.
“Personally, I’m just glad that you don’t have to live in your old house,” Stiles says, unthinkingly, tugging on her hoodie sleeves to pull them over her knuckles as they mount the steps.
Peter is quiet, but he casts her a look full of something over his shoulder before ushering them inside and telling them to ditch their shoes on the threat of having to do the vacuuming next.
It’s warm, and doesn’t smell too bad, more like Peter and Derek and Allison’s perfume and normal, house-y things that Stiles has been working to acclimatize to the last few days.
Speaking of the devil.
There’s Derek, sitting at the kitchen table, a mug of coffee steaming in front of him. He looks at them over the rim of his cup, taking a sip, and Stiles feels the hair on the back of her neck raise before she looks away. Again.
“Hello, Derek,” she says to be polite, and he grunts.
What an ape.
And--
“Allison!” Scott yells out, happy and bright as he bounds over to where the other girl is sitting on the couch, her father nearby in the corner.
Allison’s smile is strained and tired. She kinda looks like Jackson does, actually, but more…steely and stuff.
It’s probably the hunter blood.
And, on that note.
“Mr. Argent,” Stiles says, folding her arms around her stomach awkwardly, following Scott a few steps to get a closer look at Allison and her dad. “Dude, you’re not, you know…bloody and stuff anymore…” Stiles waves at his stomach, where last she had seen he had been bleeding out under her hands.
Mr. Argent nods. “Yes.” He gives her a speculative look, up and down. “I’m told I have you to thank for that. And for my daughter,” he nudges his chin at Allison.
He’s speaking quietly, and his eyes are solemn, bright blue. Stiles has to crane her neck to look at him, and she knows that everyone else in the room can hear them, but it’s nice to hear from him.
Nice, and guilt-inducing.
“I…” Stiles presses her lips together and breathes sharply out of her nose, staring at Mr. Argent’s bare feet, her own toes curling in her mismatched socks.
Weird. Bare feet. Had Peter taken his shoes?
“Really.” Mr. Argent lays a careful hand on her shoulder, and it sends a jolt of electricity right up her spine, and if she had a scruff, she thinks it’d be ruffled.
Her head snaps up and Mr. Argent looks just as surprised as she does, his hand snatched back.
“Yes, Chris and I have reached an understanding,” Peter says negligently from the kitchen, where he’s stolen Derek’s cup and is making a face at the taste.
Just like that, all of the attention is back on him.
“Now,” he sets the cup down and stares at them all seriously, “I think it’s time we talked.”
“As a Pack.”
*
The table isn’t big enough for all of them, but they crowd around it as best as they can.
Derek, Allison, Jackson, and Scott get the seats. Derek, because he was there first, and the rest because Stiles felt like she could just vibrate out of the chair and Mr. Argent because he wouldn’t put his back to anyone.
Peter because he was Peter. And the Alpha. And stuff. And so he just stood at the head and they all looked at him.
He clapped his hands just like that, Stiles felt all of her attention center in on him, like a magnet, or watching a car crash, or something.
It was weird, but kinda…nice. Was this what normal people felt, able to focus on just one thing?
Wow.
“Hi everybody! For those who don’t know me, I’m Peter Hale. I’m the Alpha of this Pack. My nephew Derek here is my Beta.” Peter tapped his chin like he was thinking, and his grin was sly.
“Any questions?”
And, man, could he have made a worse choice.
Except the kitchen was quiet. Utterly, deathly silent.
Stiles held her tongue, wondering if anyone would speak up. She thought it polite to wait, for a minute anyway, because once she started she wasn’t sure when she’d stop.
“Now, don’t talk all at once,” Peter said drolly.
“Beta? Alpha? What the hell are those? Some kind of titles?” Jackson asked, some of his old bravado back into his voice.
It was both comforting, and not.
Luckily, Peter didn’t rip his throat out for any perceived disrespect, just tilted his head to the side and looked at Jackson, like it was actually a good question.
Really, even if Stiles’s best friend hadn’t been bitten by a crazy Peter back in August, she still would’ve known wolf-pack dynamics. Hello, Discovery Channel anybody???
“Would anyone care to answer Jackson?” Peter asked.
“An Alpha is the head of the Pack, Jackson. Derek is his Beta, his second in command. If Peter isn’t around, we listen to Derek, because he has Peter’s authority behind him,” Allison explained carefully, her finger tangled around Scott’s still. Scott looked surprised.
Jackson still looked a little confused, so Stiles added, “Peter’s our Dread-Sovereign Overlord, Jackson. He says ‘Jump’ we say ‘How High?’ Derek is our manager.”
Jackson looked a bit mutinous at that, but Mr. Argent, Peter, and Derek were all looking at her, with surprise in Derek’s case, and amusement in Mr. Argent and Peter’s.
Yes, she had had American History.
Yes, Scott had failed that class.
Her life.
“Anything else?” Peter steered the conversation back.
Nothing. Scott was watching Allison. Allison was watching Peter. Derek and Jackson were watching each other. Peter and Mr. Argent were watching everyone else, calmly, patiently.
The obvious adults in this situation. Which, can anyone say bad-touch?
Stiles takes a breath and lets it out as all the eyes turn to her at the loud noise. She shoves her hands into the pockets of her loose jeans, the sleeves of her favorite red hoodie pressing into her arms, binding, tight. Stiles swallows and wets her lips and goes.
“Okay, so, I’m gonna say this now, if you have questions, speak up, I’m about to commandeer this conversation, now, okay?” She looks around the table again, just to be sure. Nope. No takers.
Looks like it’s on her.
Which is kinda annoying. God, was she the only one wondering about all of this?
“Okay, so, is this set up like an actual wolf pack?” she waved around the room to encompass them. Peter and Mr. Argent look surprised. Again. Like, come on, was she the only one to think about the comparison?
“Like, Alpha, Beta, Omega?” Stiles clarifies, frowning as she remembers the sharp, vivid blue her eyes had flashed in the mirror when she was experimenting, and Scott’s gold, and Peter’s bloody, bloody red. “Is that dictated by eye color? And, if it is, is there gonna be infighting?” Which, wow, brought up another really pertinent point, because, like, Derek had been born like this and Allison was a bad-ass lady and Mr. Argent was just, like, Dean Winchester only bad-er, and Jackson had been demolishing Stiles in Lacrosse since Freshmen year, so, yeah. Self-defense classes taught by one of her dad’s Deputies was, like, not gonna cut it.
“Like, I’m a Beta, Derek’s a Beta, but I wanna be higher up in the hierarchy, so I fight Derek for the spot? What about the fluidity of those positions? Because real wolves like, switch, right? Like, all the time?” That was a good point, right?
Peter was smiling. It looked soft.
“Close, Stiles, someone’s obviously done some homework. Yes, your eye color will reflect your status in this Pack. Mine are red. Beta’s are blue. Omega’s are gold,” Peter explained, calmly and fluidly, like he was just commenting on the weather. “There will be no infighting. The positions aren’t really fluid. Mostly, because you’re all so new at this.” He shrugs, like, ‘just saying guys: you’re all infants compared to me.’
Nice, Peter. Real nice.
But, actually, that’s fine. Totally fine. Stiles is now the Queen of Fine.
Except.
“Okay. Cool,” Stiles hurries on, “So, what about the Argents?”
There’s a heavy moment of silence where all eyes go to Allison, then to Mr. Argent when she doesn’t look up from the table.
Ouch. Stiles feels like a dick.
“No offense, guys, but Mrs. Argent scares the shit out of me. If I wasn’t so scared, I’d probably want to be her when I grew up, like, seriously,” which, really isn’t making anything better, except making Jackson and Scott look at her like she’s fricken crazy while Peter and Allison look like they’re trying not to laugh and Mr. Argent’s mouth is twitching.
Stiles Stilinski, folks, she’ll be in town all week.
“And, aren’t their any laws against turning Hunters, like Allison and Mr. Argent? Are we gonna get into trouble? Or…” and Stiles really, really thinks about this for a second before she brings it up, but doesn’t this have to be said? “Is it, like, quid-pro-quo…because of what Kate did?”
Everyone seems to suck in a breath, and Derek’s fingers tighten around his cup until Stiles thinks it’s going to break.
Peter smiles the smile she first saw on him. Crazy. Empty.
Scary.
“Technically,” he practically purrs, “yes, I am well within my rights to take my pound of flesh and blood, as it were, from the Argent family for their crimes. However, Chris and I have negotiated their places in this Pack. The Hale debt is paid, and the Argents would be breaking their Code should they try to move against us,” he finishes smoothly, folding his arms across his chest. His hair flops down into his eyes, shading them.
Stiles doesn’t think she imagines the flash of deep crimson that she sees, though.
But now Mr. Argent is speaking up.
“He’s right,” he says with a dead, solemn finality. His face is cold and closed and as fake as Stiles has ever seen.
He’s not looking at anyone, and his hand is curled around Allison’s shoulder. “What Kate did was…atrocious. The Argents owe a debt to the Hales.” He looks up. “Peter would have been well within his rights to disembowel Allison and I where we stood.”
His lips form a grim smile. “Well, disembowel and let die, anyway. The rest of the Family won’t bother the Hale Pack.”
“That’s…messed up, dude. Where did you people come up with these rules?” Scott blurt out into the icy silence that follows. Stiles smacks him in the back of the head.
Fondly.
Mr. Argent pretends not to see, shaking his head. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that for now, we are all safe.”
There’s another moment of quiet before Stiles can’t take it anymore. Peter isn’t doing that Focusing-Attention Thing (that Stiles is beginning to suspect is actually an Alpha Thing) and Stiles is seeing the strain on everyone’s faces, hearing the dips in their hearts, smelling the pain and anger and sorrow and she can’t. take. it.
So she falls back on what she knows.
“Okay, so, who’s hungry?” she asks, already squeezing around chairs to reach the cabinets, pulling them open and taking stock. “I’m hungry, do we have anything that I can make to feed everyone? Mac’N’Cheese! Sweet! Cheesy goodness! Who wants some?” she shakes the bulk, family-sized box up.
Everyone grumbles assent, some louder than others, but all watching her with careful eyes.
Whoops, too fast feeling change?
Oh, well.
*
They all file out into the living room, flipping on the TV on low.
Stiles hears Modern Marvels like it’s right in front of her as she heats a pot of water and starts the timer for the Mac’N’Cheese.
But she can feel Peter, standing in the corner of the room, over everything.
“What?” Stiles asks. She means to snap, to sound offended that he’s watching her like a creeper, but it just comes out weary. A, ‘what now?’
“I was right,” Peter says, coming up behind her and leaning his against the fridge.
Stiles doesn’t even have to ask what he’s talking about. She remembers that night just fine, thanks.
“And how would you know?” Stiles sighs, looking for bowls and finding plastic Tupperware. Well, it would work. She sets out seven bowls, and goes looking for utensils. Her hair is escaping from the messy tail she had thrown it into before she came, sliding out around her neck and ears.
Peter reaches out when she turns, twirling a strand around his finger. He forces her to meet his eyes with a careful tug.
He’s smiling, that same weird, unfamiliar emotion burning low in his gaze when he looks at her.
“Come now Stiles, don’t think that I didn’t see you comforting Jackson and Scott, touching Allison.”
Stiles opens her mouth to ask what that has to do with anything, but Peter’s leaning in to breathe against her mouth.
“I see you, Stiles,” Peter sing-songs.
Stiles swallows. She can hear what he isn’t saying. What his eyes are trying to tell her.
They say, You can run, but you won’t ever be able to hide.
Not from me.
And that’s probably the scariest thing Stiles has ever not heard.