Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I don’t know if you are very stupid or very brave, kid.”

Stiles did not look up when he felt Gerard hovering over his body. He did not care if not making eye contact made him a a coward, or whatever. He had been getting his shit rocked by Allison’s geriatric grandfather for what felt like an eternity, at this point, he felt like he was entitled to ignore the man for a bit.

As a treat.

It was already embarrassing that an old man with a foot in the grave could take him by surprise and hurt him like this, he did not need the added humiliation of having to watch him as he did it, too.

That did not mean he couldn’t talk, however.

“I like to think of myself as s-stupidly brave,” he offered, barely managing to brace himself for the kick that was then aimed at his ribs. “Fuck!”

“Stupidly brave is apt,” agreed Gerard, as Stiles curled around, wheezing at the sudden flare of pain. He had hoped that all of his bones were now broken, and yet Gerard seemed able to find even more of them to potentially break or fracture.

He hoped they were broken. Otherwise, this unbearable pain was going to feel really embarrassing.

“Scott McCall does not deserve your loyalty, and neither does Derek Hale,” told him Gerard, moving uncomfortably close to him.

“B-Beggars can’t be ch-choosers,” managed Stiles, eyes painfully squeezed shut. “A-nd if you are p-planning to loom like th-that, can y-you take a m-mint f-ir-first-t?”

He had not thought that Gerard was going to actually kill him to death, or even injure him to the point where Stiles would need to physically go to the hospital, but as the man’s boot stepped on his arm viciously and a scream ripped out of his throat, he found his belief wavering a bit.

He was the son of the Sheriff, though.

People didn’t just kill the son of the Sheriff, did they? Especially not werewolf hunters trying to lay low. Killing the son of the Sheriff was the opposite of laying low. It was standing up and shouting at the top of your lungs “Look at the shady bullshit I’ve got going on! I’m an evil person who does evil people stuff, and you should investigate me!”

That wasn’t a message the Argent family wanted to spread around.

Right?

Then again, he thought, trying not to sound relieved when Gerard stepped away from him, Erica and Boyd were there. Clearly, Gerard had no compulsion about hurting teenagers. 

“Avery, take over for me,” said Gerard, as Stiles forced his eyes open again. “Turns out I’ve got what I need anyway. Get rid of the kid after I’m gone, but keep the wolves here.”

‘Get rid of the kid’ did not sound auspicious.

Stiles ignored what Avery said in reply, forcing himself to focus on Derek’s betas instead.

Both of them were looking at him, fear clear in their eyes as they continued to struggle in vain in their bonds. He wasn’t sure why it was that they couldn’t break them with their wolfy super strength, but it was clear that if they had been able to, they would have already done so, instead of letting themselves be tortured.

They were as trapped as he was, if not more.

Erica’s eye make up had been ruined by her tears, leaving black marks over her cheeks and the tape around her mouth. Despite that, she was still struggling in her bonds, seeming to have retained more energy than Boyd, for the time being.

Boyd was not crying, but his exhaustion was clear to see. It made sense, supposed the cold analytical part of his brain. Boyd was bigger and more muscled than Erica. One on one, the assumption was that he was physically stronger and thus harder to take down.

Stiles did not know much about either of them, truthfully.

He had gone to the same school as Erica (and Lydia, and Jackson, and Isaac) since pre-school, but they had never spoken that many words to each other outside of class. They hadn’t run in the same circles, even though her father sometimes worked alongside Stiles’ own. 

Before the bite, he would have vaguely remembered her as the epilepsy girl who once gave him a Valentine Day’s card in third grade.

Boyd was even more unknown to Stiles than Erica was. He only knew him by name from school and from his job at the skating ring. They had been partners in one project before, but while Stiles knew he lived not too far from Scott, they had done all their work in the library.

He didn’t know them. And frankly, after their attitude towards Lydia and their post wolfy steroids behaviour, he wasn’t that inclined in getting to know them.

But while he was a dick, and he was an asshole, and he was a piece of shit, one thing he was not? 

A traitor.

He didn’t like Derek’s betas that much, and he had a... complicated relationship with Derek, but like hell he was leaving them in Allison’s family’s creepy basement to die a painful and potentially very prolonged death.

That was not happening.

“This is your lucky day, kid,” said Avery, a few moments later.

Stiles opened his eyes again, staring in confusion at where the man was now sitting in front of the controls for the electricity things the two betas were attached to again. He couldn’t see Gerard anywhere.

Had he left? Stiles had not even noticed it.

Damn it, he hoped he did not have a concussion.

He didn’t have the money for concussions, right about now.

“You get to leave now,” continued the hunter, smirking at him. “Congratulations.”

“A-already? Have t-to sa-ay, did not enj-joy this ride all tha-that much,” he managed, forcing himself to peel his body off the ground. “But I promis-s-se I won’t be too rude on Yelp. Just give me my friends and my posses-s-sions, and I’ll be out-t-t of your hair.”

“Ah!” chuckled Avery, fingers skating over the control panels as Stiles struggled to get back on his feet. Erica’s breathing had become harsher already, panic making her struggles more powerful than before. “You wish. Get out of here now, before Gerard changes his mind and your dad has to retrieve you in a body bag.”

“See, I don’t-t t-think you’re real-ly going to make me leave this place in a body bag-g,” said Stiles, pretending he could not taste blood in the back of his throat. “I think-k that if you were going to do th-that, you wouldn’t have bothered letting me leave now. Meaning that you don’t-t want me d-dead.”

For a moment, when Avery glared at him, he felt victorious. Like when Coach Finstock was forced to admit that Stiles’ rant had made the slightest bit of sense - something the Coach hated very much, for someone supposed to teach students.

But that moment of elation did not last, as Avery grinned right after.

“Fine,” he said, his evil smile of evil still in place. He had the same smile Matt did, and part of Stiles wondered if there was a place where evil guys learnt to smile/act like maniacs. 'Despicable me school of thought'?

“Then you can just enjoy the show with me.”

The words did not really register in Stiles’ tired brain until both Erica and Boyd started seizing where they were tied, screams of pain muffled by the gags in their mouths.

“No!” he shouted, horrified shock in his eyes as he watched the blue flashes of electricity shooting through their bodies. “N-no, no, no, stop-p!”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” asked Avery, grinning when he turned to look at him again. “Nothing more than what these beasts deserve, I’ll tell you. Frankly, in my opinion, I think you should be strung up right alongside them. Those who fraternise with the enemy deserve to be treated in the same exact way. Play stupid games, get stupid prizes, you know? But we can’t be caught torturing the Sheriff’s child, according to Gerard, and he said something about Allison being fond of you-”

“Stop!” demanded Stiles, knees shaking as he approached the man. He could smell it, the blood, the burns over their skins and clothes. He could almost feel the static of the electricity in his own muscles. “Let them g-go! Let them go right now, stop!”

The hunter continued to ignore him. But when Stiles put his arm on his shoulder to shake him and attempt to force him to stop, Avery turned around faster than Stiles could even blink, sending him to the ground with one single punch.

Blood exploded in his mouth, pain shooting from where he had smashed his head against a hard outer corner of the wall, swimming his vision with tears.

But over the pain, over the hurt, over the tears in his eyes, all that he could see was Boyd and Erica and their agony. Avery was standing over him now, shouting something at him, but Stiles couldn’t hear him. All he could hear was a low, continuous white noise in his ears

The hunter spat at him, shoulders shaking in malicious myrth while behind him Boyd and Erica continued to seize around in pain, and something inside of Stiles snapped.

He wasn’t sure of what. Just that something inside of him burned and ripped, and he lost a control he hadn’t realised he had been holding on to.

Stiles was not a violent person. While he did react violently sometimes, when his dad or his mom or Scott were involved, he was more of the flight guy, rather than the fight guy. He knew his talents, and fighting didn’t make it top ten.

But for a second, as he felt the spit on his cheek while his not-really-friends were shocked over and over for no good reason and saw this asshole standing over him being gleeful about the pain he had inflicted, he wanted him to hurt. 

He wanted him to burn.

He wanted him to feel every bit of the pain Stiles, Boyd and Erica had been enduring all evening, he wanted him to be electrocuted alive, and beaten over and over by someone bigger and stronger than him, he wanted him to suffer and be humiliated the way all three of them had suffered and been humiliated.

For a second, he wanted him dead.

And between the blink of an eye and the next, Avery was screaming.

Stiles’ ears seemed to pop as the man fell to the ground screaming and convulsing, hands scratching at his skin and his clothes in a horrified panic.

He stared wide eyed at the man on the ground, heart beating unnaturally fast in his chest at the way Avery’s skin seemed to be somehow burning and the agony of his screams.

What had just...? 

Avery’s screams and thrashing were loud and distracting, but not enough so that Stiles’ attention was not quickly recaptured by the seizing Boyd and Erica.

He stood up as fast as he could despite how dizzy he felt, spitting out the blood from his mouth and doing his best to ignore the sinking pit in his stomach the longer Avery continued to scream, and moved back towards the control panel.

“If I accidentally kill you, I give you full permission to haunt me,” he told the betas, not looking at them and instead quickly studying the console. He needed to hurry, because what if whatever was happening to Avery was temporary, and what if someone heard the man’s screams and came to investigate? Gerard might be gone, but from what Stiles had pieced together, it wasn’t Gerard who had brought Boyd and Erica in.

He found the button he was pretty sure was supposed to be for turning the torture device on and off, and hesitated another second. “Okay,” he said, hand shaking a little from nerves and a little from the pain he was in. “Here we go. Okay. Here we go. Here we go. I really hope I don’t kill either of you after everything I’ve done to try and save you, because that would monumentally suck.”

He closed his eyes, before he decidedly reached forward and turned off the machine. “Here we go!”

Everyone turned quiet at the same time.

The sudden silence was so jarring that Stiles’ eyes opened without his permission. 

Boyd and Erica were no longer writhing from where they had been strung up. They were both looking at him with pained, tearful and surprised eyes, but they looked thankfully very much alive, even if still strung up.

Avery, on the other side, was laying face down on the other side of the room, not screaming, but also not moving.

It was hard to tell, from the current distance, if the man was breathing. 

Stiles took a step farther from him, heart beating even faster in his chest. The man’s hair was fuming, and he really did not want to even try and figure out what had happened there. 

... At least not right now, he was a naturally curious guy.

“Mh!” said Erica, looking at him desperately and Stiles grimaced, picking up a pair of scissors.

“Yeah,” he said, approaching them as fast as his bruised up body could allow. “Yeah, okay, I’m here. You know, you shouldn’t be so bossy towards your prince charming.”

He ripped the tape off her mouth with little ceremony, and she gasped. “Thank you, hurry, please,” she sobbed, struggling with her bonds. “Please, Stiles, please.”

“Calm down, hold on,” he said, taking off the tape from Boyd too.

He gasped too, taking a lungful of air in. “Erica,” he said, turning to her with exhaustion and panic in his eyes. “Are you-”

“Just let us go, just free us,” said the blonde, shaking her head. “We need to get out of here before Allison and her little family of psychos finds out we are free.” 

“You think I’m not trying?” demanded Stiles, even as he made quick work of freeing their bonds. “Newsflash, I got myself beat up and nearly killed for you assholes.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” immediately said Erica, as if she was seriously afraid he was going to leave them there. 

He didn’t like them very much, and he was pretty sure it was mutual, but did they seriously think he was that much of an dick?

“Okay,” he said, catching Erica when he freed her from the last zip tie and she fell into his arms. “Fuck. That hurt, Jesus.”

“Thank you, I’m sorry,” she managed, also struggling to keep herself fully upright. She let herself be braced against the table, anxious eyes fretting between Avery’s still unnaturally still body, the door, and Stiles and Boyd. “Thank you. I’m sorry.”

“Here,” said Stiles, moving towards Boyd now. “Careful, I just need to do your arms now.”

Within a few seconds, Boyd was free too. He fell much more gracefully than Erica had, seeming to keep himself from falling against Stiles through pure force of will.

If he hadn’t been so worried for his own life, Stiles might have been impressed.

“Is he dead?” he then asked, eyes fixed on Avery’s body. “He smells like he burned alive, and I can’t hear his heartbeat anymore. Is he dead?”

“I hope he is,” said Erica, not giving him time to answer or even begin to question all that he had just said. Instead, she turned to face Stiles, anxiety still clear on her face. “What do we do now?”

“Now we get the fuck out of here,” said Stiles, holding the scissors tightly in his hands. He glanced around until he found a blade on one of the desks, and then picked that up too.

Hopefully he wasn’t going to stab himself with it. After all, how hard could using a knife really be?

He wished one of the villains had left a conveniently placed gun somewhere around here. He was great with guns. His dad had taught him before and after his mother had died.

He would have shot Gerard in the dick, had he had a gun.

Self defence.

His mind was running fast. 

He wasn’t sure why, but despite the hit he had taken earlier, it was as if, for the first time, everything in his mind was suddenly clear. One single channel that made sense, instead of several channels at the same times that he had to keep track of always at the same time. 

He did not have the energy to figure that out now.

“What about you?” he said, moving towards the stairs with the two werewolves behind him. “Aren’t you arming yourselves up, just in case-”

Both of them made their claws appear.

“Right,” he remembered. “Werewolves. Okay, werewolves, do your fancy werewolf senses detect anyone else in the house with us?”

They both cocked their heads in a way that Stiles could never associate with anything other than with dogs, listening for whatever they could hear that he didn’t.

Then Boyd shook his head. “Just three heartbeats. Us three.”

“Would have been creepy if you could hear three heartbeats and only two of them were ours,” agreed Stiles, glancing over at the hunter’s body as he moved towards the door.

What had happened to him? It had happened so fast, Stiles was not even sure of what exactly had happened. Just that Avery had been standing over him one second, and screaming in pain the next. Stiles had not done anything, he hadn’t even touched him.

Sure he had had a moment where he had wished him dead, but it wasn’t like he could do shit like that... right? He couldn’t just manifest things.

If he could manifest things, Scott should have turned back to human around the time Stiles had found out he had kissed Lydia. 

So it had to be a coincidence. It had to be.

“Stiles-?”

“Look, I’m moving as fast as I can, but I don’t heal as fast as you g-guys do, and my entire body is one giant bruise because I bruise like a peach, and-” he cut himself off when Boyd was suddenly at one of his sides, one arm around his waist while Stiles’ arm was moved around his neck. 

He stared at the beta in surprise. “What?”

“You don’t heal like we do,” he repeated, voice hoarse and low. Stiles hadn’t heard the man speak often, but this was not how he was supposed to sound. “And you didn’t have to stay and save us.”

Stiles stared back at Boyd's eyes for a few seconds as they continued to climb the stairs to the first floor, and then cleared his throat. “Well, I’m not an asshole,” he said, watching as Erica moved past them and unlocked the door.

She was still moving gingerly, as was Boyd, but it was already far better than it had been a minute ago.

All three of them automatically froze once they walked through the threshold and stood near the main staircase of the Argent family house. The house was as quiet out there as it was down in the basement, and everything was also unlit too.

Just as Boyd had said, there was no one in the building.

Allison had really captured two classmates, possibly known about her grandfather kidnapping him too, and just left all three of them to be beat up/tortured by him and other hunters. She had done that, left them all in the hands of hunters, and left the building without looking back.

Unlike with Boyd and Erica, he had assumed that he was somewhat friends with Allison. They didn’t spend much time alone with one another, but they had gone into the woods together just a couple of days ago. He had played messenger between her and Scott out of nothing but the goodness of his heart (... and the opportunity to speak more than a couple of words at a time to Scott).

They hadn’t been close friends, but they had been friends. Hadn’t they?

Hadn’t they?

“Stiles,” urged Erica, taking his wrist in her hand. 

He startled, letting go of the dagger, but Erica caught it before it could fall to the ground, not flinching. 

“Shit, sorry, I-”

“Yeah,” she agreed, placing the dagger in his hands again. “But you can’t have a panic attack here, no matter how tempting it might be. Because we need to get out of here before someone gets back or something.”

Stiles blinked. 

Right. Because they were still in enemy territory, and there was a dead man in the basement. That tracked out.

He nodded again, and let Erica hold his wrist as Boyd continued to support most of his weights and they moved towards the main door. 

“Wait,” he said, a second later. They both stopped, and he grimaced. “Chances are that thing is locked. Open a window, instead.”

“Won’t that cause more trouble?” wondered Boyd, as Erica moved towards the window. 

“Not if it’s broken. What are they gonna say, a criminal broke in their house, left our DNA and blood in the basement and then left without touching anything?”

“There is a dead hunter in the basement.”

“We had nothing to do with that,” stubbornly said Stiles, forcefully swallowing back the bile building in his throat. “We didn’t do that. We didn’t touch him.”

“But-”

“Boyd, I’m trying really hard to keep this panic attack down, and your doubt is not helping. Really not helping, it’s-”

“Got a window,” called out Erica, as a breeze of fresh air wafted into the room. The second he felt it on his skin, Stiles almost started crying again.

He hadn’t thought that he’d never feel the fresh air of the outside world on his skin again, but he couldn’t deny it. Part of him had worried about how long it was going to take to actually feel it.

He didn’t voice that, however. He let Boyd pull him ahead, and they climbed out of the window.

It had not been Stiles’ intention to take Boyd and Erica back to his place.

But well, he did not have his car conveniently parked out front, none of them wanted to draw too much attention to themselves by trying to break into one that did not belong to them, and it wasn’t like Stiles could easily make it back to his house without the betas’ help.

He had tried, but Erica had threatened to carry him over her shoulder if he protested, and there was just so much masculinity points that Stiles was willing to lose in one day.

Plus, even though he did not voice it out loud, they would not have made it that far either. Werewolf healing or not, both of them had taken a beating, and while he doubted they’d admit to it either, they craved his company as much as he himself did not mind theirs.

Wasn’t there a saying about bonds formed in war?

Did this count as a war?

He felt delirious.

“How about we just sit down for a while, uh?” he asked, huffing as they continued to walk through the very edge of the woods, close to the main roads. They did not want to risk running into a hunter returning home early, and both the main road and the woods seemed like the places you’d run into a hunter.

After all those bastards had grabbed him from a lacrosse game.

Fuck. They had just grabbed him out of nowhere, and he had not even-

“Come on, Batman,” said Erica, holding onto his wrist a bit tighter. “Keep it together for a little bit longer. You can do it. We’re like ten minutes away from your home. Once we get there, you can breakdown as much as you want without having to worry about anything else.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Catwoman,” he mumbled, nails pressing a little harder on Boyd’s shoulder. He wasn’t sure if he was happy or a little bit ticked off when Boyd made no sign of even recognising that he should be in pain, right then.

“If I don’t tell you what to do, who’s going to?”

He just rolled his eyes at her, shooting her a quick grin that she reciprocated, if a little hesitantly.

“I’m-”

“Not now.”

Stiles stared at her for a moment longer, but then he nodded in understanding. 

She’d talk when she was ready.

He wasn’t sure if it took the ten minutes Erica promised - considering how tired he felt, he’d say it had taken them about ten hours - but eventually they did get to his house.

The cruiser and the jeep were both parked out front, and the light was on in both the living room and the kitchen. Stiles’ heart clenched painfully at the sight of them.

His dad was home. He-

“Stiles!”

Only he startled when the man appeared from behind the house, a look of panic melting into relief when he spotted him between the betas.

Stiles pretended his eyes did not burn as he let go of Boyd and dropped the knife to the ground, limping as fast as he could into the man’s arms.

“Dad,” he tried, feeling his throat constricting painfully. “D-dad, I-”

“You’re okay,” said the Sheriff, holding him tighter. “You’re okay, kiddo, I got you now. You’re safe. I’m gonna keep you safe, nothing is going to happen to you, I’ve got you.”

“Dad,” he repeated, grasping at him a little more strongly. “Dad.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I got you.”

It took Stiles a good twenty more seconds to let go of the man, and even that felt too early. But he had two battered werewolves standing behind him still and well, he didn’t want to tempt fate too much.

He didn’t know where Gerard had gone, after all. What was stopping him from coming back when all of their guards were down and grabbing him again?

Virtually nothing.

Hell, for all he knew the man might have been waiting for Stiles to get out just for the sick pleasure of tracking him down again and give him a worse beating.

Instead of panic, the idea just brought him a sudden wave of exhaustion.

He was exhausted.

Slowly, keeping most of his weight firmly on himself, he stood up again.

“Stiles-” started his father, glancing between him and the people behind them with suspicion.

“Look dad,” he said, shaking his head. “I know. I owe you an explanation. And I promise I will give it to you. I will tell you what happened. But right now I just need to get a bed and a place for us to sleep.”

The Sheriff started shaking his head, and Stiles interrupted, trying to not work himself up. “I know! I know, you were worried sick, and I disappointed you again, and you didn’t know where I was and you are worried because you’re my dad and that’s your job but please, dad. We just need... we just need to lay down. To get out of these clothes and lay down for several hours until… just to lay down and rest.

“And tomorrow I will have the energy to look you in the eyes and just tell you. What I need to tell you. Because there is a lot that I need to tell you and you-” he cut himself off when he felt his father’s hand suddenly on his forehead. “Uh… dad?”

The man’s eyes seemed vaguely worried and despondent when he looked at Stiles in the eye again. “Something happened today, didn’t it?”

Stiles swallowed, trying to ignore all the pains all over his body. The tight hug from his dad had not done his bruises any favours. “A lot happened.”

“Just tell me one thing and you and your… friends can go.”

Not my friends, didn’t say Stiles.

“What?” he said, instead.

The Sheriff met his eyes head on. “No lies, and no follow up questions. I want the truth. Okay?”

Stiles nodded, slowly.

“Were the Argents involved?”

He considered running. He considered lying. He considered not replying. He considered telling him that he’d explain everything tomorrow.

Stiles gave one single, jerky nod.

The Sheriff breathed out, passing a hand over his face, looking even more disheartened than before. There was little surprise in his face, however, noted the part of Stiles’ brain that never shut up.

“Okay,” said the Sheriff, sighing. “Okay.” He looked over at Erica and Boyd. “You two have a phone to call your parents with, right? You’re Reyes’ child, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” said Erica, in a voice so fake sweet that Stiles had to turn around and squint at her in deep suspicion. Erica’s make up was in ruins, and her clothes had suffered a not dissimilar fate, but she was smiling really widely at his father, in what Stiles wasn’t quite sure was flirtation or her trying to suck up.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know either, and from Boyd’s covert eye roll, neither did he.

The Sheriff did not even notice Erica’s eyelash batting, just glancing at the odd trio they made with some more sadness before he nodded again.

“Go ahead, then. Stiles, your friend can borrow some of my clothes, if they fit,” he added the last part with some uncertainty, critically eyeing Boyd’s build. “And Reyes can stay in the guest room. Come one now.”

Slowly, with the Sheriff’s help, they made their way into the house.

Stiles tried to argue that he could do it himself, but the Sheriff did not let go of him until they made it all the way to the top of the stairs, Erica and Boyd trailing behind them like lost... well, puppies. There was literally no better way to describe it.

He really hoped werewolves couldn’t read minds. Sometimes it was like Derek could, but considering Stiles was still alive, he could only continue to hope that it was just a sensitivity thing. Like with dogs and other animals.

Yeah, he really hoped they couldn’t read minds.

“Will you need help-”

“I’m fine, dad,” promised Stiles, hoping he managed to convey his horror well enough despite how badly he most likely would need help. “I’m seventeen, I don’t need you to run me a bath. We’ll just take turns getting cleaned up and changed, and then we’re just going to pass out. Erica, want to go first?”

“You go first,” she said, shaking her head. “Can I take out one of your shirts?” 

“I’m not tired enough to let you go through my drawers unchecked,” he said, scowling at her as he pulled both her and Boyd inside his bedroom. His father was still hovering in the hallway, and Stiles chose to just ignore him for the time being.

He understood, though. As much as it wasn’t needed, his worry was warranted and expected.

So he did not say anything.

+++

It took about an hour for all three of them to get rid of the grime of the day, get changed and make their way into bed. 

His father had given up some of his blankets to Boyd and offered him the couch in the living room, but the beta had insisted that he was comfortable enough in Stiles’ bedroom. He looked ridiculous in the Sheriff’s clothes, but that was another thing Stiles was not going to mention.

Erica looked suspiciously comfortable in Stiles’ clothes. The trousers fit her perfectly thanks to the drawstrings, but while the shirt was a bit big on her, she did not appear to mind.

It was an MCU shirt, however, and Stiles was getting it back one way or the other.

“Why would you choose to sleep on the floor when there is a perfectly comfortable couch in the living room?” he questioned, trying to get himself comfortable on the bed.

Maybe he should have gone for a little bit of cream before going to sleep. But that would have implied him looking at himself in the mirror and looking over all of his bruises and scratches, as well as letting his dad see how actually hurt he was, and well Stiles was just happy enough that none of his bones felt broken. He did not need confirmation of how badly he was hurt.

At least not yet.

“Werewolf thing,” explained Boyd, eyes closed. “Closeness.”

“Wait, really?”

“Really.”

“Uh,” mused Stiles, struggling to make Boyd out in the dark of the room. “Helps with healing?”

“Yeah.”

“So what I’m hearing is that Erica should get in here and we should have a puppy pile.”

“...”

“Boyd?”

“Shut up, Stilinski.”

Stiles snorted, turning around in his bed a bit uncomfortably.

His phone lit up once more from where he had left it on silent on the bed, and Stiles turned back in Boyd’s direction so it was out of his line of sight.

There had been one message from Scott, when he had opened it last time. Several from his dad, five from Lydia, one from Isaac, two from Derek (though one of them was about Boyd and Erica), and one text from Scott.

It made sense to have one message from Isaac. He didn’t like Isaac, and Isaac didn’t like him.

But Scott...?! He should have had like 50 messages from Scott. If Scott had gone missing after a game in which he scored the winning goal, Scott would have had more than 50 messages from Stiles. He would have had continued missed calls from Stiles. His voicemail box would have been filled with voicemails from Stiles.

And all Stiles had gotten was one measly text.

One single ‘where r you, bro?’.

Stiles was bitter.

Stiles was very bitter.

He had been in that room because he was friends with Scott and Derek (well, maybe not friends, but general non animose acquaintances and part time allies with Derek). He had gotten the crap kicked out of him because Gerard wanted to send Scott and Derek a message. He had freed himself without Scott and Derek, not that Scott and Derek seemed to have even realised or cared about the fact that he was gone.

Freaking Lydia Martin had noticed he was gone! But Stiles couldn’t even get excited about it, because the person who was supposed to be going through the woods and knocking on every door in Beacon Hills looking for him hadn’t done that.

He could have died in that room, he suddenly realised, breathing coming a little faster. He could have died, Gerard could have seriously hurt him, or Avery, or he could have hit his heard too hard at some point, or he could have been electrocuted, or not been fast enough to save Erica and Boyd-

And he couldn’t breathe, he was trapped inside of his blankets, and he couldn’t breathe, Gerard’s boot was on his chest, ready to crush his heart and his ribs at a second notice, and his dad, god his poor dad would find him dead when Stiles had just tried to protect him-

And Avery, Stiles had killed him, because Stiles had wanted him dead and Avery had died, and Stiles had wanted him to burn and Avery had burn, Stiles had wanted him to feel the pain he had felt, the pain Erica had felt, the pain Boyd had felt, and Avery had, and he had screamed-

“Shh,” he heard from behind him, the sudden smell of the vanilla guest soap they kept for Melissa hitting his nostrils. “You’re okay, Stiles. You’re okay, we’re home. We’re out of there, we’re home. Can you tell you’re home?”

Erica, he realised, blonde curls appearing in his line of sight.

Boyd, he noted, a strong hand clasped against his.

They were in his bed.

Both of them.

That was weird. 

That was very weird, no one ever ended up on his bed.

Usually, only him. Sometimes, Scott.

Never hot werewolves who he hadn’t really known a week ago. That was very much not normal.

But he found that he couldn’t care less.

“Puppy pile it is,” he said, as soon as he caught his breath again. 

Part of him figured that he should feel some sort of way about having a panic attack in front of the two of them. Some sort of shame, perhaps?

But after everything the three of them had gone through in the past twenty four hours?

He couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“Shut up and go to sleep,” said Erica, and it did not even unnerve him as much as it should, the feeling of her wrapping herself against him. Or the feeling of Boyd’s chest so close to his ear.

Yeah, that was definitely not normal.

Stiles pushed back the confusion, closed his eyes, and tried to fall asleep.

Stiles woke up the next day with Regret and Pain.

Both of them needed to be capitalised, because this was not the standard level of pain and regret he was used to. This was a whole new level of pain and regret, one he could have avoided with just a little forethought.

He considered, for a second after he woke up, just remaining where he was and never moving again. He felt like a giant bruise, parts of him that he hadn’t known could hurt trying to melt off his bones and muscles.

But he was also uncomfortably hot, and the longer he stayed where he was, the higher the chances of him becoming hotter and more disgusting. It was weird, he wasn’t even wearing particularly heavy clothes, and usually he did not run hot, not like Scott and the wolves-

Wolves.

Werewolves.

Specifically, werewolves in his bed.

Stiles slowly opened his eyes, and yep. Here was Erica, fully asleep, her face inches away from his, covered by her hair. He could feel Boyd behind him, asleep but still a very solid form behind him.

This was just all around weird.

Slowly, being careful to not dislodge either of them, Stiles pushed himself upwards, ignoring the sting in his eyes at the pain his entire body seemed to be in. Man, he really wished he had not decided against covering himself in cream, the day before. Maybe it wouldn’t have helped anyway, but at least he’d be in less pain.

Erica made a noise when he shifted his leg away from hers, but she did not grab him as he had been afraid she would. Instead she huffed in displeasure, before shifting a little closer to Boyd, who had not even twitched in his sleep.

Stiles was not sure if he should be impressed or what, and then decided he was simply too much in pain to even bother.

Even the soles of his feet throbbed as he limped his way to the bathroom. There was no way all of this pain was natural or all from the beating he had received the night before. 

It felt like all of his nerves were alight or otherwise on fire, the inside of his bones  boiling. 

Stiles made it inside the bathroom before he had to sit down on the edge of the bathtub. 

Had he broken something, after all? Wasn’t internal bleeding incredibly dangerous and painful? He had read something like that, during his research on the history of circumcision for Finstock.

“Stiles,” called his father, from the other side of the door. “Are you alive in there?”

“Y-Yup,” he said, hoping his voice was not as shaky as it sounded to his own ears. “Just dandy.”

A pause, in which he was sure the man was contemplating whether to pretend to believe him or not.

It just made him feel even more guilty over everything he had made him go through since Matt decided to go full psycho. 

Or since Scott got bit, really. 

“There is a green paste in a tub in your mom’s medicine drawer,” then said the man, very calmly. “It has a red lid, and it smells really nice. Put it over everywhere that hurts, let it dry and then you can come downstairs and we can get to the bottom of everything.”

His mother’s drawer?

Stiles swallowed the sudden knot in his throat as well as he could, limbs shaking with more than pain as he stood up again.

His father never talked about mom. Everything mom had ever had had been hidden away or thrown away the day after the funeral, and by that he meant everything. 

The Sheriff did not mention the woman unless he had a glass of whiskey in his hands, and while it had burned, back when he was younger, being unable to talk about his own mother, at this point Stiles had gotten used to it.

So for the Sheriff to so casually mention her and something to do with her...

Stiles had never really had much use for his mother’s medical cabinet. He had his own in his bedroom, filled with all sorts of medication for himself and Scott both. 

He knew she had one, because she had mentioned it a few times when he was younger, but had never actually seen it or used it.

It was filled with things.

Stiles stared at the various boxes, bottles, pots, tubs and everything else that filled his mother’s drawer with a respectful dose of What the Holy Hell is this?

His father had put away her pictures, put away her clothes, gave away a bunch of her accessories and possessions, let her garden to die, and... kept what looked like a herbal medicine cabinet?

What the hell?

He stared at the odd cabinet for a second until the pain started making itself known again. Then he located the tub his father had described, and pulled it out.

He sat back on the edge of the bath, and slowly and carefully opened the tub.

The first thing Stiles noted was how nice it smelled. It did not smell the way old creams usually did when they were left in a closed space for too long, and when he put a finger inside it, it felt surprisingly cool and fresh. Kind of like gel, but less sticky and heavy.

“What makes you special?” he asked the cream, as he painfully stretched his arm as best as his sleeve allowed.

The cream, unsurprisingly, did not answer him.

He slowly pressed the cream over his arm, massaging it as gently as he dared, and spread it around. 

It felt cool to his skin, and almost-

“Ah!” he said, when his arm immediately seemed to bubble and tingle under the cream. But before he could even wonder if he was allergic somehow or if the cream was expired (which was likely), the sting disappeared.

And with it, the pain.

It was so sudden and quick that Stiles actually had to pause for a second.

“What the hell?” he muttered, moving his forearm a little bit more.

It did not hurt.

It did not hurt?

He hit his arm against the bath tub like it was an egg needing to be cracked, and still it did not hurt. Well, it hurt when it hit the edge of the tub, but it didn’t hurt like it had been hurting earlier.

He glanced back at the open jar of cream.

“What the fuck.”

The jar still did not answer.

+++

“Dad.”

The Sheriff looked up from the table at Stiles’ call and, for a second, the two men just stared at each other.

For once, he was not wearing his work uniform, even though the sun outside indicated it was already long after the time he’d usually head out.

Instead, he was sitting down at the table in a comfortable shirt and pants combo, with a spread of eggs and bread and jam. There was milk, juice and coffee at the table too, which was definitely more than they’d need for just the two of them.

The Sheriff shrugged, when he saw Stiles’ eyes lingering on the table. “You have two grown teenagers in your bed.”

“In my defence, I did not actually invite them,” finally said Stiles, moving towards the chair and sitting down. He barely felt any pain at all anymore, and if it wasn’t for all the fucked up things he had been involved in since yesterday, he’d have definitely been more freaked out by this.

At this point he was mostly tired, and willing to roll with the punches if it meant he could keep his brain turned off. 

“And we did not do anything,” he added, after a moment. “We literally just slept and-”

“I didn't think anything happened between the three of you,” said the Sheriff, rolling his eyes.

Stiles scowled at him. “Something could have happened,” he complained. “I’m a catch.”

The Sheriff did not look amused. “You could barely walk without looking in tears.”

Stiles nodded, avoiding the man’s eyes again. “Good point, dad. Very good point. Is any of that for me? You know, you should avoid fatty food, fried eggs really aren’t-”

“Tell me what happened yesterday,” said the Sheriff, voice quiet.

He sounded tired, and when Stiles glanced back up at him, he looked it too. The lines on his face looked more pronounced than ever, and he did not look like he had spent the night before sleeping.

Stiles had kept part of his life hidden from the man because he wanted to protect him. Because he wanted to keep him safe from the creatures that lurked at night in Beacon Hills, because he did not want to see his dad clawed in the chest because he had had the dumb idea of chasing after werewolves.

And in exchange, all that that had gotten him was a restraining order, his father still at the site of crimes he couldn’t understand, him temporarily deposed of his title as Sheriff as he chased after himself in the dark trying to understand things he couldn’t.

Or things that Stiles assumed he couldn't.

Because his father had mentioned the Argents, hadn’t he? He hadn’t said Derek, aka the shady character he had seen Stiles around more than once, his assumption had immediately been the Argents.

And his dad had told him to use a cream from his mother’s cabinet that worked better than any inflammatory he had ever seen and seemed to be made from something plant related.

He doubted his mother had bought it at a pharmacy.

“There are werewolves in Beacon Hills,” came out of his mouth before he could even think about it. 

The Sheriff did not scoff. He did not call him crazy, he did not call him a liar, he did not say anything.

He simply sighed, and passed Stiles a mug of coffee.

Stiles took it gratefully, surprised to see his hand shake when he tried to lift the cup. He put it back down, and looked back at his father.

The Sheriff nodded. “Hale?” he then asked.

Stiles nodded, slowly.

The Sheriff nodded again, looking thoughtful. “She never told me,” he admitted, leaning back on his chair. “I had no idea what they were. I knew they weren’t human, there was this... air around them that I noticed even before she told me. I didn’t know what they actually were, though. Werewolves.” He tilted his head as he observed him. “Scott?”

“Yep.”

“When?”

“That night you found me in the woods.”

The Sheriff nodded once more. “And the kids in your bed?”

“Boyd and Erica, yes. Wolves.”

“And Jackson?”

Stiles grimaced. “It’s complicated,” he admitted. “Last I knew, he’s dead. Before that, he was a kanima? Something went wrong, he-”

“Let’s cycle back to that,” decided the Sheriff. “Jackson is actually alive, but that doesn’t matter right now. Neither Jackson nor the wolves are who hurt you. It was the Argents.”

Stiles held the cup tighter. Was it weird that he was more worried about what the Argents could do to his father than he was about the werewolves he was outing without a second thought? Chances were that Derek was going to finally fulfil his lifelong dream of ripping Stiles' throat out with his teeth, and Stiles was mentally cringing at the thought of Allison's cactus shaped family tree full of pricks.

“I know it was the Argents,” told him his father, when he did not answer immediately. “I know what the Argents are. And after Kate... I know it was the Argents, I would have known it was them even if you hadn’t told me. But now I need you to tell me. Who did this to you, why, and what happened after.”

What happened after?

Stiles moved to hold the mug with both hands, and cleared his throat. “Things happened. A lot of things happened, things happen all the time. We could argue that things are happening right now, because that’s how things works. Things never stop happening because-”

“Stiles-”

“Gerard Argent,” he ended up saying, all at once. “Gerard. Argent. He’s the one who, he’s the one. He did this to me.”

“Of course,” mused the Sheriff, a fleeting look of anger in his eyes.

“Yeah,” said Stiles, scoffing a little as he tapped his fingers against the mug. “An old decrepit man kicked the shit out of me and I couldn’t fight back, and he-”

The Sheriff’s hand covered his, and Stiles ignored the huge knot in his throat. He had managed to not cry yesterday when he was an enormous bruise. He was not about to cry now. He was just fine, and he was going to remain fine. He didn't even hurt that much anymore, he was fine. 

“He wanted to send Scott a message," explained Stiles, as he stared at his father's hand covering his. "And he wanted me to tell him things about Derek. I didn’t tell him anything about Derek, and Scott, he...” He shrugged and forced himself to swallow. “And Scott didn’t come. He... he didn’t come.”

His father held his hand a little tighter. “And after?” he asked, after a second. “What happened after?”

Stiles pulled back his hand, staring at the coffee. “After I got Erica and Boyd, we got out of there.”

“How did you get Boyd and Erica out, Stiles?”

“They were on these things, these things that kept shocking them, and I turned the thing off. I turned it off, then I got scissors, and cut them out of their binds, and we ran away. That’s what happened. That’s all that happened, that’s how I got them out.”

“Stiles.”

“I didn’t do it, dad,” he said, looking up at the man as his heart started to race. “I didn’t touch him. I could barely see him, I didn’t-”

“Hey, hey-”

“I was on the floor, he hit me and I was on the floor, and I,” the cup fell on the table, but Stiles wasn’t paying attention, trying to get his father to listen to him, to understand. “I didn’t touch him, dad, I was lying on the ground, and I had a thought, I just thought that he should stop, he should stop hurting us-”

“Stiles, Stiles, listen to me for a second-”

“I just thought that if he felt what we were feeling he’d understand, but I didn’t do anything, I just had a thought and I didn’t say it, I was angry but I didn’t say anything, I was going to just take it, but then he- he-”

“Stiles!”

Stiles looked up, startled by the sudden and loud call of his own name.

Erica was standing beside him (when had she gotten there?), and she looked apologetic when he finally focused on her, her fingers in his hair. “Sorry. You were freaking out.”

He stared at the blonde, ignoring the tears he felt in his eyes. “I told my dad you were a werewolf.”

“I heard,” she said, sounding pretty nonchalant for someone who had just been outed. She kept petting the back of his head. “So long as he doesn’t come at us with special bullets and arrows like Allison did, I’m fine.”

“Allison?” said the Sheriff, sounding surprised. “Allison Argent? Scott’s Allison?”

“Yes,” said Boyd, sitting down on Stiles’ other side. Their sides touched when he did, and Boyd didn't move away. “She’s the one who was leading the hunters who caught us. She’s the one who shot us both with arrows.”

“Jesus,” muttered the Sheriff, pressing a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ.” 

“Stiles didn’t do anything,” continued Erica.

“Erica.”

“He didn’t,” she said, ignoring him. “I was watching him. I wanted him to stand up and run away, to save himself and then get help. So I was watching him. He didn’t touch that hunter. He didn’t even say anything to the hunter. The man just... He just suddenly started burning like he was the one hooked on those electrical fence things.” She shuddered at the memory. “Stiles didn’t touch him.”

“He didn’t have to,” said the Sheriff. Stiles glanced at him, and the Sheriff’s face relaxed. “It wasn’t you. It wasn’t your fault, you didn’t do anything. But you didn’t have to do anything.”

Stiles looked at him, imploringly. “I don’t understand, dad.”

The Sheriff nodded sadly. “I know. I will explain, I promise. For now, all three of you have breakfast, and unless your parents need you home, you can stay. I’ll deal with the rest.”

“Dad?” asked Stiles, a little alarmed.

“I know what I’m doing,” he promised. “I know much more than you think I do. I know how to deal with hunters, and especially how to deal with rogue hunters. You’re all going to be fine. Just lay down, and get your strength back, okay?”

Stiles kept looking at him, and the Sheriff smiled.

“We will talk soon. We will go in detail. I will explain things. You will explain things. But we’re all going to be okay. Alright?”

Finally, Stiles nodded. “All right.”

What else was he supposed to say?

Neither Erica nor Boyd said anything, when they all returned upstairs. They watched Stiles stare out of the window until the Sheriff’s cruiser left, and then they observed him pacing around his room over and over.

Stiles knew they were probably wondering what the fuck was going on with him, but he currently could not give less of a shit about what they were worrying about.

His father knew about the supernatural.

His father had always known about the supernatural, and he most likely knew more about it than Stiles himself did. 

Stiles had been running himself crazy trying to keep this entire shit a secret from the man, because he wanted to protect him, and all along the Sheriff had known what was happening.

And the entire mess with the hunter, with Avery.

Stiles had done his best to not think about anything regarding him, by the time he and the two betas had made it out of the Argent’s residence. 

Out of sight, our of mind, right?

He hadn’t checked, but Boyd had said it. Avery was dead. He wasn’t sure of how, and he hadn’t chosen to do it, but somehow he had done something that had caused him to die.

His father knew about it. His father knew more about it than Stiles himself did.

And Stiles was supposed to wait for an undisclosed 'later' for the man to actually come and tell him the what, how and why.

Normally, this was the point where Stiles started exercising his google-fu abilities. Or the point where he found Scott and went to interrogate the man’s boss in a search of answers. Or even tried to guess what Derek was up to, if their resident supernatural guru had any idea on what was going on.

Unfortunately only one of those was an option right now, and he didn’t even know what he wanted to look for.

‘Help, I accidentally manifested a guy dead’? It sounded far less clear cut than ‘I think my best friend is turning into a werewolf’.

“Fuck my life,” he ended up groaning, letting himself fall back on his bed.

“I told you he’d tire himself out,” he heard Boyd say. “Took him longer than I thought it would, but-”

“He has ADHD,” answered Erica. “I bet he didn’t even realise how long he was pacing for.”

Stiles pulled his hands away from his face to look at her. “How do you even know about me having ADHD? Or about my panic attacks, actually?”

Erica shrugged, holding her arms tighter against her body. “You are not the only observant person around these parts. I told you, I used to have a crush on you. Don’t worry, now I’m better, all healed up.”

“Hardy har har,” said Stiles, rolling his eyes at the smirk on her face.

Even though she was being mean and metaphorical, she was indeed all healed up. Her face was once more make up free, but she still looked fine, normal. Not as sickly as she had looked before the bite, and also not as hurt as she had looked the day before.

“You look healed up too,” she offered, noting the way he was staring at where yesterday she had had a large gash on collarbone. “Which is very much not normal, for an alleged human.”

“I’m not normal,” answered Stiles, letting his head fall back on the bed again.

At the end of the day, they weren’t really friends, were they? He couldn’t tell them about the cream, because what if he told them and they told Derek, and it turned out that the cream was evil or something?

Part of him felt like they should be friends, considering what they had gone through together. Those were the kind of experiences that turned strangers into best friends, right?

Except Stiles already had a best friend. A shitty best friend, who he had been ignoring since yesterday and who he wasn’t even sure was still looking for him, right now. Or if he knew that Stiles was back.

Or if he cared.

Of course he cared, he was Scott. But the question was, did he care enough?

That was a completely different question he did not have an answer for.

He should have. They had been best friends for years.

But he didn’t.

And it was freaking him out.

And then there was the whole Argent thing and-

“What were the two of you doing in the woods, anyway?” he found himself asking. “Weren’t the two of you at the game?”

He had half expected them both to have already taken off by now. But they hadn't; they were still here.

He had the suspicion that they were as confused about this situation as Stiles himself was.

At least he hoped so. He didn't want to be the only dumb one.

They quickly glanced at each other, guilt more visible on Erica’s face than on Boyd's, though he did not look comfortable either.

“I remember Isaac was there,” continued Stiles, sitting up properly on the bed to look at them closely. “But I don’t actually remember you guys there, now that I think about it. Did you leave early or-”

“We were trying to leave Beacon Hills,” cut him off Erica, crossing her arms around her chest. “Trying to get out of this whole Argent versus the supernatural battle alive. But instead we got caught and tortured by hunters. End of story.”

“Derek was trying to leave Beacon Hills?” asked Stiles, more than a little surprised. He’d be the first to say that Derek would probably do well out of this hellhole, and he knew the man had had a life outside of Beacon Hills, back in New York, but outright leaving? In the middle of the night, without bothering to warn Scott or say goodbye?

It didn’t seem like his style.

Stiles wouldn’t claim that they were friends, or that Derek cared that much about him, but it just didn’t seem like him to just randomly take off.

It didn’t.

It didn't.

Oh.

“You were leaving Derek,” he realised, pieces clicking together. “You were running off alone?”

“Isaac was supposed to join us,” said Boyd, not looking at him.

“Son of a bitch,” said Stiles, feeling a slight surge of anger inside of him. “He bit you, he made you pack, and you guys were going to leave him? To leave him alone again? After everything he has been through?”

“We were trying to stay alive.”

“You’re werewolves!” he interrupted, throwing his arms in the air. “You are aware of that, right? You are aware that you don’t know half of the shit that comes with being werewolves? Pack is supposed to make you stronger, that was like the whole point of the first few weeks we knew Derek for. Without a pack, you die. That’s why Derek and Scott sort of stuck together even though they hated each other!”

“We were trying-”

“I get it,” said Stiles. “Actually, no I don’t. Because I’m not an idiot.” He ignored their glares. “But I can pretend to get it. Death in Beacon Hills equals no death if you leave Beacon Hills. But that argument sort of falls apart when you don’t actually know what is out there for you. What do you think is gonna happen to two alpha-less teenage werewolves, if they venture in the outside world? You don’t know werewolf politics, let alone hunter politics.”

“We heard wolves howling.”

“Congratulations,” he said, voice as sarcastic as possible. “And you smelt wolves too right? You knew without shadow of doubt that that wasn’t a recording set out by hunters to lure baby werewolves away from their packs? Or an hostile werewolf pack checking out if they can move in? Derek took Scott to watch a hunter cut an omega wolf in two with a sword. Who’s to tell that that wasn’t his pack looking for revenge?”

Both of them seemed to actually listen to his words, if the way their shoulders hunched and they stopped glaring was anything to go by.

“You would make an interesting werewolf.”

“Jesus!” said Stiles, flailing right off his bed in surprise.

Isaac did not even pretend to be sorry, instead watching him placidly from where he was sat on his windowsill like he somehow owned it.

Spoiler alert: he didn't.

Neither Boyd nor Erica appeared surprised at his sudden arrival.

“What the fuck is your problem?!”

“There are not enough hours in the day, Stilinski,” said the blond, sliding in without waiting for an invitation. “I took your note, your parents didn’t see it.”

Stiles glared at Erica. “You invited him?!”

“I asked him to take my ‘I’m running away note’ before my parents found it, and answered him honestly when he asked me where I was and what happened,” she explained, not appearing very apologetic. “And I figured he’s a great way of finding out what went on yesterday.”

Stiles did not like Isaac, but that was true.

He turned to the blond, who was watching him with a weirder than usual expression on his very punchable face, and huffed. “Well? What went on yesterday?”

“You mean while all three of you were kidnapped and being beaten up and tortured by hunters?” he clarified, wonderingly.

So punchable.

“Yes.”

Isaac hummed, still looking at him with that unreadable expression, before he sat down on the inside of the windowstll. He glanced at Boyd and Erica for a moment, and then turned his attention back on Stiles. 

“I can hear your heartbeat,” he started with, voice surprisingly serious for once. “I can tell when you’re lying. So don’t lie to me right now.”

“Lahey-”

“I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt because you had no reason to, and yet you decided to help Boyd and Erica,” continued Isaac, in that same tone of voice. “That makes me question what would normally be a very obvious assumption.”

Stiles had no idea of what Isaac was talking about, but for once he felt like interrupting Isaac was not going to help anyone.

Isaac nodded to himself. “Okay. So: did you know what Scott was planning to do with Derek?”

Stiles blinked. Of all the things he had expected the blond to say, this was... not one of them.

“What... what Scott was planning to do with Derek?” he repeated, incredibly confused. “As in joining his pack? I mean I was on the fence on that whole pack thing because I didn’t like the three of you all that much, but that’s not really something that Scott ‘was planning to do with Derek’. It’s more of a something he would have been planning to do with Derek, had he been interested. And he did not really give me the impression that he was interested, because-”

“You didn’t know,” inferred Isaac. Instead of looking smug, he looked vaguely surprised. “I always thought you’d be the tactless asshole, between the two of you.”

“I am the tactless asshole, between the two of us,” agreed Stiles, because that was a truth commonly acknowledged. “But what does this have to do with anything? What did Scott do?”

What could have Scott possibly done in less than 24 hours to merit this expression on Isaac's face?

“You got kidnapped,” started Isaac, leaning more comfortably on the window. “Meanwhile Lydia helped bring Derek’s psychotic uncle back to life.”

“Peter?!” 

Stiles was sure his horror was audible.

“Yes.”

“Peter, like Peter Hale?”

“Do you know any other Peters?” asked Isaac, irritated.

“No, but it sounds to me like you’re saying that the psycho niece killing asshole werewolf Peter Hale that I helped murder a few months back has come back to life, and that Lydia, the girl he hurt and then forced me to abandon is the one who helped return his creepy crispy zombie self back to life. And I would like it very much if you confirmed that I am simply dreaming up this bizarre scenario, and that it is in no way real.”

“Well that would be a lie,” said Isaac, appearing relatively unconcerned for someone who had just given Stiles what was probably another very bad no good nightmare. “He’s alive and Lydia helped him, according to Derek. Anyway, Derek and he showed up at the school because of Jackson, while Scott was planning to go help find you.”

So Scott had tried to find him, after all. That was good to know.

“But then we got word that Jackson was apparently not done, and that his death was just another step in the kanima evolution-”

Because of course it was. They had a zombie werewolf, why not a zombie kanima too?

“Long story short, all of four of us, Jackson and the Argents ended up at this abandoned warehouse. There was a big fight where Argent the psycho junior stabbed me like ten times-”

“Welcome to the club,” muttered Erica, eyes dark, while Boyd let out a low growl at the memory.

“And then kanima Jackson managed to get his hands on Derek. Turns out all Gerard wanted was the bite, because he had cancer,” he said, smiling at everyone in the room.

“You’re kidding,” said Boyd, actually looking shocked for once.

Stiles could relate. “The werewolf hunter wanted to be bitten and become a werewolf because he had cancer,” repeated Stiles. “After his daughter in law killed herself for the same reason?”

“The Argents are fucked up,” said Erica, shaking her head. “Wow. Even Chris, the supposedly good one, enables the fuck out of everyone.”

“Chris Argent threatened to shoot Scott in the face because he was dating Allison,” said Stiles, mindlessly. “Though I’m not sure if that’s an angry dad thing or if it was a hunter thing. Wait, Jackson got his kanima fingers on Derek?”

Isaac nodded. “Yes. And then Scott, the last one standing, physically forced Derek to bite Gerard.”

The temperature in the room did not physically drop, but it sure felt as if it did.

“What.”

“Scott did what?” asked Erica, shocked. 

“He forced Derek? What do you mean he forced Derek?!”

“I mean he physically took him by the chin and pressed his fangs closed on Gerard’s arms,” said Isaac, in that same monotone. “With his bare hands.”

“Scott wouldn’t do that,” protested Stiles, shaking his head. “He knows how much that bite thing means to Derek. He might have targeted you guys because you were easy to manipulate, but he still asked you all for consent. It’s a thing. The bite is a gift and whatever. Scott doesn’t agree, doesn’t really see it that way, but he... he understands? He wouldn’t do that to Derek. Why would he do that to Derek? For Gerard?” He shook his head. “Scott wouldn’t do that. He didn’t do that.”

“Oh, he did more than that,” said Isaac, and there was a hint of pity in his eyes when he spoke next. “You see, he made a plan. With who I am now assuming was Deaton, since it was clearly not you. Replaced Argent’s pills with mountain ash. That way they reacted when Argent was bitten. He’s not dead, but he’s not particularly alive either. Win-win all around, right?”

Stiles ignored Erica and Boyd questioning Isaac in the background, pressing a hand over his forehead instead.

How could things get so messed up in less than 24 hours?

It didn’t make sense. Why would Scott do something like that? Sure, he knew his friend did not like or respect Derek all that much, but he couldn’t have done this. Could he have?

It scared him to think that he didn’t know.

It scared him more that he was more worried about the fact that Scott had decided this rather than the fact that he had not shared his plan with Stiles.

Why hadn’t he?

Had he known that Stiles would have hit him over the head with something and made him change the plan? Stiles had never been anyone’s conscience, let alone Scott’s. Usually Scott was Stiles’ conscience.

And yet Scott had...

Had been working with Gerard to ‘bring’ him Derek, had been working against Derek all along, had been working against Gerard all along. 

He had been planning things with Gerard.

Had he known what Gerard had been planning?

With Stiles? With Boyd and Erica?

He wanted to say no. That Scott would have never done something like this to two of his classmates, would have never done something like this to Stiles. Scott was his best friend, he knew Scott.

But the Scott that Stiles knew would have never done something like this to Derek, no matter how little he thought of him.

Because while his methods were unadvisable and Stiles himself had some crappy opinions on the dude, he had been trying to keep all of them safe from the beginning. Scott, mostly. But he had been keeping Stiles safe too.

And Scott had...

“Stilinski?”

“Where is Derek?” he suddenly asked, looking over at Isaac. The blond appeared surprised by the question, and Stiles ignored it, continuing. “Tell me you didn’t leave him alone with his creepy power hungry and crazy zombie werewolf uncle?”

“No,” said Isaac. “Not really? Derek sort of took off with me last night, and did not speak to anyone since. He was upstairs when I left, and Peter was not around. Unless he doesn’t have a heartbeat. Would he have a heartbeat?”

“How am I meant to know how your creepy zombie werewolf works?” demanded Stiles, grabbing his phone from the cupboard. “You were with him last night while I was getting my shit kicked by Scott’s partner in crime.”

“You don’t think-”

“I don’t know what to think,” said Stiles, refusing to meet Erica’s eyes. There were two missed phone calls from Scott now and a new message too, mostly swallowed by the notifications from his father and other classmates. 

He cleared all of them, unwilling to waste time wondering who had even looked for him, and quickly found Derek’s phone number.  

Derek did not actually know that Stiles had his phone number, but considering the amount of trouble the man managed to get himself in on a day to day basis, he did not think he’d mind.

Okay, considering Derek was, you know, Derek, he’d probably mind. He’d even growl a little, and if Stiles was unlucky, smack him around a bit. But he wouldn’t kill him and he wouldn’t delete the number, because he knew Stiles was always right, and despite their opinions on one another, they were there for each other.

Stiles had assumed Scott had come to this realisation too.

He was not particularly surprised when the call connected but Derek did not pick up.

Derek had Stiles’ name and phone number saved in his contact list - again, without his previous knowledge - but it figured he wouldn’t be feeling like picking up his phone right now.

He had gotten betrayed by someone he had tried to make pack, two of his betas had ran away, and his body had been used without his consent.

Still...

“Derek,” he said, as soon as the call went to voicemail. “This is Stiles. Stiles Stilinski. Yes, I am alive. I also have two of your strays with me, technically three if we count Isaac. I usually don’t count Isaac, because I consider him a runt while I consider Boyd and Erica rescues-”

“We are not dogs, Stilinski,” informed him Boyd, unamused.

Stiles ignored him. “I know you promised none of them bite, but I don’t see chips or tags, so I’d appreciate it if you came over and picked them up. Last time they were on the streets, they nearly got taken to the pound, if you know what I mean.

“... You know what I mean. Silver pound, you know the one. Anyway, I nearly died yesterday and you weren’t there to save me, which you know, I assumed was our whole relationship? You threaten me, I insult you, but when one of us is dying the other is there to make sure it doesn’t happen?

“You stood me up there, Hale, and I don’t take well to that. Now, I am for the time being alive, but hurry up so that I can explain to you everything that happened. We need to compare notes.” He pressed a hand over his now healed injuries. “It’s important, Sourwolf. Call me back.”

“How Derek hasn’t killed you yet, I will never understand,” said Isaac, watching him thoughtfully as Stiles ended the call.

“He likes him,” said Erica, smirking. “It’s their version of pulling each other’s pigtails. It’s cute.”

“We have a working relationship,” corrected Stiles, rolling his eyes. “Being bisexual doesn’t mean I’m attracted to every hot man that is shoved in front of me.”

“You’re bisexual?” questioned Erica, surprised. “How did I not know this?”

Stiles shrugged. “It’s actually the first time I say it out loud,” he admitted. “Something of a recent discovery.”

At this, the blonde smirked again. “Prompted by...”

Stiles pointedly ignored her, turning instead to Isaac. “Speaking of old discoveries, what happened to Jackson? Is he still a kanima zombie or?”

“Oh no,” said Isaac, taking the bait surprisingly easily. “He was cured. He became a werewolf through the power of true love.”

Stiles stared. 

“What.”

“Apparently Derek’s uncle has a lot more information on the supernatural than Derek does,” he started, which wasn’t particularly surprising for Stiles. Peter looked like someone who hoarded information for the sake of always knowing better than the next person around, and Stiles could, unfortunately relate to that.

Derek, on the other side, seemed more of a ‘kill the enemy, and if that fails, bug Stiles/others to find the solution for me’ type of person.

“He found out that we needed to remind Jackson of his humanity to get him back from kanima to werewolf, so Lydia gave him back a key and because they had true love between them he turned back into a wolf.”

“The key to Jackson’s apartment,” guessed Stiles. At Isaac’s confused expression, he shook his head. “Nothing. So the kanima was because sometimes the shape a shifter takes is the shape of his soul, and Jackson’s soul was tortured and pained because...”

“He’s an asshole,” offered Erica.

Stiles smiled her. “We should really have been friends all along,” he told her, pleased when she smiled back instead of sneering or looking disgusted. He tabled that for further overthinking later and continued. “ Jackson’s twisted soul made him a kanima, and Lydia proving that she loved him no matter what reminded him that he loved her no matter what too and turned him back into a werewolf? Sounds very... Disney.”

“I’m saying what I heard and what I saw.”

Despite his behaviour, Stiles knew that Lydia loved Jackson. He had hated her a bit because of it, because in his mind Jackson had never deserved Lydia and yet she remained with him. She was so smart and so beautiful and so incredible: why did she insist on going for him?

But if Isaac wasn’t completely wrong - and Stiles was still holding onto hope - then it meant that Jackson had to love Lydia a lot too. Magic and supernatural did not seem like the sort of thing that let fake love trick them, which meant that Jackson truly did love her, in his own twisted Jackson way.

They loved each other so much that a token of said love had restored Jackson’s humanity.

That was not the sort of thing that Stiles could plan to force out in 10 or 15 years.

He loved Lydia. He had always loved her, and would always love her.

But he couldn’t help but wonder if there was anything he could have given her or her him to turn the other back to human.

It stung that there wasn’t anything tangible or intangible that could do the same thing she and White Whore had done for each other.

It sucked colossally.

“So Jackson is a werewolf now, which I’m assuming makes him Derek and our problem once again. What about the Argents?” asked Boyd, when Stiles continued to remain quiet after that.

Isaac scowled, as all three of them immediately focused on him. “I left before they did. Gerard won’t turn, according to Peter, but depending on how many of the mountain ash pills he took, it’s unlikely he will heal any time soon. Or ever.” 

“The mountain ash stops the bite from taking, and the bite stops the body from healing out the mountain ash,” muttered Stiles, hating a little bit how ingenious and insidious the idea was. If it hadn’t been for the way it had been implemented, he would have definitely approved.

“Sure,” said Isaac. “Allison stayed back with Scott-”

“Scott stayed with Allison?” demanded Erica, shocked. “To do what?”

“What do you think?” 

Despite how angry her face looked and the low growl that left her throat, Stiles did not feel scared of Erica or of her losing control and hurting him. She wasn’t going to, not anymore.

And he was in agreement with her right now.

Because just what? After what he had done to Derek, after what she and her family had done to... virtually all of them, he had chosen to stay back with her?

Between Scott’s mess, and the Argents, and Derek, and the Hales, and Jackson, and Lydia, and just about everything that had happened in the past 24 hours, Stiles decided he could not take or retain a single more piece of information. He was done learning about stuff, he needed a break.

“So...” he said, before anyone could ask anymore things. “Who wants to play Call of Duty?”

Stiles wasn’t sure how long they spent playing video games on his laptop. All he knew was that they played long enough for him to find out that Erica could kick everyone’s ass collectively with zero prep, and that Boyd picked up remarkably and suspiciously fast for someone who claimed he had never played before.

They even ended up buying pizza that Isaac paid for (“Stiles, my dad is dead, and I live with Derek, who’s entire family is dead.” “...” “I’m loaded.”), before the Sheriff saw it fit to come back home.

Stiles was too focused trying (and mostly failing) to kick Erica’s ass to hear the cruiser, but at once all three werewolves paused in their games, the same surprised expression copy pasted on all their faces.

“Have you caught a scent, Fido?” he asked them, only half teasing.

Isaac shot him a glare as he stood up. “Peter says you always make him positively howl with laughter, and I think I physically heard Derek roll his eyes at both of you,” he said, which.

What.

“Hale the psycho and Hale the tortured not so psycho are here?” he asked, also standing up.

“With your dad,” added Erica, like that made the entire thing any more understandable or explainable.

Spoiler alert: it did not.

“What?” he asked, glancing out of the window. 

Just in time to catch sight of what the werewolves had warned him of, as his father’s cruiser finally came to a stop in front of the house, what looked like his father with the two Hales sitting in the backseat.

Any other time the sight of Peter Hale behind bars would have filled him with unholy glee.

However, the sight of zombie wolf creepy uncle who was supposed to be dead, and traumatized but still kind of a violent dick Derek Hale sitting behind his dad and his dad’s very precious and frail neck made everything inside of him want to scream.

He didn’t, because he knew his dad was not nearly as impulsive as Stiles himself was, but he did pick up what had at this point became his bat before decidedly opening the door and marching downstairs.

The betas were quiet as they trailed behind him, and Stiles wondered what image they made, as his father opened the front door right right as they started down the stairs.

Him with his fuzzy socks and pyjamas, with possible traces of pizza over his face, Erica behind him still in his clothes, Boyd next to her in the Sheriff’s clothes and Isaac dressed impeccably with his stupid scarf at the end of the procession.

Even with his bat and the fact that they were all werewolves, Stiles did not think they appeared very threatening.

Especially considering the amused leer Peter greeted them with as soon as his eyes set on Stiles.

“Hello, Stiles,” he said, before anyone else could.

“Peter,” pointedly said his father, while Derek let out a low growl, eyes flashing red at his uncle.

“Peter?” repeated Stiles, very much bothered by the familiarity with which his father said the crazy walking dead man’s name. “Since when is creepy evil uncle bad touch ‘Peter’?”

The Sheriff did not bother answering him, instead walking into the living room with the confidence of someone who was used to people following him because they were drawn by his authority.

Stiles usually did not do it, but all the werewolves did, as if sensing that his dad was the alpha of the territory.

Maybe he was.

Considering how weird things had been since yesterday, what did Stiles know?

So he followed.

Stiles did not play chess that often anymore, but there was something definitely strategic in the way everyone positioned themselves in the living room.

On one side of the room sat the Sheriff. On the couch in front of him, Derek and Peter. 

Isaac did not hesitate in going to lean on the couch beside Derek, just as Stiles did not hesitate in finding a place for himself beside his father.

Boyd and Erica hesitated for a second, and then ended up standing with their back to the wall, somewhat in the middle of the room.

Derek remained ramrod straight in his seat, giving the air of not having noticed, but Peter was watching all of them with his stupid all knowing Peter-esque look.

Stiles must have spent too much time around Derek already, because he wanted to punch it off his face.

“We don’t know where Gerard Argent is,” started his father, immediately putting a hand on his when Stiles twitched. “Chris says he doesn’t know where his father might have gone, but we don’t know if we can trust Chris.”

“He claims to be one of the ‘good ones’, but he was raised a hunter,” said Peter, an edge to his voice. “And he knows how to lie to werewolves.”

There was a story there, but this was not the time for Stiles to investigate it.

“However, when we checked his house, we didn’t find him.”

“You went to his house?” asked Stiles, immediately tense again. “What-”

“We did,” said the Sheriff, squeezing his hand again. “I picked up Derek and Peter before scouring the place. We found enough that, if he ever surfaces, the only place Gerard is going to is a prison.”

Derek did glance at Boyd and Erica at that, who immediately straightened up under his gaze. “You’ve healed?” he asked, voice a little rough.

Despite that, they both relaxed. 

“Yes,” said Erica. “Stiles and his father helped us out.”

Derek’s eyes flickered over Stiles for a second before they stopped on his father. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” said the Sheriff.

“What else,” started Stiles. He licked his lips a little nervously, hands twitching slightly around the bat in his lap. “What else did you, uh, find? In the house?”

His father’s face was hard to read, but Stiles didn’t stop looking at him. He needed to know, he needed to.

“Your mother was magic,” said Peter, apropos to nothing.

“Peter,” said the Sheriff, irritated, as everyone turned to look at him.

Stiles stared at him.

“What.”

“She wasn’t a witch, not in the modern sense of the word, but she did have a spark,” continued Peter, all of his attention on Stiles. “Just like you do.”

“What,” repeated Stiles, still staring.

He had been saying that a lot since yesterday.

“I’m surprised Deaton didn’t-” Derek growled, lowly, and Peter rolled his eyes. “Anyway, yes. I don’t know if you just have a spark or if you are some sort of magic user.”

Stiles blinked at the werewolf, before he turned to look at his father again. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, perhaps laughter, perhaps annoyance or some sort of confusion.

Some sort of indication that Stiles was daydreaming and that Peter Hale was not indicating that he knew more about Stiles’ mother and his family than Stiles himself knew.

“Your mother had stories,” said the Sheriff, in the same tone as before. “From before we got married, from before she learnt to control her magic. Her spark is a part of her, but it also not completely under her control. Her spark exists to protect her until it is better trained, and when necessary, when it feels its necessary, it lashes out. To protect you.”

A flash of the hunter screaming as he was burning from a fire no one could see went through his brain, and Stiles felt sick.

So it had been his fault, after all. Because apparently he was magic, and he had-

“You didn’t do that,” said Derek, voice decided. When Stiles turned his eyes on him, he had a hard and certain expression on his face. “You are not a monster, and you are not a killer. You didn’t kill that man.”

“You tried to keep yourself and your friends safe from a monster,” said the Sheriff, just as certainly, taking his hand in his. It felt warm in Stiles’, warmer than usual. Was he cold? “You didn’t touch that man. Your magic simply tried to protect you from a threat, from an enemy.”

“Take it from a self proclaimed monster,” said Peter, sounding unconcerned. “You are not a monster, and you are definitely not a killer. You could say your magic is a killer-”

“Peter.”

“But consider your magic more like an untrained Doberman that has been locked in a cage for a very long time,” continued Peter, ignoring everyone else. 

“I thought dog jokes were off the table?” asked Stiles, starting to breathe more easily.

“From you to us, yes,” conceded Peter. “We can make all the jokes we want. Reclaiming our slurs."

"Dude," said Boyd.

Peter inclined his head. "Point. Anyway, you were in danger, and your magic acted in self defence. You are not guilty of this.” 

Did that even count, when Stiles had wanted him to hurt? Had wanted him to suffer?

He had imagined him suffering like Boyd and Erica were, and then he had. Wasn’t that technically his magic - because he was apparently magic, Jesus - reacting to Stiles’ own feelings?

“You saved Boyd and Erica,” said Derek, voice quiet. “You were kidnapped and almost nobody noticed. You could have freed yourself if you had co-operated, but instead you let yourself be hurt so that you could protect my betas. And I know you, Stiles: if it had been up to you, you would have done it without even spilling anyone’s blood.”

It was sweet that Derek thought so, but that wasn’t necessarily true. Did he forget how Stiles had thrown a Molotov cocktail at his uncle who had died by being burned alive in an attempt to kill him?

And he wasn’t even sure he had lost a single night sleep over almost murdering him.

Lost several over Peter Hale himself.

None over almost killing the man.

And despite everything he was feeling and had been feeling since his kidnapping the night before, Stiles could not say that he had gone to sleep feeling sad over Avery.

Scared about what he could do, yes.

Sad over what he had done? Not exactly.

“You saved us,” said Erica, moving so that she could take his hand in hers. “That’s what matters, right now, all right?”

If only it was that simple.

Stiles still squeezed her hand back.